Someday the Rabbi Will Leave Page 6

  The rabbi’s lips twitched. “And you came up to see if I was properly dressed?”

  Brooks looked at him with a sort of avuncular compassion. “You’ll never be dressed properly, David. That’s on account of you’ve got no clothes sense. Maybe it’s not what you wear so much as how you wear it.” With a wave of the hand he dismissed the rabbi’s sartorial problem. “No, I want you to take a look at this, David, and tell me what you think.”

  The rabbi took the paper held out to him.

  The paper was headed DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE PRINCIPAL OF THE RELIGIOUS SCHOOL. It was typed and ran the length of the page. The rabbi read, nodding occasionally, “… responsible for formulating curricula for each grade … recommendations to School Committee … budget … confers with Rabbi on direction … hires teachers … confers with parents …”

  “That’s pretty good,” said the rabbi when he finished. “Seems to me, though, you’ve put in a lot that’s pretty much implied in the first sentence about overall supervision of the school.”

  “In this kind of thing, David, the more you put in the better. It builds up the job.”

  “Well, in that case, you might put in that you arrange with the cantor about special tutoring for the Bar Mitzvah boys.”

  “Say, that’s a good idea.” He reached for the paper and penciled into the margin, “Cantor—Bar Mitzvah boys.” “Anything else you can think of?” He looked up, pencil poised.

  “Well, when a teacher is absent, you take his class.”

  Morton Brooks considered as he scratched his thinning hair and then patted it back solicitously over his bald spot. Finally, he said, “Uh-uh. That might give him ideas.”

  “Him?”

  “Magnuson. He asked for this. Didn’t you get one? If I say that I cover classes for absent teachers, he’s apt to get the idea that I have time to take on another class, and maybe save a teacher’s salary. Guys like Magnuson worry me.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “If he has us do job descriptions, next thing he’s apt to do a time and motion study on us, maybe end up paying us piecework.”

  The rabbi laughed. “That’s not too likely.”

  “No? What do you know about Howard Magnuson?”

  “I understand that he’s connected with Magnuson and Beck, so I assume he’s in the retail business—”

  “Nah.” Brooks was scornful. “They sold that back in 1929. Maybe they bought it back again because Magnuson and Beck is a conglomerate, which means their business is businesses. I read all about the company in Time magazine, and I looked it up and read it again when he got elected. What Magnuson does is buy and sell businesses like other people buy and sell shoes or automobiles. He buys up a business. Then he brings in his team of managers and they jack up the efficiency of the company and fire all the old hands—that’s called cleaning out the deadwood. Then if they show a good quarterly report and the stock goes up, they use the upgraded stock to buy another company, or maybe they milk it for a while and then unload it. They’re into electronics and hotels and shoe manufacturing and a company that makes cleats for baseball shoes. The article called him a romantic on account of he’s apt to buy into something that interests him. Some romantic!”

  “So you think he’s going to try to increase our efficiency and then trade us in for another synagogue, or maybe a church?”

  “Go on, laugh, David, but I’m telling you he’s going to be trouble. He’s not our kind.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “We’re all second generation or third generation. Our parents or our grandparents came from Russia, Poland, Lithuania, or wherever. I’ll bet there isn’t a single member on the Board of Directors who if their parents didn’t talk with an accent, then their grandparents did. The smell of the shtetl still clings to us. But he’s different. He’s fifth-generation American, or maybe even sixth. His great-great-grandfather, according to this article, fought in the Civil War. He don’t think like us. He’s a Yankee, a Wasp—”

  “A WASP? A white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant?”

  “Maybe not a Protestant, but you know what I mean. He’s not like us, and that means trouble. You take these job descriptions he asked us to write. Now I’m not saying that Sam Feinberg, say, might not have had an idea like that when he became president. I can even imagine him sending out these forms. Then when we’d made them out, he’d read through them maybe, and toss them in a desk drawer and never think of them again. But that’s not the way Howard Magnuson is going to deal with them. He’s going to go over each and every one and check one against the other. And if they don’t jibe, then there’ll be trouble.” His tone became very easy and casual, and the rabbi sensed that now he was going to hear the real reason for his coming. “So I thought, since we both have supervision of the religious school, each of us in a separate kind of way, we ought to adjust our job descriptions so that they’ll kind of mesh instead of maybe conflicting.” He looked expectantly at the rabbi.

  “I didn’t write one.”

  “Didn’t you get one of these forms?”

  “Yes, I got one,” said the rabbi, “but I assume it was a mistake.”

  “If they sent it to you, it was no mistake, David. Magnuson wanted you to make it out.”

  “It was addressed to employees of the temple,” said the rabbi, “and I don’t consider myself an employee.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. I know you always say you’re the rabbi of the community and not just of the temple congregation, but it’s the temple that pays you, and from Magnuson’s point of view that makes you an employee. Remember, David”—and it was plain that he was truly concerned—“it’s not Sam Feinberg you’re dealing with, it’s Howard Magnuson.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “That’s just the point I’m trying to make. To a Sam Feinberg, like to the rest of us, you’re a rabbi, something like a priest to an Irishman. But to Howard Magnuson, you’re just an employee, an underling, the kind of person he’s been giving orders to all his life.”

