A Serious Man
Page 7
The secretary is sticking her head in.
SECRETARY
Sir …
VOICE
Sir. Please. We can’t make you listen to the record. We –
SECRETARY
Professor Gopnik, your son. He said it’s urgent.
LARRY
Okay, look, I have to call you back, this is, this is – I’m sorry.
He irritably punches a button on the bottom row of four.
… Danny?
DANNY
Dad!
LARRY
Did you join the Columbia Record Club?!
Silence.
… Danny?
DANNY
Um …
LARRY
Danny, this is completely unacceptable. I can’t afford to –
DANNY
Okay Dad, but you gotta come home.
LARRY
Is it F Troop?
DANNY
Huh? No no. Mom’s real upset.
GOPNIK HOUSE
Larry enters. We hear weeping, semi-hysterical, from somewhere in the house.
SARAH’S VOICE
… Dad?
LARRY
Yes?
She enters.
SARAH
Does this mean I can’t go to The Hole tonight?
LARRY
Does what mean – what happened?
SARAH
Sy Ableman died in a car crash.
DANNY’S VOICE
Hey Dad!
LARRY
… What?!
Danny enters.
DANNY
So are you coming back home? Can you fix the aerial?
The weeping, off, grows louder and more hysterical.
LARRY
What?!
DANNY
It’s still, you know …
Loud wailing.
Black.
After a beat in black, a white title:
THE SECOND RABBI
RABBI’S OFFICE
We are close on Larry. He sits hunched forward, hands clasped in front of him, staring at the floor, sadly shaking his head.
After a long beat:
LARRY
It seems like she’s asking an awful lot. But then – I don’t know. Somebody has to pay for Sy’s funeral.
Rabbi Nachtner, sitting opposite, nods.
RABBI NACHTNER
Uh-huh.
LARRY
His own estate is in probate. But why does it have to be me? Or is it wrong to complain? Judy says it is. But I’m so strapped for cash right now – paying for the Jolly Roger, and I wrecked the car, and Danny’s bar mitzvah … I …
RABBI NACHTNER
Something like this – there’s never a good time.
LARRY
I don’t know where it all leaves me. Sy’s death. Obviously it’s not going to go back like it was.
RABBI NACHTNER
Mm. Would you even want that, Larry?
LARRY
No, I – well yeah! Sometimes! Or – I don’t know; I guess the honest answer is I don’t know. What was my life before? Not what I thought it was. What does it all mean? What is Hashem trying to tell me, making me pay for Sy Ableman’s funeral?
RABBI NACHTNER
Mm.
LARRY
And – did I tell you I had a car accident the same time Sy had his? The same instant, for all I know. Is Hashem telling me that Sy Ableman is me, or we are all one, or something?
RABBI NACHTNER
How does God speak to us: it’s a good question. You know Lee Sussman?
LARRY
Dr. Sussman? I think I – yeah?
RABBI NACHTNER
Did he ever tell you about the goy’s teeth?
LARRY
No … I – What goy?
RABBI NACHTNER
So Lee is at work one day; you know he has the orthodontic practice there at Texa-Tonka.
LARRY
Uh-huh.
RABBI NACHTNER
Right next to the Gold Eagle Cleaners.
We cut to sign for “The Gold Eagle Cleaners”. It dominates a small suburban strip mall.
Rabbi Nachtner continues in voice-over as we cut to a frosted glass door with a painted-on “Leon Sussman, DDS”.
RABBI NACHTNER
He’s making a plaster mold – it’s for corrective bridge work – in the mouth of one of his patients …
A close shot of a man’s mouth biting down on two horseshoe-shaped troughs – an upper and a lower – that overflow goo.
… Russell Kraus. He’s a delivery dispatcher for the Star and Tribune with chronic mandibular deterioration.
The grinding guitar solo from Jefferson Airplane’s “Bear Melt”scores the narrative.
The patient opens his mouth as a hand enters to grab the upper tray.
The reverse shows Dr. Sussman, a middle-aged man dressed in the high-collared white smock of an oral surgeon. He takes the mold to a drying table.
Kraus twists over the side of the chair and spits into the water-swirled spit-sink.
… Well, the mold dries and Lee is examining it one day before fabricating an appliance …
Another day: Dr. Sussman sits at his workbench examining the lower mold. He notices something unusual.
… He notices something unusual.
Sussman reaches up for the loupe attached to his eyeglasses.
There seems to be something engraved on the inside of the patient’s lower incisors …
He flips down the loupe. One eye is hugely magnified as he stares.
… Sure enough, it’s writing.
Sussman squints.
His point-of-view: tiny incised Hebrew letters.
Back to Rabbi Nachtner: he confirms with a nod.
RABBI NACHTNER
This in a goy’s mouth, Larry.
Back to Leon Sussman: the rabbi’s narrative continues.
RABBI NACHTNER
Hey vav shin yud ayin nun yud. “Hoshiyani.” “Help me.” “Save me.”
