Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home

by Harry Kemelman

  “I haven’t got a mirror,” said Bill savagely. “Put the lens of the flash to his mouth.”

  Stu offered the flashlight, but Bill said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  They started to walk out and then broke into a run. They clattered down the steps and then raced to the car. Stu pulled the car door open while Bill ran around the front to the other side.

  “Where’s Moose?” asked Didi as she moved over to let Stu get behind the wheel.

  “Never mind.” He turned on the ignition, but before he could shift to DRIVE a car zoomed toward them, veered over, and came to a stop immediately in front, its headlights on high beam shining in their eyes. Stu’s door was pulled open by a policeman with a gun in his hand. “Hold it,” he commanded. “Now come out, all of you.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY

  Harvey Kanter, Ben Gorfinkle’s brother-in-law, was ten years his senior. Although in private he was radical, atheistic, and irreverent, in public, as the managing editor of the Lynn Times-Herald, he was Republican, conservative, and a staunch defender of the status quo. He wrote editorials supporting book censorship, prayers in the schools, law and order in the cities, and attacked student rioting, the coddling of criminals, and the hippie movement. He was a tall, rangy man, with a shock of iron-gray hair brushed back impatiently. Everything about him was impatient. He was nervous, fidgety; he could not sit still; he either got up and paced the floor, or if he remained seated, he would slide forward to rest on the end of his spine or pull a leg under him or slouch around if the chair permitted it so that his head was on one arm and his legs on the other.

  His attitude toward Gorfinkle tended to be mocking and derisive, and his wife, Edith, was also apt to be somewhat patronizing to her younger sister, Mrs. Gorfinkle. Nevertheless, the Gorfinkles came to dinner when they were invited, partly as a matter of habit and partly because in a perverse kind of way Ben Gorfinkle enjoyed the discussions.

  After dinner the two men lounged into the living room while the women cleared the table and proceeded to wash the dishes. Kanter bit off the end of a cigar, and as he held a match to the end he said, “I heard your rabbi the other day. Did I tell you?”

  “No,” said Gorfinkle cautiously. “When was that?”

  “About a week ago. He was the speaker at the Chamber of Commerce meeting, save the mark.”

  “I didn’t think you went to those.”

  “Hell, the paper has to be represented, and I drew the short straw. Your man wasn’t bad.”

  “What did he talk about?”

  “Oh, the usual–the place of the temple in the modern world. Seems to me I’ve heard a dozen priests and ministers and such godly folk at one affair or another in the last six months, and all they talk about is the place of the church, or in this case the synagogue, in the modern world. I figure if they talk about it so much, it’s because it ain’t so, but your guy seemed to make some sense.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Oh, the point of his talk, as I remember it, was that the modern civilized world was finally coming around to the positions that the synagogue had been preaching for a couple of thousand years or more–social justice, civil rights, rights of women, importance of learning. His idea was that finally, after nearly two thousand years, the Jewish religion was coming into style.”

  “That’s very interesting,” said Gorfinkle. “I had a long talk with him–just before I came here, as a matter of fact. And it was about somewhat the same subject, but he took what I thought was the opposite point of view in his discussion with me. I guess there are some people who can take either side of the discussion, depending on how it suits them,” he added.

  “He didn’t strike me as that type of man,” said Kanter quietly. “What happened?”

  “Well, you know, as in any organization, we have two parties–mine and what you might call the opposition, which is headed by Meyer Paff. You know him.”

  “Yeah, I know him.”

  “Well, we want the temple to get active in various movements that are current–like civil rights, for one. Paff’s bunch want to keep it a place where–you know–you just come to pray on the High Holidays or on Friday nights. And I found out that the rabbi was carrying on some pretty active propaganda for the Paff group. So I had it out with him.”

  “And how did it end?”

  “I told him in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t going to stand for it and that the group that I represented–and we’re a clear majority–weren’t going to stand for it.” He leaned forward in his chair. “You see, what he was doing was talking to the kids–telling them that we were in the wrong. He’s kind of popular with the kids, and he was planning to use them to influence their parents.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “Oh, he got on his high horse and said no one was going to tell him what to say, that he was the rabbi and he would decide what was proper for him to say and what wasn’t.”

  “So?”

  Gorfinkle was pleasantly conscious that he had captured his brother-in-law’s interest and that, for once, what he was about to say would startle him out of his customary superciliousness. He smiled. “So I told him that I’d had a meeting with a majority of the board prior to our little talk and that we had decided that if he refused to go along, at the next meeting a motion would be offered–and passed–calling for his resignation.”

  “You fired him?”

  He pursed his lips and canted his head to one side. “Just about.”

  “Nothing personal, of course.”

  “I flatter myself that I handled it pretty well,” said Gorfinkle with a smirk.

  Kanter got up from his chair and strode across the room. He turned and glared down his long nose at his brother-in-law. “By God, you nice respectable people can blunder into a situation and foul it up to make the angels weep. You get elected president, and before you have a chance to warm your arse on the chair you start firing people.”

