The Promise Read online

  He got to his feet. He was wearing his coat and hat. I put on my coat. He watched me solemnly. I told him he had done a good job in the shiur.

  He shrugged. “What did he want?”

  “A private musar message.”

  “How private?”

  I did not respond.

  “Are you in trouble, Reuven?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked uncomfortable. He stood there in his heavy coat, looking short and round and uncomfortable.

  “Reuven,” he said.

  I looked at him.

  He glanced around quickly. We were alone in our part of the synagogue. “Are you thinking of applying to the Frankel Seminary?”

  That did it for me. “No, I’m not thinking of applying to the Frankel Seminary,” I almost shouted. “What’s going on around here? What’ve we got, our own version of the Spanish Inquisition?”

  He stared, frightened. “For God’s sake, not so loud. Are you crazy?”

  “I’m going,” I said.

  “There are rumors that you’re planning to apply to that seminary,” he said somewhat plaintively. “Don’t get angry at me, Reuven.”

  “What rumors? Where have there been rumors? I haven’t heard any rumors.”

  “There have been rumors for the past three weeks.”

  “I haven’t heard a thing.”

  “No one hears rumors about himself. People saw you going in and out of that place. They thought—”

  “I was checking the galleys of my father’s book,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said. “Oh.”

  “Yes. Oh.”

  “God,” he said. “You could kill a person with rumors.”

  “I’m going. I’ve got a logic class in fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll walk out with you.” We went out of the synagogue. “You were only working on your father’s book,” he said, shaking his head.

  We passed Rav Gershenson’s classroom, which adjoined ours. It was a quarter after three, fifteen minutes past the end of the class hour. I peered through the small square window set in the door. Rav Gershenson was still there, standing behind his desk surrounded by more than half a dozen of his students.

  We came outside. The metal door slammed shut behind me. I went quickly down the stone steps to the sidewalk. The street was crowded with people and traffic. But it felt good to be outside.

  Irving Goldberg stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat. The coat lay tight around his heavyset round frame. He smiled solemnly.

  “You’d really stand this place on its head if you ever went to that seminary,” he said.

  “Very funny,” I muttered. I was in no mood for his gloomy humor.

  “Star Talmud student at Hirsch goes to Frankel,” Irving Goldberg was saying. “That would be like what’s his name—your friend—Danny Saunders—that would almost be like Danny Saunders going to that seminary.” He looked at me. “Were you really there only for your father’s book?” he asked seriously.

  “No, I was there to take lessons in conversion to Catholicism. For God’s sake. How can something as small as this get blown up that way?”

  “Lashon hara,” he said. “Gossip, gossip, gossip. Rumors. Tongues. ‘Life and death are in the power of the tongue,’ ” he quoted in Hebrew.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” I said. Then I said, “Why didn’t you tell me earlier about the rumors?”

  He smiled soberly. “I was afraid they might be true.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, and went off to my logic class.

  Late that night I sat at my desk at home and worked automatically and without effort at a series of complicated problems in symbolic logic. I had turned down the covers of my bed and turned off the ceiling light. But I knew I would be unable to sleep, and so I sat at my desk in my pajamas with only the desk lamp on and filled pieces of paper with the conventional notations that form the language of logic. I must have sat there for hours; the top of the desk became heaped with paper. There was comfort and satisfaction in the effortless manipulation of neutral symbols, and I worked at it steadily. The only sound in the room was the faint scratching of my pencil on the sheets of paper.

  It was after two in the morning when my father knocked quietly on my door.

  He stood in the doorway, wearing his dark-blue robe over his pajamas, his gray hair uncombed. “I saw your light, Reuven,” he said softly. “It is late.”

  I looked at him and did not say anything.

  “You are doing assignments for class?”

  I told him I wasn’t doing assignments. I couldn’t sleep, I said.

  He came into the room and closed the door. “You were so quiet tonight,” he said. “Even Manya commented to me on how quiet you were tonight.”

  I put down the pencil. He came over to the bed and sat down, drawing the robe over his thin knees. He looked tired and frail and I felt something turn over inside me as I gazed at him, and I looked away. Quantifiers stared up at me from the piece of paper on my desk.

  I heard him sigh. “Little children little troubles, big children big troubles,” he murmured in Yiddish. “When my big Reuven is so quiet, there are big troubles. Can I be of help to you, Reuven?”

  I told him it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle by myself.

  He regarded me in silence for a moment through his steel-rimmed spectacles, his eyes heavy with fatigue. “I did not mean to pry, Reuven,” he said quietly. “I want only to help if I can.”

  “You’re not prying, abba. Since when do you pry?”

  “With a grown son a father never knows when he is prying. Can I be of help to you, Reuven?” he asked again.

  I had not wanted to tell him. I had not wanted him to know it had come about as a result of the weeks I had spent working on his book. Now I found I needed to tell him. I spoke with as much calm as I could bring to my words.

  He blinked wearily. He sighed. He rubbed a hand over the gray stubble of beard on his cheeks and shook his head.

  “I was right,” he said quietly. “It is a big problem.”

  “He’s a detestable human being.”

