The Day the Rabbi Resigned by Harry Kemelman Read Free Book Online Page A

a little weight, have you?”
    â€œThat, too,” Fisher conceded. “I’ve been here a week now. You can lose a lot of weight in a week.”
    â€œDon’t they feed you well?”
    â€œOh, you pick your own menu. And when do you pick it? You pick it for the following day when they bring your breakfast. How can you tell what you want to eat tomorrow when you’ve just finished eating? And they serve it at set times, all on a little tray. So you eat faster so your ice cream won’t be all melted by the time you’re ready for your dessert. And your coffee waits there on the little tray getting cold before you can get to it. Now I like a cigarette with my coffee. I’m not a heavy smoker, but I like to smoke while I’m having my coffee. But here, a cigarette is regarded like you’re perpetrating a gas attack on the entire hospital.
    â€œThey wake you up in the middle of the night to take your blood pressure and temperature. And somebody comes around to take samples of your blood. And then an intern or the resident comes in to examine you. He listens to your chest, and he squeezes your belly, and taps your knees and elbows with a little rubber hammer. And it’s usually a different one each time.”
    â€œBut your doctor—”
    â€œWho sees him? He might come in once during the day, or in the evening to say hello, but everything is done by the interns and the nurses. It used to be that your doctor sat with you and talked with you. No more. You see him like a private sees a general.”
    â€œThings have changed quite radically in recent years,” the rabbi remarked, “not least among them the practice of the professions.”
    â€œYou can say that again,” said Fisher. “Your own profession, for example. My father was sickly, and was in and out of hospitals for a good portion of his life, and not once did a rabbi come to see him. And we were living in Boston at the time, where there were any number of rabbis.”
    The rabbi nodded. “But I’m sure he had plenty of other visitors. Visiting the sick is enjoined on all Jews, but here in Barnard’s Crossing where Jewish practices have largely lapsed, the rabbi of the congregation is expected to do it because he’s engaged, in part, to be the one practicing Jew. We also have a Visiting Committee who are supposed to—”
    â€œOh, yeah, some of them have been.”
    â€œAnd family?”
    â€œI don’t have any family, Rabbi.”
    â€œNo children?”
    Fisher shook his head vigorously. “My wife was a career woman and never got around to having any. Not that I was anxious for children at the time. I was—”
    A young woman, wearing a white coat and a stethoscope draped around her neck, entered the room. “Mr. Fisher? I’m Dr. Peterson.” She looked at the rabbi. “If you don’t mind—”
    â€œI was just going,” the rabbi said. “Good luck, Mr. Fisher.” As he walked down the corridor to his next appointment, he wondered if he had benefited Fisher in any way, or had he merely obeyed the injunction to visit the sick?

8
    The next Friday, Victor brought his golf clubs in to school, along with his spiked golf shoes, slacks, a sport shirt, and a windbreaker, in addition to the pajamas, slippers, and bathrobe he had brought the first time. To the questioning looks of his colleagues in the English Department office, as he placed his clubs and suitcase against the wall behind his desk, he said only that he was going away for the weekend. He did not say where he was going.
    When he came back to the office at two o’clock, after his last class, he found Cyrus Merton there waiting for him. None of his colleagues was present, however—there were not many classes Friday afternoon—for which he was grateful. Although aware that a special connection with Cyrus Merton might be to his advantage, he did not want them to