The Day the Rabbi Resigned

by Harry Kemelman

  The difference in age and background between Margaret Joyce and Helen Rosen was too great for a normal friendship to develop, but they saw a great deal of each other nevertheless. Both were busy in the afternoon, Mrs. Rosen at the hospital and Margaret at the library, but frequently they would meet for a mid-morning coffee, and sometimes they would go shopping together.

  For Margaret it was a valuable relationship. For the first time she could talk freely to an older woman in a way that she had never been able to talk to her aunt or to the nuns at school. Helen Rosen was a good listener, but she was troubled by the younger woman’s confidences. She discussed it with her husband.

  The occasion was a Sunday afternoon, quite early in their acquaintance. Margaret had come over for coffee, Victor having gone off to Breverton to play golf. When they heard Victor’s car come into the driveway, Margaret had said, “I’d better get back. He wants me there when he gets home.”

  “She doesn’t sound very enthusiastic about seeing her husband,” Herb Rosen remarked as the door closed behind her.

  “Oh, Herb, I’m afraid she’s not very happy. I don’t think that marriage is going to last.”

  “It’ll last all right. They’re both good Catholics, and they don’t believe in divorce, or allow it for that matter. What’s eating her anyway?”

  “She’s terribly worried about getting pregnant. She’s underweight and a little anemic, and the doctor advised her to wait a while before having a child. He said there was a high incidence of birth defects if the mother is anemic.”

  “Well, her husband knows, doesn’t he? Or has she kept it from him?”

  “Oh, he knows all right. It’s just that she doesn’t feel that he’s careful enough, especially when he’s had a drink or two. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what you won’t do. You won’t try to give her any advice. And if she asks you, you’ll tell her you have no expertise in these matters, so you can’t presume to advise her. Understood?”

  But a few weeks later she reported in great excitement, “Herb, she’s getting a divorce.”

  “Who is? Who are you talking about?”

  “Peg Joyce. She’s divorcing Victor.”

  “But how can she? Their church doesn’t allow it.”

  “A civil divorce, and a Church-sanctioned separation,”

  He shrugged. “If the church marriage didn’t work, what makes you think a church separation will work any better?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think they’ve quarreled, as young couples almost invariably do. After all, there is quite an adjustment involved in a marriage. But they’ll make up, and then settle down to the humdrum of married life. He’s no youngster. He’s a mature man of thirty or thirty-five. He wouldn’t have married her if he hadn’t wanted her. And from what you’ve told me, her complaint is that he wants her badly. He’s not going to get over that because they’ve had a little tiff.”

  But the fact of the matter was that Victor no longer wanted her, because he had met Alice Saxon.

  13

  Associate Professor Alice Saxon, a tenured member of the Department of Psychology at Windermere, was tall and slim, with dark eyes, a thin, almost aquiline nose, and a pointed chin. Her dark brown hair was cut short and brushed back so that her earlobes with the gold button earrings she usually wore showed. She was thirty-five, and in the square-shouldered, conservative charcoal-gray pinstripe suits she affected, she looked like an MBA who had worked her way up to a vice-presidency in a stock brokerage firm.

  Victor had seen her, of course—in the corridors, in the faculty lounge, in the cafeteria—but had never actually spoken to her. He thought she might be Jewish, if only because she appeared to be friendly with his colleague in the English Department and rival for tenure, Mordecai Jacobs.

  It was at a Friday afternoon faculty meeting that he finally got to know her. She had come in a little late and taken the seat beside him because, he assumed, it was the one vacant seat in the last row nearest the door. She wrote in her notebook and slid it toward him. He glanced down, and saw that she had written, Victor Joyce? He nodded, and then with a lift of the chin indicated that she should slide the notebook to him, and when she did, he wrote, Alice Saxon? She nodded and smiled.

  The main purpose of the meeting was to choose the locale for the faculty dinner at the end of the academic year. The chairman of the committee was reporting at length on the various restaurants and hotels that had been considered, and explaining the reasons the committee had turned them down, each in turn.

  “How about the Turner House?”

  “We used that three years ago. Those of you who were there will remember that the portions served were skimpy. The committee got considerable flack about it.”

  “We had a good meal at the Central last year.”

  “Yes, we did, and we thought of going back there, but their Saturday schedule was full.”

  The committee had narrowed the choice down to the Madison Hotel in Lexington, the College Inn in Wellesley, and the country club in Breverton.

  “Why can’t we have it someplace in town?”

  “Because we can get much better value for our money outside the city.”

  “Yeah, but those places are a good thirty miles away.”

  “So what? You can drive to any one of them in thirty or forty minutes. If you come into the city by public transport, it will take you at least that, what with waiting for buses and streetcars and changing, and—”

  “But I can drive in from my house in twenty minutes.”

  “And how long will it take you to find a place to park, and on a Saturday night, at that? And then how long will it take you to walk to the restaurant after you park?”

  Miss Saxon opened her notebook and scribbled. She then pushed it toward Joyce. He read, Do you find this as dull as I do?

