Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red (16 page)

“Still – ‘

“Sh.” Mary Barton who was facing the door hissed a warning. “Here comes Dean Millie now, hello. Millie.”

That afternoon, when he returned home from the memorial service, he finally got around to telling Miriam about the sitdown strike in his class the previous Friday.

She listened without comment until he finished and then said. “Weren’t you being a little stuffy, David?”

“Well, I – yes. I suppose I was,” he said gloomily. “It’s not like you,” she commented.

“It wasn’t just that they sat on the floor, you understand. It’s everything; I resent having only a third of my class show up on Fridays.”

“But don’t the same ones come every Friday?”

“What of it?”

“Then why resent them and not the others, the ones who stay away?”

“Well, of course, but – yes. I see what you mean. I shouldn’t have let out my frustrations on those who show up faithfully. But…” his shoulders drooped disconsolately. “I’m disappointed in the whole business,” he said quietly. “It’s not what I expected. I can’t help feeling that they’re not getting anything out of the course, they come in, open their notebooks, and all I see of them during my lecture is the tops of their heads as they write down my precious words of wisdom.”

“At least it shows they’re interested.”

“It shows they’re interested in passing the examination in the course, that’s what. If they were truly interested in the subject matter, they wouldn’t write, they’d listen, and occasionally, a face would light up so I’d know I was getting through to them and they were learning.”

“Don’t any of them ever ask questions?”

“A few, but they’re not so much questions as challenges.” He shook his head. “They’re not looking for information, just for an argument – I suppose to make the time pass quicker, they don’t know anything, but they’re full of opinions, there’s Henry Luftig, the representative of the Radical Left, he is deeply concerned for the oppressed – the blacks, the Arabs, everyone except the Jews, and his sidekick. Harvey Shacter, a nice-looking young man who doesn’t seem concerned about anything but who always seconds Luftig, more out of loyalty than conviction. I suspect, and there’s a girl. Lillian Dushkin, who appears to side with them, perhaps because she’s interested in the Shacter boy. It wouldn’t surprise me if she came from a traditional home and knew a lot more about the subject than she lets on, but she conceals it, as though she’s ashamed of it.”

“She’s rather plain, I suppose.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because a pretty girl can develop naturally; a plain one has to look for a role to play, and until she finds one, she never feels quite sure of herself.”

The rabbi nodded. “Yes. I guess she is on the plain side, although it’s hard to tell because she’s so heavily madeup with all that stuff on her eyes, like a raccoon. But if she’s looking for a role to play, I guess I am, too.”

She gave him a sharp look. “You never felt sorry for yourself before, David.”

He laughed shortly. “I suppose it sounds that \vay; and maybe it’s true. Whenever I had doubts of my ability as a rabbi of a congregation. I always thought of teaching as a possible alternative. I always thought I’d make a good teacher, well, now it appears that I’m no better as a teacher than I am as a rabbi, that’s rather disquieting.”

“What makes you think you’re not a good teacher?” she demanded. “Because so many stay away on Friday afternoons? Would it be any different for any other teacher of any other subject?”

“Perhaps not.”

“You think you haven’t succeeded in interesting them, well, maybe you’re not giving them what they expected to get.”’

“They expected to get three easy credits,” he said scornfully. “That’s what they expected, and when they found they weren’t going to get them –” He stopped as she shook her head.

“No, David, that’s not the reason students take a snap course, at least not the only reason. When I was in college. I occasionally elected a snap course, and I imagine you did, too, But it was because I was interested in the subject, and the easy credit was frosting on the cake. I remember there was a music appreciation course that almost everybody took, maybe a few did so because the prof was an old softy who passed everyone, but most of us were there because it was interesting and something we felt we ought to know, there was also a course in something called research methodology where no one ever got less than a B, but the professor could never manage to get more than ten to sign up for it, that’s because he was dull and the course was dull.”

“Then maybe my students just aren’t interested in the history and development of fundamental Jewish ideas,” he said bitterly.

