One Fine Day the Rabbi Bought a Cross

by Harry Kemelman

  In the evening, they watched television, or visited or were visited by Gittel’s friends. They would have tea or coffee and cake, and there would be a lot of talk—although, out of deference to her niece’s ignorance of the language, Gittel usually would announce, “Tonight, we will talk only English,” and though the rest of the company would try manfully to comply, sooner or later they would lapse into Hebrew. Then perhaps someone would notice that Miriam had a blank look on her face and hasten to translate for her. But there were apt to be longish periods of conversation that she did not understand. It did not bother her particularly. The conversation among the female part of the company was likely to be about recipes and where one could buy various things. Even though she did not understand, she enjoyed it, the liveliness of it, the sociability of it, for in Israel, and more particularly in Jerusalem, it was the chief form of entertainment—this coming together and meeting of people.

  The men tended to discuss politics, and if the rabbi was at a disadvantage because he did not know the day-to-day political issues or the personalities involved, it was not because of any difficulty with the language. And he was frequently appealed to, to explain American policy and to defend American actions. He found himself constantly defending his country, even when called upon to explain actions of which he himself disapproved. When he thought about it afterward, he sometimes wondered at his own jingoism. As he explained it to Miriam, “It isn’t a case of my country right or wrong, it’s just that they have no idea of how things work in the States. These people came from Russia and Poland and Germany, and even those who came from England and South Africa have no idea of how things happen with us. With most of them a political party is the embodiment of a set of ideas, and with us it’s a little of that and a lot of the personalities involved. When that fellow last night asked, ‘Why didn’t your president back that bill?’ he couldn’t understand when I tried to tell him that he didn’t because he couldn’t. He just wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed that,” said Miriam, “but they also argue a lot about religious matters. I mean, for people who aren’t at all religious—at least they’re not observant—and yet they seem to know a lot. Well, those doctors the other night, they were arguing with you about something in the Talmud. That’s unusual, certainly.”

  “Yes, it was. It was a rather involved point about what constituted money for purposes of acquisition of property. I marveled that these secular people, a couple of doctors and an accountant, should be so knowledgeable about this Talmudic discussion. I think it’s because all of them came from religious families and so studied Talmud when they were young. That’s why they came here, rather than to Canada or South America or the United States—those who would have been able to enter. It was certainly not because life would be easier here, so it must have been because they thought of this as their natural homeland, and that could only have been if they were raised in traditional homes. It makes for an interesting society. Even that cabdriver who took us out to Bayit V’gan last week was as knowledgeable as the average yeshiva student in the States.”

  “The one who refused to take a tip?”

  “Yes, that was refreshing, wasn’t it? It was fairly common when we were here years ago, but most uncommon nowadays, I gather.”

  It was precisely this widespread knowledge of his own general field of interest that made his life in Jerusalem so pleasant. He would get up early and go to one of the several houses of prayer in the vicinity. After a few days he settled on one—not the nearest, but the most congenial—and from then on attended that one exclusively.

  The minyan he attended was a pleasant fifteen-minute stroll while the air was still fresh and cool. The service lasted only about fifteen or twenty minutes, a little longer on the days when a portion of the Torah would be read, and afterward, the sun a little higher now and the developing heat of the day already perceptible, he would walk back, arriving sometimes before Miriam and Gittel had left, in which case he would have a full breakfast of eggs and toast and coffee because Miriam felt that a “good” breakfast was important to start the day. On those days when he arrived after she had gone and was left to his own devices, he would heat up the morning’s coffee and sip at it as he munched on a roll.

  Most of the attendants at the minyan had jobs to go to and hurried off as soon as the service was over, but there were one or two who like the rabbi had no urgent business in hand, and they would stay on for a while engaging in idle talk and then saunter out to a nearby café for coffee and a roll or a piece of pastry before they went their separate ways. There was one, Aharon, who always could be counted on. He was a tall, fine-looking, elderly man who always was very well dressed. In fact, he was something of a dandy, an old-fashioned dandy of several decades back who obviously spent considerable time every morning deciding on his costume, which shirt to wear with this suit, and which tie, and whether the shoes should be black or brown. His manners were formal; when asked if he cared to go to the café, he would click his heels and bow slightly from the waist in acknowledgment and acquiescence. He could easily have been ridiculous, but he had a manner as well as manners and gave the impression of having served in some position where the demeanor was the norm, as in a bank or an embassy. His English was pedantically correct, although he had a faint accent that the rabbi thought might be German or perhaps only the evidence of the Yiddish he had grown up with.

  The rabbi liked him. He was quiet, and unlike the others, he never indulged in the heckling, good-natured though it was, of the proprietor and the waiter at the café they frequented. He spoke little, and he nodded gravely when someone made a point. When he did speak, his words carried a note of authority. There was the feeling among the others that he would not guess or theorize, and when he spoke it was because he knew. Certainly, he was rarely challenged.

