One Fine Day the Rabbi Bought a Cross

by Harry Kemelman

  “I understand. Naturally, I’ll cooperate. You have only to let me know, and I’ll be there. And I’ll see to it that Hakem is there, too.”

  25

  As his secretary waited expectantly, the manager said to Adoumi, “You’ll have coffee?”

  “No-no. Oh, all right. Black.”

  “And something with it, perhaps? A roll? A piece of cake?”

  “No, nothing. Just coffee.”

  “And I’ll have one, too,” said the manager, and nodded in dismissal to the girl. “And now, what can I do for you?”

  Adoumi handed him a black-and-white photograph. “You ever see this man? Here, in your hotel, I mean?”

  The manager smiled. “Right this moment, there are seven hundred and eighteen guests in the hotel. By noon, three hundred and forty-two will have left. Actually, by ten o’clock. This afternoon, three hundred and eighty-six are scheduled to arrive.”

  “I suppose,” said Adoumi gloomily. “And you’re in the office here most of the day, I assume.”

  “That’s right.”

  The secretary brought in a coffeepot and two cups and saucers on a tray. She set the tray on the desk to one side so as not to cover the photograph, glanced curiously at it, and then left. The manager poured the coffee and offered a cup to Adoumi. Then as his guest lit a cigarette, he slid over an ashtray. Adoumi sipped at his coffee, puffed his cigarette as he considered. Then he said, “But your security guard hangs around the lobby and circulates—the dining room, the bar.”

  “That’s right.”

  “A clerk at the desk registered him. A porter brought his bags up to the room. Perhaps the chambermaid on that floor—”

  “Let’s see. He arrived around two, so the chambermaid would have made up the room several hours earlier. She’d probably be at the end of the corridor by that time, around the corner—no, two corners. But it’s possible.” He got up and went to a file cabinet and got a registration card. “Ah, it was Hassan who registered him. It was the beginning of the Sabbath, you understand, and the Arab staff take over the desk. But he’s working now, working in our bookkeeping department.”

  “How do you know it was Hassan who signed him in?”

  “Oh, we have them initial the card. I’ll call him.”

  “I see. But don’t tell him who we think it is. Just show him the photo.”

  “As you wish.”

  “You tell him this is a photo of Professor Grenish, whom you registered last Friday, and, of course, he’ll say he recognizes it,” Adoumi explained. “I’ll question him, if you don’t mind.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Since he was working in the bookkeeping office, Hassan was wearing blue jeans and a sweater rather than the formal black trousers and gray jacket with gold buttons that he wore when he was at the front desk. He was nervous, and there were beads of perspiration on his forehead. The manager tried to put him at ease. “Nothing serious, Hassan. This gentleman wants to ask you a few questions. That’s all.”

  Adoumi showed him the photograph. “Have you seen this man? Here in the hotel, I mean.”

  Hassan took the photograph from Adoumi and held it in front of him with both hands, and then away, at arm’s length. Then he asked, “Is it one of the guests?”

  “Just tell us if you’ve seen him,” said Adoumi.

  He smiled apologetically. “I see so many people.”

  “This would be last Friday,” Adoumi suggested.

  “Just when you came on duty,” the manager added. “You registered him.”

  “I may have seen him, but I do not remember. I see so many. There was a tour group that came in then. Maybe Youssef, the porter—”

  “Why Youssef?” asked Adoumi. “You’ve got a whole gang of porters, haven’t you?”

  “All right, Hassan. You may go.” To Adoumi he explained, “We had a tour bus come in at that time—a couple of them, in fact. When a group comes in, the porters work like a team. There is baggage on the roof of the bus under a tarpaulin, as well as in the regular storage compartment. They unload the bags and pass them hand to hand into the lobby. Youssef is a little—er—nervous and is apt to get confused. So he doesn’t participate. We use him for other errands required at the time. If someone came in alone, as Grenish did, he’d be the one to take his bags up.”

  He called the front desk, and presently Youssef appeared. He was grinning ingratiatingly. In response to Adoumi’s question, he nodded eagerly. “Of course, he is my patron, my benefactor.”