  “An organization can’t go in two directions at the same time,” Gorfinkle protested. “If we’re going to make any progress–”

  “Progress? Why the hell do you have to make progress? Do you think everything has a balance sheet that has to be matched against the balance of the previous year to show you’re going ahead? What the hell kind of progress does an institution that has lasted a couple of thousand years have to make?”

  “If it’s to be a living institution–”

  “It’s got to hop aboard the bandwagon, is that it? Civil rights, slum clearance, job opportunites–they’re all in style now and respectable, so all the bleeding-heart liberals and social democrats try to get in on the act. Faugh! You guys make me sick. When did you get to be so goddam liberal? How many blacks have you hired at Hexatronics?”

  “I don’t do the hiring.”

  “But of course you picket the office of the one who does.”

  “I don’t notice any great liberalism in the policy of the Times-Herald,” said Gorfinkle drily, “and you run that.”

  “I run it for the owners. And I run it their way. Oh, I’m a prostitute, all right,” he added cheerfully. “Most newspaper men have to be. But I don’t fool myself. A prostitute yes, but no hypocrite.”

  “Well, I have reason to believe that Rabbi Small is, which had something to do with my decision,” said Gorfinkle smugly.

  “Doesn’t wrap his phylacteries properly? Wears his prayer shawl inside out?”

  “I had no idea you were so concerned about rabbis and things religious,” said Gorfinkle.

  “I’m not, and I hardly know your rabbi. I just don’t like to see people hurt.” He studied his brother-in-law for a moment. “And the effect on the congregation? Have you thought about that?”

  Gorfinkle shrugged. “He really has no following, except maybe among the kids, and they don’t count. As a matter of fact, it was the congregation I was thinking of when I had this talk with him. Fact is,” he lowered his voice, “I was trying to prevent a serious
split in the congregation. You see, there is this handful of dissidents–the old guard who are opposed to every aspect of our program. Well, they’ll either knuckle under or they’ll get out. If they leave, it doesn’t bother us too much; they’re just a couple of three dozen of them. But if we let the rabbi continue, he might stir up enough opposition so that we could lose a hundred or more. That would be serious.”

  “So the strategy is to silence the opposition?”

  “What’s wrong with that? Why should we furnish the opposition with a rostrum?”

  “Because it’s democratic. The government does it.”

  They argued long and frequently loudly; and when, quite late, the Gorfinkles finally prepared to depart, neither man had convinced the other. They said their goodbyes with formal politeness no different from the way any number of their discussions had ended in the past.

  Five minutes after they had left, the phone rang and Harvey Kanter answered.

  “Barnard’s Crossing Police Department, Sergeant Hanks speaking. May I speak to Mr. Benjamin Gorfinkle?”

  “He’s just left.”

  “Is he on his way home, sir?”

  “Sure, I guess so. What’s this all about?”

  “We’ll get in touch with him there.”

  “Just a minute. I’m his brother-in-law, Harvey Kanter of the Times-Herald. Was there an accident? Was his place broken into?”

  “No, Mr. Kanter, nothing like that.” And the sergeant hung up, leaving Kanter wondering uneasily what he should do.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-ONE

  Sergeant Herder of the Boston Police Department was a man of infinite patience, and he found himself forced to use every bit of it as he dealt with the slattern before him. “Now, look, Madelaine, let’s see if we can get a little cooperation. Remember what I told you: That man knows you saw him leave the Wilcox place, and he might get worried about it and try to do something drastic. Do you understand?”

  The woman, her eyes fixed on him as though hypnotized, nodded her head rapidly.

  “What do you understand?”

  “He might try to do someting.”

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Sergeant Herder got up and walked rapidly to the end of the room. He stood there for a moment, gazing at the wall. Then he came back slowly. “He might try to kill you, Madelaine, the way he did Wilcox. That’s what he might try to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, sir, what?”

  “He might try to kill me.”

  “Fine. Just remember that. Just keep that in mind. So we’ve got to get him before he has the chance. And to get him, we have to know what he looks like. See?”

  “I know what he looks like.”

  “I know you do, but we don’t unless you tell us. Now what size man was he? Was he a big man or small?”

  “Sort of middling.”

  “What color hair did he have?”

  “He had his hat on.”

  “All right, what color hat was it?”

  “Just a man’s hat.”

  “Just a hat. Fine. Now Officer Donovan here is an artist, Madelaine. He draws pictures.”

  “I know what an artist is,” she said with dignity.

  “Sure you do. Now we’re getting somewhere. Officer Donovan is going to show you some outlines of faces, and I want you to tell him which one looks most like the man’s, the man we’re talking about, the man you saw. Understand?”

  She nodded.

  “Show her one with a hat, Donovan.”

  She looked at the outline. “The hat was squashier,” she said.

  “How about the outline of the face?”

  “Yeah, that could be it.”

  “Fine. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “Just a minute,” said Donovan. He sketched rapidly and presented another outline to her, quite different from the first. “How about this one?”

  “Yeah, that could be it.”

  “Maybe you ought to try her on the mug shots again,” suggested Donovan.

  Herder shook his head in total frustation.

  “I’m sure she’d know him if she saw him. She just can’t describe him.”

  “By now, I’m not sure she even saw him.”

