Friday the Rabbi Slept Late

by Harry Kemelman

  “Just a minute, Mr. Chairman,” called Meyer Goldfarb. “That amendment is to my motion, so if I accept it then we don’t have to have any discussion. I just change my motion, see.”

  “All right, restate your motion then.”

  “I move that the motion to extend the rabbi’s contract—”

  “Just a minute, Meyer, there was no such motion.”

  “Jacob made the motion.”

  “Jacob didn’t make any motion. He just made a suggestion. Besides, he was in the chair—”

  “Gentlemen,” said Wasserman, banging with his ruler, “what’s the sense of all this motion, amendment, amendment to the amendment. I didn’t make a motion, I did make a motion? Is it the sense of this meeting that we should put off any action on the rabbi’s contract until next week?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sure, why not? The rabbi won’t run away.”

  “Even out of respect to the rabbi, there ought to be more people here.”

  “All right,” said Wasserman, “so let’s hold it over already. If there’s no other business”—he waited for a moment—“then this meeting stands adjourned.”

  4

  TUESDAY THE WEATHER WAS FINE AND MILD, AND ELSPETH Bleech and her friend Celia Saunders, who took care of the Hoskins’ children a couple of doors away, led their charges to the park, a ragged bit of turf a few blocks beyond the temple. The little procession was essentially a herding operation. The children ran ahead, but because Johnnie Serafino was still very young, Elspeth always took the stroller along. Sometimes he walked with the two women, his little fist tightly clutching the side or the chrome handle of the carriage, and sometimes he would clamber aboard and insist on being pushed.

  Elspeth and Celia would walk about fifty feet and then stop to check on the whereabouts of their charges. If they had fallen behind they called to them, or ran back to pull them apart or make them drop something they had found in the gutter or a trash barrel.

  Celia tried to persuade her friend to spend Thursday, their day off, together in Salem. “They’re having a sale at Adelson’s, and I wanted to see about another bathing suit. We could take the one o’clock bus—”

  “I was thinking of going to Lynn,” said Elspeth.

  “Why Lynn?”

  “Well, I’ve been feeling sort of, you know, sickly lately and I thought I ought to have a check-up by a doctor. Maybe he could give me a tonic, or something.”

  “You don’t need no tonic, El. What you need is a little exercise and some relaxation. Now you take my advice. You come into Salem with me and we can do some shopping, and then we can take in a movie in the afternoon. We can have a bite somewhere and after that we can go bowling. There’s the nicest bunch of fellows come down the alleys Thursday nights. We have the grandest times just kidding around. No rough stuff and nobody gets fresh. We just have a lot of fun hacking around.”

  “Hm—I guess it’s nice all right, but I just don’t feel up to it, Cele. I’m tired most afternoons, and in the mornings I wake up and I feel light-headed, kind of.”

  “Well, I know the reason for that,” said Celia positively.

  “You do?”

  “You just don’t get enough sleep. That’s your trouble. Staying up until two or three o’clock every morning, it’s a wonder to me you can stand on your feet. And six days a week. I don’t know of another girl who doesn’t get Sundays off. Them Serafinos are taking advantage of you—they’re working you to death.”

  “Oh, I get enough sleep. I don’t have to stay up until they get home.” She shrugged. “It’s just that alone in the house with only the kids, I kind of don’t like to get undressed and into bed. Most of the time, I nap on the couch. And then I nap in the afternoon, too. I get plenty of sleep, Cele.”

  “But Sundays—”

  “Well, it’s the only day they have for visiting their friends. I don’t mind really. And Mrs. Serafino told me when I first came that anytime I wanted a Sunday off she would arrange for it. They’re really quite nice to me. Mr. Serafino said that if I wanted to go downtown to church, he’d drive me—the buses being so bad on Sundays.”

  Celia halted in her stride and looked at Elspeth. “Tell me, does he ever bother you any?”

  “Bother me?”

  “You know, does he ever try to get fresh when the missus isn’t around?”

  “Oh no,” said Elspeth quickly. “Where’d you get that idea?”

