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confused expressions. Sensing that his control of
the ceremony was in danger, the rabbi took action and darted toward
Max's widow. His legs became tangled in the tent ropes and the
canvas began to buckle. A mourner screamed. Alarmed, T.S. whirled
around to grab at the supporting metal pole, sending Auntie Lil's
pocketbook swinging in a wide arc. The heavy leather purse smacked
the rabbi in the center of his back. He stumbled toward the grave
and grabbed at the widow's raincoat, locking onto her arms as he
knocked her over the edge of the grave. He fell on his face in the
mud, halfway over the edge of the opening, and somehow managed to
hold on to the widow. Sabrina Rosenbloom's screams rang though the
stunned silence of the graveyard as she dangled from the rabbi’s
grasp.
    “He's going over, too!” someone shouted from the
crowd.
    It was true. The rabbi was dragged inches closer to
the edge of the grave by the panicked thrashing of the screaming
widow.
    “Hook your heels into the mud,” someone called out
helpfully. The widow's screams stopped for an instant, then grew
even louder.
    The crowd looked on, frozen with disbelief, as the
plump rabbi slid toward the open grave. T.S., still valiantly
holding up the tent pole, was unable to let go and help. He stared
at a nearby workman, whose thumbs were hooked in his grimy blue
jeans as he gazed, mouth agape, at the slippery scene.
    “Do something!” T.S. shouted.
    The worker just shrugged, but T.S.'s plea spurred
Auntie Lil into action. She darted forward and thrust the small
gold shovel at the rabbi as if he were a truculent beaver refusing
to return to his cage at the zoo. The rabbi raised his face from
the mud and spotted the shovel. He made a useless grab for it with
one hand, releasing one of the widow's arms to do so. She shrieked
with fresh alarm and, displaying an astonishing show of strength,
thrust her body upward, so that her head bobbed up above the grave
top. She lost her grip on the rabbi's arm but grabbed successfully
at his legs, clutching his trousers with both hands. Her veiled hat
had fallen off and her face could finally be seen. Her delicate
features were screwed up in anger and panic. She looked like an
outraged ferret.
    “Let go of my pants!” the rabbi demanded indignantly.
He made another grab for the gold shovel with his free hand and
missed again, but managed to snag the edge of the AstroTurf carpet.
Simultaneously, he let go of the widow with his other hand so that
he could grab at his waistband.
    “Don't you let go of me, you bastard!” the widow
shrieked as she tightened her grip around his pant legs.
    They were her final words before, in a flurry of
unrabbilike oaths and a flash of scarlet undershorts, the rabbi's
tenuous grasp on the AstroTurf gave way. With a sucking sound, the
pair slid down the steep embankment as swiftly as a pair of otters
at play.
    In horrified fascination, the family and crowd
pressed forward, endangering the already crumbling edge. One
enterprising fellow inched toward the lip of the grave.
    “They're still alive!” he screamed, as if the pair
had tumbled into a volcano instead of a mushy six-foot-deep
grave.
    “Looks like they're wrestling or something,” he
added. “No, wait, they're trying to climb back up.”
    An echo came from the bottom of the grave. The crowd
leaned forward.
    “What are they saying?” Rebecca Rosenbloom demanded,
stamping her booted foot impatiently. She did not look entirely
unhappy that the widow had slid into the grave, but she was
displeased about not having a better view and had thrown her black
shawl on the muddy ground in a fit of pique.
    Never short of nerve, Auntie Lil crept closer and
stood beside the man at the edge of the grave. They listened
together to the shouts from below.
    “What are they saying down there?” someone repeated
impatiently. The cacophony issuing from the grave sounded like a
caldron of wildcats being boiled.
    “The old lady was right,” the man at