  “It was the same way with the other one, the football player, but she picked his picture out of the bunch we handed her.”

  “Yeah,” He turned back to the woman. “Now, Madelaine, I’m going to show you a bunch of pictures and you tell me if you see him. All right?”

  “Sure, Sergeant, anything you say.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-TWO

  When the telephone rang, Mrs. Carter was sure it was Moose. But there was a strange voice at the other end.

  “Mr. Carter, please,” it said.

  “Mr. Carter isn’t in just now,” she replied. “Can I take a message?”

  “This is the Barnard’s Crossing Police Department calling. Can you tell me where we can reach Mr. Carter? When do you expect him?”

  “He went out right after supper,” she said. “Just a minute, I hear a car driving in. Maybe that’s him now. Hold the line a minute.”

  She heard the door open and she called out, “Is that you, Raphael? You’re wanted on the telephone.”

  He picked up the receiver. “Carter speaking,” he said.

  “This is the Barnard’s Crossing Police Department. Lieutenant Jennings. Will you please wait for our Sergeant Hanks. He’ll be right over.”

  “Police Department? What’s this all about?”

  “Sergeant Hanks will explain,” said the voice at the other end, followed by a click as Lieutenant Jennings hung up.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-THREE

  Damn funny, all your folks should be out for the evening,” said Chief Lanigan. “What time are they expected back?”

  Stu shrugged.

  Didi said, “All I know is I found a note on the kitchen table saying they were going to a movie. They didn’t say which one, but I know it wasn’t the Seaside in Barnard’s Crossing because they already saw that one. And then they might go on someplace for coffee.”

  “Well, I’ll just have the sergeant keep calling every fifteen minutes or so until we get them. You kids wait right here and don’t try anything funny.”

  And he left them sitting in his office, the two boys on a bench by the wall, Didi in an armchair near the window. She looked forlorn and puffy-eyed. The shock of hearing of the death of a boy she had seen only a few hours before, followed by her arrest, had unnerved her completely. She had control of her emotions now, however, and stared moodily out the window at the little grass plot in front of the station house.

  Stu edged closer to Bill Jacobs and whispered, “You know, I don’t think they’re going to let us go without our folks coming down. Maybe I ought to tell them that they’re at my Aunt Edith’s, and that he can reach them there.”

  “You already told them you didn’t know,” Bill whispered back.

  “No, I didn’t. He asked us if we knew what time they are coming back, but he didn’t ask us where they were.”

  “I think we should sit tight. Maybe when he calls and finds our folks are out, he’ll let us go.”

  Stu sat back unhappy, his fingers drumming nervously on the arm of the bench. He edged forward again. “You know what, Bill? I think we ought to tell them about Moose–I mean, about how we found him.”

  “Sure, why not? You’re in the clear,” said Bill bitterly. “It doesn’t matter to you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, you weren’t in the house at all during the storm. And he was dead already when you showed up. But where does that leave me and Didi?”

  “But they’re going to find out sooner or later.”

  “How are they going to find out? From what I overheard the cops talking, they think he just died from an overdose of alcohol.”

  “Yeah, but that’s just the cops. Once a
doctor examines the body, he’ll know he didn’t die that way. He’ll be able to tell whether a guy died of alcohol or from suffocation.”

  “I don’t mean we shouldn’t tell them,” Bill temporized, “but I don’t think we have to tell them anything without a lawyer. And they can’t count it against us,” he said with an assurance he did not feel. “That’s the law.”

  “Maybe you’re right. I wish my old man were here,” said Stu unhappily. “He’d raise hell with me for getting involved, but he’d know what to do. He’d see that the cops treated us fair. Say, who do you think could have done it?”

  Bill shook his head. “I left the door unlatched. Anybody could have come in.”

  “Hey, how about this Alan Jenkins? You all said Moose was leaning on him from the minute he laid eyes on him. These days they don’t take that lying down.”

  “And he left Didi’s house in plenty of time to swing back there.”

  “I know.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-FOUR

  What did you expect him to say, David? Mr. Wasserman is an old man; he’s practical. I know how you feel, but sometimes you have to compromise. You yourself have said that parnossah is necessary for a good life, that you can’t have a good life unless you’re making a living.” She had fussed over him like a mother hen, bringing him his slippers and pouring him a cup of hot tea liberally laced with whisky and lemon. “Drink it; it will ward off a cold.”

  “Making a living is a necessity,” he said through her ministrations. “Making a good living is a luxury. I don’t need luxury for a good life. I don’t reject it, of course; I am not ascetic. But I don’t need it.”

  “But wherever you go, except in small towns like Barnard’s Crossing, there will be more than one temple. And that will mean competition.”

  He shook his head wearily. “You don’t understand, Miriam. In the nature of things the rabbi is paid by a temple or synagogue because here in America it’s the most practical way of compensating him for his work. But he is not the employee of the temple, just as a judge is compensated by the state but is still completely free to rule against it in an action. And if his courthouse burns down, it doesn’t mean that he loses all function and responsibility and purpose. But here, if the temple should split, we would have an ugly situation. The rabbis of the two institutions would become bargaining points in the two compaigns for membership. And I want no part of it.”