  11

  The lower third of the store window was covered by a sign which proclaimed in large letters, “Scofield for State Senator.” Beneath, in italics between quotation marks, it said, “Let’s keep things the way they are.” The store contained a desk, against one wall a long table piled with campaign literature, four wooden armchairs, a couple of metal file cabinets, and a stack of folding chairs, all rented from a local office-appliance dealer. In the rear was a partition which closed off a clothes closet, the toilet, and a washstand over which hung a small mirror.

  Anyone walking along High Street usually could see the head of Laura Magnuson just above the window sign if she happened to be sitting at the desk. She was there now, going through the morning’s mail. She slit each envelope, glanced at the contents, and then deposited it in one of several piles on top of the desk. Sales letters from printers, manufacturers of celluloid buttons, clipping services, photographers, electronics firms that leased amplifier equipment, everything that might be necessary in the campaign were in one pile. Another pile consisted of bills, most of them from just such companies; and a third pile, the most important, was of letters containing contributions. Once there was an offering of a whole page of postage stamps. And once a check for a hundred dollars. When with poorly concealed excitement she showed it to Scofield, he glanced at the signature and nodded matter-of-factly. “Yeah, that’s my brother-in-law. My sister twisted his arm, I suppose.”

  She recorded the name and address of each contributor and the amount of the contribution, and made a point of sending off a letter of acknowledgment and thanks usually within a day or two of receipt. For this purpose she had composed a series of three form letters, one for small donations (under five dollars), another for larger ones, and a third for contributions of more than fifty dollars. Unfortunately, she rarely had to use the third form. Occasionally, she received an anonymous contribution in cash, in which case she added to it five or t
en dollars from her own purse.

  She arrived about ten o’clock in the morning and stayed until noon, when she went home for lunch. She would post a sign in the window indicating that she would be back in the afternoon, and she would return around two o’clock. Frequently, there was nothing for her to do, and she would sit and read the local and Boston papers, clipping items that she felt Scofield should read. Sometimes, people would drop in to offer advice—“What Scofield ought to do is challenge his opponents to a debate. That way he could show …”; to extend invitations—“We got like a discussion group that meets once a week. We talk about all kinds of things, anything from the United Nations to the problem of crabgrass. I was thinking if he came down, we might have an evening on local politics or …”; to ask for information—“What’s his position on the reconsideration of the Harbor Bill? That’s what I want to know”; to inquire about jobs—“I was thinking you might need somebody part time. I got a couple of kids, but I’m free mornings because they’re in school. I can do filing and typing although I’m not very fast,” or “Would you need a good driver? You know, to drive you to meetings and such?” or “Have you lined up people to watch the polls on election day?,” or—more ambitious for jobs in the future—“I’m a first-class gardener and I was wondering if Mr. Scofield would know of some government agency that needed one.”

  Scofield was rarely there during the day. He would come by late in the afternoon, after his regular office hours in Salem. She would report on the events of the day and show him the newspaper stories she had clipped, and they would talk about future strategy. From the beginning he had been unduly pessimistic about his chances, she thought.

  Originally, when she had offered to help, he had said, “I sure can use all the help I can get, but I couldn’t pay you very much, maybe nothing until after the election—if I won.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. I don’t need the money and I’ve got all the time in the world.”

  “That’s very decent of you, but—”

  “Look, who’s your campaign manager? Who’s running things for you? Where are your headquarters?”

  “Well, I’ve been working out of my office in Salem. I haven’t done much yet. You see, there’s this old guy who has an office across the hall, J. J. Mulcahey. He’s the one who sort of put a bee in my bonnet, and he’s been giving me some advice, but—”

  “You can’t have your headquarters in Salem. It’s not in the district. You’ve got to get some place in Barnard’s Crossing, a vacant store.”

  “But that would cost quite a bit of money. Besides, I just don’t have the time to go looking. And I’d need office furniture, at least a desk and a file cabinet. Maybe I could get them second-hand, but—”

  “You can rent them. And as for a store, it shouldn’t cost much for the few months till election.”

  “Oh no? When I first thought of running I called a couple of real estate people who had vacant stores. One wanted a thousand dollars a month, payable in advance.”

  “Suppose I do a little looking around.”

  “Well …”

  Within a few days she called him at his office. “Laura Magnuson,” she announced briskly. “You know that vacant store on High Street? Just beyond the market? I can get it for a hundred dollars a month, from now through November.”

  “Gee! A hundred dollars a month! How did you manage that?”

  “By pointing out that you had a good chance of being elected senator, and that it would do them a lot of good to have a senator for a friend. You see, I did a little checking and I found they had had some trouble with the zoning authority.”

  “Gee, that’s wonderful. Is there a lease I have to sign? Do I send them a check for the first month’s rent?”

  “I could give them my check and you can repay me. You see, I had to say I was your campaign manager in order to get them to talk seriously with me. I mean, if they thought I had no authority and was just some busybody looking around …”

  “Sure, I understand. You go right ahead.”

  “And if you like, I’ll see about renting some furniture.”

  “Oh sure, absolutely. We got to have some furniture.”

