“How do you stand it, Mitzi?” her friends would ask. “It would drive me up a wall if my husband didn’t get home at a regular time for his meals. And how does he stand it? Marvin’s no youngster, you know. He ought to begin taking it easy.”

And it worried Mitzi every now and then, because Marve was almost forty and it seemed to her he was working harder than ever. He had been a member of the Million Dollar Club for four years running now, and although nearly every year his sales earned him a trip to Florida or Mexico or Puerto Rico, even on his vacations he wouldn’t relax. Every day he played golf and went for a swim, and then he would see people around the hotel and talk business.

But, as Mitzi reflected, when Marve was out, or when he called to say that he would be home late, she was always sure it was insurance business, not monkey business. As a matter of fact, not only insurance business kept him busy; there were also the temple, and the Parent-Teacher Association of which he was vice-president, and the Community Fund of which he was a district leader. When she protested that with all his own work it was foolish of him to take on more, he pointed out it was really all insurance business. It meant that many more contacts, and the insurance business was all a matter of contacts. But she knew better-she knew he did these things because he liked to be active, he liked to race around. And she had to admit it seemed to be good for him.

“Honest,” she would say to her friends, “the children hardly know their father. The only time they can count on seeing him is Sunday morning when he takes them to Sunday school. The rest of the time, they’re usually in bed asleep when he gets home.” But secretly she was pleased. He was her man and he was working night and day to make a good living for her-just how good was attested by the winter trips, her mink stole, and the shiny black Lincoln they had finally worked up to.

Marvin Brown’s success was not due simply to his many contacts. He never went to see a prospective client cold. As he never tired of saying to the salesmen in his office, “Before you go to see your prospect, find out all you can about him.” So when his wife told him that a Dr. Sykes would be calling on him, and that the appointment had been arranged by the rabbi, he immediately phoned to find out what it was all about.

“He’s acting for the widow of Isaac Hirsh who died Friday night,” said the rabbi.

“Did you say Isaac Hirsh? My God, I sold him a policy less than a year ago.”

“Really? A life insurance policy? Do you remember for how much?”

“Not offhand. I think it was about twenty-five thousand dollars, but I could look it up. Why?”

“Tell me, Mr. Brown, did he have any difficulty passing the physical?”

“Not that I know of. That doesn’t mean anything, though. Some of these doctors don’t even touch the patient with a stethoscope. They ask him a few questions and if he looks all right and has a pulse, they pass him. What’s it all about, Rabbi? Was it a heart attack?”

“I think the police ruled it accidental death.”

“Uh-oh-there’s a double indemnity clause for accidental death on most of our policies. It’s only a small additional fee, so we usually write them. I guess the widow is mighty happy-I mean, it’s a lucky thing for her that he decided to take out the policy, although, as I remember it, I didn’t have to do much selling.”

“Well, Dr. Sykes is acting for the widow. Mr. Hirsh was not a member of our temple, but his wife would like him buried in a Jewish cemetery according to Jewish rites. She herself is not Jewish.”

“I get the picture, Rabbi. Don’t worry about a thing. Just leave everything to me.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nothing Sykes said had prepared the rabbi for Mrs. Hirsh. He found her surprisingly young, in her early thirties, for a man in his fifties. And she was tall. Even though her blue eyes were swollen from weeping he found them attractive, and her red hair was striking. At first he thought she looked flashy. Although she was dressed in black, her silk dress had flounces and lawn sleeves hardly appropriate for mourning-but then he realized she probably had not bought it for the occasion and must be wearing it because she had nothing more suitable. Normally of a gay and happy temperament, this would be reflected in her wardrobe.

He introduced himself.

“Oh, come in, Rabbi. Dr. Sykes phoned to say you were going to drop over. Peter Dodge was here earlier, he said he knows you. And the Lutheran minister, Pastor Kal-Kalt-”

“Pastor Kaltfuess.”

“That’s it, and then there was the Methodist minister and the Unitarian minister, I guess. I sure got a lot of spiritual comfort today.”

“They came to console you.”

“Oh, I know. And are you, too, going to tell me that Ike’s soul is in Heaven or in a better world?”

Because he was aware that grief can take many forms the rabbi was not offended by her bitter flippancy. “I’m afraid we don’t peddle that kind of merchandise,” he said.

“You mean you don’t believe in life after death, in a Hereafter?”

“We believe that his soul lives on in your memory and in the remembrance of his friends and in his influence on their lives. Of course, if he had children, he would live on in them, too.”

“Well, that’s pretty obvious.”

“It doesn’t make it any the less true.” He paused, reluctant to broach the real reason for his visit. No matter how much experience he had with death, he still had not acquired the professional touch.

But she helped him out. “Dr. Sykes said you wanted to ask me some questions about my husband.”

He nodded gratefully. “Burial is a ritual, Mrs. Hirsh, and I must be sure that your husband was a Jew according to our Law. And since he married out of the faith-”

“Does that make him any less a Jew?”

“Not that in itself, but the circumstances might. Tell me, who officiated at your wedding?”

“We were married by a justice of the peace. Do you want to see the license?”

He smiled. “I’ll take your word for it.”

Impulsively she said, “Forgive me, Rabbi. I’ve been bitchy, haven’t I?”

“A little, and now you’re trying to shock me.”

She smiled. “All right, let’s start again. Ask me any questions at all.”

He settled back in his chair. “All right, why do you want to give him a Jewish burial?”

“Because Ike was a Jew. He never thought of himself as anything else.”

“And yet he never practiced our religion, I understand.”

“Well, he always said there were two ways of being a Jew. You could be one by practicing the religion or just by being born and thinking of yourself as Jew. Was he wrong?”

“No,” said the rabbi cautiously, “but a Jewish funeral is a religious ceremony. Would he have wanted that?”

“I know it can be done by a funeral director, but what connection would he have with Ike? No, this is what he would have wanted. We never discussed it, of course. For himself, he probably wouldn’t have cared. But out of respect for my feelings, I think he would have wanted some kind of ceremony. And what could have any meaning for him except a Jewish ceremony?”

“I see. All right, I’ll perform the service. It’s customary to say a few words at the grave. But I didn’t know your husband. So you’ll have to tell me about him. He was quite a bit older, wasn’t he? Were you happy together?”

“Twenty years, but we were happy.” She thought a moment. “He was good to me. And I was good for him. As for his being so much older-well, I had had enough of the other before I met him. He needed me and I needed him. Yes, I think we had a good marriage.”

The rabbi hesitated and then took the plunge. “I understand his death was due indirectly to his-to his drinking. Didn’t it bother you-his drinking, I mean?”

“That really bugs you people, doesn’t it? Well, it bothered Ike a lot, too. Oh, of course it made things hard sometimes. He lost jobs because of it, and sometimes we had to move and that’s not easy, making new arrangements and finding a new place to live. But it didn’t frighten me the way it might some. He was never ugly when he was drunk, and that’s what counts-more weak and silly like, and would cry like a child. But never ugly and never nasty to me. And it didn’t really bother me. My father was a heavy drinker, and my mother was no teetotaler. So I was kind of used to it. Later on, when he got worse and began to black out-that was frightening, but I was frightened for him because there was no knowing what might happen to him.”