A Town of Empty Rooms (34 page)

They lay, after, in the living room, a little shy. Their limbs draped over each other, caramel, heavy, as though they were full of gold. They were quiet. They looked up and saw this: the trophy. The trophy sat on the carpet, a low golden glow in the shabby room, hoisted onto its glazed wooden stand. It stood in the morning light, this thing they had coveted, on the flat beige carpet. They sat, damp, naked, beside each other, and they looked at it.

Chapter Nineteen

THE TEMPLE MEETING WAS AT seven on December 10, but Betty called her at five to tell her that she was going to have to coach the women who had filed incident reports. Serena was dreading it, the sudden and unplanned nature of this congregational meeting, the vague and complicated goals. There were sixteen women who had filed reports, but only five felt comfortable speaking in front of the entire congregation. “I've tried to convince others,” said Betty, “but they won't do it. Loretta Rosenthal can't stand the pressure. She stopped coming to services because she thought Arnold Schwartz kept moving pews to get away from her. Darlene Hochsburg called me crying because she couldn't talk badly about a holy man even if he had been a jerk. She was afraid it would keep her from getting into heaven, though I explained there is no established quote, unquote, heaven, according to Reform Judaism. You coached the executives,” said Betty, wanting her allies to have usable skills at this juncture. “You talk to them. Help them figure out what to say.”

“I never coached executives.”

“Doesn't matter. You know what I mean.”

Serena sensed the desperation in Betty's voice, the strain of a queen trying to control her unruly populace; she had appointed herself head of this investigation into the rabbi, and now there was the unsavory task of actually having to present the accusations in front of an audience, many of whom held the mistaken assumption that their rabbi was here merely to lead them in earnest worship.

“Um. There's more,” said Betty. “You have to present it yourself.”

“What?”

In her haste to get her files together, Betty had tripped and turned her ankle; it was swollen and painful, and she could not walk. “I'm
icing it. But I can't walk. On this night of all times. Come over and pick them up. Please.”

Serena drove over and retrieved the files. Betty sat on the couch in her living room, her foot propped on a pillow; her face was freshly made up, but she looked wilted and sad.

“Thank you,” said Betty, handing her the files. “You can do it. You can be me!” She smiled at Serena as though this was a great idea. “The women are all right. They need this man out! Another thing. Board members should not sit together. Scatter so you seem like part of the audience. Not a bloc forcing an agenda down everyone's throats. Tom's going to have Seymour Carmel run the meeting. Seymour Carmel, for god's sake. Another best buddy of the rabbi. He's just going to try to shut everyone up.”

Serena clutched the files, now frightened of the whole enterprise. There was the roaring in an entire congregation's head.

“Do we have to have this meeting? Can't we figure out a better way to solve this?”

Betty looked down.

“I wish there were,” she said. “But Tom called the meeting. Now everyone wants to say something. Go.”

When Serena reached the Temple office, Pearl, Esther, Rose, Carmella, Loretta, and Lillian were assembled there. They had dressed as though they were about to attend a Hadassah luncheon — they had a desire to make this an occasion that was familiar and also to convince others of their seriousness, and their elegance seemed to be a form of combat. They were in dark silk and polyester dresses from, variably, Belk's and Marshall's and Sears, and these were accessorized with gold clip-on earrings and black pumps.

“Tell us what to do,” said Pearl, a tiny silver-haired woman perched, not too steadily, on two-inch pumps. “I'm getting stage fright, sweetheart. To get in front of all those people . . . some have donated money to the Hadassah — ”

“Me, too,” said Rose. She had worn clip-on earrings in the shape of tigers, perhaps as motivation.

“Let's practice,” said Serena. “Lillian. What happened?”

“Where do I start?” asked Lillian. She gripped Serena's arm. The skin of Lillian's hand was soft as a cat's stomach; it had the sweetness of lemon.

“Start with — ” Serena paused. “What happened to you.”

