by Howard Fast
Lucy’s mother and father returned to the dining room at that point with cake and coffee, and Herb could not resist saying, “With fourteen families, Dave, suppose five of them resign? Bang. You’re out of business.”
“You’re right. I have to find some backup.”
“But first things first,” he told Lucy, and the next day they went looking for a car. They ended up at Honest Joe Fierello’s lot on West Fifty-second Street. Honest Joe had a cherubic face that inspired trust, and he had a two-door 1940 Chevy that could be had for two hundred dollars. “A hundred dollars a door,” he told them, showing that he had a sense of humor as well as a sense of piracy. “Nineteen forty,” he explained, “was the last year they made a good car, and compared to the garbage they’re turning out today, this little beauty is a work of art, just raring to go. They don’t make them like this anymore.”
The newlyweds rode off in the small work of art, Lucy driving and David observing her carefully.
“Doesn’t look too hard,” he said.
“No, once you get the shifting sorted out and you’re able to relax. Where to?”
“Let’s look at our destiny, as long as we have wheels.”
“Leighton Ridge?”
“Right. Do you know how to get there?”
“David,” Lucy said, “I haven’t the vaguest notion. I thought you weren’t due there for another three days.”
“It won’t hurt to see what we’re getting into.”
“It may just mean losing a brand-new wife,” Lucy said, “but if that’s what you want and you’re ready to risk it, we’ll stop at a gas station and pick up a map of Connecticut.”
They drove through the Bronx to the Hutchinson River Parkway, following it until it became the Merritt Parkway, and then turned north at the Black Rock Turnpike. They drove past a beautiful reservoir, miles along the reservoir’s edge, and then the road climbed to the backbone of the Connecticut Ridge. It was lovely country, at its best now in the new spring, farms and spreading lawns and white Colonial houses. Finally, a small roadside sign told them that they were entering Leighton Ridge, and a few miles farther on, they were at the small common, which was surrounded by an old white Congregational church and three white clapboard houses, each with a center chimney to validate its antiquity.
“What a strange and lonely place,” Lucy whispered. “We’re a thousand miles from anywhere.”
David was thinking differently, looking at a place as calmly beautiful as any he had ever seen, a village lost in time, clinging to a past that was gone forever, but clinging gently and without rancor. His conscience troubled him, this appeared to be such secure, safe harbor; but he felt that through the war years he had paid his entry fee to a secure, safe harbor, at least for a while, at least for long enough to work off dues paid. Yet —
“I don’t have to take it,” he said to Lucy, trying to sound light and indifferent. “Something else is bound to come along in the city, and Rabbi Belsen will understand.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean it that way. I’m not backing out of it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, David. You know how it is — where thou goest, I goest. I love the city, but that’s where I’ve lived all my life. You have to give me time. This is a very new scene.”
“All the time in the world.”
She drove slowly through the township along winding roads, most of them unpaved except for oiled dirt. They parked for a few minutes in front of an apple orchard in blossom. The trees were perfumed balls of snow-white blossoms, a soft rain of petals dropping to the ground whenever a breeze touched them.
“Do you know where any of your congregation live?” Lucy asked him. “We might drop in on one of these strange Jews who live in a place like this.”
He shook his head. He didn’t like the notion of dropping in. Before the war, like Lucy, he had been a city boy.
They were staying with Lucy’s parents at that time, sleeping in Lucy’s old bedroom. The day after they had driven up to Leighton Ridge, they had a telephone call from Jack Osner, the president of the congregation.
“Rabbi Hartman?” he asked, his deep, aggressive voice placing him in an immediate adversary position.
David resisted the impulse to say “Yo!” After all, it had been Colonel Jack Osner. He contained himself and said, “Yes, this is Rabbi Hartman.”
“Glad to talk to you, Rabbi. I understand everything has been cleared at the Institute and you’re ready to put your head in the lion’s mouth.”
“Well, I wouldn’t think of it precisely in those terms.”
