The Chosen (10 page)

‘Choose a friend,’ I said..

‘Yes.’ You know what a friend is, Reuven? A Greek philosopher said that two people who are true friends are like two bodies with one soul.’

I nodded.

‘Reuven, if you can, make Danny Saunders your friend.’

‘I like him a lot, abba.’

‘No. Listen to me. I am not talking only about liking him. I am telling you to make him your friend and to let him make you his friend. I think -! He stopped and broke into another cough. He coughed a long time. Then he sat quietly on the bed, his hand on his chest, breathing hard. ‘Make him your friend,’ he said again, and cleared his throat noisily.

‘Even though he’s a Hasid?’ I asked, smiling.

‘Make him your friend.’ my father repeated. ‘We will see.’

‘The way he acts, and talks doesn’t seem to fit what he wears and the way he looks,’ I said. ‘It’s like two different people.’

My father nodded slowly but was silent. He looked over at Billy, who was still asleep.

‘How is your little neighbour?’ he asked me.

‘He’s very nice. There’s a new kind of operation they’ll be doing on’ his eyes. He was in an auto accident, and his mother was killed.’

My father looked at Billy and shook his head. He sighed and stood up, then bent and kissed me on the forehead.

‘I will be back to see you tomorrow. Is there anything you need?’

‘No, abba.’

‘Are you able to use your tefillin?’

‘Yes. I can’t read though. I pray by heart.’

He smiled at me. ‘I did not think of that. My baseball player. I will see you again tomorrow, Reuven.’

‘Yes, abba.’

I watched him walk quickly up the aisle.

‘That your father, kid?’ I heard Mr Savo ask me.

I turned to him and nodded. He was still playing his game of cards.

‘Nice-looking man. Very dignified. What’s he do?’

‘He teaches.’

‘Yeah? Well, that’s real nice, kid. My old man worked a pushcart. Down near Norfolk Street, it was. Worked like a dog. You’re a lucky kid. What’s he teach?’

‘Talmud: I said. ‘Jewish law.’

‘No kidding? He in a Jewish school?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A high school.’

Mr Savo frowned at a card he had just pulled from the deck. ‘Damn.’ he muttered. ‘No luck nowhere. Story of my life.’ He, tucked the card into a row on the blanket. ‘You looked kind of chummy there with your clopper, boy. You making friends with him?’

‘He’s a nice person: I said.

‘Yeah? Well, you watch guys like that kid. You watch them real good, you hear? Anyone clops you, he’s got a thing going. Old Tony knows. You watch them.’

‘It was really an accident.’ I said.

‘Yeah?’

‘I could have ducked the ball.’

Mr Savo looked at me. His face was dark with the growth of beard, and his left eye seemed a little swollen and bloodshot. The black patch that covered his right eye looked like a huge skin mole. ‘Anyone out to clop you doesn’t want you to duck, kid. I know.’

‘It wasn’t really like that, Mr Savo.’

‘Sure, kid. Sure. Old Tony doesn’t like fanatics, that’s all.’

‘I don’t think he’s a fanatic.’

‘No? What’s he go around in those clothes for?’

‘They all wear those clothes. It’s part of their religion.’

‘Sure, kid. But listen. You’re a good kid. So I’m telling you, watch out for those fanatics. They’re the worst cloppers around.’ He looked at a card in his hands, then threw it down. ‘Lousy game. No luck.’ He scooped up the cards, patted them into a deck, and put them on the night table. He lay back on his pillow. ‘Long day.’ he said, talking almost to himself. ‘Like waiting for a big fight.’ He closed his left eye.

I woke during the night and lay still a long time, trying to remember where I was. I saw the dim blue night light at the other end of the ward, and took a deep breath. I heard a movement next to me and turned my head. The curtain had been drawn around Mr Savo’s bed, and I could hear people moving around. I sat up. A nurse came over to me from somewhere. ‘You go right back to sleep, young man: she ordered. ‘Do you hear?’ She seemed angry and tense. I lay back on my bed. In a little while, I was asleep.

