"I'm a little tired myself," Mr. Rebeck said. He felt himself blushing. "I live a long way from here."

"I'll be damned," said Michael, squatting next to Mrs. Klapper. "You've got blood left."

Mrs. Klapper patted the space at her side. "So sit. What are you, a boy athlete? At your age, a man should sit down anywhere he feels like it."

"Thank you," Mr. Rebeck said. He sat gingerly next to her, suddenly wondering, At my age? Do I look that old? How old does she think I am? He wanted to stand up again, but he felt himself committed.

They sat silently for a while. Mrs. Klapper had slipped off one of her shoes and was sighing softly and contentedly. Mr. Rebeck wanted to say something to her, but he couldn't think of a thing. It made him angry with himself.

Suddenly a scream like Hell's star tenor on a good day rang and burst inside his head. He leaped to his feet with a cry of real physical pain and looked wildly around him for the scream's source.

Mrs. Klapper remained seated, but she slipped her shoe back on and looked at him in some alarm. "You feel all right?" she asked.

"I h-heard something," Mr. Rebeck stammered, "a scream . . . ."

"Funny." Mrs. Klapper stood up too. "I didn't hear a thing."

"I heard a scream," Mr. Rebeck said, and then he saw Michael, sitting cross-legged, shuddering with silent laughter. "Michael!" he said before he thought.

Michael opened his mouth and pointed down blackness into his throat. "Testing," he said. "Just testing. I wanted to see if you were on the job."

"Who?" Mrs. Klapper's brows drew together, as if for protection.

Mr. Rebeck wiped his forehead. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I'm awfully sorry. I thought I heard someone."

He expected Mrs. Klapper to break into either laughter or full retreat. Instead, he saw her face relax into understanding. "Your friend, huh?" she asked.

"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Rebeck, thinking in cold-bellied terror, Does she see Michael?

"Your friend," said Mrs. Klapper, pointing at the mausoleum. "The one buried in there."

"Oh," said Mr. Rebeck. He thought quickly. "Yes. Michael Wilder. Very old friend. It hit me very hard when he died." Mrs. Klapper was nodding steadily. He went on, "Every now and then I'm sure I hear him calling me."

"Nice," said Michael. "Very nice," After a moment he added, "I'm sorry I did that."

"I guess it sounds a little crazy," Mr. Rebeck added.

Mrs. Klapper sat down on the steps again. "Listen," she said firmly, "half the world is crazy that way." She paused. "Me too," she said finally.

Mr. Rebeck sat next to her. "Your husband?"

"Uh-huh," said Mrs. Klapper. "Morris. A lot of times I hear him calling, 'Gertrude, Gertrude,' like he'd lost his key again, or he couldn't find the light switch in the bathroom. A year and two months and I still hear him."

"I guess that must happen to a lot of people," Mr. Rebeck said. "You don't want to believe somebody's really dead."

"No," Mrs. Klapper answered. "For me it's different. Maybe for other people it's like that." She nibbled the tip of one black-gloved forefinger, a trait, Mr. Rebeck thought, that he would never have associated with her.

"Morris died funny, you know," she said slowly. Mr. Rebeck said nothing. "We've got a nice apartment—a terrace with a little garden. We rented it, the agent said, 'Look, you got a nice little terrace, you can have dinner on it.' So we had dinner on it, except when it was cold. Anyway, that time we're eating dinner, and I see Morris doesn't look so good. So I say, 'Morris, you don't look so good. You want to go inside and lie down?' And he says, 'No, Gertrude, finish the meal, it shouldn't be a total loss.' I say, 'Okay, Morris, if you feel okay,' and I dish him some corn. Green Giant—on the cob Morris doesn't like it. It gets in his teeth."

"You don't have to tell me this," Mr. Rebeck said. "You don't even know me."

"Gallant," said Michael. "Sneaky, but gallant."

"Excuse me," Mrs. Klapper said. "I want to tell you. It's a relief, and I don't feel so much like I'll bust any more, and besides I won't be seeing you again, anyway." Mr. Rebeck knew this was true, and it made him oddly sad.

"So Morris finishes the corn, and I say, 'Morris, you want some more corn?' and he opens his mouth to say something and boom!" Mr. Rebeck jumped. "Right over the back of his chair he falls." Mrs. Klapper swept her arm in a wide semicircle.

"You know what I do then?"

Mr. Rebeck shook his head silently.

"I yell," Mrs. Klapper said bitterly. "I sit there in my chair and I yell. I spent five minutes maybe of Morris's life yelling. Then what do I do?" She swept her arm around again. "Boom! Out like a light."

She looked down at her lap. Mr. Rebeck noticed with a strange objectivity that a seam had opened on her right glove.

"Maybe he wakes up," she said in a low voice, "and calls me, 'Gertrude, Gertrude.' He was always losing the key to the apartment. Maybe he lies there calling me, and I don't hear him."

"Don't say that," Mr. Rebeck urged. "You can't possibly know."

"You know what I did for two days after that?" Mrs. Klapper asked. "I went around saying, 'Morris, you want some more corn? Morris, you want some more corn? Morris, you want some more corn?' Like a Victrola and the needle got stuck. Two days. They had a nurse living in the house. She slept in the living room."

She fell silent, unweeping, staring straight ahead. Michael didn't want to say anything. Mr. Rebeck did.

Presently she turned her head and looked at Mr. Rebeck. Her mouth twitched a little at the corners.

"They say Kaddish for Morris every Sabbath," she said, "over at Beth David. After I'm dead they'll be saying Kaddish for him. Every Sabbath until the sky falls." She leaned toward Mr. Rebeck, her breath warm and not unpleasantly sharp. "You think I'd forget Morris? You think I'd forget?"

"No," Mr. Rebeck said. "I don't think you would."

She leaned back, smoothing her black dress over her knees. Mr. Rebeck stared hard at the word WILDER over the mausoleum entrance until it blurred and flowed before his eyes. All I can think of to say, he thought, is "I like you," and that seems silly. Not to say inappropriate.

Presently Mrs. Klapper began to laugh softly. She laughs like a river, Mr. Rebeck thought, listening to the slow, rolling chuckle. She looked up at him.

"The nurse dyed her hair," she said, punctuating the words with laughter. "And she dyed it so lousily. Different patches black, red, and sort of brownish-blond. She looked like a box of crayons."

They laughed together then, the three of them, Mr. Rebeck's laughter high and chortling; Mrs. Klapper's rich; Michael's dark and silent.

"You think I'm terrible, laughing like this?" Mrs. Klapper asked finally.

"No," Mr. Rebeck said. "No, I don't. You should see how much better you look now."

He hadn't meant that exactly the way it sounded, and he began to amend it, but Mrs. Klapper smiled.

"You have to laugh," she said. "Sooner or later, you have to laugh. How long can you cry?"

"Years," said Michael. Mrs. Klapper shook her head, as if she had heard him. "Sooner or later," she said, "you have to laugh."

She looked at a small gold wrist watch and got up quickly. "I have to go," she said. "My sister's bringing her daughter over for dinner. A little kid she is, my niece, a first-grader. Beautiful." She stretched the word until it twanged. "I better go make dinner."

"I'm going that way myself," Mr. Rebeck said a little timidly.

Mrs. Klapper laughed. "You don't even know which way I'm going."

"Lecherous old man," Michael said. "Control the clammy hands, Tarquin."

Mr. Rebeck felt himself flushing again. He took a wild shot. "The entrance near the subway," he said quickly. There had to be an entrance near a subway. Cemeteries were built like that.