Wednesday the Rabbi got wet

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Once again, as he had half a dozen times during the weekend, Daniel Cohen covered his head with the prayer shawl. It was Sunday morning and the last scheduled meditation of the retreat program. But the hope that he had had at the beginning that perhaps, just perhaps, there was something in it was gone, and he now felt only a kind of embarrassment that he, a doctor, a man of science, should have come here in the woods to commune with The Almighty in order to— to what? To ask for a special suspension of the universal law of cause and effect for his personal advantage?

True, when he went to the synagogue on the High Holy Days, or even to an occasional Friday evening service, it was ostensibly for the same purpose. But that was different. In actuality, it was more of an affirmation of his connection with the group in which he had been bom. One did not so much pray as recite set prayers more or less by rote. It was a social obligation, one of the things that Jews expected of each other.

This was different, he had really tried. During the traditional prayer services, while his lips moved in

recitation of the Hebrew prayers, his mind asked earnestly in English for help. During the meditations, he had remained standing until time was called, not once sitting down to rest or even leaning against the windowsill, and in the discussions, he had actively participated.

"Why can't we sit down and relax for the meditation. Rabbi?"

"Because you might fall asleep, for one thing. In Transcendental Meditation, which was popularized by the Maharishi, they do sit in a comfortable position—"

"And does it work?"

"Oh, sure, as a means of beneficial relaxation, there's a doctor from the Harvard Medical School, I believe, who's even done some scientific experimentation with it, controls and all that sort of thing, and found that it actually reduces high blood pressure. You may have heard of it, Doctor. But that's just a technique for relaxing; it's not religion. Remember, we're after a religious experience, and for that you need a state of tension, balanced tension, the Buddhists use the lotus position; in Zen they kneel. But I'm convinced that the Jewish tradition calls for standing."

"How about this business of saying a word or a phrase over and over again?"

"The mantra?" Rabbi Mezzik nodded his handsome head. "Some find that it helps their concentration, there's some evidence that our ancestors made use of it, at the end of the Yom Kippur service we recite Adonai Hoo Elohim— the Lord, he is God— seven times, that suggests to me that the phrase may have been used as a mantra and not just the seven times ordered in the prayerbook."

"But what's supposed to be the effect of the meditation?"

"It's hard to say, because it differs for each individual. You may feel that everything is connected to everything else, what I call the Universal Relationship. Or you may sense the basic unity of the universe. Or you may experience a great serenity."

Dan Cohen experienced none of these. What he had experienced, he told himself grimly, was tasteless food, a hard lumpy mattress on a narrow cot with a too-thin blanket against the night chill and the constant dull companionship of Matthew Cham. Of Kaplan, he had seen very little outside the group sessions, for he had been largely preoccupied with a special circle, all of them members of the board of directors of the temple, who had kept apart from the rest, and this morning, when he came down for the first service, they were gone.

"Chet and some of the others had to return early this morning," Rabbi Mezzik explained. "There's an important board meeting they've got to attend. However, we still have a minyan, so it's all right."

No one seemed to mind, but for Dan Cohen it was one more annoyance to be added to those he had suffered during the weekend, as he stood there with the prayer shawl over his head, he asked himself just why he had come. Of course, he had wanted to get away from Barnard's Crossing and from his practice. But why here, and why did he need to get away at all?

The death of a patient, while always traumatic, was to be expected in medical practice. Nor was he overly concerned about a possible malpractice suit; he was sure his treatment had been correct and certainly defensible.

The reaction of his colleagues, especially the two older men, had been unexpected and disturbing, but surely tha way to deal with that situation was to stay and fight it out rather than to run away. Conceivably, it might get to the point where they might ask him to leave the clinic, that would be disturbing, he admitted. It would not happen immediately because he had a contract, and if he were to hold them to its terms, it would be a year or more before they could force him out. By that time, he might be able to build up a clientele and open his own office in Barnard's Crossing, and he didn't have to come all the way up here and stand with a prayer shawl over his head to arrive at that conclusion.

So why then was he here? Once again, he remembered his embarrassment during the telephone conversation with Kestler, all the more acute because it was overheard by Lanigan, he wondered uneasily if the police chief knew about the lawsuit over the fence, were the police notified of such things? It suddenly came to him that what really bothered him was the repetition of his failures, he had failed in Delmont, and again in Morrisborough. Was the same thing going to happen in Barnard's Crossing? Was he failure-prone, as some people are accident-prone? Taking the experience in the three towns together, did it mean that he was unsuited to the practice of medicine?

Was he losing faith in himself as a doctor? An uneasy thought occurred to him which he tried to put out of his mind: was it possible that the first time he had prescribed Limpidine for Jacob Kestler, there had been an allergic reaction? He had not consulted his case records before going to see him the night of the storm, relying on his memory, he was sure there had not been but it had been months before and he might have forgotten, and now, standing there alone, he admitted that when he first heard of Kestler's death, the idea had crossed his mind, he had not bothered to verify it, because he was so sure. Or was it because he was afraid?

Although the retreat program called for Sunday dinner and a meeting afterward, he decided not to wait but to leave immediately after the meditation, he must check his records; he would hesitate no longer.

To his roommate, he lied that he had a patient whom he had promised to visit before noon, and he used the same excuse in saying good-bye to Rabbi Mezzik.

"And how did you enjoy your experience?" Mezzik asked. "All right. I guess. I think the rest did me some good." "And the religious experience, did you profit from it?"

He was on the point of making polite acknowledgment, but he still felt aggrieved. "I'm afraid not, Rabbi. It didn't touch me at all. To be perfectly frank with you, I thought it was a lot of nothing."

Surprisingly, Mezzik was not offended, he even smiled. "That's the way it frequently strikes people at first."

"What do you mean, at first?"

Mezzik looked off into the distance, then he eyed the doctor speculatively and said, "When you treat a patient, Doctor, when you give him medicine, is he healed immediately?"

"Sometimes he is. Most of the time not immediately."

"Well, that's the way it is with a religious exercise. Sometimes there is a great and sudden cognition, a revelation, a sudden awareness as though someone had snapped on the light in a dark room, and sometimes it takes a little time, and of course sometimes, as with your medicines, nothing happens. Now you prayed and meditated. I watched you and I think— I have some experience in these matters— that you prayed honestly and sincerely. Believe me, something will come of it.

Maybe tomorrow, or next week, or even next year, but something will happen, I'm sure."

As he drove home Dan Cohen thought of what Mezzik had said, and his face relaxed in a wry grin. It was the old hokum, the fakers who operated medicine shows probably used the same spiel. It gave them time to get out of the county before the wrath of their dupes caught up with them.

Home at last, he had no sooner parked his car when his wife called to him. "Dan? Telephone. It's Chief Lanigan."