The Outsider (2 page)

“I'll certainly try my best.”

“All right. Now, the synagogue committee consists of three people: first, Osner, the lawyer, and incidentally his office is in New York, then Joe Hurtz, about the same age, has a men's furnishing store in Danbury, three kids. Osner tells me he had to have his oldest son, I think the boy's fifteen now, had to have him
Bar Mitzvahed
at an Orthodox
shul
in Bridgeport. He didn't like that. It's a funny thing going on there, maybe it comes from the war and the Holocaust, and maybe the same thing is going to crop up in a lot of other places, but it's like an angry demonstration that they're Jews. No, maybe not angry, maybe just determined. Where was I?”

“You were talking about the committee.”

“Yes.” The old man consulted his notes. “Yes, the committee. The third member is Mel Klein. He's in the garment business in New York, Kleinfrocks. From what Osner tells me, he's well fixed, which I guess is why they include him. Commutes every day to New York. So now you know as much about the congregation at Leighton Ridge as I do. Along with the
Shabbas
services and the high holidays, they will want a
minyan
for the mourner's
Kaddisb
whenever it's required, which maybe you can escape from on occasion and maybe not. With only fourteen families, it will be mostly not.”

“I've been thinking about it,” David said, “and it just isn't possible that every Jewish family in that area joined the synagogue group. There must be others.”

“You're absolutely right. According to Osner, there are other families. Some are mixed marriages, some are just uninterested or without any desire for religion. That's something you'll have to deal with. Maybe Lucy can teach Bible class. What kind of a family does she come from?”

“Jewish atheists.”

“Still, she married a rabbi.”

“She'd have to learn Bible before she could teach it.”

“Why not? As long as she stays a chapter ahead. The Hebrew language instruction you'll have to do yourself— until the synagogue can afford a teacher. You still want the job?”

David nodded.

“I know a dozen your age who'd run from such a prospect. You want it, you got it.”

“If they'll have me.”

“They'll have you. There's no contest, David, no volunteers, no one else pleading for the job.”

But when David spelled it out for Lucy that evening, after dinner at her parents' apartment, she looked at him in anguish and whispered, “Do you know what we're getting into?”

“Not exactly. But neither did I know what I was getting into in the service.”

“This isn't the service, David. The war's over. And why do they want me to teach Bible class?”

“Because if you don't, I'll have to do it.”

Lucy's mother, Sally, was in the kitchen, washing the dishes, and Lucy's father, Herb, was drying the dishes, and the door to the dining room was far from soundproof.

“Are you listening?” Herb whispered to Sally.

“I'm not listening and don't interfere.”

“You heard.”

“Don't interfere.”

“She's your daughter, too. Not like we got seven kids. We got a daughter. One, period.”

“So we got a daughter. She's married two weeks and already you want her divorced.”

“That's nonsense. I don't want her divorced.”

“Thank God. Just go out and find a boy like David.”

“That,” Herb whispered hoarsely, “is why my daughter has to live like a peasant in some godforsaken wilderness called Leighton Ridge.”

“It's not a wilderness. It's a beautiful place only sixty-two miles from New York.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I looked it up!” Sally whispered fiercely.

“So this girl brings home her date, and the father asks him what he does for a living and he says he's a rabbi, and the mother says, What kind of work is that for a nice Jewish boy?”

“That's disgusting,” Sally said.

“It's just a Jewish joke.”

“It's stupid, and do you know, I think most Jewish jokes are stupid, and as far as you're concerned, Herb Spendler, just don't interfere. Leave them alone.”

In the dining room, Lucy asked plaintively, “Would you have married me, David, if you knew I never read the Bible? Worse, until Rabbi Belsen married us, I had never set foot in a synagogue.”

“That wasn't a synagogue. That was Rabbi Belsen's study. And I knew Herb and Sally were atheists.”

“It didn't upset you?”

“No. Should it?”

“I don't even know the difference between a synagogue and a rabbi's study.”

“You'll learn. Meanwhile, we need a car.”

