Monday the Rabbi Took Off (27 page)

“And this bothers you? Is this why you won’t come right out and accept the job?”

“Oh, for myself it doesn’t bother me at all. I was just thinking of poor Small. As far as I’m concerned, it’s probably a little wicked of me, but I rather enjoy the situation. You see, here I have the upper hand. I don’t need them. We have enough for our needs, and I have no long-term career here that I have to safe-guard. If I remain here, it will be for three years? Five? Seven at the most. You notice in the time I’ve been here. I haven’t had any rows, no crises of the sort that seemed to come up every other week at Darlington. They know that when I take a position. I’m going to stick to it.” He smiled complacently.

“But you don’t take a position quite so often here.” she pointed out.

“I guess that’s true. too. Since I think of the job as essentially temporary: I don’t have the same feeling of urgency on most things as I did in Darlington. There, when some minor matter came up. I sometimes had to make an issue of it. not because it was important in itself, but because I was afraid of what it might lead to. Here I don’t bother. If it should develop into a major crisis. I feel strong enough to handle it then. Do you remember Mr. Slonimsky in Darlington?”

Mrs. Deutch laughed. “Abe Cohen was in the hospital a whole week. Rabbi, and you didn’t go to see him.” she mimicked.

“He also kept tabs on the number of times I missed the minyan.” The rabbi chuckled.

Now that he was in a good humor, she tried again, cautiously. “Did you ever think that it has been a welcome change for me. too. Hugo?”

“How do you mean, my dear?”

“As the rebbitzin, I had to be careful and circumspect. My behavior might affect your job. I had to trim my friendships to the politics in the synagogue. Arlene Rudman would call me practically every morning and chat at me for as much as an hour at a time, and I listened and never cut her off, because her husband was the big moneyman in the congregation and one of your strongest backers.”

“But you continued to talk to her on the phone after I retired.” he said.

“Only because when you form a habit, it’s hard to break.” She looked off into the distance. “Whenever they came to visit us. I always had the feeling that she was making an inspection of the premises.”

“Really! I thought you liked her.”

“I never really liked her. Hugo. I just got used to her. And when you retired, things didn’t change for me. The attitudes of the women of the congregation to me and my attitude toward them had been developing for thirty years. You can’t change that overnight. I never had any real friends; friendships that you cultivate on the basis of the importance of their husbands to the congregation don’t mean much.”

“But when I retired –”

“That made it worse. I was no longer the official rebbitzin and didn’t have to be consulted. And I had no children or grandchildren to visit and busy myself with. Except for Roy. we never had any young people in the house. And we only saw him when Laura would pack him off to us when she wanted a little rest herself. And I always felt that he was in your way and was disturbing you. I think he felt it. too. poor boy.” She seemed on the verge of tears.

“Believe me. Betty. I’m fond of the boy. As for Darlington, I had no idea – but – but we don’t have to go back to Darlington when I get through here.” he soothed. “We can live anywhere now and meet new people and make new friends. We can take an apartment in Boston or Cambridge, where I can work at the library –”

“It’s no good. Hugo. Scholarship just isn’t your cup of tea. If you had a real interest in it. you would have done something about it long ago. Grubbing away at dusty books just isn’t your forte. You have to deal with people. You’re good at that. I know you’d make a bluff at it and trot off to the library every morning with a briefcase full of notebooks and pencils, but the first bit of bad weather, you’d stay at home, and that would break the routine, and you’d hang around the house more and more after that until finally you gave up all pretense and just followed me around from room to room as I did my housework – two old people with nothing to say to each other, getting in each other’s way.”

He did not answer immediately; and there was a long silence between them. Finally, he said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Take the job if they offer it. Leave the question of the ethics of the situation for them to answer. That’s where it belongs.”

It had been midmorning when Ish-Kosher had had his conference with Adoumi, and by noon one of his sergeants was driving down to Tel Aviv with Shmuel, the civilian guard, on the passenger seat beside him.

Shmuel was far less assured than he had been when Ish-Kosher had questioned him. “You understand, it was late at night and dark. And since then. I’ve seen so many people. How can I be sure that it was this man and not someone else who spoke to me that night?”

