William Kienzle - Requiem for Moses

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.

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, a 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.