Lillian began to tell Serena about her granddaughter, who had almost made it to the Olympics. She began to tell Serena what the rabbi had said to her, and then she began, almost willfully, to digress. Lillian began to go off on a tangent describing the money raised during her successful Passover candy fundraiser; Carmella began to rant about her daughter's divorce. They were women in their seventies, eighties, used to saying that it didn't matter, used to pushing down their discomfort, and now that they were asked to say that it did, they were skittish.

This was what they had asked the rabbi:

She had, for years, tried to help Earl Morton shape his speeches, tried to find the words that would tell people what they should think. Now her role was different — she was helping Rose and Lillian and Carmella find ways to say what they wanted, what had happened, truly, to them. They responded merely to the admonition to say it. Say it again. Say it another time. Their stories became a kind of chant, the words familiar or even boring, but they were able to repeat them so that they were understandable, so they made sense. They were each encased in the roars in their own heads, but they slowly, carefully, described their experiences. The world somehow came into clearer focus. They merely wanted to be seen. What was it like to truly see someone as a person, to not see him or her as a target or a mirror or a garbage dump? It was easy; it was impossible; it was everything. She could do this — she could stand beside these women and tell them to say what they felt, draw the words from the bottoms of their throats, over and over — and the air in the room was clear, as though at the moment of a birth or death. She thought of the way she had stood with her mother in the rabbi's office, the vibrations of the building after his door slammed shut, the way her mother's hands had trembled
as she tried to buckle her seatbelt. “Tell me again,” she said to them, and stood in her old corporate suit, but now she felt better in it, useful somehow, as she listened to Rose and Pearl and Lillian and the others tell her how they had been hurt, hearing their stories grow clearer and stronger as they practiced them, until they could say them without stammering, until they could tell her, precisely, what they had hoped to get from the rabbi and how they had walked, tears in their eyes, to their cars, after he said what he did, until all of them felt as though they could breathe, here, in this small room. Serena sat back and listened to them, their silver hair aglow in the fluorescent light.

 

 

THEY ALL TURNED AND SLOWLY filed into the hallway outside the sanctuary. The windows of the sanctuary were incandescent with yellow light. She had never seen so many congregants converging on the synagogue. Apparently, announcing that there were allegations against the rabbi was the surest method to bringing them all in.

She walked into the foyer clutching the files, and the building echoed with chatter, the sharp, excitable voices of people who felt someone precious was about to be lost. It was as familiar as the manic quality that came before grief.

She felt a hand on her shoulder; it was Tiffany. “I heard we're not supposed to sit together.”

“Let's sit together,” said Serena.

“Thank you,” said Tiffany. “People are looking at me. I'm not paranoid. They think I want to tear him down and install — I don't know — a priest up there. You know I don't, honey. You know I'm real . . . ”

She was sporting a large gold Star of David that appeared heavy enough to cause a brain injury if she swung it at someone's head.

“Where did you get that thing?” said Serena. “My god.”

“Jewish jewelry dot com,” said Tiffany. She rubbed it against her lip like an Olympian tasting a gold medal.

They entered the sanctuary. Members were filling the aisles, taking their places in the pews. Serena realized that the meeting to reveal the failings of the rabbi would be held in the sanctuary.

“We're having it in
here
?” she asked Tom, who was helping people sign their names to a list if they wanted to speak.

“We wanted to give it a little dignity,” said Tom. She saw Norman, a bandage prominently wrapped around his neck, anchored on a red velvet chair on the bima. Beside him was Seymour Carmel, who was tenderly clutching a gavel.

“Dignity?” said Serena. “Shouldn't we have it . . . in another room? Away from . . . the Ark?”

“Better to talk about a holy man in a holy . . . locale,” said Tom. “So people know what's at
stake.
Where's our dear Betty? It's getting late.”

She paused. “She's not coming,” said Serena.

Tom lifted his eyebrows.

“She's not coming? And why?”

“She fell. She can't walk,” said Serena, carefully. Tiffany covered her eyes with her hands.

