Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet (7 page)

“But if it works –”

The rabbi shrugged. “The stress involved in struggle always ends when you surrender.”

Jonathan tugged at his father’s hand. “I’m hungry, Daddy. I want to go home.”

“All right. Jonathan, we’ll go home.” To Akiva he said, “He’s my rebbe, you see. When he commands. I obey.”

“Will you be going to the service tonight, Rabbi? Will I see you there?”

“I expect to, maybe you can meet our president, Mr. Kaplan. You might find him more sympathetic to your thinking.”

“Kaplan? Has he a daughter Leah?”

“Yes, do you know her?”

Akiva smiled. “I – I went to school with a Leah Kaplan.”

Hey, where you been. Doc?” The voice over the phone was Joe Kestler’s, and he was indignant. “I must’ve called your house a dozen times, and there was no answer.”

“I take Wednesday afternoons off,” said Dr. Cohen, and then was annoyed with himself for having bothered to explain.

“Well, my father is not feeling so good, he’s awfully warm, like he’s got a temperature, and he has to go all the time, and then when he does, he complains it like burns him, and then a few minutes later he’s got to go again, he had the same thing a few months ago.”

“I’m sorry, but –”

“Look, Doc, don’t be like that. I know you got a right to an afternoon off, but he’s really bad.”

“Under the circumstances. I think it would be better if you called another doctor.”

“Where am I going to get another doctor on a Wednesday?” Kestler demanded.

“You can take him to the hospital. I’m sure if you call the police, they’ll send an ambulance.”

“Sure, and if he passes out in the ambulance? And if he gets to the hospital and some young squirt of a student starts tinkering with him?”

“I’m sorry, but considering your father’s action only last month –”

“Doctor, Doctor, that’s business. You ran your fence over our land. So my old man filed suit. It doesn’t mean anything, there’s no hard feelings. It’s just how you do things in business, the one thing has nothing to do with the other, and it’s you he keeps asking for, because he’s got confidence in you.”

Dr. Cohen knew he should be adamant and refuse, but he could also picture the old man lying in bed, suffering. “All right,” he said, “I’ll drop by and take a look at him.”

He hung up and said to his wife, “I’ve got to go out.”

“But you were going to the Kaplans,” she objected.

“Oh, I won’t be long.”

“Who is it?”

He hesitated, remembering how indignant she had been at the time. “It’s Kestler, the old man,” he said reluctantly.

“And you’re going to see him!”

“Well, he is my patient.”

“But a man who is suing you!”

“I suppose he feels one thing has nothing to do with the other. In a way, it’s a compliment, here, he’s suing me and still wants me for his doctor.”

“That’s because he can’t get anybody else on a Wednesday.”

“So I guess that’s another reason I’ve got to go.”

“Well, if I were treating him, I’d give him something to remember me by, he wouldn’t call me again in a hurry.”

He smiled. “That’s an idea.”

When he was at the door, she called after him. “You going to want any supper?”

“Maybe something light. I expect they’ll be serving at the Kaplans.”

“Better take your raincoat,” said Miriam. “If the storm should hit –”

“I was just out on the porch,” the rabbi replied, “and it’s positively balmy. Besides. I’ll just be going from the car to the house.”

“I don’t see why you have to go at all. Kestler isn’t even a member of the temple.”

“That’s why I make a point of visiting him regularly. To visit the sick is enjoined on all Jews, but the congregation palms it off on the rabbi and thinks of it as a special service they offer their members. ‘Join our temple for free visits from the rabbi when you’re sick.’ So visiting a nonmember gives me the illusion that all my sick calls are purely voluntary, and Kestler is such an incorrigible old scoundrel that I feel it’s a real mitzvah to go see him.”

She laughed. “You coming right home afterward?”

“Yes – no. I think I’ll stop at the Kaplans, he has an At Home Wednesday evenings, and I’ve never been.”

“But –”

“Mort Brooks hinted this morning that Kaplan and his group were planning some skullduggery.” He smiled. “Maybe I can get a clue.”

