Chaim Bernstein trudged up the stairs to Eastern Parkway from the bowels of the Utica Avenue subway station, as he did almost every working day, except on the Sabbath and on Sundays. A diamond cutter by trade, with thick glasses that did not entirely correct his failing eyesight, Chaim carried the weight of his 68 years on arthritic knees doomed long ago by two years of captivity in a concentration camp, by the eight years in a cold water flat on the Lower East Side, and by the harshness of over forty New York winters.

It would be so good to get home today, Chaim thought, to have one of Hannah’s simple meals – the mushroom barley soup, the thick slice of sweetly-buttered rye bread, the glass of hot tea with a cube of sugar – and then, to spend some quiet moments with Hannah, his life- and soul-mate over the past 39 years, before going off for evening prayers at the shul. He sighed as he realized that much more, now, than in the past, he would be needed to fill the quorum of ten men that was required before the prayers of bereavement could be said.

Watching from a bench that was missing two slats, with peeling paint partially obscured by the befouling of graffiti, the young black man with the drug-induced feelings of superiority and restless euphoria searched the faces of the tired and the bedraggled, the working stiffs and the welfare mothers, for the sign that would help him choose the right one as they plodded up the stairs.

To any casual observer, he looked like somebody just waiting for a friend. But as soon as Chaim Bernstein came into view, he decided that the long, hand-sharpened screwdriver that he kept hidden inside his winter jacket would have a use other than for breaking into vending machines or threatening elderly shoppers. Chaim Bernstein, now shuffling across the service road to head down Utica Avenue, towards the warmth of his home, his sanctuary, would, in a bizarre and almost orgiastic sense, allow the young black man to finally lose his virginity.

Matching his pace a block behind, he watched Chaim turn to nod at several of the store owners who were busy closing their stores and locking their gates. Occasionally, Chaim would stop and exchange a few words, but it was still difficult for Chaim to admit to himself that most of the store owners whom he had spent a good deal of his life fraternizing with, haggling with and buying from had long since gone. These were a new breed, he thought, as he turned onto Montgomery Street to walk the block and a half to his apartment in the building across from the schoolyard.

The young black man knew the streets well. He knew the alleys and the courtyards, the back entrances and the places where he used to hide when he and his friends played cops and robbers with imaginary guns. He was always good at those games. He also knew the places that were concealed from view, places where he sat smoking and dreaming his dreams, places where he could take one of the adventurous neighborhood girls and not be disturbed. When he felt good – or when he felt bad – he imagined himself as the alley cat stud – powerful and lean, hungry and mean and itching to get even. He caught up with Chaim, who expected nothing and thus feared nothing, just at the below-ground opening between two buildings, and without pausing or even thinking twice, pushed the frail man down the six concrete steps.

Chaim was propelled forward and was suddenly out of balance as he stumbled down the steps. He sensed the nearness of his attacker behind him as he reached out to break his fall. Then, the unmoveable weight was atop him, and simultaneously, he felt the stabbing through his overcoat, then through his skin. The angry assault to his body, the burning, the pain, the tearing of flesh – his flesh – it couldn’t be! Oh, God, this cannot be! – and then the blade was ripped out and another part of his back erupted with overwhelming pain. And yet again! There was no stopping it. He sensed the hot wetness of blood on his back, his shirt sticking to his skin. The pleading words, “No, please, no” stuck in his throat as his breath was taken away by the onslaught of his assailant. Mercifully, as he was drawing mentally away from the agony that was becoming an all-consuming presence, his consciousness faded and an all-powerful blackness began to caress and envelope him.

He knew, with what remained of his thoughts and memories, that this vulgarity was his ending – and then, an image of Hannah – My love, take care of yourself and be well – as he gave himself over to this Angel of Death with the gasps of a final convulsion. In a frenzy and in an out-pouring of hate, the demon stabbed him again and yet again until his blood lust subsided, until the need to kill was replaced by sheer exhaustion, until he fell lengthwise across the body in a position suggestive of the most rabid sort of copulation.

