Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet (5 page)

“If that’s the way you want it –”

“That’s exactly the way I want it,” the rabbi said in dismissal.

“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Unlike his three colleagues, Dr. Daniel Cohen, the newest member of the Barnard’s Crossing Medical Clinic, was a general practitioner, actually, although Alfred Muntz was a heart man. Ed Kantrovitz an internist, and John DiFrancesca an allergist, they all did a great deal of general work, as is necessary in small-town practice.

With his close-cropped hair, bow tie and sports jacket, Dr. Daniel Cohen looked like a college senior of a generation ago. But he was not a youngster who had just completed his internship; he was thirty-two years old and had been practicing for some time. Previously, he had had an office in Delmont and then closed it after a couple of years to open another in Morrisborough, where he had been equally unsuccessful. Yet he was a good doctor who had received excellent training and who showed sound diagnostic judgment, and he was a sincere, friendly man.

Perhaps he was too friendly, a former classmate suggested, he was lunching with a colleague when Dan’s name came up. “You take the average patient, he’s not looking for friendship, he’s hurting and he’s worried, he needs assurance that his doctor knows just what’s wrong with him and just what will cure him. I don’t say a doctor has to be cold and aloof, although you take a sonofabitch like Jack Sturgis – and you know how big his practice is – well, he’s so downright nasty that it inspires confidence, they figure that nobody could afford to be so nasty unless he was also damn good. What I’m saying is, your patient has to look up to you, with Dan Cohen, he’s like your uncle who tells you to rub yourself with chicken fat to cure your arthritis. See what I mean?”

“Yeah, but how about Godfrey Burke,” said the other. “Now he’s a real friendly guy, always laughing and joking with his patients, and look at the practice he’s got.”

“Jeez, Godfrey Burke, he’s six four or five and he must weigh two hundred seventy or eighty, a big bear of a man like that, if he weren’t friendly, he’d scare the pants off you. But he’s friendly like he’s sorry for you, like you were a puppy or something, and he’s going to fix you up. I guess what I mean is, Dan is like the old-fashioned family-type doctor, the kind that used to sit up half the night with a pneumonia patient waiting for the crisis, well, that attitude is out nowadays. People are suspicious, they think if you’re too anxious, you must have some sort of angle, like maybe you don’t know what’s wrong and you don’t want to admit it. Or maybe you made the wrong diagnosis and gave the wrong medication.”

Dr. Cohen used to agonize over the question himself, there were reasons that he could adduce. In Delmont the medical fraternity was a closed corporation who had shut him off from the local hospital facilities, either because he was the stranger or perhaps merely to reduce competition. But why had he done no better in Morrisborough? He told himself it was because he was the only Jew in town. On the other hand, the townspeople, for the most part Yankees, had been friendly enough when he met them on the street. Why hadn’t they come to him for medical treatment?

But that was all in the past. Now, he was doing well in Barnard’s Crossing, where he had been for less than a year. It was an ideal arrangement, the clinic had excellent facilities with plenty of parking space, they had a bookkeeper who took care of the billing, a technician to do electrocardiograms, blood and urine analysis, and even a graduate nurse who gave flu shots and could assist in minor office surgery or therapy.

And the town, too, was a pleasant place to live, with a large active Jewish community, he was a member of the temple, his wife belonged to the Sisterhood and the two children attended the religious school. His colleague Al Muntz was a close friend of Chester Kaplan, the president. Muntz had even hinted that if he were interested, he would be made a member of the board of directors at the end of the year. “It’s a good thing for your practice. Dan. Ed and I are both members of the board.” He laughed. “Hell, if I could manage it, I’d get John DiFrancesca on.”

“I’m not particularly religious, though.”

Dr. Muntz was stout, with a fleshy face and pale blue protruding eyes. When he opened them wide, he gave the impression of being shocked or amazed, he opened them wide now. “And I’m religious?” he demanded as though the imputation were an insult.

“Well, I mean as a member of the board you’re expected to go to services on Saturday, aren’t you?”

Muntz laughed coarsely. “I don’t know who expects it. Whoever he is, he’s been waiting a long time. I go on the High Holy Days, of course, and to the Friday evening services pretty regularly, but Saturdays? Cummon! Now Chester Kaplan, he goes, he goes every day morning and evening.”

