The Promise

by Chaim Potok

  When we were a short distance from Rachel’s house I felt Michael slump down on the seat. I looked at him quickly. He was staring through the windshield, paying no attention to the dark trickle that moved across his lips and down onto his chin.

  “His nose is bleeding again,” I said.

  I put my hand under his elbow as he climbed out of the car. He walked limply between me and Rachel. I held my handkerchief to his nose. He had not said a word since we had left the gambling booth.

  A yellow light burned dimly over the front door of the house. Wide-winged moths beat against the light with soft thudding sounds. The lights were on in the kitchen and the living room. Beyond the steep slope of the shoreline, the lake moved gently against the rowboat and the dock. It stretched off into the distance like a mass of black stone, darker than the darkness of the night.

  We came up the front walk into the house. Rachel’s parents were at the kitchen table over tall glasses of iced coffee. Joseph Gordon looked at Michael and slowly took the pipe out of his mouth. Sarah Gordon stared.

  “He’s got a nosebleed,” I told them, and before they could respond I put my hand against Michael’s back and steered him to his room. I snapped on the ceiling light and removed the pillow from the bed but did not bother to pull back the spread. I helped Michael onto the bed. He lay on the bed, his head drawn back, his chin jutting upward. I sat on the edge of the bed, put the forefinger of my right hand over his upper lip, and pressed down. He lay very still, breathing softly, his eyes closed. He seemed unaware of what was happening.

  The door to the room opened and closed. Joseph Gordon came up to the foot of the bed. He was a tall man in his late forties, with broad shoulders, thinning brown hair, sharp blue eyes, a square jaw, and deeply tanned features. He stared at Michael, his teeth clamped tight around his pipe.

  “You had quite a time. Rachel told me.”

  “Yes, we did. A splendid time.”

  “I ought to go over there tomorrow and break his neck.”

  “He won’t be there tomorrow. This was the last night.”

  He took the pipe from his mouth and leaned over the foot of the bed. Michael lay very still, his eyes closed.

  “That vulturous bastard,” Joseph Gordon said under his breath. He looked at me. “I’m going to call a doctor.”

  My finger was still on Michael’s upper lip. I felt him stir. He opened his eyes.

  “I don’t need a doctor,” he said very quietly.

  Joseph Gordon looked down at him. “I want someone to check that bleeding.” His voice was suddenly gentle.

  “I don’t want any doctor,” Michael said. He pushed my hand away from his lip.

  “Did you have to play that stupid game?” Joseph Gordon asked.

  “It wasn’t stupid.”

  Joseph Gordon put the pipe back into his mouth. “All right,” he said. He gave me an angry look and seemed about to say something. Then he glanced at Michael. He turned abruptly and went from the room.

  I looked down at Michael. He lay very still on the bed. I saw him put his arm across his eyes.

  “I really trusted him,” he said.

  “We all trusted him.”

  “I hated him.” His voice was flat, without emotion. “I could have killed him.”

  I felt cold listening to him talk like that.

  “I should never have trusted him.” His eyes were covered by his arm. His voice was rising. Below the small straight nose, his lips opened and closed stiffly, mouthing the words. “You can’t trust any of them. They’re all the same. They’re—” and a long scalding torrent of vile and hate-filled words began pouring out of him.

  I told him to stop it.

  He took his arm away from his eyes and raised his head slightly and looked at me.

  “Go away,” he said.

  “We gambled and were cheated. Don’t make it worse than it was.”

  “What do you know about it?” He put his head back and covered his eyes with his arm. “They’re all the same,” he said. “Only he didn’t have a beard.”

  I heard the door open. Sarah Gordon came into the room. She was a slender, fine-looking woman with oval features and auburn hair and gray eyes. Her voice had a quality of forced calm to it as she told Michael she had brought him a glass of milk.

  Michael said he didn’t want any milk.

  She came over to the bed and put the glass down on the night table.

  “Look at your shirt,” she said.

  “It’s blood,” Michael said. His voice had lapsed into its flat, unemotional tone.

  “Shouldn’t you change your shirt?” She spoke very gently.

  Michael sat up slowly on the edge of the bed.

  “Shall I get one for you?”

  “No,” Michael said.

  She looked at him for a long moment. “Please drink the milk, Michael.” She went out of the room.

  Michael lay back on the bed and put his arm over his eyes.

  “Is it bleeding again?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Drink your milk.”

  “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

  I looked at him and did not say anything.

  “Everyone is always hovering over me.”

  “I’m trying to help.”

  “Who asked you to? Stop hovering and go away.”

  “All right,” I said.

  I went out of the room and through the hall and into the kitchen. Rachel and her parents were sitting around the table.

  “How is he?” Rachel asked. Her face was still very pale.

  “Angry.”

  “That was a stupid thing to do,” Joseph Gordon said. “Letting him play that kind of game.”

  I thought I heard a door open and close somewhere inside the house. “He wanted the radio,” I said.

  “Was that a door?” Joseph Gordon said.

  Rachel rose quickly and rushed from the kitchen.

  “You should have brought him home immediately you saw it was a carnival,” Sarah Gordon said.

