The Outsider by Howard Fast Page A

Joe, what do you mean, stupid kids? If some idiot killed your child, would you dismiss it because it was the act of an idiot? And do you think Nazism was the product of the brains and culture of Germany? I can tell you it was the product of all the stupid, demented rot that existed in Germany. And a church was defaced, not merely a synagogue, so if there was ever a time to bring Jew and Christian on the Ridge together on a very serious matter, this is it. I would bring Martin Carter into this right away. That’s only a suggestion. I’m not a member of the board.”
    â€œTo me, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” Osner said. “This is our affair, not Martin Carter’s.”
    Denton and Klein and Eddie Frome said they agreed with Buckingham, and together with David, they made a firm majority.
    â€œI’ll just talk to Martin,” David said. “We’ll see what he suggests.”
    â€œI’m disagreeing with Jack Osner too much,” he told Lucy that night as they settled down in bed. “I think he’s beginning to hate my guts.”
    â€œYou have more politics here than in Washington.”
    â€œIn a manner of speaking — yes, we do.”
    â€œDid you think it would be that way?”
    â€œNo — no, I never dreamed that it would. I guess the war spoiled me for common sense. The kids were always so glad to see a rabbi — oh, the devil with it, Lucy. If they fire me, they fire me.”
    â€œAnd what about Mike Benton?”
    â€œHe’s frightened. He could live with war, but jail scares him. He’s been subpoenaed by the Un-American Committee, and they’ll ask him to name names, same as with the others. It’s only three years since Adolf Hitler died in his bunker in Berlin, and we’re trying every trick of his on the home ground.”
    â€œCome on, it’s not as bad as all that.”
    â€œIt’s as bad.”
    News travels in a small place like Leighton Ridge, and the next morning Martin Carter turned up at the old parsonage. Lucy was feeding Aaron, and David was having his second cup of coffee. “I sometimes do the breakfasts,” he explained. “She feeds my son and heir, although being a rabbi’s heir is not much to boast about. Let me cook up some eggs for you.”
    Carter declined and accepted a cup of coffee. “I heard about the swastikas,” he said.
    David waited.
    â€œNothing like this ever happened before,” Carter said. “I’ve been here a long time. Nothing like this ever happened before. Sure, we have our Jew-haters, but show me a small town in America that doesn’t have them. Ours have always been pretty mild.”
    â€œI think it’s kids,” David said, “but we can’t drop it and let it pass just because they’re kids.”
    â€œOh, no. It’s a very particular desecration. Selling the old church to your people was, I felt, a significant act of brotherhood, very necessary after the Holocaust — but the building remains an old church, a sort of monument to our beginnings here in America. We can’t allow this to pass quietly, David, and simply paint over the swastikas and pretend it never happened.”
    â€œWhat do you suggest?”
    â€œI think we ought to have a joint service, perhaps in midweek. We won’t use any church. I can get the Board of Selectmen to let us have the meeting hall, and we’ll make it an open affair. I think each of us ought to say a few words there.”
    â€œVery few for me,” David said. “I think you carry the burden.”
    As with so many small Connecticut towns, the legislative part of the government was the town meeting. Basic changes in the town’s criminal and civil code were brought to the town meeting, as well as zoning questions and restrictive covenants. Attendance was never compulsory, but neither was this night’s kind of attendance very common, the