“No, of course. We are the most puny lion in the state of Connecticut. But we’re all eager to meet you. When can we expect you?”
“I still have a few things to clear up.”
“Before June, we hope.”
“Oh, absolutely. Say three days.”
“Good, good. Now we have a house for you, nothing very grand, but it’s a roof over your head, an old Colonial building, dates back to seventeen seventy-one. We’ve been trying to get your home into shape and neglecting the synagogue in the process. But the congregation’s so small, we can hold services for a while in various living rooms. You wouldn’t object to that?”
“Oh, absolutely not.”
“Do you have furniture? I hear you’ve just been married.”
“I have my mother’s furniture, yes. She passed away recently.”
“Sorry to hear that. You’ll have all our condolences. Tell you what, Rabbi. You’ll have a fairly small kitchen, small dining room, living room, and two bedrooms. So plan your furniture to fit. All small rooms, I’m afraid. Best thing to do will be for you and your bride to come to our house early, say about noon. My wife — her name is Shelly — she’ll show you around and you’ll get a feel of the place. Have dinner with us, and we’ll have a meeting of the committee after dinner and we’ll put you up for the night. Order your furniture trucked out here the following day. How does that sound?”
“It sounds all right,” David said.
“Then we’ll see you on Wednesday. I’ll send you a map for directions.”
Standing beside David, Lucy heard Osner’s booming voice without effort, and when the conversation was over, she said to David, “How does he dare talk to you like that?”
David shrugged. “After all, he was a colonel. I was a lowly captain.”
“Hah!” Lucy snorted. “A colonel indeed! Judge Advocate! He probably had a snug warm desk somewhere in Washington and spent the war comfortably stateside on his fat salary.” And then she added, “On his fat backside.”
David regarded his wife with new interest. “Of course, we don’t know that he has a fat backside, but you know, Lucy, Rabbi Belsen gave me a lecture on diplomacy where our congregation is concerned. We have to try to love them all, and where it’s impossible, we endure them patiently and with some grace.”
“I thought that was Christianity, that business about loving your enemy.”
“They’re not our enemies, no one in the congregation. Anyway, they got it from us — the Christians, I mean, this love-your-enemy thing. Will you try, with Osner?”
“Love him? Come on, David.”
“Like him. Try to understand why he does what he does. Also, he may be a very nice guy.”
“Maybe so. In Macy’s window.”
“You’re a strange gal for a rabbi’s wife,” David admitted.
“I get that feeling. David, you married a guttersnipe. Here you are, a beautiful guy and a rabbi, and I tell you that if Osner’s a great guy, I’ll kiss your ass in Macy’s window.”
“Rest easy. I know about Macy’s window.”
“Still love me?”
“Rest assured.”
The following Tuesday, with David driving, having squeezed two driving lessons into two days, and Lucy carefully charting their progress on the map Osner had sent them, they managed to locate Jack Osner’s home in Leighton Ridge. It was an old but large renovated farmhouse on a
narrow, winding dirt road. Evidently, Shelly Osner had been expecting them to arrive at a later hour. In their desire to be on time, they had left New York early. Shelly Osner was slightly annoyed to be caught in an old skirt and sweater, but she tried to be both hospitable and pleasant as she explained that she had not expected them before twelve, and would they please forgive her? She was a tall, large-boned, good-looking woman, with light hair and blue eyes, and it was plain that she did not know what to make of this young rabbi and his pretty wife.
“Anyway,” she explained, leading them into the living room, “it’s my fault, because it’s eleven forty-five and I should have been showered and changed by now, and I mean it as a compliment, but you don’t look much like a rabbi.”
“I guess it depends on what you expect,” David said awkwardly.
“Oh? Oh, yes. Well, do make yourself comfortable here while I shower and change. Martin will be here any moment. Please get the door when he rings.”
“She’s a dope,” Lucy whispered when Shelly had gone upstairs. “Don’t look much like a rabbi! She must take stupid pills every morning. Myself, I must have been taking invisible pills. She didn’t even know I was here.”