  “Rachel should have brought him home,” Joseph Gordon said. “What the hell is going on out there?” Doors were being opened and closed all through the house. He was getting to his feet when Rachel came into the kitchen. Michael wasn’t in the house, she said.

  “Oh my God,” Sarah Gordon said.

  “I just left him in his room,” I said.

  “He isn’t anywhere in the house, I tell you.”

  “He could have gone through the patio to the road,” Sarah Gordon said faintly.

  Joseph Gordon put his pipe down on the table and went from the kitchen. Rachel followed him. I heard the front door open and close.

  Sarah Gordon sat at the table, looking at me. “You should have brought him home immediately you saw it was a carnival,” she said. “You should have brought him home immediately.”

  I got to my feet. “I’ll have a look at the dock,” I said, and could feel her staring at me as I went through the kitchen to the wooden stairway outside. The sky was black and dotted with stars. There was a faint breeze. A sliver of moon hung over the lake like a curved lantern. I had forgotten to turn on the outside lights but I could see him on the dock outlined against the lake.

  I went quickly down the stairs and up to the end of the dock. He did not look at me. He was staring up at the sky.

  “Michael,” I said softly.

  He stared up at the sky and said nothing.

  “You had better come back inside.”

  Still he said nothing. He was wearing the soiled shirt and the shorts and tennis sneakers. His hair was disheveled and his arms hung limply at his sides.

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on,” I said.

  He stood there, staring up at the sky. “Look at it,” he said. “Look at it for a minute.” His voice had a soft, dreamy quality to it now. “It’s like every star in the universe is out tonight.”

  I stood alongside him, my hand on his shoulder, thinking of Rachel and her fat
her on the road searching for him.

  “Just look at it,” he said. “I didn’t think to bring the viewer. But look at it.”

  I was quiet.

  “Did you know our galaxy is a hundred thousand light-years in diameter?” he asked softly.

  I looked at him.

  “And the visible universe is ten billion light-years?” He was silent a moment. Then he inclined his head slightly and looked at me. “Do you know the distance of the Andromeda galaxy?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Almost four hundred and fifty thousand parsecs. Do you know what that is in miles?”

  “No,” I said again.

  “Take the number ten and add eighteen zeroes. That’s how many miles it is.” He looked back up at the sky. “There are ten billion galaxies in the universe,” he said. “Ten billion galaxies.”

  “Michael, let’s go back,” I said softly.

  “Why did he do that?” he said.

  I felt a coldness on the back of my neck and took my hand from his shoulder.

  “He’s nothing,” he said. “He’s smoke.” He used the Hebrew word “hevel” for smoke. “I can prove he’s smoke.” He turned to me slowly. “Do you know how easily I can prove he’s smoke?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  He turned back to the sky. “He can’t hurt you,” he said. “Why do you keep thinking he can hurt you when he really can’t?” He seemed to be talking to the sky. “He can’t hurt you one bit,” he said.

  “Come on,” I urged. “You’ve got everyone all upset. Let’s go back inside.”

  I put my hand back on his shoulder. He let me turn him around and take him along the dock. At the foot of the wooden stairway he stopped and looked at me.

  “I can’t get him out of my mind,” he said faintly.

  I did not say anything.

  We were halfway up the stairway when the outside floodlights suddenly came on, throwing bright blinding light onto the stairs and the dock. Rachel and her father came from the kitchen and stood at the head of the stairs looking down at us. Michael stopped and stared up at them, blinking. A moment later, Rachel’s mother appeared at the head of the stairs. The three of them stood there, staring down at us and saying nothing. I prodded Michael gently and we went up to them. I shook my head at them and we passed them by and I took Michael through the kitchen into his room. He walked slowly, heavily, the laces of his sneakers trailing behind him. He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.

  “You ought to go to sleep,” I told him.

  “Go away,” he said, putting his arm across his eyes. “Just go away.”

  I went from the room. Rachel and her parents were in the hallway right outside the door.

  “What was he doing out there?” Joseph Gordon asked in a tight whisper.

  I told him. Rachel bit her lip. Her mother looked panicky.

  “Let’s go into the kitchen,” Joseph Gordon said.

  “I’ve got to get back. It’s late.”

  He seemed to want me to stay. But I was feeling dull-headed with fatigue.

  “Walk me to the door,” I said to Rachel.

  We came out of the house. The floodlights had been turned off. A moist breeze blew in from the lake. I could hear the water lapping softly against the dock and the shore.

  “How do you feel?” I asked.

  “Fragile,” she said. Her face was faintly luminous in the darkness. “And raped.”

  I did not say anything.

  She stared across the lawn at the black expanse of the lake.

  “I think I had better get back. Is the flashlight in the car?”

  “Yes. I’ll drive you if you’d like.”

  “I want to walk.”

  We went to the car. She took the flashlight from the glove compartment and handed it to me. She gave me a dark, uneasy look.

  “Are you bringing Danny over next week?” she asked. Danny Saunders was my oldest and closest friend.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It depends upon Danny.”

  She bit her lip.

