Friday the Rabbi Slept Late (4 page)

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Is it a private argument, or can anyone join? I’ll bet they could hear you guys down the block.”

“What’s going on is that in our temple we’ve got ourselves a rabbi who can be depended on to do everything except what he’s supposed to do,” said Becker.

Bronstein looked at Schwarz for enlightenment. Happy to have a somewhat less overpowering audience, Schwarz told his story while Becker rustled papers on his desk in elaborate unconcern.

Bronstein beckoned from the doorway of the office, and somewhat reluctantly Becker went over. Schwarz turned away so he would not appear to eavesdrop.

“Ben is a good customer of ours, Al,” whispered Bronstein. “I don’t think the company would question it.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ve had dealings with the Ford Company since before you got out of high school, Mel,” said Becker aloud.

But Bronstein knew his partner. He grinned at him. “Look, Al, if you turn Ben down you’ll only have Myra to deal with. Isn’t she president of the temple Sisterhood this year?”

“And last year, too,” Ben could not help adding.

“It won’t do our business any good to have her sore at us,” Bronstein said, once again lowering his voice.

“Well, the Sisterhood don’t buy cars.”

“But the husbands of all the members do.”

“Goddammit, Mel, how am I going to explain that I want the company to put a new engine in a car because the rabbi of my temple decided they ought to?”

“You don’t have to mention the rabbi at all. You don’t even have to explain how it happened. You can just say that the seal let go while the car was being driven.”

“And what if the company sends down an investigator?”

“Have they ever done it to you, Al?”

“No, but they have with some other agencies.”

“All right,” said Bronstein with a grin, “if he comes, you can introduce him to your rabbi.”

Suddenly Becker’s mood changed. He chuckled deep in his throat and turned to Schwarz. “All right, Ben, I’ll write the company and see if they’ll go along. I’m only doing it, you understand, because you sold Mel here a bill of goods. He’s the original big-hearted kid, the softest touch in town.”

“Aw, you’re just teed off because the rabbi was involved,” said Bronstein. He turned to Schwarz. “Al would have gone along from the beginning, and glad of a chance to help out a customer, too, if you hadn’t mentioned the rabbi.”

“What have you got against the rabbi, Al?” asked Ben.

“What have I got against the rabbi?” Becker removed the cigar from his mouth. “I’ll tell you what I’ve got against the rabbi. He’s not the man for the job; that’s what I’ve got against him. He’s supposed to be our representative, yet would you hire him as a salesman for your company, Ben? Come on now, be truthful.”

“Sure, I’d hire him,” said Schwarz, but his tone did not carry conviction.

“Well, if you were fool enough to hire him, I hope you would be smart enough to fire him the first time he got out of line.”

“When has he got out of line?” demanded Schwarz.

“Oh, come on, Ben. How about the time we had the Fathers and Sons breakfast and we brought down Barney Gilligan of the Red Sox to talk to the kids. He gets up to introduce him and what does he say? He gives the kids a long spiel about how our heroes are scholars instead of athletes. I could’ve gone through the floor.”

“Well …”

“And how about the time your own wife had him come down to pep up the girls of the Sisterhood to put on a big campaign for a Chanukah gift for the temple, and he tells them that keeping Judaism in their hearts and a kosher home was more important for Jewish women than campaigning for gifts for the temple.”

“Just a minute, Al. Naturally I wouldn’t say anything against my own wife, but right is right. That was a luncheon meeting, and Myra served shrimp cocktail, which ain’t kosher-type food and which you couldn’t blame a rabbi for being sore about.”

“And with all this in-fighting going on, you keep trying to get me to join the temple,” said Bronstein with a wink at Schwarz.

“Sure,” said his partner, “because as a Jew and a resident of Barnard’s Crossing you owe it to yourself and to your community to become a member. As for the rabbi, he won’t be there forever, you know.”

The Board of Directors were using one of the empty classrooms to hold their regular Sunday meeting. Jacob Wasserman, as the president of the temple and chairman of the board, sat at the teacher’s desk. The rest, fifteen of them, had squeezed themselves into the pupils’ seats, their legs stretched out uncomfortably in the aisles. A few in back were sitting on the desks themselves, their feet on the chairs in front. Except for Wasserman, the beard was composed of younger men, half still in their thirties and the rest in their forties and early fifties. Wasserman was dressed in a lightweight business suit, but the others wore the conventional costume in Barnard’s Crossing for a warm Sunday in June – slacks, sport shirts, and jackets or golf sweaters.

