Old Men at Midnight

  “ENTHRALLING …

  These old men—artist, doctor, poet-teacher—who come from the extremity of midnight are creators and healers. Destroyed, they yet remain, their figures helping others break through devastation into wholeness.”

  —The Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “Ilana is not the focus of the book, despite her appearances throughout it. Rather, we are meant to concentrate on the stories she elicits, listens to, and reads. It is these fragments of lives, of narratives, that Potok asks us to focus on, and it is in these that the richness of his book lies.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Riveting … Potok illuminates the connections that bind people to their communities and the bonds of memory from which, however hard we try, we can never free ourselves. That Potok’s characters are Jewish and the backdrop to his stories Jewish history may brand him as an ethnic writer, but his larger spiritual and philosophical concerns belong to everyone.”

  —New York Jewish Week

  “Potok’s work is sparingly written, with effective descriptions evoking an essential sadness, but one suffused with hope. The importance of history and remembrance is seen frequently.… In times such as ours, anyone who believes in the resilience of the human spirit will find solace and enjoyment in Potok’s latest offering.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  “Masterfully written. This delicately realized book about history and memory is shot through with flashes of humanity.”

  —Book magazine

  “This is a melancholy, beautiful, and brutally revealing book.”

  —San Jose Mercury News

  “HAUNTING … [A] TRIO OF SPARE, AFFECTING TALES.”

  —Seattle Times/Post Intelligencer

  “Compelling … Potok has built his reputation as a humanist, examining the vagaries of life though the eyes of his characters. His readers are coaxed—perhaps unawares—to rediscover their own social consciences, often finishing Potok’s novels with a deeper, more personal understanding of recent history.… Potok’s depiction of the absurdity of life is reminiscent of Camus at his most uncompromising.”

  —The Star-Telegram (TX)

  “Old Men at Midnight portrays the effects of conflict well, letting the reader see how its influence resounds through the decades. In a newly transformed world where none of us can be sure when we might unwittingly and unwillingly become combatants in a different kind of war, that sensibility takes on an urgency that even Potok could not have foreseen.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Although they are short, Potok’s novellas are novels in the most traditional sense: They tell stories that encompass a universe.… Potok’s book makes for a deeply moving reading experience as each story unfolds as clearly and vividly as if it were on film.”

  —Richmond Times-Dispatch

  “Moving … Remarkable … Told with the deft hand and the humanity that characterize all of Potok’s work … [Old Men at Midnight] reaches the brilliance of The Chosen and My Name Is Asher Lev.”

  —The Anniston Star

  “The stories … are as moving as they are riveting.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  A Ballantine Book

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Copyright © 2001 by Chaim Potok

  Reader’s Guide copyright © 2002 by Chaim Potok and The

  Random House Publishing Group, a division of

  Random House, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Ballantine Reader’s Circle and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  The Trope Teacher first appeared, in slightly different form, in TriQuarterly, a publication of Northwestern University.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2001012345

  eISBN: 978-0-307-48900-5

  This edition published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

  v3.1

  Hence, loathed melancholy,

  Of Cerberus, and blackest Midnight born,

  In Stygian cave forlorn,

  ’Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy.

  —John Milton, L’Allegro

  Aye on the shores of darkness there is light,

  And precipices show untrodden green,

  There is budding morrow in midnight,

  There is a triple sight in blindness keen.

  —John Keats, To Homer

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  The Ark Builder

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  The War Doctor

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  The Trope Teacher

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  A Reader’s Guide

  Dedication

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  THE ARK BUILDER

  1

  Noah was brought to our Brooklyn neighborhood by his aunt and uncle, and into my life by an announcement on the bulletin board of our synagogue: SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY FROM EUROPE NEEDS ENGLISH TUTOR.

  This was early in the summer of 1947, two years after the end of the Second World War. No name, just a telephone number.

  I called that night. A woman answered.

  “Hello, who is it?” She sounded fretful, harried. “Who is calling, please?”

  I said in Yiddish, “A good week.”

  There was a slight pause. “Ah, a good week,” she said. Her tone softened.

  I said in English, “My name is Davita Dinn. I’m calling about your request for an English tutor.”

  In the background I heard children crying. Turning away from the phone, she shouted something in Yiddish, which I did not understand. Into the phone she said, “You have done this before, teach English?”

  “Yes. But not to a European survivor.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Nearly eighteen.”

  “Where do you live?”

  I told her.

  “We will come to you. Is it all right tomorrow at three?”

