The Chosen (18 page)

This went on and on, until I lost track of the thread that held it all together and sat and listened in amazement to the feat of memory I was witnessing. Both Danny and his father spoke quietly, his father nodding his approval each time. Danny responded. Danny’s brother sat staring at them with his mouth open, finally lost interest, and began to eat some of the food that was still on his plate. Once he started picking his nose, but stopped immediately. The men around the tables were _ watching as if in ecstasy, their faces glowing with pride. This was almost like the pilpul my father had told me about, except that it wasn’t really pilpul, they weren’t twisting the texts out of shape; they seemed more interested in b’kiut, in straightforward knowledge and simple explanations of the Talmudic passages and—commentaries they were discussing. It went on like that for a long time. Then Reb Saunders sat back and was silent.

The contest, or quiz had apparently ended, and Reb Saunders was smiling at his son. He said, very quietly, ‘Good. Very good. There is no contradiction. But tell me, you have nothing more to say about what I said earlier?’

Danny was suddenly sitting very straight.

‘Nothing more?’ Reb Saunders asked again. ‘You have nothing more to say?’

Danny shook his head, hesitantly.

‘Absolutely nothing more to say?’ Reb Saunders insisted, his voice flat, cold, distant. He was no longer smiling.

I saw Danny’s body go rigid again, as it had done before his father began to speak, The ease and certainty he had won during the Talmud quiz had disappeared.

‘So Reb Saunders said. ‘There is nothing more. Nu, what should l say?’

‘I did not hear -‘

‘You did not hear, you did not hear. You heard the first mistake, and you stopped listening. Of course you did not hear. How could you hear when you were not listening?’ He said it quietly and without anger.

Danny’s face was rigid. The crowd sat silent. I looked at Danny.

For a long moment he sat very still—and then I saw his lips part, move, curve slowly upward, and freeze into a grin. I felt the skin on the back of my neck begin to crawl, and I almost cried out. I stared at him, then looked quickly away.

Reb Saunders sat looking at his son. Then he turned his eyes upon me. I felt his eyes looking at me. There was a long, dark silence, during which Danny sat very still, staring fixedly at his plate and grinning. Reb Saunders began to play with the earlock along the right side of his face. He caressed it with the fingers of his right hand, wound it around the index finger, released it, then caressed it again, all the time looking at me. Finally, he sighed loudly, shook his head, and put his hands on the table.

‘Nu,’ he said, ‘it is possible I am not right. After all, my son is not a mathematician. He has a good head on him, but it is not a head for mathematics. But we have a mathematician with us. The son of David Malter is with us. ‘He is a mathematician: He was looking straight at me, and I felt my heart pound and the blood drain from my face. ‘Reuven,’ Reb Saunders was saying, looking straight at me, ‘you have nothing to say?’

I found I couldn’t open my mouth. Say about what? I hadn’t the faintest idea what he and Danny had been talking about. ‘You heard my little talk?’ Reb Saunders asked me quietly. I felt my head nod.

‘And you have nothing to say?’

I felt his eyes on me and found myself staring down at the table. The eyes were like flames on my face.

‘Reuven, you liked the gematriya?’ Reb Saunders asked softly.

I looked up and nodded. Danny hadn’t moved at all. He just sat there, grinning. His little brother was playing with the tomato again. And the men at the tables were silent, staring at me now.

‘I am very happy,’ Reb Saunders said gently. ‘You liked the gematriya. Which gematriya did you like?’

I heard myself say, lamely and hoarsely. ‘They were all very good’

Reb Saunders’ eyebrows went up ‘All?’ he said. ‘A very nice thing. They were all very good. Reuven, were they all very good?’

I felt Danny stir and saw him turn his head, the grin gone now from his lips. He glanced at me quickly, then looked down again at his paper plate.

I looked at Reb Saunders. ‘No,’ I heard myself say hoarsely. ‘They were not all good.’

There was a stir from the men at the tables. Reb Saunders sat back in his leather chair.

‘Nu, Reuven,’ he said quietly, ‘tell me, which one was not good?’

‘One of the gematriyot was wrong,’ I said. I thought the world would fall in on me after I said that. I was a fifteen-year-old boy, and there I was, telling Reb Saunders he had been wrong! But nothing happened. There was another stir from the crowd, but nothing happened. Instead, Reb Saunders broke into a warm broad smile.