“So why are we going on with this?” asked Tom, sounding rather happy. “Cancel the meeting!”

“No!” said Tiffany. “You can't do that! We have proof!”

“She gave me the notes about the allegations,” said Serena. “I'll read them.”

“Seymour Carmel will be in charge,” he said. He looked at Serena. “You get five minutes.”

Tiffany walked her away. “You need more than that,” Tiffany whispered. “You need twenty. We'll have to — we'll have to disrupt the beginning. Before things get rolling. I'll yell ‘Fire!' or something and get everyone's attention, and we'll stand up, waving our arms, and we'll demand more time — there will be no injustice — ”

The tenor of excitement and suppressed rage in the room was building, and she stood next to Tiffany, somehow comforted by her plans for civil disobedience but also discomfited by the fact that civil disobedience might be necessary at all. The room sounded like it contained a thousand chattering birds. It was as though they were all, suddenly, on trial. She sensed, listening to the excited voices of the congregants, that they feared they were about to be robbed.

She needed air. Serena pushed through a side door to the alley. She
stood for a moment by the damp brick wall, the bitter green odor of moss. Then her heart jumped.

The rabbi was walking back and forth beside the garbage cans, murmuring to himself. He was wearing his white suit again, though it was now slightly gray, the suit that seemed to be earmarked for special occasions. He was walking quickly by the big plastic trash cans through clouds of flies.

“Oh,” he said, looking up. It was a soft, anguished sound. He stepped back and crossed his arms against his chest; it was an awkward motion, as though she had caught him naked. They stood there among the flies, the warm, spoiled smell of the garbage. Her eyelid twitched.

“Well, Serena Hirsch,” he said, “guess what I'm doing? I'm praying. Praying for the fools who are going to betray me.” He paused. “I guess that would be you.”

She tried to swallow; he was right. “No,” she lied.

“No?” His blue eyes brightened; she could not bear to look at them. How she had waited to hear his voice in the middle of the night, a treasure, an echo. How afraid she had been, walking through her house, feeling as though she would disappear.

“Aren't you on Betty's side?”

She looked at the list. “Rabbi. I'm sorry — ”

“I did nothing,” he said.

“No,” she said, “not according to them.”

His eyes widened; she could tell he had expected to claim her. “There could have been the SENCJCC,” he said. “But Betty got to you. Sophie. Rose. Liars. Hysterics.” He closed his eyes.

“Rabbi, they didn't know where else to
go,
” she said. “They wanted to go to
you —
”

He glared at her and turned quickly on his heel.

“Rabbi. What's wrong? Tell me.”

“Wrong?” He rolled his eyes. “What's wrong?”

“Please. Tell me something that would change my mind,” she said. “Let's figure it out!” What would help? An answer; an apology; a glimmer of understanding.

A low breeze riffled through the alley; the odor of rot rushed forth,
strong, and then subsided. He stopped in front of her. He clasped his hands together, rubbing them; his face was intent and faraway.

What did it mean to be trapped in the roar in your own head? How did anyone listen to anyone?

His face was determined.

“Nothing is wrong. I'm going to win.” He turned and rushed inside.

 

 

 

 

THE PEWS WERE NOW FULL. She watched him leap to the back of the room, shaking hands like a politician on the campaign line. She was just herself now, empty; he simply wanted to gather her for his team. That was what his purpose was, in the Temple, in his life. He had an acute sense of who was on his side; she saw him clapping his hand on the shoulders of certain congregants who pumped his hand, vigorously, bent toward him with concern.

She sat beside Tiffany in the front. Tiffany leaned toward her and whispered, “Look.” She opened a handbag. Inside it were the dozens of keys Serena had ordered. Tiffany smiled. “That's something, don't you think?” Tiffany felt a particular attachment to the keys, the necessity of distributing them. No one would keep her from this, if it came to it. She did not know how she had ended up here, in this room, or, for that matter, in this religion, but here she was, and she wanted to make sure everyone else had a way to get in.