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except the one word. That it couldn ’ t dislodge. It must have been there all the time without their even knowing.
    Three years this month. December 21. In 1970 it had been a Monday. The neurologist told him on the phone that the brain tumor could take anywhere from two to four weeks to kill her, but when Zuckerman reached her room from the airport the bed was already empty. His brother, who ’ d arrived separately by plane an hour before, was in a chair by the window, jaw fixed, face a blank, looking, for all his size and strength, as though he were made of plaster. One good whack and he ’ d just be pieces on the floor. “ Mother ’ s gone. ” he said.
    Of all the words that Zuckerman had read, written, spoken, or heard, there were none he could think of whose rhetorical effectiveness could ever measure up to those two. Not she ’ s going, not she will go, but she ’ s gone.
    Zuckerman hadn ’ t seen the inside of a synagogue since the early sixties, when he used to ride forth each month to defend Higher Education on the temple lecture trail. The nonbeliever wondered nonetheless if his mother oughtn ’ t to be buried in the Orthodox manner—washed with water, wrapped in a shroud, and laid in a plain wood box. Even before she ’ d begun to be troubled by the first disabling signs of her fatal illness, four years of tending to an invalid husband had already reduced her to a replica of her own late mother in advanced old age, and it was in the hospital morgue, blankly staring at the prominent ancestral nose set in the small, childlike family skull, that curving sickle from which the sloping wedge of the careworn face sharply dropped away, that he thought of an Orthodox burial. But Henry wanted her wearing the soft gray crepe dress she ’ d looked so pretty in the night he and Carol had taken her over to Lincoln Center to hear Theodore Bikel, and Zuckerman saw no reason to argue. He was trying really to place this corpse, to connect what had happened to his mother with what had happened to her mother, whose funeral he ’ d witnessed as a child. He was trying to figure out where, in life, they were. As for the attire in which she should molder away, let Henry have what he wished. All that mattered was to get this last job done as unbruisingly as possible: then he and Henry needn ’ t agree on anything or speak to each other ever again. Her welfare was all that had kept them in touch anyway; over her empty hospital bed they ’ d met for the first time since their father ’ s Florida funeral the year before.
    Yes. she was all Henry ’ s now. The angry edge to his organizational efficiency made it unmistakable to everyone that inquiries relating to her burial were to be addressed to the younger son. When the rabbi came around to their mother ’ s apartment to plan the chapel service—the same softly bearded young rabbi who ’ d officiated at their father ’ s graveside—Nathan sat off by himself saying nothing, while Henry, who ’ d just gotten back from the mortician ’ s, questioned the rabbi about the arrangements. “ I thought I ’ d read a little poetry, ” the rabbi told him, “ something about growing things. I know how she loved her plants. ” They all looked over at the plants as though they were Mrs. Zuckerman ’ s orphaned babies. It was far too soon to see anything straight—not the plants on the windowsill, or the noodle casserole in the refrigerator, or the dry-cleaning ticket in her purse. “ Then I ’ ll read some psalms, ” the rabbi said. “ I ’ d like to conclude, if you wouldn ’ t mind, with some personal observations of my own. I knew your parents from the Temple. I knew them well. I know how much they enjoyed together as a husband and wife. I know how they loved their family. ” “ Good, ” said Henry. “ And you, Mr. Zuckerman? ” the rabbi asked Nathan. “ Any memories you ’ d like to share? I ’ ll be glad to include them in my remarks. ” He took a pad and