“She’s trying hard to be nice. She’s flustered.”
“All over you.”
“And you respond by being the sweet, pleasant person I know you to be.”
“Absolutely. And who’s Martin? She doesn’t go into details. That’s not her husband, is it?”
“No. Her husband’s Jack. Just be patient. We’ll soon see.”
Immobile patience was not for Lucy. She prowled around the living room, a large comfortable place that had been created by knocking down walls and putting two rooms of the old farmhouse together.
“Whoever did it has a kind of taste,” Lucy admitted. “It’s got that museum look. Maybe she has a brain in her head.”
The doorbell rang. Since no one else appeared, Lucy went to answer it. There on the doorstep stood a tall, skinny man of about forty or forty-two, straw-colored hair, a bony face, very pale blue eyes, and a long chin. He wore a turtleneck sweater under an old jacket, and he regarded Lucy quizzically but with pleasant admiration.
“I’m Martin Carter,” he said, “and you must be Lucy Hartman, and that must be the rabbi, there behind you.”
“Bingo,” Lucy admitted. “You know everything about us. What about you?”
Reaching past Lucy, David shook hands with the man, who said quickly, “Forgive me. I thought they told you. I’m Carter, the Congregational minister here in Leighton Ridge.”
They all moved into the living room, and from above, Shelly Osner called down, “Martin, introduce yourself and explain. I’ll be down in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
“What’s to explain?” David wondered.
“Depends on how much they told you. I mean about the synagogue?”
“Only that it’s falling apart,” Lucy put in.
“Oh, yes. I’m afraid so, except that the roof doesn’t leak, which is a positive note. You see, it’s a hundred and seventy years old, give or take a few years.” And seeing the expression on David’s face, he added hastily, “No, they didn’t tell you. We sold them the old Congregational church. I mean, to your committee. It’s a very good buy, you know, comes with eight acres and adjoins the old parsonage.”
“You mean they bought your church to use as a synagogue?”
“I do hope that doesn’t break some law or synagogue ruling or anything of that sort. I was sure they investigated, and you know, it was a very important lesson for our congregation. You would have hoped that after the war and all that went with it, there’d be some understanding among my people of what anti-Semitism actually is. Not so. I had to preach a real hellfire and brimstone sermon — which is not my style at all — to break down the resistance of two of the deacons.”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with it,” David said. “Churches become synagogues, and synagogues become churches. It’s been going on for a long time. I just didn’t know about it. Of course, I’m very new. And I suppose the parsonage is where we’ll live?”
“Much better shape than the church, thank heavens. I’m sure you know a good deal about Congregationalists, Rabbi —”
“I’m sure he does,” Lucy put in. “I don’t.”
“Well, we must all have a good long talk about that one day, perhaps an interfaith service of some kind. You know, Mrs. Hartman, we’re the closest thing to your faith in Protestantism. Not that that doesn’t leave a wide gulf, but we are the direct descendants of the Puritans, and we’ve marched with some pretty good banners. We came into being in a jailhouse in fifteen sixty-six, but that’s a long story for another time. Meanwhile, welcome to Leighton Ridge, and anything I can do to smooth things over — well, just let me know.”
At that moment, Shelly Osner appeared, dressed now in a bright plaid skirt and a white cashmere sweater set. “Martin, have you bothered with names? Rabbi Hartman is David Hartman, and his wife is Lucy.”
“Done. Thought of it the moment I entered.”
“And now, for heaven’s sake, don’t scare them off. We’ve had enough trouble finding a rabbi. Shall we take my car or yours?”
“Yours is larger,” Carter said.
