The Chosen

Chapter 3

Asleep, I heard a shout and a noise that sounded like a cheer, and I woke immediately. There was a lot of movement in the ward, and loud voices. I wondered what was happening, there was so much noise and shouting going on and a radio was blaring. I began to sit up, then remembered that I was not yet permitted to sit and put my head back on the pillow. It was light outside, but I could not see the sun. I wondered what the noise was all about, and then I saw Mrs Carpenter walking sternly up the aisle. She was telling people to stop all the shouting and to remember that this was a hospital and not Madison Square Garden. I looked over at Billy. He was sitting straight up in his bed, and I could tell he was trying to make out what was going on. His face looked puzzled and a little frightened. I turned to look at Mr Savo, and I saw he was not in his bed.

The noise quieted a little, but the radio was still blaring. I couldn't make it out too clearly because every now and then someone would interrupt with a shout or a cheer. The announcer was talking about places called Caen and Carentan. He said something about a British airborne division seizing bridgeheads and two American airborne divisions stopping enemy troops from moving into the Cotentin Peninsula. I didn't recognize any of the names, and I wondered why everyone was so excited. There was war news all the time, but no one got this excited unless something very special was happening. I thought I could see Mr Savo sitting on one of the beds. Mrs Carpenter went over to him, and from the way she walked I thought she was angry. I saw Mr Savo get to his feet and come back up the aisle. The announcer was saying something about the Isle of Wight and the Normandy coast and Royal Air Force bombers attacking enemy coast-defence guns and United States Air Force bombers attacking shore defences. I suddenly realized what was happening and felt my heart begin to beat quickly.

I saw Mr Savo come up to my bed. He was angry, and his long, thin face with the black eyepatch made him look like a pirate. '

'Go back to your bed, Mr Savo,'" he mimicked. '

'Go back to your bed this instant." You'd think I was dying. This is no time to be in bed.'

'Is it the invasion of Europe, Mr Savo?' I asked him eagerly. I was feeling excited and a little tense, and I wished the people who were cheering would be quiet.

He looked down at me. 'It's D-day, Bobby boy. Were clopping them good. And Tony Savo has to go back, to his bed.' Then he spotted the portable radio my father had brought me the night before. 'Hey, Bobby boy, is that your radio?'

'That's right,' I said excitedly. 'I forgot all about it.'

'Lucky, lucky us.' He was smiling broadly and no longer looked like a pirate. 'We'll put it on the table between our beds and give it a listen, eh?'

'I think Billy will want to hear it too, Mr Savo.' I looked over at Billy.

Billy turned and stared in the direction of my voice. 'Do you have a radio here, Bobby?' He seemed very excited.

'It's right here, Billy. Right between our beds.'

'My uncle is a pilot. He flies big planes that drop bombs. Can you turn it on?'

'Sure, kid.' Mr Savo turned on the radio, found the station with the same announcer who was coming over the other radio, then got into his bed and lay back on his pillow. The three of us lay in our beds and listened to the news of the invasion.

Mrs Carpenter came up the aisle. She was still a little angry over all the noise in the ward, but I could see she was also excited. She asked me how I was feeling.

'I'm feeling fine, ma'am.'

'That's very good. Is that your radio?'

'Yes, ma'am. My father brought it to me.'

'How nice. You may sit up a little if you wish.'

'Thank you.' I was happy to hear that. 'May I pray with my tefillin?'

'Your phylacteries?'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'I don't see why not. You'll be careful of the bump on your head, now.'.

'Yes, ma'am. Thank you.'

She looked sternly at Mr Savo. 'I see you're behaving yourself, Mr Savo.'

Mr Savo looked at her out of his left eye and grunted. 'You'd think I was dying.'

'You are to remain in bed, Mr Savo.'

Mr Savo grunted again.

She went back up the aisle.

'Tough as a ring post,' Mr Savo said, grinning. 'Turn it up a bit, Bobby boy. Can't hear it too good.'

I leaned over and turned up the volume of the radio. It felt good to be able to move again.