“You know how these things are,” the sergeant said. “Maybe you can’t describe a man, but if you’ve seen him once, there’s usually something familiar about him –”

“And if not?”

The sergeant was patient. “I explained that. You go up to him and greet him. If he greets you back and the chances are he will – almost anybody will whether they know you or not – then you say; ‘Did you find the house on Victory Street all right?’ If he’s the man. he’ll say, ‘Oh, yes. no trouble,1 or something like that. Then he may ask what you’re doing in Tel Aviv, and you tell him you had to come down on business or you are meeting a friend – anything.”

“And if he says, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’?”

“Then you’ve had a nice ride to Tel Aviv and back, a little vacation.”

And early in the afternoon, another of Ish-Kosher’s sergeants was questioning the elderly bearded mechanic at the auto repair shop where Memavet had had his desk.

The mechanic looked despairingly at the clock on the wall and then to the interior of the shop, where he had been working on a car whose owner was expecting it soon.

“I’ve been through this half a dozen times with you people.” he said. “I had nothing to do with his business, and I know nothing about it.”

“I know. I know.” the sergeant said soothingly. “But if the man occupied a desk right here, he must have talked to you about his customers occasionally. He couldn’t have been so busy that he’d just sit at his desk all day long. There must have been plenty of times when he had nothing to do and he’d wander over.”

“Sure, but –”

“And he’d talk to you5 wouldn’t he?”

“Of course. Dumb he wasn’t.”

“So what does a businessman talk about? About some deal he missed out on; about a shrewd deal he pulled off; about some customer he had trouble with. Some of his customers he must have had trouble with. They couldn’t all have been perfectly satisfied.”

“Naturally, if you’re in business –”

“So. all I want you to do is to think back and try to remember.”

The old man seized on the suggestion. “All right. I’ll think back and try to remember. You come in next week sometime and I’ll tell you what I remembered.”

“No. no.” said the sergeant. “Right now. Look, when you’re working, you can still see the front of the office here where the desk is. Right?”

“When I’m working, I work. I pay attention to what I’m doing –”

“Sure, but you look up every now and then. You have to stop to get another tool. You can’t help seeing who is sitting by the desk.”

“All right.” said the mechanic. “So I see somebody sitting beside the desk.”

“And if there were an argument, you’d listen. You couldn’t help it. It’s human nature. Don’t tell me you never heard Memavet arguing with a customer.”

“Who’s telling? Sure, I heard.”

“Now did you ever hear a customer who got so angry that he slammed out of the door –”

“Look, young man. in business customers are always slamming out of the door, but later they usually come back. If you were in business, you’d know.”

“Sure,” said the sergeant affably, “and I bet that many a time Memavet came back here afterward and told you about it, and you both laughed maybe, and you reassured him and said. ‘Don’t worry, he’ll come back.’”

“Why not? Two people working in the same place, they encourage each other, if they’re not in competition in the same line of business.”

“That’s right,” said the sergeant. “Now, did anyone ever get

so angry that he said he was going to get even? I have in

mind a young man. a foreigner, an American… “

Early in the evening, Roy and Abdul were sauntering along the street after dinner together. When they reached Roy’s apartment house, a figure detached itself from the shadows. It was Mahmoud.

Roy said hello, and Mahmoud flashed a smile in greeting. Then in rapid Arabic he spoke to Abdul. “I thought you’d be coming here,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you. They’ve picked up Leila.”

“That’s serious, Mahmoud. You think she will talk?”

Mahmoud shrugged. “If it were the other way and we got a girl of theirs who knew something, I’d make her talk.”

“I suppose you’re right. What are you going to do?”

“I have a place in the Old City. I suggest you go north.”

“Yes, it would probably be advisable. I’ll need the car.”

“I can have it here in half an hour.”

“Good. We’ll leave then.”

“We? You mean the American?”

“That’s right. I’ll try to take him with me. It could be insurance.”

As they mounted the stairs. Roy asked. “What was that all about?”

