"Well, it seems to me there's quite a ceremony, isn't there? I mean, it's not just the party. I seem to remember kids my age who had to study up for it. Special prayers they had to learn by heart and—"
"Nothing to it. Mr. Segal," said Maltzman earnestly. "You're called up to the Reading of the Torah and you pronounce a blessing, the Bar Mitzvah kids chant it in Hebrew. But you don't have to chant it. Or if you were willing, I could arrange for the cantor to teach you, and even if you don't know how to read Hebrew, we have it transliterated in English. Or you could even say it in
English, then after the portion is read, you say another blessing, and we could work that the same way, and that's it. Of course, normally the Bar Mitzvah boy chants the portion from the Prophets, too, hell, some of them run the whole Reading service. Kind of showing off, you see. But it's not necessary. Believe me, the whole thing's a pipe."
"Is yours the only synagogue in town, Mr. Maltzman?" asked Mimi.
"That's right, Mrs. Segal, and all Jews in the community belong, all that have been living here for some time. Of course, there are some families that are new, and maybe not a hundred percent sure they're going to remain on account of their jobs, but those who've settled here, practically all of them belong. You say the word, and I'll make arrangements with the rabbi and all."
Ben Segal looked doubtfully at his wife, and when she nodded brightly, he said, "All right. Count me in."
"Swell," said Maltzman. "And I'll get to work on that lot on the Point right away."
11
IN THE DINING ROOM OF THE AGATHON YACHT CLUB. ONE could order a cocktail, but only with dinner, and while you could linger over coffee and a brandy afterward, the house committee did not like you to linger too long. During the sailing season, the dining room was busy and there were apt to be people waiting for a table. In the off-season, the waiters resented having to wait overlong to clean up.
There was the lounge, of course, but it was on the formal side—a room of long windows curtained and velvet draped, of rugs and carpets, of sofas and armchairs in satin and brocade, of highly polished mahogany tables, with silk-shaded lamps. It was where you met your guests and chatted for a few minutes, just long enough for them to be impressed, before ushering them into the dining room, or down to the dock to your boat. Mostly women sat there and had tea or coffee brought to them.
For serious drinking, or for the long pointless conversations that killed an evening, there was the bar, and it was masculine territory. It was not forbidden to women, but by tacit agreement they never went there. It was a bare room with glaring ceiling lights that cast pools of light on
the bare gray battleship linoleum that covered the floor, the furniture consisted of half a dozen round cigarette-scarred wooden tables, each surrounded by several captain's chairs, against the wall was a small bar, little more than a high counter, behind which were shelves of bottles, a small refrigerator and a sink.
The decor, or lack of it, was a holdover from Prohibition days, the feeling then had been that while it was not necessary that drinking be surreptitious, it would be brazen to do it in luxurious comfort, with repeal, and periodically since, there were suggestions that the room should be refurnished, something on the order of leather armchairs and knotty pine paneling and sporting or sailing prints, but the members who used it most resisted stoutly, perhaps through fear that if it were spruced up and redecorated, women might be attracted to it.
There were no waiters, only the barman. If it was not busv, he might in response to a nod bring over a refill, but usually you got your drink at the bar and carried it over to a table. Thursday was usually an off night at the bar, which is why Jordon chose it for his weekly visit, he did not like crowded bars, full of the boisterous din of well-lubricated good fellowship, he preferred the company of his old cronies, people he was used to, with whom ha could talk sensibly, even seriously and philosophically; or sit with them in pleasant silence if the mood so moved them.
Although others would probably drift in later, only one table was now occupied, and as he waited for his drink to be poured. Jordon noted with satisfaction that of the four men seated around it, two were Thursday night regulars, there was old Dr. Springhurst, the retired rector of St, andrew's Episcopal, silver-haired and distinguished-looking in his Roman collar and gray flannel suit, as an avowed atheist, Jordon got a special pleasure in arguing religion with him, the other was Albert Megrim, a stockbroker and one of the selectmen of the town, with whom he liked to talk politics. Megrim was a stoutish man, with a round face surmounted by thin hair precisely parted in the middle, he always wore a dark conservative business suit and a white shirt with a bow tie, even on hot summer nights.
The other two at the table. Jordon knew only casually. Jason Walters, a corporation lawyer, was a tall, craggy man, who went in for vigorous sports and made a fetish of keeping fit. Jordon noted that he was wearing a sweat suit and sneakers and was probably going to top off the evening with a fast game of squash, the fourth man, by faa the youngest of the group, not yet forty, was Don Burkhardt, a partner in a firm called Creative Engineers Incorporated, which went in for such diverse things as designing office furniture and layout, work-flow analysis and even preparing the graphics for the annual reports of corporations. Him. Jordon eyed with distaste as he waited at the bar for his drink to be poured, he did not like his carefully tailored Eisenhower jacket and jeans of carefully faded blue, he did not like his blond Afro hairstyle, a halo of curls framing his narrow face, and most of all, he did not like what he regarded as his radical ideas, by which he meant that Burkhardt made no secret of voting Democrat, and considered himself a liberal Democrat at that.
As they saw Jordon approach carrying his drink, the four men shifted a little to make room for him to insinuate another chair.
"How are you keeping. Ellsworth?" Dr. Springhurst greeted him.
"Tolerable, Padre, tolerable."
"Gore is down at the pistol range, I suppose," remarked Albert Megrim.
"No, I came myself this time." said Jordon. "Larry is busy preparing for his Peter Archer silver exhibition. Why?"
"We were wondering about this new member he proposed. Is he a yachtsman? Has he got a boat?"
"Whatsat? New member? I'm on the committee and I don't know anything about any new member."
"His name has been posted. Ellsworth." said Jason Walters. "Name of Segal."
"It's Ben Segal of Chicago." said Megrim, "the one who's taking over the Rohrbough Corporation."
"Segal? Jew?" demanded Jordon.
Megrim smiled sardonically. "You can't always tell these days, he's not what I'd call a Jew. Ellsworth. I mean, he's a financier, there was a long write-up on him in Business Week, a man like that is not a Jew."
"I know exactly what you mean." said Walters. "There's a private bank in New York that our firm has had dealings with for years, trust funds and what not, well, one day I had occasion to call their president, and I was told ha wasn't in. So I asked to be switched to the head of their trust division, and he wasn't in. So, kind of jokingly, I asked what was going on, was it some kind of holiday in New York? And the switchboard operator tells me it was Yon—Yom—"
"Yom Kippur," Don Burkhardt supplied.
"That's right, Yom Kippur. It's their very special holy day." He turned to the younger man. "How did you know?"
"Because my partner is a Jew, and a lot of my friends are."