  “Detestable? From a single conversation you conclude that a person is detestable?”

  “I’m in his class, abba.”

  “And you know enough about him to call him detestable? I am surprised at you, Reuven.”

  “I know enough about him to know that I can’t stand him as a teacher. He’s poisoned everything at Hirsch for me.” They’re poison, Michael had said. They’ll poison all of us with their crazy ideas. I felt cold and stared down at the sheets of paper on my desk. The symbols stared back up at me, silent.

  “I understand how you feel, Reuven. I understand what it means to have such a teacher.” He spoke very quietly, his eyes narrow with sudden remembering. He was quiet a long time. Then he said, speaking more to himself than to me, “A teacher can change a person’s life. A good teacher or a bad teacher. Each can change a person’s life.” He was silent again. Then he said, very softly, “But only if the person is ready to be changed. A teacher rarely causes such a change, Reuven. I am not saying it is impossible. Do not misunderstand me. I am saying it is rare. More often he can only occasion such a change. You understand what I am saying.” He smiled faintly. “You are a student of philosophy and logic. I am certain you understand.”

  I was quiet.

  “Yes,” he said. “I am certain you understand.” He paused. “Reuven, was Rav Kalman angry when he spoke to you?”

  “He’s always angry.”

  “I have been reading some of his articles. He also writes in anger. He attacked Abraham Gordon recently in an article. It was unpleasant to read. His choice of language was unpleasant. But he understands Abraham Gordon’s thinking.”

  “He wants me to obey the cherem.”

  “What cherem?”

  “Against Professor Gordon.”

  “You did not tell me you talked about Abraham Gordon.”

  “H
e said I was seen with Professor Gordon in the library. He wants me to obey the cherem.”

  “The cherem is nonsense.”

  “He wants me to obey it.”

  My father was quiet. “It is a bigger problem than I realized,” he said after a moment. “What energies we waste fighting one another.” He got slowly to his feet. “I am very tired, Reuven. I will not send you any more to the Frankel Library. The book is done. There is no need for you to go there any more. Unless you want to go for yourself. I do not know what to tell you about Abraham Gordon. I cannot think now. I am too tired.” He looked at me wearily. “Reuven, you want smicha from the Hirsch Yeshiva?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And Rav Kalman’s approval is mandatory in order for you to obtain smicha?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are no longer curious about the philosophy of Abraham Gordon?”

  “I’m curious about Michael.” Curious is not the word I wanted, I thought.

  He sighed heavily. “I wish I knew what to tell you. I must go back to sleep. We will talk about it again another time. I do not know what to tell you now. Go to sleep yourself, Reuven. It is almost three o’clock. You will not be able to think in the morning.”

  He went slowly from the room. I heard the soft shuffling of his slippers as he moved through the hall. Then I heard nothing.

  I sat at my desk and stared at the pieces of paper. I sat at my desk and the symbols stared back up at me, silent, inviting. I snapped off the lamp and went to bed and was awake a long time. The night wind blew against the window. In the apartment overhead a baby cried, then was silent. I fell asleep. There was the wind and the sun and the heaving waters of the lake and Michael and I on the Sailfish and Michael was shouting at me and I could not make out the words but I knew he was angry. I woke. I lay awake, thinking of Michael. Then I slid slowly into exhausted sleep.

  The next day at the beginning of the shiur, Rav Kalman called on me to read. I was dull-headed with lack of sleep. Part of the time I did not even know what I was saying. Rav Kalman listened, asked questions, paced back and forth, smoked, tugged at his beard, asked more questions, and looked startled when I automatically and sleepily altered a word in the text that I instinctively sensed was wrong. He rushed to his desk, peered down at his Talmud, straightened, stared at me for a moment, then resumed his pacing. I realized then what I had done and glanced at the margin. The variant reading was listed; it had been inserted by a medieval scholar, which meant that it was an authorized reading. I took a deep breath. All of this had taken a second or two. But I was wide awake for the rest of the class session, reading slowly, explaining carefully. Rav Kalman paced and smoked. We had a brief skirmish over a passage in one of the major medieval commentaries. But I backed off quickly and went on reading. Rav Kalman said nothing to me when the class ended.

  Two days later, he called on me again. I read. He paced and smoked and asked questions. Again, he said nothing to me when the class ended.

  About half a dozen of my classmates followed me over to the coat racks inside the synagogue.

  “He’s picking on you,” Irving Goldberg said mournfully. “Why is he picking on you?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?” I said.

  “You’re the best Gemora head in the class,” another student said. “He always picks on those he loves.”

  “This isn’t something to joke about,” Irving Goldberg said.

  I put on my coat. They crowded around me, waiting.

  “All right,” I said. “You want a public announcement. Here’s a public announcement. I have not applied to the Frankel Seminary.”

  There were embarrassed smiles.

  “They didn’t believe me,” Irving Goldberg said somberly.

  “An unreliable witness,” a student said in Hebrew, using the Talmudic term.

  “You were really only working on your father’s book?” another classmate said.

  I looked at them. They stared back at me. The overhead fluorescents were reflected in their glasses; their faces seemed pale.