David was watching Lucy. He was intrigued by the fact that he knew absolutely nothing at all about this girl he had married, and even more intrigued by the amount he was learning and the speed at which he was amassing this knowledge. He was aware of her distaste for people who talked across her, and he wondered whether he would have to live with the fact of Lucy and Shelly Osner as intractable antagonists. Martin Carter was another matter entirely, and David had met and lived with, during his time in the army, enough Protestant ministers to understand that the cheerful, good-sport, playing-field manner was almost a part of their training, less a self-imposed image than an actual segment of character. Yet it failed to be a statement of Martin Carter’s inner self. On this first contact, David liked him, but David did not easily exercise dislike. When there was some question of character, he would advise himself, rather sternly, to wait and see.
Rolling along in the car, David in back with Lucy and Carter in the front seat with Shelly Osner, who was driving, Carter said, “Forgive me if I come off like some sort of tour-guide bore, but since they didn’t bother to tell you that your synagogue is our old church, I can’t imagine that they bothered to tell you much of anything about Leighton Ridge.”
“Truthfully, my coming here was all done very quickly through Rabbi Belsen, who’s in charge of placement at the Institute. He was my prof in comparative religion when I was a student there, and when one asked him a question, he would sometimes say, ‘Go find the answer. God gave you eyes and brains. Use them.’ I suppose he took the same attitude about my appointment here.”
“And did you inform yourself?”
“Not very much, no. I found out that Captain Leighton had been given this place as a royal grant some years before the American Revolution. Not much more.”
“There isn’t very much more, you know, except that we do have the reputation of being the most New England town in Fairfield County, that is, in the picture postcard sense: beautiful old Colonial buildings, amazing stone walls, and an absolutely delightful landscape, except in winter, when it turns monstrous.”
“Oh, the winters aren’t so bad,” Shelly said. “Great for snuggling down under the covers and doing what one does under the covers.”
Carter laughed.
“Silly bitch,” Lucy whispered into David’s ear.
“Population just about four thousand,” Carter went on. “A mixed bag, some families who have had their holdings since the old, old days — I might mention that once there was a good deal of small manufacturing here on the Ridge, using our plentiful water power, but when electricity came in, that washed out. No more manufacturing, but people live here who have plants in Danbury. Some commuters to New York, some young folks, writers, artists, potters, peopl
e who don’t have to commute, a very mixed bag, and a good shot of bigotry thrown in. We’re famous for our book-burning, which comes about almost yearly when some righteous, pious citizen finds something in his child’s textbook that he objects to. Then he raises the very devil, and demands that the book be removed. And then practically the whole town packs into the new church — the largest hall in town — hanging from the rafters so as to speak, and we go at it hammer and tongs.”
“That sounds pretty healthy,” David said.
“It is. We’re pretty well split down the middle, and that keeps the mental hoodlums in line.”
“Why did you sell the old church?” David wondered.
“Not big enough. Also, not stylish enough for the current congregation. You know, David — you don’t mind if I call you that, and you must call me Martin — people have very rigid ideas about the past. One of them is that all New England Congregational churches were built without steeples. Well, most were, because a congregation of stiff-necked Puritans regarded the steeple as part of a Papist plot to undermine Congregationalism. Some of these early churches wouldn’t even permit a cross in their church, or permit it to be called a church. It was a meeting house. Well, a group of that persuasion built our old church in seventeen seventy-three. They had come over here from Rhode Island, where the citizens had permitted the construction of a small Catholic church as well as a Jewish synagogue, and when they built our church, they abjured the steeple and built a small boxlike affair instead. Well, my current congregation wanted a steeple — as they put it, a proper church steeple. Anyway, the old meeting house was too small. It can hold two hundred people, but only if they’re squeezed in like sardines.”
Yet when they pulled up in front of the building, David was struck by the simple beauty of the old church or meeting house. There was a sort of magical relationship between wall and window, and, strangely, one did not miss the steeple.
“It’s a good, solid structure,” Carter said. “It’s framed with six-by-six oak beams —” He opened the door and let them file in, and then pointed to the beamed ceiling. “There, you can see the beams. No rot. Of course, it needs painting and new glass where the windows are boarded over, and you might want to do a few things inside, but essentially, it’s all there.”
