The Promise

by Chaim Potok

  We sat in that silence a long time and then I began to feel myself choking and drowning in it, felt a need for a voice, and I heard myself say, softly, “Hello, Michael. Mr. Saunders said I could visit you and I came right away.” The words sounded inane. But I did not know what else to say.

  Michael sat very still on the mattress, his eyes staring fixedly at the floor. He did not move. He said nothing.

  “You’ve lost more weight,” I said.

  Michael said nothing.

  “You’ll be able to gain it back this summer,” I said.

  Michael said nothing.

  “You’ll visit your aunt and uncle and we’ll do some more sailing.”

  Michael said nothing.

  “Would you like that?”

  Michael said nothing.

  “You’ve really lost an awful lot of weight,” I said. Then I said, “Don’t you want to talk to me any more?”

  Michael said nothing.

  “We had some good talks. Do you remember the time we went sailing and we tied up in the cove and you told me what the clouds looked like? Do you remember that?”

  Michael said nothing.

  “Do you remember the roller coaster ride and the nosebleed and that old man?”

  Michael said nothing.

  “Michael,” I said. “Please, Michael.” My God, I thought. He’s dead. There’s nothing there. He’s turned to stone. What have they done to him? They’ve killed him with silence. At least before there was something there. He’s dead. He’s alive and dead and they’ll take him out of here and put him into the back ward of an asylum somewhere and he’ll be alive and dead the rest of his life. What have they done to him? What has Danny done to him with his crazy silence? They’ve killed him inside. He’s breathing but he’s dead and they’ve killed him. I looked at Danny. His eyes were fixed on Michael. I looked at Abraham and Ruth Gordon. They were staring at Michael in terror. Say something, I thought, looking back at Michael. Say something. Do something. Anything. Blink your eyes. Move a finger. Talk. Scream. Cry. Anything!

  Michael said nothing.

  I panicked then and heard myself begin to babble. I did not really know what I was saying, but I talked. I talked on and on, quietly, my voice shaking, using the words to push away the silence and fill the room with something that was truly alive, with words, driving out the silence with words, beating against the silence with words, pouring the wind and the lake and the memories of the summer into the emptiness of the room. I talked about the first time we had gone sailing together and how frightened he had been but how quickly he had learned to handle the balancing of the Sailfish. I talked about the way we had overturned and the trouble he had had with the center board. “Those center boards warp sometimes in the water,” I said. “Do you remember my saying that? Do you remember, Michael? And we lay in the cove and talked about Rachel, and your father’s books, and all the attacks against your father, and Rav Kalman, and the students in your school. Rav Kalman is an angry person,” I said. “But he suffered. He lost his whole world and people who are suffering sometimes take out their suffering on others. They defend what the ones they loved died for. They become angry and ugly and they fight anything that’s a threat to them. We have to learn how to fight back without hurting them too much. We can talk about that next summer. We’ll sail again and talk about it,” I said. “But you have to tell us you’re all right. Tell me you hear what I’m saying. We’ll sail again and you’ll read some more clouds for me. Or maybe you won’t have to read the clouds any more. But tell me you hear what I’m saying. Michael. Please. Michael. I know what it’s like to be inside a small room, fighting. I was inside a small room too. But I talked. I fought back. You have to learn to talk and fight back. You have to learn how to do it even if it hurts people you respect or love. You’re not anything unless you can learn to do that. I fought them but I respected them and I won and I’m getting my smicha and I’ll be teaching at Hirsch next year and when I get my doctorate in philosophy I’ll take a pulpit but I’ll be able to continue teaching. Do you hear me, Michael? I fought them and I won. You can win too if you learn how to fight. You have to talk if you want to fight. I fought Rav Kalman and he’s giving me smicha. I tried not to hurt him too much. I fought with words, Michael. And sometimes you have to fight even if it means hurting people terribly. Sometimes you have to hurt a person you love if you want to be yourself. We can talk about that too in the summer. We can go sailing and you can take the tiller and the mainsail and we—”

  “You’re getting smicha from Rav Kalman?” Michael said.

  “—can talk about that and about—”

  I had barely heard him. I was all caught up in the flood of my own words and had barely heard him. I stopped and felt as if a sudden surge of electrical current had come up from the floor and gone all through me and into my head. My hands tingled. I felt the top of my scalp and the back of my neck suddenly hot with shock. Michael had raised his head and was looking at me over the top of his glasses.

  “You’re getting smicha from Rav Kalman?” he said again, his voice thin and faintly trembling, his eyes narrow with hate.

  “Yes,” I said. I did not look at Danny or at Michael’s parents. I kept my eyes on Michael.

  “He attacked your father and he’s giving you smicha?” Michael said in a high, thin voice. “You’re accepting his smicha?” He was sitting up very straight now, his gaunt body stiff, his hands clenched into fists. There was a crimson flush on his face. He seemed to be going into one of his rages. I stared at him and was afraid and did not know what to say.

  “Go away,” Michael said.

  I said nothing.

  “Go away” Michael said again, clenching and unclenching his fists. “You liar, you cheat, you bastard. Go away!”

  I heard a soft gasp from Ruth Gordon. I did not look at her.