  “Do you want me to ask him?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. It would be nice to have him meet you finally.”

  She did not say anything. I leaned forward and kissed her cheek. Her face felt hot and dry.

  “I’ll call you in the morning,” I said.

  I left her standing near the car and went up the asphalt road, walking quickly past summer homes and sloping lawns. To my left was the lake, dark and silent beyond the houses and the lawns. From the dense woods along the right side of the road came the soft pulsating sounds of crickets and frogs. The sky was filled with stars. But the road was dark and I could see almost nothing beyond the beam of the flashlight. Then the road curved to the right and the houses and lawns were gone and there were woods on both sides. I walked on the gravel shoulder on the left side of the road, letting the light play on the brush and the trees. The path through the woods was narrow, a barely visible break in the dense brush. I came off the road and entered the woods.

  The path twisted narrowly, thick with dead leaves and fallen branches and the tangled roots of elms and oaks and sycamores, then straightened and ran through a small clearing of tall grass. Beyond the clearing it curved between giant trees and led downward and curved again, and the air was dense now with the odor of the lake and the smell of damp dead leaves and wet black earth.

  I stood near the edge of the lake. The water was black and motionless, wedged stonelike against the shore. In the beam of the flashlight a long-legged spider skated soundlessly across the surface of the water. I followed the curve of the shore. A small white animal crouched on the path, frozen by the light. I moved the light away and heard it scampering into the woods. The beam slanted upward toward the stars, a pale unsteady finger of light burrowing through the darkness, and it was a moment before I realized my hands were trembling.

  I turned off the light and stood very still. In the abrupt, total darkness of the night the odor of moist decay was suddenly overpowering.

  I snapped the light back on and continued walking. The shoreline straightened, curved sharply, and straightened again, forming a tiny inlet. The smooth surface of the lake reflected the stars, stone-speckled with tiny quivering pinpoints of light. I stepped over dead trees and thick branches. Then the path angled sharply away from the lake and I was in the woods again, walking very quickly between thick-trunked trees, and there was the maple and the back lawn and the cottage, dark except for the single yellow light that burned over the door of the screened-in porch. My father was asleep.

  I lay awake in my bed and listened to the trees outside the open window. I lay awake a long time and saw myself staring out the window at the black asphalt-paved street that was Bedford Avenue and listening to a short, intense, thick-shouldered, black-bearded man explain a passage of Talmud. I lay very still in the darkness.

  Two

  The wind woke me. It blew through the open window and stirred the curtains. I could feel it cool and moist on my face. I lay in the bed and remembered the night.

  When I came out to the screened-in porch I saw my father already there, praying the Morning Service, the fringes of his long tallith reaching nearly to the floor, the straps of his tefillin wound carefully around his arm and head. The porch faced eastward and the sun shone above the trees of the woods and came through the screening, and my father stood facing the sun, praying from memory, his eyes closed behind their steel-rimmed spectacles, the sun bright on his thin features and gray hair. I put on my tefillin and prayed quietly and afterward I prepared a light breakfast and we sat in the kitchen and ate. The branches on the maple near the edge of the woods swayed heavily in the wind. But it was a warm wind now and would not keep me from the lake.

  I told my father about last night. “He scares me a little,” I said when I was done. “I’ve never seen anyone so angry.”

  “He had reason to be angry. You are certain that old man deliberately cheated you?�
�

  “That old man was the vilest person I’ve ever met.”

  Later, I went into the living room and dialed the phone. I heard it ring for quite some time before it was answered.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Reuven?” Rachel said.

  “Where’s Michael?”

  “He’s around somewhere.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Very, very fragile.”

  I asked her if she was working on her paper. She was spending her mornings that summer writing a long paper on the Ithaca section of James Joyce’s Ulysses for an English honors course.

  Yes, she was working on the paper, she said.

  “Would Michael want to go sailing?”

  She hesitated. I could feel her hesitating.

  “Ask your father if it’s okay.”

  The phone went silent. She had evidently cupped her hand over it. I waited for what seemed to me to be a long time.

  “My father thinks it’s all right,” she said finally.

  “Give a yell for Michael.”

  She cupped her hand over the phone again.

  “Yes?” Michael said after another long pause. His voice sounded thin and distant.

  “Hello,” I said. “How are you?”

  “All right.”

  “Would you like to go sailing?”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know. It’s very windy.”

  “It’s the best time for it.”

  There was a brief silence. “All right,” he said. “But I don’t know too much about sailing.”

  “I’ll teach you. Find yourself a piece of string and tie it to the earpieces of your glasses and put it tight around your head so the glasses won’t fall off. And wear a bathing suit and some kind of shirt. Okay?”

  “Yes,” he said, very hesitantly.

  “I’ll see you soon.”

  I changed into swim trunks, a T shirt, and thongs, went into the kitchen, found some string, and tied my glasses tightly to my head. Through the screen door of the kitchen I saw my father seated at the wooden table on the back porch, working on his book. I told him I was going over to Rachel and would be back in time for lunch. He nodded vaguely, without looking up. I went out to the street and walked quickly beneath the trees to the beach.