The year 1944 became The Year Of The Ticket. Everytime a non-Jew turned around, he found a Jew standing behind him waiting to sell a ticket.
Though these efforts yielded significant financial returns, the project depended principally upon pledges of donation by the congregants. When it came to extracting donations, the fundraisers displayed a mastery of the fine art of gentle brutality. Everyone knew everyone else's business—or thought he did. Thus, if a congregant appeared to pledge to the building fund less than what he was generally thought to be capable of contributing, he would arrive at his store one morning to find a two-man delegation waiting for him. The discussion then flowed like this:
HOST: So, they put you up to this, eh?
DELEGATION: They? Who's they? Nobody put us up to anything. We just want to have a little talk with you.
HOST: Save your breath. I'm very tight for money now. Maybe after the Christmas season...
DELEGATION: We happen to know you sold more winter coats this fall than you did in all the years you've been in business.
HOST: Who the hell said so?
DELEGATION: The manufacturers. Don't forget, we buy from them, too. They tell us enough—
HOST: They didn't tell you, did they, that I had to unload their lousy coats at half-price?
DELEGATION: You never ran an honest half-price sale in your life, you bullshitter, and you know it. Besides, everybody in this town knows you got so much cash hidden away in the bank that the manager is ready to ask you for a loan. Come on now, you can do better . . .
It was no use trying to wriggle and squirm, the vice was too tight. Out came the recalcitrant's chequebook and pen.
"Thank you, you're a real mensch," the delegation would say as it took leave. "Call us, maybe we'll play a little gin rummy tonight. But don't forget to bring money."
When all other pledges had been gathered, Crandel then announced his own pledge. It turned out to be the most generous of all, even larger than Der Reicher's. Indeed, it almost matched the combined pledges of the rest of the congregation. News of Crandel's munificence was greeted, with general rejoicing. In the early spring of 1945 walls began to rise from the concrete foundation. After three years of work and worry, the end was at last in sight.
But the wrangling and tension within the building committee was far from ended. With each course of brick, each stud, each joist, each floorboard, some new crisis arose, Crandel insisting upon one thing, my father insisting upon the exact opposite and Dreyfus caught in the awful no-man'sland between the hostile armies watching the shells burst like starfire overhead. "Resign," his wife pleaded continually. "No, I must see it through," he insisted.
All during the preceding three years, I had managed to remain uninvolved. The building of the synagogue was adult territory and I was content to sit on the sidelines smirking cynically now and then when communal bickering rose to a noisy level. I reacted coolly whenever my father came home from a building committee meeting ablaze with fury because of some decision arbitrarily made by Crandel, or some vacillation on Dreyfus' part. "This is the way the damn fools do these things," I told myself. "Let them have their little power games." I had more important business in those days: passing a test for a driver's licence, and exploring fresh horizons with young schiksas—horizons barely dreamed of in the old pre-mobile days and nights. There were carefree Saturdays and Sundays sitting with friends on the porch of the Boat Club, talking introspectively about our love lives. There loomed also the horrors of the final year of high school, that long last feast of facts and figures to be crammed into us for ten unrelieved months until we were totally constipated with knowledge. And after that? Who could be sure? If one survived the forced-feedings of Grade Thirteen there might be college and—more importantly—freedom in some big city in the east, probably Toronto. Der Reicher's words "not for us but for our children" were meaningful only to parents. As far as I and my few Jewish contemporaries were concerned, our elders might just as well have been erecting a dance hall.
Then, without warning, an event occurred that changed all of this and drew me into the synagogue affair as meat is drawn into a grinder.
October, 1945. The first rafters were being fitted into place, their inverted "V" shapes pointing skyward, giving the red brick building all at once a sense of height, even of loftiness. In the centuries-old record of religious architecture, this structure would never leave its mark, nor would pilgrims, a thousand years after, journey to this ground from far corners of the earth to inspect its ruins. Yet now, for the first time, our mothers and fathers—even those who had been most critical of location and design—talked of the day when the last drop of paint would be dry and the congregation would enjoy the novel experience of entering a house where they were landlord. There was excitement in the air. Despite all the tensions between Crandel and my father, and the grinding effect these had on Dreyfus, the project had gone forward—oftentimes limping—but always forward.
A special meeting of the congregation was held to hear the elaborate plans for consecration ceremonies, and view preliminary sketches of the interior details.
Then Crandel rose to speak. His face-old but handsome, with its full well-trimmed moustache—gave him the appearance of a retired field marshal in some turn-of-the-century Balkan kingdom. He spoke slowly and in a low voice, but being Crandel he commanded absolute attention.
"My friends, before long we will have to order a plaque over the main entrance to our synagogue. It should have the date of the opening, and I think we can now safely say that date will be 1946 . . ."
Nods of agreement, smiles of satisfaction, little utterances of pleasure (" . . . thank God . . . at last . . . I didn't think we'd live to see the day ..."). Crandel raised his arms, motioning the members to be silent again; then he continued, his voice so low that older people in the audience were obliged to lean forward in their chairs to hear better, and some had to cup their hands behind their ears to catch his words.
