by Noah Gordon
He had finished three semesters at the rabbinical school when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Most of his friends enlisted or were quickly sucked into the funnel of Selective Service. Theological students were exempted from the draft; half a dozen boys resigned from the school and got into uniform. The others, Michael among them, were convinced by their advisors that rabbis would be needed more than ever in the days ahead. For the most part he felt regret, as if he had been cheated out of an adventure that was rightfully his. In those days he believed in death but not in dying.
Nevertheless, when he received occasional letters from places with names that were unfamiliar and sometimes unpronounceable they seemed exciting and romantic. Maury Silverstein kept in touch. He had entered the Marine Corps as an enlisted man slated for Officer Candidate School at Quantico as soon as he finished boot training. He boxed a little at Paris Island, and during one bout he and his drill instructor somehow became entangled in a grudge feud, the details of which never were described to Michael. What Maury did say in a letter was that several weeks later he and his enemy met with bare knuckles outside the ring. As a matter of fact it was outside the gymnasium, or to be more exact, behind it, with his entire squad yelling approval as he broke the jaw of the other man, who was a corporal. The corporal had removed the shirt that bore his stripes and no formal disciplinary action was taken, but from then on the other DIs bore down heavily on the trainee who had made one of their number useless as a molder of men. Silverstein was placed on report at the slightest hint of a rules infraction, and his expectations of becoming an officer soon vanished. When he left boot camp he received a few weeks of instruction as a mule skinner and then he was placed in charge of a short-legged mule with a fat behind. He named the animal Stella for sentimental reasons, he told Michael in the last letter he wrote in the United States. He and Stella were shipped out together to an unnamed and presumably mountainous Pacific island where he languished, hinting by V-mail of phenomenal lechery with native women. Respect for the cloth, he wrote, prevented him from revealing these exploits in their fullest detail.
During Michael’s last year at the Institute he was assigned to assist in the high-holiday ceremonies at a temple in Rockville, Long Island. The services went without a hitch and he felt that at long last he was truly a rabbi. He began to ooze a cocky self-confidence. Then, three weeks before graduation and ordination, the Institute placement service arranged for him to be interviewed by Temple Emanuel in Miami, where they were looking for an assistant rabbi. He preached a guest sermon at a Friday-night service. He had written the sermon carefully and polished his delivery in front of his bedroom mirror. It had been praised by his faculty advisor; he knew that the sermon had power and style. When he was introduced in Miami, he felt ready. He greeted Rabbi Flagerman and the congregation in a strong voice. Then he gripped the speaker’s platform with both hands and leaned forward slightly.
“What is a Jew?” he began.
Upturned faces in the front of the hall looked at him with such mute expectancy that he found it necessary to shift his glance. But wherever he looked, in every row, there were faces turned up at him. Some were old, some were young, some were unmarked, some were furrowed by experience. He was paralyzed by the realization of what he was doing. Who am I, he asked himself, to tell them anything, anything at all?
The pause grew into a silence, and still he could not speak. It was worse than the day he was bar mitzvah. He grew numb. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. In the back of the hall a girl tittered, the small sound causing people to shuffle their feet.
Through sheer will power he forced himself to talk. Stumbling several times, he hurried through the sermon. Afterward he made desperate small talk and then took a taxi to the airport. Stolid with despair, he looked out the window most of the way back to New York, merely grunting his refusals when the red-haired stewardess offered coffee or liquor. That night, travel-weary, he found escape in sleep, but the next morning he lay in bed and wondered how he had become trapped in a calling for which he had no shred of talent.
During the next week he reviewed the alternatives to the rabbinate. The war with Germany had already ended and Japan could not hold out very long; it would be sheer anticlimax to enlist now. He could teach; but the prospect made him melancholy. That left only Kind Foundations. He was screwing up sufficient courage for a talk with Abe when a wire came from the hiring committee of the Florida congregation. They were not quite sure; would he be willing to visit them again at their expense and preach another sermon on the coming week end?
