A Town of Empty Rooms (18 page)

“But you're almost done!”

“It's wrong,” he said, got a garbage bag, and began to sweep his model landscape into it. He stalked around the table, taking apart the landscape. It was as though his anxiety so shamed him that he had an urge to display it so that, perhaps, he would be absolved. He yanked off the TruGreen, peeled off the tracks, the false mountains, the streams made with glue. She stood, trembling, watching him sweep everything into a plastic bag. “Help,” he said, and she was so startled by the husky childishness of his voice that she lifted up the train tracks and silently handed them to him.

Finally they stood, the plywood bare again, the TruGreen grass wrinkled, the tracks piled up in a corner, the trains jammed together in the middle of the table. The floor was covered in sand or dirt. She waited to see what he would do next. Her father stood, squinting at the ruined train landscape. He never tore apart anything that she had made. She collected it and put it in the corner to use for the next project. He only destroyed his own work, tossing it into the corner. Finally, he sat down and stared at the blank table.

“Look at that,” her father said. “It's nowhere.”

 

 

 

THE NIGHT AFTER THE BOARD meeting, she saw an email on her computer with the subject CONFIDENTIAL FOR BOARD MEMBERS. She was in her bedroom; she closed the door.

She closed her eyes for a moment, preparing. Then she opened them.

That was it.

THE MEMBERS OF TEMPLE SHALOM'S Board of Directors all moved through the quiet streets of Waring to the emergency meeting. It was November; the sky faded early now, and the bare oak branches were hard silver filaments in the glow of the streetlights. Betty drove her Lexus, her accordion file of evidence beside her in the front seat; she had belted in the folder to keep it steady. Tom carefully steered his Buick, Norman beside him describing his call to the rabbi the night before: “You know how long I talked to him last night? Forty-five minutes. Forty-five! I finally made an excuse to hang up because I didn't want to be, you know, a bother.”

Serena was speeding. She wanted to get there. She drove past the sad, bright strip malls that composed the rest of Waring, that made it like thousands of other such cities in America; there was the sense that the town was floating on the erratic whims of global industry, the streets lined with McDonald's and Wendy's and Old Navy and Walmart, and the enormous signs glared, cheerful, insistent, into the dark air. Her car floated past the churches, the conversation they had with the street:Today she saw
God has a word for every situation.
She also saw
If your Bible is falling apart, you aren't,
and
Jesus says: Come and make your home with us.
She gunned the car past the signs, their absurd hopefulness. Clutching the steering wheel, she moved through the cool, starry night.

She thought of the rabbi in front of the congregation, his nylon suit glimmering in the low light. She thought of the way he sat beside her in his office the first time, the breathless intimacy of that gesture, how he had stood with Forrest and prayed for that damned shed, how he had looked at her with his dark blue eyes and seen something worthy in her. The allegations had almost made her laugh in their smallness, and then she wanted to cry. Why were they attacking him? She thought of how she felt beside him, whole, how he sat beside her, how still he was when he seemed to listen.

She parked and went into the room where the board members were sitting quietly in the milky light. Somehow, official allegations against their spiritual leader put them all on their best behavior. Betty had brought a big box of Entenmann's glazed donuts; everyone offered
everyone else a donut first. No one grabbed a donut without a nod to his or her neighbor. Betty wore a crisp gray Armani suit and perfume that smelled of lavender. She gave Serena a big smile and squeezed her forearm.

“How are you, darling?” said Betty.

“Upset.” It was surprising that anyone could eat the donuts.

“We're all upset,” said Betty, looking not at all upset.

“All right,” said Marty, “let's get on with it.” He bowed his head. “Dear God. Let us serve as the stewards of your congregation, to lead in a way that is responsible and moral and carries out your wishes. Amen.”

“Amen,” they said.

The donut box was empty.

Tom called the meeting to order. “We have come to judge an individual in our Temple,” he said, his voice trembling. “In judging an individual,” he said, “you review good and bad points.” He paused. “Now, Rabbi Josh is a learned man,” he said. “He brings congregants to tears when they hear his sermons. He is a dedicated and hard worker. I am proud to call him my friend, and I find him to be an individual of visionary status. Last year he visited fifteen local elementary schools at Chanukah and performed three interfaith seders while his name was being smeared by certain members — ”

“I had dinner with him and Saul Schloman, and he talked to Saul the whole time and totally ignored me and my wife and the other dinner guests,” proclaimed Barry Weissman. “My wife was in tears.”

“We've lost twenty members I can count because of him,” said Betty.

“We've probably added thirty more,” said Norman.

“He yelled at Fran Schollman until she cried,” said Betty.

“She wanted to plant an organic garden along the right side of the Temple. He said no. Well, he didn't say it — ”

“The sukkah generally goes there. He didn't want to crowd the area,” said Tom.

“Point two,” said Betty, “he screamed at Jennifer Gordon when she entered his office without asking. He stood in front of his desk, leaned toward her, and screamed, “What do you think you're doing,
you moron?” Betty looked at them, her eyes bright. “Yes, he did use that word. He shouted, or, she said, screamed, ‘This is my territory! Did you ask before you came in here? Did you even think of using your hand to knock?'”