‘And which one was it?’ he asked me quietly.

‘The gematriya for “prozdor” is five hundred and three, not five hundred and thirteen,’ I answered.

‘Good. Very good.’ Reb Saunders said, smiling and nodding his head, the black beard going back and forth against his chest, the earlocks swaying. ‘Very good, Reuven. The gematriya for “prozdor” comes out five hundred three. Very good.’ He looked at me, smiling broadly, his teeth showing white through the beard, and I almost thought I saw his eyes mist over. There was a loud murmur from the crowd, and Danny’s body sagged as the tension went out of him. He glanced at me, his face a mixture of surprise and relief, and I realized with astonishment that I, too, had just passed some kind of test.

‘Nu,’ Reb Saunders said loudly to the men around the tables, ‘say Kaddish!’

An old man stood up and recited the Scholar’s Kaddish. Then the congregants broke to go back to the front section of the synagogue for the Evening Service.

Danny and I said nothing to each other throughout the service, and though I prayed the words, I did not know what I was saying. I kept going over what had happened at the table. I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t get it through my head that Danny had to go through something like that every week, and that I myself had gone through it tonight.

The followers of Reb Saunders obviously had been pleased with my performance, because I could see they were no longer staring questions at me but were glancing at me admiringly. One of them, an old man with a white beard who was sitting in my row, even nodded at me and smiled, the comers of his eyes crinkling. I had clearly passed the test. What a ridiculous way to gain admiration and friendship!

The Evening Service was over quickly, and afterward one of the younger men chanted the Havdalah, the brief service that marks the end of the Shabbat. Danny’s brother held the braided candle, his hand trembling a little as the molten wax spilled onto his fingers. Then the congregants wished one another and Reb Saunders a good week and began to leave the synagogue. It was late, and I thought my father would probably be worried about me by now, but I stood there and waited until the last congregant was gone and the synagogue was empty—except for me, Danny, Reb Saunders, and the little boy. The synagogue seemed to me suddenly very small without its throng of black-hatted, black-bearded, black-caftaned men.

Reb Saunders was stroking his beard and looking at Danny and me. He leaned an elbow upon the large podium, and then the hand that was stroking the beard began to play with an earlock. I heard him sigh and saw him shake his head slowly, his dark eyes moist and brooding.

‘Reuven, you have a good head on you,’ he said quietly in Yiddish. ‘I am happy my Daniel has chosen you for a friend. My son has many friends. But he does not talk about them the way he talks about you.’

I listened and said nothing. His voice was gentle, almost a caress. He seemed so altogether different now from the way he had been at the table. I glanced at Danny. He was looking at his father, and the rigid lines were gone from his face.

Reb Saunders clasped his hands behind his back.

‘I know of your father,’ he said to me quietly. ‘I am not surprised you have such a head. Your father is a great scholar. But what he writes, ah, what he writes!’ He shook his head. ‘I worry myself about my son’s friends, especially if such a friend is the son of David Malter. Ah, what your father writes! Criticism. Scientific criticism. Ah! So when he tells me you are now his friend, I worry myself. The son of David Malter should be my Daniel’s friend? But your father is an observer of the Commandments, and you have his head, and so I am happy you are friends. It is good my Daniel has a friend. I have many responsibilities, I am not always able to talk to him.’ I saw Danny stare down at the floor, his face hardening. ‘It is good he has acquired a friend. Just so his friend does not teach him scientific criticism.’ Reb Saunders looked at me, his eyes dark and brooding. ‘You think a friend is an easy thing to be? If you are truly his friend, you will discover otherwise. We will see. Nu, it is late and your father is certainly worried that you are away so long. Have a good week, Reuven. And come pray with us again. There will be no more mistakes in gematriya.’

He was smiling broadly and warmly now, his eyes wrinkling at the comers, the hard lines of his face almost gone. And then he offered me his hand, his entire hand this time, not only the fingers, and I took it, and he held my hand a long time. I almost had the feeling he wanted to embrace me. Then our hands separated, and he went slowly up the aisle, his hands clasped behind his back, tall, a little stooped and, I thought, a little majestic. His young son trailed behind him, holding on to the caftan.

Danny and I remained alone in the synagogue. It occurred to me suddenly that not a single word had passed between him and his father all evening, except for the Talmud contest.

