Death Of A Dream Maker (4 page)

As the young widow tottered toward her center seat,
the others cast her dark glances. She was clearly not a Rosenbloom
favorite. Both T.S. and Auntie Lil scrutinized the disgruntled
family lineup before them. They seemed to be arranged by age. At
one end, a young man in his mid-twenties sat carefully erect, his
dark gray suit peeking out from beneath a raincoat. He had angular
features, almond-shaped green eyes, and a delicately curved mouth.
His stylish clothing and feathered haircut of glossy black set him
apart from the others as an urbanite. Auntie Lil stared at him,
then gripped T.S. by the elbow. “So much like Max,” she
murmured.

Next to the handsome man was a young woman who also
stood out, mostly because she seemed to be truly grief-stricken.
Her grayish eyes were narrowed in concentration as she stared at
the coffin and her determined chin wavered beneath trembling lips.
She had blond hair that, unlike most of the other women, was cut
short in a simple curtain.

T.S. saw that Auntie Lil was staring at the young
woman, too. He cocked an eyebrow and his aunt shrugged back. She
could not place the younger ones, the gesture said. This was a
generation that had come after Auntie Lil in Max's life.

A stout, balding man of about forty-five sat beside
the young blond woman, his bottom overhanging the small chair like
a mound of dough that had risen beyond the confines of its
bowl.

“That man looks like Max's brother, Abe, except that
he's too young,” Auntie Lil whispered. “It must be one of Abe's
sons.”

T.S. nodded and examined their subject. The man's few
wisps of hair had been combed over the bald center of his scalp.
T.S. noticed with distaste that the man had nearly as much hair
sprouting from his bulbous nose as remained on top of his head. He
was evidently suffering from a cold: every now and then his
companion, an overly ripe woman whose makeup was slowly dissolving
in the mist, would thrust a Kleenex his way. He'd take it, blow
loudly, and hand it back. The woman would then store the used
tissues efficiently in her purse while pulling fresh ones from the
pocket of her raincoat. Her streaked hair miraculously had escaped
drowning and was teased in layers of overhanging spikes lacquered
with a heavy sheen of hairspray. It looked exactly as though a pile
of Yorkshire terrier puppies had fallen asleep on her head.

The transition from the younger to the older
generation in the family lineup was abrupt. Although the youngish
widow sat sobbing daintily into an embroidered handkerchief at the
center of the circle, she was flanked by a pair of wizened old
women dealing with age in dramatically different ways. To the right
of the widow sat a figure that resembled a cross between a brooding
vulture and an ill-tempered nun. She was a tall woman dressed
completely in black, from her long dress to her clunky, lace-up
shoes. A long piece of black cloth was draped over her head, making
her look like an Italian extra from a Mafia movie. Her face sagged
with features: her mouth trailed down in a thin and uninviting
line, her nose seemed to melt toward her chin in a mournful slope,
and her large, hooded eyes were cast toward the grave as if she
blamed Max for his own death. As T.S. watched, the old woman looked
up and spotted him. He twitched in alarm. He found her gaze
indefinably malevolent, even when he realized that she was actually
staring at Auntie Lil. Perhaps it was the right eyelid—it drooped
permanently halfway over the eye, making her look like the evil
queen in Sleeping Beauty.

“Rebecca Rosenbloom,” Auntie Lil whispered to T.S. “I
think she's spotted me.”

“I'd say so.” T.S. gulped. “Does she bite?”

“Yes,” Auntie Lil replied abruptly. “Max's sister.
Never married. We were never the best of friends.”

“Who's the old girl on the other side of the
widow?”

“I think that's Abby,” Auntie Lil whispered back.
“She's married to Max's brother, Abe.”

Abby was not taking the process of aging very well.
She was as stout as a beer barrel, but nonetheless packed into a
black chiffon dress that twinkled in those spots that peeked from
beneath her raincoat.

“She's wearing sequins,” Auntie Lil whispered grimly.
“To a funeral.”

The sequins were tacky, but they did match her
glittering black pumps. They also set off her synthetic complexion
nicely. Her face had a curiously flat quality to the skin—it
gleamed dully, like rubber that had been stretched too thin. Her
hair was an unlikely brown and generously streaked with blond. It
twirled in a long continuous tube that met at the apex of her crown
in a swirl like the top of a meringue.

“That's a wig,” T.S. remarked, ashamed at his
pettiness but unable to help it.

“I'm afraid not,” Auntie Lil answered tersely.