Through the open windows came the roar of a power lawn mower operated by Stanley, the janitor. Through the open door came the shrill chanting of the children in the assembly down the hall. There was little formality to the proceedings, members speaking whenever they felt like it, and more often than not, as now, several at once.

The chairman rapped on the desk with a ruler. “Gentlemen, one at a time. Now what were you saying, Joe?”

“What I was trying to say is that I don’t see how we can transact business in all this noise. And I don’t see why we don’t use the small sanctuary for our regular meetings.”

“Out of order,” called another voice. “That’s Good and Welfare.”

“Why am I out of order?” demanded Joe belligerently. “All right, I’ll make a motion that all meetings be conducted in the small sanctuary from now on. That’s New Business.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen. As long as I’m chairman, anyone who has something important to say can say it any time. Our meetings aren’t so complicated that we can’t go out of order occasionally. The secretary can always set it right in his minutes. The only reason we aren’t using the sanctuary, Joe, is that there’s no place for the secretary to write on. However, if the members feel that a classroom like this is not a good place for a meeting, we could have Stanley set up a table in the sanctuary.”

“That brings up another point, Jacob. How about Stanley? I don’t think it looks right to our Gentile neighbors for him to be out working in plain sight on Sunday, especially since he’s a Gentile and it’s his holiday as much as theirs.”

“What do you suppose they do on a Sunday? You walk along Vine Street and you’ll see practically every one of them put cutting the lawn, trimming the hedge, or maybe painting their boat.”

“Still, Joe has a good point there,” said Wasserman. “Of course, if Stanley objected we certainly wouldn’t insist. He’s got to work here Sundays because of the school, but maybe it would be better if he kept inside. On the other hand, nobody tells him to work outside. In that respect, he’s his own boss. He can arrange his work any way he wants. He’s outside now because he wants to be.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t look right.”

“Well, it’s only for a couple more weeks,” said Wasserman. “During the summer, he has Sundays off.” He hesitated and glanced at the clock at the back of the room. “That brings up a matter I’d like to talk about for a minute. We’ve got a couple of more meetings before we adjourn for the summer, but I think we ought to consider the rabbi’s contract.”

“What about it, Jacob? It runs through the High Holidays, doesn’t it?”

“That’s true, it does. That’s the way rabbis’ contracts are always written, so that the temple always has a rabbi for the holiday services. Which is why it’s customary to consider the new contract at this time of year. Then if the congregation decides they want to make a change, they have a chance to look around for a new rabbi. And if the rabbi wants to make a change, it gives him a chance to line up a new congregation. I think it might be a good idea if we voted right now to extend our rabbi’s contract for another year, and send him a letter to that effect.”

“Why? Is he looking around for something else, or did he mention it to you?”

Wasserman shook his head. “No, he hasn’t spoken about it. I just think it might be a good idea to send him a letter before he does.”

“Just a minute, Jacob, how do we know the rabbi wants to continue? Hadn’t we ought to get a letter from him first?”

“I think he likes it here and I think he’d be willing to continue,” said Wasserman. “As for the letter, it’s usually the employer who notifies. Naturally, we’d have to give him a raise. I think an increase of five hundred dollars would be a proper token of appreciation.”

“Mr. Chairman.” It was the harsh voice of Al Becker. The vice-president straddled his chair and leaned forward, supporting his heavy torso on clenched fists on the desk in front of him. “Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that with the tough time we’re having, with a brand-new temple and all, that five hundred dollars is a pretty expensive token.”

“Yeah, five hundred dollars is a lot of money.”

“He’s only been here a year.”

“Well, that’s the best time to give it to him, isn’t it, right after his first year?”

“You’ve got to give him some kind of a raise, and five hundred dollars is only a little more than five percent of his salary.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen.” Wasserman rapped on the desk with the ruler.

“I move we lay the whole matter on the table for a week or two,” said Meyer Goldfarb.