Queasy of stomach, filled with self-loathing, he made another trip to Miami. This time, although his knees trembled and he was certain his voice quavered, he reeled off the sermon on schedule.
Two days later the call came.
His duties were uncomplicated. He conducted the children’s service. He assisted the rabbi on the Sabbath. He read the back issues of the temple bulletin. At the request of Rabbi Flagerman he worked on a catalog of rabbinical literature. During the day, when both the older rabbi and his secretary were present, Michael did not answer the telephone, which rang simultaneously on all three of their lines. But if he was in the office in the evening, when they were not there, he took the calls. If someone wanted the rabbi, he gave out Rabbi Flagerman’s home number.
He made some pastoral visits to members of the congregation who were ill. Because he didn’t know Miami, members of the Temple Youth Group drove him. One afternoon his chauffeur was a blonde sixteen-year-old named Toby Goodman. Her father was a wealthy meatpacker with his own herds in the grazing country around St. Petersburg. She was very tanned and she wore white shorts and halter and drove a long blue convertible. She asked him wide-eyed questions about the Bible which he answered with great seriousness, even though he knew that she was laughing at him. While he made his calls she waited patiently in the car, parking in the shade when it was available and eating melting candy bars and reading a paperback whodunit with a sexy cover. When the calls were completed they headed back toward the temple in silence. He watched her while she tooled the car slowly through the crowded streets.
Everywhere there were uniforms. Miami was full of overseas veterans attending the rest and rehabilitation centers in the famous hotels that lined the beach. They filled the streets, strolling singly or in groups and marching loosely in double files to attend a lecture or a movie.
“Get out of the way,” the girl muttered. She threw the shift into neutral and gunned the motor, causing three Air Force men to leap aside hurriedly.
“Take it easy,” Michael said mildly. “They didn’t make it home just to be run down by a rabbi making pastoral calls.”
“All they do is lie around in the sun and whistle and make remarks about how they just saw you in a film.” She giggled. “I have a boy friend in the Navy, you know? He was home last month. He never wore anything but civvies. We drove these guys nuts.”
“How?”
She appraised him, narrow-eyed. Then, making up her mind, she braked swiftly and leaned past him to fumble in the glove compartment. When she straightened up, she held a half-filled gin bottle in her hand. Forty feet away, a double line of men, many of them wearing Combat Infantry Badges, filed slowly by in the hot sun. They looked up when she whistled shrilly. Before Michael knew what she was doing, she had thrown one arm around his shoulders, the hand at the end of it waggling the bottle enticingly.
“He’s 4-F!” she called mockingly at the marching men. Then she kissed the top of his head.
The convertible jolted so hard he was thrown back against the seat as the car roared away. Even so, he preferred the rough ride to the alternative. The file of GIs had broken at once. Some of them chased the long blue car for half a block. The girl shook with laughter, appearing not to hear the words shouted by the running men.
He sat in silence until she pulled the car to a halt in front of the temple.
“You’re mad, huh?”
“That doesn’t qu
ite describe it,” he said carefully. He got out of the car.
“Hey, that’s my bottle.” He was holding it by the neck, having picked it up from the seat where she had dropped it.
“You can claim it when you’re twenty-one.” He marched up the stairs and into the temple. The telephone was ringing. When he answered it a woman asked to speak to the rabbi and he gave her Rabbi Flagerman’s home number.
There was a package of paper cups in the bottom drawer of his desk. Pouring a stiff shot, about three fingers, from the girl’s bottle, he swallowed the drink in a gulp, then he stood with his shoulders slumped and his eyes closed.
It was warm water.
Two nights later, Toby Goodman telephoned and apologized. He accepted her apology but refused her offer to drive for him the next day. A few minutes later the telephone rang again.
“Rabbi?” The voice was strangely hoarse.
When Michael gave Rabbi Flagerman’s number, a panting like the sound of a tired dog came from the phone.
He began to smile. “Whom do you think you’re kidding, Toby?” he said.
