Ish-Kosher stared at his visitor. Then he regrouped his forces, as it were, and said stiffly, “I did not bring you here for theological discussions—”
“I have been wondering why you did ask me to come.”
“Memavet made an appointment with your friend Stedman for later Saturday evening. I want to know if he kept it.”
“I didn’t see Mr. Stedman later, but I remember his telling his son he had no intention of keeping the appointment. He did not want to appear overeager. Is that all?”
“That is all. Good day to you.”
“My passport. You have it on your desk.”
“Oh, yes. Here it is.” Ish-Kosher handed the booklet to the rabbi and remained standing for some little while after the rabbi had left, his fingers drumming a light tattoo on the desktop.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
The rabbi had not overlooked the fact that somehow the police had learned of his presence at Memavet’s. They must have been told either by Dan or Roy. If, as seemed unlikely, Memavet had made some notation of his later meeting and the police had found it, the name referred to would certainly be Stedman. There was no reason for Memavet to have noted his name as well, since he was obviously not interested in buying a car. It was unthinkable—well, almost unthinkable—that the information had come from Dan, since he had pooh-poohed his suggestion that they report to the police. But if he had changed his mind and gone after all, would he not have called him first? And if he had not, then it could only have been an oversight or because for some reason he wanted to get him involved. And what reason could he have for that? His brother-in-law was perhaps interested in the job at Barnard’s Crossing and he was acting out of a sense of mistaken family loyalty?
He dismissed the idea as melodramatic, completely absurd. And yet what did he know of Dan Stedman? They had had some pleasant talks, to be sure, but he had never confided in him. Except that he had been a TV journalist, he knew nothing of his past. And this sudden decision to go to Haifa, could that have some significance? It was certainly strange. The normal thing would have been to want to discuss the tragedy that had followed their visit. He tried to put the thought out of his mind, and yet….
His mind turned to Roy and he realized the son was a more likely source of information to the police. If Memavet had made a note, he probably would have listed only the name, Stedman, and a routine police check would have come up with Roy’s name. And then in routine questioning they would have learned that Roy had accompanied his father and his father’s friend, David Small. Roy would have no reason to conceal the information. But then why hadn’t Roy called to alert him that the police might be making inquiries? The answer was simple—the thoughtlessness and inconsiderateness of the young—and from what he had heard from Dan, quite characteristic.
He called Roy as soon as he got home. There was no answer. He called again later, and the next day, with no better luck. And then the rabbi put the matter out of his mind. Roy was coming to dinner Friday night, and he would see him then. And even if Roy had to beg off for some reason, common courtesy would require him to call.
By Friday as the rabbi waited for his guests to arrive, he decided not to bring up the subject. It was the Sabbath, a day of peace and rest. Of course, if either of the Stedmans were to bring up the matter, he could not refuse to discuss it. But he would not bring it up himself.
Both Stedmans came separately but at almost the same time. He had no sooner opened the door to welcome one than the other arrived. And because it was late, they went immediately to the table, then stood while the rabbi recited the kiddush, the prayer for wine that began the Sabbath observance.
The dinner was the customary Sabbath meal of chicken soup, gefilte fish and chicken. To Roy who had been eating in restaurants and the university cafeteria, it was a treat. He raved over each course to Miriam, and agreed when she urged him to have another helping. “I don’t often get this kind of food,” he said by way of explanation, “at least not this kind of cooking.”
Gradually, mellowed by the food and wine, he dropped his original reserve and relaxed. The atmosphere at the table and in the house, perhaps because of the presence of little Jonathan or because Rabbi Small and his wife were relatively young, was pleasantly informal, very different from the occasional Sabbath meal he had had at his Uncle Hugo’s. There, in spite of Aunt Betty’s attempts at lightheartedness, the solemn emphasis on the holiness of the day tended to dampen its joyousness.
