But most of the images by far are of my mother adorned with heaps of flower garlands, gold, red, orange, circling her neck, draped over her head, spilling out of her lap. At her feet are rows of small baskets fashioned out of leaves filled with flower petals, sprouting bouquets of incense sticks. On cloths spread out on either side of her are piles of coins and rupees, and offerings of sweets in vibrant colors and textures. “Oh no, I would never touch that stuff,” Ma said when I inquired. “What are you talking about? It’s not even kosher. It doesn’t have even an OU, not even a K, I’m not even talking glatt. Besides, it’s very fattening. There’s nothing I can do about it. Hutz-klutz, all of a sudden they decide I’m some kind of saint, or nokh besser, it shouldn’t happen to a dog, a god—Mamadevi, the latest goddess. As if they didn’t have enough already—now they have thirty-six million and one. Ma Kali, they call me. At first I thought they were saying Ma Kallah—you know, like a bride? Mother of the bride, ha ha—but no, wrong again. It seems they really have this dolly named Kali, she’s one of their big shot goddesses, mother superior, they tell me, and also she likes to hang around the cremation grounds, like me. I even saw a picture of her, on an old calendar in Bulbul’s rickshaw. Black face, long red tongue sticking out of her mouth like a very bad girl, her hair a mess, bloodshot eyes, cut off heads everywhere spritzing blood, crazy lady breaking all the rules and nobody can stop her, out of control. But thank God, at least she’s skinny. Maybe even too skinny, if such a thing is possible. So, okay, so now I’m Ma Kali—I accept, why not? Every day they come and bring me presents. I try to tell them they’re making a very big mistake—but who ever listens to a crazy old lady?”

Lurking in a corner of almost all of these pictures is the figure of a small, slight man, baldheaded, bare chested, with leather chappals on his feet, a white dhoti around his waist, round wire-rimmed glasses. In the eighteenth picture he takes center stage. “That’s my end-of-life guru,” Ma said when I ventured to ask. “I call him the angel of death. Every day he comes up to me, he points to the burning fires, and he whispers in my ear, ‘It’s the end of life, Mama. How do you feel about that?’”

“How do you feel about it, Ma?”

“I’m not worried, mama’le. Guru-shmuru. What does he know? He knows from nothing.” Silence fell, long enough to trigger the fear that I had lost the connection when, suddenly, Ma’s voice resurfaced. “My mama, may she rest in peace—she would never let anything bad happen to me.”

2

THE NEXT DAY the rebbetzin Dassi called. Ma had taken an unmistakable turn for the worse. I should come at once.