Thursday the Rabbi Walked Out (25 page)

“Yeah, but there’s like a caucus before the meeting that they asked me to come to. Some of the men want to talk over something important we’re going to take up.”

He drove to the public beach and parked, the food stand had remained open because the weather had held fine, and people continued to come, to walk along the edge of the water or to sit and watch the surf, he bought a cup of coffee and took it back to the car.

There were several cars parked, one with a couple in a close embrace, which unaccountably annoyed him, he sipped at his coffee and puffed on a cigarette and rationalized Molly’s behavior, he admitted that his mother had probably not been dreaming and had indeed seen what she said she had. But what of it? The phone call she had heard must have been the one that Gore had made, and then she had gone out for a half an hour or so, well, she had been working hard all evening on the report and wanted a bit of fresh air. Of course, she shouldn’t have left Ma all alone, but she did first go up to see if she was all right, and Molly had insisted right along that Ma wasn’t as helpless at night as she claimed, and, of course, she wasn’t, he knew that his mother had a tendency to exaggerate and dramatize her condition – for sympathy, and maybe because she was lonely. But still –

He set the car in motion and started for the meeting, he decided not to mention the matter to Molly, there was tension enough between the two women, maybe normal between a girl and her mother-in-law living in the same house. But if Molly got the idea that his mother was spying on her and, what is more, tattling to him, then it could start an unholy row, and who knows where that could lead?

The board members were shuffling into seats around the table when Herb arrived, he nodded to those who caught his eye and slid shyly into the nearest chair. Barry Fisher got up and closed the door of the room, then taking the place at the head of the table, he announced. “Henry called me to say something important had come up and that he wouldn’t be able to make it today. So let’s come to order and get on with the meeting. If I remember right, we agreed to devote this meeting to the budget and nothing else, so I think we can dispense with the reading of the minutes and committee reports. Let’s see, you wanted time to study the budget, herb, that’s why we postponed consideration until today. Right, well, have you had a chance to go over it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, then let’s get started, the first section is housekeeping expenses. You want to say anything about the figures. Mike?”

“I thought we were going to take it item by item. Mr. Chairman.”

“That’s right.”

“So why don’t we take the first item, the first line item. I mean?”

“Okay.”

“Well, the first item is heat. You notice we increased that item over what we allotted last year. Now, I could have just added our supplementary allocations for heat last year to the original budget figure and let it go at that. But I thought we ought to increase that figure by about ten percent on account of we got to figure on a possible price increase in oil.”

“On the other hand. Mike, last winter was exceptionally cold. It’s not likely we’re going to get another winter like last year.”

“Well, I heard a guy on TV claim that the climate might be getting colder, according to him, there’s a good chance that we’re getting into another Ice Age. Something to do with the ozone layer.”

“Aw, that’s just science fiction, we can’t have another winter like last year, the country couldn’t stand it.”

“So you think Congress will pass a law against it. Bill?”

They wrangled about it, gnawing at it like a dog with a bone, and then finally accepted the original figure, they proceeded to do the same with the next item, and the next. On the whole, the women members tended to be more businesslike and more inclined to stick to the point, but they were also given to whispering together and sometimes lost the thread of the argument and demanded to have it restated.

“Okay., the next item is salaries. You want to say something on that. Doris?”

“Yes. I do.” said Doris Melnick, who was chairman of the school committee. “When Mike asked me for the figures on individual teacher’s salaries. I told him I couldn’t give it to him and that I’d have to give him just the lump sum for the whole faculty. I’d like to explain the reason for that, we on the school committee negotiate each teacher’s salary with the individual teacher, separately and confidentially, that’s been our policy from the beginning, and it has worked Well, No teacher knows what any other teacher is getting, unless he tells him, that way, negotiating each one separately; I mean, we can give the better teacher a little extra if it should be necessary, and you don’t get jealousy and disgruntlement –”

“Dis who?” It was Jack Pollock, who had a reputation as a clown and felt he had to live up to it.