  It was Thursday, so the minyan had finished late because of the Torah reading. A young Bar Mitzvah lad had been present and had been called up for one of the readings. Afterward there was a little celebration of sorts, wine and whiskey, and kichel and cakes provided by the father of the boy. There were the usual congratulations to the father, toasts offered to him and to his son. Then someone said, “Oh, it’s almost nine o’clock,” and all dispersed as though the place had caught fire. On the street, the rabbi and Aharon stood waiting to see if any of the others were interested in going to the café for their usual breakfast. When it was obvious that no one else was coming, Aharon said, “If you have the time, Rabbi, and don’t mind walking a little, I should like you to be my guest for breakfast.”

  From anyone else, the invitation would have been a little ridiculous, since he knew that the rabbi normally had only coffee and a roll, for which the café was completely adequate. But Aharon was different, so the rabbi said gravely, “Thank you very much. I shall be happy to accept your invitation.” As they walked along, he asked, “Are you retired, Aharon?” And then with a short laugh, “I never did hear your family name.”

  “It’s Perlmutter. No, I am not retired. For the present, I work afternoons and evenings, which is why I have been free mornings. But that ends tomorrow.”

  “You mean you’re giving up your job?”

  “Oh, no. But next week I have to go back on the morning shift. You see, I’m a sort of substitute. I fill in where I’m needed. Ah, here we are.”

  They had come to the entrance of a hotel, the Excelsior. “You live here?” asked the rabbi.

  “No, this is where I work,” he said as he steered his guest to the dining room. “I’m on the desk part of the time, and part of the time I’m working in accounting. I am an accountant by profession, you see. I eat most of my meals here. It’s one of the perquisites of the job. And there is no objection to my having an occasional guest.”

  “You are not married?”

  “No, my wife … I am a widower.”

  Only one table was occupied, and from the way the half dozen who were seated around it greeted Aharon, the rabbi assumed that t
hey were employees of the hotel, and in reply to his question, Aharon confirmed it.

  “Yes, we are open for breakfast from seven to nine, and it is after nine now. As you see, the buffet has been cleared.” He steered him to a table. “However, the waiter will get us anything we ask for from the kitchen.”

  “All I want is coffee and a roll.”

  “No eggs, no omelet, toast, perhaps smoked fish, herring?”

  “Just a roll.”

  Aharon motioned to a waiter and gave their orders. The rabbi thought it significant that the waiter called him Mr. Aharon. As they sipped at their coffee, the rabbi said, “I have noticed in the discussions after the minyan, you appear to have a good knowledge of the Talmud.”

  “Well, of course, I studied—”

  “At a yeshiva? You were perhaps interested in the rabbinate?”

  The other laughed. “No. But my folks were comparatively well off. They wanted me to have an education, so I went to a yeshiva, but with no intention of becoming a rabbi.” He smiled. “But I got a lovely wife from it.”

  “Really?”

  “You see, I was tall, and considered nice-looking, even handsome. I came of a good family, and my folks, if not really rich, were not poor. But in addition, I was regarded as learned, which boosted my prospects materially. The local rich man, Jacob Grenitz, had a daughter of marriageable age. A shadchen came to see my folks, either on his own, or maybe Grenitz himself sent him. In any case, a match was arranged. It was a very good marriage. We loved each other very much.”

  “That was fortunate,” the rabbi observed.

  Aharon regarded him quizzically. “You think so? You are young, Rabbi, and grew up on the romantic assumption that a marriage should result only through the free choice of the principals. And yet I dare say that your grandparents, if not your parents, had their marriage arranged by a shadchen. And all your ancestors before them. Do you think that none of them knew marital happiness? Believe me, Rabbi, as long as the ages and backgrounds of two people are not too dissimilar, a happy marriage is likely. And the shadchen ensures that. It’s his basic function, to match equals.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” the rabbi said thoughtfully. “I know my grandparents had a very good marriage and as you say, the match was arranged.”

  “Even in my day,” Aharon admitted, “romantic notions were current. But my in-laws were very conservative people, and their daughter was guided by them.”

  He sighed. “For almost ten years we were very happy together. My father-in-law owned a glass factory. He manufactured pharmaceutical bottles. I went to work in the office, and after a short while I became the accountant for the company. But we had no children.

  “Nowadays one can do something about it. It can be determined whether the fault is with the husband or the wife, and in either case, measures can be taken. But in those days, the husband’s parents automatically assumed that it was the fault of the wife, and the wife’s parents that it was the fault of the husband. My own folks, anxious for grandchildren, even hinted that I should get a divorce, God forgive them. If my father-in-law had any such thoughts about me, he never betrayed it for a moment. He was very fond of me, and we got along very well together. And then after ten years, my wife became pregnant.”

  “And?”

  “My wife died in giving birth.”

  “And the child?”

  “Was stillborn.”

  “Oh, how awful.”

  Aharon nodded. “Yes. I gave up our house and moved into my father-in-law’s house for the year of mourning. We supported each other in our grief, and in any case, I could not go on living in our house; everything reminded me of her. And then my father-in-law sent me on a mission.”

  “What sort of mission?”

