Not that Rosen did nothing but beat time. There was first of all the necessity of “balancing” the orchestra since at each rehearsal the number and the kind of instruments as well as the capacity of the players varied widely. He might say to a couple of the weaker violinists, “Kate and Tom, don’t try to play this next passage. Just play the top note of the chord on each downbeat. Or better still, Kate, you play the top note, and Tom, you play the bottom note.”
Or he might rap on his music stand with his baton and say, “I think you’re flat, Bill. Let me hear your A. Yup, you’re flat.”
“It was on pitch when we started, but the peg keeps slipping.”
“Well, rub a little rosin on it. That will hold it. Okay, let’s start again, and this time let’s see if we can’t make those staccatos a little sharper, and follow the stick.”
Tonight, because it was the first week in June, and warm, the windows of the rehearsal room were all open. While open windows improved the quality of the air, especially after the smoking many of them went in for during the ten-minute break, they affected the acoustics, so that the orchestral volume was reduced and they sounded somewhat tinny.
They usually played until ten o’clock, but at a quarter to ten Rosen said, “I think we’ll call it a night. I’ve got to get home a little earlier tonight. We’re expecting our daughter to call from San Francisco.” As the players began to put away their instruments, Chief Lanigan wandered over to Rosen, who was gathering up the music folders, and nodding toward the country club just across the road, he said, “There’s evidently a big shindig at the club. Watch it when you start out. The State Troopers may have set up a trap on the state road.”
“You mean they set up a trap everytime there’s a do at the club?”
“Not every time, but often enough to make you wonder.” He chuckled. “When I first joined the force in Barnard’s Crossing as a patrolman years ago, the chief was Jim Duggan. The town used to pay him fifty cents for everyone he had in jail, for their supper, you understand. Duggan never paid the restaurant that supplied the meals more than thirty cents apiece, giving him a net profit of twenty cents each meal. So we patrolmen had a kind of quota. We were expected to make a certain number of arrests every Saturday night. If anyone so much as stumbled over a pebble as he walked along the street, he was apt to be pulled in as a drunk and disorderly.”
“And you think the State Troopers have a similar quota?”
“Well, it never hurts to improve your arrest record.”
Rosen grinned. “Then I’ll follow you until we pass them. They’d never stop you, certainly not while you’re in uniform.”
“Good enough.”
23
For Cyrus Merton the dinner had not been particularly enjoyable. He had not expected it to be. He had come, and decided to remain, in part because it was a sort of refuge from his sister. He tried to tell himself that she was exaggerating; that young newly-weds frequently quarreled in the very circumstance of adjusting to each other, that it would blow over and they would make up. On the other hand, he had to admit that Agnes was a shrewd, intelligent woman, not given to overstatement.
Nor did the conversation at his table do anything to distract him. It was entirely academic and over his head. So he concentrated on his food, chewing away without appetite or pleasure as he wondered when he might properly leave. As the dishes were being cleared by the waitresses for the dessert and coffee that were to follow, Professor Gates, a twinkle in his eye, said, “Ah, now for the interesting part of the evening.”
“What comes now?” asked Merton innocently.
Gates hesitated, and then said, “Well, there’ll be speeches, and a resolution is to be discussed and voted on, and Dr. Carpenter has written a long poem, doggerel to be sure, but amusing.”
Speeches, a resolution, doggerel verse—since all present were teachers, their target was likely to be the administration, perhaps even the Board of Trustees. Merton felt it might be embarrassing to remain. “It’s getting late,” he said, “I think I’ll be running along.”
“I understand,” said Gates sympathetically.
He rose and nodded his good-byes to the rest of the table. He made his way to where Victor had been sitting. The place was empty. He motioned and looked his question.
“Joyce? Oh, he’s gone. Left some time ago.”
He was disappointed. He had hoped to ride home with Victor so that he could talk to him about his marital problems. Then, at Shurtcliffe Circle, he’d have Peg there as well. Perhaps he’d be able to knock some sense into them. But Victor was gone.
