by Howard Fast
“God forgive me,” he said aloud. “I’ll get into the habit of talking that way, and then I’ll really have to ask God’s forgiveness, and poor Myron. If I apologize to him, he’ll have every right to ask what on earth I’m apologizing about. Could I tell him? Could I? Answer me, Rabbi David Hartman!”
Only the day before, Mel Klein had taken David aside after a meeting of the board and said, “David, boychik, myself I know nothing about politics, and the little bit I know, I don’t want to know. I got enough trying to keep my head above the water in that lousy shmatteh shop downtown, and taking care of my family, and trying to keep this synagogue from a common religious disease called mortgage-itis. So as far as politics are concerned, I give my fifty dollars a year to the Democratic Party, and that’s the end of it.”
“Mel, what are you trying to tell me?”
“Politics. It’s been in every one of your past four sermons. The congregation don’t like it.”
“Who doesn’t like it?” David demanded, bristling.
“Come on, come on, I say two words, you’re ready to deck me. David, I don’t want no trouble. You’re a wonderful rabbi. It’s a miracle we got you here instead of some shlemiel.”
“Thank you, Mel. Now who’s been complaining about politics in my sermons?”
“I’m naming no names.”
“All right, Mel, but these folks, the next time they unload on you about my politics, tell them to read Prophets. A bit of praise the Lord, but ninety percent of the various books of the Prophets is politics.”
Still, the message took, and now, driving home, he decided that the subject of the sermon would be Prophets. An evasion, yet a good way out. He would do a biblical sermon, pure and simple, eschewing any mention of current events. It was what Martin Carter did when the going got rough in his congregation, and it always cooled the heat. People felt great comfort going into a house of worship and stepping back three thousand years to a world that did not exist, that was absurdly simple and void of atom bombs, fragmentation bombs, tanks and machine guns. Certainly, he calculated, more human beings were slaughtered in World War Two than the number of the entire human race at the time of Amos. He decided that he must try to work this out. Suppose the entire world population at the time of Amos was, say, ten million; say, twenty million. Less than half the number that died in World War Two. “There, my lad,” he decided, “is a sermon. And there is politics,” he added ruefully.
“Mel is right,” he admitted to himself. “I do it every time.”
He was just finishing the sermon, when Myron Schillman arrived. He was a tall, long-limbed boy, with a shy smile and a voice that still cracked occasionally. He entered David’s office tentatively. The office had a large, built-in bookcase, a desk, and three wooden chairs that were fair imitations of Windsors. David had a swivel chair behind his desk. Carpeting on the floor, leather couch, leather chairs, and a respectable library in the very large bookcase were all the things for the future. The money had run out.
“Myron, sit down, please,” David said to him. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good, thank you, Rabbi.”
“If you get too many fountain pens, I’ll trade for something else.” It was his standard small joke to break the ice. Myron knew about it. The other kids told him to expect it.
“Sure, I’ll trade, Rabbi,” he answered, grinning.
“Well, Myron, this is a very informal hour. I like to have a chat with boys who bear the burden of becoming a man at the age of thirteen years. It’s a little early, don’t you think?”
“It wasn’t in the old days, was it?”
“Not even in the time of the people who first settled Leighton Ridge. But today — well, you do have high school and college still ahead of you.”
“Yeah.”
“So I guess that the real meaning concerns the taking on of a certain amount of responsibility. After all, the essence of being a kid is being without responsibility.”
Myron looked uncertain, and David amended his statement. He never really knew what to say to the kids on these occasions, and frequently his remarks had to be adjusted to the action of the child’s ductless glands. There were thirteen-year-olds who were almost six feet tall, the first fuzz of hair on their cheeks, and there were others who were still burdened with baby fat, pink cheeks, and a skin as smooth as silk. Thirteen was an odd age to select as the door into manhood, but as Myron had suggested, it must have been quite different in the old days.
When Myron left, David put his feet up on the desk and leaned back. He had to admit that the swivel chair was a great improvement. He could dispense with the rest of the new synagogue furniture, but the swivel chair, never.
The telephone rang. It was Lucy, informing him that she had arrived safely in New Jersey with the children, that everyone was really devastated that David had not come, and that everyone sent their love. “Did you finish your sermon?” she asked him.
“Yup. Finished the sermon, had a chat with Myron, four o’clock, and I think I’ll go home, shower, and drink a martini.”
“Who’s Myron?”
“Our latest Bar Mitzvah boy. Nice kid.”
“And what’s the sermon on?”
“Amos.”
“Who’s Amos?”
“The prophet.”
“That Amos.”
“You sound relieved,” David said.
“Well — sort of,” she admitted. “I’ve heard some remarks about politics in your sermons.”
“Everyone’s heard them except me.”
“And there’s stew in the fridge. All you have to do is warm it up.”
“I’ll have a sandwich.”
“I made the stew for you, David. Four different vegetables and a decent piece of meat. Your sandwiches are empty calories.”
“I’ll skip the martini. I’ll have a sandwich and a beer.”