  So she signed the lease, rented furniture, then went on to arrange for printing and stationery. In some wonderment, he told Mulcahey about it.

  The older man pursed his lips and then nodded slowly. “That’s one of the nice things about politics, I guess. All kinds of people are eager to jump on the bandwagon, even when there is no band and not even a wagon. What’s she look like?”

  “She’s real nice-looking in a strictly business kind of way. Dressed properly and made up for a party, she might be a knockout, but as it is she’s a good-looking girl.”

  “You ever make a pass at her?”

  “Gosh, no. Didn’t I tell you who she is? Her father is Howard Magnuson. You know, of Magnuson and Beck.”

  “So what?” Mulcahey laughed coarsely. “She still pees sitting down, don’t she? Know what? You’re a new toy for her, a rich girl’s plaything,” he said contemptuously, a little annoyed that she was replacing him as mentor, guide, director of Scofield’s career. “When she gets tired of playing politics after a couple of weeks she’ll just walk out on you.”

  “Gee, I don’t think so. She seems a lot more involved in this than I am.” He laughed self-consciously. He did not like to admit, even to himself, that while his reason for being in the race was that he had weakly permitted Mulcahey to persuade him, it was only Laura’s interest that was keeping him in it. So far he had not succeeded in attracting the law business that Mulcahey had assured him would follow, and now he was worried about the bills that were mounting. He had a little nest egg of six thousand dollars, all that was left of his share from the sale of the parental home, and he was morbidly certain that this would be eaten up by the campaign before he was through.

  At the very beginning, to be sure, he had consented to go to various political meetings, and at her urging had risen to ask a question, or to make a comment introducing himself each time as a candidate for the state senate for this district. But when nothing tangible had resulted, either political or in the way of law business, he had lost faith. And now, when Laura told him of a group that was holding a meeting on the Harbor Bill, for example, and urged that it would be a good place to appear and present his position, he was apt to tell her that he was going to be busy that evening, that he had some research to do at the law library, or that he had to prepare for an appearance in court the next day. He manifested so little faith in his chances of election that she, too, had begun to wonder if she hadn’t picked a loser. When the Barnard’s Crossing Courier published a report of a telephone poll they had taken that showed that the three candidates were practically even, he showed no great enthusiasm.

  “What’s so wonderful about running even with two other guys?” he asked plaintively. “The poll was primarily for the statewide offices, governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. Then when they got down to state senator, they probably just read off the three names, Scofield, Baggio, and Cash, and asked which they liked. If they did them in alphabetical order, my name was the last one mentioned, so the average person who doesn’t care too much one way or another picked the last name he heard. But those other two guys, Baggio and Cash, they’re both professional. Both of them have organizations, people they’ve done favors for or people who hope to get favors. What chance does a new man have?”

  “Well, that’s where you’re wrong. Do you know why Cash is running for the Senate instead of for reelection to his seat in the General Court? It’s because he hasn’t got a chance of reelection. That’s why. Talk to any of the people around town who know. He voted against the Harbor Bill, and the Lynn people won’t forgive him that. In running for the Senate, he’s hoping that he can pick up votes from Chelsea and Revere and Barnard’s Crossing to offset the beating he’s going to get in Lynn. The point is that he doesn’t expect to win. See, if he loses he’s not politically
dead as he would be if he lost for reelection. Because it’s a higher office.”

  “Yeah, I heard something about that, but—”

  “And Baggio has standing only in Revere. And how about the results on second choice? You’re actually leading there.” She thrust the paper at him.

  But he didn’t take it from her. Instead, he asked, “What’s this second choice?”

  She explained. “They asked each person they called whom they preferred and then who was their second choice. Cash’s backers split between you and Baggio for second choice, but your people picked Baggio and Baggio’s people picked you.”

  “So?”

  “So it means that a lot of people are not so much for somebody as that they are against Cash. If you could pick up some of Baggio’s votes, you’d be in.”

  “Or if he picks up some of mine, he’d be in. Unfortunately, this isn’t a horse race with win, place, and show. Here it’s just the win that pays off.”

  She was annoyed with him, and even more annoyed with herself. Had she misjudged him, completely misread his character? She began to think that perhaps she ought to withdraw since there was nothing there for her.

  “I may have to be away for a while,” she essayed. “Do you have someone who could take my place here?

  “For how long a while?”

  “Oh, a week or maybe two, maybe even longer.”

  “Then that’s all right. I could just keep it closed and come in in the afternoon to take care of the mail.”

  The man was impossible! And yet—he had all the credentials. He was tall and good-looking. He was likable and friendly. He had a name which was associated with the town. He had the right degrees from the right schools. There must be some way she could reach him, instill desire and ambition and get him moving. What was wrong with him?

  12

  From the beginning, Howard Magnuson manifested his efficiency by starting board meetings promptly at nine and bringing them to adjournment around eleven instead of at noon. Those members who hoped to take an early lunch so they could spend the afternoon on the golf course welcomed the change, but those who brought their children to the religious school for the Sunday classes and had to wait until noon, when the last class ended, in order to drive them home, were apt to find themselves at a loose end for an hour.