by Chaim Potok
I lay awake for hours that night, listening to my parents talking together in the living room. When they had gone to their bedroom and the apartment was silent, I could not sleep. The night had cooled; its silence was exquisite. Through the open window came the faint rustling sounds of the maple as it responded to an occasional breeze. Somewhere within the darkness of my room there was a vague stirring, a slow coming to life of benign force. I smiled deeply to myself. Not yet, I thought. But I’m glad you’re here.
When I came out of my room the following morning, my father was not home.
“He went to see your Uncle Meyer,” my mother replied to my question.
“To the country?”
“It is important business.”
“When are we going to the country, Mama?”
“Soon.”
“I want to go to the country, Mama. The city is hot. I hate the city. I want to see Saul.”
My mother passed her hand wearily over her face. “We will go as soon as we can. Get dressed, David.”
The brief coolness of the night had vanished with the coming of day. The sun expanded to encompass all the arc of the heaven. The sky burned. On the radio there was talk of an outbreak of infantile paralysis in a distant part of the city.
The street was deserted when I came outside later that morning. Even the old man who always sat on a chair in the sunlight near Mr. Steinberg’s candy store was not there today. There was no traffic. I seemed the only one alive in all the silent city.
I had thought to spend a little time with Mrs. Horowitz that day. But the illness finally came on during the early afternoon and my mother put me to bed and gave me medicine. I was in my bed the following morning when the investigator from the State Department came to the apartment.
It was his voice and the way he spoke English that woke me. At first I thought it was a fever dream, for we heard English spoken that way only on the radio and occasionally by Mr. Bader, and Mr. Bader was in Europe. But the voice did not have a radio resonance to it. I heard it coming from the door, then from the kitchen, then from the living room. I heard my father responding in his accented English. That was strange; my father almost never spoke English in the house. Weak and shivery with the illness, I slipped from my room and went through the small corridor to the portiere.
“At the request of the consul,” the voice was saying. “A routine investigation. May I sit down?”
“Yes, yes,” my mother said. “I am sorry. Please. Sit down. Here.”
But he misread the motion of my mother’s arm. Through the minute space between the portiere and the frame of the doorway, I saw him take my father’s chair.
My parents sat down on the sofa.
The man was tall and lanky and looked to be in his late thirties. He removed papers from a briefcase, sat back, and crossed his knees. His manner was relaxed and cordial. He took a black fountain pen from the inside pocket of his jacket, unscrewed the cap, and placed the cap on the back of the pen. It was a Waterman’s, the same kind of pen with which my mother wrote her letters to her family in Europe. He studied one of the papers on his lap, then looked at my parents. He had a pleasant voice. I listened to the music of his English.
He thanked my parents for seeing him. It was a bit unusual for him to be coming to their home, he said. But sometimes people felt more comfortable answering questions in their home than in an office. He paused. Did my father know a Morris Kaplan, a resident of Lemberg in Poland? he asked.
My father, sitting stiffly on the sofa, nodded.
Did my mother know Morris Kaplan?
My mother blinked her eyes and nodded.
Quickly, the man searched through the papers on his lap and held up a photograph. Was this the Morris Kaplan my parents knew?
My parents looked at the photograph and nodded.
From where I stood I had a clear view of the face of the man in the photograph when the State Department investigator held it up to show it to my mother.
He put the photograph away and noted down something on the paper with his Waterman’s pen. Then he looked up.
The American consul in Poland had requested that an inquiry be made into the visa application of Morris Kaplan, he said. Mr. Kaplan had listed my parents as American citizens who would vouch for his character and reputation.
The canary chirped briefly and was silent. The man glanced up at the canary. He looked around the room. Then he asked my father how long he had known Morris Kaplan.
They had grown up together in Lemberg, my father said. They had gone to school together and had served together in the Polish army under Pilsudski.
What schools had Morris Kaplan attended?
The local Jewish elementary school, then the yeshiva and the gymnasium, said my father. Gymnasium meant high school, he added.
The man nodded, smiled, and turned to my mother. How long had she known Morris Kaplan?
She had met him only after she had met my father, around the time of the end of the war, my mother said.
He turned back to my father. In what capacity had he known Morris Kaplan in the Polish army?
They had served together in the same machine-gun unit during the offensive that had pushed the Russians out of Galicia, my father said. When my father became a noncommissioned officer, Morris Kaplan remained with him and continued to serve in his unit. Later, when my father had transferred to a cavalry unit, Morris Kaplan had transferred with him.
When had that been? the man asked.
“In the war against the Bolsheviks,” my father said. They had fought together in the flanking maneuver against the Bolshevik Seventeenth Division near the town of Kozin, my father continued. Morris Kaplan had been a noncommissioned officer; my father had received a field promotion to the rank of lieutenant. They had also fought together against the Bolsheviks near Lublin. Did the gentleman want to know all the details of their army experience? Morris Kaplan had been a brave soldier and had been wounded in the Lublin engagement.
The man wrote for what seemed to me to be a long time.
