“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, and 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 books 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.”
“I’m 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?”
“No,” he said.
“How can you spend your life doing what you don’t like?”
“I have no choice,” he said again. “It’s like a dynasty. If the son doesn’t take the father’s place, the dynasty falls apart. The people expect me to become their rabbi. My family has been their rabbi for six generations now. I can’t just walk out on them. I’m—I’m a little trapped. I’ll work it out, though—somehow.” But he didn’t sound as if he thought he would be able to work it out. He sounded very sad.
We sat quietly a while longer, looking out the window at the people below. There were only a few minutes of sunlight left, and I found myself wondering why my father hadn’t yet come to see me. Danny turned away from the window and began to play with his earlock again, caressing it and twirling it around his index finger. Then he shook his head and put his hands in his pockets. He sat back on the bench and looked at me. “It’s funny,” he said. “It’s really funny. I have to be a rabbi and don’t want to be one. You don’t have to be a rabbi and do want to be one. It’s a crazy world.”
I didn’t say anything. I had a sudden vivid picture of Mr. Savo sitting in his bed, saying, “Crazy world. Cockeyed.” I wondered how he was feeling and if the curtain was still around his bed.
“What kind of mathematics are you interested in?” Danny asked.
“I’m really interested in logic. Mathematical logic.”
He looked puzzled.
“Some people call it symbolic logic,” I said.
“I never even heard of it,” he confessed.
“It’s really very new. A lot of it began with Russell and Whitehead and a book they wrote called Principia Mathematical.” “Bertrand Russell?”
“That’s right.”
“I didn’t know he was a mathematician.”
“Oh, sure. He’s a great mathematician. And a logician, too.”
“I’m very bad at mathematics. What’s it all about? Mathematical logic, I mean.”
“Well, they try to deduce all of mathematics from simple logical principles and show that mathematics is really based on logic. It’s pretty complicated stuff. But I enjoy it.”
“You have a course in that in your high school?”
“No. You’re not the only person who reads a lot.”
For a moment he looked at me in astonishment. Then he laughed.
“I don’t read seven or eight books a week, though, like you,” I said. “Only about three or four.”
He laughed again. Then he got to his feet and stood facing me. His eyes were bright and alive with excitement.
“I never even heard of symbolic logic,” he said. “It sounds fascinating. And you want to be a rabbi? How do they do it? I mean, how can you deduce arithmetic from logic? I don’t see—” He stopped and looked at me. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“There’s my father,” I said, and got quickly to my feet.
My father had come out of the elevator at the other end of the hall and was walking toward the eye ward. I thought I would have to call out to attract his attention, but a few steps short of the entrance to the ward he saw us. If he felt any surprise at seeing me with Danny I didn’t notice it. His face did not change expression. But as he came over to us, I saw Danny’s face change radically. It went from curiosity to bewildered astonishment. He looked for a moment as thou
gh he wanted to run away. I could see he was nervous and agitated, but I didn’t have time to think about it, because my father was standing there, looking at the two of us. He was wearing his dark gray, double-breasted suit and his gray hat. He was a good deal shorter than Danny and a little shorter than I, and his face still looked pale and worn. He seemed out of breath, and he was carrying a handkerchief in his right hand.
“I am late,” he said. “I was afraid they would not let me in.” His voice was hoarse and raspy. “There was a faculty meeting. How are you, Reuven?”
“I’m fine, abba.”
“Should you be out here in the hall now?”
“It’s all right, abba. The man next to me became sick suddenly, and we didn’t want to disturb him. Abba, I want you to meet Danny Saunders.”
I could see a faint smile begin to play around the corners of my father’s lips. He nodded at Danny.
“This is my father, Danny.”
Danny didn’t say anything. He just stood there, staring at my father. I saw my father watching him from behind his steel-rimmed spectacles, the smile still playing around the corners of his lips.
“I didn’t—” Danny began, then stopped.
There was a long moment of silence, during which Danny and my father stood looking at each other and I stared at the two of them and nothing was said.
It was my father who finally broke the silence. He did it gently and with quiet warmth. He said, “I see you play ball as well as you read books, Danny. I hope you are not as violent with a book as you are with a baseball.”
Now it was my turn to be astonished. “You know Danny?”
“In a way,” my father said, smiling broadly.
“I—I had no idea,” Danny stammered.
“And how could you have?” My father asked. “I never told you my name.”
“You knew me all the time?”
“Only after the second week. I asked the librarian. You applied for membership once, but did not take out a card.”
“I was afraid to.”
“I understood as much,” my father said.
I suddenly realized it was my father who all along had been suggesting books for Danny to read. My father was the man Danny had been meeting in the library!
“But you never told me!” I said loudly.
My father looked at me. “What did I never tell you?”
“You never told me you met Danny in the library! You never told me you were giving him books to read!”
My father looked from me to Danny, then back to me. “Ah,” he said, smiling. “I see you know about Danny and the library.”
“I told him,” Danny said. He had begun to relax a bit, and the look of surprise was gone from his face now.
“And why should I tell you?” my father asked. “A boy asks me for books to read. What is there to tell?”
“But all this week, even after the accident, you never said a word!”