It was still too early to go home; Agnes would not as yet have gone to sleep, but with a possible stop at Shurtcliffe Circle to visit with Peg and Victor … He made his way to the coatroom, gladdened the heart of the young woman in charge by leaving a dollar bill in the dish as he retrieved his topcoat, and hastened out to the car. He had intended going to the men’s room before setting out on the trip home, but he was worried about Victor and wanted to get on the way; he’d be at the Circle soon enough. He turned the key and left the club parking lot.
Lanigan veered to the left in order to make the turn into Abbot Road and Barnard’s Crossing. The light turned to red and he brought his car to a halt. Instead of following into the left lane, Rosen drove up beside him. Amy lowered her window and called out, “Thought you had to get right home.”
“Yeah, but I promised Helen I’d pick up some doughnuts.”
“How about us going in for a cup of coffee?” Amy suggested as she raised her window.
“Naw,” said Lanigan. “Saturday nights the place is full of kids, and seeing me in uniform is apt to put a damper on their fun.”
The light changed and the Lanigans made the turn into Abbot Road while Rosen continued on into the mall parking lot just beyond. He stopped just short of the store, and without bothering to lock his car, he hastened to the door.
Merton, meanwhile, had pulled in from the other end of the lot at almost the exact same time as Rosen. The house on Shurtcliffe Circle had been dark, and he was desperate for the Donut Shop’s rest room. The parking lot of the mall was dark except for the light on one pylon, and Merton parked there. He turned off the lights and the motor and slid out, automatically pressing the button on the car door so that it locked when he slammed it shut. No sooner was he out when he realized he had left his key in the ignition, as he had on several previous occasions. He was not unduly concerned, however, and hurried toward the Donut Shop.
Merton was just opening the door as Rosen came up, and Merton motioned him to enter. Rosen smiled his thanks but gestured for the other to precede him. “After you,” he said politely.
While Merton hurried down the aisle to the rest rooms, Rosen went directly to the doughnut counter and said, “Let me have a couple of those plain ones and a couple of the honey-dipped.”
“Right,” said the girl behind the counter, “two plain and two honey-dipped.” She put the doughnuts in a box and Rosen paid and hurried out.
When Merton came out of the rest room a few minutes later, he felt an urgent need for a cup of coffee, since he had left the faculty dinner before it was served. He was on the point of walking around the doughnut counter to the other side of the shop where there were tables, but noticing that one of the stools at the counter was free, he sat down and asked the girl for a cup of black coffee.
Cyrus Merton finished his coffee and got up from his stool at the counter. He fished in his pocket for a coin, which he left beside his empty cup. Then, with a nod, he left. He was back in a few minutes, however.
“My car is gone,” he said to the manager, who had just come out of his office. “It’s been stolen. I’ve got to notify the police.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. I know where I parked it, and it’s not there.”
The manager nodded in the direction of the public phone. “There’s the phone. Do you have change? Or you can use our phone if you like.”
/> When the cruising car drew up to the door of the Donut Shop, both officers came in. The elder, a sergeant, graying and beginning to show a paunch, knew Cyrus Merton. “Where were you parked, Mr. Merton? Over by the pylon there? Let’s see, that’s about fifty feet from here. Was it one of the company cars? Did it have your logo on the side?”
“No, it was my personal car.”
“Too bad. It would be easier to spot if it had the logo on the side. Did you lock it?”
“Yes, the doors were locked.”
“Windows all the way up to the top? I mean, no crack at the top where you could poke a wire—”
“No, the windows were closed.”
The sergeant shook his head. “That means it could be a pro. Now I’d like you to give Officer Stokes a full description of your car, license number, color, make, and if there were any obvious dents or scratches, you tell him. Were you on your way home? Because if you were, we can give you a lift.”
24
As they drove away from the Donut Shop, Miriam asked, “Did you have to wait long? Were you bored?”