“Where's her husband?” T.S. asked quietly. “One would
think he'd attend his own brother's funeral.”

“I don't know,” Auntie Lil admitted.

At the other end of the semicircle stood an empty
chair. Every few minutes, one family member or another would glance
at it.

“Davy hasn't shown yet,” a voice behind T.S.
muttered.

“Are you surprised?” another voice answered back.

The service was momentarily delayed while workmen
rearranged the heavy lifting machinery that held the coffin. The
mechanism was carefully pulled back from the edge of the grave,
lest it trigger a landslide of wet red clay. Unfortunately, this
adjustment encouraged comparisons to a diving board, with the grave
as the swimming pool. Once the adjustment had been accomplished,
there was a short, whispered conference between the rabbi and the
workmen that ended with a helpless shrug of shoulders all
around.

“They better hurry before we all fall in,” T.S.
muttered.

As if on cue, the rabbi turned to the crowd, raised
his arms, and began to speak.

A few seconds later, T.S. tuned him out. It was
obvious, even to a stranger, that the man had not known Max
Rosenbloom at all. For one thing, the rabbi began by saying,
'Though I did not know him personally, I understand that...” T.S.
found this most distasteful. Secondly, the bored looks that
descended on the faces of most of the family members belied the
inappropriateness of the rabbi's words. Of course, T.S. thought as
he surveyed their hard-set faces, these people were unlikely to
perk up at all— until the will was read. He had never taken such an
instant dislike to such a large group of strangers, at least not
since the year he had stumbled into a convention of real-estate
developers while vacationing in Miami.

A sharp poke from Auntie Lil brought him back to
reality. “Go on,” she hissed.

“Go on what?” he asked, bewildered.

“You're supposed to put a rose on the coffin and
shovel a clump of dirt into the grave.”

“I'm supposed to
what?”
T.S. looked up and saw
the other mourners watching expectantly.

The rabbi cleared his throat and repeated himself,
nearly shouting in T.S.'s face. “Those of you who wish to may now
step forward and show your respect.”

T.S. had been to many funerals before, most often as
a representative of his former employer. But he had always hung
back respectfully on the fringes of the crowd and, he now realized,
had not paid sufficient attention to what was going on in the
front. As the nearest non-family member to the coffin, it was up to
him to begin the ritual.

“Oh, for heaven's sakes, I'll go first.” Auntie Lil
elbowed her way past him, using her huge black pocketbook as a
shield. As she passed in front of the seated family, her eyes met
those of Rebecca Rosenbloom. Rebecca's hooded eye quivered
violently, then blinked. There was no other sign of
recognition.

Auntie Lil took a rose from a large mound at the foot
of the grave, then stood a few feet from its opening. She stared
down at the mud dubiously. The rabbi cleared his throat loudly and
glanced at a nearby workman, who did not take the hint. T.S. did.
He hurried forward and gripped Auntie Lil's elbow. God forbid she
should fall in.

Still Auntie Lil did not move. She locked eyes with
the rabbi. “Aren't you going to lower him in?” she whispered
loudly. The family shifted uneasily behind them.

The rabbi coughed discreetly. “There seems to be a
slight problem with the lifting mechanism due to the rain. If you
would just consider this symbolic rather than integral to the
actual burial, I'm sure that would be just fine.” He handed a small
gold shovel to Auntie Lil.

“Just do it,” T.S. hissed softly. “A lot of people
are waiting.”

Auntie Lil sniffed regally, then tossed the rose on
top of the coffin as if she were playing horseshoes. It landed dead
center. She turned her attention to the grave. She removed her
glasses from her pocketbook, perched them on her nose, and handed
her huge purse to T.S. to hold. He looped it over his arm, feeling
ridiculous.

Auntie Lil was oblivious to the stares of the other
mourners. She was peering anxiously over the lip of the grave.

“Go on,” T.S. urged. “I've got hold of you. You're
not going to fall in.”

“It's not that,” she whispered and took another step
forward.

“Be careful,” T.S. said urgently. She was only half a
foot from the muddy edge of the grave and was leaning forward,
trying to get a better look down inside. “What are you doing?” he
asked, echoing the thoughts of those around him. Visions of Auntie
Lil throwing herself into her beloved's grave flashed alarmingly
through his mind.

“There's something odd about the bottom of the
grave,” she said as loudly as a ballpark announcer.

The rabbi coughed again. “Madam,” he said grimly.
“Take your turn or step aside.”