I got the tefillin and prayer book out of the drawer of the night table and began to put on the tefillin. The head strap rubbed against the bump, and I winced. It was still sore. I finished adjusting the hand strap and opened the prayer book. I saw Mr Savo looklng at me. Then I remembered that I wasn't allowed to read, so I closed the prayer book. I prayed whatever I remembered by heart, trying not to listen to the announcer. I prayed for the safety of all the soldiers fighting on the beaches. When I finished praying, I took off the tefillin and put them and the prayer book back in the drawer.

'You're a real religious kid, there, Bobby boy,' Mr Savo said to me.

I didn't know what to say to that, so I looked at him and nodded and didn't say anything.

'You going·to be a priest or something?'

'I might,' I said. 'My father wants me to be a mathematician, though.'

'Yon good at math?'

'Yes. I get all A's in math.'

'But you want to be a priest, eh? A – rabbi; you call it.'

'Sometimes I think I want to be a rabbi. I'm not sure.'

'It's a good thing to be, Bobby boy. Cockeyed world needs people like that. I could've been a priest. Had a chance once. Made a wrong choice. Wound up clopping people instead. Lousy choice. Hey, listen to that! '

The correspondent was saying excitedly that some German torpedo boats had attacked a Norwegian destroyer and that it looked like it was sinking. There were sailors jumping overboard and lifeboats being lowered.

'They got clopped,' Mr Savo said, looking grim. 'Poor bas – poor guys.'

The correspondent sounded very excited as he described the Norwegian destroyer sinking.

The rest of that morning I did nothing but listen to the radio and talk about the war with Mr Savo and Billy. I explained to Billy as best I could some of the things that were going on, and he kept telling me his uncle was the pilot of a big plane that dropped bombs. He asked me if I thought he was dropping them now to help with the invasion. I told him I was sure he was.

Shortly after lunch, a boy came in from the other ward bouncing a ball. I saw he was about six years old, had a thin pale face and dark uncombed hair which he kept brushing away from his eyes with his left hand while he walked along bouncing the ball with his right. He wore light brown pyjamas and a dark brown robe.

'Poor kid,' said Mr Savo. 'Been in the ward across the hall most of his life. Stomach's got no juices or something: He watched him come up the aisle. 'Crazy world. Cockeyed: The boy stood at the foot of Mr Savo's bed, looking very small and pale. 'Hey, Mr Tony. You want to catch with Mickey?'

Mr Savo told him this was no day to toss a ball around, there was an invasion going on. Mickey didn't know what an invasion was, and began to cry. 'You promised, Mr Tony. You said you would catch with little Mickey: Mr Savo looked uncomfortable. 'Okay, kid. Don't start bawling again. Just two catches. Okay?'

'Sure, Mr Tony,' Mickey said, his face glowing. He threw the ball to Mr Savo, who had to stretch his right hand high over his head to catch it. He tossed it back lightly to the boy, who dropped it and went scrambling for it under the bed. '

I saw Mrs Carpenter come rushing up the aisle, looking furious. 'Mr Savo, you are simply impossible!' she almost shouted.

Mr Savo sat in his bed, breathing very hard and not saying anything.

'You are going to make yourself seriously ill unless you stop this nonsense and rest!'.

'Yes, ma'am,' Mr Savo said. His face was pale. He lay back on his pillow and dosed his left eye.

Mrs Carpenter turned to the boy, who had found his ball and was looking expectantly at Mr Savo.

'Mickey, there will be no more catching with Mr Savo.'

'Aw, Mrs Carpenter -!

'Mickey!', 'Yes'm,' Mickey said, suddenly docile. 'Thanks for the catch, Mr Tony.'

Mr Savo lay on his pillow and didn't say anything. Micky went back up the aisle, bouncing his ball.

Mrs Carpenter looked down at Mr Savo. 'Are you feeling all right?' she asked, sounding concerned.

'I'm a little pooped,' Mr Savo said, not opening his eye.

'You should know better than to do something like that!

'Sorry, ma'am.'

Mrs Carpenter went away.

'Tough as a ring post,' Mr Savo said. 'But a big heart.' He lay still with his eye closed, and after awhile I saw he was asleep, The announcer was talking about the supply problems Invo1ved in a large-scale invasion, when I saw Mr Galanter coming up the aisle. I turned the radio down a little. Mr Galanter came up to my bed. He was carrying a copy of the New York Times under his arn, and his face was flushed and excited.