“Well, he’s the president.” Dan said.

“It’s not that, he’s the first president I remember since Jake Wasserman who does, he went before he became president, he’s that kind of guy, he likes it, he really does. If he had his way, he’d make a regular shut out of the temple, and that’s another reason I’d like you to be on the board, to preserve some kind of balance.”

“You mean you’d like me to be on the board so I could oppose your friend Kaplan who’d be appointing me?”

“Nah.” With a wide sweep of the hand, Muntz made elaborate denial. “In most things you’ll find yourself agreeing with Chet. But he’s an enthusiast and he’s got this bunch on the board that are the same way, well, I say if a bunch of guys have a kind of religious hobby and they want to get together and pray and talk religion, it’s all right with me. It’s a free country. But that doesn’t mean that everybody has to go along. Like I’ve got nothing against people who collect stamps, but I wouldn’t want them running the post office. Now you’re just the kind of man we want on the board to keep a sort of balance. I’ve been puffing you up to Chet. But of course you’ve got to show him you’re interested. You’re coming tonight, aren’t you?”

“You mean to Kaplan’s house? I don’t know. I have a date with my wife, we’re going to drive out to the western part of the state to look at the foliage, she has an aunt in North Adams and we were planning to have dinner there. You know, make a full day of it.”

Muntz shook his head reprovingly.

“Well, I figured this invitation was sent to all the new members of the congregation –”

“Don’t you believe it, Dan. It’s open house, but not everybody gets a personal invitation.”

Dr. Cohen considered. “I suppose we could get back earlier. I mean, once it gets dark, you can’t see the foliage anyway.”

“I would if I were you,” said Muntz. “You’ll be doing yourself a lot of good.”

Because his wife was not feeling Well, Bill Safferstein had come home for lunch instead of eating in town. In return. Mona Safferstein decided she would keep him company and came down to the dining room in a housecoat over her nightgown.

“I don’t want anything, Hilda,” she said as the maid set a plate of soup before her husband. “Maybe a cup of tea.”

“Aw cummon,” her husband urged. “Have some soup. It’ll do you good.”

“No, Bill, it’s hard for me to swallow, and I think I’ve got some temperature.”

He reached over and placed his hand on her forehead. “You are a little warm, the hot soup will ease your throat. Bring her some soup. Hilda.”

Bill Safferstein had a pleasing, coaxing manner that suggested that he knew exactly what was good for you and that he would like nothing better than to get it for you, he was tall and handsome with wavy black hair cut fashionably long at the nape of the neck. When he smiled, and he smiled easily, he showed even white teeth. His pleasant manner and tall good looks as well as considerable luck had made him an extremely successful real estate operator.

But his wife, for the moment at least, was impervious to his charm. Normally cool and svelte and sophisticated, with the long narrow head of a professional model, now her face was drawn and showed lines of pain, she shook her head crossly. “No, really. I’ll just have some tea and go right back to bed.”

“Maybe we ought to call the doctor,” he suggested, concerned.

“Oh, I don’t think so. Besides, where are you going to get a doctor on a Wednesday afternoon?”

“I’ll call Al Muntz at home, maybe I can catch him before he goes to play golf or whatever the hell it is that doctors do on their afternoons off.” Abruptly he left the table and strode to the phone in the hallway. It occurred to him that his wife must be feeling really ill not to put up a fuss at his calling the doctor.

He was back shortly. “Al has gone to some conference in Boston and will be away all afternoon, but his wife promised to tell him, she’s sure he’ll be able to look in on you sometime this evening.”

“I don’t think I really need a doctor,” Mona said, but without conviction.

“Maybe you don’t, sweetheart, but I’ll feel better if Al Muntz checks you out.” He went to the hall closet for his coat.

“Do you have to go now?” she asked plaintively.

“I got an appointment at the bank. Look, I’ll try to get home early.”

“Yes, but then you’ll be going to Chefs for the evening,” she complained.

“No, I’ll stay in tonight.”

Instantly, she was remorseful. “Oh, you don’t have to because of me.”

“But I want to.”

