The Chosen

Da

'That was like the parting of the Red Sea out there,' I said. 'How did you do it?'

'I'm my father's son, remember? I'm the inheritor of the dynasty. Number one on our catechism: Treat the son as you would the father, because one day the son will be the father.'

'You sound like a Mitnaged,' I told him, managing another weak smile.

'No, I don't' he said. 'I sound like someone who reads too much. Come on. We sit up front. My father will be down soon.'

'You live in this house?'

'We have the upper two floors. It's a fine arrangement. Come on. They're begi

The crowd in the hallway and in front of the building had begun coming through the door. Da

The crowd came in quickly, and the synagogue was soon filled with the sounds of shuffling shoes, scraping chairs, and loud voices talking Yiddish. I heard no English, only Yiddish. Sitting in the chair, I glanced over at Dov Shlomowitz, and found him staring at me, his heavy face wearing an expression of surprise and hostility, and I suddenly realized that Da

Two gray-bearded old men came over to Da

'That's a tough passage,' he said. 'I can't make head or tail out of it. Your father would probably say the text was all wrong.' He was talking quietly and gri

I nodded, and tried another smile. My father had read that article to me before he had sent it off to his publisher. He had begun reading his articles to me during the past year, and spent a lot of time explaining them.

The noise in the synagogue had become very loud, almost a din, and the room seemed to throb and swell with the scraping chairs and the talking men. Some children were ru

I sat quietly, staring down at the prayer book on my stand. I opened the book and turned to the Afternoon Service. Its pages were yellow and old, with ragged edges and worn covers. I sat there, staring at the first psalm of the service and thinking of the almost new prayer book I had held in my hands that morning. I felt Da

'My father's coming,' he said. His voice was quiet and, I thought, a little strained.

The noise inside the synagogue ceased so abruptly that I felt its absence as one would a sudden lack of air. It stopped in swift waves, begi

A man was coming slowly up the narrow aisle, followed by a child. He was a tall man, and he wore a black satin caftan and a fur-trimmed black hat. As he passed each row of seats, men rose, bowed slightly, and sat again. Some leaned over to touch him. He nodded his head at the murmur of greetings directed to him from the seats, and his long black beard moved back and forth against his chest, and his earlocks swayed. He walked slowly, his hands clasped behind his back, and as he came closer to me I could see that the part of his face not hidden by the beard looked cut from stone, the nose sharp and pointed, the cheekbones ridged, the lips full, the brow like marble etched with lines, the sockets deep, the eyebrows thick with black hair and separated by a single wedge like a furrow plowed into a naked field. the eyes dark, with pinpoints of white light playing in them as they do in black stones in the sun. Da

'This is Reuven Malter,' he said quietly in Yiddish.

Reb Saunders continued to stare at my left eye. I felt naked under his gaze, and he must have sensed my discomfort, because quite suddenly he offered me his hand. I raised my hand to take it, then realized, as my hand was going up, that he was not offering me his hand but his fingers, and I held them for a moment they were dry and limp – then let my hand drop.

'You are the son of David Malter?' Reb Saunders asked me in Yiddish. His voice was deep and nasal, like Da

I nodded my head. I had a moment of panic, trying to decide whether to answer him in Yiddish or English. I wondered if he knew English. My Yiddish was very poor. I decided to answer in English.

'Your eye,' Reb Saunders said in Yiddish. 'It is healed?'

'It's fine,' I said in English. My voice came out a little hoarse, and I swallowed. I glanced at the congregants. They were staring at us intently, in complete silence.

Reb Saunders looked at me for a moment, and I saw the dark eyes blink, the lids going up and down like shades. When he spoke again it was still in Yiddish.

'The doctor, the professor who operated, he said your eye is healed?'

'He wants to see me again in a few days. But he said the eye is fine.'