  “I don’t trust those nightclub types. And I don’t like the way he looks at a girl.”

  “That’s silly. He hardly says two words to me.”

  “Is it? Well, let me tell you something—Gladys, that’s the girl that had your job before you—Mrs. Serafino fired her because she caught her husband fooling around with her. And she didn’t have half your looks.”

  Stanley Doble was a typical Barnard’s Crosser. Of a certain segment of Old Town society, he might even be considered the prototype. He was a thick-set man of forty, with sandy, graying hair. His deeply tanned, leathery skin indicated that he spent most of his time outdoors. He could build a boat. He could repair and install the plumbing and electric wiring in a house. He could take care of a lawn, trimming and mowing and raking tirelessly in the hot summer sun. He could repair an automobile, or the engine of a launch as it rose and fell in a heavy sea. At one time or another, he had earned his living doing each of these as well as by fishing and lobstering. At no time did he ever have trouble getting some kind of work; and at no time did he ever work long enough to make much more than he needed, until he came to work for the temple. This job he had held ever since they first acquired an old mansion and renovated it to serve as a combination school, community center, and synagogue. He had been all-important then, for without him the building would have fallen apart. He kept the boiler running, he fixed the plumbing and the wiring, he repaired the roof, and he spent the summer in painting the building inside and out. Since the completion of the new temple, his work had changed, of course. There was little repair work, but he kept the building clean and the lawn trimmed, regulated the heating system in the winter and the air conditioner when it got warm.

  And now, on this bright Tuesday morning, he was raking up the temple lawn. He had already gathered several bushel baskets of lawn clippings and leaves. Although there was the other side to do yet, as much again and more, he decided to stop for lunch. Then after lunch, if he felt like it, he could tackle the other side or let it go until the next day. There was no real hurry.

  He had a bottle of milk and some sliced cheese in the refrigerator in the kitchen. Certain meats, actually any meats except those bought in particular stores—what he called 7WD stores, which was the way he read the Hebrew sign for kosher—he wasn’t supposed to put in there. But milk and cheese were all right since they involved no slaughter and were ritually clean. Then he wondered if he wouldn’t rather have a glass of beer. His car, a disreputable 1947 Ford convertible with no top and painted bright yellow from the remains of his last house-painting job, was in the parking lot in front of the temple. He could drive to the Ship’s Cabin and still be back inside of an hour. There was no one he had to report to, but Mrs. Schwarz had said something about perhaps needing him to help decorate the vestry for the Sisterhood meeting, so he thought he had better be around. Besides, if he got involved in one of the interminable arguments in the Ship’s Cabin, like whether shingle or clapboard was better for a house that faced the sea, or whether the Celtics would win the championship, there was no telling when he would get back.

  He washed up, got his milk and cheese out of the refrigerator and brought them down to his own private corner in the basement where he had a rickety table, a cot, and a wicker armchair that he had retrieved from the town dump on one of his many excursions there, a favorite pastime of some segments of Barnard’s Crossing society. He sat at the table and munched the sandwiches he had made, taking deep swallows from the mouth of the milk carton and staring moodily out of the narrow cellar window, watching the le
gs of passers-by through the bushes, men’s legs encased in trousers, and silk-stockinged women’s legs, slim and cool. Sometimes he would lean to one side, the better to follow an exceptional pair of women’s legs until they passed the basement window. He would nod his grizzled head approvingly and breathe, “Beauty?”

  He finished the quart of milk and wiped his mouth with the back of a gnarled, hairy hand. Rising from his chair, he stretched lazily, and then sat down again, on the cot this time, and scratched his rib-cage and his grizzled head with strong, stubby fingers. He lay back, wriggling his head against the pillow to form a comfortable hollow. For a moment he stared straight up at the pipes and conductors that ran across the ceiling like veins and arteries in an anatomy chart. Then his eyes wandered to the wall where he had pasted up a gallery of “art photos,” pictures of women in various stages of undress. They were all buxom and saucy and inviting, and as his eyes roamed from one to another, his mouth relaxed in a smile of contentment.