  He wrote, Uh-huh.

  She favored him with a smile.

  A little later she wrote, I could use a drink.

  He wrote back, Me, too.

  “Shall we go?” she whispered.

  “Let’s wait until the vote,” he whispered back.

  “In heaven’s name, why?”

  “I’d like to vote for the country club. I know it. I played golf a couple of times there. It’s a nice place.”

  “All right. I’ll vote for it, too.”

  A few minutes later the matter was put to a vote and, to be sure, the Breverton Country Club was chosen. There was other business to transact, but after a questioning glance from her and a nod from him, she got up, and a minute later he, too, rose and left as unobtrusively as possible.

  Although she claimed to be “absolutely perishing” for a drink, she had him drive almost out of the city before she found the cocktail bar she approved of.

  “What’s so special about this place?” he asked when they were seated in a booth in which a tufted leather bench curved around a small oblong table. It was dark, except for the bar at the other end of the room.

  “I like the decor,” she said.

  “It’s too dark to see the decor.”

  “Right,” she said. “It’s what you can’t see—or hear, for that matter—that makes this place so nice. You won’t see or hear any academic types here. No students, no professors. We’re away from any school—not easy in Boston—and we’re away from anywhere that students or professors are apt to live, so they’re not likely to drop in for a quick one. It’s where I come when I have been subjected to a faculty meeting or a departmental meeting of more than usual idiocy. Can you imagine any business enterprise that would tolerate the interminable discussion by the entire staff of a place to hold a dinner?”

  “Yeah, I suppose academics do like to talk,” he admitted.

  “I’d like to do a paper on it someday,” she said, “but of course I wouldn’t be able to publish it, not in a journal which my colleagues would see. Perhaps, when I leave teaching, if I ever do, I could work it up in a book for the gen
eral reader. What Makes Academics or The Academic Mind or—”

  “How about Alice in Academia,” he suggested.

  “Splendid!” she exclaimed, and she clutched his hand in her enthusiasm.

  He moved closer to her so that their thighs were touching under the table. She did not pull away, although she released his hand. They had a couple more drinks and then decided they were hungry.

  “We could get some sandwiches here,” he suggested.

  “No, I’m really hungry. Let’s go to a restaurant.”

  “All right.”

  The air was crisp when they found themselves on the street. As they headed for the car, she clutched his arm as though she was afraid of falling. He could feel her breast pressing against his upper arm. When they reached the parking lot where they had left the car, and he fumbled with his keys, she said, “Maybe it would be better if we walked for a while.”

  “I can drive all right,” he said.

  “Yes, but it’s so nice out. I know a place only a couple of blocks from here. We could walk there and then afterward come back for the car.”

  And because he had been affected by the drinks and the coolness of the evening after, he readily agreed. It was an Italian restaurant brightly lit with checkered tablecloths. The food was good and they ate ravenously. All they had to drink, however, was a small bottle of Chianti between them. While the food was good, the service was slow. Seemingly, there were only two waitresses, and these middle-aged and matronly. So they ate leisurely and it was quite late when they found themselves once again on the street. They walked back slowly to the parking lot; and this time she felt he was sober enough to drive without danger or mishap.

  When they reached her apartment house on Beacon Street, he said, “It’s been quite a day.”

  “Come up for a nightcap,” she invited.

  “All right, but just one. I’ve got a long drive home.”

  They climbed the stairs to her apartment on the third floor of the converted brownstone, their arms around each other’s waists. When his hand slid down from her waist to her buttock, she giggled.

  He stayed the night.

  He woke up late the next morning and found that she had already arisen and was busy in the kitchen. When she heard him go to the bathroom, she called out, “I’ve fixed us some breakfast—brunch really. There’s an old robe of mine at the foot of the bed that you can wear.”

  He came into the kitchen, the robe ridiculously short, belted around him, to find that she had made French toast, bacon, and sausages. “Is it all right?” she asked. “Or would you rather have cereal or eggs perhaps?”

  “No, this is fine. In fact, it’s wonderful. And where did you get the paper? Surely, you didn’t go out for it.”

  “No, the newsboy leaves it outside the door.”

  They ate in the kitchen, which was just large enough to accommodate a small table. Then they took their second and third cup of coffee into the living room and sipped as they read the paper. Around noon he suggested they get dressed and take a walk along the Esplanade or in the Public Gardens. The weather appeared to be balmy, and she agreed. It occurred to him that this was the sort of woman he should have married, handsome and mature.

  “You wouldn’t have a razor, would you?” he asked.

  She produced the little razor she used for her underarms. “Will this do?”

  He looked at it doubtfully and said, “It will have to, I suppose.” He managed somehow, and then showered afterward. When he came out of the bathroom, he said, “Remind me, when we go out, to buy a razor, and oh yeah, some shaving cream.”

  “What for?”

  “So I can get a decent shave tomorrow morning.”

  “You won’t be here tomorrow. Don’t you have to go to church?”

  “Sure, but there are a dozen places not far from here.”

  “Aren’t you engaged for Sunday dinner at the Mertons?”

