The Promise Read online

  “Please lend me some money,” Michael asked me quietly.

  A crimson flush spread swiftly across Rachel’s face.

  “It’s only one more point,” Michael said.

  “That’s enough!” Rachel said loudly in Hebrew. She was angry now. She was finally angry. “You may not play any more!”

  “Lend me some money,” Michael said. He put his right hand out to me, palm up. “I’ll pay you back.”

  “You are not to play!” Rachel ordered. “I should not have let you play this long.”

  He ignored her. “Lend me some money, Reuven.”

  Behind Michael, the old man lifted his cane and came toward us to the booth. I thought he wanted to play and I moved aside. Instead he walked past me, raised the drop-leaf attached to the counter, went into the booth, and let the drop-leaf fall behind him. He put the cane on the counter alongside the lacquered board. The cane was made of wood and had a curved handle and a metal tip. The pitchman stepped back. The old man stood behind the counter and put his hands on the board.

  He seemed an aged duplicate of the pitchman. He had sparse gray hair and dark eyes set in deep sockets. His cheekbones were more pronounced than those of the pitchman, the cheeks hollower, the skin sallow on his face, dry and papery on his hands, and like wrinkled cloth on his neck. He wore a white long-sleeved silk shirt, sharply pressed trousers, a red bow tie, and a red vest.

  Standing side by side inside the small booth, the two of them looked to be father and son.

  The old man peered at me out of his deep-socketed eyes and tapped a long, thin finger against the lacquered board.

  “I am the owner,” he announced.

  His voice was hoarse, almost hollow, as if burned out from shouting into the noise of too many carnival nights.

  He looked at me a moment longer. Then he looked at Rachel.

  “This is your wife?” he said, turning to me and indicating Rachel.

  I saw Rachel blush fiercely. Michael was watching him carefully, his eyes narrow, his face expressionless.

  “No,” I said.

  “Your girl friend?” the old man asked.

  I nodded.

  “You are fortunate. A beautiful girl.” He smiled then, showing two rows of uneven, tobacco-stained teeth. He peered at me intently. “Young man,” he said, smiling and tapping a finger against the lacquered board, “you have a friend here.” He pointed to himself. “You understand? You have a friend here. Go ahead. Schmeiss!” His hand struck the counter with a light, slapping sound.

  I stared at him in amazement and disbelief. The tension of the game was suddenly gone. I felt it drain swiftly out of me and it was suddenly gone and I had to restrain myself to keep from laughing aloud with joy. “Schmeiss” means to strike, to hit. It is a Yiddish word borrowed from German.

  “Schmeiss,” the old man said again, smiling paternally. “I am telling you you are in good hands here.” Then he said in Yiddish, “Do not worry yourselves. Everything will be good.” And he winked his right eye and nodded his head.

  I saw Rachel’s face flood with relief. But Michael continued to regard him narrowly, his eyes strangely suspicious.

  A moist night wind blew along the asphalt road, carrying the odors of hot popcorn and broiling meat. I heard the roar of the roller coaster and turned and saw a car hurtle down a grade, then move slowly up a steep incline and disappear over the crest. A man laden with prizes bumped heavily into Rachel, almost knocking her down. Clutching his prizes, he muttered an apology and went on up the road. I heard a gong and the crack of a rifle and shouts, and then the roller coaster again, racing downward in a rush of sound.

  The three of us were standing right up against the counter now, looking at the old man. The pitchman stood behind him, staring gloomily at the four twenty-dollar bills that lay on the radio.

  “From where are you all?” the old man asked pleasantly in Yiddish.

  “New York,” I told him.

  “From where in New York?”

  “Brooklyn.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Where in Brooklyn do you live?”

  “I live in Williamsburg. Rachel here, and Michael, live in Crown Heights.” I spoke slowly, using my halting Yiddish.

  “In Williamsburg,” he said, and smiled deeply. “With all the Hasidim?”

  “That’s right.”

  “There are many Hasidim?”

  “It’s filled with Hasidim. From the concentration camps.”

  His face darkened. He was silent a moment. Behind him the pitchman shifted uncomfortably on his feet and ran his hand over his black hair.

