'There are no flowers,' I whispered.
'No,' Barker answered. 'They are not part of a Jewish funeral. There will also be no music. Now listen, lad, when I give you the nudge, I want you to seize the ribbon on your lapel, and rip it.'
'You want me to what?'
Just then a rabbi got up to speak. It might have helped me had he spoken in English, but the entire ceremony was in Hebrew. To me, whenever someone speaks in another language, it always seems to drone on and on. The rabbi pontificated through his long, curling beard, and after a quarter hour or so, I was beginning to stifle a yawn. Just then Barker cracked me in the ribs, his little 'nudge.' I gave a loud cough and ripped my ribbon. Simultaneously, the entire assembly tore their own ribbons, and even their clothing, and gave a brief cry of grief. This, as it turned out, was the kriah, the first formal act of mourning.
'Rather large crowd,' I whispered to my employer. 'I thought he had no family.'
'The fact that he had no family is why the crowd is so large,' Barker explained patiently. 'It means that the entire community becomes his family. Also, the Jews have great respect for the teachers of their children.'
The rabbi motioned to the pallbearers, who shouldered their brother's remains. We followed them out to the gravesite. The coffin was let down into the ground with due gravity, and the rabbi spoke a brief eulogy. A Methodist minister would have been just warming up, only beginning to hint coyly about the perils of going to the grave and eternal damnation without the sin-cleansing blood of Jesus Christ.
At this point, the rabbi seized a shovel and, turning it around, used the back of it to push dirt onto the coffin. The sound of the clods of earth rattling atop the lid made some mourners flinch. He passed the shovel to the next person, who followed his example, then passed it on to the next, and so on. The mourners were filling up the grave themselves. Eventually, the shovel reached us. Barker used the backwards shovel to throw in some earth, and so did I. I liked it, the doing of it, I mean. It made me feel a part of it all, that I had done something.
The rabbi ended the brief service with a prayer. We mourners formed two lines, and the rabbi led the pallbearers, the dignitaries of the school, and Pokrzywa's closest friends between us. Among them was Reb Shlomo, who patted my hand as he passed.
It was while the mourners were filing out that I saw a young Jewish woman coming down the line. She was dressed all in jet and wore a veil of mourning, but even her somber habit could not conceal her comely appearance. I was just looking down the row when she glanced at me. I felt those eyes on me for a moment, and it was as if unspoken questions passed between us: Who are you? Why are you here? Then the moment passed, as she looked down demurely again. An older woman came up beside her and took her arm, and then they were lost from my sight. She was the first young woman to look at me since my wife had died a year before.
Outside the cemetery, the usher was there to collect my cap and hair clip. In exchange he gave us each a beeswax candle to pray for Pokrzywa's soul and sent us on our way. We didn't see Racket's cab, so we walked along the street with the mourners.
'Why did we fill in the grave ourselves?' I asked Barker.
'It was for the benefit of the bereaved,' he answered. 'The sound of the dirt striking the coffin lid is proof that the deceased will never return, so that real grief can begin, and eventually acceptance.'
'Why the back of the shovel and not the front?'
'To express that this is not the usual use for the shovel, but something quite different.'
'It was a very short service,' I noted.
'Yes, but it is only beginning. For the next week we shall have the shiva, the first mourning period. Very good for us, the shiva. Friends and associates are encouraged to remember and talk about the departed. It will be a perfect time to question them without appearing to interfere.'
With the mourners, we reached what appeared to be the house of mourning. Several people were going in, after washing their hands. The usher with the skullcaps was now holding a washbasin and pitcher, and a towel over his arm. We came forward to speak to him.
'Stop, gentlemen,' he said. 'I'm afraid this is only for close friends.' I'm sure he realized we were not among them, since we were the only men standing in the cemetery without the long, winding prayer shawls.
'I understand,' my companion said. 'I am Cyrus Barker, and this is my assistant, Thomas Llewelyn. We have been asked by Sir Moses Montefiore to investigate Mr. Pokrzywa's death for the Board of Deputies. I have come to request that I might make a shiva call sometime this week. You men, of everyone in London, knew him best. I assure you I will be civil and shall not interfere with your mourning.'
The man thought for a moment. 'Granted,' he said, finally. 'Be here tomorrow, late afternoon.' Then, with his bowl and his ewer, he went inside. The click of the door, effectively shutting us out, was the end of the service for us. They had politely put up with us for so long. Now they were closing ranks, and the true mourning, the private mourning, would begin.
Like a clockwork figure in a Tyrolean timepiece, Racket's cab came around the corner and stopped in front of us. We climbed in and lounged against the plush seats. I, for one, was exhausted.
'How did I do?' were the first words out of my mouth.
'Passable, lad, passable. At one point you had a vapid grin on your face, but you mastered it.'
'I believe you cracked a couple of my ribs back there.'
'They'd better get used to it. They won't be the last bones you'll crack in this business.'
'I liked the service,' I said, changing the subject, 'but I missed the flowers and hymns. I might have understood it better in English, of course.'
'No doubt. Many of the verses the rabbi spoke were from the Psalms. The same ones I've seen Spurgeon use in his funeral services, in fact.'
'It seems strange to find a Baptist such as yourself so well acquainted with Jewish customs,' I said.
'Yes, well, knowledge is a good thing. If the Bible says that the Jews are His chosen people, we ought to take it seriously.' He banged on the roof overhead with his cane. 'Racket! Ho's!'
8
At the entrance to Ho's, Barker opened the faded door and immediately plunged in, clattering down the steps in the dark.
'Mr. Barker, sir!' I cried. 'The lamp!'
'That's for initiates!' he called back. 'Twenty-one steps down and the same going up! Thirty paces down the hall, thirty-five with your legs. Stay to the left, or you'll stumble into someone coming out!'
Marvelous. When I met the reserved interviewer at 7 Craig's Court half a week ago, I little imagined he would have such a perverse sense of humor. He seemed to rejoice in giving me just enough rope to hang myself with. I plunged in after him and arrived at the other side with nothing worse than a barked shin and toe and a dusty left jacket sleeve.
'Try a thousand-year-old egg,' he said, after we were served.
I eyed the appetizer dubiously. The 'white' was a dark gray, and the yoke a bilious green. The dish was one of Barker's favorites. I would go very far to please my new boss, but this was one step beyond that. Thanks to Barker, I'd discovered the wonders and subtleties of Chinese cuisine, but I could never bring myself to eat a duck's egg that had been slathered in lime and tea leaves and buried in the ground a hundred days until it was mummified. 'I believe I'll stick to the rice,' I said.
Soon, the ever helpful waiter was slapping down cups of tea on our roughhewn table, and Barker was reaching for his likeness in meerschaum. I leaned back in the stout Windsor chair, and put my feet against the base of the table, as Barker had done. A full belly and a comfortable chair. What more could any man ask?
'So, how is the investigation going?' I asked.
'Tolerably,' he said, between puffs. 'It's still early days yet. An investigation is like a drop of water in the cleft of a rock. One must remain fluid and take advantage of every quake and opportunity to get to the bottom of it.'
'That sounds like an oriental axiom. You could write a book of them, The Analects of Barker.'
He continued to puff, once every thirty seconds or so. 'I must learn to guard myself from that scalpel-like humor of yours,' he said, finally.