“Great. There’s nothing warms up your breath like beer, and just as soon as you set foot in the synagogue, someone smells it — and there it is, the rabbi’s drunk. And as a food, beer is worthless.”
“What are we arguing about, Lucy?”
“I know. I know. It’s crazy. We say two words to each other, and suddenly we’re at each other’s throat. David, have your sandwich and beer. I should know you have no appetite before services. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. I love you, dear, and I promise never to die of malnutrition.”
“That’s a pretty good joke for a rabbi,” Lucy said.
David had hardly put down the telephone when it rang again. It was Martin Carter this time, and he said, “David, when are you and Lucy free this evening — I mean when do you finish with your Friday night devotions?” Only Martin Carter called the Sabbath evening services devotions.
“Oh — I’d say nine-thirty at the latest. I decided to do a religious sermon on Amos, and it ran short. Everyone will love me for that.”
“I do Isaiah in the Prophets. He’s pure gold.”
“I’ve exhausted him, at least for this year.”
“Well, nine-thirty, even ten will be great. Millie and I are giving our seasonal bash. You know, we rarely entertain, what with the dinner invitations from the parish members, three or four a week, bad for the stomach and sticky for the mind. So once a year we do a buffet for about twenty of our friends — of course you know. You were here last year. Well, Millie spoke to Lucy last week, and Lucy said you’d both be down in Jersey or somewhere for a wedding, but then I drove past and saw your car sitting in the driveway and thought perhaps the wedding was off.”
“No, the wedding’s still on. Lucy went with the kids.” He explained the problem of a rabbi observing while a justice of the peace married two Jewish kids.
“Yes — yes, I can see where that puts you. Well, come along anyway, David. It’s better than sitting alone in an empty house.”
“I couldn’t get there until almost ten.”
“We don’t eat before ten. It’s our one touc
h of night life on the Ridge.”
It pleased David. He felt truant, fancy free. He recalled the party at the Carters’ the year before, and it was rather sedate as parties go, but on the other hand, there were only two other Jews present besides himself, and that was certainly a novelty. This time, there were four Jews and their wives, three of them strangers to him, if indeed they were Jewish. He was irritated by a habit he had fallen into, glancing at a person and deciding whether or not the person was Jewish; but then he was increasingly irritated by the things he did and by the thoughts that ranged through his mind, and he felt increasingly driven by an oppressive sense of his Jewishness. Why, he wondered, had it not been so in the army? But in the army he had been part of a whole; here he was an outsider. He felt that he had come into this room as an outsider; he felt that he came into the Jewish homes of his congregants as an outsider; and he even felt at times that he stood in the synagogue as an outsider.
What nonsense, he said to himself. I am here and these people are warm and friendly and apparently delighted to meet me.
Millie Carter was a good cook, and the sideboard groaned under a rich assortment of New England autumnal dishes — a bean pot; Indian pudding; a huge salad of red onion, fresh corn, chickpeas, tomatoes, and lettuce; a platter of fried chicken; and a roast ham.
“Both you and Martin,” Millie said to him, “are obscenely thin. Please eat and eat and eat. I’ll be very flattered. Who have you met?”
“Almost everyone by now.” He was looking at a tall, slender woman, a woman of about thirty, at least five feet nine inches. She had a sharply etched face, a high-bridged nose, wide cheekbones, and amber-colored eyes. Were her features not so sharply carved, she might have had a bovine appearance, so wide and placid was her brow; as it was, she was strikingly handsome.
“You haven’t met her,” Millie said. “Let me introduce you. Be kind to her. She needs a good word and a thimble of kindness.”
“Why? Or is it simply what we all need?”
“Some other time. Come meet her. Her name is Sarah Comstock.”
Sarah Comstock took his hand firmly. Her own hand was strong and warm. “I’m so glad to meet you, Rabbi Hartman, and so glad that you came to the Ridge. I’ve looked forward to meeting you. I never met a rabbi before.”
“That would make you curious, I’m sure.”
“I’m so sorry. That’s not what I meant. I’ve offended you, haven’t I?”
“No. Oh, no. I didn’t mean it that way either.”
“Shall we both start again?” She smiled. She had a remarkable smile that lit up her face and appeared to change it completely, mellowing the angles and planes.
“Please.”
“Where is your wife?” looking about the room. “I’ve heard so much about how pretty and clever she is. She and Millie have practically finished this cookbook they’re doing — The Parsonage Cookbook — how to dish up gourmet food on a minister’s or a rabbi’s salary. It has a whole section on kosher food, and Millie thinks they’ve found a publisher —” She saw David’s expression and broke off. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. I don’t chatter away like this usually.” She shook her head unhappily. “You didn’t know, did you?”
“Probably they planned to tell me about it when they had found a publisher.”
“Of course. It was to be a surprise. I mustn’t monopolize you. It’s not my best evening, Rabbi.”
“Please, Mrs. Comstock,” he said, “you haven’t offended me and you haven’t said anything out of place. My wife had to be with her family in New Jersey and that’s why I’m here alone. Why don’t you introduce me to your husband?” for want of anything better to say.
