Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman Read Free Book Online

rolled over to see who was talking and made out two pairs of women’s legs, both encased in white stockings, and just beyond, the wheels of a stroller or baby carriage. He thought he knew who they were, having seen them pass often enough. It gave him special pleasure to eavesdrop on their conversation, almost as though he were peeping at them through a keyhole.
    “… then when you’re through, you could take the bus to Salem and I could meet you and we could eat at the station.”
    “I kind of thought I’d stay on in Lynn and go to the Elysium.”
    “But they’ve got that picture that takes forever. How will you get home?”
    “I checked, and it gets out at eleven-thirty. That will give me enough time to make the last bus.”
    “Aren’t you afraid to go home alone that late at night?”
    “Oh, there are plenty of people on that bus, and it’s only a couple of blocks beyond the bus stop – Angie, you come right here this minute.”
    There was a scurry of a child’s feet and then the women’s legs marched out of view.
    He rolled over on his back again and studied the pictures on the wall. One was of a dark girl who was naked except for a narrow garter belt and a pair of black stockings. As he concentrated on the picture, her hair became blonde and her stockings white. Presently his mouth dropped open and he began to snore, a steady, rhythmic, guttural throb like a boat engine in a heavy sea.
    Myra Schwarz and the two women of the Sisterhood who were decorating the vestry for the box-supper meeting stood back, their heads tilted to one side.
    “Can you get it just a little higher, Stanley?” asked Myra. “What do you think, girls?”
    Stanley, perched on a stepladder, obediently raised the crepe paper a couple of inches.
    “I think it should be a little lower down.”
    “Perhaps you’re right. Can you lower it a hair, Stanley?”
    He dropped it to where it had been before. “Hold it right there, Stanley,” called Myra. “That’s just right, isn’t it, girls?”
    Enthusiastically they agreed. They were very much her junior in the organization; Emmy Adler was barely thirty, and Nancy Drettman, though older, had joined the Sisterhood only recently. As the decorating committee, they had come to the temple in slacks, prepared to work, when Myra, all dressed up, dropped in “to see if everything was going all right” and took over. They had no great passion for decorating, but it was one of those jobs given to newer members. Once they had demonstrated their willingness to work, more important jobs would be assigned to them – such as the advertising committee, which required them to badger the local tradespeople and their husbands’ business associates for ads for the Program Book; the friendship committee, where they would visit the sick; and finally, having shown they could get things done, which usually meant coaxing other people to do them, they would see their names on the slate of candidates for positions on the executive council – and they would have arrived.
    In the meantime, they practiced by ordering Stanley around. When they had first appeared, fully an hour before Mrs. Schwarz, they asked his help even though they knew he would much rather be outside working on the lawn. “Why don’t you two ladies go on ahead and get started,” he’d said. “I’ll come along in a little while.”
    Mrs. Schwarz, on the other hand, had brooked no nonsense. She had said decisively, “Stanley, I need your help.”
    “I got this raking to do, Mrs. Schwarz,” he had said.
    “That can wait.”
    “Yes’m, I’ll be right there,” and put aside his rake and went to fetch the ladder.
    It was a tiresome, tedious job, and he took no pleasure in it. Nor did he like working under the supervision of women – hard, brassy women like Mrs. Schwarz. He had just finished tacking the decoration in place when the door opened and the rabbi thrust his head in. “Oh, Stanley,” he called out, “could I talk to you for