One Fine Day the Rabbi Bought a Cross

by Harry Kemelman

  “He’s a student at the American Yeshiva in Abu Tor,” said Miriam. “His folks asked David to look him up.”

  “The American Yeshiva in Abu Tor, eh? That’s very interesting. I’ll go and see him.”

  27

  There was no question that it was merely a courtesy call. Indeed, Sheila Levinson had demurred. “Do we have to? We’re only going to be in the city a few days—”

  “Yeah, but how can I go to a foreign country six thousand miles away and there’s a guy from my hometown living practically next door to my hotel and I shouldn’t give him a call and drop in on him for a cup of tea, especially where the country in question is Israel and the guy is the rabbi of my temple back home? I mean,” Ira Levinson went on, “how will it look when we get home and we tell people how we were so many days in Tel Aviv and so many days in Jerusalem, and they ask did we see the rabbi, and we say we didn’t get around to it?”

  “So all right, call him, but I don’t see why we should have to waste an evening and go and see him.”

  “I tell you what. I’ll call him, and if he asks to see us, I’ll say okay, and then later I can call and say something has come up and we won’t be able to make it.”

  He had called while they were still in Tel Aviv, and in response to Miriam’s invitation to drop in Wednesday night, the day after they reached Jerusalem, he had readily agreed. Then according to plan, around six o’clock in the evening, Sheila had called and said, “Oh, Miriam, Sheila Levinson. About tonight …”

  “Yes, we’re expecting you.”

  “Well, something has come up, and I don’t think we can make it.”

  “Oh, can’t you possibly? If only for a few minutes? There’s something we want to show you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Oh, I don’t think I can tell you over the phone, but it’s quite important.”

  Torn by curiosity, Sheila Levinson agreed, but hedged by saying that they might be able to stay only a few minutes, and was strangely disappointed when Miriam said, “Oh, that’s all right. We’ll expect you around eight.”

  “What do you suppose it is?” she asked her husband, who had been at her elbow as she phoned.

  “I don’t know. It could be they bought something for the temple. Maybe a crown or a breastplate for one of the scrolls. And they’re worried that the Board might kick about buying it from them. So maybe they want to get some backing from us. And maybe it’s a big-ticket item, they hope the Sisterhood might undertake to spring for it if the Board doesn’t.”

  “You know, Ira, I think you’re right. So let’s be cool about it when they show it to us. I mean, we can say it’s nice without getting all enthused, if you know what I mean.”

  And because they were determined to be cool about it and wanted to avoid any suspicion of great interest, they did not inquire about what it was the rabbi had to show them, but talked of their trip, of the sights they had seen, and about the impressions they had formed.

  As they sipped tea and nibbled on cookies, they asked the Smalls about their own manner of living in Jerusalem. “I suppose you go to the Wall for morning prayers every day, Rabbi,” suggested Ira Levinson.

  “No, it’s a bit far.”

  “He probably goes to that big place, you know, the Great Synagogue, what do they call it?” Sheila offered.

  “The Hechel Shlomo,” the rabbi supplied. “No, I don’t go there, either. It’s also a little distance from here. There are a dozen places where they have a minyan within a stone’s throw. I go to one of those.”

  It was obvious to all that they were merely making talk and that the two couples had no interest in each other. Finally Ira Levinson said, “There was something you wanted to show us, Rabbi?”

  “Oh, yes.” From his pocket, the rabbi drew the photograph Adoumi had left with him and put it down on the table before them.

  Mystified, the Levinsons looked at the photograph and then at each other and then at the rabbi. “That’s it?”

  “M-hm.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Do you know him? Have you ever seen him?”

  A slow shaking of heads. “We haven’t been in the country very long. And in hotels most of the time—”

  “No, someone from Barnard’s Crossing,” said the rabbi.

  They both studied the photograph again. “It looks a little like Fred Stromberg,” suggested Sheila.

  “No, Fred is a lot thinner, and he’s got this long nose.” He looked at the rabbi inquiringly.

