Thursday the Rabbi Walked Out (3 page)

In recent years. Ellsworth Jordon did not get to New York too often, but whenever he did, he tried to arrange matters so that he would spend some time with Hester Grimes whom he had first met in the fifties when she was twenty-two and studying at the Actors’ School, he was working for the prestigious architectural firm of Sloan. Cavendish and Sullivan, and though almost forty, his rank was still that of junior architect, she was Esther Green in those days, thin with jet black hair and large dark eyes, intense, serious, determined that someday she would play the great female dramatic roles – Nora, Lady Macbeth, Joan of Arc.

He was tall and blond and handsome, for all that his hair was beginning to thin and he was beginning to put on middleaged weight, he treated her with a kind of whimsical gallantry which she found all the more attractive because it was not common in the Bohemian circle in which she moved.

In spite of the disparity in their ages, they had been very much in love. For the six months or so that it lasted, it had been a hectic affair, marked by frequently violent quarrels followed by teary reconciliations, then his big chance came, he was to be sent to Berlin on a major project which would take several years to complete, he wanted her to go with him.

She demurred, she had her own career to think of, and besides, although neither religious nor in any way connected with the Jewish community except by accident of birth, the thought of living in Germany was repugnant to her, the discussion quickly degenerated to an argument, and then, as happened frequently with them, to a quarrel, annoyed by her resistance, he was led to minimize the importance of her ambitions and then even to disparage acting itself as a valid art. “While I admit that it might be a legitimate way of earning a living,” he declared loftily, “it is essentially one that appeals to a childish urge to show off.” As for her reluctance to live in Germany: he felt that it showed that she still retained the paranoia of her race and that it proved that she was still bound by a narrow ethnic parochialism.

It ended as so many of their quarrels did with his agreeing with her that they were no good for each other and leaving, as always, presumably never to return. Shortly after he went abroad, she discovered she was pregnant.

Had he still been in the city, she would no doubt have arranged to get word to him, even if she would not herself have called him, and of course, he would have come, and of course, there would have been a reconciliation, and of course – But he was not in the city; he was three thousand miles away. Had she had family, or if her friends and associates had been of the middle class in which she had grown up, she probably would have undergone an abortion, even if it would have involved the services of some quack in a sleazy tenement. Or she might have gone out of town and had her baby in secret and then given it up for adoption. But her associates were all Bohemian and long on ideals, especially where the necessity of living up to them was someone else’s. When she suggested that she had even considered having the baby and bringing it up by herself, they immediately hailed the idea and warmly applauded her resolution, she did change her name to Hester Grimes, but that was for professional reasons.

It was almost two years before Ellsworth Jordon saw her again, and then it was on the TV screen, he had just returned from Berlin and was in his New York hotel room watching the late night Damon Parker Talk Show when she appeared, dressed in a low-cut, skintight evening gown to sing a blues ballad in a deep throaty voice, afterward she offered her cheek to be kissed by the master of ceremonies and took her place on the dais with the other guests to spend the rest of the hour in idle chitchat. From Damon Parker’s questions about the progress of her career, it was obvious that though not a “regular,” she had appeared on the program several times before. Later, she told an amusing story of the party she had held the day before for her son’s first birthday, although her appearance on the screen had excited him. Jordon told himself firmly that he must close the door on the past and make no effort to see her. But the story of the birthday party made him change his mind. Why, on the basis of simple arithmetic, he boy must be his!

Although she agreed to meet him, it was more to test herself than because she felt any desire to see him, and when he appeared at her apartment, she noted dispassionately that he was far less attractive physically than she remembered him, the skin at his throat sagged and he looked old.

“You’ve lost some weight, haven’t you?” she remarked.

“That’s right. I was sick – a mild heart attack, they wanted me to lose some weight and take it easy.”

“I’m sorry.” She was not really concerned, only polite.

“The boy – he’s mine, isn’t he?” he asked eagerly. “No, Ellsworth, he’s mine.”

“You know what I mean –”

“Yes, of course.”