'Came up to say hello, soldier. I'm between schools, so I've only got a few minutes. Couldn't've seen you otherwise today. How are we doing?'.

'I'm a lot better, Mr Galanter.' I was happy and proud that he had come to see me. 'My head doesn't hurt at all, and the wrist is a lot less sore.'

'That's good news, trooper. Great news. This is some day, isn't it? One of the greatest days in history. Fantastic undertaking.'

'Yes, sir. I've been listening to it on the radio.'

'We can't begin to imagine what's going on, trooper. That's the incredible part. Probably have to land more than a hundred fifty thousand troops today and tomorrow, and thousands and thousands of tanks, artillery pieces, jeeps, bulldozers, everything and all on those beaches. It staggers the mind!'

'I told little Billy here that they were using the big bombing planes an awful lot. His uncle is a bomber pilot. He's probably flying his plane right now.'

Mr Galanter looked at Billy, who had turned his head in our direction, and I saw Mr Galanter notice immediately that he was blind. 'How are you, young feller?' Mr Galanter said, his voice sounding suddenly a lot less excited.

'My uncle flies a big plane that drops bombs,' Billy said. 'Are you a flier?'.

I saw Mr Galanter's face go tight.

'Mr Galanter is my gym teacher in high school,' I told Billy.

'My uncle's been a pilot for a long time now. My father says they have to fly an awful lot before they can come home. Were you wounded or something, Mr Galanter, sir, that you're home now?'

I saw Mr Galanter stare at the boy. His mouth was open, and he ran his tongue over his lips. He looked uncomfortable. 'Couldn't make it as a soldier,' he said, looking at Billy. 'I've got a bad -' He stopped. 'Tried to make it but couldn't.'

'I'm sorry to hear that, sir.'

'Yeah,' Mr Galanter said.

I was feeling embarrassed. Mr Galanter's excitement had disappeared, and now he stood there, staring at Billy and looking deflated. I felt sorry for him, and I regretted having mentioned Billy's uncle.

'I wish your uncle all the luck in the world,' Mr Galanter said quietly to Billy.

'Thank you, sir,' Billy said.

Mr Galanter turned to me. 'They did quite a job getting that piece of glass out of your eye, trooper: He was trying to sound cheerful, but he wasn't succeeding too well. 'How soon will you be out?'

'My father said in a few days.'

'Well, that's great. You're a lucky boy. It could've been a lot worse: 'Yes, sir.'

I wondered if he knew about the scar tissue and didn't want to talk to me about it. I decided not to mention it; he was looking a little sad and uneasy, and I didn't want to make him any more uncomfortable than he already was.

'Well, I got to go teach a class, trooper. Take care of yourself and get out of here soon.'

'Yes, sir. Thank you for everything and for coming to see me.'

'Anything for one of my troopers,' he said.

I watched him walk away slowly up the aisle.

'It's too bad he couldn't be a soldier,' Billy said. 'My father isn't a soldier, but that's because my mother was killed in the accident and there's no one else to take care of me and my little sister.'

I looked at him and didn't say anything.

'I think I'll sleep a little now,' Billy said. 'Would you turn off the radio?'

'Sure, Billy.'

I saw him put his palms under his head on the pillow and lie there, staring vacantly up at the ceiling.

I lay back' and after a few minutes of thinking about Mr Galanter I fell asleep. I dreamed about my left eye and felt very frightened. I thought I could see sunlight through the closed lid of my right eye, and I dreamed about waking up in the hospital yesterday afternoon and the nurse moving the curtain away. Now something was blocking the sunlight. Then the sunlight was back again, and I could see it in my sleep through the lid of my right eye. Then it was gone again, and I felt myself getting a little angry at whoever was playing with the sunlight. I opened my eye and saw someone standing alongside my bed. Whoever it was stood silhouetted against the sunlight, and for a moment I couldn't make out the face. Then I sat up quickly.

'Hello,' Danny Saunders said softly. 'I'm sorry if I woke you. The nurse told me it was all right to wait here.'

I looked at him in amazement. He was the last person in the world I had expected to visit me in the hospital.

'Before you tell me how much you hate me,' he said quietly, 'let me tell you that I'm sorry about what happened.'