“What’s to lay on the table?”

“Meyer always wants to postpone when it comes to spending money.”

“It only hurts for a little while.”

“Mr. Chairman.” It was Al Becker again. “I second Meyer’s motion to lay the matter on the table until next week. That’s been our rule – whenever something involved spending a lot of money we’ve always held it over for at least a week. Now, I consider this a large expenditure. Five hundred dollars is a lot of money, and the new salary, ten thousand dollars, is an awful lot of money. All we’ve got here now is a bare quorum. I think on a matter as important as this, we ought to have a larger turnout. I move that Lennie be instructed to write to all members of the board asking them to be sure to come to next week’s meeting to discuss a matter of special importance.”

“There’s a motion on the floor.”

“Well, it’s the same idea. All right, I’ll make mine an amendment to the motion.”

“Any discussion on the amendment?” asked Wasserman.

“Just a minute, Mr. Chairman,” called Meyer Goldfarb. “That amendment is to my motion, so if I accept it then we don’t have to have any discussion. I just change my motion, see.”

“All right, restate your motion then.”

“I move that the motion to extend the rabbi’s contract –”

“Just a minute, Meyer, there was no such motion.”

“Jacob made the motion.”

“Jacob didn’t make any motion. He just made a suggestion. Besides, he was in the chair –”

“Gentlemen,” said Wasserman, banging with his ruler, “what’s the sense of all this motion, amendment, amendment to the amendment. I didn’t make a motion, I did make a motion? Is it the sense of this meeting that we should put off any action on the rabbi’s contract until next week?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure, why not? The rabbi won’t run away.”

“Even out of respect to the rabbi, there ought to be more people here.”

“All right,” said Wasserman, “so let’s hold it over already. If there’s no other business” – he waited for a moment – “then this meeting stands adjourned.”

Tuesday the weather was fine and mild, and Elspeth Bleech and her Mend Celia Saunders, who took care of the Hoskins’ children a couple of doors away, led their charges to the park, a ragged bit of turf a few blocks beyond the temple. The little procession was essentially a herding operation. The children ran ahead, but because Johnnie Serafino was still very young, Elspeth always took the stroller along. Sometimes he walked with the two women, his little fist tightly clutching the side or the chrome handle of the carriage, and sometimes he would clamber aboard and insist on being pushed.

Elspeth and Celia would walk about fifty feet and then stop to check on the whereabouts of their charges. If they had fallen behind they called to them, or ran back to pull them apart or make them drop something they had found in the gutter or a trash barrel.

Celia tried to persuade her friend to spend Thursday, their day off, together in Salem. “They’re having a sale at Adelson’s, and I wanted to see about another bathing suit. We could take the one o’clock bus –”

“I was thinking of going to Lynn,” said Elspeth.

“Why Lynn?”

“Well, I’ve been feeling sort of, you know, sickly lately and I thought I ought to have a checkup by a doctor. Maybe he could give me a tonic, or something.”

“You don’t need no tonic, El. What you need is a little exercise and some relaxation. Now you take my advice. You come into Salem with me and we can do some shopping, and then we can take in a movie in the afternoon. We can have a bite somewhere and after that we can go bowling. There’s the nicest bunch of fellows come down the alleys Thursday nights. We have the grandest times just kidding around. No rough stuff and nobody gets fresh. We just have a lot of fun hacking around.”

“Hm – I guess it’s nice all right, but I just don’t feel up to it, Cele. I’m tired most afternoons, and in the mornings I wake up and I feel light-headed, kind of.”

“Well, I know the reason for that,” said Celia positively. “You do?”

“You just don’t get enough sleep. That’s your trouble. Staying up until two or three o’clock every morning, it’s a wonder to me you can stand on your feet. And six days a week. I don’t know of another girl who doesn’t get Sundays off. Them Serafinos are taking advantage of you – they’re working you to death.”

“Oh, I get enough sleep. I don’t have to stay up until they get home.” She shrugged. “It’s just that alone in the house with only the kids, I kind of don’t like to get undressed and into bed. Most of the time, I nap on the couch. And then I nap in the afternoon, too. I get plenty of sleep, Cele.”