The Conspiracy Club

34

On Monday he woke up mean and logy and stiff, and he wondered if he’d caught Angela’s flu.

A brisk walk in the chilled air burned his chest and woke him up and by the time he drove to work, he felt semicivilized. Stopping for coffee in the dining room, he spotted Ted Dirgrove and another white-coat engaged in what looked like tense conversation. The same swarthy, mustachioed man who’d sat with the surgeon the first time Jeremy had noticed him. The two of them, and the cardiologist, Mandel.

No reason to notice them now, because the room was filled with white-coats, and Dirgrove and his companion were off in a far corner. But something about the heart surgeon… Angela’s enthrallment with what Dirgrove did…

He was jealous.

He filled a cup, headed out of the room. Dirgrove and the other man hadn’t budged. Their discussion looked tense- something academic? No, this seemed personal. Their body postures were those of two dogs facing off.

Then Dirgrove smiled, and so did the other man.

Two dogs with their teeth bared.

Even match. The other doctor was Dirgrove’s height, had a similar, slender build, and, like Dirgrove, his hair was close-cropped. But this curly cap was as dark as his mustache.

The dark man talked with his hands. Offered a parting shot and exited the dining room. Dirgrove stood there alone, his hands clenched. That cheered Jeremy, and he decided he was hungry and went back for a sweet roll.

He decided to sit down to eat. Dirgrove left. A few moments later, Angela appeared, in a group of residents.

Chattering, happy, hyperactive. All of them, looking so young.

She’d talked about feeling worn-out, but now she was the essence of vitality.

All of them were. Kids.

Suddenly, the eight years between Angela and Jeremy seemed a generation. Jocelyn had been Angela’s age, but she’d seemed more… seasoned. Maybe it was the years she’d put in as a nurse. Or the grunt jobs she’d worked to put herself through nursing school.

Angela, anxious and driven despite a happy childhood, her father’s princess, might never get past the guilt of being wellborn.

Jocelyn’s family was trailer-park poor, and she’d been on her own since adolescence. She’d appreciated everything.

A working girl.

No. That sounded so wrong.

Tears filled Jeremy’s eyes. He put his roll and his coffee aside, hurried out, careful to escape Angela’s notice.

The fourth envelope arrived. Finally.

Tuesday morning, stuck in the middle of a stack of ignorables. Jeremy had taken to cruising by the Psychiatry Office or sticking his head out of his door at random moments in hope of coming upon the anonymous mailer.

To no avail. And it really didn’t matter, did it? The medium was the message.

Thin envelope- thinner than usual. Inside was a single slip of paper upon which was typed a single line:

Ethics of the Fathers, Sforno, 5:8e

Obviously some kind of reference. An ancient text? Something Buddhist? Italian?

He got on the computer and had his answer within moments.

Religious but not Buddhist. Ethics of the Fathers was a volume- a “tractate”- from the Jewish Talmud, the only one of sixty-three that didn’t deal primarily with laws.

“The Bartlett’s of Judaism,” one authority called it.

“A compendium of morality,” opined another.

“Sforno” was Ovadiah Sforno, an Italian rabbi and physician who’d lived during the Renaissance and was primarily known for his commentary on the Bible.

He’d also written a lesser-known companion to Ethics of the Fathers.

Where would you find something like that?

Maybe at Renfrew’s, back when the mute man had been alive.

He called two city libraries. Neither carried the book in any edition. Pulling out the phone book, he looked up bookstores in the yellow pages.

He tried several sellers of new books and antiquarian tomes. None of the proprietors had any idea what he was talking about. A couple of stores advertised themselves as “religious booksellers,” but “religious” turned out to be Catholic and Lutheran, respectively.

The owner of the Catholic bookstore said, “You might try Kaplan’s.”

“Where’s that?”

“Fairfield Avenue.”

“Fairfield, east of downtown?”

“That’s it,” said the man. “What used to be the Jewish neighborhood before they all moved out to the suburbs.”

“Kaplan’s still there?”

“Last I heard.”

Fairfield Avenue was a brief, drizzly ride from the hospital, two lanes of sinuous, potholed asphalt crowded with soot-blackened, prewar buildings. Nearly all the storefronts had been bricked over, and the once-commercial avenue was mostly U-rent storage facilities. Faded signs painted on grimy walls hinted at a previous life:

SCHIMMEL’S PICKLES

SHAPIRO’S FISH MARKET

KOSHER BUTCHER

The bookstore was ten feet wide, with flaking gold lettering that read BOOKS, GIFTS AND JUDAICA above what Jeremy assumed was the same legend in Hebrew. The glass was dark- not blackened like Renfrew’s but dimmed by what appeared to be unlit space.

Closed. The last holdout, folding.

But when Jeremy turned the brass doorknob, it relented, and he stepped into a tiny, dim room. No overhead lights; an amber-shaded, copper-based lamp cast a cone of illumination on a battered, oak desk. The room should’ve smelled musty but didn’t.