I stared at him and didn't know what to say. He was wearing a dark suit, a white shirt open at the collar, and a dark skullcap. I could see the earlocks hanging down alongside his sculptured face and the fringes outside the trousers below the jacket.

'I don't hate you,' I managed to say, because I thought it was time for me to say something even if what I said was a lie.

He smiled sadly. 'Can I sit down? I've been standing here about fifteen minutes waiting for you to wake up.'

I sort of nodded or did something with my head, and he took it as a sign of approval and sat down on the edge of the bed to my right. The sun streamed in from the windows behind him, and shadows layover his face and accentuated the lines of his cheeks and jaw. I thought he looked a little like the pictures I had seen of Abraham Lincoln before he grew the beard – except for the small tufts of sand-colored hair on his chin and cheeks, the close-cropped hair on his head, and the side curls. He seemed ill at ease, and his eyes blinked nervously.

'What do they say about the scar tissue?' he asked.

I was astonished all over again. 'How did you find out about that?'

'I called your father last night. He told me.'

'They don't know anything about it yet. I might be blind in that eye.'

He nodded slowly and was silent.

'How does it feel to know you've made someone blind in one eye?' I asked him. I had recovered from my surprise at his presence and was feeling the anger beginning to come back.

He looked at me, his sculptured face expressionless. 'What do you want me to say?' His voice wasn't angry, it was sad. 'You want me to say I'm miserable? Okay. I'm miserable.'

'That's all? Only miserable? How do you sleep nights?'

He looked down at his hands. 'I didn't come here to fight with you,' he said softly. 'If you want to do nothing but fight, I'm going to go home.'

'For my part,' I told him, 'you can go to hell, and take your whole snooty bunch of Hasidim along with you I'

He looked at me and sat still. He didn't seem angry, just sad.

His silence made me all the angrier, and finally I said, 'What the hell are you sitting there for? I thought you said you were going home!'

'I came to talk to you,' he said quietly.

'Well, I don't want to listen,' I told him. 'Why don't you go home? Go home and be sorry over my eye!'

He stood up slowly. I could barely see his face because of the sunlight behind him. His shoulders seemed bowed. 'I am sorry,' he said quietly.

'I'll just bet you are,' I told him.

He started to say something, stopped, then turned and walked slowly away up the aisle. I lay back on the pillow, trembling a little and frightened over my own anger and hate.

'He a friend of yours?' I heard Mr Savo ask me.

I turned to him. He was lying with his head on his pillow. 'No,' I said.

'He give you a rough time or something? You don't sound so good, Bobby boy.'

'He's the one who hit me in the eye with the ball.'

Mr Savo's face brightened. 'No kidding? The clopper himself. Well, well'

'I think I'll get some more sleep,' I said. I was feeling depressed.

'He one of these real religious Jews?' Mr Savo asked.

'Yes.'

'I've seen them around. My manager had an uncle like that.

Real religious guy. Fanatic. Never had anything to do with my manager, though. Small loss. Some lousy manager.'

I didn't feel like having a conversation just then, so I remained silent. I was feeling a little regretful that I had been so angry with Danny Saunders.

I saw Mr Savo sit up and take the deck of cards from his night table. He began to set up his rows on the blanket. I noticed Billy was asleep. I lay back in my bed and closed my eyes. But I couldn't sleep.

My father came in a few minutes after supper, looking pale and worn. When I told him about my conversation with Danny Saunders, his eyes became angry behind the glasses.

'You did a foolish thing, Reuven,' he told me sternly. 'You remember what the Talmud says. If a person comes to apologize for having hurt you, you must listen and forgive him.'

'I couldn't help it, abba.'

'You hate him so much you could say those things to him?'

'I'm sorry,' I said, feeling miserable.

He looked at me and I saw his eyes were suddenly sad. 'I did not intend to scold you,' he said.

'You weren't scolding,' I defended him.

'What I tried to tell you, Reuven, is that when a person comes to talk to you, you should be patient and listen. Especially if he has hurt you in any way. Now, we will not talk anymore tonight about Reb Saunders' son. This is an important day in the history of the world. It is the beginning of the end for Hitler and his madmen. Did you hear the announcer on the boat describing the invasion?'

We talked for a while about the invasion. Finally, my father left, and I lay back in my bed, feeling depressed and angry with myself over what I had said to Danny Saunders.