  “What do you mean, your benefactor?” asked the manager.

  “He gave a tip of a hundred shekels.”

  “He gave you a hundred-shekel tip? When was this?”

  “All—two, no, three weeks ago. I was out sick. I come back, and the first day, I’m still weak. This man have a little bag. So big.” He held his hands a foot apart to indicate the size. “I take it to his room and he give me a hundred shekels. I say, this is a hundred shekels. And he say, I deserve. So I—”

  “You say this was two or three weeks ago?”

  “Well, maybe a month.”

  “All right, Youssef. You can go back to your station now.” He smiled at Adoumi. “You’re not having much luck, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m not surprised. Let’s try the chambermaid.”

  The manager reached for the phone and dialed the housekeeper. “Who was the chambermaid who found the bed unslept in last week, Mrs. Burns?… Yael … Send her down to my office, will you?”

  When the girl came, Adoumi thrust the photograph in front of her and demanded, “Do you know this man?”

  She looked from one to the other, frightened, and then buried her face in her hands and began to wail, rocking back and forth.

  “She thinks you’re accusing her of something improper,” said the manager. To the girl he said, “No, no, Yael. It’s nothing bad, it’s nothing wrong. We only want to know if you have ever seen this man—in the corridor, perhaps.”

  She peered between her fingers, and then, seemingly reassured, lowered her hands and looked at the photo once again. Then she shook her head no.

  “There’s still Avi, the security guard,” the manager offered.

  “Yes, but he knows who it is we’re trying to identify.”

  “So what? He’s not like the others. He’s had some training in this kind of thing, so I don’t think he’d say he recognized him if he hadn’t actually seen him.”

  “All right. Have him up.”

  When Adoumi showed him the photo, he asked, “Grenish?”

  “That’s what we want to find out,” said Adoumi. “Ever see him?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t make him at all.” He chuckled self-consciously. “And yet, you know, I saw him.”

  “What do you mean? You saw him but you don’t remember what he looks like?”

  “Sunday, right after breakfast, maybe ten o’clock, Shoshana asks me to move the typewriter for her. So I’m behind the desk unplugging the cord and somebody says, ‘I think there’s something for me, Room seven-thirteen.’ So I look up, and sure enough, there’s a letter in the seven-thirteen pigeonhole. I glance at it, and I say, ‘Grenish?’ and he says, ‘That’s right.’ So I give it to him. I didn’t look at him—maybe his back as he turned away.”

  The manager turned to Adoumi. “The desk clerk, the chambermaid, the porter, and Avi here. That’s about the lot. They’re the only ones who might have seen Grenish—”

  “How about Perlmutter?” asked the security guard.

  “What about him?”

  “He had the dining-room trick at breakfast Sunday morning. He checked him in. He might remember.”

  “It’s worth a try,” said the manager.

  The security guard glanced at his watch. “He’s just getting through. I’ll get him.”

  But Perlmutter only shook his head when he was shown the photograph.

  “You checked him in for breakfast,” the manager urged.

  Perlmutter shrugged. “And thr
ee hundred or three hundred and fifty others,” he said. “It’s a very ordinary face. There’s nothing outstanding about it. Why should I be apt to remember him? And if he came in at the same time as several others, I probably didn’t even look up at him. They give their names and room numbers and I check them off.”

  Later, alone again with Adoumi, the manager refilled their coffee cups, and lighting a cigarette, leaned back in his chair. “Can’t you get a copy of his passport photo from the American authorities?” he asked.

  “Sure, but it takes time. I was hoping—here, let me see his registration card.”

  The manager tossed it over to him. “You think maybe his fingerprints might be on it?”

  “We-el …”

  The manager looked up at the ceiling as he pictured in his mind’s eye the behavior of someone registering. He shook his head. “The registration cards are held in a sort of leather frame, so only the edge of his writing hand is apt to touch the card itself. There are probably half a dozen clerks who might handle it after that.”

