The Rabbi (50 page)

Later in bed as he was falling asleep she touched his shoulder.

“Did you tell him about me?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh.” He stared up at the soft darkness of the ceiling. “Yes, I did.”

“That's good. Good night, Michael.”

“Good night,” he said.

 

37

He went alone to deliver the guest sermon and he liked what he saw as a hospitality committee drove him from the railroad station to Dr. Sommers' home for dinner before the Sabbath service. It was a small town, deceptively sedate-looking when seen from
an automobile, as are most campus towns. There were four bookstores, a green bulletin board in the town square listing nearby concerts and art shows, and everywhere there were young people. The air crackled with autumn cold and the energy of the students. On the pond in the center of the campus there was a skim of ice. The bare limbs of stately trees were stark and beautiful.

At dinner the temple leaders plied him with questions about his ideas concerning their proposed new building. His long weeks of solitary research provided him with much more ammunition than he could use, and their frank admiration sent him from the dinner table glowing with confidence, so that when he mounted the
bema
later in the evening he was primed to deliver a dazzling sermon. He spoke to them of why it was that an ancient religion could survive all the things that worked in the world to snuff it out.

When he left Wyndham the following afternoon, he knew the pulpit was his, and when he received the call less than a week later it came as no surprise.

In February he and Leslie and the baby flew to Wyndham for five days. They spent most of the time with real estate agents. They found the house on the fourth day, a red-and-black brick colonial with a restored gray slate roof. It was in their price range, the agent said, because most people wanted more than two bedrooms. There were other disadvantages. The ceilings were high and the rooms would be hard to clean. There was no garbage disposal or dishwasher, both of which the house in San Francisco had. The plumbing was very old and the pipes banged and made gurgling-gasping noises. But the oak floorboards were wide-cut and had been lovingly preserved. There was an old brick fireplace in the master bedroom and a marble fireplace with a fine old raised hearth in the living room. The tall, eighteen-paned front windows overlooked the campus.

“Oh, Michael,” she said. “What a set-up. This can be our home until our family grows too large. Max could go to college from here.”

This time he knew better than to nod, but he smiled as he wrote a check for the real estate man.

From the very beginning his days in Wyndham were busy and full of people. Hillel and the Intercollegiate Zionist Federation
of America had chapters at the university and he became chaplain to each. He made occasional trips with members of the Building Committee, inspecting new temples in other communities. Leslie registered at the graduate school as a special student of Semitic languages and they studied together twice a week with several of her fellow students. Temple Emeth was an intellectual congregation in an intellectual community, and Michael found that a considerable amount of his time was spent with similar study groups and in campus panel discussions. The cocktail parties resembled the fierce arguing sessions of old Talmudists, he found, except that most of the time these latter-day disciples argued about such prophets as Teller or Oppenheimer or Herman Kahn. The social functions of both the Brotherhood and the Sisterhood drew healthy numbers. The Kinds found themselves attending a variety of affairs; one winter night they served as chaperones on a youth-group sleighride, holding hands under the blanket as they glided over the snow and hoping that the gigglings and straw-thrashings in the blackness which surrounded them were sounds of innocent pleasure.

The weeks fell away so swiftly that he was surprised when the temple board came to him with a new contract and he realized that a year had passed. The new document was for two years, and he signed it without hesitation. Temple Emeth was his. Each Friday night the service was well attended and his sermon stimulated brisk discussion at the
oneg shabbat
. When Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur rolled around he was forced to hold services in double sessions. In the middle of the second service of the last day of Yom Kippur he suddenly remembered how lonely and useless he had been in San Francisco.

He did some marriage counseling, as little as possible. He found that he had a marriage problem of his own. The month after they moved to Pennsylvania he and Leslie decided that Max was old enough to have a brother or a sister and they stopped using birth control, confidently expecting that creation once achieved is easily duplicated. Leslie packed the diaphragm in talcum powder and hid the little box in the cedar chest with the extra blankets. Two or three times a week they made love with great expectations, and when a year had passed Michael found that he would lie awake when he had broken free of his wife, and she had curled her back against him, and, spurning
afterplay, had gone to sleep. Instead of sleeping himself he would stare into the dark and see the faces of unborn children, and wonder why it was so difficult to call one of them into the world. He prayed to God for help and afterward he often walked on bare feet into his son's room, nervously adjusting the edge of the blanket so that it lay close to the small jaw, and looked down at the skinny figure that was so defenseless in sleep, stripped of six-guns and the belief that he could overcome all manner of evil by punching it in the stomach. And he would pray again, asking for the boy's safety and happiness.

And thus passed many of his nights.

People died, and he committed them to the waiting earth. He preached, he prayed; people fell in love and he legalized and sanctified their unions. The son of Professor Sidney Landau, who taught mathematics, eloped with the blonde daughter of Swede Jensen, the track coach. While Mrs. Landau took to her bed under sedation Michael went with her husband that night to meet with Mr. and Mrs. Jensen and their minister, a Lutheran named Ralph Jurgen. At the end of an uncomfortable evening Michael and Professor Landau walked together across the quiet campus.

