Chaim Potok - The Chosen

'Yes, abba.'

'Reuven -!

'Yes?'

'Never mind. Go to sleep. I am going to sit here for a while and have another glass of tea.'

I left him sitting at the kitchen table, staring down at the white cloth.

The next day I met Danny's father.

My father and I woke early so as to be in our synagogue by eight-thirty. Manya came in a little before eight and served us a light breakfast. Then my father and I started out on the three block walk to the synagogue. It was a beautiful day, and I felt happy to be out on the street again. It was wonderful to be outside that hospital, looking at the people and watching the traffic. When it didn't rain and wasn't too cold, my father and I always enjoyed our Shabbat walks to and from the synagogue.

There were many synagogues in Williamsburg. Each Hasidic sect had its own house of worship – shtibblach, they were called most of them badly lighted, musty rooms, with benches or chairs crowded together and with windows that seemed always to be closed. There were also those synagogues in which Jews who were not Hasidim worshiped. The synagogue where my father and I prayed had once been a large grocery store. It stood on Lee Avenue, and though the bottom half of its window was curtained off, the sun shone in through the uncurtained portion of the glass, and I loved to sit there on a Shabbat morning, with the gold of the sun on the leaves of my prayer book and pray.

The synagogue was attended mostly by men like my father, teachers from my yeshiva, and others who had come under the influence of the Jewish Enlightenment in Europe and whose distaste for Hasidism was intense and outspoken. Many of the students in the yeshiva I attended prayed there, too, and it was good to be able to be with them on a Shabbat morning.

When my father and I came into the synagogue that morning, the service had just begun. We took our usual seats a few rows up from the window and joined in the prayers. I saw Davey Cantor come in. He nodded to me, looking gloomy behind his glasses and took his seat. The prayers went slowly; the man at the podium had a fine voice and waited until each portion of the service had been completed by everyone before he began to chant. I glanced at my father during the Silent Devotion. He stood in his long prayer shawl, its silver trim bathed in sunlight, its fringes dangling almost to the floor. His eyes were closed – he always prayed from memory, except during a Festival or a High Holiday Service – and he was swaying slightly back and forth, his lips murmuring the words. I did not wear a prayer shawl; they were worn only by adults who were or had once been married.

During the Torah Service, which followed the Silent Devotion, I was one of the eight men called up to the podium to recite the blessing over the Torah. Standing at the podium, I listened carefully to the reader as he chanted the words from the scroll. When he was done, I recited the second blessing and the prayer that thanks God when a serious accident has been avoided. As I left the podium and walked back to my seat, I wondered what blessing, if any. I would have recited had my eye been blinded. What blessing would Mr Savo make if he were a Jew? I asked myself. For the rest of the service I thought constantly of Mr Savo and Billy.

Lunch was ready for us when we got home, and Manya kept adding 'food to my plate and urging me to eat; food was necessary for someone who had just come back from the hospital, she told me in her broken English. My father talked about my work at school. I must be careful not to read until Dr Snydman gave me his permission, he said, but there was nothing wrong if I attended classes and listened. Perhaps he could help me study. Perhaps he could read to me. We would try it and see. After the Grace, my father lay down on his bed to rest for a while, and I sat on the porch and stared at the sunlight on the flowers and the ailanthus. I sat like that for about an hour, and then my father came out to tell me he was going over to see one of his colleagues.

I lay back on the lounge chair and stared up at the sky. It was a deep blue with no clouds, and I felt I could almost touch it. It's the color of Danny's eyes, I thought. It's as blue as Danny's eyes. What color are Billy's eyes? I asked myself. I think they're also blue. Both Danny's and Billy's eyes are blue. But one set of eyes is blind. Maybe they're not blind anymore, I thought. Maybe both sets of eyes are okay now. I fell asleep, thinking about Danny's and Billy's eyes.

It was a light, dreamless sleep, a kind of half-sleep that refreshes but does not shut off the world completely. I felt the warm wind and smelled newly cut grass, and a bird perched on a branch of the ailanthus and sang for a long time before it flew away. Somehow I knew where that bird was, though I did not open my eyes. There were children playing on the street, and once a dog barked and a car's brakes screeched. Someone was playing a piano nearby, and the music drifted slowly in and out of my mind like the ebb and flow of ocean surf. I almost recognized the melody, but I could not be sure; it slipped like a cool and silken wind from my grasp. I heard a door open and close and there were footsteps against wood, and then silence, and I knew someone had come onto the porch, but I would not open my eyes. I did not want to lose that twilight sleep, with its odors and sounds and whispered flow of music. Someone was on the porch, looking at me. I felt him looking at me. I felt him slowly push away the sleep, and, finally, I opened my eyes, and there was Danny, standing at the foot of the lounge chair, with his arms folded across his chest, clicking his tongue and shaking his head.

'You sleep like a baby,' he said 'I feel guilty waking you.' I yawned, stretched, and sat up on the edge of the lounge chair. 'That was delicious,' I added, yawning again. 'What time is it?'

'It's after five, sleepyhead. I've been waiting here ten minutes for you to wake up.'

'I slept almost three hours,' I said. 'That was some sleep.'

He clicked his tongue again and shook his head. 'What kind of infield is that?' He was imitating Mr Galanter. 'How can we keep that infield solid if you're asleep there, Malter?'

I laughed and got to my feet.

'Where do you want to go?' he asked.

'I don't care.'

'I thought we'd go over to my father's shul. He wants to meet you.'

'Where is it?' I asked him. 'It's five blocks from here.'

'Is my father inside?'

'I didn't see him. Your maid let me in. Don't you want to go?'

'Sure,' I said. 'Let me wash up and put a tie and jacket on. I don't have a caftan, you know.'

He grinned at me. 'The uniform is a requirement for members of the fold only,' he said.

'Okay, member of the fold. Come on inside with me.'

I washed, dressed, told Manya that when my father came in she should let him know where I had gone, and we went out.

'What does your father want to see me about?' I asked Danny as we went down the stone stairway of the house.

'He wants to meet you. I told him we were friends.' We turned up the street, heading toward Lee Avenue.

'He always has to approve of my friends,' Danny said. 'Especially if they're outside the fold. Do you mind my telling him that we're friends?'

'No.'

'Because I really think we are,' Danny said.

I didn't say anything. We walked to the comer, then turned right on Lee A venue. The street was busy with traffic and crowded with people. I wondered what any of my classmates would think if they saw me walking with Danny. It would become quite a topic of conversation in the neighborhood. Well, they would see me with him sooner or later.

Danny was looking at me, his sculptured face wearing a serious expression. 'Don't you have any brothers, or sisters?' he asked. 'No. My mother died soon after I was born.'