  But Adoumi was reading aloud. “Abraham Grenish, Fourteen Newhall Street, Barnard’s Crossing, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Barnard’s Crossing.” He repeated the name of the town, sampling it on his tongue, his forehead wrinkled in thought. “Barnard’s Crossing? Barnard’s Crossing? Now, where have I heard that name before?” Then it came to him. Of course—Gittel’s niece and her husband, the young rabbi. And only yesterday his wife had said something about their being in town. Was it a coincidence, or was the rabbi leading some sort of tour? He smiled, and to the manager said, “Let me have the telephone, will you. How do I get an outside line?”

  “Dial nine.”

  He dialed and then said, “Sarah? Uri. You were telling me that your friend Gittel had some visitors, her niece and her husband. That’s the young rabbi we met some years ago?… And she wanted us to come over for tea one evening? Then make it for tonight.”

  He smiled at the manager. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  26

  Gittel had known the adoumis for years and was particularly friendly with Sarah Adoumi, who had been a colleague in the Social Service office when they were both living in Tel Aviv. Now that they were both living in Jerusalem, Gittel would occasionally have lunch with her. When her niece and her niece’s husband arrived, she naturally invited Sarah and her husband to spend an evening and renew their acquaintance with her relatives. So far it had not been convenient.

  “You know how it is, Gittel. Uri has no regular hours, and for the past week or so, he’s been busy most evenings. Sometimes I don’t see him until midnight. But as soon as his work allows …”

  Evidently, Tuesday it allowed, and Sarah phoned Gittel. “If you people are free this evening, we can come for coffee. Uri would like to see your niece’s husband—and your niece, too, of course, and—”

  “Lovely, Sarah. Miriam baked today. And I bought a dress I’d like to try on for you. Miriam thinks it doesn’t hang right.”

  “So you’ll try it on and I’ll pin it for you.”

  They came at half past eight, and after the usual greetings, they sat around the dining-room table, where Gittel and Miriam had set out cheese and crackers, fruit, and the cake Miriam had baked, reminiscing, joking as they nibbled and sipped their coffee. The conversation was largely in English for Miriam’s benefit, lapsing into Hebrew every now and then because Sarah’s English was limited.

  Later, when the two older women went into the bedroom so that Gittel could try on the dress she had bought, Adoumi was alone with the Smalls. By this time, of course, he knew that the rabbi was not leading a group from Barnard’s Crossing. He slid the photograph he had been given by Luria out of his pocket and placed it on the table in front of them. “Do you know him?” he asked casually.

  The rabbi looked at Miriam, and when she shook her head, he asked, “Does he say that he knows us?”

  Instead of answering the question, Adoumi urged, “It might not be a characteristic expression on the face, and you might not actually know him, but he’s from your town in the States. You might, perhaps, have seen him on the street, at a bus stop, or in a store.”

  Again the rabbi shook his head, as did Miriam.

  “That’s funny,” said Adoumi. “I mean, yours is a small town, isn’t it? I should think you would have seen almost everyone living in your town at one time or another.”

  “The population of Barnard’s Crossing is around twenty thousand,” said Miriam.

  “Twenty thousand, and you call it a town?”

  “In our area, it’s a matter of how the local government is set up,” the rabbi explained. “If it has a mayor, then it’s a city. If it has a Board of Selectmen, as we have, then it’s a town.”

  “Oh, I see.” It was evident that Adoumi was acutely disappointed.

  “You mean, he says he’s from Barnard’s Crossing, and you don’t believe him?” asked Miriam. “Did he say he knew us?”

  The rabbi smiled. “No, Miriam, if this man were available, I’m sure Mr. Adoumi would not have shown us a photograph, and he would already have asked him if he knew us. If he had, he wouldn’t have been so disappointed when we failed to recognize him.”

  Adoumi grinned. “Then what would I have done, Rabbi?”

  “If it were someone who claimed to be from our town, and you were in doubt, I think you would arrange for us to meet him and talk with him, to ask him questions about people and places and customs of the town to see if he really had lived in the town. Who is he, anyhow?”

