Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry

ravished, a woman should commit suicide.

“These attitudes still prevail today. Look at the enormous pride the modern State of Israel, an Orthodox theocracy if you please, takes in the reconstructed fortress of Masada, where, according to Josephus, some nine hundred Jewish defenders were besieged and with-stood the might of the Roman armies for several years and then committed suicide en masse rather than be captured and enslaved.”

“But if you condone suicide when a man is not in his right mind or when driven to it, what’s left?” Lanigan asked. “It seems to me that that would include just about every suicide.”

“Well, it certainly gives us a lot of leeway,” the rabbi admitted. “But I don’t think you’d find many rabbis who would approve of the Japanese practice of hara-kiri, where it is considered proper to take one’s life because of some fancied dishonor to one’s house or loss of face. Nor would we condone the old Indian practice of suttee where a wife, to show her loyalty, throws herself on her husband’s funeral pyre.”

“How about those Buddhist monks who set fire to themselves in Viet Nam? We’ve even had a couple such cases here.”

The rabbi nodded thoughtfully. “That would pose quite a problem. My guess is that most modern rabbis would dodge the issue by considering it a form of insanity; on the other hand, a stickler for the rules might treat it as a bona fide suicide on the grounds that it presumed a sound mind and was being done knowingly, out of philosophical conviction.”

“Still, there are plenty of loopholes-enough certainly to include Hirsh.”

“Then you do think it was suicide: Why did you call it accidental death?”

“To answer your second question first, Rabbi, because we couldn’t prove it either way. So naturally we called it accidental death, which is kinder to his widow. Remember, suicide is a crime and we can’t go labeling a man a criminal with no definite or positive proof.”

“And my first question?”

“What was that?”

“I asked whether you thought it was suicide, setting proof aside.”

“No, Rabbi, I don’t. You tell someone that a man was found dead of carbon monoxide in his garage and the first thing that comes to mind is suicide. But actually, there are plenty of accidental deaths from carbon monoxide. It’s pretty tricky stuff. A few years back, a couple of kids parked their car, a leaky old rattrap of a jalopy, right up here near Highland Park. They were just planning on a little fancy necking, but it was midwinter and cold so they kept the motor running to stay warm. The stuff seeped through the car and we found them both dead. It happens all the time. A man goes into the garage to tinker with his car. It’s cold, so he keeps the garage closed and passes out. If he’s not found in time, he’s dead.

“Another thing. You wouldn’t think so in a town of this size, but in my time I have seen quite a few suicides. Most of them, curiously enough, are apt to be young people. But there have been grown-ups too. The grown-ups almost always leave a note of some kind. The kids don’t for some reason. Maybe they’re just trying to make their folks feel sorry. You know that poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, Rabbi? ‘Richard Cory’? About this young fellow who had everything and then for some reason put a bullet through his brain? A bachelor might do that, but somebody who has a family, they usually leave a note.”

“Is that your only reason? That Hirsh left no note?”

“There’s another reason, although it wouldn’t be much good in a court of law. This is a heavy drinking town. We’ve got a lot of pretty rich people with idle time on their hands, and they drink. Then we’ve got a lot of high- strung executive types who are busy raising ulcers-and they tend to drink more than is good for them. And finally, we have a bunch of fishermen, and they know what to do with a bottle. Well, I’ve never known a heavy drinker, what is apt to be called an alcoholic these days, I’ve never known one of them to commit suicide. I once asked a psychiatrist who was down here for the summer why that was. And do you know what he said? He said they don’t commit suicide because they’re already doing it. According to him, these alcoholics are really suicides who are doing it the long way. Does that make sense to you, Rabbi?”

“Why, yes, I can understand that. But how about legal proof? Anything?”

“Well, except for the absence of the note and the fact Hirsh was drunk, there’s nothing definite. It’s the drinking that tips the scales with me. A man taking his life usually does so with a clear head. My experience is that in that last final step he’s not thinking about chickening out, because he has thought it through and made up his mind that this is the logical-the only-thing to do.

“Now you look at the facts leading up to his drunk, and they certainly don’t seem the pattern of a man determined to commit suicide. In fact, it seems all a grotesque accident.

“When Mrs. Hirsh called in that her husband was missing, we notified the State Police as well as various police departments hereabouts to be on the lookout. A State Police cruising car remembered seeing a car matching the description parked on Route 128 at one of the turnouts not far from the Goddard Lab. So they drove over, and the car was gone. But they found a ball of rumpled paper and cardboard-the wrapper from a vodka bottle. It had a gift card enclosed and was addressed to a party who lives right across the street from Hirsh. A little routine police work showed that the bottle had been delivered after the Levensons-that was the party-had gone off to the temple. The driver asked Hirsh if he would sign for it and give it to the Levensons, and Hirsh agreed.”

“I see.”

“Now, he wouldn’t have taken the wrapper off just to look at the bottle. He must have taken an experimental drink or two. In fact, why else would he have pulled up at the turnoff? He must have started for the lab, and stopped at the turnoff for a drink, then decided to go home and do a good job of it. As a matter of fact, it might explain his drinking in the first place. He wouldn’t go out and buy a bottle-he was trying to keep off the stuff. But receiving a bottle out of the blue, you might say-getting it on the eve of the Holy Day, too-well, I can see where he might regard it as almost foreordained.”

“I doubt if even a devout believer, and I don’t suppose Hirsh was, would think of a bottle of vodka as having been sent by the Almighty,” said the rabbi with a smile. “But, in any case, in your view, the weight of the evidence is on the side of accidental death.”

“Well, that’s the way it seemed to us. But keep in mind we naturally preferred that finding to suicide. Of course the insurance company is likely to look at the picture a little differently.”

“Oh? Have they made inquiries?”

“No, not yet,” Lanigan said, “but they will, they will.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Pat Hirsh, accompanied by Liz Marcus, arrived home in the undertaker’s limousine to find Dr. Sykes parked in the driveway. His small foreign roadster had made the trip from the cemetery much faster than the big limousine.

“Come in, Liz,” said Pat. “I’ll make some tea.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think I’d better. Joe is taking care of the kids, and he’ll be wanting to get back to the office.” Liz kissed her impulsively-she had been more emotional than Pat during the entire proceedings-and left, saying she’d try to get over that evening after putting the kids to bed.

Dr. Sykes held open the door for Mrs. Hirsh. “You didn’t need to go to the expense of renting the limousine, Mrs. Hirsh. I could have driven you out and back.”

“I know, but somehow it didn’t seem right to go to the funeral in a sports car. Can I fix you something to drink?”

“No thanks, I’ve got to be getting back to the lab. I just stopped for a minute to see that everything was all right.”

“Oh.” She took off her coat. “It was a nice funeral, wasn’t it?”

“I guess so. I couldn’t tell much since it was all in Hebrew. I guess it was Hebrew-or Yiddish. No, Hebrew. Yiddish is a kind of German, and with all the scientific reading I do I would have caught a word here and there.”

She fished in her purse. “The rabbi gave me this little booklet. It has the prayers with the English translation on the opposite page. So I could follow the service, you know. But I was kind of upset and just put it in my