A Kiss for Rabbi Gabrielle

by Roger Herst

  “I am Rabbi Gabrielle Lewyn,” she began, her voice reverberating through the superb sound system. To her surprise, the students stopped chattering immediately and waited with expectant expressions on their faces. “Bart David Skulkin was my friend. He and his family, seated behind me, have been members of my congregation, Ohav Shalom, for as long as I can remember. To begin this memory of our fallen friend and teacher, I shall read several Psalms from the Old Testament. They’re in Hebrew, the language that we Jews have used in our prayers for three thousand years.”

  Gabby’s lyrical phrases, from Psalms 23, 31, and 90, seemed to resonate in the lofted auditorium, reminding at least a few students of the solemnity they found in their own neighborhood churches. They did not understand the words, but they were fluent in the cadence of grief and comfort. When finished, she stepped back to allow Sergeant Miller to address the student body. His voice on the phone had given her the mental image of a trim, black law enforcement officer, with a manicured moustache and skin creased by long exposure outdoors on the beat, but he was a portly man. As he stepped to the podium, she noticed that the brass buttons on his blue jacket were stressed by the bulk beneath. “Mr. Skulkin and I go back several years together,” he said, leaning close to the mike to magnify his voice. “He would come to the station to talk about guns in this school and tell me sad stories about wounded students. You just gotta wonder when a fine man like that, a white man with the soul as pure as any black man on this earth, gets himself killed. I know some of you don’t think much of the police. But we’re trying to make your neighborhood safe. And we’re looking hard for whoever killed your teacher. I’m thinking that one of you might know something about this. We’d like to hear from you. Of course, it’s a confidential matter.”

  The sergeant’s head bobbed and his lips puckered before he could continue. “Ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, the way things are today, this isn’t going to be the last memorial I will attend here. When the next person gets gunned down, I’ll be right back. Unless you, all of you, change things. Don’t let this happen again, please. Guns won't protect you. They'll only hurt you. Let’s work together to see it doesn’t happen. You all know where to find me.”

  As soon as the sergeant finished, Caleb Shaboya took his place, making subdued motions with his fingers and exercising his lips to prepare them for speech. Nothing came for several long moments, while he struggled with his question. “Why, why do the good die young? Boys and girls, I have no answer to that question except that once the Good Lord finds someone worthy of Himself, He invites him or her to share heaven with Him. I believe that’s where Mr. Skulkin is right now because he seemed happiest when attending to the needs of others, whether in the classroom or on the tennis court. He gave of himself in a way I pray you, boys and girls, will give of yourselves. Our Mr. Skulkin will be missed at this school. May he serve the ministering angels as well as he served his students. May his pure soul rest in peace.”

  Following the principal, Marcel Clipper, uncoiled his wiry frame from his chair and, after a moment’s hesitation, bounded like an antelope to the microphone. For such a good athlete he was without strong muscular definition or long legs. He glowered at his audience as if blaming them for Bart’s death. Words adequate to convey what a small band of dedicated tennis players owed their coach were difficult for him to find. “We…. we’re gonna win the championship next year,” he stuttered. “For Mister Skulkin. Yes, we’re gonna do it for sure.” He paused and made a second attempt at speech. Almost the same words came out. Then, with no experience in ending a speech, he stopped talking, shifted his weight onto his heels, and stepped back, looking bewildered.

  Next to speak, Hillary Jones and Karlene Patrick-Hill from Mothers Against Guns stood shoulder-to-shoulder. They were imposing women, large-boned and heavy in the bosom and hips. Their fiery eyes reminded the audience that on weekends they patrolled the neighborhood, stopping teenagers and searching for concealed weapons. Even the most powerful young men complied, moved by the authority of grief and righteous anger.

  Karlene Patrick-Hill delivered the tirade the students expected. She lambasted the school administration for negligence, the police for incompetence, and the gun-toting students for creating a situation in which Bart Skulkin got shot dead. She pledged that patrols of Mothers against Guns would not only continue, but would increase.