  I was alone when they arrived. Answering the front door bell, I saw a stocky, plain-looking woman in her thirties, garbed in a dark-gray dress that reached to below her knees. The dress had a frilly high neck and long sleeves. Standing a little behind and to her right was a thin boy in his teens, wearing a white long-sleeved shirt, dark trousers, and a dark skullcap.

  I said, “Hello.”

  The woman said, “I am Sarah Polit.”

  “Come in.”

  We went into the living room. The afternoon sun fell on the pale-blue carpeting and the brick fireplace and the large painting of flowers on the wall.

  The woman and the boy sat on the sofa. I took the easy chair across from them. The woman turned to the boy and spoke to him in Yiddish.

  The boy had been staring at the fireplace. Now he looked at me, cleared his throat, and said something in Yiddish in a shaky voice.

  I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand Yiddish.”

  Sarah Polit said with surprise, “You speak no Yiddish?”

  “My parents raised me in English.”

  “Your parents are in America a long time?”

&nb
sp; “My mother came in early 1920. My father’s family has been here since the seventeenth century.”

  “The seventeenth century?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does your father do?”

  “My father is dead.”

  “Ah, I am sorry.”

  The boy sat looking at the two of us. He had oval features: pallid skin across his cheekbones, a straight nose, a pointed chin. His hair was cut short and black, and his wide dark eyes darted from me to his aunt. I did not know how much of the conversation he understood.

  Sarah Polit asked, “What did you say your name is?”

  “Ilana Davita Dinn.”

  “Dinn is your father’s name?”

  “No, my stepfather’s.”

  “What does your stepfather do?”

  “He’s an immigration lawyer.”

  She looked at my blond hair and blue eyes. “You observe the commandments?”

  Her questions did not surprise me; she wanted to be sure about the kind of home to which she was entrusting the boy.

  I told her that I observed the commandments.

  “And you have taught English to people who have come from Europe?”

  “Yes.”

  She was quiet.

  I turned to the boy. “What’s your name?”

  The boy looked at his aunt.

  “Tell her, Noah.”

  “I am call Noah Stremin.”

  “Where did you hear English?”

  “American soldati after war.”

  Sarah Polit was looking closely at my blond hair and blue eyes. She asked, “What was your father? What did he do?”

  “He was a journalist.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Michael Chandal.”

  “You took your stepfather’s name?”

  “He gave me his name when he adopted me.”

  Sarah Polit sat back. I had the notion she had decided to ask no more questions. We were a religious family, and she was fortunate to have found us. Most teachers didn’t want to work during the summer months; many took their families to bungalows in the country to get them away from the streets.

  I asked, “Where in Europe are you from, Mrs. Polit?”

  “I came in the twenties from a town called Kralov, not far from Cracow.”

  “I know about Cracow. About sixty thousand Jews.”

  “Well, Kralov had four thousand Jews, a Jewish market, small synagogues and schools, and a wooden synagogue. Both our families were from Kralov.”

  He was sitting next to her, looking at the carpet. His face without expression. It was not possible to tell if he understood what she was saying.

  “There was a pogrom in Kralov in the late twenties, and my father sent me here to America. He, my mother, and my two brothers, they stayed. May their memories be for a blessing.”

  The boy raised his hands, turned them over, and looked at them. A grimace crossed his face. Putting his hands back on his knees, he sat staring at the fireplace.

  Pronouncing the words with care, I asked him, “Noah, is there anything special you like to do?”

  He raised his head and looked at me blankly.

  “I thought we might start with words for something you enjoy doing.”

  Sarah Polit said, “He was three years in a slave labor camp and two years in a displaced persons camp. He just now arrived in America. He does not yet know what he likes.”

  “Can he come twice a week?”

  “Twice a week. Yes.”

  “Sundays and Wednesdays.”

  “What do you charge?”

  “Five dollars a lesson. We can start this Wednesday at three.”

  “What should he bring?”

  “A notebook and a pencil.”

  “That’s all?”

  “For the time being.”

  “I thank you.”

  She spoke to the boy in Yiddish. He got off the sofa, and I saw him go through the entrance hallway to the front door. As he opened the door he gave me an over-the-shoulder look, and I felt his dark eyes on my face. He closed the door behind him.

  Sarah Polit remained seated on the sofa, looking at the door. Then she turned to me.

  “Noah is the only one who survived.”

  “The only one in his family? I am sorry.”

  “The only Jew in the town.”

  I felt cold to the bone.

  “Four thousand Jews, and he is the only survivor. My husband and I, we say to ourselves God saved him for a reason.”

  I sat very still.

  She rose from the sofa. “He knows, of course. He has terrible dreams.” She looked around the room. “Tell me, is three o’clock the only time you have?”

  “It’s best for me.”

