Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red (2 page)

“Oh; but we’re not using Lubovnik Caterers.” said Edie.

“No?”

“We’re using Stillman’s of Boston.”

“I don’t believe I’ve heard of them, are they new?”

Edie laughed gaily. “Hardly, Rabbi, they’ve been in business for a long time. Surely you know Stillman’s restaurant in Boston?”

“Oh yes. I’ve heard of them. But I was under the impression that it was not a Jewish restaurant, certainly not a kosher restaurant.”

“Well, of course they’re not. Rabbi –”

“Then they can’t serve in our temple. Miss Chernow. Our kitchen is kosher.”

“But that’s ridiculous.” cried Edie. “I’ve already arranged it.”

“Then you’ll have to unarrange it.” said the rabbi quietly.

“And lose the money we paid on deposit?” demanded Mrs. Chernow indignantly.

The rabbi’s fingers tapped a quiet tattoo on the desk, then he said. “It’s no worse than the money you’ve lost on your temple dues the last few years.”

“Temple dues? What do you mean?”

“Because if in the several years you’ve been here you haven’t found out the principles on which our temple operates. I’d say all the money you paid in annual dues was wasted.”

Roger Fine, slim and tanned, sat with his long legs outstretched in the Chernow living room, moodily tapping the side of his shoe with his cane as he listened to Edie’s account of her meeting with the rabbi, her voice choking with indignation, she said.”.., and the man had the nerve, the unmitigated gall to tell us to our faces that the money we had spent in joining the temple and the dues my father pays each year were just wasted. I’ve been on the phone all afternoon calling every place within twenty miles to see if we could rent it for the night, but they’re all taken, and even if they weren’t, most of them do their own catering, and then there’s the problem of sending out notices of the new location and finding another rabbi. I even thought maybe we should just slip off to some justice of the peace. Oh, Roger, I’m so upset.”

Roger Fine knew he should take her in his arms and soothe her, but he remained silent and continued to stare down at his shoe. Finally he said. “I’m sure my folks wouldn’t feel we were really married with a justice of the peace.” He worked his cane in circles on the carpet. “They’re coming out from Akron for the wedding. I’m hoping you’ll like them when you meet them, and that they’ll like you. I’m hoping they hit it off with your folks, too. Of course they’re a little older than your folks and kind of old fashioned, they go to an Orthodox synagogue and my mother keeps kosher at home. I don’t think they’d eat this beef stroganoff you were planning to have, but it’s just possible they might make a bluff at it because they’d be sitting at the head table and wouldn’t want to spoil their son’s wedding. More likely though, they’d just eat rolls and butter and the salad and the fruit cup, they wouldn’t make a scene because they’re not that sort. But how do you suppose I’d feel?”

The story got out of course. On Sunday, as the members of the board of directors waited around in the temple corridor for their meeting to begin, they discussed it. Typical was Norman Phillips’ comment. “Just like our rabbi.” He tapped his head with a forefinger. “No smarts, he’s supposed to be an educated man, and I guess he is since he’s a rabbi, but smarts he sure hasn’t got.”

“Well, for God’s sake. Norm, what could he do? You know our house rules call for strictly kosher catering in the temple, and as I understand it, if you use non-kosher type food, then all the dishes and pots and pans are automatically non-kosher, then the next wedding or bar mitzvah that comes along, you want us to go out and buy a whole new set of dishes? So it isn’t as though you could make an exception that one time. You use non-kosher type food in the kitchen, and zip, that’s it, the kitchen is non-kosher from then on, and even if you could make an exception, why should we do it for Chernow?”

“Who’s saying we should make exceptions? I’m only talking about the way the rabbi handled it, we got a house committee, haven’t we? Nate Marcus is chairman, right?”

“Yeah, So?”

“So if our rabbi had any smarts he would have said” – and he changed his voice to simulate the rabbi’s – “‘you understand. Miss Chernow, that all matters governing the use of the facilities require the approval of the house committee, which the chairman is Nathanial Marcus. I believe. This applies to any caterer which he has not used our facilities heretofore. Our house rules require that he receive the prior approval of our house committee. If you like. I’ll phone Mr. Marcus and arrange for an appointment for you.’”

“So Nate would have had to turn her down, wouldn’t he?”