  From outside, just in front of his window, came the sound of women’s voices. He rolled over to see who was talking and made out two pairs of women’s legs, both encased in white stockings, and just beyond, the wheels of a stroller or baby carriage. He thought he knew who they were, having seen them pass often enough. It gave him special pleasure to eavesdrop on their conversation, almost as though he were peeping at them through a keyhole.

  “… then when you’re through, you could take the bus to Salem and I could meet you and we could eat at the station.”

  “I kind of thought I’d stay on in Lynn and go to the Elysium.”

  “But they’ve got that picture that takes forever. How will you get home?”

  “I checked, and it gets out at eleven-thirty. That will give me enough time to make the last bus.”

  “Aren’t you afraid to go home alone that late at night?”

  “Oh, there are plenty of people on that bus, and it’s only a couple of blocks beyond the bus stop—Angie, you come right here this minute.”

  There was a scurry of a child’s feet and then the women’s legs marched out of view.

  He rolled over on his back again and studied the pictures on the wall. One was of a dark girl who was naked except for a narrow garter belt and a pair of black stockings. As he concentrated on the picture, her hair became blonde and her stockings white. Presently his mouth dropped open and he began to snore, a steady, rhythmic, guttural throb like a boat engine in a heavy sea.

  Myra Schwarz and the two women of the Sisterhood who were decorating the vestry for the box-supper meeting stood back, their heads tilted to one side.

  “Can you get it just a little higher, Stanley?” asked Myra. “What do you think, girls?”

  Stanley, perched on a stepladder, obediently raised the crepe paper a couple of inches.

  “I think it should be a little lower down.”

  “Perhaps you’re right. Can you lower it a hair, Stanley?”

  He dropped it to where it had been before.

  “Hold it right there, Stanley,” called Myra. “That’s just right, isn’t it, girls?”

  Enthusiastically they agreed. They were very much her junior in the organization; Emmy Adler was barely thirty, and Nancy Drettman, though older, had joined the Sisterhood only recently. As the decorating committee, they had come to the temple in slacks, prepared to work, when Myra, all dressed up, dropped in “to see if everything was going all right” and took over. They had no great passion for decorating, but it was one of those jobs given to newer members. Once they had demonstrated their willingness to work, more important jobs would be assigned to them—such as the advertising committee, which required them to badger the local trades-people and their husbands’ business associates for ads for the Program Book; the friendship committee, where they would visit the sick; and finally, having shown they could get things done, which usually meant coaxing other people to do them, they would see their names on the slate of candidates for positions on the executive council—and they would have arrived.

  In the meantime, they practiced by ordering Stanley around. When they had first appeared, fully an hour before Mrs. Schwarz, they asked his help even though they knew he would much rather be outside working on the lawn. “Why don’t you two ladies go on ahead and get started,” he’d said. “I’ll come along in a little while.”

  Mrs. Schwarz, on the other hand, had brooked no nonsense. She had said decisively, “Stanley, I need your help.”

  “I got this raking to do, Mrs. Schwarz,” he had said.

  “That can wait.”

  “Yes’m, I’ll be right there,” and put aside his rake and went to fetch the ladder.

  It was a tiresome, tedious job, and he took no pleasure in it. Nor did he like working under the supervision of women—hard, brassy women like Mrs. Schwarz. He had just finished tacking the decoration in place when the door opened and the rabbi thrust his head in. “Oh, Stanley,” he called out, “could I talk to you for a minute?”

  Stanley promptly came down from the ladder, causing the crepe paper decoration to sag. The tack pulled out of the wall and there was a collective groan from the three women. The rabbi, aware of them for the first time, nodded half-apologetically for intruding and then turned to Stanley. “I’m expecting some books to be delivered by express,” he said. “They should be here in a day or two. They’re rare and quite valuable, so when they arrive please put them right in my study. Don’t leave them lying around.”

  “Sure, rabbi. How will I know it’s the books?”

  “They’re being sent from Dropsie College, and you will see that on the label.” He nodded at the women and withdrew.

