Harry Kemelman - Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home

“I don’t know, but it is the duty of His servants to try to understand Him. And why else did the thought come to my head?”

“Not all the thoughts that come to a man’s head. Mr. Carter, are put there by God. And not all the things that happen are God’s work. If you see His hand in everything that happens, after a while you’ll begin blaming Him for unpleasant and wicked things that happen. Some things are the results of our own mistakes, and some things just happen by accident.”

Carter rose. “I don’t like to hear you say that. Rabbi. It seems to me that it shows a lack of faith, and I didn’t expect it of you. But maybe you’re just saying it to make me feel better.” He rose and went to the door. He seemed hurt.

“You’ll find. Rabbi.” he said, and he patted him on the arm, “that if you have faith, everything comes out right in the end.” He brightened and his face even relaxed in a grin. “By the bye, they’ve caught that colored fellow that took my boy’s life. They were bringing him in when I was down the station.”

Carter left, and the rabbi turned to Miriam. “Where’s my coat?” he said. “I’m going down to the station house.”

Ben Gorfinkle had called up in midmorning to say that he was coming home for lunch. “I want to talk to Stu. He hasn’t gone out, has he?”

“He’s still in bed. Ben.” said his wife.

“It’s eleven o’clock. Do you think perhaps he might condescend to get up by noon so that I can have a few words with him?”

“Well, you kept him up so late last night quizzing him about the meeting.”

“I stayed up just as late, didn’t I? It didn’t prevent me from getting up at a reasonable hour.”

“Well, he’s a young boy, and they need more sleep. Is anything the matter?”

“I just want to talk to him. You just make sure that he stays there until I get home.”

He had finished his Spartan lunch of a sandwich and coffee by the time Stu, yawning and gaping, appeared in pajamas and bathrobe.

“What’s up, Dad?”

“If you’d been up, you might have got the news on the radio. This Jenkins fellow—he’s been taken into custody.”

“Oh yeah? So?”

“I’ve talked to one of our lawyers down at the plant. He thinks it was a mistake on our part to let Lanigan quiz you without the protection of a lawyer present.”

“Well, natch, he’s a lawyer. What else is he going to say?”

The elder Gorfinkle gave his son a mental mark for shrewdness. “Anyway, he agreed with me that your case is entirely different from that of the others, and if you play your cards right, you don’t have to get involved at all.” Seeing his son was about to object, he plunged on. “Now, listen to me, will you? There are just three things, three hurdles that we’ve got to get over. First, there’s the business of holding the picnic on Tarlow’s Point. If that’s a private beach, then you were trespassing. As far as I can make out, you had nothing to do with deciding to hold the cookout there, but on the other hand, you did the driving, Then again, as I understand it, even the town counsel isn’t sure whether that’s a private beach or not. It’s my opinion that you’re perfectly safe in admitting that you knew you were going to the Point. You just say that you thought it was a public beach because there have been cookouts there before.”

“Well sure—”

“Just listen, will you! All right. You left before the storm, and you had nothing to do with breaking into Hillson House. Right? And when you came back—the first time. I mean—you didn’t go in. did you?”

Stu shook his head, wondering what his father was getting at.

“You heard them inside, and so you called out that you had come back, and they opened the door. Right?”

“Well, I knocked—”

“But you heard them in there. That’s why you knocked. To let them know you had come back. And you yourself didn’t go in. That’s right, isn’t it? You didn’t go in.”

“Yeah, they came out.”

“All right. So far, you’re in the clear. You were just like a bus driver or a cab driver who delivers a bunch of people to a party and then comes back for them. Now, when you returned to get that boy, Moose, that’s when you made a mistake, because you had no right to enter that house. One thing in your favor, of course, is that the door was open, so it was not breaking and entering. And get this. All the time you were thinking that there was this friend of yours lying sick, maybe seriously sick, in that house there—”

“You mean Moose? He was no friend of mine.”

“He was a classmate, wasn’t he? You never had a fight with him, did you? All right, so he was a friend of yours. And he was sick—”

“He was drunk.”

“You didn’t know that. All you knew was that they told you he had passed out. That’s like fainted. That’s serious. You had a car, so naturally you felt you had to go help him.” He glared at his son as though daring him to object to his interpretation.

And when his son remained silent, he leaned forward and said. “Now, this is important, and I want you to pay strict attention. You didn’t know what was wrong with Moose when you saw him. After all, you’re not a doctor. All you know is that he was lying there still. So your idea was to get out of there fast and get some help, call the police or a doctor. The idea that he might have been murdered never entered your head. All you know is that he didn’t look right—”

“But it had to be murder, because somebody put that sheet over his head.”

“You didn’t see how they wrapped him in the first place, did you?”

“No, but—”

“Look, what I’m trying to tell you is that you were not involved with any of this. You didn’t pick the place; you didn’t break into the house; you went back to get Moose only because he was sick and you had a car; and finally, when you saw he was very sick, your one thought was to get help for him.”

“But Didi and Bill said—”

“You wouldn’t be likely to remember what they said. All you remember was there was some talk about Moose and how they put him to bed. The details, you just don’t remember. You weren’t there; you didn’t see anything; you don’t know anything.”

“Yeah. I just pussyfoot.”

“That’s it.” said his father eagerly.

Stu rose. “And afterward, when it’s all over, what do I do? Get myself a new set of friends or move to another town? And what do I do about living with myself? I’m just a dumb kid, and you’re a smart big-time executive. Well, maybe you’re too smart. Nobody, certainly not Lanigan, is going to believe that all I had were noble thoughts. If I’m not involved, then I’m damn sure Lanigan’s not going to get me involved. Besides. I don’t think you’re worried about me, anyway.” He went to the door, and from the threshold he said. “It’s you, your reputation, you’re worried about.”

Mrs. Gorfinkle came in. “Oh—where’s Stu? Have you finished with him?”

“Yes, I’ve finished with him.” her husband said between clenched teeth.

“What’s the matter? Did you quarrel again?”

“You work and sweat and slave”—but Gorfinkle was talking to himself—“for what if not for your children? And what thanks do you get? To them you’re a hypocrite. You’re just thinking of yourself.”

Jenkins looked curiously from the rabbi to Lanigan. “Here’s this guy been dumping on me all evening, and you wonder why I don’t want to help get him home so his daddy won’t know he’d been drinking? The way I felt it would have been better than a hootnanny to see his old man skin him alive. I don’t believe this turn the other cheek business you religious types go in for, Rabbi.”