As they sipped their tea afterward, the conversation focused on him and his life at the university. Completely at ease now, Roy told them of his difficulties there. “My Hebrew is not so hot, and that doesn’t help matters, I suppose. But mostly it’s the Israeli students. They’re so cliquey. And the American is shut out. My closest friends are Arabs.” He said it defiantly, but his father refused to pick up the challenge.
Instead he said with jovial heartiness, “Why, I think that’s fine, Roy. I want you to see all sides.” Curiously, Roy did not feel grateful. He looked at the rabbi, who had remained silent.
“I guess the rabbi doesn’t agree,” he said.
Rabbi Small shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t think I do. If there was dissension between me and my neighbors, the Rosens, and a guest of mine, newly arrived, took their side and showed a preference for them, I think I’d have a right to feel resentful.”
“Well, let me tell you, Rabbi, there are plenty of Israeli students who are friendly with the Arabs.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
“But I thought you just said?”
The rabbi nodded. “The quarrel is between them, and it is a good thing if one or the other or both parties to the dispute make overtures, just as it would be if Mrs. Small were to make overtures and try to become friendly with Mrs. Rosen. But the case for the guest is different.”
“That’s the old way of thinking—my side, your side. It’s what’s made for all these wars and things.” Roy sat forward. “My generation, we don’t think that way. We don’t care whose side we were born on. It’s which side that’s right that’s important. Look at our attitude, I mean the attitude of Americans of my generation, toward Vietnam. Your generation tells us they are the enemy, but we refuse to go along. Your generation’s thinking has given us wars, pollution, hunger, disease. My generation is changing all that.”
“He’s got a point there, Rabbi,” said Dan. “I guess we have made a mess of things, and they’re the ones that are trying to clean it up.”
“No.” The rabbi shook his head vigorously. “It’s not our generation that caused whatever is wrong with the world. It’s all the generations of mankind. The same generations of mankind that are responsible for all the good things, too. It’s a world we live in, not a Garden of Eden. And it is the older generation that is doing the cleaning up, too, simply because the new one has not as yet acquired the necessary skills. It will be a dozen years at least before your generation, Roy, gets a chance to try its hand. And if it is your generation that transcends national boundaries, why do you call the Israeli students at the university cliquey? They’re your generation. For that matter, why don’t the Arabs of your generation try to make peace in this little part of the world instead of trying to terrorize the civilian population? Most of the terrorists are of your generation, you know. If there were peace, they could begin to make inroads into poverty and disease in their own countries—”
“Why don’t the Israelis do it in their country?”
“Don’t they?” asked the rabbi.
“How about the Sephardim who live in slums and don’t have a chance for a decent life?”
“The Israeli government is trying to help them,” Dan Stedman pointed out.
“Well, they could do a lot more,” Roy said, returning to the rabbi.
“Every country could do a lot more for its unfortunates than it is doing,” he said mildly. “Name one that is doing all it can.”
“But this is supposed to be a nation of ide
alists,” Roy protested.
“Is it? I certainly hope not,” said the rabbi.
“You do?” Roy was startled. “That’s a funny thing for a rabbi to say. Don’t you want the country to be idealistic?”
“No, I don’t. The whole thrust of our religion is toward a practical ethics rather than an absolute idealism. That’s how Judaism differs from Christianity, as a matter of fact. We don’t ask of our people that they be superhuman, only human. As Hillel said, ‘If I am not for myself, who will be for me?’ Traditionally, we have always felt that parnossah, the making of a living, was necessary for a good life. We have no tradition of an idealistic asceticism, or superhuman dedication as in monasticism or self-imposed poverty.”
“What’s wrong with idealism?” asked Roy.
“It’s the worship of an idea, and the idea comes to count for more than people. Sometimes people are cruel because—well, because they’re people. But it’s self-limiting. If someone’s normal, his act of cruelty is apt to be followed by a bad attack of conscience. But if he’s an idealist, then any kind of wickedness can be justified in its name. The Germans killed millions in pursuit of the idea of racial purity. In Russia thousands were slaughtered for the quite human weakness of hoarding a bit of food against the winter. I might add that right now some of your fellow students in America are perpetrating all kinds of wickedness in the name of peace or social equality or academic responsibility or any other ideal that someone happens to think up.”