Sarah Comstock nodded across the room to where a rather handsome, blondish man of about forty, with a puffy, high-colored face, sat slumped in a chair, a drink in his hand. Vaguely, somewhere behind him, David heard someone itemizing the furniture in the room, the pieces that were made in Philadelphia in the 1760s, the sewing table from the hand of Hilton, all of them in Millie Carter’s family for generations.
“That’s my husband, Mr. Rabbi,” Sarah Comstock said bitterly. “We got here at nine o’clock, and that’s his fifth vodka — on ice, six ounces in a drink. One or two more, and Marty will help pour him into our car and I’ll drive us home.” And with that she turned on her heel and stalked away. When he looked for her again, she had left.
The following morning, after the Sabbath service, Jack Osner asked David whether they could have a few minutes in the rabbi’s study. Once there, he made small talk uneasily until David suggested that he come to the point.
“Judge Interman, the one who’s sitting on the case of the atom spies, is an old friend.”
David had followed the case in the newspapers, unhappily. Now he nodded.
“We were in the service together —”
David said nothing. He had little love or sympathy for Judge Interman.
“He’d like to talk to you. Well, not as David Hartman. He wants to talk to a rabbi. He belongs to the Temple Emanu-El in the city, but for reasons of his own, he feels he can’t talk to the rabbi there.”
“There’s certainly no shortage of rabbis in New York City,” David said without enthusiasm.
“No, of course not. But I know you, and I told him he could trust you. I think he’d rather someone away from New York.”
“All right,” David agreed, “I’ll talk to him. He’s about fifty, isn’t he? I should think he’d want an older man.”
“No. He knows how old you are. Can you see him tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? I was thinking I might drive down to New Jersey and join Lucy and the kids.”
“It’s very important to him, David — and to me — that you see him.”
“All right.”
“About three in the afternoon?”
“I suppose so.”
“He’ll come to my house. I’ll bring him over and drop him off at your place.”
All very mysterious, and for some reason distressing to David; but it gave him cause to quiet his guilt about Lucy and to stay away from the wedding in Jersey. He had thought that he might drive down on Sunday and arrive after the wedding. Now he put the thought aside, and when he called Lucy, he explained about the date that Osner had arranged.
“I don’t like that man, David. Why must you please him?”
“He’s a human being and a member of the congregation.”
“Aren’t we all? Well, look, don’t sit around and brood. Get some kind of dinner invitation. I’m glad you went to Martin’s place last night. Did you meet anyone interesting?”
“Not really, no.” He didn’t mention Sarah Comstock nor did he make any reference to the cookbook.
After the telephone call, he made a sandwich, warmed some cold coffee from the day before, and tried to read. But he was unable to concentrate, and he put the book aside and turned on the radio. Lucy felt that the children should be spared the insidious new diversion called television, and he half-agreed with her, but since they couldn’t afford a set, the matter was decided without much discussion. On the other hand, David would have welcomed a TV screen today, something he could watch mindlessly.
He finished his sandwich and had about decided to take a long walk by himself, when the telephone rang. It was Sarah Comstock, and she said, “I didn’t know how long your services take on the Sabbath, and I didn’t want to disturb you at any personal devotions, so I waited. It’s almost three o’clock now, and I must see you and speak to you, Rabbi, please —” All of it breathlessly, the words pouring out as if she were determined to say what she must say before David could stop her.
“Yes, of course,” David said.
“Where can I meet you?”
“Come to my study at the synagogue — say, half an hour. Is that all right for you?”
“Yes, I’ll be there.”
Afterward, he would remember how she looked when he opened the door of his study for her. Her light brown
hair was drawn back and tied almost carelessly at the back of her neck. She wore a suit of fawn-colored linen over a white cotton shirt, and her stockingless feet were in sandals. “I should have changed,” she apologized. “I don’t go to church dressed like this, so I shouldn’t come here dressed this way. But you said a half-hour —”
“You look fine.”
“Back there,” she said, “as I walked past, I saw the girls dancing. They looked so lovely.”
“That’s Jenny Levine’s group. She was with the American Ballet Theater, and we’re lucky to have her in the congregation. She volunteers. We’re even more poverty-stricken than Martin, if that’s conceivable.”
“But the building’s so fine.”
“Thereby our poverty. Sit down, please, and try to feel relaxed.”
She seated herself with her purse held primly in her lap, her legs uncrossed, her glance at the floor. “I don’t know how to begin,” she said softly, “calling you, so presumptuous; it’s arrogant —”
“Then don’t begin, Mrs. Comstock,” he interrupted. “We’ll just talk, and if I can be of any help or comfort — well, it will come out. But there is one thing I must ask you, and only because Martin is a dear friend. Why didn’t you go to him?”
“Because he’s Harvey’s best friend — “ She began to cry. “Damnit, I don’t cry. I’m not a weeper.” She dabbed at her eyes with a piece of tissue.
“Do you want a drink?”
“Yes.”
“Sweet wine. It’s sacramental and a bit disgusting.”