“I did not think it was for me to tell,” my father said quietly. “A boy comes into the library, climbs to the third floor, the room with old journals, looks carefully around, finds a table behind a bookcase where almost no one can see him, and sits down to read. Some days I am there, and he comes over to me, apologizes for interrupting me in my work and asks me if I can recommend a book for him to read. He does not know me, and I do not know him. I ask him if he is interested in literature or science, and he tells me he is interested in anything that is worthwhile. I suggest a book, and two hours later he returns, thanks me, and tells me he has finished reading it, is there anything else I can recommend. I am a little astonished, and we sit for a while and discuss the book, and I see he has not only read it and understood it, but has memorized it. So I give him another book to read, one that is a little bit more difficult, and the same thing occurs. He finishes it completely, returns to me, and we sit and discuss it. Once I ask him his name, but I see he becomes very nervous, and I go to another topic quickly. Then I ask the librarian, and I understand everything because I have already heard of Reb Saunders’ son from other people. He is very interested in psychology, he tells me. So I recommend more books. It is now almost two months that I have been making such recommendations. Isn’t that so, Danny? Do you really think, Reuven, I should have told you? It was for Danny to tell if he wished, not for me.”
My father coughed a little and wiped his lips with the handkerchief. The three of us stood there for a moment, not saying anything. Danny had his hands in his pockets and was looking down at the floor. I was still trying to get over my surprise.
“I’m very grateful to you, Mr. Malter,” Danny said. “For everything.”
“There is nothing to be grateful for, Danny,” my father told him. “You asked me for books and I made recommendations. Soon you will be able to read on your own and not need anyone to make recommendations. If you continue to come to the library I will show you how to use a bibliography.”
“I’ll come,” Danny said. “Of course I’ll come.”
“I am happy to hear that,” my father told him, smiling.
“I—I think I’d better go now. It’s very late. I hope the examination goes all right tomorrow, Reuven.”
I nodded.
“I’ll come over to your house Saturday afternoon. Where do you live?”
I told him.
“Maybe we can go out for a walk,” he suggested.
“I’d like that,” I said eagerly.
“I’ll see you, then, on Saturday.
Goodbye, Mr. Malter.”
“Goodbye, Danny.”
He went slowly up the hall. We watched him stop at the elevator and wait. Then the elevator came, and he was gone.
My father coughed into his handkerchief. “I am very tired,” he said. “I had to rush to get here. Faculty meetings always take too long. When you are a professor in a university, you must persuade your colleagues not to have long faculty meetings. I must sit down.”
We sat down on the bench near the window. It was almost dark outside, and I could barely make out the people on the sidewalk below.
“So,” my father said, “how are you feeling?”
“I’m all right, abba. I’m a little bored.”
“Tomorrow you will come home. Dr. Snydman will examine you at ten o’clock, and I will come to pick you up at one. If he could examine you earlier, I would pick you up earlier. But he has an operation in the early morning, and I must teach a class at eleven. So I will be here at one.”
“Abba, I just can’t get over that you’ve known Danny for so long. I can’t get over him being the son of Reb Saunders.”
“Danny cannot get over it, either,” my father said quietly.
“I don’t—”
My father shook his head and waved my unasked question away with his hand. He coughed again and took a deep breath. We sat for a while in silence. Billy’s father came out of the ward. He walked slowly and heavily. I saw him go into the elevator.
My father took another deep breath and got to his feet.
“Reuven, I must go home and go to bed. I am very tired. I was up almost all last night finishing the article, and now rushing here to see you after the faculty meeting. . . . Too much. Too much. Come with me to the elevator.”
We walked up the hall and stood in front of the double doors of the elevator.
“We will talk over the Shabbat table,” my father said. He had almost no voice left. “It has been some day for you.”
“Yes, abba.”
The elevator came, and the doors opened. There were people inside. My father went in, turned, and faced me. “My two baseball players,” he said, and smiled. The doors closed on his smile.
I went back up the hall to the eye ward. I was feeling very tired, and I kept seeing and hearing Danny and my father talking about what had been going on between them in the library. When I got to my bed, I saw that not only was the curtain still around Mr. Savo’s bed, there was now a curtain around Billy’s bed, too.
I went up t
o the glass-enclosed section under the blue light where two nurses were sitting and asked what had happened to Billy.
“He’s asleep,” one of the nurses said.
“Is he all right?”
“Of course. He is getting a good night’s sleep.”
“You should be in bed now, young man,” the other nurse said.
I went back up the aisle and got into my bed.
The ward was quiet. After a while I fell asleep.
• • •
The windows were bright with sunlight. I lay in the bed a while, staring at the windows. Then I remembered it was Friday, and I sat up quickly. I heard someone say, “Good to see you again, Bobby boy. How’ve you been?” and I turned, and there was Mr. Savo, lying on his pillow, the curtains no longer drawn around his bed. His long, stubbled face looked pale, and he wore a thick bandage over his right eye in place of the black patch. But he was grinning at me broadly, and I saw him wink his left eye.
“Had a bad night, kid. Comes from playing ball. Never could see anything in chasing a ball around.”
“It’s wonderful to see you again, Mr. Savo!”
“Yeah, kid. Been quite a trip. Gave the Doc a real scare.”
“You had Billy and me worried, too, Mr. Savo.” I turned to look at Billy. I saw the curtains had been pulled back from his bed. Billy was gone.
“Took him out about two hours ago, kid. Big day for him. Good little kid. Lots of guts. Got to give him that three-rounder one day.”
I stared at Billy’s empty bed.
“I got to take it real easy, kid. Can’t do too much talking. Have the old ring post down on my back.”
He closed his eye and lay still.
When I prayed that morning it was all for Billy, every word. I kept seeing his face and vacant eyes. I didn’t eat much breakfast. Soon it was ten o’clock, and Mrs. Carpenter came to get me. Mr. Savo lay very still in his bed, his eye closed.
The examination room was down the hall, a few doors away from the elevator. Its walls and ceiling were white, its floor was covered with squares of light and dark brown tile. There was a black leather chair over against one of the walls and instrument cabinets everywhere. A white examination table stood to the left of the chair. Attached to the floor at the right of the chair was a large, stubby-looking metal rod with a horizontal metal arm. Some kind of optical instrument formed part of the end of this metal arm.