Did either my father or mother have any reason to believe the potential immigrant was likely to seek to overthrow the United States government by violence or in conspiracy or combination with others of like mind? the man asked.
My parents shook their heads.
Was the potential immigrant an anarchist?
Again, my parents shook their heads.
Did either my father or my mother have any knowledge of the potential immigrant’s political leanings?
My mother shook her head. My father said, “He hates the Bolsheviks. That is his whole politics.”
Did either my mother or my father have any reason to suspect that the potential immigrant had ever been in serious violation of the laws of Poland?
My mother said, “No.”
My father asked if he might respectfully inquire as to whether or not a police record was still a necessary part of a visa application.
It was, the man said. But in certain cases they liked to go beyond the mere record. For example, they also had the military record of Morris Kaplan. Nevertheless it was useful to have certain things confirmed. Was my father able to answer the question?
Yes, my father was able to answer the question. “The answer is no,” my father said, his face impassive, his lower jaw protruding.
“But, Papa, the man is holding a gun in the photograph,” I heard someone say in a high voice.
My blood froze. I shut my eyes. I had not meant to say it. I had only thought it. I could feel the beating of the blood inside my head. I listened with my eyes still shut and could not hear anything from the living room, no exclamations of surprise or rage, no footsteps, nothing. Had I said it with my mouth? Perhaps I had only thought it very loudly and had not said it at all. My knees trembling, a cold sweat running down my back, I opened my eyes and peered into the living room. They were not looking in my direction. The man’s pen was making scratching sounds as he wrote. The apartment was very still. My par
ents looked directly at the man, watching him. He glanced through some of his papers, then screwed the cap back over the tip of the pen, and put the pen into his jacket pocket. He returned the papers to the briefcase and got to his feet.
My parents stood. My father seemed strangely short next to the man. He did not seem so short next to Mr. Bader, who was an inch or two taller than this man.
The man thanked them for their cooperation and wondered if he might call on them again should the need arise.
My father said, “Yes.” He and my mother accompanied the man to the door. I heard the door open and close. There was a brief silence.
“I need a glass of coffee, Ruth,” my father said in a small, tremulous voice.
I slipped back into my room and climbed into bed. The sun was bright on my window. I heard the trees and the passing cars and the voices of children on the street. After a while I slid down beneath my sheet and looked into my silent white world and realized that it had been the repeated warnings of the nonexistence of that photograph, together with Mr. Bader’s explanation during the picnic, that had restrained the words in my head and prevented them from coming out of my mouth. I tried to imagine what might have happened had the words actually been spoken. I lay in my white world, shivering with fear and fever, and thought how nice it would be if I did not ever have to leave my bed again. The street reeked with the odor of malevolence; the zoo and the meadow and the pine wood were deadly with menace and horror. Yes, it would be nice to stay here. Very nice. How smooth and cool the sheet was. I rubbed my eyelashes against it; I licked it with my tongue. Cool and white and smooth and silent. I lay very still and gave myself over willingly to fever and pain.
The room was dark. I was on fire. A figure sat in the darkness, murmuring Hebrew words. I thought it was my father, but I knew it was a dream and I closed my eyes. My head throbbed. Pain traveled back and forth across my face. Through the silence of the night came the murmured Hebrew words. I wanted the words to go away; I wanted to be alone with my fever and pain. Go away! I shouted at the words. There was an abrupt silence. Go away! I shouted again. Then I screamed. Then a flood of words poured from me and I no longer knew what I was saying. There were voices and lights and sudden patches of darkness and someone weeping in the distance. A branch of the maple reached across the windowsill and slid along the floor to my bed. I felt it knifelike upon my throat and I screamed a name and its leaves flew off like yellow birds through the open window and I could see them beating their wings and wheeling about against the sky like starlings. Hey, Davey, a voice said. Here I am, Davey. My mother says to tell you hello from the family. But it did not make any difference: the Angel of Death remained perched on the quivering pocketknife, waiting, his jeweled sheath glinting in the sunlight. Hey, sure I’m your friend, Davey. But I can’t squeal on no one. You don’t want me to be no squealer, Davey. The wall was white and smooth and cool. I lay with my face to it. If I put my face very close to it the whole world became white. My white sheet world and white wall world. What else did I need? Why was I crying? I could not stop crying. I was so frightened. Dr. Weidman was in the room. And my mother and father. Yes, yes, as soon as the fever goes away, Dr. Weidman was saying. Yes. The best thing to do. Why are you crying, David? What’s wrong? You’ve been sick before. Why is he crying, Max? Sha, darling, my mother kept saying. Sha, my David, my soul. Why are you crying? Your bike is fixed, my father said. You can ride it again. Stop crying. What happened that’s making him cry this way, Max? Dr. Weidman kept saying. It’s bad for his throat to have him crying this way.
My fever subsided on Friday. Two days later my parents packed, closed up the apartment, and drove with me away from the city and the Angel of Death.