  “You go to school in Brooklyn?” the old man asked quietly.

  “I go to the Hirsch Yeshiva. For smicha.” “Smicha” is the Hebrew word for Orthodox rabbinic ordination.

  “Smicha?” His deep-socketed eyes widened respectfully. “Very nice. I once studied for smicha, in Russia. And the girl? What is the girl studying?”

  “English literature,” Rachel said. Her eyes were still bright with the look of delight and relief they had taken on at the old man’s first words in Yiddish.

  “English literature.” He echoed the words mechanically.

  “Where in Russia are you from?” Rachel asked in English. She understood Yiddish but could not speak it.

  “Mogilev,” he said. “You have heard of Kishinev?”

  Rachel and I nodded.

  “In Mogilev and Shipola there were pogroms like the pogrom in Kishinev. It was terrible. Terrible. After the pogroms I joined a Zionist youth organization. That was illegal. Did you know that was illegal in Russia?”

  I stared at him. “Yes,” I heard myself say.

  “I ran from the Czarist police and came to America.”

  “Through the underground relay network?” I asked in English.

  He looked at me in surprise. “You know about that,” he said quietly, still speaking Yiddish.

  “That’s how my father came to America. For the same reason.”

  “Thousands came that way,” he said in Yiddish. “Thousands.” He was quiet for a moment. “I found work in a carnival. In Russia I went to a great yeshiva, and in America I work in a carnival.” He shrugged. “One must make a living,” he said sadly. “Here you cannot live off others.” He looked at me. “What does your father do?”

  “He teaches Talmud.”

  “Talmud. Very nice. Where does he teach?”

  “In a yeshiva high school in Crown Heights.”

  “In a high school. Very nice. He is fortunate. And the girl’s father? He is also a teacher?”

  “He’s a professor of English literature at Brooklyn College,” I said. “And her mother is a professor of art at Brooklyn College.”

  “Professors.” He seemed amazed. “And you will tell me the boy’s father is also a professor?”

  I laughed. Michael’s face broke into a proud smile. “He is,” Michael said in Yiddish.

  “He teaches Jewish philosophy at the Zechariah Frankel Seminary,” I said.

  “Have you heard of my father?” Michael asked, still speaking in Yiddish.

  “What is his name?”

  “Abraham Gordon. Professor Abraham Gordon.”

  “I do not think so.”

  “He’s very famous,” Michael said. “Everyone knows about him.”

  The old man shrugged apologetically. “I live and travel with the carnival. I know only the carnival. I do not know what goes on outside. Here and there I hear a little and read a little. But I was not so fortunate as you.” He lapsed into silence. Behind him the pitchman stood very still, staring down at the gleaming radio. The old man was quiet a long time, his eyes moist and sad. He shook his head slowly. “Nu,” he said. “Back to business. You are in good hands here now.” He had reverted to English. “Schmeiss,” he said, smiling. “See how much you will win from me.”

  I felt calm and protected. The tension and fear were gone now from the game. I put seven dollars on the counter next to the one-dollar bill.
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  “Go ahead and play,” I said to Michael. “I’ll pay and you’ll play. All right?”

  Michael grinned eagerly and picked up the cup. Rachel nodded, her eyes very bright.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “Play.”

  Michael clicked the balls together, his hands trembling faintly with excitement, then turned the cup over. The balls spilled onto the lacquered board and the fingers of the old man’s right hand poked the balls from the holes as he counted aloud in Yiddish, “Nine, seventeen, twenty-one, thirty-one, thirty-five, forty-one.” He looked at the card, smiled at Michael, and said in English, “Half a point.”

  I felt my heart racing wildly and put eight dollars down on the counter. Michael spilled the balls onto the board.

  The old man counted swiftly and consulted the card. His face fell.

  “Ah,” he said sadly. “That is a shame.” He was talking in Yiddish again and seemed quite upset. “There is no credit for thirty-eight. Such a shame.”

  We stared at him.

  “So it goes,” he said in Yiddish, smiling at us sadly. “It is a game, and you do not win every time. But it is only another half a point.”

