The Day the Rabbi Resigned (7 page)

“Fine, so let's get them married off as soon as possible so we can sit back and await the arrival of grandchildren.”

“Shouldn't we have some sort of engagement party?”

“What for? We'd have to invite some of the local people, and why bring in competition? I bought an engagement ring for Victor to give her. I figured he might not be able to afford anything decent and I didn't want him to go in hock for it.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a velvet ring box. He opened it and passed it to her. It contained a gold ring with an emerald flanked on either side with two small diamonds. “What do you think?”

“Oh, it's lovely.” Then anxiously, “Do you think I ought to get her some kind of gift to give him?”

“No, that's not necessary, not necessary at all.”

But Margaret did have an engagement gift for Victor, a wristwatch. “It was my father's,” she explained. “It's not very expensive, but my father treasured it. My mother bought it for him when they went to Rome on their tenth anniversary. She had the Sacred Heart painted on the dial, and do you see that little silver tube right above the twelve. That's a relic of Saint Ulric. Dad always wore it inside the wrist so it should be right next to the blood vessels and sort of that way connected to his heart.”

“Then that's the way I'll wear it.” He adjusted the gold-colored metal band to fit his wrist and then put it on and snapped the catch. “And you know, dear, these days our lives are governed so much by the time, that it's a wonderful thing to have it done by a holy watch.”

10

Agnes arranged for the wedding to take place at the beginning of Victor's April vacation, and Cyrus treated the couple to a week in Bermuda for their honeymoon. Peg had mentally prepared herself for the trauma of the wedding night by telling herself it was a sacrifice that she must make. She had expected it to be painful, but she found that it was also distasteful. To be sure, her aunt had warned her, “Married life takes getting used to for some women. If you find you don't particularly like the marriage duty at first, well, you'll get used to it after a while. It's different for men than it is for women, they enjoy it. In fact, they sort of need it like—like you need a drink of water when you're terribly thirsty. If you love him, and if you keep in mind that it's a need that he has to satisfy, it will help. And for his sake, if you don't enjoy it, it helps to pretend that you do.”

But Peg had no talent for pretending, and each night when he made love to her, she found the experience unpleasant even if no longer physically painful. Curiously, although at first a little chagrined at her lack of appreciation of his lovemaking, very soon he found that he did not mind, and that in fact it gave a certain fillip to the process, and sometimes when he sensed her disgust as he thrust, Sister Bertha, his sixth-grade teacher, came to mind.

For the rest he was especially kind and considerate, as if to make amends. The days were spent in lying on the beach and swimming, in cycling and in wandering about the streets and shopping. She enjoyed being with him, and even at night she enjoyed having him beside her in bed; perhaps because it was the first time since she was orphaned that she had had intimate personal contact with another human being, and while the act of love was unpleasant, at least it did not last long.

All too soon they had to return. They had made no plans, but had assumed that they would be living with the Mertons for a while. They would sleep in her room because it was much larger than the guest room that he was used to. Perhaps Agnes would make some changes, if only to replace her bed with a double bed. On their return, however, when she went up to her room, she found all her things were gone, the closet empty of her dresses, the bureau empty of her underwear, sweaters, stockings.

She came down to the living room where Victor was having a drink with her uncle and aunt. “My things are gone,” she said, “everything. There's nothing in the closet or in my bureau or—”

Cyrus grinned. “Sure. We moved them to your house.”

“My house?”

“You didn't think we were going to have you two lovebirds staying here with us old fogies? We thought you'd rather be alone, so we moved your things to one of my summer rentals. It's a nice house, one of the two on Shurtcliffe Circle. It's furnished plainly, but adequately. It's certainly better than a room in a hotel. You can have it as long as you like, or until you find someplace you like better.”