“I’m going to kill myself.”
The voice was male.
“Where are you?” Michael asked.
The address was garbled. Michael made him repeat it. He knew the street, it was only a couple of blocks away.
“Don’t do anything. I’ll be right there. Please.” He ran outside and stood on the marble stairs, praying while he tried to hail passing taxis. When he found one that was empty he sat on the edge of the seat and tried to think of something, anything, to say to a man who was afraid to live. But his mind was a blank when the cab pulled up in front of a stucco bungalow. He handed the driver a bill and without waiting for change ran across a parched and sandy lawn, up three steps and through a screened porch.
The sign over the bell said Harry Lefcowitz. The door was open and the screen door was unlocked.
“Mr. Lefcowitz?” he called softly. There was no answer.
He pushed the door open and went inside. The living room smelled of sourness. Opened bottles and half-filled glasses of beer were on the window sills. Bananas rotted in a glass bowl on the table. The ashtrays were filled with cigar stubs. An Army shirt hung over the back of a chair. There were sergeant’s chevrons on the sleeves.
“Mr. Lefcowitz?” There was a small sound behind one of the doors leading off the living room. He pushed it open.
A short, slight man in khaki pants and a tee shirt sat on the bed. His feet were bare. He had a thin mustache that was almost lost in the stubble of his unshaven face. His eyes were red and sad. In his hand was a small black pistol.
“You’re a cop,” he said.
“No. I’m not. I’m a rabbi. You called me, remember?”
“You’re not Flagerman.” There was a loud click as the pistol’s safety was released.
Inwardly Michael groaned, realizing that he had confirmed his knowledge of his rabbinical ineptness. He had not called the police. He had not even left a note at the temple to inform anyone of his whereabouts.
“I’m Rabbi Flagerman’s assistant. I want to help.” The pistol came up slowly until it was pointed straight at his face. The round opening at the end was obscene. The man played a game with the safety, clicking it off and on. “Get your ass out of here,” he said.
Michael sat down on the unmade bed, trembling only slightly.
Outside it was dark.
“What would it solve, Mr. Lefcowitz?”
The man looked at him narrowly. “You think I won’t kill you, hero? Why, it should bother me, after what I’ve seen? I’ll kill you and then I’ll kill myself.” He looked at Michael’s face and laughed. “You don’t know what I know. It won’t make any difference. The world will still go on.”
Michael leaned toward him. His outstretched hand was a gesture of compassion, but the man saw it as a threat. He jammed the muzzle of the pistol into Michael’s cheek. It was bruising and painful.
“You know where I got this gun? I took it off a dead German. His head was half shot off. It can do the same to you.” Michael said nothing. In a few minutes the man took the gun out of his cheek. With his fingertips Michael could feel the little the muzzle had indented in his flesh. They sat and looked at one another. Michael’s watch ticked loudly.
The man began to laugh. “That was a lot of crap, what I just said. I seen plenty of dead Germans, and I spit on some, but I never took anything from their bodies. I bought the gun for three cartons of Lucky Strikes. I wanted to have something to give the kid, something he could keep.” Lefcowitz scratched his foot with his free hand. His feet were long and bony, with crisp black hairs on the knuckles of his big toes.
Michael looked into his eyes. “A lot of this little act is a lot of crap, Mr. Lefcowitz. Why should you want to hurt me? I simply want to be your friend. And it would be even worse to do harm to yourself.” He tried a smile. “I think it’s a joke of some sort. I think the gun isn’t even loaded.”
The man raised the pistol and, in the same split second that the report sounded monstrously loud in the small room, his hand jumped slightly and a small black hole appeared in the white ceiling over their heads.
“There were seven,” Lefcowitz said. “Now there are six. More than enough. So don’t think, Sonny. Sit there and keep your mouth shut.”
Neither spoke for a long time. It was a quiet night. Michael could hear an occasional automobile horn and the slow, steady sound of the surf on the nearby beach. Someone must have heard the shot, he assured himself. They are bound to come soon.