  I put eight more dollars down on the counter. Michael did not bother clicking the balls together this time. He simply turned the cup over and let the balls spill out onto the lacquered board.

  They added up to twenty-nine. On the card, twenty-nine had printed next to it the word “Double.”

  The old man smiled and shook his head happily. “You see?” he said. “I promised you are in good hands.” He removed one of the twenty-dollar bills and replaced it with a new one-hundred-dollar bill. On top of the radio there now lay one hundred and sixty dollars.

  “Is it sixteen dollars a toss?” I heard Rachel ask in a faint voice.

  “Sixteen dollars,” the old man said, nodding.

  I felt myself sweating. Michael stood very still, holding the dice cup limply in his hand.

  “I have eleven dollars left,” I said to Rachel. My voice was dry.

  She hesitated, looked for a long moment at the old man, then put a hand into the pocket of her dress and came up with five dollars. I put the money on the counter.

  “This is our last try,” I said to the old man.

  He smiled reassuringly. “This time how can you lose?” he said.

  “Go ahead,” I said to Michael.

  Michael blinked nervously. Very slowly, as if it no longer mattered to him whether he won or lost, he raised the dice cup and turned it over on top of the board. The balls dribbled from the cup almost one by one, rolling across the lacquered surface, only three finding their way into the red holes, the rest falling against the frame. The hand of the old man moved swiftly, knocking the balls from their holes. “Nineteen,” he said. He looked at the card. Then he looked at Michael. “Ah,” he said, smiling sympathetically. “That is a terrible shame. Nineteen is no credit.”

  Michael stood frozen, staring at the old man, the dice cup gripped tightly in his hand.

  The balls had rolled into the holes very slowly this time, slowly enough for me to have been able to see the black numbers beneath the holes into which they had fallen. There had been a one, a three, and a six. On the card, the number ten offered two points.

  I looked at Michael and realized that he too had been able to count the numbers. I saw Rachel stare at Michael. Her eyes were filled with fear again.

  “That was a ten,” Michael said, his voice trembling. “I counted ten.”

  The pitchman came forward and stood next to the old man behind the counter.

  The old man blinked his deep-socketed eyes and smiled pleasantly.

  “Ten is two points,” Michael said. “I won the radio and the money.”

  “Excuse me,” the old man said quietly, still smiling. “It was nineteen.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Michael said, his knuckles white around the dice cup. “It couldn’t have been.”

  The old man shook his head and smiled. “Young man, I know my business,” he said pleasantly. “Believe me, I know my business.”

  “I think you miscounted,” I said. “The numbers were one, three, and six.”

  The old man looked at me. He was suddenly no longer smiling. “Ah,” he said, “you are a mathematician too. From a rabbi you became a mathematician. Very nice. It was a ten, a three, and a six. Not a one, but a ten.”

  “It was a one,” I said.

  “Reuven,” Rachel said very quietly.

  “Just a minute,” I told her. I looked at the old man. “Which hole did it land in?”

  “Listen,” the old man said. “You want to play again? If you want to play again, then play. If you don’t want to play again, the game is over.”

  “That was a ten,” Michael repeated, his thin voice rising.

  “Young man, don’t cause trouble. I know how to count. You think I don’t know how to count?”

  “You’re damn right you know how to count,” I said, beginning to feel the anger rise up inside me.

  The old man shook his head and sighed sadly. “Always it ends like this. Always. Who likes to lose? But I did not expect it from you.”

  “That was a one, a three, and a six,” I said again. “It landed in that hole right there, and that’s a one, not a ten.”

  The old man sighed again and turned to the pitchman. “What was it?” he asked. “What did you count?”

  “Nineteen,” the pitchman said.

  “You see?” said the old man.

  “Sure, I see,” I told him.

  “It was a one,” Michael said. “I saw it. It was a one.”

  The old man looked at him narrowly from across the counter.

  “I want the radio,” Michael said.

  “He wants the radio,” the old man said to the pitchman. “You hear? He wants the radio. Just like that. He lost, but still he wants the radio.” He looked intently at Michael. “Young man, you can play again if you want. If not, move away from the counter.”