  “You are all practicing to become future Rav Kalmans,” I said.

  There were more embarrassed smiles.

  “He’s got the whole school infected,” I said.

  “Not the whole school,” someone said.

  “Don’t talk like that, Reuven,” someone else said. “He’s our Rav.”

  “I’m tired,” I said. “I haven’t slept much this week. And I’ve got to go teach. I’ll see you all for the next musar message.”

  I left them there, bought an afternoon paper in a candy store across the street, and caught a bus. Inside the bus I read the paper, dozed for a few minutes, then woke and looked out the window at the streets. Dense clouds covered the sky. I sat there and stared out the window at the gray streets and did not look at the clouds.

  I was tense and weary to the point of near exhaustion by the time Shabbat came that week. I almost fell asleep at the Shabbat meal on Friday night. I went to bed immediately after my father and I chanted the Grace and I tossed all night with ugly dreams but they slid steeply out of me and evaporated when I woke in the morning. I found myself heavy-lidded and nodding into sleep during the services, and later, after the meal, I went back to bed and slept and there were more dreams, and I woke late in the afternoon and felt my pillow cold with sweat, but I could remember nothing. My father and I said very little to one another all through that Shabbat.

  Because Sunday Talmud classes at Hirsch ended at one in the afternoon, the period of preparation ran from nine to a few minutes before eleven, and the shiur ran from eleven to one. The next morning Rav Kalman called on me again. I saw my classmates exchange grim looks. I began to read. He let me read and explain for a long time. All the while he paced back and forth, smoking. Then he stopped me on a passage I had struggled with during the period of preparation and still did not clearly understand.

  I started to give him one of the commentaries on the passage. He stopped me again.

  “I did not ask you for the Maharsha, Malter. What do the words mean? Explain the words. Can you explain the words?”

  I tried to put the words together as best I could; they did not hang together properly; there was clearly something wrong with the text.

  “Explain it again, Malter,” Rav Kalman said. “Make it clearer. It is not yet clear.”

  I explained it again. Then I was silent. He stood stiffly behind the desk. “You cannot explain it better? No. I see you cannot. Can anyone explain it better?”

  His question was answered with a stonelike silence.

  He put his cigarette into the ashtray. “American students,” I heard him mutter to himself. Then he launched into a loud and lengthy explanation of the passage. It was clever; it was very clever. But it took no account of some of the grammatical difficulties in the text.

  “You understand now, Malter?”

  I hesitated.

  “You understand?”

  I nodded.

  “Yes? Good. Now tell us what the Maharsha says.” And he paced back and forth as I went wearily through the explanation offered by the commentary.

  At supper that night I mentioned the passage to my father.

  “What do you think it means, Reuven?”

  I told him I thought the text was wrong.

  “And how would you correct it?”

  I emended three of the words and rearranged a segment of the passage.

  His eyes shone and he smiled proudly. “Very good, Reuven. Very good. The passage has been written on extensively.” And he cited some articles in scholarly journals in which the passage had been discussed at great length. Two of the articles, he said, had emended the text in precisely the way I had suggested. And my father agreed that this probably had once been the correct text.

  At that point Manya, who had been standing patiently by the stove listening to us talk, told us in her broken English to eat, the food was getting cold. We ate.

  After supper, my father went in
to his study to grade examination papers and I sat in my room at my desk and worked on a paper I was doing for a symbolic logic course. It was a complicated paper on epistemological assumptions and primitives in logistical systems, and I was enjoying it thoroughly. When the phone rang I looked at my watch and was surprised to discover it was almost eleven o’clock. The sound of the phone echoed shrilly in the hall of the apartment. I went out of my room, wondering who would be calling so late at night, and lifted the receiver.

  “Reuven?” a voice said very faintly.

  “Yes.”

  “Reuven Malter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hello, Reuven.”

  “Hello. I can barely hear you. Who is this?”

  “Is this Reuven Malter?”

  “Yes. I can’t hear you. We must have a bad connection.”

  “No. The connection is all right. I can’t talk loud. This is Michael. I’m not allowed to phone without permission.”

  “Michael,” I heard myself say, and sank slowly into the chair next to the phone stand. I felt cold with shock.

  “Do you remember me, Reuven?”

  “Of course I remember you.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m surprised. I didn’t expect—should you be calling if it’s not allowed?”

  “I need to talk to you, Reuven. I hate to be sneaky, but I need to talk to you. Can I talk to you, Reuven?”

  “Sure you can talk to me.”

  “You have to promise you won’t tell anyone. I don’t want anyone to know I broke the rules. Will you promise?”

  I did not say anything. I found I was pressing the phone hard against my ear in order to hear him better. The cartilage of my ear ached. I moved the phone away slightly.

  “Reuven?” I heard him say. “Reuven?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have to promise.”

  “All right.”

  “I don’t want anyone to think I’m breaking the rules. Some of the people here are very nice. I don’t want them to feel hurt.”

  “You have my promise, Michael.”

  I heard a rustling, clicking sound in the phone. Then there was silence. But the connection did not seem dead.