  He was obviously startled. “What do you know about that?”

  “Oh, I know all about you. You’re married to Cyrus Merton’s daughter.”

  “His niece.”

  “Same thing since he has no children of his own. And your marriage is a complete washout. You don’t talk to each other, and she’s just waiting until you get tenure before she files suit for a civil divorce and a Church-approved separation.”

  “How—how—”

  “How do I know all this? Because Helen Rosen, your next door neighbor is a very good friend of mine. We were at school together, and we still keep in touch. Your wife confides in her, and your situation is what first attracted me to you, or rather what led me to approach you. I was attracted earlier.”

  “How do you mean? I—I don’t understand.”

  “I mean that there was no danger of our getting involved to the point of your trying to marry me.”

  “Don’t you approve of marriage?”

  “It’s an old-fashioned institution that no longer fits modern conditions. It was all right when the outcome was children and women couldn’t earn a living on their own. But I don’t want children and I don’t intend to have any. And I have a job which enables me to live comfortably. I want a lover rather than a husband, and a relationship rather than a marriage.”

  “But—”

  “I’ve been married, and I’d rather not repeat the experience.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s too confining. Two people who are always together, with each having a claim on the other, can’t help getting on each other’s nerves. When you get tenure—and you’re practically sure to get it with Merton pushing for you—and your wife gets her divorce and separation, don’t think you’ll be moving in with me. I’ll let you keep some of your clothes here, but I’ll expect you to have a place of your own where you can go or where I can shoo you to when I find you irksome.”

  “You mean even if I were free to marry, you wouldn’t?”

  She shook her head. “Even if she managed somehow to get an annulment. I understand you can these days even if you have cohabited. I wouldn’t marry you because I’d have to leave my job, or you’d have to leave yours, since they don’t allow both husband and wife to serve on the faculty.”

  “And your job means that much to you?”

  “It certainly does. It’s the perfect job. The college is another institution that has changed. It used to be for the students, but now it’s for the faculty. We get a reasonable salary in exchange for very little work. In fact, we can do just as much or as little as we please, and if you’re on tenure, it’s almost impossible to fire you. No, I wouldn’t think of giving up my job here.”

  He looked at her admiringly. “You’re—you’re something else. All right, I’ll go home, but no need until sometime this evening. When will I see you again?”

  She smiled and patted his cheek as she might fondle a puppy. “Maybe Monday if we feel like it,” she said.

  14

  In the year following her graduation from Boston University, Clara Lerner had held four jobs, not difficult in Massachusetts, where the unemployment rate at the time was among the lowest in the country. Her father and mother, both of whom were attorneys practicing in nearby Lynn, had wanted her to go on to law school after graduation, but she had refused. “I’m tired of studying. I’d like to read a book just because I want to and not because I have to,” she had said.

  The first three jobs had been relatively local, that is, within a fifteen-minute drive from her home in the Charleton section of Barnard’s Crossing. The first job, clerk/typist/receptionist in an art gallery, she had left after a month because it had changed ownership and she didn’t like her new boss. “He’s a pig. He scratches himself all the time and he picks his nose.” Her next job carried the title of Office Manager. It was a boat company, which bought, sold, and leased boats, and whose offices were right on the harbor. Her work, however, consisted of typing, filing, and occasionally greeting customers, offering them coffee, and telling them that “Mr. Williams
will be with you shortly.” For long periods of time, however, when Mr. Williams went out to look at a boat, or to have a drink with a potential customer, she was alone with no one to talk to, and nothing to do but stare out of the window at the harbor below. “I got sick of just looking at the ocean,” she explained.

  Then she got a job as a receptionist in a doctor’s office, which offered the advantage of being in the Charleton section and hence within walking distance of her house. Unfortunately, it was its only advantage, and after a few months she quit, this time to take a job in Boston. When her folks asked her about it, she replied noncommittally, “It’s all right.” But after a week she called to say she would be working late and would have dinner in town. The following week she told them she was considering living in the city if she could find a congenial roommate to share the expense of an apartment. However, while she continued to live at home, she nevertheless found it necessary to stay in town late several nights a week.

  “I hope they’re paying you for all this overtime,” her father commented.

  But it was her mother who guessed the truth. “You’re seeing someone in town, aren’t you?”

  “Well … I have been having dinner several nights a week with someone.”

  “Someone from your office?” asked her mother.

  “Then you haven’t been working overtime,” said her father.

  “No, I haven’t, and no, he isn’t.”

  “You mean this guy has been taking you out to dinner every night—”

  “It hasn’t been every night. Only three times last week. And he hasn’t been taking me. We go Dutch.”

  Her father was aghast. “You go Dutch. You mean—”

  “He doesn’t earn very much, and rather than have him take me out once a week, I’d rather we went Dutch so we could see each other more often.”

  “That sounds serious,” her mother remarked. “Are you serious about him?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “And is he serious about you?”

  “I—I think so. Yes, I’m sure of it.”

  “What does he do?”

  “What’s he look like?”