  Harvey Skulkin concluded the memorial by thanking both students and faculty for making Anacostia High a place his son loved. Nothing, he said, would have pleased Bart more than to have his colleagues and students come to honor his passing. There was a round of applause when he stepped back from the lectern, his eyes flooded with tears. Gabby noticed that Florence grabbed for his hand as he sat back down. Her wall of anger was beginning to crumble.

  On the street, near the school’s front steps, Marcel Clipper caught Gabby’s attention, as she was about to slip into the rear seat of the limousine headed to Freiberg’s Funeral Home. “We’re gonna keep the tennis team going. Come April, we’ll be on the courts practicing. Dr. Shaboya said he’s gonna find another teacher to help us. But it won’t be someone who loved the game like Mr. Skulkin.”

  Gabby did some quick calculations and said, “Three months goes by fast. Where do you practice?”

  “The park, across the street. Mr. Skulkin used to reserve courts for us.”

  “I’ll keep in touch with Dr. Shaboya about a replacement coach. And I’m coming to beat you, Marcel. You have a phone?”

  “At my auntie’s place,” he said and supplied a local number that Gabby jotted down on a slip of paper she found inside the Rabbi’s Manual she used at funerals. “Don’t think you’re gonna beat me. It don’t work that way, lady.”

  “If you win, I’ll buy the team dinner wherever you guys want. A deal?”

  He had to think about that proposition for a while, and then flashed a set of fine teeth. “Okay, lady. Get out your money, ‘cause I’m gonna whip your ass.”

  “Nope, Marcel. It’s your ass that’s gonna get whipped. Can I call you at your aunt’s in a couple of days?”

  He appeared puzzled that she’d want to, but replied, “Sure, but don’t ask for Marcel. Nobody there will know who you’re looking for.”

  “Why is that?”

  “My family calls me Patrick. I hate the name. That’s why my friends call me Marcel.”

  ***

  Armed with ordination from the Reform seminary in Cincinnati, Gabby had come to Washington eight and a half years before as assistant to Rabbi Dr. Seth Nehemiah Greer. It is said that mentoring in the early years can make or break a career. Gabby knew she’d been exceedingly fortunate; Seth Greer had expected her to grow in the rabbinate by practicing what she knew and experimenting with what she didn’t. He was a natural teacher with a robust sense of humor and, over the years of their association, they had bonded closely as professionals and friends, sharing with each other intimacies of their work and families. From the outset, she’d known he was intellectually brilliant and enviably creative, though at times a bit unworldly— connected, as she had roasted him on the occasion of his 15th year at Ohav Shalom, to the earth by little more than gravity and his Italian shoes. She liked to think of Seth as a Luftmench, a man whose spirit soared in the clouds, never wanting, or even needing, to roost on solid earth. Then, one horrible day in her seventh year, she learned he’d committed an unpardonable breach of professional ethics with another woman.

  Had the archangel Gabriel, whose name she carried, fallen from heaven, it would have been easier on her than Seth’s infidelity. His resignation from the pulpit and departure from Washington left her as acting senior rabbi. It was, she quickly learned, a responsibility that would have taxed even the most experienced rabbi — especially after what many members deemed Seth Greer’s betrayal. At the same time, the challenges stirred her ambition to succeed her mentor. The trustees resisted, arguing that in the wake of its unhappy experience with Rabbi Greer, Ohav Shalom needed strong male lea
dership to redeem its honor. But after an extensive search, in which qualified candidates were brought to Washington for interviews and auditions, the Board of Directors, the majority of whom were women, appointed Gabby to Seth Greer's post.

  Her first leadership challenge had occurred when Noah Zentner, son of one of Ohav Shalom’s major financial benefactors, was indicted by the State of Maryland for raping a famous TV commentator. In the months preceding the trial, Gabby came to believe Noah was innocent and agreed to be a character witness in his trial. Her testimony failed to win an acquittal, yet helped reduce his sentence to a nominal fine and sixty days at the Eastern Correctional Institute, a low-security detention farm in Westover, Maryland. What made the episode particularly difficult was that, after he was indicted, Noah had separated from his wife. This opened the door to a friendship that Gabby had hoped would develop into something more serious. But when he completed his sentence, Noah’s estranged wife, Morgan, was waiting to bring him home. Gabby had been mortified by the fantasy she’d encouraged in herself.