Serena swallowed. “He didn't say it like
that,
” she said, hopefully. Most of the others looked up as though they all wished this.

“In fact, he did,” Betty said. “I have eighteen incidents recorded — ”

Could the rabbi have said these things to the congregants? Could there be some explanation? She could sense this yearning running through the others as well, the desire to explain him, to align themselves with one side of him or the other.

“Perhaps they're a little hypersensitive,” said Tom.

“I agree wholeheartedly,” said Norman.

“Why are you calling old ladies hypersensitive?” asked Tiffany.

“Don't blame the victim,” said Betty.

“Maybe he hates his mother,” said Norman. “We have a rabbi who hates his mother.”

They all laughed, with relief. Thanks to Norman, as always, they all laughed. Serena was grateful for him; it was as though it had just rained, and the air was clear — there was a sense of thrill in the air, at the freedom to speak about the rabbi's flaws. The fact that this man — who paid his rent through his own alleged holiness — had committed various transgressions made their own mistakes seem petty. He had freed them from the indignities in themselves.

“I must interject,” said Betty, “one reason the rabbi was hired was because the other candidate was a fatso. This is in the words of the search committee. They liked Rabbi Golden because — his smile. His hair.”

“They wanted someone easy on the eyes on the bima,” said Tiffany.

“Ladies! Did you hear his sermon on the settlements on the West Bank? So smart, so subtle — ”

“Define
screamed,
” said Marty.

“Good point,” said Tom. “No one heard it — ”

The others looked nervous, unsure which group they could be sorted into — screamer or not-screamer. What had the rabbi done?
What were any of them capable of? How far were any of them from any misbehavior? Wasn't that one reason they had started coming here, to try to somehow lift themselves to a higher place?

“Has the rabbi yelled at you?” Serena asked Marty.

“No.”

“You?” she asked Tiffany.

“Well, no.”

“The word is
attacked,
” said Betty. “These are not small things. Here is a list. These are just the documented ones. “He screamed at Sandra Steinfeld, Gloria Price, Wanda Seymour, Maria Goldenman, Marsha Cohen, Lorrie Mankowitz. They are all women over sixty,” said Betty. “He bullied them to the point of weeping. Board members — ” Her voice became louder. “It 's not just a little yell, it 's — an attack. He makes little old ladies cry.”

There was a silence.

Serena felt like the discussion was going on in a distant place, and the voices were bent and distorted. Perhaps this was all made up, for some unknown reason; she did not want to believe the rabbi had acted this way. “What about,” Serena said, carefully, “asking if he needs help?”

“We did,” said Betty. “After several of these incidents, we suggested that he seek anger management therapy.”

“Is this covered by the Temple budget?” asked Marty, tapping his pencil.

“No, he's paying,” said Betty. “But we don't know if he's going. We haven't seen doctor's notes.”

“Has he — hit anyone?” asked Marty.

“No,” said Betty, sitting up, “but why should we test that out?”

“We should dock his pay,” said Marty. “Money talks. A hundred bucks for each time he starts screaming at someone. Two hundred.”

“Someone might think it should cost him fifty,” said Norman.

“We told him he should apologize publicly during Yom Kippur service,” said Betty. “Get everyone he's made cry up on the bima. Personally atone to each of them. He didn't.” Her voice had lost its practiced sunniness and was piercingly clear. “What do we want, I ask you? Do we want to stand up for righteousness to everyone? Do we want to have a rabbi who is cruel to women?”

Betty turned her eyes to Tiffany and Serena. Suddenly there was a demand put upon them. They were, as the female members of the group, supposed to condemn the rabbi.

“Impolite isn't cruel,” piped up Tom.

“We cannot have a bully as a rabbi!” said Betty. She stood up. “We condone cruelty if we keep him.”

The room was quiet.

“But if we don't keep him, who else would want us?” said Norman. Suddenly he looked tearful. The board members huddled around the flimsy table; the fluorescent lights flickered. “I ask you — if you were a rabbi, would you want us?”

Norman looked out at the board members. He pitied them. He thought of them as his assistants, all of them, even (secretly) Tom; Norman had been a member here the longest, besides Betty, and that had to lend him an authority the others should respect. The discussion about the rabbi was a little hard to follow; the accusations seemed flimsy and wrong. It gave him a jumpy sensation in his stomach, which he wanted to end; he did not want to feel anything else going awry in his body at the moment. He wanted to be fine. The rabbi had made him feel fine last night, while they discussed the organ celebration, fine in that he asked about the biopsy but didn't push. The rabbi knew what Norman could offer. Knowledge. During that conversation about the organ's birthday, Norman had told the rabbi the history of organs in Reform synagogues in the United States, for forty-five minutes, and in those minutes Norman had forgotten his diagnosis.

Norman looked at them and lifted his hand.

“It is imperative that this is kept within
these walls,
” said Norman. “We don't want to alarm the congregants. A call to secrecy is in order.” He paused. “We should have an oath.”

“Norman, are you kidding?”

Tom said, “I propose that Norman and I speak to the rabbi about reforming his conduct toward congregants. We will make our point strongly.”

The board members slowly gathered up their notebooks. Betty tapped Serena on the shoulder. “If you have any questions,” she said, “don't hesitate to give me a call.” She handed Serena one of her business cards.