“A troubled mother and father,” Landau said, sighing. “Just as troubled as we are. Just as frightened.”

“Yes.”

“Will you talk to those young fools when they get back?”

“You know I will.”

“Ahh. . . . It won't do any good. Her parents are religious people. You saw the minister.”

“Don't anticipate, Sidney. Wait until they get back. Give them a chance to find their way.” He paused. “I happen to be familiar with their problem.”

“Yes, that's right, you are,” Professor Landau said. He shook his head. “I shouldn't be talking to you. I should be talking to your father.”

Michael said nothing.

Professor Landau looked at him. “Did you ever hear the old story about the grieving Jewish father who went to his rabbi and told him about his son's elopement with a
shickseh
and subsequent conversion?”

“No,” Michael said.

“‘I had a son, Rabbi,' the man said, ‘and he became a goy. What shall I do?'

“And the rabbi shook his head. ‘I, too, had a son,' he told the man. ‘And he married a
shickseh
and became a
goy
.'

“‘So what did
you
do?' the Jewish man asked the rabbi.

“‘I went into the temple and I prayed to God,' the rabbi said, ‘and suddenly a great voice filled the temple.'

“‘What did the voice say, Rabbi?' the Jewish father asked.

“‘The voice said,
I, TOO, HAD A SON
....'”

They laughed together, unhappily. When Professor Landau came to his street he seemed relieved to turn off. “Good night, Rabbi.”

“Good night, Sidney. Call me if you need me.” Michael could hear him weeping softly as he walked away.

And thus passed many of his days.

 

38

Michael stood on the gritty railroad-station platform and held Max's hand and the two of them watched the 4:02 from Philadelphia come in. Max's grip tightened as the engine thundered by.

“Scary?” Michael asked.

“Like big sneezes.”

“Not scary when you're a big boy,” Michael said, not believing it for a moment.

“No,” the boy said, but he didn't let go of his father's hand.

Leslie looked tired when she got off and walked toward them. She kissed them both, then they got into the green Tudor Ford that had replaced the blue Plymouth almost two years before. “How did it go?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Dr. Reisman is a very nice guy. He examined me and he studied the results of your tests, and he said that when you and I get together there should be an explosion of life. Then he patted me on the back and said to keep trying and I gave his girl our address so they could send you a big bill.

“Great.”

“Actually, he gave me some instructions. Things to do.”

“What?”

“We'll have a rehearsal later,” she said, sweeping Max against her and hugging him tightly. “At least we've got this palooka, thank God. Michael,” she said, her face in her son's hair, “let's take a couple of days off.”

Suddenly that was exactly what he wanted to do. “We could go to Atlantic City and see Pop.”

“We just saw him. I've a better idea. We'll hire a sitter and take off, just the two of us. Drive up into the Poconos for two or three days.”

“When?”

“What's wrong with tomorrow?”

But that evening as she bathed Max the telephone rang and Michael spoke for a few minutes with Felix Sommers, chairman of the Building Committee. The group had just come back from an inspection tour.

“Did you see that new temple in Pittsburgh?” Michael asked him.

“It's a beautiful temple,” Professor Sommers said. “Not exactly what we're looking for, but very, very fine. The rabbi knew you and said to say hello. Rabbi Levy.”

“Joe Levy. Good man.” He paused. “Felix, how many temples does this make that we've inspected?”

“Twenty-eight. My goodness.”

“Yes. When do we stop inspecting and start applying what we've seen?”

“Well, that's what I'm calling about, Michael,” Sommers said. “We talked to the architect who did Pittsburgh. His name is Paolo Di Napoli. We think he's great. In the precise meaning of the word. We'd like you to meet him and see his stuff.”

“Well, fine,” Michael said. “You name the day.”

“There's a difficulty. He can get together with us only on two dates. Tomorrow and next Sunday.”

“Neither day is good for me,” Michael said. “We'll have to make it some other time.”

“That's the catch. He's leaving for Europe. He'll be gone three months.”

“Next Sunday I have a wedding,” Michael said. “And tomorrow—” He sighed. “Make it tomorrow,” he said. They said good-by and he went in to tell Leslie that their trip was off.

In the morning he and Felix Sommers drove into Philadelphia. They left early and stopped for breakfast on the road.

“I'm bothered about the fact that Di Napoli isn't a Jew,' Michael said in the restaurant.

Sommers paused in the act of breaking his roll. “What a strange thing for you to say.”

Michael persisted. “I don't think a Christian can get the proper feeling into a temple design. The identification, the great emotion. The conception is bound to lack what my grandfather used to call the
Yiddisheh kvetch.
”

“What on earth is
Yiddisheh kvetch?
”

“Have you ever heard Perry Como sing
Eli, Eli?
”

Sommers nodded.

“Do you remember how Al Jolson used to sing it?”

“So?”

“The difference is
Yiddisheh kvetch
.”

“If Paolo Di Napoli agrees to take this commission,” Professor Sommers said, “we'll end up with something better than a Jewish architect. We'll end up with a great architect.”