Billy's father had come to see him again, and they were talking quietly. He glanced at me and smiled warmly. He was a fine looking person, and I noticed he had a long white scar on his forehead running parallel to the line of his light blond hair.

'Billy tells me you've been very nice to him,' he said to me.

I sort of nodded my head on the pillow and tried to smile back.

'I appreciate that very much,' he said. 'Billy wonders if you would call us when he gets out of the hospital: 'Sure,' I said.

'We're in the phone book. Roger Merrit. Billy says that after his operation, when he can see again, he would like to see what you look like: 'Sure, I'll give you a call,' I said.

'Did you hear that, Billy?'

'Yes,' Billy said happily. 'Didn't I tell you he was nice, Daddy?' The man smiled at me, then turned back to Billy. They went on talking quietly.

I lay in the bed and thought about all the things that had happened during the day, and felt sad and depressed.

The next morning, Mrs Carpenter told me I could get out of bed and walk around a bit. After breakfast, I went out into the hall for a while. I looked out a window and saw people outside on the street. I stood there, staring out the window a long time. Then I went back to my bed and lay down.

I saw Mr Savo sitting up in his bed, playing cards and grinning.

'Hows it feel to be on your feet, Bobby boy?' he asked me.

'It feels wonderful. I'm a little tired, though.'

'Take it real slow, kid. Takes a while to get the old strength back.

One of the patients near the radio at the other end of the ward let out a shout. I leaned over and turned on my radio. The announcer was talking about a breakthrough on one of the beaches. 'That's clopping them!' Mr Savo said, grinning broadly.

I wondered what that beach must look like now, and I could see it filled with broken vehicles and dead soldiers.

I spent the morning listening to the radio. When Mrs Carpenter came over, I asked her how long I would be in the hospital, and she smiled and said Dr Snydman would have to decide that. 'Dr Snydman will see you Friday morning,' she added.

I was beginning to feel a lot less excited over the war news and a lot more annoyed that I couldn't read. In the afternoon, I listened to some of the soap operas – Life Can Be Beautiful, Stella Dallas, Mary Noble, Ma Perkins – and what I heard depressed me even more. I decided to turn off the radio and get some sleep.

'Do you want to hear any more of this?' I asked Billy. He didn't answer, and I saw he was sleeping.

'Turn it off, kid: Mr Savo said. 'How much of that junk can a guy take?'

I turned off the radio and lay back on my pillow.

'Never knew people could get clopped so hard the way they clop them on those soap operas,' Mr Savo said. 'Wen. well, look who's here.'

'Who?' I sat up.

'Your real religious clopper.'

I saw it was Danny Saunders. He came up the aisle and stood alongside my bed, wearing the same clothes he had the day before.

'Are you going to get angry at me again?' he asked hesitantly.

'No,' I said.

'Can I sit down?'

'Yes.'

'Thanks,' he said, and sat down on the edge of the bed to my right. I saw Mr Savo stare at him for a moment, then go back to his cards.

'You were pretty rotten yesterday, you know,' Danny Saunders said.

'I'm sorry about that.' I was surprised at how happy I was to see him.

'I didn't so much mind you being angry,' he said. 'What I thought was rotten was the way you wouldn't let me talk.'

'That was rotten, all right. I'm really sorry.'

'I came up to talk to you now. Do you want to listen?'

'Sure.' I said.

'I've been thinking about that ball game. I haven't stopped thinking about it since you got hit.'

'I've been thinking about it, too,' I said.

'Whenever I do or see something I don't understand, I like to think about it until I understand it.' He talked very rapidly, and I could see he was tense. 'I've thought about it a lot, but I still don't understand it. I want to talk to you about it. Okay?'

'Sure,' I said.

'Do you know what I don't understand about that ball game?

I don't understand why I wanted to kill you.' I stared at him.

'It's really bothering me.'

'Well, I should hope so,' I said.

'Don't be so cute, Malter. I'm not being melodramatic. I really wanted to kill you.'

'Well, it was a pretty hot ball game,' I said" 'I didn't exactly love you myself there for a while.'

'I don't think you even know what I'm talking about,' he said. 'Now, wait a minute -'

'No, listen. Just listen to what I'm saying, will you? Do you remember that second curve you threw me?'

