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I saw his head nod slightly and the beard go up and down against his chest. The lights from the naked bulb on the ceiling gleamed off his satin caftan.
'Tell me, you know mathematics? My son tells me you are very good in mathematics.'
I nodded.
'So. We will see. And you know Hebrew. A son of David Malter surely knows Hebrew.' I nodded again.
'We will see,' Reb Saunders said.
I glanced out of the sides of my eyes and saw Da
'Nu,' Reb Saunders said, 'later we will talk more. I want to know my son's friend. Especially the son of David Malter.' Then he went past us and stood in front of the little podium, his back to the congregation, the little boy still holding on to his caftan.
Da
The old man had a weak voice, and I could barely hear him over the prayers of the worshipers. Reb Saunders stood with his back to the congregation, swaying back and forth, occasionally clapping his hand together, and the child stood at his right, swaying too, in obvious imitation of his father. Throughout the entire service, Reb Saunders stood with his back to the congregation, sometimes raising his head toward the ceiling, or raising his hands to cover his eyes. He turned only when the Torah was taken from the Ark and read.
The service ended with the Kaddish, and then Reb Saunders walked slowly back up the aisle, followed by the child, who was still clinging to his father's caftan. As the child passed me, I noticed his dark eyes were very large and his face was deathly pale.
Da
The congregants rose and came toward the rear of the synagogue. The silence was gone now, burst as abruptly as it had begun, and someone started chanting a tune, and others took it up, clapping their hands in rhythm to the melody. They were filing out the door – probably to wash their hands, I thought and soon they were coming back in and finding seats at the tables, the benches scraping loudly as they were moved back and forth. The singing had stopped. Our table filled rapidly, mostly with older men.
Reb Saunders stood up, poured water over his hands from the pitcher, the water spilling into the saucer, then wiped his hands, removed the white satin cloth that covered the chalah, said the blessing over bread, cut a section off the end of the chalah, swallowed it, and sat down. Da
I was not very hungry, but I made some attempt at eating so as not to insult anyone. Frequently during the meal, I felt rather than saw Reb Saunders' eyes on my face. Da
Da
Someone began to sing Atah Echad, one of the prayers from the Evening Service. The meal was over, and the men began to sway slowly, in unison with the melody. The singing filled the synagogue, and Reb Saunders sat back in his leather seat and sang too, and then Da
Everyone waited, and no one moved, no one coughed, no one even took a deep breath. The silence became unreal and seemed suddenly filled with a noise of its own, the noise of a too long silence. Even the child was staring now at his father, his eyes like black stones against the naked whiteness of his veined face.
And then Reb Saunders began to speak.
He swayed back and forth in the leather chair, his eyes dosed, his left hand in the crook of his right elbow, the fingers of his right hand stroking his black beard, and I could see everyone at the tables lean forward, eyes staring, mouths slightly open, some of the older men cupping their hands behind their ears to catch his words. He began in a low voice, the words coming out slowly in a singsong kind of chant.