  She smoothed her dress. “He will be here on Wednesday, God willing. I thank you very much for your time.”

  She went out the door.

  From the window of the living room I watched them walk along the street together in the hot shade of the early summer maple trees.

  He arrived with his aunt at three o’clock on Wednesday, carrying a yellow pencil and a blue notebook of the kind issued by yeshivas. The notebook had ruled pages, a drawing of Moses ben Maimon, the medieval Jewish philosopher and rabbi, on the front cover, and the Western Wall on the back. He wore dark trousers and a white long-sleeved shirt, and she had on a light-colored long-sleeved dress. She explained that Noah had not wanted to walk alone. She would wait in the living room while he had his lesson.

  “You are alone in the house?” she asked.

  I told her that my parents were at work and my little sister was at a day camp.

  “I will sit here,” Mrs. Polit said. “The heat is terrible outside.”

  She took one of the easy chairs.

  I motioned to Noah. He followed me slowly through the living room and dining room to the kitchen. He was about an inch shorter than I and walked with a gait slightly favoring his right leg.

  “When did you come to the United States?”

  “Two week,” he said.

  “Two weeks ago.”

  He nodded.

  “Noah, repeat after me. Two weeks ago.”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  Inside the kitchen, he stopped and looked around. We had moved into this President Street house a year after my sister, Rachel, was born, and the kitchen had been renovated. He stood looking at the bright tile walls, at the new table and chairs, at the two sinks, at the stove and refrigerator. I asked him if he wanted a glass of milk and a cookie.

  “No, I eat already.”

  “I ate.”

  “Yes, I ate.”

  “Our home is kosher.”

  “I no worry.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “I am not—worried.”

  He followed me through the kitchen into the den. There were cushioned chairs and a couch, a rug, and a large floor radio. The far wall was mostly two bay windows and a door in between that gave out onto a wooden porch with a round table and chairs and, a few feet away, lounge chairs. Down the stairs beyond the porch a paved path defined a lawn. Inside it a rock border circled a bird-bath and peony bushes. Across the path to the right of the lawn, pink roses rambled along a fence while yellow and white honeysuckle climbed the fence opposite. In this heat the aroma of honeysuckle was particularly strong. Against a wall formed by the rear of backyard neighbors’ garages hung a basketball hoop, a few feet from a swing-and-slide set. The screened bay windows were closed. Fan-cooled air blew from the inside, not a wisp of the air from the outside.

  We sat down in chairs, facing each other. He had long thin fingers and a long thin face. His neck was scrawny and fronted with a prominent Adam’s apple, and his face was damp with perspiration.

  I said, “Is it okay to call you Noah?”

  He said, “My name Noah.” He pronounced it “Noyach.”

  “My name is Noah.”

  “My name is Noah.”

  “You can call me Davita
.”

  “Like David. Davita.”

  “Are your aunt and uncle very religious?”

  “What means ‘religious’?” The words came out as “vat mins ‘re-lee-gi-us’?”

  I said, “Are they shomrei mitzvos?” The Hebrew term means “keepers of the commandments.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “What synagogue do they go to?”

  “It called Bris Achim.”

  “It is called.”

  “It is called.”

  “I don’t know that synagogue.”

  “It is small.”

  Suddenly he was very still. He sat with his eyes wide and staring. A shimmer of sweat lay across his forehead. He stirred and closed his eyes. Then he blinked a few times. The perspiration lay now dripping on his forehead, and he wiped at it with his open palms.

  I said, “Let’s start the lesson.”

  “Lesson, yes. Came for lesson.”

  The script for the Hebrew alphabet was printed on the first page of his notebook. I turned it over and wrote the letters of the English alphabet on the back page. Then I wrote the verbs build, speak, write, sleep, wake, dress, eat, walk—in first, second, and third person singular and plural. I gave a list of words for things he would find around the house and on the street. I explained verb and noun, and tried him on a reader I had used with a previous student. He could hardly make out the words. I told him we would start on an easier book. He sat there, perspiring. I looked up and there was Mrs. Polit, standing inside the entrance to the den. I had no idea how long she had been there.

  She said, “You give a long lesson.”

  “I lost track of the time.”

  We got up off the chairs and started through the kitchen. I asked, “Noah, would you like a cookie?”

  “Cookies are not good for him,” Mrs. Polit said.

  We entered the living room.

  “Wait outside for me a moment,” she said to Noah.

  When we were alone she said to me, “It’s not possible for you to have the lesson later?”

  “Would four be better?”

  “When your parents are home.”

  “I have a five-year-old sister. The house becomes noisy.”

  “Isn’t there a quiet place you can go?”