“You really want me to teach Bible class?”

“It's good stuff, battles, orgies, adultery, onanism, love stories —”

“What's onanism?”

“First you read it, then we'll talk about it.”

“You talk like the Bible's a study in pornography.”

“And other things. The point is that the Jewish chroniclers who put it down spared no person and no act. They put it down the way it was. Of course, in the translation it's gussied up, and instead of saying he went to bed with her, they say he had knowledge of her, but you'll soon learn your way around.”

Lucy's mother and father returned to the dining room at that point with cake and coffee, and Herb could not resist saying, “With fourteen families, Dave, suppose five of them resign? Bang. You're out of business.”

“You're right. I have to find some backup.”

“But first things first,” he told Lucy, and the next day they went looking for a car. They ended up at Honest Joe Fierello's lot on West Fifty-second Street. Honest Joe had a cherubic face that inspired trust, and he had a two-door 1940 Chevy that could be had for two hundred dollars. “A hundred dollars a door,” he told them, showing that he had a sense of humor as well as a sense of piracy. “Nineteen forty,” he explained, “was the last year they made a good car, and compared to the garbage they're turning out today, this little beauty is a work of art, just raring to go. They don't make them like this anymore.”

The newlyweds rode off in the small work of art, Lucy driving and David observing her carefully.

“Doesn't look too hard,” he said.

“No, once you get the shifting sorted out and you're able to relax. Where to?”

“Let's look at our destiny, as long as we have wheels.”

“Leighton Ridge?”

“Right. Do you know how to get there?”

“David,” Lucy said, “I haven't the vaguest notion. I thought you weren't due there for another three days.”

“It won't hurt to see what we're getting into.”

“It may just mean losing a brand-new wife,” Lucy said, “but if that's what you want and you're ready to risk it, we'll stop at a gas station and pick up a map of Connecticut.”

They drove through the Bronx to the Hutchinson River Parkway, following it until it became the Merritt Parkway, and then turned north at the Black Rock Turnpike. They drove past a beautiful reservoir, miles along the reservoir's edge, and then the road climbed to the backbone of the Connecticut Ridge. It was lovely country, at its best now in the new spring, farms and spreading lawns and white Colonial houses. Finally, a small roadside sign told them that they were entering Leighton Ridge, and a few miles farther on, they were at the small common, which was surrounded by an old white Congregational church and three white clapboard houses, each with a center chimney to validate its antiquity.

“What a strange and lonely place,” Lucy whispered. “We're a thousand miles from anywhere.”

David was thinking differently, looking at a place as calmly beautiful as any he had ever seen, a village lost in time, clinging to a past that was gone forever, but clinging gently and without rancor. His conscience troubled him, this appeared to be such secure, safe harbor; but he felt that through the war years he had paid his entry fee to a secure, safe harbor, at least for a while, at least for long enough to work off dues paid. Yet —

“I don't have to take it,” he said to Lucy, trying to sound light and indifferent. “Something else is bound to come along in the city, and Rabbi Belsen will understand.”

“Oh, no, I didn't mean it that way. I'm not backing out of it.”

“You're sure?”

“Of course I'm sure, David. You know how it is — where thou goest, I goest. I love the city, but that's where I've lived all my life. You have to give me time. This is a very new scene.”

“All the time in the world.”

She drove slowly through the township along winding roads, most of them unpaved except for oiled dirt. They parked for a few minutes in front of an apple orchard in blossom. The trees were perfumed balls of snow-white blossoms, a soft rain of petals dropping to the ground whenever a breeze touched them.

“Do you know where any of your congregation live?” Lucy asked him. “We might drop in on one of these strange Jews who live in a place like this.”

He shook his head. He didn't like the notion of dropping in. Before the war, like Lucy, he had been a city boy.

They were staying with Lucy's parents at that time, sleeping in Lucy's old bedroom. The day after they had driven up to Leighton Ridge, they had a telephone call from Jack Osner, the president of the congregation.

