Margie was close to tears. And she had brought herself to this point.
“This was his idea ….” She brushed away a tear. “Moe was the one who wanted the eulogy. I went along with it without thinking. If I’d given it a second thought, I would’ve realized that we could never get away with this. There just aren’t that many good words to say about him.
“And I’m the one who got you into this.… Boy, what a screwup. What can I say but, I’m sorry? And if you want to call it off, I’ll understand completely.”
Koesler was conscious of how faithfully Margie had tried to fulfill each and every promise she’d made to Moe. He would not let her default in this final pledge.
He looked again, more carefully, at his ersatz congregation. Here and there were people who had the aspect of solemnity one usually finds at a wake. But many seemed to be relishing this moment; an almost palpable smugness emanated from the pews.
All in all, Koesler was determined to take on this naked challenge. Margie had promised her husband, and Koesler had given his word to her. “You go take your place, Margie ….” He gestured her toward the seat next to her daughter.
Koesler would never forget her look of gratitude as she turned and left him.
He turned toward the altar and bowed his head. Lord, he prayed silently, this is by no means a major crisis in my life. But I need your presence now. Give me words to move these people to a sense of understanding and forgiveness. This is death. The most solemn moment in life. There seems to be no sense of loss or mourning. Give me the appropriate words.
He could think of no more relevant prayer than one of his favorites, “The Breastplate of St. Patrick.” In silence he continued:
Christ as a light, illumine and guide me.
Christ as a shield, o’rshadow and cover me.
Christ be under me.
Christ be over me.
Christ be beside me on left and on right.
Christ be before me, behind me, about me.
Christ this day be within and without me.
Christ the lowly and the meek.
Christ the all-powerful.
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak.
In the mouth of each who speaks to me.
In all who draw near me, or see me, or hear me.
Fortified from within, he turned to face the congregation. He had new authority and command. The congregation sensed this; the smugness dissipated as air from a balloon.
He waited several seconds for words to come to mind.
Without salutation he began: “The ending of anything makes a thoughtful person more thoughtful. Tonight, we are at the scene of an ending. Someone we have known—for weal or woe—is gone. His presence is marked by a shell that tomorrow will be lowered into the earth. For he—and we—are dust and into dust we must return.”
At this point there was a horrendous commotion. The front door of the church was flung open as if hit by a battering ram.
The congregation, as one, wheeled to see what had happened. Since almost everyone had risen to look, some had to stand on kneelers or benches to see over their neighbors’ heads.
No sooner had the door ceased reverberating on its hinges than there was an outcry that might wake the dead.
Then all hell broke loose.
Chapter Nine
Koesler, tall and standing in the elevated sanctuary immediately facing the middle aisle, had the best of vantages for what was happening. Which was all to the good, since he would be called upon many times to testify as to what did happen.
As Koesler saw it:
An imposing figure at the opposite end of the church, having entered the outer door, had exploded through the inner door, simultaneously wailing in some foreign sound or tongue.
The new arrival wore an oversize hat above a cloth coat over a dress. Its cry was in the mezzo-soprano range. Thus Koesler settled on female.
Just inside the church, she cried out again. She swung her right arm in a lateral arc. Her hand caught Father Reichert at the temple. His glasses flew to his right as he tumbled head over heels into the empty pew behind him.
Father may have made some sound. If he had, it was well covered by the woman’s unrelenting shrieks.
She headed up the middle aisle in a vaguely serpentine movement. Though in constant motion, she made slow forward progress.
Her near lethal-right hand now covered the unlikely expanse of her left chest, which, in turn, may have contained her heart.
The congregation’s reaction reminded Koesler of a scene from The Producers, wherein, at the conclusion of the first act of Springtime for Hitler, the audience sat silent in open-mouthed shock.
He glanced at the family. David and Judith looked at each other. Koesler could not actually hear the words, but it was easy to read their lips. “Aunt Sophie!”
Who would have thought it? Saved by Aunt Sophie!
The figure was now no more than thirty or forty feet from the sanctuary and Father Koesler. Either this was a woman or a burly teamster in drag. But, then, she had already been identified by her nephew and her niece.
She paused momentarily and regarded Koesler. “Goy!” At least that’s what he thought she said.
“My brother!” she wailed. Whatever tongue she had been using, she was in English now. “My baby brother! What have they done to you?”
She stood at the side of the open casket and addressed the dead man.
“Look where you are, Moe!” She turned her head back and forth, this way and that, looking at his surroundings.
Koesler studied the remarkable movement of her neck. Was she going to do a 360-degree turn, à la Linda Blair?
“See,” she continued, “you wear the shroud. But where are you?! Look at these statues. You should be where only a Star of David is hung. Oh, Moe, your widow”—she all but spat out the word—“did this! But I’ll make it right. Oh, yes, I will!”
In one significant step, she closed the gap that separated her from her niece and her nephew. She bent at the knees, put her arms around David and Judith, and picked them up. Their feet no longer touched the ground. Effortlessly she carried the two to the spot she had just abandoned. She did not put them down as she explained to her brother that it surely could not have been the doing of his children that caused him to be lying here in the enemy’s camp.