  Myra Schwarz waited in martyred patience for Stanley to rejoin them. “It must have been pretty important for the rabbi to call you away,” she remarked acidly.

  “Oh, I was just coming down to shift the ladder anyway. He wanted me to keep an eye out for some books he’s expecting.”

  “Very important,” she said sarcastically. “His Holiness might be in for a little surprise one of these days.”

  “Oh, I don’t think he saw us here when he first came in,” said Emmy Adler.

  “I don’t see how he could help seeing us,” said Mrs. Drettman. Addressing herself to Myra, she went on, “You know, about what you were saying. My Morrie is a board of director, and only yesterday he got a call from Mr. Becker to make sure and turn up for this special meeting—”

  Mrs. Schwarz gestured in the direction of Mrs. Adler. “That’s supposed to be kept quiet,” she whispered.

  5

  ALTHOUGH SHE WAS OFF AT NOON, ELSPETH RARELY MANaged to leave the Serafino household much before one. Mrs. Serafino made such a fuss about feeding the children their lunch—calling from the kitchen: “Oh El, where did you put Angelina’s dish, the one with the three bears?” or “El, could you spare a minute before the bus leaves to put Johnnie on the toidy?”—that she usually preferred to do it herself and take the one o’clock bus or even the one-thirty.

  Today in particular she didn’t care, since her appointment was not until four. The day was hot and humid and she wanted to feel fresh and cool against the intimacy of the doctor’s examination. She would have preferred to wait until three before leaving, but then her mistress might ask questions.

  She was giving the children their lunch when Mrs. Serafino came downstairs. “Oh, you’ve started already,” she said. “There was no need to. I’ll finish and you can get dressed.”

  “They’re almost through, Mrs. Serafino. Why don’t you have your breakfast.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind. I’m dying for a cup of coffee.”

  Mrs. Serafino was not one to turn down a favor, not was she effusive in her thanks to the girl. It might give her ideas. When Elspeth had finished feeding the children, Mrs. Serafino was still at her coffee and made no move when she took them upstairs.

  Preparing the children for their nap was as much of a chore as giving them lunch. When Elspeth finally came downstairs, Mrs.
Serafino was in the hallway, talking on the telephone. She paused long enough to cup her hand over the mouthpiece. “Oh El, are the children already in bed? I was just coming up to do it.” Just that, and back to her conversation.

  Elspeth went to her room off the kitchen, closed the door, and firmly pushed the sliding bolt. She flung herself face down on the bed and automatically turned on the radio on the night table. She listened, only half-hearing, to the cheery voice of the announcer, “—and that was Bert Burns, the latest hillbilly sensation singing, ‘Cornliquor Blues.’ And now some news about the weather. That low-pressure area we mentioned earlier is moving closer and that means that we’ll probably get some clouds and fog in the evening and maybe some showers. Well, I guess into every life some rain must fall, ha-ha. And now, for Mrs. Eisenstadt of 24 West Street, Salem, who is celebrating her eighty-third birthday, the Happy Hooligans in their latest platter, ‘Trash Collection Rock.’ And a happy birthday to you, Mrs. Eisenstadt.”

  She half-dozed through the song and then rolled over and stared at the ceiling through the one that followed, rebelling at the idea of having to get dressed in that humid warmth. Finally she got heavily to her feet and wiggled her dress over her head. She reached around behind and unhooked her bra and then unzipped her girdle and worked it down over her hips, not bothering to detach the stockings. She tossed the undergarments into the bottom drawer of her dresser and hung the dress in her closet.

  Beyond the door, in the kitchen, she could hear that Mr. Serafino had come downstairs and was heating up the coffee and getting orange juice out of the refrigerator. She glanced at the bolted door and then, reassured, went into the tiny bathroom and adjusted the shower.

  When she emerged from her room half an hour later, she was wearing a sleeveless yellow linen dress, white shoes, white gloves, and carrying a white plastic handbag. Her short hair had been combed back severely and was held in place by a white elastic headband. Mr. Serafino had left, but his wife was in the kitchen, still in housecoat and mules, sipping at another cup of coffee.