The Rabbi of Lud

by Stanley Elkin

  six

  WHERE,” I asked, “could we go?”

  “Shh,” Shelley said afterward as we lay in each other’s arms in the dark. “Shh.”

  “You told Connie we’d leave Lud. And do what? Where? How?”

  “Shh. Shah. Ay le lu lu.”

  “Where, Shelley? What would I do?”

  “Later-le.”

  “Later-le’s too late. Right-e-le now.”

  “Leave-e-le now?”

  “Talk-e-le now, ask-e-le questions afterward.”

  Because it’s one thing to calm your kid down with easy promises, but I’m not talking about eat your greens, sweetheart, we’ll go get 31 flavors. Connie’s no fool. She had real problems, even—I say it—legitimate gripes. Not all that death prattle, of course, ghosts in the drinking water, phantoms in her pants. Not even my failure with God in the Stanley Bloom affair, nothing metaphysical. She had flawed birthrights, I think. A misser-out on the gemütlich circumstance, the curled and comfy lap-robe life. I don’t know, maybe it would have been better for her if she’d had an aversion to the four food groups, better if we could have done business, traded and bribed her, appetite for appetite, taken her to the mall more, kept her up past her bedtime, made nests for her in the back of the car and driven her home in the dark. Maybe we should have turned the radio low and shifted from texture to texture for her on the highways, playing the percussives and hypnotics of different road surfaces like some long, cozy organ, the dash’s soft glow and the averted headlamps of oncoming cars like light skimming along the walls and ceilings of dark bedrooms. But still her stinted birthright. She was an only child. She had no grandparents, no cousins, no uncles, no aunts. Was this mild orphan of relation. (“I’m the last of your line,” she told us once. “When I marry there’ll be no more Goldkorns,” she’d said, and burst into tears. “Please don’t cry,” Shelley said, “I’m the same as you are.” “Me too,” I said, “the fall of the House of Usherkorn.”) But another thing altogether to offer to change their life.

  Which is what I’d been trying to impress upon Shelley.

  “What?” I asked. “Where?”

  “Anywhere,” she said drowsily.

  “Anywhere. Shell?”

  “Mnn?”

  “What?”

  “Anything-e-ling-e-ding-e-ling-e,” she murmured and then, I swear it, actually yawned in that pidgin Yiddish or whatever the hell else it was she thought she was speaking.

  “Shelley, wake up, we’ve got to talk.” I shook my wife.

  “What,” she said, “what is it?”

  “A couple of days ago you told Connie we’d leave Lud and she believed you. Jesus, Shell, I believed you. All right, the kid hasn’t made a fuss, she hasn’t even brought it up again, but I see her watching me. Yesterday I told her I hadn’t had time to type up my resume yet but that I was working on it. Working on it. It would take me ten minutes! Two minutes to write and eight to find the envelope to stick it in, address, and drink the glass of water to get rid of the bad taste in my mouth from sealing it and licking the stamp. Only I’ll tell you, Shelley,” I said, “I’m fresh the hell out of ideas.”

  “Poor Jerry.”

  “Shelley, you don’t know.”

  “Poor Jerry. So much on his head.”

  “I mean really,” I said, “what experience have I had?”

  “Thinking about Talmud all day. Talmud Talmud Talmud.”

  “A man my age. It’s worse than being fired. Really,” I said, “it is. It really is.”

  “Tch tch. Should I say something to Connie? I’ll say something to Connie. You want me to say something?”

  “No,” I said, “the kid’s got real problems. You think I’d go along with any of this if I didn’t believe she had real problems?”

  “She said ‘goddamn.’ She said ‘asshole’ to her papa.”

  “They lay you off, at least they offer to retrain you. They teach you computer programming, give you a hundred dollars and a new suit.”

  “Everything’s going to be fine. You worry too much.”

  “Talmud Talmud Talmud.”

  “I know,” Shelley said.

  “So here’s what I’ve come up with.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We emigrate to Israel. They’d have to take us in. It’s the Law of the Return.”

  “Emigrate? To Israel?”

  “Sure,” I said. “It won’t be so bad. They set us up in a suitable kibbutz.”