“Probably not,” she said amiably. “But how can they be interested in how our concepts of charity and justice and all the rest developed if they don’t know what they are? Don’t you see. David, most of them probably never received any religious instruction at home or went to a religious school. It just wasn’t fashionable when they were growing up. But there’s been a change in recent years, especially since the Six Day War, they always knew they were Jews and somewhat different from their Gentile friends and neighbors, but they and their parents tended to minimize the difference. But now they’re of an age when the differences are important: they’re dating seriously and thinking of marriage. I’ll bet most of them signed up for your course to find out just what those differences are and whether they were something to be ashamed of or proud of.”

“But college students –”

“They’re not college students. David, at least not just college students, they’re Jews. You tell them what they want to know, and believe me, they’ll be interested.”

As he waited for Mrs. O’Rourke, the cleaning woman, to arrive. Schroeder wandered about Hendryx’s apartment, trying to get the feel of the place and the man who had occupied it.

A rental agent would have listed it as a three-room apartment although a prospective tenant would have countered that the kitchen was tiny and that one of the rooms was little more than a closet, the smaller room evidently had been the professor’s workroom, because it contained his desk, chair, and a bookcase, the other room was of decent size and served as both bedroom and living room, with a large studio couch, bureau. TV, rocker, and an oversize easy chair of simulated leather with a matching hassock. Beside the chair stood a large mahogany smoking stand, the large glass ashtray contained a pipe and the half-dozen burned kitchen matches used to light it, a book, open, rested face down on one of the broad arms of the chair. On a side table were several books between bronze bookends, a large brass bowl, and a pipe rack with five pipes lined up in the half-dozen slots. Schroeder went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It contained a carton of milk, a package of bacon, a box of eggs, and some processed cheese. Obviously the professor took breakfast at home and relied on restaurants or the faculty cafeteria for the rest of his meals.

He stepped out of the apartment and walked down a short, dimly lit corridor to the rear door leading to the alley outside, the door was not locked, the key found in Hendryx’s coat pocket opened not only the apartment but the front door to the building as well. It never failed to amaze him how people could be so careful about security at one point and downright careless at another, like installing special locks on a door and then using a cheap latch that could be easily forced on street-level windows.

He returned to the apartment and began to go over it more systematically, apparently Hendryx had been neat and methodical. His clothes hung neatly in his closet, the bureau containing his linen was tidy. In a shallow top drawer he kept handkerchiefs and a tray of the usual men’s appurtenances – cufflinks, tie clips, a couple of discarded cigarette lighters, a billfold evidently no longer used, a wristwatch and a pocket watch, and a little glass dish with less than a dollar’s worth of change, the next drawer contained his shirts, the next his underwear, shirts, shorts, and socks, each separated from each other by thin wooden dividers, then a drawer for his pajamas, the bottom drawer was empty, he decided that Hendryx was a man who didn’t like to bend over unless he had to.

The desk was equally well organized with drawers full of notes and manuscripts, the latter in folders with the subject matter carefully inked on the tabs.

A police car delivered Mrs. O’Rourke, a thin, hardworking woman, close to sixty, although the day was quite warm, she wore a heavy imitation fur coat and a shapeless hat of crocheted purple wool.

“Just a few questions,” he said. “You were working here Friday?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What time did you arrive?”

“Around ten I got here, a few minutes before or a few after. I’m not sure. I plan to come at ten, but it depends on the bus.”

“And when did you depart?”

“A little before three, sir, maybe as early as a quarter of.”

“Are you sure? Now I want you to think carefully. It’s important,” he said, with this type you had to be stern to insure exactness.

“Yes, sir. I plan to make the three o’clock bus at the comer, so I always try to leave a few minutes before, or else I have to wait sometimes as much as half an hour. Isn’t it terrible the way the buses run?”

“Yes, ves, and you made the three o’clock bus?”

“Yes, sir. I made it in time.”

“All right. What did you do here in the apartment?”

She looked at him in mild surprise. “Why, I clean the place up. I dust and vacuum. I polish the furniture. I make the bed. I wash the tub. I clean the whole place up.”

“You straighten out the things in the bureau?”

“I do not, sir,” she said indignantly. “I don’t open the drawers, and no one can say I did. Professor Hendryx told me not to touch anything in the bureau or his desk and I don’t, just the things on top like his comb and brushes, so I can dust and polish.”