Sussman flips the loupe away and looks off, haunted. He rises.
… He checks the mold, just to be sure. Oh, it’s there all right …
A dental mirror is dipped into the horseshoe-shaped hardened paste of the mold. It pans tiny letters that stand out in relief, right side around in the mirror:
Sussman leans back, thinking.
He calls the goy back on the pretense of needing additional measurements for the appliance.
Close on Kraus grinning as he shakes Sussman’s hand in the reception area. Sussman gestures to invite Kraus back to the examining room.
Sussman chats, affecting nonchalance.
In the examining room, leaning over Kraus in the chair, the dentist is indeed chatting with apparent casualness.
Notice any other problems with your teeth? Anything peculiar, et cetera?
Sussman unpockets a dental mirror.
No. No. No. Visited any other dentist recently? No.
He dips the mirror into Kraus’s mouth:
Sussman frowns.
There it is. “Help me”?
He leans back.
Sussman goes home. Can Sussman eat? Sussman can’t eat.
Sussman sits at the kitchen table, untouched food in front of him. His wife chats volubly while Sussman stares into space.
Can Sussman sleep? Sussman can’t sleep.
Sussman is in bed, pyjamas buttoned to the neck, staring at the ceiling.
What does it mean? Is it a message for him, for Sussman? And if so, from whom? Does Sussman know? Sussman doesn’t know.
At a row of shelves, back in the dental office, Sussman pulls down boxes containing other molds.
Sussman looks at the molds of his other patients, goy and Jew alike, seeking other messages. He finds none. He looks in his own mouth …
Sussman in pyjamas, in front of a medicine-cabinet mirror, holds in his own mouth a dental mirror and strains to see the reflection of the reflection.
… Nothing. His wife’s mouth …
Sussman’s wife lies asleep on her back, her mouth open, snoring softly. Sussman, in pyjamas but with his glasses on and loupe in place, lies over her in bed, supporting himself with one arm thrown across her body. He leans awkwardly in, taking care not to disturb his wife as he lowers a dental mirror into her open mouth.
… Nothing. It is a singular event. A mystery.
The Jefferson Airplane guitar solo is heating up.
But Sussman is an educated man. Not the world’s greatest sage, maybe, no Rabbi Marshak, but he knows a thing or two from the Zohar and the Cabalah. He knows every Hebrew letter has its numeric equivalent.
Sussman, still in his pyjamas, is sitting at the kitchen table scribbling on a tablet of lined paper.
Close on the paper: the Hebrew letters have been transcribed into their numeric equivalents:
374-4548
Nachtner continues in voice-over:
Seven digits – a phone number maybe?
Sussman reaches for the phone. He hesitates, then dials.
… Sussman dials. It rings.
An elevated cubicle in a grocery store. A man in a white short-sleeved shirt reaches for the phone.
RABBI NACHTNER
It’s a Red Owl grocery store in Bloomington. Hello? Do you know a goy named Kraus? Russell Kraus?
The store manager shakes his head.
Where have I called? The Red Owl. In Bloomington. Thanks so much.
The manager, puzzled, hangs up.
Sussman thinks, “Am I supposed to go to the Red Owl, to receive a further sign?” He goes …
In the parking lot of the Red Owl, Sussman, wearing a short-brimmed fedora, emerges from his car. It is an unremarkable grocery store in a suburban mall.
It’s a Red Owl.
Inside, Sussman, in his fedora, gazes around.
Groceries. What have you.
A service alley behind the store: dumpsters, wind-blown garbage, Sussman looking.
On the wall behind the store, a stain …
There is an old, rather nondescript stain of some liquid splatted against the back wall and long since dried.
… Could be a nun sofit … Or maybe not …
The parking lot again: Sussman gets back in his car.
Sussman goes home. What does it mean? He has to find out, if he’s ever to sleep again.
Sussman, again in pyjamas buttoned to the neck, lies in bed staring at the ceiling.
He goes to see the rabbi, Nachtner. He comes in and sits right where you’re sitting now.
Sussman is indeed sitting across from Rabbi Nachtner, just where we’ve seen Larry sitting.
What does it mean, Rabbi? Is it a sign from Hashem? “Help me.” I, Sussman, should be doing something to help this goy? Doing what? The teeth don’t say. I should know without asking? Or maybe I’m supposed to help people generally – lead a more righteous life? Is the answer in Cabalah? In Torah? Or is there even a question? Tell me, Rabbi – what can such a sign mean?
Nachtner – not the narrating Nachtner but the Nachtner in the scene – nods and considers.
The rabbi’s office in present: Larry stares at the rabbi. He waits a good beat.
He prompts:
LARRY
So what did you tell him?
The rabbi seems surprised by the question.
RABBI NACHTNER
Sussman?
LARRY
Yes!
RABBI NACHTNER
Is it … relevant?
LARRY
Well – isn’t that why you’re telling me?