Dr. Muntz ripped the sheet off his prescription pad and handed it to Safferstein. “It’s a bacterial infection. I’m sure,” he said. “I’m giving her penicillin, four times a day for five days, and I want her to take all of them, that’s important, she may be all better by the second or third day, but she’s to continue with the pills until she’s finished the bottle. Understood, Billy?” The doctor’s pale blue protruding eyes stared meaningfully at Safferstein.

“Oh sure, she’s to take all of them,” Safferstein said. “I’ll get them right away.”

Dr. Muntz glanced at his watch. “The drugstores are closed by now. Tomorrow will be all right.”

“Town-Line Drugs is still open.”

“Yeah, I guess they are at that, then give her the first one tonight.”

Safferstein helped him into his raincoat.

“You coming to Chefs tonight. Billy?” asked the doctor.

“Gee, I don’t think I should with Mona feeling this way. You’re going, I suppose.”

“Oh sure. Chet expects me. I’m the official agnostic and cynic, you know, he needs my opposition to give some pep to the meetings.” He chuckled. “Or maybe I’m the horrible example.”

Safferstein grinned. “I always figured you were putting on an act.”

“Oh, it’s no act,” said the doctor quickly.

Safferstein held the door open for him. “Then you’re missing something, Al,” he said seriously. “I know since I joined. I got this feeling of certainty, like I can’t go wrong. I’ve made some long-shot deals, and they’ve all worked out.”

The doctor chuckled again. “If you say so, Billy. If you say so.”

It was Mrs. Kestler. Joe’s wife, who answered the doctor’s ring, she was blond and fleshy and faded and reminded him of the little girl who had sat next to him in the third grade, she had been pink and white, and plump and blond, and he always felt a little sad at the thought that she probably looked like Mrs. Kestler now, she was gentle and slow, and he assumed as a matter of course that she was bullied by her husband and imposed on by her father-in-law. When she had last had a checkup, she had asked him to do a Wassermann, too, because “Joe was out of town on business and you know how it is when men go out of town.”

“He’s upstairs, Doctor,” she said. “Joe is with him.”

“All right, I know the way.”

The examination did not take long, and when Dr. Cohen was finished, he nodded the son out of the room, as they proceeded down the stairs. Joe Kestler said. “Gee, that was quick. You guys got it made.” He was a big powerful man with grizzled iron-gray hair covering a bullet-shaped head and with the flattened nose of a prize-fighter.

“Your father has a bacterial infection of the urinary tract,” the doctor said, professionally impersonal.

“Sounds bad. What do you do? Can he take one of those wonder drugs like penicillin?”

“Your father is allergic to penicillin, so I’m giving him one of the tetracyclines instead. It works the same way, he’s to take one four times a day, and he’s to take all of them, even if the infection clears up after a day or two, that’s important. I’d like him to get started on them right away.”

“You got samples with you. Doc?”

“Samples? No, I don’t carry drug samples around with me. I’ll write you a prescription.”

“Where am I going to get a prescription filled this time of night? The drugstores are as bad as you guys, they all close early Wednesdays.”

“I believe Town-Line Drugs is still open,” said the doctor stiffly.

“I don’t go in there.”

“You mean you don’t trade with them?”

“That’s right. I wouldn’t set foot in there,” Kestler said doggedly.

“But with your father sick –”

Kestler shook his bullet head like a boxer clearing his brain of fog. “Makes no difference.”

Dr. Cohen considered. “Maybe I’ve got some samples at home.” Another idea occurred to him. “What if I called in the prescription and they delivered it?”

“So long as I don’t have to go in there. But look, Doc, why don’t you check first and see if you got the samples? I could follow you in my car.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’m going out a little later and I can drop them off here. If I don’t have the samples. I’ll call in the prescription.”

“Okay, Doc, but first look and see if you’ve got the samples, will you?”

There were half a dozen cars parked along the curb in front of Town-Line Drugs. Inside customers were milling around, impatiently waiting for someone to take their money and wrap up their purchases. It was the approaching storm, of course, that everyone was concerned about, they were buying flashlights and batteries; small first-aid kits and aspirin; cigarettes and candy, the supply of candles – the store carried a line of fancy dinner table candles – was all sold out.