  “We emigrate to Israel?”

  “I thought you’d be pleased. You’d be an Israel-e-li.”

  “But Jerry,” she said, “all we have to do is move to Fairlawn.”

  “What?”

  “Or Ridgewood.”

  “What?”

  “Or any of dozens of towns. We’ve got all northern Jersey to choose from.”

  “Jesus,” I said, “northern Jersey!”

  “Sure,” Shelley said, “I asked one of the girls in The Chaverot to be on the lookout, to tell me if she heard of a place. Elaine Iglauer?”

  “Elaine Iglauer. The one who moves. Yes?”

  “You should have heard the leads she came up with just off the top of her head.”

  “Sure,” I said, “she knows her stuff.”

  “She really does.”

  “You’re telling me,” I said. “Seven houses in six different towns.”

  “Oh, you’re behind. They’ve just closed on their eighth.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said. “That’s marvelous, that’s really wonderful.”

  “Of course we’d have to buy,” she said. “We wouldn’t have the kind of deal we have here.”

  “Utilities and taxes? No,” I said, “are you kidding? Who could expect to? Not me.”

  “Joan Cohen said she’d shop around for a temple once Elaine’s found a place for us.”

  “Joan Cohen,” I said. “The one who shops.”

  A person’s so single-minded. When Shelley told Connie we’d leave Lud, I thought … But a person’s so single-minded. Our problems were solved. If it cost us a few bucks then it cost us a few bucks. Hey, you don’t get bth, lg lvng rm w/fr pic, rmdld kchn, scrnd brzway, rbi’s stdy, grg, patio & swmng pl, convnt to grvs, crpts, tmbs & mslms? Of course it would take a hefty chunk out of the savings to replace something like that, but I could always take Klein and Charney up on their offer. In fact, I all the way through life on the arm. Who knew better than I? Wasn’t that what so many of my eulogies were about? Sacrifice? Being there for others? I had no problems with that. Anyway, hadn’t we been able to put a little something by? Weren’t we okay in that department? No mortgage payments, no rent, living scot-free years in a big white Colonial, 5 bdm, 31/2would, and decided to call them first thing in the morning. No, to call them that night and leave a message on their machine, to call Shull and Tober, too, and leave a message on theirs, that they could start drawing up the fancy new contracts with the no-cut clauses. (Of course a person has to sacrifice, but if he plays his cards right he might not even have to dip into capital.)

  And hadn’t I, misunderstanding or no misunderstanding, and despite my relief—my relief came afterward, a solidly come-by, legitimately earned relief—already shown that willingness to sacrifice which ought, if it already wasn’t, to be all that God ever actually outright required of anyone—vide Abraham, vide Isaac—just that momentary glimpse of the revealed soul like a private part? Hadn’t I already fixed it in my head to go to the wall for my spooked daughter? Even unto such lengths that I was going to uproot everything I knew or was good at, as if everything I knew or was good at were some tainted husbandry, the rotten fruits of a bad season, and the wall was the wailing one. Next month, say, in Jerusalem? So never mind I was relieved. I knew what was in store for us if we emigrated. To humiliate myself and endanger my family. Jersey Jerry Goldkorn, the Klutz of the Kibbutz like a court jester, terrified of incoming on the northern border, terrified of incoming, period. Suspicious of ancient Arab ladies and gent
lemen on the buses, suspicious of everyone, innocent-looking kids, the more innocent-looking the guiltier, as if an entire population had become suspects in a mystery, everyone, rabbis and shamuses and balebatish providers, a potentially turned Jew, trust and belief vitiated until all that there was left to believe in were the up-for-grab loyalties, some remarkable shifting double agency. (Besides, I was an American and not only had no use for terrorists but no business in politics. An American’s politics is his standard of living, and I say God bless him for that. Money and comfort. All else is vanity.)

  I got out of bed, left the sleeping Shelley, and made my calls, but instead of leaving a complicated message on the machine about having finally decided to take Charney and Klein up on their offer to push grave lots because we were thinking of buying a house and would need the extra income, I simply left my name and asked if they could get back to me in the morning.