When I woke in the morning, the curtain was still drawn around Mr Savo’s bed. I stared at it. It was light brown, and it enclosed the area of the bed completely so that not even the metal legs of the bed could be seen. I remembered Monday afternoon when I had awakened with the curtain around my bed and Mrs Carpenter bending over me, and I wondered what had happened to Mr Savo. I saw Mrs Carpenter coming quickly up the aisle, carrying a metal tray in her hands. There were instruments and bandages on the tray. I sat up and asked her what was wrong with Mr Savo. She looked at me sternly, her round, fleshy face grim. ‘Mr Savo will be all right, young man. Now you just go about your own business and let Mr Savo be.’ She disappeared behind the curtain. I heard a soft moan. At the other end of the ward, the radio had been turned on and the announcer was talking about the war. I didn’t want to turn my radio on for fear of disturbing Mr Savo. I heard another moan, and then I couldn’t stand it anymore. I got out of my bed and went to the bathroom. Then I walked around in the’ hall outside the ward and stared at the people on the street. When I came back, the curtain was still drawn around Mr Savo’s bed, and Billy was awake.

I sat down on my bed and saw him turn his head in my direction.

‘Is that you, Bobby?’ he asked me.

‘Sure,’ I said.

‘Is something wrong with Mr Savo?’ I wondered how he knew about that.

‘I think so,’ I told him. ‘They’ve got the curtain around his bed, and Mrs Carpenter is in there with him.’

‘No,’ Billy said. ‘She just went away. I was calling him, and she told me not to disturb him. Is it something very bad?’

‘I don’t know. I think we ought to talk a little quieter, Billy. So we don’t bother him.’

‘That’s right,’ Billy said, lowering his voice.

‘Also, I think we’ll stop listening to the radio today. We don’t want to wake him if he’s sleeping.’

Billy nodded fervently.

I got my tefillin from the night table and sat on my bed and prayed for a long time. Mostly, I prayed for Mr Savo.

I was eating breakfast when I saw Dr Snydman hurrying up the aisle with Mrs Carpenter. He didn’t even notice me as he passed my bed. He was wearing a dark suit, and he wasn’t smiling. He went behind the curtain around Mr Savo’s bed, and Mrs Carpenter followed. I heard them talking softly, and I heard Mr Savo moan a few times. They were there quite a while. Then they came out and went back up the aisle.

I was really frightened now about Mr Savo. I found I missed him and the way he talked and played cards. After breakfast, I lay in my bed and began to think about my left eye. I remembered tomorrow was Friday and that in the morning Dr Snydman was supposed to examine it. I felt cold with fright. That whole morning and afternoon I lay in the bed and thought about my eye and became more and more frightened.

All that day the curtain remained around Mr Savo’s bed. Every few minutes, a nurse would go behind the curtain, stay there for a while, then come out and walk back up the aisle. In the afternoon, the radio at the other end of the ward was turned off. I tried to fall asleep, but couldn’t. I kept watching nurses go in and out of the curtain around Mr Savo’s bed. By suppertime I was feeling so frightened and miserable that I could hardly eat. I nibbled at the food and sent the tray back almost untouched.

Then I saw Danny come up the aisle and stop at my bed. He was wearing the dark suit, the dark skullcap, the white shirt open at the collar, and the fringes showing below his jacket. My face must have mirrored my happiness at seeing him because he broke into a warm smile and said, ‘You look like I’m the Messiah. I must have made some impression yesterday.’

I grinned at him. ‘It’s just good to see you,’ I told him. ‘How are you?’

‘How are you? You’re the one in the hospital.’

‘I’m fed up being cooped up like this. I want to get out and go home. Say, it’s really good to see you, you sonofagun!’

He laughed. ‘I must be the Messiah. No mere Hasid would get a greeting like that from an apikoros.’

He stood at the foot of the bed, his hands in his trouser pockets, his face relaxed. ‘When do you go home?’ he asked.

I told him. Then I remembered Mr Savo lying in his bed behind the curtain. ‘Listen,’ I said, motioning with my head at the curtain. ‘Let’s talk outside in the hall. I don’t want to disturb him.’

I got out of bed, put on my bathrobe, and we walked together out of the ward. We sat down on a bench in the hallway next to a window. The hallway was long and wide. Nurses, doctors, patients, orderlies, and visitors went in and out of the wards. It was still light outside. Danny put his hands in his pockets and stared out the window. ‘I was born in this hospital,’ he said quietly. ‘The day before yesterday was the first time I’d been in it since I was born.’

‘I was born here, too,’ I said. ‘It never occurred to me.’

‘I thought of it yesterday in the elevator coming up.’

‘I was back here to have my tonsils out, though. Didn’t you ever have your tonsils out?’

‘No. They never bothered me.’ He sat there with his hands in his pockets, staring out the window. ‘Look at that. Look at all those people. They look like ants. Sometimes I get the feeling that’s all we are—ants. Do you ever feel that way?’

His voice was quiet, and there was an edge of sadness to it.