Simcha, sitting upright in the backseat, large hands resting on bony knees, laughed a single explosive “Ha” from a cavernous mouth. A broad smile split his craggy face. “Why should I be bored when I had a chance to observe our young at close quarters, relaxed and enjoying themselves, rather than the way I usually see them in the classroom or tense during an exam? I learned that one Chuck Goretski was ‘simply awesome.’ I suppose that when one is no longer in fear or awe of a deity, the need for the feeling doesn’t go away; it’s apt to be transferred to a human who is above average. One young man insisted, ‘He couldn’t miss,’ and another agreed by offering the comparative, ‘He just couldn’t miss,’ while a third capped it with the superlative, ‘He just couldn’t miss if he tried.’ What interested me particularly was that the girls appeared to be as knowledgeable about the game as the boys. In fact, from what I’ve seen in Chicago, and elsewhere, the women seem to be more interested in sports and exercise than the men. I haven’t made a statistical study, but it seems to me that I see more women than men jogging, and the advertisements for membership in health clubs and gymnasia where they have all those crazy machines seem to be slanted to the women rather than to the men.”
“It’s probably that women are more concerned with keeping slim,” suggested the rabbi.
“Perhaps that’s it,” Simcha agreed. “It could be they’re more concerned with how they look in bathing suits.”
“Don’t you approve of sports and exercise?” asked Miriam.
“Of exercise, not at all. No other animal engages in it. Lions sleep twenty hours a day. As for sport, I don’t mind it as long as it’s not competitive. To practice hours every day in order to run a fraction of a second faster than someone else, or jump a little higher, or hit a ball a little more accurately, seems absurd. And to subject a child who has not yet reached puberty to such a regimen in order to produce a champion tennis player or gymnast is an obscenity.”
“What if it’s for the purpose of producing a great violinist or pianist?” asked Miriam.
“Same objection. It’s a form of slavery.”
“I seem to remember that you used to play a musical instrument,” said the rabbi.
“I studied the violin. When I was a youngster, I was given violin lessons, as were all middle-class Jewish boys. I was never very proficient.” He grinned broadly. “You know what Aristotle said: ‘A gentleman should know how to play the flute, but not too well.’”
“You know, Simcha,” said Miriam, “I think you’re an Apicorus in all kinds of things; not just in religion.”
He laughed uproariously. “Very good, Miriam. Very good, my dear.”
Sunday morning was sunny and mild, and as they made ready, Simcha asked, “Is the temple far from here? Can we walk? Will we have time?”
“Oh, plenty of time,” the rabbi assured him. “On Sundays the shachriss morning service is at nine o’clock. It’s about a fifteen-minute walk. Do you feel up to it?”
“So let’s figure on twenty, twenty-five minutes, and we can stroll.”
As they walked along, they were hailed and then joined by Al Bergson. The rabbi made the introductions. “Al Bergson, the president of our temple. Al, this is my cousin Simcha, whom you’ve heard me mention.”
“The one you call Simcha the, er—”
“Apicorus,” the rabbi finished for him, a wide grin on his face. “That’s right, Simcha the Apicorus, Simcha the Atheist.”
“Your first visit to Barnard’s Crossing?” Bergson asked. “You taking an early morning stroll to see the town?”
“Why no,” said Simcha, “I’m going with David to your temple to daven shachriss.”
“But—but you’re an atheist, or an agnostic—”
“Sometimes one, sometimes the other, as I happen to be feeling at the moment.”
“Oh, I see. It’s a sort of social matter for you rather than religious.”
“Not at all. When I attend a service, I daven.”
Bergson turned to the rabbi. “But if he doesn’t believe, how can he pray?”
“Well, you know, we don’t really pray,” said the rabbi, “at least not in the sense of asking or begging for something. We daven. The origin of the word is obscure, but it consists largely in giving praise and thanks for the good things we receive.”