"The time has come to give our synagogue a name, and I think you will agree that this is a matter of considerable importance since the name must be carefully chosen ... " My father, who hadn't known that this would be on the agenda, looked across the room at Dreyfus whose chair was close to Crandel's. The suspicious frown on my father's face asked, "What's Crandel up to?" But Dreyfus pretended not to read the frown, and dropped his eyes to his hands which lay folded across his stomach. With the fingers of his right hand he played with a black and gold Masonic ring on his left hand, twisting it round and round nervously.
Perhaps for dramatic effect, perhaps because he too was nervous, Crandel paused for a few seconds to study his audience. There were faces there he had known for many years, faces that were open and trusting, faces that were respectful and admiring. For was it not true that he was old and wise and the most generous of all in his devotion to the project and the giving of money? Was he not—in a way—Moses come to lead them out of the Foresters Hall and into their very own place of worship? They hung now in a state of suspense, waiting for whatever he might say to them. He began again.
"I would like to ask ... I would like to suggest … that the synagogue should be named … after my father ..."
Crandel paused again, giving this last sentence time to sink in. Then he resumed, "As you know, it has been a cherished dream of mine for a long time to be able to honour my father's memory in this way. So now, I am asking you to give me that opportunity ..."
Sensing that he had said enough in support of his cause, the old man removed his eyeglasses, placed them carefully in their case, and lowered himself laboriously into his chair. In an instant a dozen men sprang to their feet demanding to be heard. What followed was chaos. Everyone, it seemed, cherished the dream of honouring his own father's memory in that very same way. "After all," said the town's humblest Jew, "each of us gave the most he could according to his means. Why shouldn't all of us be given the privilege of having the synagogue named after our fathers? It's only fair ... "
"Come come now," the president said, "be reasonable, my friends. We can't have a name that's a block long."
"Then let's have a lottery and the winner gets to choose the name," someone called out.
"But that's gambling, and you don't gamble over a name for a holy place," someone else protested.
Even Der Reicher, who took pride in remaining aloof from most synagogue controversies, dived into the troubled waters, insisting that his father's name appear over the entrance to the synagogue, a demand the congregation could not afford to take lightly since his pledge was almost as large as Crandel's. If he, like Crandel, were in any way offended and alienated, he might withdraw his financial support and such a move could spell disaster for the project.
Throughout the din, Crandel sat impassive, like a father patiently waiting for his obstreperous offspring to ·exhaust their tempers, confident that when all the hubub was over and done with they would comprehend the reasonableness of his request. But the din did not subside. It grew until all decorum disappeared. Vigorously the president pounded his gavel sending sharp cracks of rifle fire across the room, but to no avail. Members rose one after another without bothering to be recognized by the chair, shouting and cross-talking, issuing threats, delivering ultimatums, all in the name of honouring their fathers' memories. Crandel, holy man that he was, had led his tiny flock writhing and screaming into a black pit.
Realizing that the congregants were in no mood to listen to prayer or Talmudic wisdom, the rabbi sat by, shaking his head sadly. Would God, he wondered, choose this ufortunate hour to return from His long vacation? And if He did, would He—upon surveying the scene of bedlam and acrimony—order the heavenly Department of Public Works to start the Second Flood?
Only when Crandel finally stood again and raised his hands in a plea for silence was order restored.
"My friends," Crandel said, "I didn't think my simple request could cause such trouble. Please, I beg of you, be calm; try to understand how important the matter of the name is to me and to my family. May I remind you that to morrow the building committee must meet with our bank manager, Mr. Leamington, to extend our loan so we can finish the building. As you know, my friends, I am a cosigner on our note to the bank and I have to make up my mind whether or not to continue to be responsible on that note. Therefore, I must know the general decision about the name as soon as possible—"
Before Crandel could go on, Der Reicher stood up, this time without his hands in his pockets, and, pointing a finger angrily at Crandel, shouted, "Just a minute. If you take your name off that note, I take mine off! I'm not going to stick my neck out alone."
"But, but, you can't do that!" Dreyfus stammered. "We won't be able to pay the contractors and the suppliers. They'll slap liens against us. There'll be court cases, scandals." Dreyfus looked over to my father, "Say something, for Godsake!''
Everyone in the room now turned to my father. He sat rigid, his face the colour of putty. Without rising from his chair, he looked directly at Crandel. Like long sharp icicles the words came out: "If they name the synagogue after his father, it will be over my dead body!"
Gasps of horror went up all around the meeting hall. Dreyfus rose, shook a fist angrily at my father, but was unable to utter a word, so overcome by revulsion was he. Moving to where Crandel was seated, he took the old man's hand and whispered in his ear. Whatever Dreyfus said was unimportant; it was the gesture that was significant. From that moment on, the Crandel-Dreyfus alliance was a fact.
I, too, was horrified by my father's conduct. It seemed to me that he had blackened himself at a crucial moment when some grand peace effort was so desperately needed. I had wanted him to do the noble thing, to yield to old Crandel, or to propose some brilliant compromise. Instead, he had summoned up all the bile that was in him, and had spilled it there on the floor of that meeting hall, and I was disappointed and ashamed.