  Her memories of that time surfaced unexpectedly during Bart’s funeral. After reading the Psalms and delivering the eulogy, Gabby signaled to the director of the funeral home that it was time to transport Bart’s remains to the cemetery for final interment. He, in turn, invited pallbearers to approach the casket. As they approached, Gabby scanned the mourners. When she returned her gaze to the coffin, she was shocked to see Noah Zentner among the pallbearers. She had not seen him since his trial seventeen months before.

  Noah wore a dark suit with his signature starched white shirt and solid blue silk necktie. His sideburns were now dusted with gray and he wore distinguished-looking designer glasses, but was otherwise unchanged. While she had difficulty taking her eyes from him, his gaze remained on the coffin. Old feelings suddenly surfaced. Time had eased her embarrassment and dissolved the fantasy; she realized that she had missed his friendship.

  After the Kaddish prayer for the dead beside Bart’s grave, Gabby hugged Florence and kissed Harvey, carefully avoiding the clichés people reserve for such occasions. Not one syllable, she felt, would mollify their loss; time alone would bring healing. Winter bleakness, accentuated by the black dress of the mourners, added to her melancholy. Dampness chilled her and her fingers, in thin leather gloves, ached from the cold.

  In the final moments before the grave, she’d been unaware of Noah’s presence a few feet behind her, but when she turned away, he was in her path. This time his eyes were upon her and a gentle smile touched his lips. His father, Jonathan, founder of the successful Pyramid Development, Inc., stood beside him. He wore a tailored gray overcoat with a black leather collar and a Russian style lamb’s wool hat, and looked older in the afternoon sunlight. Caught off guard, Gabby managed no more than a brief nod of recognition before she moved away from them. Her attention had been captured by four of Bart’s childhood friends, three young men and a girl, who spontaneously seizing shovels left behind by the gravediggers, began to fulfill the commandment of burying the dead. They worked with apparent devotion, strenuously moving a huge pile of dirt into the open grave.

  Noah’s voice caught up to her. “Florence and my father are related,” he said. “But I’ve never understood the family tree.”

  “You’re looking trim, Noah.” She quickly wiped her eyes with her sleeve and turned to acknowledge his presence. “You must be jogging a lot.”

  “I am. And I hear you’ve become a champion tennis player. Rumor has it you might quit Ohav Shalom and turn pro. It isn’t true, is it?”

  There was no awkwardness in their meeting and she could say with composure, “No, absolutely not. Even if I had the inclination, which I don’t, I’m not that good. Besides, at my age, how many years would I have? Women champions are finished by twenty-eight. And I'm way past that.”

  He matched her steps along the gravel path. His father lagged behind to give them private space.

  “From time to time, I read about Pyramid Development in the papers. Your father’s doing well, I see.” Gabby turned to look back at Jonathan who was making slow progress along the path.

  “According to his doctors,” Noah said. “But if you ask him, he’ll claim the only thing keeping him alive is the birth of his grandchild. He’s very excited about becoming a grandfather. You know, of course, that Morgan is pregnant?”

  Gabby’s feet involuntarily stopped moving. The only response she could manufacture was a platitude. “Mazel Tov. No, I didn’t know, Noah. When is the baby due?”

  “We assumed Dov Shellenberg would tell you. Morgan spoke with him almost a month ago about a bris because she’s had an amniocentesis. She’s due near the end of this month.”

  For a moment her anger at Dov Shellenberg threatened to overwhelm her gladness for Noah and Morgan. She knew exactly why he had withheld this information from her and why, without consulting her, he had agreed to officiate at the bris. No wealthy or influential family at Ohav Shalom was ever without his services. He wooed and charmed each in turn. The less affluent and less influential he ignored.

  “I hope you’ll come to our simcha, Gabby,” Noah said as they reached the cars and limousines parked along the roadway.