“All right. Mrs. O’Rourke. I was just asking. So you left the place exactly as it is now.”

“Oh no,” she protested. “I wouldn’t leave the ashes and burned matches in the ashtray, and if there’s a book open like that. I’d put it back. But I didn’t because there was no book there.” She looked about. “And the hassock. I always put it in front of the TV there because the way it is now it would get in my way.”

“Just a minute, are you saying that someone was in here after you left?”

“Oh no, just Professor Hendryx, he was always dodging back and forth between here and the school.” She sighed. “If he’d only staved here, he would have been alive today, the poor gentleman. Isn’t it terrible the way the students behave these days?”

They were unusually quiet and subdued when he entered the classroom Wednesday morning, the dozen who had been present last Friday must have told the rest what had occurred. Or was it their reaction to the bomb explosion?

All the way from Barnard’s Crossing, Rabbi Small had wrestled with his conscience, he hadn’t seen his class since he walked out on them. Should he proceed with his lecture as though nothing had happened, or should he apologize? True, their behavior had been intolerable, but on the other hand he now realized no personal disrespect had been intended. On the contrary, thev evidently believed they were doing something fine and noble. But why hadn’t they explained? But why hadn’t he asked? But they were younger, and they owed their teacher respect. But he was older and should have had more understanding. But they should have realized…But he should have realized…

“For those who were not here last Friday,” he began, “I would like to announce that there was no lecture. To those who were here, I wish to apologize for having walked out. I did not know at the time the reason for the strange conduct of some of the members of the class. Subsequently I did discover it and apologize for not having inquired at the time.” He was about to go on, when Mazelman raised his hand. “Yes?”

“I want to know if you think it was right for us – I was one – to sit on the floor?”

He said he had just explained he now knew the reason.

“No, what I mean, isn’t it part of Judaism, like aren’t Jews supposed to protest injustice?”

“Everyone is supposed to.” said the rabbi carefully. “It’s not a monopoly of Judaism. But are you sure an injustice was done? As I understand it, the chairs were removed from the prison recreation room as a temporary precautionary measure because they had been used for rioting.”

“Yeah, but all the kids didn’t take part in the riot, but they all had to sit on the floor,” one student observed.

“And President Macomber admitted he was wrong,” another called out.

“I read his statement.” said the rabbi firmly. “He said he had not intended to comment on the merits of this particular case, only to indicate his general confidence in the head of the institution.”

“Yeah, but he backed off from what he said the first time, and he wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for the student demonstration.”

“Did it convince him, or did it force him?” demanded the rabbi. “If his statement indeed represents backing off, was it caused by your sitting on the floor for a couple of days or because he felt that in the present atmosphere in the college it was wiser to defuse a minor situation before it got out of hand? And where is the justice in bullying somebody to agree with you?”

“Well, how do you know he wasn’t convinced?”

And now from all over the room:

“What good is just sitting and talking?”

“How about civil rights? They talked for four centuries.”

“How about Vietnam?”

“Yah, and Cambodia?”

“How about the Arab refugees?”

The rabbi pounded on the lectern and the yammering came to a gradual stop. In the moment of silence that followed Henry Luftig’s voice could be heard, dripping with sarcasm: “Aren’t we supposed to be the Chosen People?”

The sally was greeted with shouts of laughter which quieted down, however, when they saw that their teacher was obviously angry. But when he spoke, it was in quiet tones.

“Yes, we are,” he said. “Some of you, I see, seem to regard that as amusing. I suppose that to your modern, rationalist, science-oriented minds, the thought of the Almighty making a compact with a portion of His creation is hilariously funny.” He nodded judiciously. “Well, I can understand that. But how does it alter the situation? Your modern skepticism can be applied to only one side of the compact, God’s side. You can doubt He offered such a compact; you can even doubt His existence. But you cannot doubt that Jews believed it and acted accordingly, that’s fact, and how can one quarrel with the purpose and goal of Chosenness: to be holy, to be a nation of priests, to be a light unto the nation?”