  “You bastard,” Michael said, digging his knuckles into his thighs. “You cheating bastard.” His voice was rising and there was rage in his eyes. He trembled with the rage. It poured from him. “You’re all the same. Leave me alone!”

  I said nothing.

  “Get out of here!” he shouted. “Leave me alone!” His voice beat against the bare walls. “Leave me alone! Just leave me alone! I like it here alone! Go away!”

  I sat very still and felt the words pounding at me and said nothing.

  “Michael,” Danny said softly.

  Michael looked at him, blinking, his hands clenched, the knuckles digging into his thighs.

  “Why should Reuven not have accepted smicha from Rav Kalman?”

  Michael said nothing.

  “Because Rav Kalman attacked his father?” Danny said.

  Michael said nothing.

  “Do you think Rav Kalman is an evil person?”

  “Evil,” Michael said. “Ugly and evil. Evil evil evil.”

  “Why is he evil?”

  “Evil evil evil evil—”

  “Michael,” Danny said, softly, gently. “Did you know that Reuven wanted smicha? He wanted it almost more than anything else in the world. It’s a very great honor to receive smicha from the Hirsch Yeshiva. Did you know that, Michael?”

  Michael said nothing.

  “Did you know that Rav Kalman almost didn’t give him smicha?”

  Michael said nothing. He kept digging his knuckles into his thighs and said nothing.

  “He disapproves of the method Reuven uses to study Talmud.”

  Michael said nothing.

  “Do you know where Reuven learned that method?”

  Michael said nothing.

  “He learned it from his father.” Danny paused for a moment. Then he said, leaning forward slightly, “Would you have wanted Reuven not to have gotten smicha and to hate his father?”

  Michael’s mouth opened slightly. I heard someone stir on one of the chairs but I did not look up. I kept looking at Michael. His mouth was open and he had suddenly stopped digging his knuckles into his thighs and he was staring at Danny.


  “Is that what you wanted, Michael?” Danny asked softly. “Did you want Reuven to become like you so you could share something private and secret with him?”

  Michael stared and I thought I saw his eyes glaze over and was afraid he had gone back into his dead world. Then I saw his hands begin to clench and unclench again on his thighs. He closed his eyes and opened them again and pushed his glasses back up along the bridge of his nose with the knuckles of his right hand and continued staring at Danny.

  “Don’t you have a secret you want to share with him?” Danny asked quietly.

  Michael ran his tongue over his lips. He had opened his hands. They lay palms down on his thighs. He said nothing.

  “Don’t you?” Danny said softly.

  “I’m afraid,” Michael said in a very small voice.

  “Yes,” Danny said. “I know you are. We’re all afraid of such secrets. You hated Rav Kalman for hurting Reuven and his father but deep inside you were also happy. Isn’t that right, Michael?”

  Michael looked wildly around the room, as if searching for an escape. He saw his parents staring at him in dread, and he jerked his head away from them and looked back at Danny.

  “Isn’t that right, Michael?” Danny said again, very gently.

  Michael nodded and began rubbing the palms of his hands up and down against his thighs. His eyes were wide and rolling. He had the look of a terribly wounded animal.

  “You wanted to tell it to someone,” Danny said. “But you were all alone and afraid and you thought you could tell it to Reuven once he felt that way too. Am I right, Michael?”