Auntie Lil looked up at him. “There is something in
the bottom of the grave,” she insisted.

A buzzing ran through the crowd.

“Aunt Lil,” T.S. ordered sharply. Her outer calm had
been but a facade, he realized. She was deeply wounded by Max's
death. Perhaps she had finally snapped.

Auntie Lil shook off his grip and took a tiny step
closer, then looked up at the crowd.

“I am not imagining things,” she said loudly. “Look.
At the edge of the left side. The water's washed the mud down
toward the center and eroded the dirt. I'm telling you, there's
something sticking out. Something black.”

T.S. exchanged a quick glance with the rabbi and they
stepped forward as one. “What?” the rabbi said unwillingly.

“It's a body!” Auntie Lil shouted with an enthusiasm
that inventors save for their greatest discoveries. “There's a body
in the bottom of the grave. Look! It's a sleeve. And there's an arm
attached to it!”

T.S. tried to move forward, but snagged Auntie Lil's
pocketbook on a rope anchoring a crucial tent pole. He pulled and
the canvas structure teetered ominously. A wave of collected water
showered off one side. The family looked up at the roof nervously.
Only Max's widow ignored the commotion as she rose from her
seat.

“A body?” she said in a tiny voice. She took a step
forward toward the grave, then stopped to look back at the empty
chair at one end of the family semicircle.

“Aunt Lil,” T.S. repeated hopelessly as he struggled
to untangle the pocketbook's straps from the tent roping.

“There's a body down there,” Auntie Lil insisted,
pointing toward the center of the grave as if she were God casting
Lucifer from the heavens.

The widow scurried forward and clutched at Auntie
Lil. The rest of the family seemed frozen.

“Right there.” Auntie Lil took the widow's arm and
they peered together over the edge. “See, it's black fabric. A silk
blend, if I'm not mistaken. And a custommade shirt from the look of
the cuffs.”

“Aunt Lil,” T.S. muttered hopelessly, finally freeing
Aunti Lil’s pocketbook. He dragged his aunt back from the edge of
the grave. “What do you think you're doing?”

“Davy!” The widow suddenly shrieked. “Look at the
watch! It's Davy!” She stepped perilously close to the edge of the
grave and gazed down below, teetering uncertainly on her spiked
heels.

The family began to whisper excitedly and appealed to
the rabbi with confused expressions. Sensing that his control of
the ceremony was in danger, the rabbi took action and darted toward
Max's widow. His legs became tangled in the tent ropes and the
canvas began to buckle. A mourner screamed. Alarmed, T.S. whirled
around to grab at the supporting metal pole, sending Auntie Lil's
pocketbook swinging in a wide arc. The heavy leather purse smacked
the rabbi in the center of his back. He stumbled toward the grave
and grabbed at the widow's raincoat, locking onto her arms as he
knocked her over the edge of the grave. He fell on his face in the
mud, halfway over the edge of the opening, and somehow managed to
hold on to the widow. Sabrina Rosenbloom's screams rang though the
stunned silence of the graveyard as she dangled from the rabbi’s
grasp.

“He's going over, too!” someone shouted from the
crowd.

It was true. The rabbi was dragged inches closer to
the edge of the grave by the panicked thrashing of the screaming
widow.

“Hook your heels into the mud,” someone called out
helpfully. The widow's screams stopped for an instant, then grew
even louder.

The crowd looked on, frozen with disbelief, as the
plump rabbi slid toward the open grave. T.S., still valiantly
holding up the tent pole, was unable to let go and help. He stared
at a nearby workman, whose thumbs were hooked in his grimy blue
jeans as he gazed, mouth agape, at the slippery scene.

“Do something!” T.S. shouted.

The worker just shrugged, but T.S.'s plea spurred
Auntie Lil into action. She darted forward and thrust the small
gold shovel at the rabbi as if he were a truculent beaver refusing
to return to his cage at the zoo. The rabbi raised his face from
the mud and spotted the shovel. He made a useless grab for it with
one hand, releasing one of the widow's arms to do so. She shrieked
with fresh alarm and, displaying an astonishing show of strength,
thrust her body upward, so that her head bobbed up above the grave
top. She lost her grip on the rabbi's arm but grabbed successfully
at his legs, clutching his trousers with both hands. Her veiled hat
had fallen off and her face could finally be seen. Her delicate
features were screwed up in anger and panic. She looked like an
outraged ferret.