They argued late into the night. Sometimes the argument went in circles, as arguments frequently do, and sometimes it slid off into areas wholly unrelated to the immediate subject of discussion. But for the most part the adversaries were Roy and the rabbi, with Dan occasionally chiming in to give moral support to his son. The subject of the bombing of Memavet’s apartment did not come up until the guests were getting ready to leave. Some mention was made of Haifa, and Roy asked his father if he had had a successful trip there.
“I’d say it was successful, Roy. I’m hoping you’ll think it was, too. I happened to notice that the Athenia had docked and was loading. I used to be quite friendly with the skipper, so I went down to see him. He was just as friendly as ever, and it ended up with an invitation to sail with him—a ten-day trip to Greece, Sicily, and back to Haifa—for both of us, if you can make it. What do you think of that, Roy?”
“Gee, that’s great, Dad. When would we go?”
“We’d leave Haifa Sunday—”
Roy snapped his fingers. “Uh-uh, I just thought of something.”
“What’s the matter? You got an exam?”
“No, as a matter of fact, we get a break from school about then. But I’ll need a passport, won’t I?”
“Of course. What’s the matter, did you lose it?”
“I didn’t lose it.” And he went on to tell what happened. “They lost it—one of those Keystone Kops evidently misplaced it,” he added indignantly. “And if they sent it out today, I won’t get it tomorrow because it’s the Sabbath and they don’t deliver on the Sabbath. And even if it comes Sunday, I won’t get it until noon because that’s when my mail is delivered.”
“I don’t think you’ll get it Sunday either,” said his father slowly.
“Why not?”
“Because—well, because although the police here may be a bunch of bunglers, even Keystone Kops as you call them, but on passports they never make mistakes—except on purpose.”
“What are you getting at?” Roy was uneasy.
“You were questioned Monday? Tuesday?”
“Tuesday.”
“All right,” said Dan, “and today is Friday. That’s four days, and you still haven’t received it. I think they’ve pulled your passport. And in a country like this, surrounded by countries at war, you might just as well be in jail. You can’t go anywhere, not even to a hotel in another city. And any time they want to, they can pick you up. Why didn’t you go down and see them when it didn’t come in the mail?”
“I did. I was there this morning. Nobody knew anything about it. And when I tried to see this inspector, the one I told you about, the one with the yarmulke, they said he was out and wasn’t expected back.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” his father muttered.
“But surely,” said the rabbi, “if you go to the American consul here—”
“No, I don’t think that’s too good an idea. Maybe Sunday I’ll take a run down to Tel Aviv and see the people at the embassy.”
“But then it will be too late for the trip,” Roy protested.
“There’ll be other chances. Maybe his next trip out.”
When the Stedmans left, Dan purposely steered the conversation away from the subject of police and passports. “How did you enjoy the evening?” he asked his son.
“I had a nice time. I liked the rabbi.”
“You were fighting with him all night.”
“That doesn’t make any difference,” Roy said. “He wasn’t yes-yessing me like some of the profs do at home who are always trying to get on with the kids. You know the drill: ‘Now that’s a good question’ or ‘That’s a very interesting point Stedman has brought up.’ And he didn’t talk down to me either. We argued like equals.”
They came to where they had to separate. “Er, Roy, about that passport, don’t worry about it. Maybe I’ll run down to Tel Aviv tomorrow.”
“But it’s the Sabbath. You’d have to cab down. It will cost about fifty lira.”
“Yeah, but I can take either the sherut or the bus back, and that’s only three and a half.”