It was a small, frame house on a dead-end street, with two bedrooms on the second floor separated by a hallway that led to a bathroom. One bedroom, presumably the master bedroom, was considerably larger than the other and had an adjoining bathroom. It had twin beds joined together with clamps to form one large king-size bed. The other bedroom had a single bed. Their clothes, Margaret's dresses, and the extra suit that Victor had kept at the Merton's were in the closet of the large bedroom, of course.

“How do you like it?” asked Cyrus.

“It's wonderful,” said Margaret.

“Perfect,” said Victor.

“Of course, the furniture—” Cyrus began apologetically.

“Fine,” said Victor. “It's just fine.”

“And there's dishes and pots and pans,” Cyrus pointed out. “Even a vacuum cleaner. At least there's supposed to be one.”

“I'm sure we're going to love it,” Margaret said.

“Then we'll leave you,” said Cyrus. “Come on, Aggie. Let's leave these two lovebirds to set up housekeeping.”

They walked them to the front door, and in parting Agnes said, “There's bread and rolls in the bread box in the pantry, and you'll find some stuff in the fridge, nothing special, just milk and butter and eggs, and on the pantry shelf there's coffee and tea bags and sugar.”

“We expect you for dinner on Sunday, of course,” said Cyrus.

“Oh, sure.”

“And when Victor has to stay in town for his night classes, plan on coming to supper, Peg, and then you can drive home later when he gets home.”

“Oh, I'm not worried about staying alone,” said Peg.

“By the way, do you know the people next door?” said Victor.

“I don't know them. They're Jews, I understand, but all right. At least none of the people I've rented this house to have ever complained about them.”

“Jews? I don't believe I've ever known any,” said Peg.

“They're all right. We've got a few on the faculty and quite a few in the student body,” said Victor.

At the door, Cyrus halted. “By the way, how are you planning to get in tomorrow? When is your first class?”

“I've got a nine o'clock Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I thought Peg could drive me to the railroad station.”

“If you take the eight o'clock, you'll get into North Station around half past. Then you have to take the subway to Park Street, transfer, and get off at Arlington and walk down.” He shook his head. “You could make it by nine o'clock, if you are lucky and everything goes just so. No, you'd better plan on taking the seven-thirty. And how about coming home? Do you finish the same time every day?”

“No, I thought I'd call and Peg could come and meet me.”

“Then she'd have to wait around for your call. And if you take the library job, Peg …” He shook his head decisively. “No, that won't do at all. Look, one of my salesmen left last week, and his car is just sitting in the garage. Why don't I have one of my men drop it off in your driveway here? It has the Merton Realty logo on the side. Do you mind? Or you can remove it; it's not painted on, just a decal.”

“But—But when you hire another salesman?” Victor stammered.

“Naw, anyone I hire will have to use his own car. I'll pay the mileage. I figure it will cost me less in the end.”

“Gee, I don't know what to say.”

“Then don't say anything, my boy. I'm only too happy to help.”

Peg got a chance to meet a Jew when Helen Rosen came over the next morning to welcome the new neighbor with a plate of cookies she had just baked. And, of course, Peg invited her in to have coffee.

“It's instant. Do you mind?”

As they sipped their coffee and munched the cookies, Peg learned that Herb Rosen had a large plumbing contracting business which he had inherited from his father. “They installed the plumbing in the Barnard's Crossing High School.” But he himself couldn't change a washer on a faucet. That he had studied at the Juilliard School of Music, but had consented to go into his father's plumbing business when he realized that he was not likely to become a concert violinist. That he conducted an orchestra in the town which rehearsed once a week at the Veteran's Hall, and if Peg or her husband could play an instrument—an orchestral instrument, that is, not a guitar or accordion—they would be more than welcome. That she did volunteer work every afternoon at the Salem Hospital gift shop. That Herb had a boat and in the summer sailed every chance he got, but she didn't much care for it. That they had a daughter, Phoebe, who was in the first year at Barnard's Crossing High.