‘Sometimes,’ I said.

‘I told it to my father once.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He didn’t say anything. I told you, he never talks to me except when we study. But a few days later, while we were studying, he said that man was created by God, and Jews had a mission in life.’

‘What mission is that?’

‘To obey God.’

‘Don’t you believe that?’

He looked slowly away from the window. I saw his deep blue eyes stare at me, then blink a few times. ‘Sure I believe it,’ he said quietly. His shoulders were bowed. ‘Sometimes I’m not sure I know what God wants, though.’

‘That’s a funny thing for you to say.’

‘Isn’t it?’ he said. He looked at me but didn’t seem to be seeing me at all. ‘I’ve never said that to anyone before: He seemed to be in a strange, brooding mood. I was beginning to feel uneasy. ‘I read a lot,’ he said. ‘I read about seven or eight books a week outside of my schoolwork. Have you ever read Darwin or Huxley?’

‘I’ve read a little of Darwin,’ I said.

‘I read in the library so my father won’t know. He’s very strict about what I read.’

‘You read books about evolution and things like that?’

‘I read anything good that I can get my hands on. I’m reading Hemingway now. You’ve heard of Hemingway.’

‘Sure.’

‘Have you read any of his works?’

‘I read some of his short stories.’

‘I finished A Farewell to Arms last week. He’s a great writer. It’s about the First World War. There’s this American in the Italian Army. He marries an English nurse. Only he doesn’t really marry her. They live together, and she becomes pregnant, and he deserts. They run away to Switzerland, and she dies in childbirth.’

‘I didn’t read it.’

‘He’s a great writer. But you wonder about a lot of things when you read him. He’s got a passage in the book about ants on a burning log. The hero, this American, is watching the ants, and instead of taking the log out of the fire and saving the ants, he throws water into the fire. The water turns into steam and that roasts some of the ants, the others just burn to death on the log or fall off into the fire. It’s a great passage. It shows how cruel people can be.’

All the time he talked he kept staring out the window. I almost had the feeling he wasn’t talking so much to me as to himself.

‘I just get so tired of studying only Talmud all the time. I know the stuff cold, and it gets a little boring after a while. So I read whatever I can get my hands on. But I only read what the librarian says is worthwhile. I met a man there, and he keeps suggesting hooks for me to read. That librarian is funny. She’s a nice person, but she keeps staring at me all the time. She’s probably wondering what a person like me is doing reading all those books.’

‘Im wondering a little myself,’ I said.

‘I told you. I get bored studying just Talmud. And the English work in school isn’t too exciting. I think the English teachers are afraid of my father. They’re afraid they’ll lose their jobs if they say something too exciting or challenging. I don’t know. But it’s exciting being able to read all those books.’ He began to play with the earlock on the right side of his face. He rubbed it gently with his right hand, twirled it around his forefinger, released it, then twirled it around the finger again. ‘I’ve never told this to anyone before,’ he said. ‘All the time I kept wondering who I would tell it to one day: He was staring down at the floor. Then he looked at me and smiled. It was a sad smile, but it seemed to break the mood he was in. ‘If you’d’ve ducked that ball I would still be wondering,’ he said, and put his hands back into his pockets.

I didn’t say anything. I was still a little overwhelmed by what he had told me. I couldn’t get over the fact that this was Danny Saunders, the son of Reb Saunders, the tzaddik.

‘Can I be honest with you?’ I asked him.

‘Sure,’ he said.

‘I’m all mixed up about you. I’m not trying to be funny or anything. I really am mixed up about you. You look like a Hasid, but you don’t sound like one. You don’t sound like what my father says Hasidim are supposed to sound like. You sound almost as if you don’t believe in God.’

He looked at me but didn’t respond.

‘Are you really going to become a rabbi and take your father’s place?’

‘Yes,’ he said quietly.

‘How can you do that if you don’t believe in God?’

‘I believe in God. I never said I didn’t believe in God.’

‘You don’t sound like a Hasid, though,’ I told him.

‘What do I sound like?’

‘Like a—an apikoros: He smiled but said nothing. It was a sad smile, and his blue eyes seemed sad, too. He looked back out the window, and we sat in silence a long time. It was a warm silence, though, not in the least bit awkward. Finally, he said very quietly, ‘I have to take my father’s place. I have no choice. It’s an inherited position. I’ll work it out—somehow. It won’t be that bad, being a rabbi. Once I’m a rabbi my people won’t care what I read. I’ll be sort of like God to them. They won’t ask any questions: ‘Are you going to like being a rabbi?’