“You want I should say a Yiskor for Max and Sadie?”
He was one of the men, Brice Mack remembered, who spent their days at cemeteries, plying God’s word at gravesides for a consideration. Hatted and flocked in unseasonable woolens, the pale eyes shone out of a face that was pure, unlined, and lightly bearded with silken hair.
“You want?” he prodded, smiling.
“Yeah, sure,” Brice Mack mumbled, seeking his billfold while the man produced a paper yarmulke and give it to him to cover his head. Brice took out a ten-dollar bill, then as an afterthought, made it twenty, and quickly wrote three names down on the back of a card. Handing the money and card over to the man, he said, “Include them in, too.”
The man scrutinized the names for a long moment in a puzzled way, silently saying the surnames to himself before asking. “They’re Jewish?”
“No.” Brice Mack replied. “Does it matter?”
The man thought a moment, then shrugged and smiled. “It can’t hurt,” he assured and, lowering his head, began to read from a slip of paper the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead.
“Yiskor elohim nishmos ovi ve’imi, skeynay, Max, u’skeynosay, Sadie, es nishmas, James Beardsley Hancock, Ivy Templeton, Audrey Rose Hoover, baavur sheanee nodeir zdokoh baadom, bischar zeh tihyeno nafshosom zruros bizror hachayim im nishmos Avrohom, Yizchok ve’ Yaakov, Soroh, Rivkoh, Rocheil ve’Leyo, v’im sh’or zadikim vezidkonios sheb’gan Edne, venomar omain.”
Acknowledgments
Daniel A. Lipsig provided thought and counsel. Dr. Donald Schwartz graciously gave of time, information, and guidance. Dr. Jay L. Dickerson, Professor Irwin R. Blacker, Father Joseph Casper, Ivy Jones, Jeanne Farrens, and Willard M. Reisz contributed instruction and encouragement. Dorothy De Felitta helped throughout with rare understanding and sympathy for the book she helped to form. William Targ, my editor, make it all possible.
I thank them all.
About the Author
Frank De Felitta is the author of seven novels, including AUDREY ROSE, THE ENTITY, OKTOBERFEST, SEA TRIAL, GOLGOTHA FALLS, FUNERAL MARCH and the sequel FOR LOVE OF AUDREY ROSE. Both AUDREY ROSE and THE ENTITY were also made into movies, the former starring Anthony Hopkins and the latter starring Barbara Hershey.
The first book in the Audrey Rose series
Copyright © 1975 by Frank de Felitta