I left my chair, which was next to his, and stalked out of the hall without saying a word to him, or looking back to see what his reaction was.
We avoided each other, my father and I, after he returned home from the meeting. The following morning we ex changed no conversation. "I'm going to the bank," my father said curtly. "Look after the store."
An hour later he was back, pressing a handkerchief to his cheek just under his left eye. I started to ask, "What the hell happened—" but he broke in.
"You see, you see what your hero did," he said, his voice trembling with fury. He removed the handkerchief to reveal a large red blotch.
"Where did it happen?"
"At the bank. He threatened to take back his note and his pledge—"
"And what did you say?"
"Never mind what I said. Till the day he dies he'll remember what I said."
"Let me get you a cold compress or something." I started toward the washroom to fetch a wet towel. "No!" he shouted, "I don't need your help. You walked out on me once. Now leave me alone. I don't need anybody's help."
There were charges and countercharges of assault and eventually Crandel and my father found themselves standing like two errant schoolboys in front of Magistrate McKewen. "You should be ashamed of yourselves," the old red-nosed Magistrate scolded, his tongue and throat still raw from the previous night's bottle of cheap rye. "Go home,.. the two of you, and don't let me see either of you in my court again. Case dismissed."
But that was not the end of it for Crandel, or for my father, or for me.
For many months afterward, my father languished in a state of bitterness, convinced that he had been betrayed by the congregation. The incident at the bank had resulted not in rebuke for Crandel, as my father had expected, but in an agreement to name the synagogue after Crandel's father. The project was solvent again and progressed without further interruption. Face-to-face meetings of the building committee were out of the question, of course. Through intermediaries Crandel-Dreyfus on one side, and my father on the other, communicated frequent messages of dispute ("the curtains should be navy blue, not maroon") and rare messages of agreement ("O.K. to pay plumber's bill").
The lines of communication between my father and me, meanwhile, barely stayed open.
It was the eve of Rosh Hashonah, a warm Indian Summer evening in 1946, and the first High Holy Days services ever to be held in the synagogue had just begun. The air was filled with a heady mixture of smells—perfume, mothballs, aftershave lotion, burning candlewax, old musty prayerbooks, damp plaster, fresh paint. Flanked by his three sons, the rabbi chanted in a deep baritone voice that seemed to have taken on a fresh full-throated quality in keeping with these new surroundings. Women sat, heads erect in bright new autumn millinery. Men inspected the well-cut lapels of their new suits and made certain to show the proper amount of white cuff at the sleeves. Kids tugged at tight shirt collars and showed off new shoes to each other, comparing shines which—in less than 24 hours—would disappear forever. The atmosphere was alive with festivity.
When the time for the reading from the Torah arrived, the rabbi leaned across his lectern and whispered something into the ear of the president of the congregation who sat next to him on the dais. The two men nodded.
"I should like to call to the reading of the blessings . . . Mr. Crandel," the rabbis voice boomed.
Crandel stood up from his seat in the front pew. He smiled faintly at his wife, a small regal woman who resembled Queen Victoria. She smiled back at him, and nodded, as if encouraging him to go on. Slowly the old man advanced to the dais and mounted the steps. He shook the rabbi's hand, and the president's hand. Waving away an open prayerbook offered by the rabbi, Crandel turned and looked directly down at my father. He began to speak. "I want to say something . . ." His voice choked, and he attempted to speak again. "I want to say ..." But the words were trapped deep within his throat, or locked still deeper within his tired old heart, words that were incapable of freeing themselves and taking to the still air. Unable to say anything, Crandel held out his arms in the direction of my father.
During a long moment in which everyone and everything within that sanctuary seemed frozen, Crandel's outstretched hands hovered in the air, palms turned upward, inviting, imploring, begging to be accepted. My father turned away. "I can't ... I won't ... No ..." Voices everywhere around him spoke to him urgently, those nearby whispering, others further away calling out, "Go . . . take his hand ... be a mensch ... you can't just let him stand there ... go! ..." Arms reached out from all sides, tugging his arms, pressing him to move from where he sat stubbornly rooted. " Go now ... now ... "
Mumbling to no one in particular, "Dammit, dammit to bell!" my father left his seat. He climbed the three steps of the dais, taking them one at a time slowly and deliberately as if to put off as long as possible the awful moment when his hand would meet Crandel's. Impulsively, Crandel lurched forward and threw his heavy arms around my father's shoulders, drawing the younger man toward him with such force that both men nearly toppled over. My father made no move to resist Crandel's encirclement, and his arms merely hung locked at his sides. Neither man uttered a word.
Two jagged chunks of granite, dislodged from separate mountain peaks, had landed against each other in the valley below. They could roll no further and would have to share that ground then and forever.
Eyes are all I remember about the next minute or two. Dreyfus removed his spectacles and pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes to rub away the tears. Old Crandel dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief as he turned his back to the congregation and prepared to say the blessings. My father dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief as he stepped from the dais and walked briskly up the aisle between the pews with me trailing behind him. On either side of the aisle eyes were upon us—most of them moist and red-rimmed.
A Good Place to Come From Page 15