  “But Rabbi Shellenberg is officiating, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, I guess so. I leave such matters to Morgan. But now that we’ve made contact again, I don’t know why you shouldn’t do the honors.”

  ”That is something you should discuss with Morgan,” she said gently, suspecting that Noah’s wife had been more aware of the situation than he had been.

  “It would make me very happy to have you celebrate with us,” he said. “Had it not been for you, I might still be behind bars, rotting away in jail. I hold you responsible for this joy.”

  “Thank you for the invitation,” she said. She left its acceptance in doubt; that she would consider later.

  A pair of mourners cornered Gabby in front of her desert-colored Jeep, to ask a question about sitting shiva for the deceased, and effectively ended her conversation with Noah. She tried to concentrate on the question while still absorbing the news that he would soon be a father. A new life would begin as they mourned one ended too soon.

  CHAPTER TWO

  NEW YEAR’S EVE

  Her early return from Martinique had left Gabby without plans for New Year’s Eve. This was unfortunate since she was sentimental about birthdays, anniversaries, and other events that marked the passage of time — particularly when she felt sad. While desirable, an old-fashioned date for New Year’s was unlikely, as almost everybody already had plans. She considered inviting herself to a party of friends who would have been delighted to include her. But finding herself seated at a table next to an unmarried man, whom she knew would have been invited at the last minute to fill the breach, was not something she wanted to face. Jews, she liked to point out, were habitual matchmakers. The habit got worse as they grew older.

  Bart’s murder inclined her to attend a New Year’s Eve gala sponsored by the National Coalition for Gun Control. Twice she had been invited to sit on the Coalition’s board of directors and twice she’d declined. It was time to reconsider. After keeping her options open for two more days, she instructed Chuck Browner to accept the invitation. Never one to be shy about voicing an opinion, he worried about her driving alone to Washington Harbor where Georgetown University students made a habit of welcoming the New Year in an alcoholic stupor. He also pointed out that there was something incongruous about a professional woman of Gabby’s standing showing up at a black-tie affair without a companion. Finally, he volunteered to escort her himself.

  “Thanks, Chuck, but Dov and Sheila are also going. I’m sure they’ll chaperone me.”

  The mention of Dov Shellenberg caused Chuck’s eyebrows to rise like a dog’s ears when a competitor invades his territory. She expected a derogatory remark but he simply offered to be available if things didn’t work out.

  As a Big Sister trying to provide a positive role model for und
erprivileged high school girls, Gabby had been astounded to learn how many carried handguns for protection. It had been even more alarming to confront high school boys who not only carried heavier firearms, but also frequently fired them in eruptions of adolescent rage. When a congregant was killed in a holdup outside the Shakespeare Theatre, she had concluded that legislation to prevent access to deadly firearms was absolutely essential. The National Coalition for Gun Control seemed like a good place to start learning what government could do.

  New Year’s Eve was bitter cold. Gabby, Dov, and Sheila Shellenberg arrived a fashionable twenty minutes after 9:00 p.m. The Washington Harbor was a complex of modern office, residential, and retail buildings that hugged the shoreline of the Potomac River as it snaked between colonial Georgetown and Rosslyn, Virginia. Fashionable restaurants and shops flanked a network of sculpted water fountains on one side and a wooden boardwalk fronted the river on the other. A ten-mile-an-hour wind, whipping south along the Potomac sent daggers of chilled air through the crevices of Gabby’s wool overcoat, nipping at her neck and arms. She and the Shellenbergs had expected to enter the Sequoia Restaurant immediately, but were met on the open plaza by a phalanx of police squad cars with rotating yellow and red emergency lights. Hundreds of bewildered residents, patrons, and employees had streamed from apartments and restaurants. While most guests wore furs and topcoats, a few men were hunched into their tuxedo jackets. The milling crowd blocked three fire trucks, slowly converging with high-pitched sirens, and an ambulance whose horn barked in brief bleeps. Nearby, a police officer opened the rear door of a blue and white van to release two Irish setters.

  “Explosive sniffing dogs,” Gabby heard a shivering woman say.

  “Why? What’s happened?” Dov asked with the need-to-know authority he knew how to assume.