Behind the desk sat a man, elderly, clean-shaven, wearing a black suede skullcap over a head of bluntly cut gray hair. An old man but a big man, undiminished by time. Wide-shouldered and heavy-boned, he sat with military posture, wore a white shirt and dark tie and braided leather braces. Gold-framed half glasses rested on a thin, slender nose. Behind him was a glass case filled with a mix of objects: silver cups and candelabras, record albums festooned with Stars of David (Uncle Shimmy Sings the Zemiros), children’s games, what appeared to be plastic spinning tops, velvet bags embroidered with more six-pointed stars. Below all that, three shelves of books.

The man was tinkering with a black leather box attached to a series of matching straps and looked up. “Yes?”

“Do you have Rabbi Sforno’s commentary on Ethics of the Fathers?”

The man studied him. “You can get it over the Internet.”

“I’d rather have it, now.”

“Eager to learn?” said the man. “It’s a very good commentary.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“How did you find me?”

“The Catholic bookstore recommended you.”

“Ah, Joe McDowell, he was always loyal.” The man smiled and stood. At least six-three. His torso was huge, and Jeremy wondered how he’d adjusted to the closet-size premises. He extended a hand. “Bernard Kaplan.”

“Jeremy Carrier.”

“Carrier… is that French?”

“Way back,” said Jeremy. Then he blurted, “I’m not Jewish.”

Kaplan smiled. “Few people are… excuse my curiosity, but Sforno’s commentary is a rather esoteric request. For anyone.”

“Someone recommended it to me. A doctor at Central Hospital, where I work.”

“Good hospital,” said Kaplan. “All my children were born there. None became doctors.”

“Did Dr. Chess deliver them?”

“Chess? No, don’t know him. We used Dr. Oppenheimer. Sigmund Oppenheimer. Back then he was one of the few Jewish doctors they allowed in.”

“The hospital was segregated?”

“Not officially,” said Kaplan. “But of course. Everything was. Some places still are.”

“The country clubs.”

“If it was only the country clubs. No, your hospital was not a citadel of tolerance. During the early fifties there was some agitation about expelling the few Jewish doctors on staff. Dr. Oppenheimer was the reason it didn’t happen. The man delivered so many babies that losing him would’ve slashed revenues too severely. He delivered the mayor’s children and just about anyone else’s who wanted the best. Golden hands.”

“It often comes down to dollars and cents,” said Jeremy.

“Often it does. And that’s the point of the Ethics of the Fathers. It shouldn’t. There’s more to life than dollars and cents. It’s a wonderful book. My favorite quotation is, ‘The more meat, the more worms.’ Meaning, he who dies with the most toys, simply has the most toys. Also, ‘Who is happy? He who is satisfied with what he’s got.’ If we could just realize that- and I include myself. Anyway, Dr. Carrier, I just happen to be carrying one copy of the Sforno edition because I ordered it for a man who changed his mind and stuck me with it when he bought it at discount over the Internet.” Kaplan opened the glass case, pulled out a paperback with dusty-rose covers, and handed it over.

Jeremy read the title. “Pirk-eye…”

“Peerk-ey,” said Kaplan. “That means chapters in Hebrew. Pirkei Avos- literally the chapters of the Fathers.”

“Who were the Fathers?”

“Not priests, that’s for sure.” Kaplan chuckled. His eyes were gray-blue, amused, slightly bloodshot. “It doesn’t mean father literally, in Hebrew the term also applies to scholars. In our tradition, when someone teaches you something important, he becomes as valued as a parent. Feel free to inspect the book.”

“No, I’ll take it,” said Jeremy. “How much?”

“Fifteen dollars. For you, twelve.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“You’re doing me a favor, young man. I’m not likely to sell it to anyone else. No one comes here anymore. I’m a relic and should be smart enough to engage in voluntary extinction. But retirement means death, and I like the old neighborhood, this street, the memories of the people I used to know. I own this building and a few others on Fairfield. When I die, my kids will sell everything and make out like bandits.”

That caused Jeremy to think of something. “Did you know Mr. Renfrew- the used bookseller?”

“Shadley Renfrew,” said Kaplan. “Certainly. A fine man- ah, you knew him because his shop was right near the hospital.”

“Yes,” said Jeremy.

“I heard he passed on. Too bad.”

“He beat cancer, then his heart gave out.”

“Throat cancer,” said Kaplan. “That’s why he never spoke. Before the cancer, he used to sing. Had a wonderful voice.”

“Did he?”

“Oh, yes. An Irish tenor. Maybe he was lucky.”

“In what way?”

“Enforced silence,” said Kaplan. “Perhaps it made him wiser. That’s something else you’ll find in there.” He tapped the book. “ ‘Be cautious with your words, lest they learn to lie.’ Here, let me wrap it for you.” He reached into a drawer and drew out something shiny and orange. “And here’s a hard candy to go with it. Elite, from Israel. They’re very good. I used to give it out to the kids when they came in. You’re the youngest person I’ve seen around here in ages, so today you’ll be the lucky kid.”

Jeremy thanked him and paid for the book. As he left the shop, Bernard Kaplan said, “That customer could wait for his ethics. I’m glad you couldn’t.”