“But you enjoy the Wednesday evenings at Chefs,” she insisted, “and you say they help you. I want you to go.”

“No. Chet will tell them about my offer for the Goralsky Block tonight, and it would be better if I weren’t there. Besides, I’ve got a hunch that Aptaker will call tonight and I’d like to be around so that I can run right over and get his signature on an agreement.”

“You and your hunches! How about his son?”

Safferstein laughed joyously. “His son is like my brother-in-law.”

She managed a smile. “But he has got a son.”

“Sure, but he’s in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia or someplace. If he were interested in the store, he would have come back long before this.”

“But if he does come back?” she persisted.

“He won’t. This is the biggest thing I’ve ever tried. It’s got to work.”

“It isn’t too big for you, is it, Bill?” she asked anxiously.

“You’re not overextended, are you?”

“Don’t worry about that,” he said, a little too quickly. “I’ve got a hunch, I tell you.”

Akiva spent the afternoon tramping from one end of the beach to the other, renewing his acquaintance with the shoreline, the tide was out and after a while, he took off his boots and socks and slung them over one shoulder by their tied laces, he walked along the water’s edge, wriggling his toes in the wet sand, luxuriating in its soft coolness, he came to the rocks of the Point, smooth rounded loaves of pudding stone split here and there by deep narrow channels where the water, even at low tide, rushed in and then was sucked back reluctantly by the receding ocean, the water left little pools in the rocks’ depressions where a tiny minnow might be entrapped and dart from side to side until a wave came that was high enough to free it.

Akiva sat at the edge of one such pool and dabbled his feet in the water to wash off the sand, then he held them straight out in front of him so that the sun could dry them and he could put on his socks and boots, as he leaned back on rigid arms, staring out at the horizon, he felt a peace that he had not known for a long time, as far as he could see, he was alone on the beach.

It occurred to him that it was a good time to practice meditation, undisturbed as he was within and without, he sat up and maneuvered his legs into the lotus position. It was not easy for him, but with a little trouble he succeeded in tucking in his feet against his thighs, with arms outstretched and thumbs touching forefingers, he let his eyes fall closed. Images came flooding into his mind, and then as his breathing became slow and regular, he saw nothing except a kind of warm luminosity, the effect of the bright sun on his closed eyelids.

“Hey, whatcha doing?”

He opened his eyes and saw a small boy – five or six years old? – standing in front of him, a sandpail in one hand and an old spoon in the other.

Akiva smiled. “Just thinking,” he said. “Whatcha have your hands out like that for?”

“I guess it’s because it helps me think. You live around here?”

“Uh-huh, over there,” with a nod at one of the houses on the other side of the road that paralleled the beach. “Say, will you take me across? I’m not allowed to cross alone.”

“Sure. You just wait a minute while I get my shoes and socks on. How’d you get across in the first place?”

“My mommy brought me.”

“And what would you have done if I hadn’t been here?”

“Oh, my mommy comes and gets me after a while.”

Booted once again, Akiva stood up and held out his hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

The boy took his hand confidently and together they clambered up the rocks to the side of the road, where they waited as a succession of cars whizzed by, then, during a lull, they started to cross the road just as a woman came out of the house opposite.

“Why didn’t you wait, Jackie?” she called. “I was just going to get you.”

“The man said he’d take me across,” he shouted back. Releasing Akiva’s hand, he ran across the road and up the porch steps, Akiva lounged after him.

The woman looked at Akiva in momentary suspicion, then she smiled absently. Turning to the boy, she said, “All right, dear, thank the man and go inside and take some milk.”

The youngster held out his hand and Akiva mounted the steps to take it. “Thanks,” the boy said, and turned and ran into the house.

“He’s very well behaved.” said Akiva.

“Yes, well –”

“You’re Leah Kaplan, aren’t you?” he said wonderingly.

“Oh, do I know you? Kaplan was my maiden name.”

“We were in school together,” Akiva said. “One year I sat beside you in French class.”

She looked at him uncertainly. “Oh, are you – you’re Aptaker, Arnold Aptaker.”

He smiled. “That was my maiden name,” he said. “I’m Akiva Rokeach now.”

“That beard. I would have recognized you right away if it weren’t for the beard. What are you hiding?”