“Rabbi Hartman?” he asked, his deep, aggressive voice placing him in an immediate adversary position.

David resisted the impulse to say “Yo!” After all, it had been Colonel Jack Osner. He contained himself and said, “Yes, this is Rabbi Hartman.”

“Glad to talk to you, Rabbi. I understand everything has been cleared at the Institute and you're ready to put your head in the lion's mouth.”

“Well, I wouldn't think of it precisely in those terms.”

“No, of course. We are the most puny lion in the state of Connecticut. But we're all eager to meet you. When can we expect you?”

“I still have a few things to clear up.”

“Before June, we hope.”

“Oh, absolutely. Say three days.”

“Good, good. Now we have a house for you, nothing very grand, but it's a roof over your head, an old Colonial building, dates back to seventeen seventy-one. We've been trying to get your home into shape and neglecting the synagogue in the process. But the congregation's so small, we can hold services for a while in various living rooms. You wouldn't object to that?”

“Oh, absolutely not.”

“Do you have furniture? I hear you've just been married.”

“I have my mother's furniture, yes. She passed away recently.”

“Sorry to hear that. You'll have all our condolences. Tell you what, Rabbi. You'll have a fairly small kitchen, small dining room, living room, and two bedrooms. So plan your furniture to fit. All small rooms, I'm afraid. Best thing to do will be for you and your bride to come to our house early, say about noon. My wife — her name is Shelly — she'll show you around and you'll get a feel of the place. Have dinner with us, and we'll have a meeting of the committee after dinner and we'll put you up for the night. Order your furniture trucked out here the following day. How does that sound?”

“It sounds all right,” David said.

“Then we'll see you on Wednesday. I'll send you a map for directions.”

Standing beside David, Lucy heard Osner's booming voice without effort, and when the conversation was over, she said to David, “How does he dare talk to you like that?”

David shrugged. “After all, he was a colonel. I was a lowly captain.”

“Hah!” Lucy snorted. “A colonel indeed! Judge Advocate! He probably had a snug warm desk somewhere in Washington and spent the war comfortably stateside on his fat salary.” And then she added, “On his fat backside.”

David regarded his wife with new interest. “Of course, we don't know that he has a fat backside, but you know, Lucy, Rabbi Belsen gave me a lecture on diplomacy where our congregation is concerned. We have to try to love them all, and where it's impossible, we endure them patiently and with some grace.”

“I thought that was Christianity, that business about loving your enemy.”

“They're not our enemies, no one in the congregation. Anyway, they got it from us — the Christians, I mean, this love-your-enemy thing. Will you try, with Osner?”

“Love him? Come on, David.”

“Like him. Try to understand why he does what he does. Also, he may be a very nice guy.”

“Maybe so. In Macy's window.”

“You're a strange gal for a rabbi's wife,” David admitted.

“I get that feeling. David, you married a guttersnipe. Here you are, a beautiful guy and a rabbi, and I tell you that if Osner's a great guy, I'll kiss your ass in Macy's window.”

“Rest easy. I know about Macy's window.”

“Still love me?”

“Rest assured.”

The following Tuesday, with David driving, having squeezed two driving lessons into two days, and Lucy carefully charting their progress on the map Osner had sent them, they managed to locate Jack Osner's home in Leighton Ridge. It was an old but large renovated farmhouse on a narrow, winding dirt road. Evidently, Shelly Osner had been expecting them to arrive at a later hour. In their desire to be on time, they had left New York early. Shelly Osner was slightly annoyed to be caught in an old skirt and sweater, but she tried to be both hospitable and pleasant as she explained that she had not expected them before twelve, and would they please forgive her? She was a tall, large-boned, good-looking woman, with light hair and blue eyes, and it was plain that she did not know what to make of this young rabbi and his pretty wife.

“Anyway,” she explained, leading them into the living room, “it's my fault, because it's eleven forty-five and I should have been showered and changed by now, and I mean it as a compliment, but you don't look much like a rabbi.”