Abdul waited for Roy to open the door and snap on the light. Then he said. “My uncle is marrying off a daughter. There is a big feast lasting several days to which we are invited. Mahmoud and I.”

“Are you going?”

“Mahmoud cannot get away from his job. He will let me have his car. though, but it is a long drive. My uncle’s place is in the Galilee. I am not anxious to drive two or three hours at night alone.”

“Well, you could leave tomorrow morning –”

Abdul shook his head. “You don’t understand. The family will be gathering, and unless I get there tonight, the most desirable rooms and beds will be all gone. No. if I am to go at all. it must be tonight.”

“Gee. that’s – look, did Mahmoud say anything about me? Seems to me I caught the word ‘American.’”

“Oh, that was something else. Yes, he mentioned you.” He sobered. “While he was waiting here, the police came and rang your bell.”

“They did? Gosh, maybe it was to return my passport.”

Abdul shook his head. “There were two of them. They don’t need two to deliver your passport. He heard one say they could come back in the morning.”

“Well, what do you think I ought to do?”

Abdul considered. “I think if you were out of the way for a few days while your father is working out things in Tel Aviv, it would –” He slapped his hand against his side. “I have an idea, come with me.”

“You mean to the wedding?” Roy asked.

“Why not? There will be feasting and dancing, and there’ll be girls,” he said with a broad smile, “lots of girls.”

“But I haven’t been invited.”

Abdul laughed. “But I am inviting you. I will present you to my uncle as my friend, and you will be his most honored guest. You’ll have a chance to see Arab hospitality.”

“You mean it? You’ll take me with you?”

“Of course. You are my friend.” He was struck by a thought. “Your father he is in Tel Aviv, you say. Why don’t you call the King David and leave a message for him that you are going to visit friends for a few days, so he won’t worry if he doesn’t find you when he gets back?”

Monday. Gittel came up to Jerusalem. “There is a conference.” she explained. “Normally, I do not go to these conferences, you understand. A waste of time. It just provides audiences for people who have nothing better to do than write papers. But this time I came because it gives me a chance to visit with you and also to see my friend Sarah, who goes into Hadassah tomorrow for observation and tests.”

“What’s the matter with her, Gittel?” asked Miriam.

“If they knew, would Dr. Ben Ami send her in for tests? Of course, I know what’s wrong with her –”

“You do?” the rabbi asked. Normally, he and Gittel had little to say to each other. She usually talked woman’s talk with Miriam, and he remained silent or even wandered off to another room. But he was startled by the seeming contradiction in her remark.

“Of course,” she sniffed, contemptuous at his male, not to say, his rabbinic, lack of understanding. “She’s nervous, poor girl. She’s all tensed up all the time.”

“What’s she nervous about?” asked Miriam.

“If you were married to a man holding her husband’s position, you’d be nervous, too.”

“Why5 what’s he do?”

“He’s an important official with the government,” she said primly.

“Everybody in the government here seems to be an important official,” the rabbi teased.

“You mean she’s afraid he’ll make some mistake on an important matter?” asked Miriam.

“I mean when he leaves the house in the morning, she doesn’t know when he’ll come back or even z/he’ll come back.”

“His work is dangerous?” asked the rabbi.

She detected incredulity in his voice. “You think not. Rabbi?” The title was pure irony; normally, she called him David. “No doubt you heard about the bombing that took place a little while ago where an old man, an automobile dealer, was killed. Well, that happened practically next door to her.”

The rabbi smiled. “The night we came there was a bombing in the next street and someone was killed then, too. Are you suggesting –”

“But he was an important person, a professor at the university.”

“So?”

“So he was a natural target for the terrorists.” said Gittel. “But this automobile dealer, he was a nobody. I am sure it was Avner they were really after. Him they would want to kill. It’s just that they made a mistake.”

“That’s a little far-fetched Gittel,” said the rabbi. “I can see where they might want to blow up a new apartment building and kill a harmless old man in the process. But I find it hard to believe that they would plant a bomb to kill a specific person and then make a mistake and leave it at the wrong address.”