  “I needed someone,” Michael said hollowly. “I needed someone to—” He stopped. His shoulders sagged. He kept rubbing his palms up and down against his thighs. Then he began to sway slowly back and forth, the upper part of his body moving back and forth. “He would have understood,” he said. “We could have talked. I needed someone. We could have talked and talked and talked. I needed someone. I didn’t want him not to get smicha and to have his life ruined. But I needed someone.” He looked at me then. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry. But I needed someone. I didn’t want to hurt you, Reuven.” His lips were trembling. All of him was trembling and he kept swaying back and forth and rubbing his hands against his thighs. “You would have hated him and we could have talked but I didn’t want you to hate him because I knew you loved him. You would have loved and hated him and we could have talked. Reuven, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Oh God, I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk any more. I’m afraid. Oh God, I’m afraid. Make me stop talking. I don’t want to talk. Reuven, make me stop. Please. Make me stop. Oh God, make me stop. I don’t want to say any more! How can you love and hate a person at the same time? How can you love and hate anything at the same time? You would have understood me, Reuven. Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry. Please, Mr. Saunders, make me stop. I’m afraid. I didn’t want you to be hurt, Reuven. I only wanted you to be able to understand. I hated it. I hated it. How can you love anything that does that to human beings?” He was swaying faster now, back and forth, back and forth, swaying. “How can you—how can you—how can you love a religion that does that to human beings? How can you love a religion that makes people hate other human beings? I hated it. God, God, God, I hated it. I wanted to crush it. I wanted to burn it. I wanted to tear it to pieces. I hated hated hated hated it. And my father is trying to teach it. He loves it. Reuven, he loves it. You know he loves it. You know that, don’t you? He loves it. But I hate it. I hate it. I hate anything that does that to human beings. He loves it. But I don’t understand. I don’t understand. How can he love it? How? How? Tell me how, Reuven. I love my father. And I—and I—I hate him!” I heard a loud gasp from Abraham Gordon. Michael trembled visibly with the force that had pushed those words from him. It was as if something had exploded inside him somewhere and had expelled itself through his open lips. “I hate him,” he said in a choked voice. “I hate him. You would have understood that, Reuven. We could have talked about that. I hate him. I love him and I hate him. I hate him for what he made me go through. It wasn’t only his name they attacked. Did you see the scrapbook, Reuven? He sent me to a special school to learn Yiddish and I read that scrapbook one day. It wasn’t only his name they attacked. It was my name too! Gordon. Gordon. They almost never said Abraham Gordon. They said Gordon. And the students in my class said Gordon. And sometimes I could hear people in the street say Gordon. Gordon destroys Judaism. Gordon is a heretic. Gordon will be punished with Hell after he dies. Gordon is an apostate. Gordon is a deliberate sinner.” He used the Hebrew words for apostate and deliberate sinner. “Gordon. It was Gordon they hated. No one ever asked me whether he should write those things. No one was interested in how I felt. He just wrote. I hated those books. Everytime one of them came out it would mean more attacks. I loved him. And they attacked him. And I felt hurt because he was attacked. It hurt me to see him suffer. God, how it hurt me … Oh God, how I suffered … God, what he made me go through. I hate him … And my mother—she helped him to write. I would sit in the study on Sunday afternoons and watch her help him. She urged him to write. And everytime one of those books came out, there was an attack. Why didn’t she see how I was suffering? A mother is supposed to see that. A mother is supposed to—to comfort a son. Isn’t a mother supposed to comfort a son? I love my mother. And I hate her.” I heard a soft moan and turned my head and saw Ruth Gordon with her hands across her eyes, the lips below the hands open and wet and trembling, and Abraham Gordon holding her close to him, his face a mask of horror. “I love her,” Michael said in a hoarse, choked voice, “and I hate her, and I don’t know what to do any more. I don’t know what to do. What can I do, Reuven? I don’t know what to do. Help me know what to do …” He lowered his head. His body continued swaying, slower now. He kept rubbing his hands against his thighs. Then, suddenly, he stopped swaying and looked up, all of him rigid, his eyes wide, bulging, staring at me. “I didn’t—I didn’t want to hurt them. I was—afraid. God, I’m afraid. I don’t want to—hurt them. I hate them. I hate them!” I saw his head stiff, and the veins standing out on his thin neck. I saw his head trembling, shaking and trembling. I saw him turn it in a single sudden motion toward his parents. “I hate you!” he screamed, the words lashing at me, cutting at me, cutting the walls and the window, flaying at his parents who stared back at him in frozen horror. “I didn’t want to tell you!” Michael screamed. “They made me tell you! I hate you! I could—I could kill you! What have you done to me? Oh God, I didn’t want to tell you. I can’t help it. I can’t stop it. I hate you!” He was trying to get to his feet. I saw him push himself up with his hands. “I hate you both!” he was screaming. I thought Danny would stop him. But he did not move. He sat very still, watching Michael intently. I had not looked at Danny all the time Michael had been talking. Now I saw him watching Michael rise weakly to his feet, still screaming his hatred, and was astonished at the look on his face. The sculptured lines had softened. He seemed suddenly deeply calm. He sat there as Michael’s screams filled the room, watching Michael move slowly toward his parents. “Abba,” I heard Michael say. “Imma. I didn’t want—They made me! They forced me! I was afraid. They forced me. Abba, I didn’t want to hurt you! Imma, I didn’t want to hurt you! I didn’t—” Then his voice cracked and a loud animal wail, a cry of tearing pain, broke from him. “Oh God, I love you so much!”—and he was on them, almost flinging himself on them, his father’s chair tilting dangerously backward but straightening immediately as Abraham Gordon moved forward and took his son in his arms and Ruth Gordon leaned across Michael’s shoulder and covered him with her body and buried her face in his neck and I could see Michael’s arms around them, clutching at them, hungrily, and hear his sobs, loud, gasping, and the soft, muted sobs of his parents—and I looked away and found I was hot and cold and shaking as though with a fever and the room swayed and spun and seemed suddenly
dark and I put my hands on the floor to steady myself and heard Danny ask me if I was all right. I nodded and took a deep breath and heard talking going on somewhere inside the room but could not make out the words and the room tilted and swayed and spun around again and I thought I would have to lie down. I took another deep breath and felt my palms hard against the floor and began to push myself to my feet but could not get up. They were talking softly near me and I thought I would have to ask Danny for help and I looked around, feeling dizzy and frightened, and saw Michael standing with his parents away from the chairs, talking, gesturing, crying, and Ruth Gordon with the handkerchief covering her lips and Abraham Gordon’s hands over his eyes and Danny on a chair against the wall near the mattress, reaching up to the window. I saw him pull at something and then the window fell inward and hung suspended on a chain and immediately there was a rush of warm wind and I felt it on my face, felt it moving silkenly across my face and I took deep breaths of it and the room slowly stopped spinning. Danny got down off the chair and came over to me.