  The rabbi felt it necessary to explain. “A friend of Gittel’s”—he nodded in her direction—“is a high official in the security—”

  “David! These are matters one does not talk about,” said Gittel sharply. Except for acknowledgment of the original introduction, she had been silent until now. The Levinsons had assumed she did not speak English.

  The rabbi nodded. “All right. Let’s say a man who claimed to be from Barnard’s Crossing is missing. It is thought it might be this man. Under the impression that Barnard’s Crossing is a small village where everyone would know everyone else, Gittel’s friend brought this photo to us.”

  “Village? Over twenty thousand,” said Ira.

  “Precisely. It’s the name, I suppose. People are apt to confuse it with ‘crossroads’ and assume it’s just a village for that reason.”

  “Yeah, I’ve known people in the States to make the same mistake.”

  “You don’t have to know the man,” the rabbi urged, “just remember having seen him back in Barnard’s Crossing.”

  “It could be—” Sheila began.

  “No, it couldn’t,” said her husband decisively. “Sorry we can’t help you out, Rabbi, or your friend. We’ll have to be running along now.” At the door, he said, “It occurs to me Louis Goodman’s boy is in a yeshiva here. We were planning to drop in on him. Louis and Rose asked us to. He might recognize your man.”

  “Yes,” said the rabbi. “I thought of him. I mentioned him to Gittel’s friend.”

  Once outside, Sheila said to her husband, “Why did you cut me off when I was going to suggest—”

  “Because I didn’t want for us to get involved. That’s why. The rabbi began to talk about a high official in security who was a friend of the old lady’s. And she cut him off; told him these matters he was not supposed to talk about. So that means it was some sort of police matter, or maybe even something the Israeli secret service is involved in. For all we know, that guy whose picture he showed us might be a spy. We could be kept here—who knows, an extra week or even two while agents would grill us. Maybe even whisked around the country from place to place to look at this guy or his pals through a peephole or one of those one-way mirrors. And if he is a spy, and it got out that we identified him, how about his Arab or Russian pals or whoever? You want to avoid grief, you keep your nose clean.”

  Back in the apartment, as Miriam removed the tea things from the table, Gittel said, “These people, David, they don’t like you. I could see that almost from the minute they came in.”

  The rabbi nodded. “No, I don’t think they do.”

  28

  To Uri Adoumi’s request to see Jordan Goodman, Joseph Kahn interposed no impediment. Instead, having seen his credentials, he escorted him to the visitors’ room and said he would send the young man down immediately.

  On being informed that there was a policeman waiting to see him, Ish-Tov was understandably nervous. Someone must have seen him filling in the trench. What else could it be? And even before he entered the room, he had already begun to plan his defense. His friend who was a Kohane had a terrible fear that an ancient cemetery had been dug up, and out of consideration for him …

  Although he could see that the young man was nervous by the way he crossed and uncrossed his legs and the way he fumbled with a wrinkled package of cigarettes, Adoumi did not take this as a sign of guilt. People were always nervous when the police came to question them. He tried to put him at ease. He offered him a light,
lit his own cigarette, and then said, “You are from Barnard’s Crossing in Massachusetts?”

  “Yes—well, sort of. I mean, I haven’t been there for some time.” Perhaps it was his airline ticket they were concerned about. “My folks live there, but I was living out West mostly the past few years. I mean, how do you know I come from Barnard’s Crossing?”

  “A Rabbi David Small told me.”

  “Oh. Yeah, he was here the other day to see me.”

  Adoumi drew the photograph from his pocket and slid it across the table. “Do you know this man? Have you ever seen him in Barnard’s Crossing?”

  The young man’s face relaxed in a slow grin. “It looks like an old prof of mine, name of Grenish.”

  “Prof? Ah, professor. You mean he was your teacher? And where was that?”

  “Northhaven. It’s a small college not far from Barnard’s Crossing, about twenty miles north.”

  “And you knew him, you knew him to talk to?”