“But that’s just the point. Nate is not a salaried employee who may need a member’s vote someday. This way the rabbi made enemies of the Chernows, and the last thing the rabbi needs in this congregation is another enemy.”

Because the weather was mild, frail old Jacob Wasserman, the first president of the temple, had ventured forth to attend the board meeting, he had been brought by his good friend Al Becker, and though they were standing apart from the others, they could not help overhearing.

“I don’t set much store by a loudmouth like Norm Phillips.” Becker commented in a low rumble, “but I think he’s got a point. Why does the rabbi always have to stick his neck out?”

Wasserman smiled. “What’s rabbi. Becker? A rabbi is a teacher. In the old country when I went to school, the teacher was the boss – not like here. Sometimes, if you were maybe fresh, or if you said something stupid, you’d get a slap from the teacher. Believe me, many times I got slapped when I was a boy.” His smile broadened with reminiscence. “But the mistakes you got slapped for. Becker, you didn’t make them again.”

“Maybe. But you know what I think? I think the rabbi doesn’t give a damn anymore.”

Wasserman nodded sadly. “Maybe that, too.”

The call came in mid-September, right after the High Holydays, and was totally unexpected. When the voice on the phone introduced itself as Bertram Lamden, Rabbi Small did not immediately connect him with Rabbi Lamden, the swarthy, bewhiskered young man who was the Hillel director at the University of Massachusetts and whom he had first met at the Greater Boston Rabbinical Council meeting a few weeks earlier.

“I’ve been giving a course in Jewish Thought and Philosophy at Windemere College in the city for the last few years,” Lamden said, “but I won’t be able to do it again this term. I took the liberty of recommending you in my place.”

“How did you happen to think of me?” asked Rabbi Small.

A short laugh. “Well, to tell the truth. Rabbi, because the dean of the college happens to live in your town. Do you know her by any chance? Millicent Hanbury?”

“It’s a local name, I believe, there’s a Hanbury Street downtown.”

“Right. Now the course is three hours a week; it’s in Boston, in the Fenway; less than an hour’s drive for you, and it pays thirty-five hundred dollars. Why don’t you give her a call?”

Rabbi Small asked how they happened to be offering a course in Jewish philosophy.

Laraden laughed. “Oh, they get a lot of Jewish kids from around here and from the New York-New Jersey area. Windemere’s a fallback school, but they maintain decent academic standards.”

“She’s the dean, the dean of faculty?”

“That’s right. It used to be a woman’s college. You know, one of those ladies’ seminaries that flourished in New England around the turn of the century. It’s been coed for the last ten years or so, but it’s still two-thirds women. Look, why don’t you talk to her? You’re not committed in any way.”

“Ladies’ seminary.”

“New England.”

“Dean,”

“turn of the century” had evoked in his mind an image of Millicent Hanbury as a tall, gaunt spinster with carefully coiffed gray hair and pince-nez on a gold chain, after hearing her low contralto over the phone when he called to make an appointment, he revised his estimate of her age downward and pictured her as trim, businesslike, a modern woman who favored conservative, basic suits.

It was a pleasant day; so although the address she had given him was some distance away, he decided to walk, as he approached the old rambling house with its turrets and gables and useless porches, all decorated with the fretsaw work of a century earlier, and saw the overgrown bushes, the cracked concrete path leading to the heavy oak front door badly in need of a coat of varnish, he revised his estimate of her age upward again. So he was totally unprepared for the extremely attractive woman, no more than in her early thirties, who answered the door and extended her hand in a firm handshake.

She was tall, slim, and her short dark hair was carefully touseled, as styled by a hairdresser, her fine gray eyes were candid as she explained. “Frankly; we’re in something of a pickle, Rabbi, the course has been taught by Rabbi Lamden for the last three years on an annual contract, we just assumed he’d be back again this year, and then he told us he was leading a group to Israel. Oh, I’m not blaming him,” she hastened to add. “We should have contacted him earlier. I suppose it’s really my fault.”

She motioned him to a chair. On another was the knitting she had dropped when she answered the door, she began to put it away, but he said. “You don’t have to stop on my account.”

“Oh, you’re sure you don’t mind?”

“I like to see women knitting. My mother is a great one for it.”