'Sure.'

'Do you remember I stood in front of the plate afterwards and looked at you?'

'Sure.' I remembered the idiot grin vividly.

'Well, that's when I wanted to walk over to you and open your head with my bat: I didn't know what to say.

'I don't know why I didn't. I wanted to.'

'That was some ball game,' I said, a little awed by what he was telling me.

'It had nothing to do with the ball game,' he said. 'At least I don't think it did. You weren't the first tough team we played. And we've lost before, too. But you really had me going, Malter. I can't figure it out. Anyway, I feel better telling you about it.'

'Please stop calling me Malter,' I said.

He looked at me. Then he smiled faintly. 'What do you want me to call you?'

'If you're going to call me anything, call me Reuven,' I said. 'Malter sounds as if you're a schoolteacher or something.'

'Okay,' he said, smiling again. 'Then you call me Danny.'

'Fine,' I said.

'It was the wildest feeling,' he said. 'I've never felt that way before.'

I looked at him, and suddenly I had the feeling that everything around me was out of focus. There was Danny Saunders, sitting on my bed in the hospital dressed in his Hasidic-style clothes and talking about wanting to kill me because I had pitched him some curve balls. He was dressed like a Hasid, but he didn't sound like one. Also, yesterday I had hated him; now we were calling each other by our first names. I sat and listened to him talk. I was fascinated just listening to the way perfect English came out of a person in the clothes of a Hasid. I had always thought their English was tinged with a Yiddish accent. As a matter of fact, the few times I had ever talked with a Hasid, he had spoken only Yiddish. And here was Danny Saunders talking English, and what he was saying and the way he was saying it just didn't seem to fit in with the way he was dressed, with the side curls on his face and the fringes hanging down below his dark jacket.

'You're a pretty rough fielder and pitcher,' he said, smiling at me a little.

'You're pretty rough yourself,' I told him. 'Where did you learn to hit a ball like that?'

'I practised,' he said. 'You don't know how many hours I spent learning how to field and hit a baseball: 'Where do you get the time? I thought you people always studied Talmud: He grinned at me. 'I have an agreement with my father. I study my quota of Talmud every day, and he doesn't care what I do the rest of the time: 'What's your quota of Talmud?'

'Two blatt.'

'Two blatt?' I stared at him. That was four pages of Talmud a day. If I did one page a day, I was delighted. 'Don't you have any English work at all?'

'Of course I do. But not too much. We don't have too much English work at our yeshiva.'

'Everybody has to do two blatt of Talmud a day and his English?'

'Not everybody. Only me. My father wants it that way.'

'How do you do it? That's a fantastic amount of work.'

'I'm lucky: He grinned at me. 'I'll show you how. What Talmud are you studying now?'

'Kiddushin,' I said.

'What page are you on?'

I told him.

'I studied that two years ago. Is that what it reads like?'

He recited about a third of the page word for word, including the commentaries and the Maimonidean legal decisions of the Talmudic disputations. He did it coldly, mechanically, and listening to him, I had the feeling I was watching some sort of human machine at work.

I sat there and gaped at him. 'Say, that's pretty good,' I managed to say, finally.

'I have a photographic mind. My father says it's a gift from God. I look at a page of Talmud, and I remember it by heart. I understand it, too. After a while, it gets a little boring, though. They repeat themselves a lot. I can do it with Ivanhoe, too. Have you read Ivanhoe?'

'Sure.'

'Do you want to hear it with Ivanhoe?'

'You're showing off now,' I said.

He grinned. 'I'm trying to make a good impression.'

'I'm impressed,' I said. 'I have to sweat to memorize a page of Talmud. Are you going to be a rabbi?'

'Sure. I'm going to take my father's place.'

'I may become a rabbi. Not a Hasidic-type, though.'

He looked at me, an expression of surprise on his face. 'What do you want to become a rabbi for?'

'Why not?'

'There are so many other things you could be.'

'That's a funny way for you to talk. You're going to become a rabbi.'

'I have no choice. It's an inherited position.'

'You mean you wouldn't become a rabbi if you had a choice?'

'I don't think so.'

'What would you be?'

'I don't know. Probably a psychologist.'

'A psychologist?'

He nodded.

'I'm not even sure I know what it's about.'