“Why didn’t you let me know? Why didn’t you get in touch with me? You could have got the address from the office here.”

“What for, Ell?” She laughed. “So you could come back and marry me to give the baby a name? Or would you have insisted that I join you in Germany and have my baby there, or have it aborted there?”

“But dammit, Esther –”

“It’s not easy having a baby, Ell, especially when you have to have it all alone. But once you live through it, then it’s not so bad. From what I hear from some of my friends, there’s a lot to be said for bringing up a child without the interference of a father.”

He thought she was trying to hurt him, and he felt he had to retaliate. “That’s the Jew in you,” he said spitefully. “You enjoy suffering for the pleasure of making us feel guilty.”

If his words cut, she did not show it, she shook her head. “No, you’re wrong, there’s no pleasure in suffering. Not for me there isn’t. But it doesn’t last forever.” She smiled. “And as it turns out, having Billy all by myself was the making of me.”

“It gave you new depths of feeling. I suppose,” he sneered.

She chuckled. “No, it was just that because of him. I got my chance. I had got a job in this little nightclub. It didn’t pay much, but then I wasn’t very good. I’d sing a little, tell a few jokes and do a couple of impersonations. But one night Damon Parker came in with a party; slumming, I suppose, after my act, he asked me to join the party, and I told him I had to get back for Billy’s night feeding, he’s an emotional, sentimental guy, and he got all worked up when I told him that I was bringing up the baby myself, he saw me as an original – the New Woman, and he invited me to appear on his show, well, with the exposure I got, I was made.”

“So I and the baby were just stepping-stones to your career.”

“Something like that.”

“All right, what about now? And the future?”

“What about it?”

“I have a share in the child. Billy is my son as much as he is yours.”

“No, Ell, you have no share in him at all. What do you want to do? Contribute to his support? I don’t need it.”

“I mean share in his upbringing, in his education, a boy needs a man to look up to, an image to model himself after, all the psychologists agree on that.”

“Just the men psychologists, I expect,” was her comment.

“Even if we don’t get married, you could come down with him to visit with me at Barnard’s Crossing, then when he gets older, he can come down on his own summers.”

“No, Ell, I don’t want him to know that you are his father.”

“But sooner or later, you’ll have to tell him, he’ll ask, he’ll want to know.”

“Of course, and I’ve prepared for it. I’ve worked up a perfectly wonderful father for him, an idealist, a soldier who went off to war –”

“Which war?”

“Well, that was a problem, of course, because there haven’t been any wars recently, at least, none that we’ve been engaged in, there are always military actions of one sort or another that mercenaries take part in. But I didn’t want that for him, and then I thought of the Suez action of Britain. France and Israel. It was over before Billy was born, or conceived, but there’s still a lot of unofficial fighting going on over there in the Middle East. So I worked up a young Israeli who came here to study, we met and we fell in love, then he had to return to Israel. I was to follow and we were to get married there.”

“But he gets killed in some military skirmish?”

“Exactly. So I stay here to have my baby.” Thinking it over afterward, and in his loneliness in Barnard’s Crossing, he thought about it a good deal, it sometimes seemed to him that she had not been unconcerned and indifferent; that on the contrary, she had been vindictive and had gone out of her way to hurt him, and he was inclined to interpret her attitude as an indication that deep down she still cared for him, that she had perhaps hoped to provoke him into a quarrel that would lead to a reconciliation, the thought was in back of his mind the next time he came to New York and arranged to see her, and it was never totally absent each of the times he saw her over the years.

But there were also times when he brooded over her coldness, her lack of feeling. It was then that he thought she was trying to avenge herself, and that her consenting to see him whenever he came to New York was so she could enjoy the satisfaction of seeing his hurt.

On the other hand. Billy was obviously always pleased to see him. Of course, it might be because he always brought a gift. But he was sure the boy really liked him.

Whenever he tried to involve himself in Billy’s development, she brusquely brushed him aside and refused to accept his advice or recognize his concern, and that hurt, she might talk about the boy’s progress at school, or problems that had developed, but it was as she might to a casual acquaintance and not as to one who had any involvement in the matter.