Marcus Aptaker was out front, the only one available to wait on trade, and he scurried from one part of the store to the other, smiling, courteous, brisk. Whenever he glanced to the back of the store, he was filled with a quiet joy, for he would catch sight of his son in a white tunic working at the prescription counter with Ross McLane. Earlier, a high school lad. Jimmie, had helped wait on trade, but he was out making deliveries now, the last of the evening, and would not be back.

Bill Safferstein entered, glanced around, and strode purposefully toward the proprietor, who was momentarily free. “Look here, Aptaker, I want –”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Safferstein,” Aptaker said, gesturing to the customers in the store. “Not now, you can see I’m busy. This is no time to talk.”

“Oh, I didn’t come in about that. It’s my wife, she’s sick. Could I get this filled right away?”

Aptaker glanced at the prescription. “It will take a few minutes.”

“I don’t mind waiting.” He looked around. “I see you’ve put on another pharmacist.”

“My son,” said Aptaker proudly, and hurried away as a customer called to him.

Jackie had gone to bed with little fuss and had fallen asleep almost before his mother had tucked him in. Leah looked around the room, adjusted the window and put out the light, then she washed and put away the supper dishes and went into the living room, there she consulted the television column of the morning paper, and although no program held much interest for her, she turned the set on anyway, there was a lot of static, and the picture wavered and became snowy, she tried each of the other channels with the same result and finally turned off the set in disgust.

She picked up from the coffee table a book that she had been reading for the last several days, but she could not concentrate and found herself reading the same sentence over and over again. Realizing she was only looking at words, she closed the book and tossed it on the table.

She walked around the room, straightening a picture, moving a chair, she noticed that the barometer on the mantelpiece was low, she tapped it, and the needle moved lower still, she went to the window to stare out at the road and the sea beyond, she was restless and wanting to be doing something and didn’t know what.

If it were not for Jackie upstairs, she would not be bound to the house, she could get into her car and drive along the dark country roads until perhaps she came to a diner where she might stop for a cup of coffee, there would be a truck driver who was a college graduate, with a blue denim shirt open at the throat and a cap perched jauntily on the back of his head, who would bring his coffee cup to her booth…. Or she could take a walk along the shore in the darkness, barefooted, and the water would be warm and she would slip out of her clothes and go for a long swim, she turned over on her back to float and she heard the splash of another swimmer….

Suddenly, the room became daylight bright as a jagged bolt of lightning struck the water, the lightning was followed immediately by a crash of thunder, and the house was plunged in darkness, and then the rain came pelting down. Leah ran to the window and saw that the street lights had also gone out, she went onto the porch and looked up and down the street, all the houses were dark, but here and there she saw a flicker of light from a window as people lit candles, she went back inside and felt her way to the kitchen, where she found a stump of a candle. By its light she tried to dial her parents’ home, but there was no dial tone, only a faint hum. Back in the living room, she dragged a hassock to the window and knelt on it with her arms resting on the sill, staring out at the raindrops bouncing off the road.

Ross McLane took the call, since his station at the prescription counter was nearest the phone. Because he was hard of hearing, he normally tended to speak loudly, but when he got on the phone you could hear him all over the store. “Town-Line Drugs… Who?… Oh, hello, Doctor. What can I do for you?…. Just a minute, all right, shoot…. Yup…. Yup…. Kestler, yup. What’s the initial… J? Got it…. Minerva Road, forty-seven?… Uh-huh…. Okay…. Gee, I don’t think so, the boy who makes the deliveries is gone…. I don’t think so, but hold a minute and I’ll ask.” He cupped the receiver and called out, “Say, Marcus, it’s Dr. Cohen on the phone, he wants to know if we can make a delivery tonight? Forty-seven Minerva.”

“Tell him, no.”

Into the phone, McLane said, “Look, Doctor, I don’t see how we can, we’re awfully busy and we’ll be working late, we got a stack of prescriptions for the nursing home, there’s just no one here to…” He cupped the receiver again. “He says it’s very important, Marcus.”

“Look, I’ll deliver it if you like,” Safferstein volunteered.

“You know him?” Aptaker asked.

“No, but if he needs it.., and I live on Minerva. Forty-seven is on my way home.”

“It’s coming down in buckets.” Dr. Cohen said, staring out of the window. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Kaplans called it off. I mean with a hurricane –”