RABBI NACHTNER
Mm. Okay. Nachtner says, look …
The consultation scene again, with the rabbi once again narrating in voice-over. He silently advises the fretful Sussman in sync with his recounting of the same.
… The teeth, we don’t know. A sign from Hashem, don’t know. Helping others, couldn’t hurt.
Back to the rabbi’s office in present. Larry struggles to make sense of the story.
LARRY
But – was it for him, for Sussman? Or –
RABBI NACHTNER
We can’t know everything.
LARRY
It sounds like you don’t know anything! Why even tell me the story?
RABBI NACHTNER
(amused)
First I should tell you, then I shouldn’t.
Larry, exasperated, changes tack:
LARRY
What happened to Sussman?
Sussman, back in his office, works on different patients as the rabbi resumes the narrative in voice-over.
RABBI NACHTNER
What would happen? Not much. He went back to work. For a while he checked every patient’s teeth for new messages; didn’t see any; in time, he found he’d stopped checking. He returned to life.
Sussman, at home, chats with his wife over dinner.
… These questions that are bothering you, Larry – maybe they’re like a toothache. We feel them for a while, then they go away.
Sussman lies in bed sleeping, smiling, an arm thrown across his wife. Back in the rabbi’s office, Larry is dissatisfied.
LARRY
I don’t want it to just go away! I want an answer!
RABBI NACHTNER
The answer! Sure! We all want the answer! But Hashem doesn’t owe us the answer, Larry. Hashem doesn’t owe us anything. The obligation runs the other way.
LARRY
Why does he make us feel the questions if he’s not going to give us any answers?
Rabbi Nachtner smiles at Larry.
RABBI NACHTNER
He hasn’t told me.
Larry rubs his face, frustrated.
A last question occurs to him:
LARRY
And what happened to the goy?
Rabbi Nachtner’s forbearing smile fades into puzzlement.
RABBI NACHTNER
The goy? Who cares?
EXTERIOR: THE SYNAGOGUE
The modern synagogue grafted onto a patch of prairie.
An echoing voice rings out:
VOICE
Sy Ableman was a serious man!
RABBI NACHTNER
In close-up he gazes around, weighing the effect of the words just delivered.
After a beat during which he seeks to establish eye contact with as much of his audience as possible:
RABBI NACHTNER
Sy Ableman was a man devoted to his community …
Wider shows Rabbi Nachtner and the congregation facing each other across a casket that rests below the bema.
… to Torah study …
Larry sits among the congregants, his gaze fixed on a point off.
… to his beloved wife Esther until, three years ago, she passed …
Larry’s point-of-view: Judith is visible from three-quarters behind. She sits a few rows forward looking weepily up at the rabbi.
… and to his duty, as he saw it. Where does such a man go? A tzadik – who knows, maybe even a lamid vovnik – a man beloved by all, a man who despised the frivolous? Could such a serious man … simply … disappear?
The words echo.
Again the rabbi gazes around, as if awaiting answer.
Then:
… We speak of olam ha-ba, the World to Come. Not heaven. Not what the gentiles think of as afterlife. “Olam ha-ba.” What is olam ha-ba? Where is olam ha-ba? Well: it is not a geographic place, certainly. Like – Canada.
Murmured chuckles from the congregation.
Nor is it the eretz zavat chalav ood’vash – the land flowing with milk and honey, for we are not promised a personal reward, a gold star, a first-class VIP lounge where we get milk and cookies to eternity!
More chuckles.
Olam ha-ba … is in the bosom of Abraham. Olam ha-ba is in the soul of this community which nurtured Sy Ableman and to which Sy Ableman now returns. That’s right, he returns. Because he still inspires us, Sy Ableman returns. Because hi
s memory instructs us, Sy Ableman returns. Because his thoughts illuminate our days and ways, Sy Ableman returns. The frivolous man may vanish without a ripple but Sy Ableman? Sy Ableman was a serious man …
A sob echoes through the sanctuary.
Larry looks at Judith, who stifles further sobs with a handkerchief.
… As you know, the mourner’s kaddish does not mention the dead. It praises Hashem; it praises what abides. And Sy Ableman, whose spirit will continue to assist us in tikkun olam, is with us even now, a serious man who would say as we now say, Yiskadal v’yiskadash sh’may rabah …
The congregation rises and chants along until it and Judith’s weeping are cut off by:
A HAND RAPPING AT A DOOR
The front door of the Gopnik home.
Larry, still in his suit and yarmulka from shul, opens the door. He recoils in surprise edged with fear.
Reverse: two uniformed policemen.
COP 1
Arthur Gopnik?
Larry is momentarily dumb. Behind him, in the living room, we see a corner of a card table upon which food has been laid out. Sarah sits with her back to us, head wrapped in a towel-turban. Arthur, on the far side of the table, his balding head yarmulka-topped, half-leans out so that he may sneak looks toward the men at the door while still somewhat hidden. From somewhere down the hall come Judith’s muffled sobs.
… Are you Arthur Gopnik?
LARRY