Meanwhile, David and Judith, faces buried in Aunt Sophie’s cushiony breasts, were struggling for air. Fortunately, her bosom was firm enough that their faces had not disappeared entirely. Gradually, they worked their heads around enough so that they could breathe out of the sides of their mouths.
As Aunt Sophie continued her exculpation of Moe’s children, she began to sway back and forth. As this motion increased apace with her deepening emotions, her body began to bump the casket repeatedly until it began to rock gently—almost like a cradle.
David was the first of the two smothering youngsters to clear his profile from Sophie’s nonsuckling bosom. What he saw caused him to do a doubletake.
Pulling his head back far enough to see that his sister also had freed her air passages, he nodded toward the casket. “Look!”
Judith chose only to breathe again. It had become a luxury.
“Look!” David insisted.
Judith pulled her head free of Aunt Sophie’s hold. She looked. “His eyes are open!”
Their faces were only inches apart, so they had no trouble communicating.
“That’s right,” David, stunned, affirmed.
Judith tried to stay calm. She thought for a few moments. “Doesn’t this happen sometimes? I mean, people die in a certain position. Then, later, the body snaps back to that position. I never heard of one opening its eyes … but … it is possible, don’t you think?” Even with her own rationalization, she could not force herself to look again at those open eyes.
But David continued to observe. “Did you ever hear of a dead man blinking?” Fear was evident in David’s voice.
Judith, finding a
strength she did not know she had, pushed herself totally free of Aunt Sophie’s grasp. “He’s alive!” she shrieked, drowning out even Sophie. “He’s alive! He’s alive! He’s alive!”
Others, with no real knowledge of what they were shouting about, took up the cry. “He’s alive!” “He’s alive!” So far only Judith and David had witnessed the marvel of the blinking eyes. Even Sophie didn’t know what this was all about. She was busy looking around at everything but her brother’s body.
Koesler, bewildered, stood rooted to his central location. He could not see what Green’s children saw.
Sophie, her niece, and her still-captive nephew, stood at the sanctuary side of the coffin. Everyone else occupied the body of the church.
At the crescendoing shouts of “He’s alive!” the crowd surged forward. As they moved, they began to press against the casket. The wheeled bier, along with its cargo, inched sideways directly into Sophie.
Slowly, Sophie slid down, with the casket inexorably pressing upon her. As she hit the floor, the bier tipped over and the body tumbled out of the casket and onto Sophie.
Moe, still in his shroud, and Sophie, still in her hat, were chest to chest, eyeball to eyeball. Moe blinked.
“He’s alive!” Sophie screamed. “He’s alive! He’s alive!”
And Moe, shroud and all, rolled off Sophie onto the floor.
By this time there was no possible way Koesler could get close to the scene. The pileup of bodies steadily increased as those in the rear continued to press forward. Those who had been in front were now mainly on the floor at the bottom of the pile.
Koesler stood rooted, murmuring, “Wow …! Wow …! Wow …!”
Pat Lennon extracted herself from the pile. She took a cellular phone from her purse and placed a brief call. She then made her way to Koesler’s side. “I called 911,” she said. “Don’t you think we should get these people out of this pile? Somebody’s liable to get hurt.”
“Yes, yes … good idea.” Koesler regained leadership.
The reestablishment of order became the prime concern. Those at the rear backed away and began peeling people from the pile. Eventually, everyone was upright. By general unspoken consensus, the crowd was giving way to the family and Koesler.
“Moe!” Margie said.
“Pop!” David said.
“Daddy!” Judith said.
“Dr. Green!” Koesler said.
“A miracle! A miracle! My eyes have seen the glory! A miracle!” Father Reichert said.
Koesler looked over his shoulder. The crowd had deferred to the only other priest present. Father Reichert’s wire-rimmed glasses were bent out of shape and sat askew on his face. His wispy hair was mussed. There was a wild look to his eyes. He was on his knees as he repeated, “A miracle! Now you may dismiss your servant in peace! A miracle!”
As fascinating as was Father Reichert’s reaction, especially considering his earlier attitude toward this wake, Koesler had weightier matters to consider. But before he or any of the family had time to make heads or tails of what had happened, the EMS crew arrived.
Paramedics generally claim that within a few weeks—months at most—after joining EMS they will have seen everything. But this evening, every one of them agreed this was new territory.
One of the crew had attended more than one Jewish funeral. He recognized the burial shroud, especially since the coffin, lying on its side, was right there. Obviously, the casket had tipped over. And obviously the corpse had spilled out. That was unusual. But stranger still, the corpse was alive. It was blinking its eyes and making sounds.
The paramedic explained the situation to the others, concluding, “… so what in hell do we do?”
A second crew member offered, “Take him to Receiving, I suppose.”
“Maybe we should take him to the morgue?” the first asked.
“He ain’t dead.”
“Well, he was. They were getting ready to bury him.”
“Just think of what you’re saying!”
“Well, it ain’t up to us. Doc Moellmann can say whether he’s dead or alive or something in between.”
“N-n-n-n …” Dr. Green said.
“What?”