  “Yeah, I knew him, all right. Hey, what’s this all about?”

  “We need to establish his identity—”

  “And he says he’s somebody else?”

  “He doesn’t say. He’s dead.”

  “Dead? You mean here in Jerusalem? What was he doing here?”

  “His presence here surprises you?”

  “Yeah, kind of. See, he was Jewish, but you know, like pro-Arab. Unless he came to see some—”

  “Some of his Arab friends?” Adoumi suggested.

  “Well …”

  Adoumi smiled. “Something tells me you didn’t like him.”

  Ish-Tov, now relaxed, said, “Well, I wouldn’t call him one of my favorite people. In fact, I had a little run-in with him. See, I was on a scholarship and he was chairman of the Scholarship Committee. He took away my scholarship and I had to leave school. I think it was because I was Jewish.”

  “I see. Well, if you’ll come down to police headquarters at the Russian Compound tomorrow—”

  “What for?”

  “You’ll be taken to the morgue to identify this Professor Grenish.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t. I’m not going looking at dead bodies.”

  “Mr. Goodman,” said Adoumi firmly, “the State requires it.” His tone softened. “There’s nothing frightening about it. The body is covered with a sheet. The top will be lifted. You will look, and then say if it is or is not Professor Grenish. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Well, if you say it’s important …”

  “I assure you it’s most important. So tomorrow you will present yourself to police headquarters at nine. If I am not there, ask for Captain Luria. Oh, and bring your passport.”

  “Why do I have to bring my passport?”

  “To prove that you’re you, of course.”

  “What did he want?” Yitzchak whispered. “Was it about filling in the trench?”

  They were standing at a small pulpitlike table with the large volume of the Talmud they were sharing. There were more than a dozen such pairs at similar tables in the room, swaying back and forth, gyrating as they read the text aloud.

  “Naw, he just wanted me to identify some guy from my hometown. He showed me a picture—you know, a photograph of the guy. I got to go to police headquarters tomorrow to make like a formal statement. Hey, Yossi is looking at us.”

  “So what? He can’t hear what we’re saying with all these guys yammering away.”

  “You’re wrong. He’s like an orchestra conductor who can tell just which violin is playing flat.”

  “Okay, so later.”

  Later, in response to his friend’s question, he said, “They had me look at the body. I guess, for official purposes, you can’t just look at a photograph.”

  “Gee, wasn’t it scary? What did he look like?”

  “Like—like he was asleep. He was covered, see? So they just pulled this sheet off his face and asked me if I recognized him. And I said yes, that it was Professor Grenish, and then they covered him again.”

  “Gee, I wouldn’t have, if it had been me. I wouldn’t even have gone into the room where he was on account of I’m a Kohane and I’m not supposed to be in the presence of a dead body.”

  “They could make you.”

  “Oh, yeah? If they tried it, every rabbi in the country and all the religious, too, would be up in arms. That kind of thing could overthrow the government.”

  “Sure, and maybe they’d make you prime minister. Anyway, they asked me a lot of questions, and then they typed it up and asked me to sign it.”

  “Was it this same Adoumi guy?”

  “No, it was a cop in a uniform. Then they took my passport—”

  “They took your passport? What did they do that for? What’s your passport got to do with identifying somebody?”

  “Oh, he said they’d send it along in a day or two. And kind of jokingly, that they might need to ask some more questions, and they wanted to make sure I didn’t decide on taking a trip to America just then.”

  “You know, Yehoshua, I don’t like it. Without a passport, you’re nothing. If you should want to leave the country—say, you want to go home—”

  “I’m not planning to leave the country.”

  “Yes, but even if you were to go to Tel Aviv or Haifa and wanted to stay over, you might have trouble getting a room in a hotel. This guy Adoumi, how’d he get on to you in the first place? How’d he know you were from Barnard’s Crossing and could identify this guy?”

  “Oh, he said this Rabbi Small who came to see me told him.”