It was on Jordon’s most recent visit, however, that she seemed inclined to admit him to a share in their son, there had evidently been some crises, and her confidence in her ability to cope had been badly shaken.

“He refuses to go to college,” she announced tragically.

“Well, that’s not so terrible,” he remarked. “What’s he want to do instead?”

“Nothing, he has no plans, he’s not interested in anything, he doesn’t read, he doesn’t do anything, he just mopes.”

“I expect he’s tired, tired of school and study. You’ve probably been pushing him hard to make good grades so that he can get into a good college, and he’s just sick of books. Why not let him take a year off?”

“To do what?” she challenged. “To work. Let him get a job.”

“What can he do? He’s not trained for anything.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be a big executive type of job, any job will do where he’s kept busy and makes some money.”

“And if he works for a couple of weeks and then quits?”

“Then insist that he get another job.”

“But I won’t be here. My agent has arranged a European tour for me.”

“Oh; I see. What you’re really interested in is having someone keep an eye on him. Tell you what, let him come and visit with me for a while.”

Instantly she was suspicious. “So you can tell him you’re his father and try to take him away from me?”

He laughed. “Oh no. I’m not that much of a damn fool as to think I could compete with an Israeli war hero.”

“Then why do you want him?”

“Well, because I am his father and I feel soma responsibility and it might be kind of nice to have a young person around. I had another heart attack last year. Nothing serious, but it’s probably a good idea that I have someone in the house with me in the evening and at night, the housekeeper usually leaves right after she does the dinner dishes.”

“You mean you want someone to look after you?”

“Oh no. I don’t need any looking after. It’s just that it would be nice knowing someone was in the house at night. If anything were to happen to me, he could call a doctor.”

“And what would he do all day long?”

“He’d work, of course. I could get him a job of some kind. I’m pretty well-known in town, he’s eighteen? nineteen?”

“Eighteen.”

“I’ve got it,” he said triumphantly. “I could get him a job in a bank. Larry Gore would do it for me, he’s president of one of the banks in town, he handles all my investments and is a distant relative of mine, the only one I have. But more than that, he’d do it for me if I asked him.”

She looked at him uncertainly. “But – I don’t know – Billy might not like it, and yet wouldn’t say anything, he’s sensitive. I’d hate to think that he might be unhappy and yet –”

“Look,” he said firmly., “I’d have him write to you regularly. You’d get a letter from him every week. I promise you. If he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t mind telling you, especially in a letter, and then you’d call or write me and I’d ship him home. I’m going home tomorrow morning. Say the word and I’ll start the ball rolling.”

They discussed it at length, she was uncertain and raised many objections, which he answered skillfully as the consideration moved from her interests, to Billy’s, to his own. “Oh, he won’t be any bother to me. Quite the contrary. It will be nice having someone to talk to at the dinner table, and I’ll feel better knowing there’s someone in the house at night.”

When Billy came home, she broached the idea.

“Mr. Jordon has invited you to come and visit with him while I’m abroad.”

“You mean the whole time?”

“That’s right.” said Jordon. “And after, till you get around to go to college, if you like.”

“Well, gee, it’s a small town where you live, isn’t it?”

“It’s a small town.” Jordon admitted, “but it’s a nice town, right on the seashore, there’s swimming and sailing, and you’re only about half an hour from Boston.”

“But what would I do all day long?”

“You’d get a job.” said Jordon promptly.

“What kind of a job?” asked the young man cautiously.

“Maybe in a bank.”

“Hey, that’s kind of cool.”

Despite the lateness of the hour, Jordon chose to walk back to his hotel rather than order a cab, he exulted in the thought that his son would be living with him, he was a boy, and he would make a man of him.

He heard the grating of a key in the front door lock, he called out. “Is that you, Billy? Come in, come in, boy, the door’s unlocked.” He rubbed his hands and smiled as the young man entered. “How’d things go at the bank today? All right? Anything unusual happen?”