Inside, Outside by Herman Wouk

Author:Herman Wouk [Wouk, Herman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7953-4419-0
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2014-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

50

Holy Joe’s Temple

Weeks went by, and Lee did not go with Mom and Pop to Holy Joe’s temple, or do much of anything else. They were woebegone at her glum idleness. What was the point of the whole Manhattan move, if Lee would not cross the street once a week to visit the temple? How else was she going to meet young men? She lay around reading rented best-sellers, now and then rustily playing Palestinian songs on the piano. Pop hinted that she could have a job at the laundry, but she did not respond. Virtually since puberty Lee had been mulishly bent on marrying one or another shlepper, so she had never thought of going to work, and had learned no gainful skill. Now she was counting on marrying Moshe Lev, but obviously she had not heard a word from him.

That subject was uppermost in all our minds, but never mentioned. We sat around the big costly new dining table, almost as quiet as the Quats. I had the deep-frozen Dorsi on my mind. Pop’s forehead was corrugated with his chronic worries. Mom had Faiga’s wedding, which was gathering complications, to fret about. Lee was far inside her shell. All in all, there was a cold gloomy stillness in that fancy West End apartment of ours such as we had never known in the Bronx, for all our spells of hard times.

I could now walk to Columbia and I had downtown status, which was all very fine, but the move was taking its toll of Pop. He was often missing at dinner, remaining uptown to work late, or to eat with Bobbeh or Zaideh, or to attend a board meeting of the Minsker Congregation, where Zaideh was now the Rov. Or he would be in a rush, when he came downtown, to get to a Zionist meeting, or a Masonic meeting, or a temple trustee meeting. Half the time he either didn’t show up, or he would bolt his food and leave.

Never, however, on Friday night. The candlelit Sabbath meal remained inviolate, and the menu had improved. In honor of Lee’s birthday, Mom one Friday night made a rare rib roast. When Lee saw the red slices she inquired with a giggle whether we were still kosher. It was a happy evening, and she made Mom and Pop happier by volunteering that she would go to the temple next morning.

“Got to catch Holy Joe Geiger’s act,” she said, “sooner or later.”

Whereupon Pop astonished us by saying he was resigning as a temple trustee. The board had voted to start taking up a collection at Sabbath services. Pop had told them that though he knew times were changing, he could not condone that. Mom was saddened. A rabbi’s a daughter could hardly disagree with Pop, but she loved being a downtown temple trustee’s wife. Lee just sat there glowering until I mildly remarked that since the women came to the temple with pocketbooks anyway, and the men with their wallets, why not? Well, Lee burst out at me as though I had endorsed the clubbing of baby seals.

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