  I couldn’t get over it. A person’s so single-minded, so committed to one avenue of thought he really can’t see the forest for the trees. Shelley’d told the kid we’d pick up and leave Lud, and I’d thought she meant it was all up with me in the rabbi business, that I couldn’t be Rabbi of Lud anymore. I couldn’t get over it, I really couldn’t. I’m thinking life after Lud, she’s thinking Ridgewood.

  And so I’m lying there beside my sleeping Shelley, all stimulated and pleased with how things work out and, if you want to know, actually looking forward to the new duties I’d be taking on if we were to avoid being kicked in the head financially. And kicking ideas around in my head, things I could say to the people I’d be dealing with, the folks whose names Klein and Charney would have given me as leads. For openers—I’d have on my yarmulke, to show the flag, you know?—I’d say, I’d say, oh, “Shalom, shalom. How are you today, Mr. Fishbone? Mrs. Fishbone? I’m Rabbi Jerome Goldkorn, the Rabbi of Lud. Mr. Charney suggested I speak with you. Mr. Charney? Charney and Klein? Realities? What, did I say ‘realities?’ I meant realtors, but face it, it’s realities we’re really talking about here, isn’t it?”

  Working variations in my head, versions of the instructions they dictated to their machines, reprises of the messages I had left on them, until, one thing leading to the other as it does in the act of drifting off, I lost my place and fell asleep.

  And when the phone woke me the next morning and I heard Emile Tober’s voice, it was as if it had been a perfectly seamless night.

  “Yes, Emile,” I said, “thanks for getting back to me. It’s about—”

  “I know what it’s about! Just what in the hell is wrong with that lunatic daughter of yours? Has she fucking gone crazy?!”

  seven

  BECAUSE she’s as single-minded as I am. Single-minded on my behalf, taking an even more single-minded view of things than I did. Not figuring the kibbutz into the equation, not figuring Ridgewood or Israel or the Law of the Return or any other loophole. Too single-minded for that, her single-minded eyes focused on one single-minded principle—Rabbi of Lud or nothing. More single-minded. (Because with me there was never any question of stealth, but then—give the devil her due—she wasn’t her father but only the helpless kid in the affair, so maybe she felt she had to. Well, of course she felt she had to, obviously she felt she had to, though—though this is the father in me talking—it was a perfectly reasonable, perfectly honorable stealth, like that famous letter hidden right in front of your eyes in the story—a sort of purloined stealth. Getting Shelley to drive her to all those libraries that spring and winter and even, when she was over the limit herself, to check out extra books for her on her card. And we worried because no matter how much work she did it didn’t seem to get reflected in her grades. To say nothing of the three or four hundred dollars she was able to put away by never volunteering to return the change we had coming to us, or by saving ten or eleven bucks out of the fifteen we gave her each week for her allowance. The little dickens.)

  This is what she said in the deposition:

  I, Constance Ruth Goldkorn, being of sound mind and body, do solemnly swear and attest that what I am about to affirm is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

  I didn’t know who she was. When I saw her that first time I didn’t recognize her from Adam and would have hurried away as fast as my legs could carry me, but of course I didn’t, and probably couldn’t, even though I wanted to because when I saw her that first time it was a snow day and the sidewalks and streets were all covered with ice and snow and it was very slippery out, which is the reason, she said, the schools were closed and our paths happened to cross in the first place.

  I told her excuse me, that I was on this errand for my mom, and started to walk away from her, and that’s when she started to cry.

  Which I thought was very curious. Not that she was crying because it was very cold out, ten or fifteen below maybe, and there were tears in my eyes too, only the tears in my eyes were because of the cold weather, that like icy stinging you get in your eyes when it’s real cold and you almost feel your eyeballs are going to crack, or those sharp, sticky pains that you get in your temples. I’m a little embarrassed to tell this next part, but my attorney, Counselor Christopher Rockers, says that a deposition is a testimony taken down under oath for use in court, although in this case there’s not going to be any trial or anything and I’m making this deposition only because I want what happened to go on the record. Anyway, the point is, the lady was not only crying but crying so hard she had this runny nose too. (I was raised in a cemetery, I know about Nature. I don’t get the giggles if a boy cuts a fart. I don’t go all squeamy when it’s that time of month. I know that bodily functions often have nothing to do with whether a person has or has not got bad manners. I’m like a kid on a farm in that respect.) Anyway, what was so curious was that the tears were pouring out her eyes and running down her cheeks, and the mucus was dripping out her nostrils just exactly as if she was crying indoors in a warm, toasty room and not outside on a cold, blustery ten- or fifteen-degree-below-zero snow day. That’s the sort of tears and mucus they were—soft, room temperature tears and mucus.