  “He had been negotiating for some machinery in Switzerland, and almost at the last minute, he decided that I should go in his place. Perhaps he thought it would be good for me to get away. He came down to the railroad station to see me off, and that was the last I ever saw of him.”

  “What happened?”

  “Germany invaded Poland and—”

  “But that was around 1940.”

  “September first, 1939.”

  The rabbi made rapid mental calculations and exclaimed, “Then you must be in your seventies.”

  “Seventy-five,” said Aharon.

  “I thought you at least ten years younger.”

  “Troubles age some, and for others it seems to halt the process. I obviously could not go back through the German lines. And then Russia thrust into Poland from the east. Subsequently, they made a treaty dividing the country between them. Ironically, the line of demarcation ran through our town; you see, my father-in-law’s name, Grenitz, means boundary. Years later, after, the war, when I was able to return, I found no trace of the family. They had all been killed off.”

  The people at the other table had left and they were the only diners in the room. The waiters were moving about preparing the tables for lunch, changing tablecloths, setting out napkins and silver. The rabbi looked about and said, “I think I had better be going.”

  “Yes, I think the waiters want to clear this table.” He got up and with a little formal bow said, “I will not see you at shachris for a while. Maybe at mincha, maariv. I was informed yesterday that I would be going on mornings for a while. At seventy-five, you understand, one doesn’t have much choice in these matters. I have to get here a little before seven to check those who come down to breakfast against my list. I do that until nine and then go on to the front desk. Obviously I can’t go to the minyan. I’ll have to recite the morning prayers at home.”

  “And when do you get through?”

  He shrugged. “Probably at three, but in a hotel one never knows. Perhaps I can arrange for you, and your wife, of course, to have dinner with me here some evening. We have an excellent chef.”

  “I should like that very much, Aharon, said the rabbi and held out his hand.

  12

  Since the envelope was marked “personal,” Mrs. Mills brought it to Professor El Dhamouri unopened. He glanced at the envelope, saw that it was on the stationery of the Olympia Hotel, Athens, and noted that it bore a U.S. postal stamp and had been mailed in New York. It was from Grenish, of course. The first sentence told him what he had already surmised.

  “Dear Hassan: A chance acquaintance here at the hotel told me he was flying back to the States tomorrow morning. So I am taking the occasion to write you so that he can mail it when he lands in New York. I understand that if I were to use the Greek mails, there would be a good chance that I would arrive home before it reached you.

  “The flight over was not at all tedious except for an inquisitive bore who dropped into the seat beside me—the plane was only half full and there was a lot of moving around as a consequence. He told me that he was going back to the ‘Old Country’ from which he had come when he was a ‘little kid.’

  “And what was I going to Greece for? And did I know anyone there? And was I planning to stay for a while, or would I be moving on to other countries? Did I have a hotel in Athens? When I mentioned the Olympia, he was all but overcome by the coincidence, since he, too, was staying there. And that would be a great break for me, since his cousins would be seeking him out, and they would show us—note the plural pronoun—around the town.

  “I finally got rid of him by closing my eyes and murmuring sleepily that I was drowsy because of the heavy dinner we had been given—which wasn’t bad, by the way. And after a while I did indeed doze off. When I awoke, he was gone, and needless to say I did not go looking for him.

  “At Athens Airport I was a little surprised—and pleased—that he did not board the bus with me. He had evidently been met by one of his cousins, because I saw him in a private car that passed our bus. I assumed he would arrive before me, and I half expected he might be waiting for me in the lobby, but when I arrived, the coast was clear.

  “I left the hotel shortly after checking in, to walk
the streets for a while and to avoid my erstwhile seatmate. My first impression was surprise at the hustle and bustle of the city. I had not thought it would be as modern and so busy.”

  He went on to write of the friendliness of the Greek shopkeepers and wondered if this was merely the face they presented to customers—“Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, although I expect I’ll have to pay for anything I get”—the clarity of the air, the heat. He ended by saying he was planning to go up to Olympus on the morrow and then later in the week perhaps to one of the islands.

  The professor folded the letter and carefully put it back in its envelope. Then he reached for the telephone and called Albert Houseman at the Holiday Inn.

  Houseman, in jeans and sneakers, came over as soon as he was sure that Mrs. Mills would have left for the day. He read the letter El Dhamouri tossed to him.

  “What’s this timeo business?” he asked.

  “Oh, that’s a Latin quotation. It means, I fear the Greeks even though they come bearing gifts. Abe Grenish is something of a pedant. He frequently uses a Latin tag when he can pull it in.”

  “He doesn’t mention the guy’s name.”

  “You mean his Greek friend? No, he doesn’t. Maybe he didn’t catch it, or maybe the other didn’t give it. What do you think?”

  “It’s probably just a guy wanting to talk and finding someone to listen. Transatlantic flights can be pretty boring after a while. Still …” His fingers drummed the desk as he took thought.

  “You think he might—”

  “I think we shouldn’t take any chances. I’ll alert one of our people in Athens. This other guy, the one who mailed the letter, he doesn’t mention his name, either. Now he knows he’s in touch with you because your name was on the envelope.”