Mrs. Melnick, who had been a schoolteacher and knew how to cope with naughty boys, fixed him with a stare and said. “Disgruntlement. Mr. Pollock. Is the word unfamiliar to you?”

“Oh no. Let’s not have any disgruntlement. I’m a strong gruntlement man myself.”

They argued about it, of course, because they argued about every point that was raised, but in the end Mrs. Melnick had her way and they voted on the total figure.

Since the cantor’s salary was fixed by contract, it would seem that there was no room for discussion on that item. Nevertheless, the question was raised as to whether the cantor ought not turn in the honoraria he got for his services at funerals and weddings, and more particularly for preparing boys for the chanting portion of the Bar Mitzvah ceremony; since these were normal duties of the job. It was a point that was raised every year, and with the same arguments on both sides.

“Say he’s got a dopey kid that he has to spend a lot of extra time teaching him his Bar Mitzvah, and the kid’s old man is appreciative and wants to give him an extra few bucks for his trouble –”

“If I were a cantor, frankly I’d resent it, after all, what’s an honorarium? It’s just a tip, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, but what’s a tip? It’s a token of appreciation. Right? You get a good waiter, you give him a good tip. You get a bum waiter, and either you don’t give him anything, or you give him just exactly the minimum, at least that’s the way I do.”

“In lots of restaurants they pool their tips.”

“What I’d like to know is how you plan to work it. You going to announce that honoraria are forbidden to the cantor? Or are you going to let him collect them and then turn them in to the treasury? And how are you going to be sure he turns in everything he gets? Are you going to ask the donor to report how much he gives?”

In the end, they left matters as they were, just as they had done every year previously. Stanley Doble’s salary involved little discussion. But there was some talk, largely anecdotal, about the man himself.

“Remember when he came in stinko one Friday night?”

“How about his not coming in at all, like a week ago Friday night when the Brotherhood sponsored the service?”

“I’d rather have him stay away altogether than come in drunk.”

The suggestion, by one of the women, that maybe they ought to look around for a replacement, one more reliable, was immediately overridden by the chairman himself. “Forget it, we could get plenty of janitors who’d be more reliable, but where are we going to get one who can do what Stanley does? Anything goes wrong, and this building is now getting to the point where things do go wrong pretty regular. Stanley can usually fix it, whether it’s with the plumbing or the wiring or with the heating system, he’s a pretty good carpenter, and he spends most of the summer painting, repointing the brickwork, and just getting everything shipshape for the winter. Of course, sometimes he goofs off and gets drunk, and you can’t always depend on him. But look at it this way. If he were one hundred percent reliable and always sober, he wouldn’t be working for us as a janitor. So I see it as a trade-off, and as long as it doesn’t get worse, I think we’ve got the best of the bargain. Now, if there’s no further discussion on Stanley, I suggest that we go on to the last item, the rabbi.”

This was Herb Mandell’s cue, he raised his hand and, when recognized, said, “It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that this item is a little different from the others.”

“Oh yeah? How is it different?”

“Well, in the others we were concerned primarily with the question of salary. Now, in the case of the rabbi, it’s not so much salary; since he has like an ongoing contract subject to annual renewal. I mean, the salary is fixed except for a cost-of-living increase, so we can’t discuss that, the real question is on renewal.”

“You got a point there, herb.” said Cy Morgenstern. “So what do you suggest?”

“Well, it seems to me that on this one we ought to vote by secret ballot. I mean, if somebody wants to vote against the rabbi, he ought to feel free to do so without being worried that it would get back to the rabbi and he’d maybe get sore at him.”

The chairman stroked his chin reflectively- “That seems reasonable enough,” he said. “All right, we’ll do it that wav.” To the secretary-he said. “Gladvs, why don’t you pass out some paper, we’ll vote Aye and Nay. If you want to vote for renewal of the rabbi’s contract, you vote Aye. If you’re opposed, you vote Nay. Everybody got it?”

The secretary tore several pages out of her notebook and then proceeded to fold and tear these in quarters, which she passed down the table.

