by Chaim Potok
I sat on the screened-in porch of the cottage and looked at the sunlight on the maple. It’s strange how many different shades of green there are, I thought. I sat there, looking at the maple and waiting for Abraham Gordon.
Four
He came promptly at ten o’clock.
I heard the DeSoto pull up in front of the cottage and I had the front door open before he was halfway up the walk. He came quickly, a very tall, heavy-set man, broad-shouldered, thickchested. His face was large and round and somewhat fleshy, not at all a good-looking face, with thick lips and a wide nose and thick dark eyebrows and balding dark hair. He wore dark trousers, a short-sleeved white shirt open at the neck, and brown loafers. His gray eyes fixed on me and then his face broke into a broad smile and he came up the short flight of stairs two at a time and shook my hand.
“The sailor,” he said. “Horatio Hornblower himself. It is good to meet you, Reuven. Where is your father? Inside? Is he still working on that book? What a tan you’ve got! You don’t get that kind of tan from studying Talmud.”
His handshake was warm and strong and his voice was deep and cheerful, and I felt myself a little overwhelmed by his immediate friendliness. The apprehension I had been feeling during the past hour of waiting was completely gone by the time I brought him out to the back porch to my father.
They greeted each other as friends. My father had on his small black skullcap—he always wore his skullcap when he studied sacred texts or worked on the book—and I saw Abraham Gordon immediately pull a skullcap out of a pocket of his trousers and put it on his balding head. I brought a chair over to the wooden table and Abraham Gordon sat down.
“You’ve lost weight, David,” he said affectionately to my father.
“Yes, but I do not have a cold for a change. How are you, Abraham?”
“Exhausted. Europe was fine, Israel was an experience, and I’m exhausted.”
“How is Kaufmann?”
“Lonely. But he’ll only admit it at the end of a three-hour walk. He asked to be remembered to you. They all asked to be remembered to you. And they all asked about your book.”
“With God’s help, the book will be published in January. Did you see Auerbach?”
“I saw everyone. They wish they were back on Scopus but they have settled into Terra Sancta. They enjoy the irony. The Hebrew University in the midst of crosses. The conference in Europe accomplished a great deal. But France exhausted me, and Naples and Rome finished me off completely. In Israel I lived with my extra soul”—he used the Hebrew expression “neshamah yetairah.” “The flight back was terrible but I redeemed it by writing seven pages. David, I cannot get over your son. Bialik could never have written ‘Hamatmid’ if he had seen your son.”
My father smiled. “Reuven is of the enlightened variety of yeshiva students.”
“Such a category exists? I will have to revise my books. David, listen, I must tell you of some of the things I found in the Vatican Library. There is a gold mine in that library. I was half an hour on the phone with Spiegel this morning about what I saw in that library.”
They spent the next forty minutes talking about rare medieval manuscripts and how sometimes you found one page of a manuscript in the Vatican Library and another page in the Bodleian and a third page in the Leningrad Library. They talked about scholars in Israel and America. Scholem was working on another book; Kaufmann had an article coming out soon and was completing another volume. One man was finishing an important work on Job; another was still at work on his history of the Jews in Spain; a third would soon be publishing a definitive work on the Genizah fragments; a fourth was contemplating a new translation into English of Maimonides’s Guide to the Perplexed; a fifth was doing a book on Koheleth that would prove that the original had been in Aramaic and not in Hebrew; a sixth was still at work on a critical edition of the Tosefta; a seventh, a brilliant young man at the Hebrew University, was thinking of exploring the relationships that had existed between Jews and non-Jews during the early, pre-Crusade period in Europe. They talked on and on, and then my father’s mood changed abruptly and his eyes misted with sadness. How were things in Israel? he asked quietly. Was the economic situation very bad? Were the border incursions as serious as the newspapers reported them to be? Things were bad, Abraham Gordon said bluntly. There was no point in deluding ourselves. The border incursions were bad. The economy was bad. The immigrant camps were bad. But he was an optimist, a hopeless optimist. They would solve their problems. There had been worse problems. Every young country had problems. Did my father know what kind of problems America had when she was a young country? Did my father know about the quarrels between the states after the Revolutionary War? Did my father know about the Whiskey Rebellion? Yes, my father knew.