And Helen Rosen, in turn, learned that the Joyces didn't know how long they would be living in the house, or in Barnard's Crossing for that matter, because it might be more convenient to live in Boston. That Cyrus Merton was her uncle, and that she had lived with the Mertons since she was twelve, when her parents died. “I was away at school or summer camp most of the time, though.” That she had been married little more than a week—

“Yes, I think I read the announcement of the wedding in the
Reporter.
I remember now, it said you were given away by Cyrus Merton, uncle of the bride.”

That they didn't sail, “but perhaps we'll take it up if we continue to live in Barnard's Crossing.” That her husband was pretty keen on golf, however.

“Then he'll have to go to Breverton, to the country club there. There's no golf course in Barnard's Crossing.”

“Yes, I know. He's already gone there a few times.” That he was an assistant professor at Windermere Christian in Boston.

“Oh really? A good friend of mine teaches there.”

That he taught evening classes a couple of nights a week, but she didn't mind staying home alone. Besides, she had a job in the town library, and she was sure they'd let her work on those evenings when Victor was teaching.

11

When next Rabbi Small went to the Salem Hospital, he found that Morris Fisher was no longer there; had been discharged the day after his visit, in fact. That evening, however, Ben Clayman called at the rabbi's house with news of him.

“I was over to see Fisher—”

“He's no longer in the hospital.”

“Yeah, I know. I went to see him at his house on the Point.”

“Oh, you're a friend of his?”

“Well … Look, the guy is more than twice as old as I am, but my father knew his wife, worked with her. You might say he's like a friend of the family. That's how I got his business.”

“You sell him stock?”

“Buy and sell. Yeah, he was one of my first customers when I first went to work for the Klan.”

“The Klan?”

“That's what they call the company on the street. Kravitz, Kaplan, and Kohn—KKK, get it? He used to do quite a bit of trading with us. Not so much lately, but I make a point of keeping in touch. It's more like a hobby with him; gives him something to do. When he was better—you know, healthier—he used to come to our offices in Lynn and sit for hours watching the ticker tape. That was after he retired, of course.”

“He was a teacher, wasn't he?” asked the rabbi.

“That's right. Math teacher in the Lynn schools.”

“And on his teacher's pension he could afford to play the stock market?”

“Oh, it was his wife who made the big money. When she got out of college, she wanted a career. In those days, as I understand it, a woman could either teach or go into nursing. If she became a teacher, she couldn't get married, at least, not in the public schools. Did you know that? Anyway, women like Mrs. Fisher who didn't want to have babies right away and then have to spend the rest of their lives taking care of the house, tried going into business, opening hat shops or tea rooms. That's what Mrs. Fisher did. She opened a tea room.

“She served soups and small sandwiches, but I understand most of her business was in the afternoon when women came in after shopping for a cup of tea or coffee and a couple of cookies, and to rest their feet. She'd bake the cookies at home and bring them in the next day. I guess she was doing all right; not setting the house afire, but paying her bills on time. Then she cooked up a batch of cookies she called Nutchies. See, it was after Passover and she had a whole bowlful of nuts left over from the holiday. So she chopped them up and mixed them in with the dough. And then she really took off. People came in not for a cup of tea or coffee, but for a box of Nutchies. Even men would come in to buy them.

“Well, to make a long story short, she began to sell them around—to other stores and restaurants. And then Continental Cracker bought her out; gave her a wad of money and an executive-type job. That's how my old man got to know the Fishers. See, he was working for Continental Cracker at the time. He says she was good, and the company knew it. They kept advancing her, and she was getting a big salary. So now she had a real career, and there was no way she was going to give that up and stay home and have babies.”

“So they never had children?”

“That's right. I guess by the time they decided they wanted them, it was too late.”

“I see,” said the rabbi, and then to bring the visit to an end so that he could get back to the book he had been reading, he said, “I'm glad to hear that Morris Fisher is all right now. When next you see him, give him my regards.”

“Well, he's not
all
right,” said Clayman. “He's like what you might call stable. They got his blood pressure down, and they gave him some pills which they hope will keep it down, but I guess in these cases you never can tell.”