  “I won that radio,” Michael said defiantly.

  “You won nothing. You are missing half a point. Are you playing?”

  “I haven’t any more money,” Rachel said faintly.

  “So you are not playing. So move away from the counter. You hear? Move away from the counter. You are keeping away other customers.”

  The three of us stood there, staring at him.

  “You hear me?” the old man shouted suddenly. “Play or get out. Are you playing? No? Then get out! You hear me? Get out of here!” He reached for the cane, lifted it high over his head, and brought it down with a crash upon the counter.

  Rachel gasped. Michael’s hand rose as if to protect his face from a blow. I felt the blood rush to my head. My legs were trembling.

  “Out!” the old man shouted, waving the cane. “Out! Play or get out!”

  “Let him play it again,” I said, swallowing the rage in my voice. “Call it a miscount and let him play it once more.”

  “Listen to the rabbi,” the old man shouted. He turned to the pitchman. “Did you ever hear such a thing? For free he should play.” He turned back to me. “I’m in business,” he shouted. “I make a living from this. You want me to give you something for nothing? Go away! Take your friends away! Don’t start trouble here. Get out, all of you!”

  I took a deep, tremulous breath.

  “Reuven, please let’s go,” Rachel said.

  “Come on,” I said to Michael, taking his arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Michael pulled his arm away. His face was ashen. There was a strange dead look in his eyes.

  “I wasn’t watching,” he said very quietly, his lips trembling. “Usually I’m watching and I can tell when—” He broke off. “I trusted you and I wasn’t watching.”

  I stared at him.

  “Why did you do that?” Michael asked, staring at the old man.

  The old man looked at him out of narrowed eyes and said nothing.

  “You’re like all the others,�
�� Michael said. There was a flat, toneless quality to his voice. It seemed almost as if someone else were talking from inside him. “You’re no different from the others.”

  I saw Rachel put her hands to her mouth.

  “What is he talking about?” the old man asked loudly.

  “You hate us,” Michael said. “You’re just like the others.”

  “What is he saying?” the old man asked. “He sounds crazy. Look at him. He looks crazy. Take him home. All of you, go home!”

  Michael stiffened. His eyes widened, bulged. A sudden cry of rage burst from his throat. He raised the dice cup over his head. Rachel gasped loudly. The old man took a step backward into the booth. The pitchman moved in front of him.

  “You hate us!” Michael screamed, holding the empty dice cup over his head.

  I lunged for his arm. He fought me for a moment, trying to twist away. “You hate us!” he screamed again, his mouth close to my ear. The sound echoed painfully inside my head. I grabbed the cup from his hand. He went suddenly limp and sagged heavily against me. I held him with my left arm and tossed the dice cup to the pitchman with my right.

  The old man looked out from behind the shoulders of the pitchman. “He’s crazy,” he said. “Take him home. He’s—”

  “Go to hell,” I said, and led Michael away from the booth. Rachel followed alongside me. Her face was white.

  We walked quickly along the asphalt road. I had my arm around Michael’s shoulders. He moved mechanically, his face empty of expression, his eyes wide and dead-looking.

  “Schmeiss,” I said bitterly. “That miserable—” I was in a trembling rage, but I broke off my words.

  “Michael, are you all right?” Rachel asked. She was walking alongside him now, looking into his face.

  Michael leaned heavily against me. I could feel his bony shoulder beneath my hand. He did not look at Rachel. His eyes were very wide. He stared straight ahead and was quiet.

  “I’m frightened of the way he looks,” Rachel said.

  “He’ll be all right,” I said, a little frightened now myself.

  “We should have gone right home,” Rachel said.

  We came off the asphalt road onto the parking lot. I helped Michael into the car. He sat between me and Rachel, staring through the windshield.

  Rachel started the engine. The car moved slowly off the parking lot onto the dark highway. Driving along the highway, she accelerated swiftly. Inside my head I could still hear the shouts and rifle shots and laughter and roller coaster noise of the carnival. I kept hearing it all as we drove along and was still hearing it when we turned off the highway onto the asphalt country road.