Hannah waited until nine before she called the police. She told them that her husband always arrived home at the same time – about two hours earlier – but the clipped voice at the other end of the line said told her that nothing could be done until a missing person’s report was filed. Meanwhile, he advised her to “hold tight, he’ll be home. Maybe he stopped somewhere for a few beers with the boys …” and hung up.

Then she called their rabbi, who did, indeed, sound worried, because he knew how Chaim was always so dependable. He quickly assembled several of his cronies, who fanned out to search every back alley and entryway between the subway stop and Chaim’s home, for they knew the danger that always seethed behind the facade of harmony. It was not long before they found the body, blood-drenched and almost unrecognizable, bent and broken and piled atop a heap of black plastic trash bags in a corner of a basement reeking from cat urine and garbage.

With shock, inestimable sadness and horror, these friends of Chaim Bernstein called the police who soon arrived. After a cursory investigation at the crime scene the body was unceremoniously carted off to the morgue for the autopsy which was mandatory in cases of violent or unexpected death, despite Jewish strictures that a body should never be left alone and should be buried in a plain pine box as soon as possible. A promise was extracted from the Medical Examiner that the autopsy would be performed quickly and the body returned for the proper burial. The rabbi went to Hannah, to notify her, to comfort her, to cry with her and to share her pain.

The New York City Medical Examiner’s office, once the center of learning in forensic science, was in budgetary and managerial disarray. Understaffed, having outmoded equipment and a filing system that was the source of derision to those who worked there, and to those who were forced to consult with the office, staff members had to cut corners as they cut and hacked into more bodies than they could process and accurately record. Morale was particularly low since their chief had gone on leave, mostly because of five separate investigations that were undertaken in response to allegations that were made public about his creative wording of reports and documents which might have been embarrassing to the police. Many staff members felt, perhaps justifiably, that their jobs were dead end and that nobody gave a damn.`

So it was not too surprising, although there was profound official dismay and the promise of a thorough shake up of the department, when somehow, amidst the confusion and the change of shifts and the who-gives-a-shit attitudes and the breakdown of communication, the body tags got switched. And the body with the mutilated face, the gaunt body that had lasted for 68 hard years, the body with the number tattooed on the arm, got cremated not in the ovens of Buchenwald, but, instead, in the gas-fired furnaces of a crematorium that was in contract with the coroner’s office. Dutifully delivered to the funeral parlor in Crown Heights was the body of an alcoholic who had frozen to death after gulping down his last swig of cheap wine in a alley off a nondescript St. Johns Place block five weeks before.

The mistake that was too painful to contemplate was soon discovered by the people who were to carefully and lovingly wash and enshroud the body. The mayor promptly called a press conference and publicly apologized to Hannah and to the Jewish community and to everyone of voting age about this horrible mistake and, soon thereafter, two low-level workers and an administrator were summarily suspended without pay pending a hearing.

On Sabbath morning, as news of the desecration spread, every temple and synagogue, every shul and shtiebel, was overflowing with congregants and visitors who gathered together to, in a sense, cleanse their own souls of the sickness and the all-pervasive madness that could possibly allow such a wicked and abominable thing to happen.

The Kaddish for the dead was begun, and all those who were in mourning were asked to stand and recite the ancient reaffirmation in one’s faith in God. Every believer and non-believer alike rose as one to bless His great name for ever and ever. And a silent wailing, a collective inner cry, an ageless noiseless ululation, a moaning from the absolute depths of despair welled up, burst forth and spilled over into the consciousness of the organism called Man.

Yet the cleansing was incomplete.

Up to the beginning of the story

October 1984, revised March 1985, February 1998 and July 2012

-- Appeared in Grassroot Reflections Issue 24, August 2012

Copyright © 2012, Lloyd B. Abrams