“Your grandmother’s not here anymore,” says the landlord, taking notice of me in my finery. “You have to take the Powell Street bus to East New York if you want to find her.”

I turn from the gay bridal party in time to see a huge empty city bus pull to a stop in front of the house. The driver beckons me; as I climb into the bus, I notice the words Powell Street on the destination board. The journey is smooth and silent. Nobody else gets on the bus. Finally, the driver pulls up to a shabby brick tenement building whose faded gilt sign informs me that I’ve reached my destination: a home for the elderly. The bus driver opens the doors and points to the building. This looks like a bad neighborhood, and I hesitate before getting off. I hold tightly to my purse then walk quickly to the front door of the building and ring the bell.

The Clara Street Synagogue’s bearded sexton appears in orthodox garb and skull cap and greets me not unpleasantly, as if he’s been expecting my visit. I say,

“I want to see Louisa Formann, please.”

I have always been struck by the crankiness of the dead. They have nothing to do but complain. Some, like Achilles, would rather be live pig farmers than glorious, but dead, heroes. Others are still bothering their astral selves about wills, dishonor, family feuds, misplaced or stolen brooches, and the political state of affairs…

Wordlessly, the old man leads me up a crooked wooden staircase that squeaks with every step we take. On each landing, we stop, and I look into a series of open doorways past hospital curtains into the rubbish-strewn rooms of the building’s so-far invisible inhabitants. At the third landing, there are no hospital curtains blocking the residents from view, and I catch a glimpse through an open doorway of a painfully thin, dark-haired young man with the maniacal eyes of an El Greco saint. The bearded sexton touches my arm and silently urges me quickly past. On the fourth floor, he ushers me into a stifling room with only a hospital bed and a window and points to its “resident” — a rectangular black leather box sprouting wires and a pair of black high-button shoes that once belonged to my grandmother. Apprehensive, but not wishing to insult the old sexton, I greet the rectangular black wired box on the bed. It’s just about Louisa’s size, and replies in exactly her voice through the complex tangle of wires. Oddly enough, it reminds me of my father’s black Tefillin box, which he straps to his head every morning before prayers.

I have always been struck by the crankiness of the dead. They have nothing to do but complain. Some, like Achilles, would rather be live pig farmers than glorious, but dead, heroes. Others are still bothering their astral selves about wills, dishonor, family feuds, misplaced or stolen brooches, and the political state of affairs that might or might not have led to their deaths. In her rectangular black wired box form, Louisa is cranky too, still complaining about her miserable last days on earth in the flat behind the butcher shop

“It’s unbearable here. Can’t you do something, talk to the landlord and get me a better apartment?”

I am stumped. I look to the sexton for help, but realize suddenly that he doesn’t understand English, and that, until I came along, Louisa’s complaints have landed on uncomprehending ears. Nobody but me there to listen. Suddenly, as if a recording has been turned off, the harangue ceases, and I am just as quickly and silently dispatched by the sexton to another wing of the building — this one crammed with cubicles stacked one on top of the next. Apparently soundproofed, this wing is brightly lit and its windows open to a view of a tree-lined street. It is also humid, and my fine clothes are now sticking to me.