“Can you spare it?” asked Pollock, ever the comedian.

“It’s big enough for a three-letter word.” said Mrs. Melnick, always the schoolteacher, then with twitching lips. “Do you know how to spell it?”

“Keep me after school if I can’t?” He leered at her.

A few marked their ballots openly and boldly, but most cupped one hand over the paper while they scribbled furtively with the other, the former folded their ballots once and negligently tossed them onto the table to be passed on, the more cautious folded them at least twice and personally handed the resultant little cushions of paper to the secretary, in some cases even leaving their seats to do so.

As he waited for his neighbor to finish so that he could borrow his pencil, herb began to have doubts, he had nothing against the rabbi, he was doing it because Molly and Maltzman wanted him to. Molly and Maltzman. Molly sneaking out when she was supposed to be with his mother and Maltzman coming to the service late. Molly and Maltzman, their heads together as they pored over their lists. Molly off to help a girl with her bridge party – “Oh, no one you know” – and Maltzman calling to say he couldn’t come to the meeting. His neighbor passed him a pencil, herb hesitated a moment and then wrote Aye.

The secretary had waited until all ballots were in. Now she proceeded to unfold them and separate them into two piles, she counted first one and then the other, then she announced. “Thirteen votes in all. Seven vote Aye, six Nay, the Ayes have it.”

“What are we going to do now?” Miriam asked tragically after Lanigan left.

The rabbi shook his head. “I don’t know that there’s anything we can do. It’s up to Maltzman, and if he –”

“Oh, I don’t care anything about Maltzman. I was thinking of the congregation and the community, and how the town will react.”

“You mean how the town will react to the congregation? Believe me. Miriam, there’ll be no reaction at all. People don’t think that wav anymore, they no longer feel that the actions of an individual are a reflection on the group he comes from. If there is an announcement in the press, there may be some editorializing on the fact that he’s a prominent member of the community, and by that I mean Barnard’s Crossing rather than the Jewish community, they’ll mention that he’s president of the temple, along with mention that he’s president of the chamber of commerce and a big shot in the veterans’ organization, the point they’ll be making is that he’s a community leader, that’s all.”

“Well, even for his own sake, don’t you think you ought to try to help him?”

“What can I do?”

“I don’t know what’s got into you lately., David,” she flared at him. “You don’t seem to care anymore. When it looks as though the board might not renew your contract, instead of making a fight for it, you say you’ll leave it to God to take care of, and now, when the president of the congregation is arrested for murder, you say ‘What can I do?’ Do you think he actually did it?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Because he’s not the type?”

“Every type is capable of murder, or anything else,” he replied gravely. “Who can know the depths of another person? No. I don’t think he’s guilty for the very reason that Lanigan arrested him, because he won’t talk. It seems to me, if he had actually done it, he would have tried to arrange for an alibi, or offered some plausible explanation, even if it were only that he had taken a nap and overslept. But to tell the police that it is none of their business, that suggests that he has an alibi, an ironclad alibi, that he can produce if it becomes absolutely necessary.”

“You think he’s shielding someone?”

“Possibly. But I don’t think so, maybe if he had come late to the Friday service that one time, then it could have been because he happened to see something, perhaps some good friend of his whom he had seen going into or coming out of Jordon’s house at about the time the murder was committed. But Maltzman came to the service late the Friday before that, and since then. Come to think of it, he hasn’t sat beside me for the last three or four Fridays. No, there’s something he’s involved in that takes place every week at the same time, and he won’t tell what it is because he’s ashamed of it, or finds it embarrassing.”

“You think he may be seeing a woman?” asked Miriam eagerly.

“Possibly, considering his reputation. But I doubt it. Because each time I’ve seen Laura Maltzman in her regular seat in the front row, and she was there from the beginning of the service, then afterward she joined him for the collation, and everything seemed to be normal between them.”

“But if she didn’t know –”

“That could happen once, he might pretend an important business engagement and tell her to go on ahead and he’d meet her afterward. But not Friday after Friday, anything he’s doing. I’m sure she knows about.”