  Adoumi nodded slowly. He sighed. Finally, speaking very slowly, he said, “A man is missing. He was staying at the Excelsior. He had breakfast Sunday morning. Monday, the chambermaid reported that his bed had not been slept in. The security guard checked the room. Sometimes it is a case of someone trying to skip out without paying his hotel bill. You find a worthless old suitcase full of rags and weighted down with a couple of stones, perhaps. Then they call the police. But when all his effects are there, they call us. All we know about this man is that he registered as Professor Grenish of Barnard’s Crossing.”

  “You mean, if he’s just absent one night?” asked Miriam. “He could have met relatives who insisted he stay over, or—”

  “Yes, quite possible,” said Adoumi. “But Grenish has been gone since Sunday.”

  “But you have a photograph, and it doesn’t look like a copy of his passport photo. These usually give just head and shoulders—and they have the State Department seal impressed over the picture.”

  Adoumi nodded approvingly. “That’s right. This is the photo of a body that turned up with no identification. We thought it was just possible that it was the same man. Of course, we could televise it to the States, to the police department of your town. Or we could ask them to see if they could send us a picture of Grenish, by going to his house, perhaps. But that would take a lot of time. I thought if you people knew him, or even if you remembered having seen him occasionally, that would not be positive identification, of course, but it would be enough for us to go on. If I thought there were others in the country from Barnard’s Crossing—”

  “But there are,” said Miriam. “The Levinsons. They called us. They rented a car and are touring, but they said they might drop in on us tomorrow night, perhaps. And next week there’ll be a whole busload on a tour, you know.”

  “Ah, Levinson, you say?” Adoumi got out his notebook. “And where are they staying?”

  “They didn’t say. I asked, but Sheila—I spoke to the wife—was rather vague, so I gathered they might be staying with friends. They are not very good friends of ours, so perhaps she didn’t want us calling if they couldn’t make it. It was a duty call she was making, you understand.”

  “Since they rented the car, I imagine you would be able to trace it and locate them,” suggested the rabbi.

  “Of course,” Adoumi agreed, “but it might take several days. I’ll tell you what. Suppose I leave this photograph with you, and if they call, you can show
it to them. Then, if they recognize the man, you can let me know. It’s curious. The man is a professor. I would think a professor in a town the size of yours would be well known.”

  The rabbi smiled. “We are about a half hour by car from both Boston and Cambridge. In Cambridge are both Harvard and MIT. In Boston there are a number of colleges—Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern, Suffolk. Both cities are full of students, and that makes a quiet place like Barnard’s Crossing highly desirable as a place to live for their teachers.”

  “I suppose so,” said Adoumi, his face showing obvious disappointment. “I don’t know where Grenish teaches—”

  “Grenish? His name is Grenish, is it?” The rabbi smiled broadly. “Then I can tell you how you can identify him. A friend of mine, someone I see at the minyan I attend, works at the Hotel Excelsior. Was it from there he was missing?”

  “And he spoke to him?” Adoumi made no effort to conceal his interest and excitement.

  “Well, I don’t know that he spoke to him. I think he said that he was about to when the manager called him to the front desk. But you see, my friend’s wife’s family name was Grenitz, and he thought Grenish might be an Americanization of the name, so—”

  “And your friend’s name is …?”

  “Perlmutter, Aharon Perlmutter.”

  But Adoumi had been fingering his notebook. “Yes, here it is. Breakfast checker at the dining room.” He shook his head. “He saw the photograph. He was unable to identify him.”

  “Then it’s not the man,” said the rabbi.

  Adoumi smiled wanly. “Or, more likely, he didn’t get a good look at him.” He closed his notebook and put it back in his pocket.

  He was so obviously disappointed that Miriam was led to suggest, “How about the Goodman boy, David?”

  The rabbi shook his head. “No, he left Barnard’s Crossing some years ago, and he was only in town for a short while before that. His folks are from Salem, you remember.”

  “And this Goodman, who is he?” asked Adoumi.