“N-n-n-n …”
“He’s trying to say something,” the crew member said. “Cut the shroud so he can move his mouth better.”
The shroud was slit.
“No!” Green said, with as much insistence as he could muster.
“No what, Moe?” Margie asked.
“No … hospital.”
“You really ought to go to the hospital, Pop,” David said.
All things considered, thought Koesler, the family was holding up very well. At least no one had fainted; that was a mercy. Taking care of someone seemingly dead but now alive was quite enough without anyone else’s needing attention.
“No … hospital!” It was evident that speech was extremely difficult for Green. It seemed to take every ounce of effort for him to produce just the two words.
Considering the difficulty he had in speaking, it seemed safe to assume he really did not want to be taken to the hospital—for whatever reason.
“Where to, Pop?” asked David.
Green tried to talk. His lips trembled, but nothing escaped.
“Where do you want to go, Moe?” Margie asked. “We can’t stay here. We’ve got to take care of you.” She looked deeply into his eyes. He seemed to be attempting some form of communication. Perhaps ESP. “Home?” Margie asked.
Green appeared to relax. He nodded.
“Then it’s home,” Margie said.
“I don’t think so,” said the EMS crewman.
“What?”
“We don’t take people home. Just to the hospital.”
Margie was annoyed. “Then we’ll get an ambulance. Young lady …” She addressed Pat Lennon. “… would you please call an ambulance service?”
“Sure.” And Lennon did.
“Lady,” the EMS man said, “takin’ him home might not be your smartest move. This guy needs some attention …. I mean, he was gonna get buried.”
“He’s a doctor, a physician,” Margie said angrily. “He wants to go home. Any law against that?”
He shrugged. “You’re the boss.” The EMS crew gathered its paraphernalia and left.
While giving the family and the two priests room to breathe, many in the crowd continued to jockey for a better vantage. Some few stood apart, feeding on the rumors and sightings of those up front. At least no one was shouting or shoving now.
Aunt Sophie, by this time, had regained her feet and was regaling a captivated audience with her essential role in these truly extraordinary events. It was, she insisted, her voice that had penetrated her brother’s lifeless ears and called him back from the dead.
As the EMS crew packed up to leave, Sophie became aware that decisions were being made—decisions that lacked her input. This was not acceptable. By anyone’s measure, she was the moving force in this drama; but for her, Moe would be proceeding toward his grave. “Why,” she demanded, “is Moe not being taken to the hospital?”
“Because,” Judith said, “he doesn’t want to go.”
“Doesn’t want to go! Then where—?”
“We’re taking him home,” Margie said testily. “That’s where he wants to go.”
Sophie pondered that for a very few moments. “Okay, that makes sense. He’ll be hungry. I’ll fix him some soup. You got any chicken, Margie? Never mind; there must be a butcher shop in this god-awful city. It won’t be kosher. But that’s okay … I’ll fix it.”
Margie chewed on her lip. She wasn’t going to say what she felt like saying. Finally she said firmly, “David, make sure your Aunt Sophie has a place to stay for tonight. One of the downtown hotels should be all right. And arrange for her air transportation back home tomorrow. That’s a good boy.”
“What?!” Sophie exploded.
David winced. The battle was joined. And he was monkey in the middle.<
br />
Father Reichert was oblivious to this or any other distraction. He had his miracle and it had driven him to his knees in silent awe.
Father Koesler moved far enough apart so that while he could not shut out the angry voices entirely, he was at least not pulled into the dispute. Pat Lennon crossed to his side. With him, she stood staring at Sophie and Margie. “Who’s going to win this one?”
“No doubt whatever,” said Koesler. “Mrs. Green.”
“I don’t know; that aunt seems like a pretty dogged dame.”
Koesler smiled briefly. “You are not acquainted with Mrs. Green, then.”
“Only at various celebrity functions. You have a different experience with her?” She flipped open her notebook and stood with poised pen.
Koesler looked pointedly at her reporter’s tools. “This is just what I most feared would happen.”
“Father,” Lennon said reasonably, “face it: This is a major news story. This could be the greatest thing since Lazarus. There’s nothing you can do to stop it; it’s going to be reported.”
“Oh, I know that. That isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“Oh?”
“I was on a bit of thin ice when I agreed this afternoon to permit the wake in church. The understanding was that everything would be low key, brief, to the point and, most of all, over speedily. The considerable size of this crowd was a major surprise. But this …” He gestured toward the central scene, where, with Margie cradling her husband, it was beginning to resemble a secular Pietà… marred, of course, by the angrily contesting women.
“I know this is going to be reported,” he said. “I suppose we’re only minutes away from being invaded by a whole slew of reporters—TV and radio people. That will complicate things for me. But the reporting of this incident is not what I meant when I said I was scared of what might happen. The incident—any incident that would call attention to what I kind of reluctantly consented to—that’s what I was afraid might happen. And it has—in spades.
“But …” Koesler smiled at Lennon. “… I really couldn’t ask for a better reporter to be first with this story than you.”
He meant it. As the first reporter on the scene and the only one actually present during the event, it was Lennon’s story. She knew how to run with it.
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