I went into the kitchen and brought out tea for my father and coffee for myself and Abraham Gordon, and I sat there, listening to them talk. A warm breeze blew gently across the lawn, stirring the leaves of the maple. I sat there and listened and after a long time Abraham Gordon finished his coffee and glanced at me briefly over the rim of his cup. The cup clinked softly as he replaced it on its dish on top of the wooden table.
“Well,” he said, with a faint heaviness in his deep voice. “Now I must talk with the sailor. From my friend, the scholar, to his son, the sailor. Reuven, tell me about the carnival. I know all about it but I want to hear it again from you. Do you mind, David? Thank you. From scholarship to carnivals is a jump, but I want to hear about this carnival.”
I told him. He listened soberly, his thumb and forefinger rubbing the lobe of his ear, a huge man, dwarfing the chair he sat in. Then I was done. It had not taken very long.
“My niece and her county fairs,” he muttered.
“The advertising fooled us. It wasn’t her fault.”
“You’re sure he cheated you.”
“Absolutely.”
“Tell me again about Michael after he lost his temper.”
I told him. He nodded heavily.
“I’m grateful to you for stopping him.”
“I couldn’t let him throw it.”
“He blanked out, you say.”
“Yes.”
“You talked to him and he didn’t respond?”
“I think Rachel talked to him.”
“And you’re absolutely sure you were cheated.”
“Yes. Michael saw it too. You can ask Michael.”
“Michael won’t talk about the carnival. I can get nothing out of Michael. He acts as if it never happened. He seems to have blocked it out entirely.”
“No, he remembers the carnival. He doesn’t remember what happened after he lost his temper. But he remembers everything else.”
He looked at me sharply. “How do you know?”
“He told me.”
“When?”
“Monday. When I took him sailing. He talked about it.”
“What else did he talk about?”
I told him.
“Michael told you all that?”
“Yes.”
“While you were sailing?”
“Yes. We tied up in a cove and we talked.”
“Giordano Bruno … He read about him in an astronomy book this past winter. So, you tied up in a cove and talked.” He shook his head. “A sailor, a yeshiva boy, and a magician. David, you have a treasure here. Reuven, Michael does not like to talk about himself. Michael has been to three therapists in the past fourteen months and each of them gave up on him after a few weeks.”
My father’s eyes grew very wide.
“Michael has been in therapy?” I heard myself say.
“Has been. Yes. Has been. Three times. Michael resists therapy. Do you know what resisting therapy means?”
“Vaguely.”
“Michael is a very sick young man. Any one of those therapists would give you a year’s earnings to find out how you got him to talk. I cannot afford to give you a year’s earnings. How did you get him to talk to you, Reuven?”
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bsp; “I didn’t do anything. I took him sailing.”
“Why did you take him sailing?”
“He was very upset by the carnival. I wanted him to do something he would enjoy.”
“He enjoyed it. I can report to you that he enjoyed it.”
“Reuven has experience in getting others to like him,” my father said quietly, giving me a sidelong glance.
But Abraham Gordon had not heard him. He tugged at his ear lobe and sat lost in thought. Then he said, “What time is Daniel Saunders coming up to see you tomorrow?”
“In the morning,” I said.
“I would like you to do me a favor, Reuven. I want to make you a messenger for a righteous deed.” He used the Talmudic term “shaliach mitzvah.” “I would like you to ask Daniel Saunders to come over and see us. Would you do that?”
“Of course.”
My father was surprised. “Excuse me, Abraham. You know of Daniel Saunders?”
“I know of Daniel Saunders from rumors, from friends, and from Rachel.”