The cottage stood on a small hill that sloped gently down to the beach and the lake. Beyond the low smooth grass of the beach was a narrow ribbon of yellow sand that shone like gold in the sun. Sometimes when I looked at the grass I thought of the clearing in the pine wood beyond the meadow, and when I looked at the sand I thought of the powdered earth in the pens of the zoo. But there was nothing near that cottage that could remind me of my street, and I was grateful for that.
Behind the cottage was a brief stretch of lawn and beyond the lawn was the forest. It rose like a wall out of the earth, dank, sunless, vaguely foreboding. I did not go near the forest that July. I played in the sunlight in front of the cottage.
There were about a half-dozen cottages spread out on our side of the lake, all of them owned or rented by members of the Am Kedoshim Society. Some boys my age were there that summer and I played with them. But I could not run and often I was alone. Sometimes I played with my brother. We built castles on the moist sandy fringe of the beach; we dug holes in the sand to a distant place called China; we tumbled about on the grass.
One morning he wandered away from the beach and I found him sitting in the tall grass digging a hole in the moist earth. I asked him what he thought he was doing.
“Digging to China,” he said.
“I’ll help you.”
“No!” He pushed my hand away. “I do alone.”
His small square face shone with fierce determination. I almost thought he would add the words, “It’s my job.” I stood guard over him as he dug at the earth with his toy spade. He left behind a good-sized hole when he finally wearied of it and ran back to the beach.
“I do alone here, too,” he said, getting down on his haunches and scraping at the sand.
Often I would glance up from my games with my brother and look at my mother sitting in a wicker chair beneath the elm in front of the cottage, reading a book. She never read books in the city. It gave me pleasure to see her so at ease away from our street.
One morning my brother spotted a salamander on the beach and before I could shout a warning he had stepped on its head. He picked up the salamander and shook it by the tail. It dangled limply from his fingers. He dropped it to the sand and poked it with a toe. Trembling, I took his spade and dug a deep hole. He watched me curiously. I put the dead salamander into the hole. In an instant my brother was beside me, pushing away my hand and getting down on his knees.
“I do it,” he said loudly. “Not Davey. Alek do it.”
I watched him working frenziedly to fill in the hole. When he was done he patted the smooth sand and said triumphantly, “Not dead. No more dead.”
For a long moment I stared at him, feeling a rage I could not understand. Then I turned and walked quickly away and did not go near him all that day.
My Cousin Saul and his parents lived in the cottage down the road from us, near the mailbox to which my mother would bring the letters she wrote to her family in Europe. I would see her walking along the dirt road to the mailbox, holding my brother’s hand so he would not go racing down the slope to the beach and the lake. Saul would be on the screened-in porch of his cottage or outside on a blanket on the grass, busy with the summer reading assigned to him by his teachers in the yeshiva. At the mailbox, my mother would check the address and postage on the envelopes and place the letters inside. Then she would walk back to the cottage, and sometimes she would stop and talk to my aunt and I would be alone for a while on our beach. The water was clear and clean and dark blue and sometimes dark green near the shoreline. There were often rowboats and sailboats on the lake from the summer camp on the opposite shore, but they never came near us. The camp was owned by a member of the Am Kedoshim Society and everyone there knew that my father and his family wanted privacy during our weeks away from the city.
I said to my mother one morning, “Why do you read here and not in the city, Mama?”
“I have no patience for reading in the city. I don’t like the city.”
“Because you grew up on a farm?”
“I suppose.” She gazed at me inquiringly.
“The Angel of Death lives in the city.”
Her eyes widened.
“Will you teach me the names of the trees, Mama?” She had promised to do that when I had be
en ill once in the spring and now I remembered.
She taught me the names of trees, the shapes of their leaves and trunks and crowns. In a week I was able to distinguish the different kinds of spruce and pines that grew near the cottage. I learned the pyramidal shape of the larch, the scraggly divided shape of the walnut, the drooping shape of the willow, the spreading bushy shape of the dogwood. I liked especially the slender grace of the birches with their chalky bark marked with dark triangular patches and their thin twigs. There were some aspen near us too but I did not like to look at them; the endless trembling of their leaves disturbed me.
She knew all the names in English; and she knew too the English names of the shrubs and berries and vines and flowers that grew wild along the sides of the road. She almost never used English at home; and whenever she did it was with a hesitation that sharply reflected her insecurity over her adopted language.
I asked her about that one day, and she answered, “When your father bought this property I bought a book and learned the names. I know them better in Polish. But I could not live here and not know the names of the trees in English. On the farm I knew every tree and every bush by name. I knew when their leaves would come and which of them would lose their leaves first and which last after the summer. What tree is that, David?”
I told her.
“And that?”
I told her.
“You have a good memory.” She smiled. “Mrs. Horowitz may be a silly old woman, but it can’t hurt.”
I did not ask her what she meant. I did not want to think of Mrs. Horowitz. I did not want to think of anyone who lived on our street.
But Mrs. Horowitz returned to our conversation that week when I looked at the book my mother was reading and was startled by the shapes of the letters.
“What book is that, Mama?”
She smiled shyly; her face—the skin no longer drawn tight now, the eyes no longer dark—her face flushed a bright pink. “A book of silly stories for women, David.”