As Roy trudged home, stopping whenever he heard a car to jerk out a thumb for a ride, he went over the whole business in his mind. If the police inspector thought he was really involved in the murder, why had he been so pleasant to him? Why hadn’t he questioned him more intensively? On the other hand, if the interrogation had been all it appeared, why did they have to check his passport so thoroughly? Maybe his father was right and they had actually pulled his passport; then why couldn’t they simply go to the American consulate in Jerusalem and have them get it back for him? Why did his father think it necessary to go to the embassy in Tel Aviv? And on the Sabbath? It couldn’t be just to expedite matters so they could make the boat trip, because the embassy wouldn’t be able to do much before Sunday and by then it would be too late. But then why did his father tell him not to worry? If there was really nothing to worry about, why was he going down to Tel Aviv on the Sabbath? And if there was, why didn’t he just tell him? Did he think he was a kid who couldn’t be told the truth?
Then Roy really started to worry.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
There’s nothing official about this, Rabbi,” said Marty Drexler. “We want to make that plain at the beginning. Don’t we, Bert?”
Bert Raymond nodded. “That’s right. Marty had this idea, and he spoke to me about it, and I said we ought to come over to see you first before we started doing anything—you know, talking it up among the fellows, laying the groundwork.”
Rabbi Deutch looked from one of his two visitors to the other. His fingers drummed on the arm of his chair. “It’s something I’d have to think about,” he said at last in his deep baritone voice. It was the voice he used in the pulpit, several notches below the tones he used to tell his wife how he wanted his eggs cooked for breakfast. “I served my congregation in Darlington faithfully for thirty years. There were many who wanted me to continue, but I felt that I needed a much deserved rest. There was work of a scholarly nature that I wanted to do. Traditionally, a rabbi is primarily a scholar, gentlemen. Frankly, one of my reasons for coming to Barnard’s Crossing was its close proximity to the great libraries of Boston and Cambridge. And even in the short time I’ve been here, I’ve made use of them. However, I have also enjoyed my work with the congregation, and I must admit it has not seriously interfered with the works of research and scholarship in which I am engaged. How it would work out over the long haul is an
other matter. I’d have to give it careful thought.”
“Well, sure, we know that. It’s not that we want your answer right away,” said Marty eagerly.
“It’s not only a question of my own personal inclinations,” Rabbi Deutch went on as though he had not been interrupted. “There is also an ethical and moral question. I came here originally as a substitute for Rabbi Small—”
“But he’s not the one who picked you,” said Marty. Although he felt a good deal of constraint in Rabbi Deutch’s presence, unlike his reaction to Rabbi Small, he could not keep restrained for long. “I mean it isn’t as though he asked you to come and take his place. It was the board that did. I mean you’re not his choice, so it isn’t as though you owe him anything.”
“Well—”
“Marty is right, you know,” said Raymond judicially. “I can see where you would feel bound to him if he had asked you to come and take his place. Even if he had recommended you to the board without consulting you first—that is, if he had submitted your name to the board as a possible candidate—but he had nothing to do with it. When he told us that he wanted a long vacation—and mind you, he didn’t ask us, he just told us—we discussed what we ought to do. There was even some talk on the board of not engaging anyone, you know, just arranging for someone from the seminary to come down now and then.”
“I see.” Rabbi Deutch tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling as he pondered the matter. Finally, he lowered his head and said, “Still, the rabbinate is not a business. I can’t take advantage of a colleague’s absence to take over his pulpit as a businessman would take a customer away from a rival.” He rose and began striding the room, their eyes following him like spectators at a tennis match. “I have been very happy here. I admit that. And I am happy to hear that my efforts have not been in vain. I am happy to hear from you that I am well thought of in the congregation. That makes me very happy indeed. Now suppose that as a result of my greater experience, some of you, even a majority of you, even the entire congregation”—he stopped in front of them and spread his arms as if physically to include the massed congregation—“felt that I was more attuned to your needs, and I put it that way advisedly, gentlemen, because I don’t for a minute want to suggest the possibility that Rabbi Small might not be as effective in his own way as you gentlemen seem to think I am in mine, well, even then, it becomes a question of whether it is right, or at least proper, for me to take over this pulpit on a permanent basis when Rabbi Small left it expecting to come back after his vacation or leave of absence.”
Monday the Rabbi Took Off Page 19