“He is—”
“I know who he is, David. I want to talk to him. I must talk to him.” He stopped tugging at his ear lobe and put his hand on the table and looked at me. “Tell him I want to talk to him. I would have called him anyway when we returned to the city. But since he’ll be with you tomorrow we might as well talk to him here. There will be a slight problem getting Michael out of the house, but we’ll manage that somehow. Reuven, you’re a good sailor and a good Talmud student and a bit of a magician. Now be a persuader too and ask Daniel Saunders to come over and see us.”
I told him I would talk to Danny.
“Fine,” he said. He started to get to his feet, seemed to remember something, and sat back down again, heavily. He looked at me, his face suddenly taut. “You don’t think there will be a problem getting him to come?”
“No. Why should there be a problem?”
He gazed at me intently for a moment, then nodded and rose ponderously to his feet. “I’ve got to get back. I promised to take Michael rowing before lunch. We have to discuss a telescope we’re going to build. David, finish your book. It was a pleasure seeing you again. I’m only sorry I had to darken the pleasure with my private problems. Reuven, your father told me you like the questions I ask in my books. One day we’ll have to sit down and talk about that. But now I have to go rowing.” He shook hands with my father. “Walk me to the car, Reuven.”
We came out of the cottage. He walked quickly. I had to make an effort to match his stride. The street was deep in shade. I could hear the trees moving in the gentle wind. The air was redolent with flowers and freshly cut grass.
We came up to the DeSoto.
“About the carnival,” Abraham Gordon said. “I understand Michael owes you some money.”
I looked up at him. I had to look up at him—he was a good five inches taller than I was. I told him Michael didn’t owe me anything.
“The money you loaned him.”
I told him again Michael didn’t owe me anything.
He looked at me curiously. Then he smiled and nodded. “Come over this afternoon if you have a chance. Bring a sailboat. Michael would like to go out with you again. And my wife wants to meet you.”
I told him I would be over.
He removed the skullcap from his balding head, put it into a pocket, and climbed into the car. He looked at me through the window and gave me a nod and a smile. “Take care of your father,” he said. “There aren’t many people like him around any more.” I watched the car go up the road and disappear around a curve, then I went back into the house and out to the porch. My father was seated at the wooden table, staring down at the galleys.
“Everyone has burdens,” he murmured, shaking his head. “Who is without burdens?”
I said nothing.
“I must get back to work,” my father said, speaking to himself. But he sat there, staring down at the galleys and doing nothing.
I called Michael after lunch. He was happy when I told him I was coming over to take him sailing again. There wasn’t much of a wind, I said, but I would teach him how to control the mainsail and the tiller. That would make it a little more exciting. Were there any clouds? I hadn’t looked out the window in the last few minutes to see if there were clouds. He laughed.
I rented a Sailfish and took it across the lake. There were clouds now. But there was the sun too, hot and bright on my face and in my eyes. I tied up to the dock and heard loud voices and thumping sounds from the direction of the house. I came off the dock and went up the steep slope of the shoreline and around the house to the back lawn. A net had been strung between two poles on a section of the lawn and there was a volleyball game going on, Joseph and Sarah Gordon on one side, Abraham Gordon and a woman I did not know—I assumed it was Ruth Gordon—on the other. Rachel was not around. Michael sat on a patio chair in the shade of the house, reading a book. He wore a bathing suit, a T shirt, and I saw he had tied his glasses around his head with a piece of string.
I stood there, watching them play. Abraham Gordon moved with remarkable speed for a man of his size; he was playing the back field and seemed to be everywhere at once, his long arms stretching for the ball, which he always sent to the woman who played in front of the net. He was dressed in shorts and tennis sneakers and was bare to the waist. His nakedness emphasized his hugeness. The woman on his side of the net wore white shorts and a white polo shirt and dark glasses. She was a striking woman, tall, slender, lithe, with short chestnut hair and beautifully proportioned features, and she moved about in front of the net with the agile grace of a natural athlete, twisting, turning, pivoting, spiking the ball over the net, carefully avoiding even those balls she could return by herself in order to let Abraham Gordon set them up for her. The two of them played together as a tight team, each seeming to anticipate instinctively the movements of the other, and Joseph and Sarah Gordon appeared to be not too much of a threat to them, though they were making them work hard for each point they scored.