  “So how did he get on to him? How did he know he was from Barnard’s Crossing?”

  “I don’t know. I sort of gathered that he knew him.”

  “You know what I’d do if I were you, Yehoshua? I’d call this Rabbi Small and I’d ask him what gives.”

  “Yeah, maybe I will.”

  “… So he said I had to look at the body itself, that identifying the photo was not enough.”

  “That’s reasonable,” said the rabbi. “And it was Professor Grenish?”

  “Oh, it was him, all right. See, I had this fight with him—”

  “Yes, I heard about that from your father.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, anyway, so I signed something that said he was Professor Grenish and that I recognized him. But then they took my passport.”

  “Your passport? Why did you bring your passport?”

  “On account of your friend Adoumi told me to. He said I had to have it to show I was me.”

  “I see. Well, I suppose that’s a kind of legalism that’s required. In the court, everything has to be proved every step of the way.”

  “Yeah, but they didn’t give me back my passport.”

  “Did you ask for it when you were leaving? It could have been a simple oversight—”

  “Oh, I asked for it, all right, and they said they’d send it on in a day or two.”

  “Hm. I suppose they want to check it.”

  “Sure, but how long does it take to check a passport? I mean, what’s involved?”

  “It could mean nothing more than that the person who does the checking was away from his desk at the time.”

  “Yeah, but my friend Yitzchak here who knows his way around, he says you’re nothing without a passport. I mean, where I’m a foreigner—”

  “There is something in that—”

  “Like, suppose I want to leave tomorrow.”

  “I understand. Were you thinking of it?”

  “No, but even if I wanted to go up to Galilee, say, and stay in a hotel for a couple of days—”

  “I see what you mean.”

  “So I thought you could ask your friend Adoumi. He is your friend, isn’t he?”

  “I know him,” said the rabbi cautiously.

  “So I thought you could ask him what gives.”

  “All right, I’ll try to see him and let you know what he says.”

  29

  When the Levinsons came to the yeshiva and asked t
o see Goodman, it was a subdued Joseph Kahn who asked, “And you are?”

  “We are from his hometown, friends of his parents. The name is Levinson.”

  No further questioning, no arguments, no objections, merely a polite “Just a minute” and he was gone, to return a moment later with, “If you will follow me. Our director, Rabbi Karpis, will see you.”

  Rabbi Karpis did not rise but very graciously waved them to chairs. They were charmed by him, by his majestic presence, his patriarchal beard, his benevolent smile, his British accent.

  “You are friends of Ish-Tov, Mr. Goodman?”

  “Well, we know his parents,” said Mr. Levinson.

  His wife amplified. “We don’t really know him, but I trade with his folks.” She strove to make it plain that they were not friends in the social sense. “I drop in to their store several times a week, for a loaf of bread, or a can of something that I need for a recipe. And while waiting to be served, you know, one talks and becomes friendly.”

  “I see. And they asked you to look him up and extend their greetings?”

  “That’s right,” said Ira Levinson. “And talk to him and see if he’s, you know, comfortable, happy.”

  “To inspect his sleeping quarters, perhaps, and to look over some sample menus?”

  “Oh, no,” said Levinson quickly. “We had no idea of er—snooping. We just want to see him so that we can tell his parents that—er—er, we did, if you see what I mean.”

  “Of course, Mr. Levinson, I understand. Unfortunately, the young man is not with us right now.”

  “You mean he’s left? He’s gone somewhere else?”

  “In a manner of speaking. He’s been taken into custody by the police.”

  “Good Lord! When? What for?”

  “Quite early this morning. And I’m afraid it’s in connection with a homicide.”

  “You mean he killed someone? Someone here? A fellow student? Oh, his poor mother!”

  Rabbi Karpis shook his head slowly. “No one here, Mrs. Levinson. I don’t know the details, but it appears to have been a tourist, someone from your own town in the States, from Barnard’s Crossing. A Rabbi Small—do you know him?—who was here to see the young man, notified the police—”