“It’s not as common as it used to be. I’m afraid.” She sat down with the knitting in her lap, and to the pleasant accompaniment of clicking needles she explained. “Christmas presents for nephews and nieces. I start early enough, but I always seem to be rushed toward the end. I keep three or four projects going all the time. I have a separate bag for each wherever I’m apt to be sitting, and I work at the one that’s available whenever I have a free moment, a gift is so much more appreciated if it’s the work of your own hands. Don’t you agree?”

As she knitted, she told him about the school, the enrollment was just under two thousand with a pupil-teacher ratio of twelve to one. “That doesn’t mean, of course, that our classes average twelve pupils, because several of our teachers are on leave each year and quite a few teach only one course, the course in Jewish Philosophy usually runs between twenty-five and thirty students. Do you think that’s a lot? Some of the younger men feel put upon if their classes run over twenty. On the other hand, since we have unlimited cuts, you never get the full enrollment at any one class.”

“It’s three hours a week?”

“That’s right. Rabbi Small. Mondays and Wednesdays at nine, Fridays at one. I’m sorry about the Friday hour, we only have a couple of classes scheduled for Friday afternoon, but we’re awfully tight for space and I’m afraid your class has to be one of them.”

“What’s so bad about Friday afternoon?”

“Oh you know.” She looked up from the knitting. “People like to leave for an early weekend. Certainly students tend to cut class more on Fridays.”

“I don’t mind Friday afternoon as long as I’m through by two o’clock,” he said. “Any later would be a problem, because the Sabbath comes early in the winter.”

“Of course.” She nodded to show she understood. “Then we can expect to have you with us this year. Rabbi?”

“Well, I’ll have to notify the board of directors of the temple.” He saw that she seemed a bit disappointed, and he smiled. “It’s just a formality, but I do have to tell them. Of course, if they raised serious objections…”

“How soon can you give me a definite answer?”

“They meet Sunday morning. I could let you know that evening.”

“Good, then if everything is all right, you could come in Monday for the faculty meeting and meet President Macomber and I’ll get you squared away on all the forms you have to fill out.”

Not until he left, about an hour later, did he realize that she had not asked to see his academic resume, although Rabbi Lamden probably had given her some idea of the academic background required for the rabbinate. Nor had she discussed the scope of the course or how he planned to teach it, but then she probably did not feel qualified. On the other hand, he had not asked her a number of questions, he grinned. Perhaps he was as anxious to come as they were to have him.

A passing police car hooted and then drew up beside him, the square red face of Hugh Lanigan. Barnard’s Crossing’s chief of police, leaned out of the window and hailed him. “You want a ride home. Rabbi?” When the rabbi climbed in, he said. “I saw you coming out of the Hanbury house. You trying to convert Millie?”

“Oh, you know her?”

“How many times must I tell you that I know or know of everyone in town?” said the chief. “It’s part of my job. But the Hanburys are an old Barnard’s Crossing family and Millie I can remember from the day she was born.”

“She seems a very attractive young woman. I was wondering why she’d want to live in an old ark of a house all by herself.”

“And you came to ask her?”

The rabbi smiled. “Oh no, that was just a little private thought I had.”

“Well, maybe I can clear it up for you, she lives there because she was born there. It’s the Hanbury house and she’s a Hanbury. It’s a – well – it’s a matter of pride.”

“What’s pride got to do with it?”

“It’s a matter of how you’re brought up,” the chief said, slowing down for a delivery boy on a bicycle. “The Hanburys have been important people in these parts since Colonial times. Josiah Hanbury was captain of the town company of militiamen, as a matter of fact. You’ll find his name on a bronze plaque in the Town Hall, he had his own boat and was a privateer during the Revolutionary War.” Lanigan laughed. “For privateer read pirate and you won’t be far wrong, I guess, at least there was money in it, and afterward the Hanburys were in whaling, and after that in the molasses-rum-slave traffic, and Hanbury Shipping Lines did right well during World War I, these days they still operate as Hanbury Shipping but they no longer have any ships. It’s an insurance and factoring business now, and their stock is quoted on the New York Stock Exchange, the office is in Boston, of course. It’s too big an operation to remain here in Barnard’s Crossing, all the Hanburys had, and still have, money, all except Arnold Hanbury, Millie’s father. His branch of the family never did too well and never had much luck either. But still he was a Hanbury, and no one was allowed to forget it.