"What's wrong with Rabbi Deutch? I'm sold on Rabbi Small, but I got to admit Rabbi Deutch is a good man." He leaned forward to start the motor.
"Rabbi Deutch is a good American rabbi. For doing what an American rabbi does, he's one of the best I've seen around. He looks nice, he talks nice, and he don't get into any trouble with the important people. Maybe when he was the same age as Rabbi Small, he had the same questions in his mind and decided it wasn't worthwhile fighting, that by bending a little here and there he could have a peaceful life." Wasserman waved a blue-veined hand to illustrate Deutch's probable flexibility. "But Rabbi Small is a little different. So that's what I'm afraid of. that he might decide that it isn't worth it."
"How do you know all this. Jacob? Did the rabbi confide in you?"
"No. he didn't confide in me, and he didn't ask my advice. But I know it just the same. I knew it when I heard that he wasn't taking any money from the temple while he's on his vacation. Because if he took his salary while he wasn't working, like you might say if he took money for nothing, then he would feel obliged to come back. So when he wouldn't take the money or a contract or anything, that meant he wasn't sure he was coming back. Not sure, you understand. Because if he was sure he wasn't coming back, he would just have resigned. And that's why he didn't write us yet. Because so far he hasn't yet made up his mind." He looked at Becker. "Now, how do you put that on a postcard?"
Chapter Twenty-Two
The voice was so loud that the rabbi held the receiver a little away from his ear. "Rabbi? Shalom. I'll bet you'll never guess who's speaking. Well, it's V. S. Markevitch, that's who."
In his mind's eye, the rabbi could see the speaker at the other end of the wire, beaming with satisfaction at the pleasant surprise he had been able to confer on him. V. S. Markevitch was always conferring pleasant surprises on his friends and acquaintances. Back in Barnard's Crossing, he would drop in on someone of an evening without bothering to call in advance, and even when he found they were preparing to go out. he was never put out of countenance, but would talk, raising his voice so that the lady of the house, who was in the bedroom putting on her makeup, would not miss anything he was saying to her husband, who was forced by politeness to remain in the room and zigzag his tie on there without the aid of the bedroom mirror. He was always sure people were glad to see him.
He usually referred to himself in the third person, rarely using the pronoun, preferring to repeat the mouth-filling name as often as necessary. He was not a member of the board of directors of the temple, but he did not hesitate to get up at general meetings and Brotherhood get-togethers to give his opinions. Rising to his feet, his round bald head gleaming, his mouth wide in a perpetual smile, he would say. "Mr. Chairman, V. S. Markevitch would like to comment on the motion on the floor." When recognized, he would bombard his listeners with, "V. S. Markevitch feels that..." and "In the humble opinion of V. S. Markevitch..."
"When did you arrive, Mr. Markevitch?" said the rabbi.
"Just got in." The voice sounded surprised as if to convey the idea that it was unthinkable for V. S. Markevitch to come to Israel for whatever reason and not call his rabbi the very first thing.
"Are you alone, Mr. Markevitch? Or is Mrs. Markevitch with you? Are you on a tour?"
"I'm here with just Katz, my partner. We're here on business. Rabbi. We got a bunch of meetings scheduled, one with the Minister of Industrial Development for sure, and then we join a group that will meet with the Prime Minister, but that's later on in the week. It's probably nothing very much to you. I guess by this time you’ve met all the big shots—"
"I'm afraid not."
"Well, maybe I'll be able to introduce you to them— after I’ve met them. Now here's what I'd like. We got a cab, and they're just loading our things on, and we're taking off for Jerusalem in a couple of minutes. We'll be staying at the King David tonight and tomorrow. Then we go off to Haifa. So how's about us getting together, and maybe you could show us the town, all the sights and things?"
"Well, I'm not much of a guide, but I'll be happy to see you and show you and Mr. Katz around."
"It's a date. Rabbi."
They met the next morning in the lobby of the hotel. Markevitch and Katz had just finished their breakfast in the cafeteria, but they thought they would like another cup of coffee, and so the three men sat around a table sipping at coffee and talking about Barnard's Crossing.
Markevitch jokingly called Joe Katz his silent partner—"on account I'm apt to do all the talking."
Whereas Markevitch was big and expansive, with a wide smile seemingly cutting his melon-like head in two. Katz was a small, worried man with sad eyes and a shy smile. As Markevitch talked. Katz was silent, nodding at his partner's sallies, wincing occasionally when he felt his partner had uttered an indiscretion.
Markevitch's voice was not so much loud as never lowered. Regardless of where he was. he spoke in his normal conversational tones. In the lobby, he spoke as though he were addressing all the guests in the hotel. So all the guests heard that the Mazurs were getting a divorce. Josiah Goldfarb's boy had been arrested for drugs. The Hirshes had sold their hardware business in Lynn and were moving to Florida. Max Kaufman's boy. Al. had won first prize at the high school science fair. There was a new traffic light on Elm Street just before the temple, which should make it safer for the kids going to the religious school. Lenny Epstein had pledged a thousand dollars to the School Fund.
Finally, the rabbi managed to ask. "And how is Rabbi Deutch getting along?"
"Ah." said V. S. beaming, "we hit the jackpot with that one. Rabbi. I thought when I heard you were taking a vacation.
you'd palm off some kid out of the seminary on us as a substitute. Or if not that, then some shlemiehl who couldn't normally get a decent job. But when you picked Rabbi Deutch, you picked a good one. And the rebbitzin too. She's a real high-class lady."
"I didn't pick him." said the rabbi. "He was picked by the committee. I had never met him."
"Oh, is that so? I thought it was you who picked him. I went to the reception, if you remember. And seeing you folks and the Deutches standing there so chummy and talking and all. I just assumed— well, anyway, he's a good man. I mean when he gets up there in the pulpit"— he straightened up in his chair and looked around the room in imitation of Rabbi Deutch in the pulpit—"and gives a sermon in that voice of his. sometimes the shivers go up and down your spine. Of course. I haven't had much to do with him, but you hear people talking and they're pretty impressed, even Gentiles in town, I mean. You know they asked him to serve on the Library Committee? Now for an
outsider And the rebbitzin, did you know Dan
Stedman is her brother, the TV commentator. I mean? They took right over as soon as they came to town, and they fit right in."
"That's nice. Then he's happy in Barnard's Crossing?"
"That same question V. S. Markevitch addressed to Rabbi Deutch no later than last Friday night at the Oneg Shabbat. We were all standing around drinking tea and V. S. Markevitch sashays up to the rabbi and says"— his voice became businesslike—" 'Rabbi Deutch, we like you here, and we all think you're doing a swell job, but do you like it here?' A lot of people say that V. S. Markevitch is always shooting off his mouth, but he says if you don't ask you don't find out."
"And what was his answer?" the rabbi asked.
"Well, now you tell me, you be the judge, if he likes it in Barnard's Crossing. He says in that high-toned way of his, 'It's a lovely, pleasant town, Mr. Markevitch, and in addition, for me, it has the added advantage of being only a half hour's ride from the great libraries of Boston and Cambridge.' He's a great scholar, you know. Now what do you think? Does he like it. or does he like it?"