  My father, Rabbi Jerome Goldkorn, works for Shull and Tober Funeral Directors of Lud, New Jersey, and even if I am only fourteen years old, I’ve been around enough unhappiness, sadness, sorrow, gloom and grief in my time almost to be able to tell the difference between them (and, if you ask me, I think it was all five), and certainly to swear that whatever it was that caused all that weeping didn’t have anything to do with weather.

  Though you’d almost think it could have because all she had on was this—I don’t know how to describe it exactly—not a kimono or shroud, more like what those ladies wear in Middle East countries so men can’t look at them, that they wrap around them like a shawl and that covers their heads too—big blue gown like a housewife who’s locked herself outside her own house.

  Now this next thing is embarrassing because it’s on me. I don’t have a whole lot of friends. My father thinks it’s because of where we live, and there’s some truth in that because there certainly aren’t a whole bunch of kids around here to play with. Anyway, even if I don’t have a lot of friends, those kids who do get to know me, the kids in my car pool, for example, or some of the people who know me from class, will tell you I’m shy, that I keep to myself and like to mind my own business. I’ll give an example that comes to my mind. Last year I graduated from Junior High and there was some foulup at the printer’s about the school colors—they’re brown and white, not green and red—and our yearbooks all had to go back to the bindery and we didn’t get to see them until after we actually graduated. What happened was, they sent us this announcement that the yearbooks were ready and that we could come to the gym and get them if we brought our receipt along to show that we’d paid. Only I had a bad cold the day we were supposed to pick up the yearbook and didn’t get to the school until three days later. They had to open the gym especially for me (which as you can probably imagine was pretty embarrassing just in itse
lf), and Mrs. Sayles, the lady from the office who opened the gym, went to the table where they’d put all the yearbooks. “It’s too bad you had that cold, Connie,” she said, “or you could have written in your friends’ yearbooks.” Then she said, oh, well, at least mine had been inscribed, that she’d seen to it herself that the kids wrote something in all the kids’ yearbooks who couldn’t pick them up on the regularly scheduled day they were supposed to. Well, after she told me that I never got up the nerve to even open my yearbook. Because she’d made them write something in it, you see. I’m shy. I keep to myself. I mind my own business. It would have been like reading someone else’s mail.

  That’s why I didn’t ask her anything. Like why she was crying, or if she was lost—I’d never seen her before—or cold in just her thin blue wrap, and made out like it was perfectly natural to find someone in the street on the coldest day of the year, crying like a baby with stuff coming out of its face, and even—and I’m really embarrassed about this part because shyness and keeping to yourself and minding your business are one thing and only part of a person’s particular makeup, but this was something else altogether, not just disposition but character—that people around here were free to behave like they want to behave, as if letting someone suffer was democracy in action or something and not asking them if any thing’s wrong is a plus, rather than the cruel minus I knew it was even then. And wouldn’t have even if she hadn’t turned the tables on me, making out as if it was me and not her standing out there in the street in this summery lightweight with the wind tearing at my head, and the temperature banging my blood to a standstill.

  I’ve already mentioned how I’m this agony expert. I wasn’t boasting. I wasn’t even trying to suggest that it’s a natural gift. I think it’s just what a person is accustomed to. If I’m able to tell which one is really in mourning and which one is probably only putting on a show, I don’t think I should get extra credit for it. As I say, it’s what a person gets accustomed to. You live and learn. I just happen to have this sort of perfect pitch for heartache. It’s unusual in a person of my years, I admit, but I come by it honestly. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that if I thought I was good at different shades of misery and grief, it was because I’d never seen this lady before. She made me feel insensitive. She made me feel like, well, some tone-deaf piker.