“We’re driving, so we’ve got plenty of time.”

He shrugged as if to say, who can argue with a pregnant woman, but did as he was told.

They went a couple of blocks and she said, “Pull up here.” He realized he was abreast of the office of the local cab company, and at last understood.

“My husband has been having some trouble with his car,” she said when the proprietor came over, “and one of these days he may have to get me to the hospital in a hurry. Are you available all the time?”

“Twenty-four hours a day, Mrs. Small.”

“What happens if all your cabs are busy?” the rabbi asked.

“Don’t worry, Rabbi. We’ve got four cabs, and in the last couple of months the only time I’ve had them all out at one time was that Friday night you had your important holiday. They were shuttling back and forth to your temple until half-past seven or quarter to eight. And then we didn’t have another call until around midnight. Guess everyone drove home with friends.” He seemed somewhat aggrieved.

“Then we can depend on you if my husband can’t get his car started?”

“Nothing to worry about, believe me, Mrs. Small. With business the way it is these days, I could guarantee to get you there if you was to have twins.” He laughed uproariously at his own joke.

When once again the rabbi had difficulty in starting, the taxi man showed professional interest. “Sounds like the carburetor,” he said. “Better attend to it right away.”

Just then the motor caught and the rabbi raced it for the sheer pleasure of hearing the motor roar. “I’ll do that,” he called out as he drove off.

“I’m glad you thought to ask about the cab service. It’s extra insurance.”

“It isn’t because you don’t want to be indebted to Chief Lanigan, is it?”

“Of course not.”

The temple parking lot seemed fuller than usual for a Friday night service.

“Do you think it’s because they’ve heard of your resignation?” asked Miriam. “And they want to show they’re behind you?”

“More likely it’s curiosity. They may want to find out what’s happening with me, and they’ve probably heard conflicting stories about Hirsh’s death.”

“You’re being bitter and cynical, David.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Not at all. Actually, it’s an indication that the temple is fulfilling one of its principal and traditional functions-as a center for the community. In the ghettos of Europe, or for that matter in the voluntary ghettos of America, the moment something happened news traveled with the speed of a telegram from house to house. But here, where there is no real Jewish section, where every Jew has Gentiles on either side, if something happens that is of particular interest to Jews they come to the temple to get the lowdown. I don’t feel hurt. Quite the contrary, I’m pleased.”

But those who thought the rabbi might speak of his rumored resignation and the reasons for it were disappointed; by no word did he suggest that this Friday evening was different from any other. After the service, when he joined the congregation in the vestry for the tea and cake the Sisterhood regularly provided, his ear caught snatches of conversation; for the most part it seemed concerned with the death of Isaac Hirsh. Once he heard someone say, “I’ll bet the rabbi knows what it’s all about. I wouldn’t be surprised if his resignation had something to do with it.”

“But how?”

“Don’t ask me, but happening at the same time the way they both did-”

Yet to those few who came up and asked him what he thought about the Hirsh business, in each case he replied, “I don’t know. I didn’t know the man.”

He was pleased to see that Miriam, who would normally have remained standing at his side, had shown sense enough to take one of the folding chairs against the wall. A small group of women had gathered around her and were being solicitous.

“Above all, my dear, you mustn’t worry. That’s the worst thing you can do. When I was having my third, my Alvin, the doctor said to me, ‘Whatever you do, don’t worry; it tightens the muscles.’ I shouldn’t worry when my Joe was being transferred here from Schenectady, and we didn’t know if we were going to be able to get a house or have to live in a hotel, and what would I do with Marjorie and Elaine, with their school in the meantime. But I made up my mind that the baby comes first, and I told Joe to go ahead and make any arrangements he wanted and I’d live with them.”

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Green. “Mental attitude is important. I know it’s old-fashioned to think that you have to think beautiful thoughts during your pregnancy, but when I was having Pat I had the phonograph going all day long, and didn’t she get to be the first drum majorette of the high school band? The instructor said she had an innate sense of rhythm, whereas Fred who had trumpet lessons for years could never even keep in step, let alone keep time to the music.”

“It didn’t work with me,” said Gladys Moreland flippantly. “My mother went to the museum every Sunday right up to her seventh month, and I can’t draw a straight line.”

“Oh, but you’ve got artistic temperament,” insisted Mrs. Green. “Anyone who sets foot in your living room can see that you’ve got exquisite taste.”

“Well, I am interested in interior decorating.”

Mrs. Wasserman, wife of the first president of the temple, pulled up a chair alongside Miriam. She was a motherly woman of sixty and had been friendly from the day the Smalls first arrived in Barnard’s Crossing.

“You feel tired these days, huh?”-her way of noting that Miriam was sitting down instead of standing by her husband’s side.

“A little,” Miriam admitted.

She patted her hand. “Pretty soon now. Nothing to worry about. And I’ll bet it will be a boy.”

“David and his mother, especially his mother, won’t accept anything else.”

Mrs. Wasserman laughed. “If it’s a girl, they’ll accept. And after two or three days, you couldn’t get them to swap for a boy. He’s nervous, the rabbi?”

“Who can tell?”

“Oh, they all try to be like that, like it’s not important, but you can tell. Before my first one was born, Jacob, he was so cool and calm. But he had the whole steam system checked over, he thought maybe the house was a little chilly. He had a carpenter come in and make a chute from the baby’s room to the laundry in the basement. In those days we didn’t have a diaper service. He hired a man to shovel the snow off the steps and the walk for the whole season. He took out extra insurance, God forbid anything should happen to him there would be plenty for me and the baby. I’ll bet your husband is the same way.”

Miriam smiled faintly. “You don’t know my David.”

“Well, he’s so busy-”

“It was all I could do to make him stop at the taxicab office to arrange for transportation in case our car wouldn’t start. But for the rest”-she smiled-“he thinks it’s enough to examine his conscience and make sure he isn’t doing anything he thinks wrong.”

“Maybe that’s the best way,” suggested Mrs. Wasserman gently.

“Maybe. Though sometimes-”

“You’d like him to be a little more-excited?”

Miriam nodded.

“It doesn’t mean anything, my dear. Some men, they keep their tenderness all inside. My father, may he rest in peace, he was like that. When I was born-my mother used to tell about it, it was like a family joke-she felt the pains coming so she sent a neighbor’s boy for my father who was in the House of Study. It was in the old country, you understand. He was in the middle of a discussion, and maybe being a young man he was a little embarrassed before the older men, so he told the boy to go back and tell her to cover herself up good and that it would probably pass. But a minute later, he excused himself and ran so fast that he reached home the same time as the neighbor’s boy.”

Miriam laughed. “My David wouldn’t be embarrassed, but if he were really involved in a discussion he might forget to come…”