"When you called Dr. Cohen, he immediately agreed to come over?" asked the rabbi.
Kestler's eyes narrowed as he thought about the question, suspicious that the rabbi might be laying a trap. "Oh, I wouldn't say he agreed right away."
"And yet you persisted."
"Well, it was Wednesday," Mrs. Kestler offered.
Her husband glared at her. "The old man had confidence in him as a doctor."
"I see. So even though it was Wednesday, his day off, ha came to see your father, and your point is that he just took a quick look at him and then handed you a prescription to—"
"He didn't give me any prescription," said Kestler. "He called it in when he got home."
The rabbi showed his surprise. "When he got home? Why didn't he call it from here or just give you a written prescription?"
"Joe thought he might have some samples," Mrs. Kestler hastened to explain.
Joe Kestler shot her a venomous glance. "It was kind of late," he elaborated, "and all the drugstores were closed except Aptaker's, and I don't go in there. So I asked him if he had any samples, and he said he'd drop them off to me if he had, and if he didn't, he'd call in the prescription and they'd deliver it."
The rabbi nodded as he considered. "So here's a doctor," he said, as though he were trying to reason it out for his own understanding, "who is called on his day off by someone who has brought suit against him, and he not only comes, but offers to drop off samples of tha medication he prescribes or make arrangements for it to be delivered, and this is the man you've been slandering and are planning to sue?"
"He made a mistake," said Kestler, "and my father died. So that's malpractice. I got nothing against the doctor personally, but I got a right to sue, same as I would if my best friend rammed into me with his car."
"It's the insurance that pays," his wife added.
The rabbi rose to go. "The doctor may have made a mistake," he said, "as any man can make a mistake. Or he may have prescribed the correct medicine. If you bring the matter to court, it will be the court that will decide. But to speak evil of a man is considered a very grave sin by our law, Mr. Kestler. In our tradition, it is thought to bring on the most terrible punishments."
Remembering the disapproving looks from her husband, Mrs. Kestler feared that she would receive a torrent of abuse as soon as the rabbi left. But Joe Kestler maintained a dour and gloomy silence as he paced up and down the room in deep thought. Finally he stopped and faced her. "You know what he was trying to say?"
"Well, Joe, I think—"
"Shut up and listen. This guy Cohen is a member of his congregation, see. So he's got to take care of him, he knows I'm going to call him for a witness, and being a rabbi, he's got to tell the truth. But he's smart and can shade it which way he wants. So I think it's time I saw a lawyer. In the meantime, I don't want you shooting off your mouth about Doc Cohen. Understand?"
"But I never—" She saw his annoyance and said, "Oh, I won't, Joe. I won't say a word."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Once again, as he had half a dozen times during the weekend, Daniel Cohen covered his head with the prayer shawl. It was Sunday morning and the last scheduled meditation of the retreat program. But the hope that he had had at the beginning that perhaps, just perhaps, there was something in it was gone, and he now felt only a kind of embarrassment that he, a doctor, a man of science, should have come here in the woods to commune with The Almighty in order to— to what? To ask for a special suspension of the universal law of cause and effect for his personal advantage?
True, when he went to the synagogue on the High Holy Days, or even to an occasional Friday evening service, it was ostensibly for the same purpose. But that was different. In actuality, it was more of an affirmation of his connection with the group in which he had been bom. One did not so much pray as recite set prayers more or less by rote. It was a social obligation, one of the things that Jews expected of each other.
This was different, he had really tried. During the traditional prayer services, while his lips moved in
recitation of the Hebrew prayers, his mind asked earnestly in English for help. During the meditations, he had remained standing until time was called, not once sitting down to rest or even leaning against the windowsill, and in the discussions, he had actively participated.
"Why can't we sit down and relax for the meditation. Rabbi?"
"Because you might fall asleep, for one thing. In Transcendental Meditation, which was popularized by the Maharishi, they do sit in a comfortable position—"
"And does it work?"
"Oh, sure, as a means of beneficial relaxation, there's a doctor from the Harvard Medical School, I believe, who's even done some scientific experimentation with it, controls and all that sort of thing, and found that it actually reduces high blood pressure. You may have heard of it, Doctor. But that's just a technique for relaxing; it's not religion. Remember, we're after a religious experience, and for that you need a state of tension, balanced tension, the Buddhists use the lotus position; in Zen they kneel. But I'm convinced that the Jewish tradition calls for standing."
"How about this business of saying a word or a phrase over and over again?"
"The mantra?" Rabbi Mezzik nodded his handsome head. "Some find that it helps their concentration, there's some evidence that our ancestors made use of it, at the end of the Yom Kippur service we recite Adonai Hoo Elohim— the Lord, he is God— seven times, that suggests to me that the phrase may have been used as a mantra and not just the seven times ordered in the prayerbook."
"But what's supposed to be the effect of the meditation?"
"It's hard to say, because it differs for each individual. You may feel that everything is connected to everything else, what I call the Universal Relationship. Or you may sense the basic unity of the universe. Or you may experience a great serenity."
Dan Cohen experienced none of these. What he had experienced, he told himself grimly, was tasteless food, a hard lumpy mattress on a narrow cot with a too-thin blanket against the night chill and the constant dull companionship of Matthew Cham. Of Kaplan, he had seen very little outside the group sessions, for he had been largely preoccupied with a special circle, all of them members of the board of directors of the temple, who had kept apart from the rest, and this morning, when he came down for the first service, they were gone.
"Chet and some of the others had to return early this morning," Rabbi Mezzik explained. "There's an important board meeting they've got to attend. However, we still have a minyan, so it's all right."
No one seemed to mind, but for Dan Cohen it was one more annoyance to be added to those he had suffered during the weekend, as he stood there with the prayer shawl over his head, he asked himself just why he had come. Of course, he had wanted to get away from Barnard's Crossing and from his practice. But why here, and why did he need to get away at all?
The death of a patient, while always traumatic, was to be expected in medical practice. Nor was he overly concerned about a possible malpractice suit; he was sure his treatment had been correct and certainly defensible.
The reaction of his colleagues, especially the two older men, had been unexpected and disturbing, but surely tha way to deal with that situation was to stay and fight it out rather than to run away. Conceivably, it might get to the point where they might ask him to leave the clinic, that would be disturbing, he admitted. It would not happen immediately because he had a contract, and if he were to hold them to its terms, it would be a year or more before they could force him out. By that time, he might be able to build up a clientele and open his own office in Barnard's Crossing, and he didn't have to come all the way up here and stand with a prayer shawl over his head to arrive at that conclusion.