'It helps you understand what a person is really like inside. I've read some books on it.'

'Is that like Freud and psychoanalysis and things like that?'

'Yes,' he said.

I didn't know much at all about psychoanalysis, but Danny Saunders, in his Hasidic clothes, seemed to me to be about the last person in the world who would qualify as an analyst. I always pictured analysts as sophisticated people with short pointed beards, monocles, and German accents.

'What would you be if you didn't become a rabbi?' Danny Saunders asked.

'A mathematician,' I said. 'That's what my father wants me to be.'

'And teach in a university somewhere?'

'Yes.'

'That's a very nice thing to be,' he said. His blue eyes looked dreamy for a moment. 'I'd like that.'

'I'm not sure I want to do that, though.'

'Why not?'

'I sort of feel I could be more useful to people as a rabbi. To our own people, I mean. You know, not everyone is religious, like you or me. I could teach them, and help them when they're in trouble. I think I would get a lot of pleasure out of that.'

'I don't think I would. Anyway, I'm going to be a rabbi. Say, where did you learn to pitch like that?'

'I practised, too.' I grinned at him.

'But you don't have to do two blatt of Talmud a day.'

'Thank God!'

'You certainly have a mean way of pitching.'

'How about your hitting? Do you always hit like that, straight to the pitcher?'

'Yes.'

'How'd you ever learn to do that?'

'I can't hit any other way. It's got something to do with my eyesight, and with the way I hold the bat.! don't know.'

'That's a pretty murderous way to hit a ball. You almost killed me.'

'You were supposed to duck,' he said.

'I had no chance to duck.'

'Yes you did.'

'There wasn't enough time. You hit it so fast.'

'There was time for you to bring up your glove.'

I considered that for a moment.

'You didn't want to duck.'

'That's right,' I said, after a while.

'You didn't want to have to duck any ball that I hit. You had to try and stop it.'

'That's right.' I remembered that fraction of a second when I had brought my glove up in front of my face. I could have jumped aside and avoided the ball completely. I hadn't thought to do that, though. I hadn't wanted Danny Saunders to make me look like Schwartzie.

'Well, you stopped it,' Danny Saunders said. I grinned at him.

'No hard feelings anymore?' he asked me.

'No hard feelings,' I said. 'I just hope the eye heals all right.'

'I hope so, too,' he said fervently. 'Believe me.'

'Say, who was that rabbi on the bench? Is he a coach or something?'

Danny Saunders laughed. 'He's one of the teachers in the yeshiva. My father sends him along to make sure we don't mix too much with the apikorsim.'

'That apikorsim thing got me angry at you. What did you have to tell your team a thing like that for?'

'I'm sorry about that. It's the only way we could have a team.

I sort of convinced my father you were the best team around 'and that we had a duty to beat you apikorsim at what you were best at. Something like that.'

'You really had to tell your father that?'

'Yes.'

'What would have happened if you'd lost?'

'I don't like to think about that. You don't know my father.'

'So you practically had to beat us.'

He looked at me for a moment, and I saw he was thinking of something. His eyes had a kind of cold, glassy look. 'That's right,' he said, finally. He seemed to be seeing something he had been searching for a long time. 'That's right,' he said again.

'What was he reading all the time?'

'Who?'

'The rabbi.'

'I don't know. Probably a book on Jewish law or something.'

'I thought it might have been something your father wrote.'

'My father doesn't write,' Danny said. 'He reads a lot, but he never writes. He says that words distort what a person really feels in his heart. He doesn't like to talk too much, either. Oh, he talks plenty when we're studying Talmud together. But otherwise he doesn't say much. He told me once he wishes everyone could talk in silence.'

'Talk in silence?'

'I don't understand it either,' Danny said, shrugging. 'But that's what he said.

'Your father must be quite a man.'

He looked at me. 'Yes,' he said, with the same cold, glassy stare, in his eyes. I saw him begin to play absent-mindedly with one of his earlocks. We were quiet for a long time. He seemed absorbed in something. Finally, he stood up. 'It's late. I had better go.'

'Thanks for coming to see me.'

'I'll see you tomorrow again.'

'Sure.'

He still seemed to be absorbed in something. I watched him walk slowly up the aisle and out of the ward.