“Do you ever get lonesome?” Lefcowitz asked suddenly.
“All the time.”
“Sometimes I get so lonesome I could bawl.”
“We’re all that way sometimes, Mr. Lefcowitz.”
“Yeah? Then why not?” He looked at the pistol and shook it. “When you come right down to it, why not?” He grinned mirthlessly. “Now’s your chance to talk about God, or guts.”
“No. There’s a simpler reason. That”—Michael touched the gun with his fingertips, moving it slightly so that it no longer pointed at him—“is final, irreversible. There would be no chance to decide that you had been wrong. And although there is a lot of ugliness in the world, there are times when it’s wonderful to be alive. Just getting a drink of water when you’re very thirsty, or seeing something beautiful, anything at all that’s beautiful. The good times make up for the bad times.”
For a moment Lefcowitz looked less certain. But he moved the pistol so that it once more was aimed at Michael. “I don’t get thirsty very often,” he said.
He was silent for a long time and Michael didn’t try to make him talk. Once two boys ran by the house, hooting and shouting, and the man’s face worked curiously.
“Are you a fisherman?”
“Not a very active one,” Michael said.
“I was just thinking that I’ve had good times, like you said, while I was fishing. With the water and sun and all.”
“Yes.”
“That’s why I came here in the first place. I was a kid, working in a shoe store in Erie, P-A. I drove down to Hialeah with a bunch of guys and won forty-eight hundred dollars. The money was nice, but what did I know from money, I had no responsibilities in those days. It was the fishing. I caught sea trout all day long. Those guys thought I was nuts when I wouldn’t go back with them. I got a job tending bar in a joint on the Beach. I had fishing and sun and broads in bathing suits, and I knew I was in paradise.”
“You were a bartender when you were drafted?”
“Had my own place. There was this guy who worked with me. Nick Mangano. He had a few tips put away, and with what I had we took over a clam bar with a liquor license on that fishing wharf they call Murphy’s Pier. Do you know it?”
“No.”
“We saved our dough and a few years later we spread out, a larger joint with some booths and a piano player. It worked out very nice. I was married by then and I took the day shift. Al
l day long I got fishermen, mostly old men. There are a lot of old people here. They make a very good brand of customer, a couple of quiet jolts every day and never any trouble. And at night Nick would be here with another guy we hired, to take care of the swinging crowd.”
“It sounds like a good business.”
“You married?”
“No.”
Lefcowitz was silent for a moment. “I married a shickseh,” he said. “An Irish girl.”
“Are you still in the Army?”
“Yeah, I got rest and rehabilitation coming, and then a discharge.” His mouth worked slightly. “See, when I was drafted I gave Nick power of attorney. He’s got a funny heart, it kept him out. So for four years he’s been running the joint alone, keeping open twenty-four hours a day.”
He began to droop. His voice became furry around the edges. “See, I expected to walk into that joint and get at least a little coming-home party from my pal Nick. It’s funny, in Naples I even treated the wop babes with respect. I figured Nick would like that when I tell him. So the whole place is closed, boarded up. Everything’s cleaned out of the bank.” He looked at Michael and grinned, his eyes full and his lips trembling. “But that’s the funny part.
“Right here he was living, all the time I was overseas. Right here in this house.”
“Are you sure?”
“Mister, I’ve been told. And told. At a time like this, you’d be surprised at how many talkative friends you have. They come out of the cracks.”
“Where are they now?”
“The boy’s missing. She’s missing. He’s missing. The money’s missing. No forwarding address. Everything clean as a picked bone.”
Michael fought for words that might help but he could think of nothing.
“See, I knew she was a bimbo when I married her. I figured, so who’s an angel, I’ve lived too, maybe we can make it brand-new together. So we didn’t, that’s life, about her I don’t care. But the kid was named Samuel. Shmuel, after my father, alev hasholom. They’re both Catholics. That’s one kid who will never be bar mitzvah.”