Joseph Gordon saw me. He saw me as he was preparing himself to return a sharp serve heading his way from the arm of his brother, and he caught the ball instead and sang out, “The captain of the S.S. Malter!”
Abraham Gordon introduced me to his wife. She removed her sunglasses and I saw she had blue eyes, deep blue, Michael’s eyes. She wore no make-up. She offered me her hand and greeted me in a deep contralto voice. “Michael speaks of you as though you were his brother,” she said. “I’m very pleased.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I smiled and said nothing.
“I was wondering if you and your father were related to Henry Malter.”
“No.”
“Do you know who I mean?”
“The author of the critical edition of Ta’anit.”
“You are not related.”
“No.”
“How strange. Malter is not a particularly common name. Was it shortened?”
“Yes. From Maltovsky.”
“Your father is from Russia?”
“Yes.”
“And he shortened his name?” Her manner was friendly but somewhat formal and distant.
“He lived with a cousin when he first came here. His cousin convinced him to shorten it.”
“What is his cousin’s name?”
“He’s dead. We have no living relatives.”
“I see.”
“Reuven,” Joseph Gordon said, “how about joining us for some volleyball?” He was standing next to Ruth Gordon, smiling and tossing the ball from hand to hand.
“Reuven has come to go sailing with Michael,” Ruth Gordon said.
“I need help,” Joseph Gordon said.
“Nothing will help you,” Abraham Gordon said cheerfully. He wiped his brow with the back of his forearm. His body was covered with sweat.
“ ‘Let not him that girds on his armor boast as one who takes it off,’ ” Joseph Gordon quoted in Sephardic Hebrew from the First Book of Kings.
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Abraham Gordon laughed.
“Where’s Rachel?” I asked.
“Inside the house,” Sarah Gordon said unhappily.
“Roaming through Ithaca,” Joseph Gordon said. “I could have used her.”
“I told you,” Abraham Gordon said. “Nothing will help.”
“She ought to be out in the sun on a day like this,” Sarah Gordon said. “But she’s inside the house.”
Ruth Gordon gazed over at Michael, who was sitting in the shade of the patio overhang, absorbed in his book.
“Michael,” she called.
Michael looked up immediately, startled.
“Reuven has come to take you sailing.”
Michael looked at me and his pale face lighted up.
“You have made a sailor out of my son,” Ruth Gordon said to me.
I saw Michael carefully insert a bookmark into place and put the book down on his chair. He came over to us, smiling.
“Hello,” he said to me. “Did you bring a Sailfish again?”
“Yes.”
Ruth Gordon was watching her son intently.
“Can we go out right away?” Michael asked.
I looked at Ruth and Abraham Gordon.
“Go ahead,” said Abraham Gordon.
“Have a good time, dear,” Ruth Gordon said to her son.
“Scram, you two,” Abraham Gordon said. “I want to finish trouncing my brother on the field of battle.”
“A ruthless warrior,” Joseph Gordon said.
Abraham Gordon laughed and wiped his brow again with his forearm.
“No Geneva Conventions here,” Joseph Gordon said.
Michael and I walked back across the lawn and the patio to the lake. Just before we started down the slope I turned and saw Ruth Gordon still standing on the lawn, watching us. She turned quickly and went toward the net.
We sailed for close to two hours and had a fine time. Michael was awkward for a while with the mainsail sheet and the tiller but the breeze was mild and we did not capsize and finally he caught on to it and we sailed smoothly. We did not go into any of the coves; we sailed, tacking back and forth in the warm breeze. I lay near the center board but the water was smooth and I did not have much to do. I closed my eyes and felt the gentle rolling of the Sailfish and the sun on my face. I felt myself drowsy and falling asleep and opened my eyes and looked up at Michael. It seemed his own private sun shone out from behind his eyes. He looked at me and smiled, then looked up at the clouds. I saw him looking at the clouds and I closed my eyes and lay very still. I opened my eyes and saw him still looking at the clouds.