CHAPTER ELEVEN

Precisely at noon the next day a cab pulled up to the door and out stepped a slim, boyish-looking man in his early forties. Dr. Ronald Sykes had a long narrow face with thinning dark hair; it was an intelligent face with shrewd knowing eyes and a ready smile. He was wearing stout English boots, gray flannels, and a tweed jacket. If the hair had been a little thicker, the face a little fuller, and the eyes somewhat less knowing, he could have passed for an undergraduate.

“I came to see you in behalf of my late friend and colleague, Isaac Hirsh,” he said when they were seated in the rabbi’s study. “You heard of his death, of course.”

“I don’t believe I knew an Isaac Hirsh,” the rabbi said with a tinge of embarrassment. “He wasn’t a member of my congregation, was he?”

“No, Rabbi, but he did live here and was part of the Jewish community, so I thought you might know him.”

The rabbi shook his head slowly.

“Well, he died Friday night, and his wife, or rather his widow, would like to arrange for him to have a Jewish funeral. Is that possible-I mean where he was not a member of your congregation?”

“Oh, yes. Although our cemetery is reserved for members of the congregation, we make provision for Jews in the community who are not members. Upon paying a small fee they are accorded nominal membership, which of course is exclusive of the price of a lot. However, as a resident of Barnard’s Crossing, Mr. Hirsh can be buried in the town cemetery, Grove Hill, which is nonsectarian. I don’t know what fees would be involved, but I could give him Jewish burial there just as well.”

The doctor shook his head. “No, I think Mrs. Hirsh would want him buried among his own kind. Mrs. Hirsh is not Jewish.”

“Oh.”

“Does that make a difference?” Sykes asked quickly.

“It might.” The rabbi hesitated. “In that case, I’d have to be sure that the deceased had in fact been a Jew-that is, had remained a Jew.”

“I’m not sure I understand. His wife considers him a Jew. As long as I knew him, which is only this past year, to be sure, he never pretended to be anything else.”

The rabbi smiled. “It’s a religious rather than an ethnic distinction. Anyone born of a Jewish mother, not father if you please, is automatically considered Jewish, provided”-he paused to emphasize the point-“that he has not repudiated his religion by conversion to another religion or by public disclaimer.”

“To the best of my knowledge he belonged to no other church.”

“But you said Mrs. Hirsh was not Jewish. Was she Catholic or Protestant?”

“I don’t know. Anglican, I think, originally. At least the Anglican minister came to pay his respects while I was there.”

“Well, you see how it is. If they had come to me and asked me to marry them, I would have refused unless she converted. So perhaps the late Mr. Hirsh was converted when they were married. Tell me, why didn’t Mrs. Hirsh come, or send for me herself?”

“The shock of her husband’s death, Rabbi. As a matter of fact, she’s been kept under mild sedation. So as his section head, his boss you might say, she naturally turned to me to make the arrangements. And as for his religious status, I can only say I very much doubt if he would have undergone even nominal conversion to marry. He never cared much for all this mumbo jumbo-” he checked himself. “I’m sorry, rabbi, but those were his words; I was quoting him.” He had a sudden thought. “His name, Isaac, is essentially Jewish. He didn’t change that, so wouldn’t that indicate how he felt?”

The rabbi smiled. “You must have noticed when Mrs. Small opened the door that we are expecting a child. So our interest in names is more than just academic. We were just talking about that and decided the name Isaac, these days, is as likely to be pure Yankee.”

Sykes spread his hands in token of defeat. “Well, all I can say is that I feel he had no religious affiliations. Poor devil, he would have been better off if he had. He might have been alive today if he like the rest of the Jews had gone to temple Friday night.”

“Then his death was unexpected?”

“He was found dead in his garage Friday night. Patricia Hirsh notified me the next day, and I came right over.”

“Heart attack?”

“Carbon monoxide poisoning.”

“Oh.” The rabbi, who had been lounging back in his chair, now leaned forward. His face became thoughtful and his fingers drummed a soft tattoo on the desk.

“You’re thinking of suicide, Rabbi? Would that make a difference?”

“It might.”

“I suppose it could be suicide,” said Sykes slowly, “although there was no note, and if he were going to take his own life, you’d think he’d have left some word for his wife. He was very fond of her. The police officially called it accidental death. You see, he had been drinking heavily-”

“You mean he was drunk?”

“Must have been. He had gone through half a bottle of vodka, about a pint, in a pretty short time. He probably blacked out, and the motor kept running.”

“He was a heavy drinker?”

“He was an alcoholic, Rabbi, but as long as he had been with us he was all right. It’s not that they drink much-only that when they start, they can’t stop.”

“And this did not interfere with his work? By the way, what was his work?”

“He was a mathematician in my unit at the Goddard Research and Development Laboratory.”

The rabbi nodded thoughtfully. “Our people don’t run to alcoholism. I am rather surprised that considering this-this affliction, that you hired him.”

“Well, there aren’t too many mathematicians kicking around, at least not of the stature of Isaac Hirsh. It may help to explain our attitude, and perhaps his problem, when I tell you that he was on the original Manhattan Project and worked with Fermi. When we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, it raised hell with a lot of men there.”

“In that case, he must have been well along in years.”

“Early fifties, I should say. He got his Ph.D from M.I.T. in 1935. I got mine same place in ’43, in case you are wondering.”

“And yet you are the head of the unit and he was your subordinate?”

“Just that I got there first. I went to Goddard as soon as I got my degree.”

“Tell me, what did you call him?”

“Eh? Oh, you mean how did I address him?” He flushed. “Mostly, I’d call him Doctor. You see, he was quite a bit older than I. But sometimes when we were just sitting around talking-what was the expression he used? schmoosing, that’s Yiddish, I guess. He used a lot of Yiddish words from time to time-well, then he would sometimes call me Ronald or Ron, and I’d call him Ike. Most of the time it was Doctor, though, because there are always technicians around and you use first names indiscriminately and after a while the technicians start calling you by your first name and there goes the discipline. At least, that’s our director’s idea. He’s an old army man.”

“I see.” He thought for a moment. “It would help if I could visit Mrs. Hirsh. Would it be all right if I dropped over this afternoon?”

“I’m sure that will be fine.”

“Then perhaps you had better make your arrangements for the cemetery plot. You would have to see the chairman of our Cemetery Committee. If you like, I’ll call Mr. Brown. Do you know him, Marvin Brown, insurance business?”

Sykes shook his head. “If he can see me now I’d go right over there. Would you mind calling me a cab?”

“Of course.” The rabbi started out the door and then hesitated. “Oh, and by the way, if money is a consideration to the widow, and I suppose it is, a plain undecorated pine box is most correct according to our traditions.”

Marvin Brown was a live wire, a go-getter. He was a wiry terrier of a man who knew that time was money and that there were a hundred cents to every dollar. He had long ago learned the supreme lesson of salesmanship, that if you made one sale for every ten calls you could make two sales by making twenty calls. This doctrine he not only preached, he practiced. Over the years, his wife had learned to adjust to his pace. She planned her evening meal for six o’clock, knowing that Marve might not get to it until nine and then he might tell her he had grabbed a bite somewhere and wasn’t hungry.