‘I’ll walk you part of the way home,’ Danny offered, and we went out of the brownstone and down the stone stairway to the street. I could hear the caps of his shoes clearly against the stone of the stairway, and then against the cement pavement of the sidewalk.

It was night now, and cool, and a breeze blew against the sycamores and moved softly through the leaves. We walked in silence until Lee Avenue, then turned left. I was walking quickly, and Danny kept pace with my steps.

Walking along Lee Avenue, Danny said quietly, ‘I know what you’re thinking. You think he’s a tyrant.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know what to think. One minute he’s a tyrant, the next minute he’s kind and gentle. I don’t know what to think.’

‘He’s got a lot on his mind,’ Danny said. ‘He’s a pretty complicated person.’

‘Do you always go through that routine at the table?’

‘Oh, sure. I don’t mind it. I even enjoy it a little.’

‘I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.’

‘It’s a family tradition,’ Danny explained. ‘My father’s father used to do it with him. It goes all the way back.’

‘It would scare me sick.’

‘It’s not that bad. The bad part is waiting until he makes the mistake. After that it’s all right. But the mistakes aren’t really very hard to find. He makes ones that he knows I can find. It’s a kind of game almost.’

‘Some game!’

‘The second mistake tonight caught me off guard. But he made that one for you, really. That was very good, the way you caught it. He knew I wouldn’t catch it. He just wanted to catch me, so he could tell me I wasn’t listening. He was right. I wasn’t listening. But I wouldn’t have caught it even if I had listened. I’m no good in math. I’ve got a photographic memory for everything except math. You can’t memorize math. You have to have a certain kind of head for it.’

‘I hate to tell you what I think about that game,’ I said, a little heatedly. ‘What happens if you miss the mistake?’

‘I haven’t missed in years.’

‘What happens when you do miss?’

He was silent a moment. ‘It’s uncomfortable for a while,’ he said quietly. ‘But he makes a joke or something, and we go into a Talmud discussion.’

‘What a game!‘I said. ‘In front of all those people!’

‘They love it,’ Danny said. ‘They’re very proud to see us like that. They love to hear the Talmud discussed like that. Did you see their faces?’

‘I saw them,’ I said. ‘How could I not see them? Does your father always use gematriya when he talks?’

‘Not always. Very rarely, as a matter of fact. The people love it and always hope for it. But he does it rarely. I think he did it tonight only because you were there.’

‘He’s good at it, I’ll say that much.’

‘He wasn’t too good tonight. Some of it was a little forced. He was fantastic a few months ago. He did it with Talmudic laws then. He was really great.’

‘I thought it wasn’t bad tonight: ‘Well, it wasn’t too good. He hasn’t been feeling too well. He’s worried about my brother.’

‘What’s wrong with your brother?’

‘I don’t know. They don’t talk about it. Something about his blood. He’s been sick for a few years now.’ ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Danny.’

‘He’ll be all right. There’s a pretty big doctor taking care of him now. He’ll be all right.’ His voice had the same strange quality it had had when he had talked about his brother on our way over to the synagogue earlier in the day—hope, wistfulness, almost an eagerness for something to take place. I thought Danny must love his little brother very much, though I didn’t remember his saying a word to him all the time they had been together. ‘Anyway,’ Danny said, ‘these contests, as you call them, are going to end as soon as I start studying with Rav Gershenson: ‘Who?’

‘Rav Gershenson. He’s a great scholar. He’s at Hirsch College. He teaches Talmud there. My father says that when I’m old enough to study with Rav Gershenson, I’ll be old enough; for him not to worry whether I can catch him at mistakes or not. Then we’ll just have the Talmud discussions. I’ll like that.’

I was restraining my delight with considerable difficulty. The Samson Raphael Hirsch Seminary and College was the only yeshiva in the United States that offered a secular college education. It was located on Bedford Avenue, a few blocks from Eastern Parkway. My father had told me once that it had been built in the early twenties by a group of Orthodox Jews who wanted their sons to have both a Jewish and a secular education. Its college faculty was supposed to be excellent, and its rabbinic faculty consisted of some of the greatest Talmudists in the United States. A rabbinic ordination from its Talmud faculty was looked upon as the highest of Orthodox Jewish honors. It had been a foregone conclusion on my father’s part and on mine that I would go on to there after high school for my bachelor’s degree. When I told Danny that, his face burst into a smile.