“And what’s wrong with an atheist being grateful?” Simcha added. “It makes for a wholesome humility.”
“But if you’re an atheist, whom are you grateful to?”
“Good question,” said Simcha. He considered for a moment. “I suppose that when something good happens to me, I’m grateful, or perhaps a better word is, glad. That’s it: I’m glad it happened.”
“So you daven, but how about the rest of it? Do you keep the Sabbath? The dietary laws?”
“Oh, I keep the dietary laws out of habit, I suppose, rather than out of conscious choice. It’s not easy to change the food habits you’ve grown up with, you know. In general, I’m inclined to observe the Mosaic laws because they’re sensible and modern.”
“Modern?” asked Bergson doubtfully.
“Sure,” said Simcha. “Moses established rules by which the individual could order his life and by which a humane society can be maintained, everything from rules of personal cleanliness to proper treatment of the lower animals. There were very modern rules for women; incompatibility was grounds for a divorce—”
“And the Ketubah,” the rabbi pointed out, “was a prenuptial agreement.”
“Right.” Simcha went on. “And he established a very modern system of labor relations which gave the laborer the right to organize, and fixed his rate of pay so that the employer could not take advantage of his temporary need. And don’t forget that the Sabbath gave him a day of rest every week. There were laws that gave aid and succor to the poor, and even laws governing the treatment of the lower animals, because he was aware of the relationship of all living things. He even had a sense of ecology, of the needs of the land itself, and ordered that it should not be planted every seventh year, but be permitted to lie fallow to renew itself.
“Some of the laws indicate a fastidiousness of mind and spirit, like the law forbidding the cooking of the flesh of the calf in the milk of its mother, which has led to our elaborate separation of meat and dairy foods and dishes. When you stop to think of it, it’s a horrible thing to do. I suppose our special attitude toward the pig is due to the same fastidious sense, since the pig is the only domestic animal that serves no purpose except to be eaten. To raise an animal, to feed it so that it will grow big and fat just so you can eat it—ugh!” He gave a shudder of disgust.
“But doesn’t that show that it must have been the work of God rather than the work of mere man?” Bergson protested.
“Ah, now that was where Moses showed his genius. He knew that even if he could maintain the observance of these laws during the period when he was all-powerful, they
would tend to be disregarded when he became old and weak, and even more when he died. So, instead of offering them as his own, he invented God, and said they were ordained by God, and he insisted that his was the only God, so that there could be no rival God that could be appealed to for a different opinion. That was where he showed his true superiority to all other law-givers, like Hammurabi or Solon or Lycurgus.
“Of course, he could not run the show single-handed, even in his prime. So he took the advice of his father-in-law, Jethro, and appointed a number of judges who later were the rabbis to help him run things. It was necessary, of course, but also unfortunate.”
“Why unfortunate?”
“Because it created a bureaucracy. Bureaucrats always multiply rules and regulations. And what develops is a pedantic meticulousness. That’s how the business of two sets of dishes, one dairy, one meat, came about. An effort to avoid the most remote possibility of mixing the milk of the cow with the meat of the calf. Then this was extended to two sinks to wash the two kinds of dishes in, and the two dishcloths to wipe them with. Some even have two refrigerators in which to store the two kinds of food, and I have even heard, although it’s probably apocryphal, of someone who went in for two sets of false teeth. You see, it’s usually the extremists who set the pattern.
“Or consider the Sabbath. We are told to rest on the Sabbath, and this means we may not work. So then the question arises, what constitutes work? And it was decided that the different kinds of work that were involved and described in the construction of the tabernacle were work and would be taboo on the Sabbath. Making a fire was obviously one of these. It was necessary for the smelting of ores for metal, and then for working the metal for the various vessels that were required. And I suppose that in those days building a fire was work, and even though today all that’s required is to strike a match, lighting a cigarette is regarded as work, which is why Orthodox Jews can’t smoke on the Sabbath.
The Day the Rabbi Resigned Page 12