The Chosen

'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.

Chapter 4

My father came in a few minutes later, looking worse than he had the day before. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes were red, and his face was ashen. He coughed a grellt deal and kept telling me it was his cold. He sat down on the bed and told me he had talked to Dr Snydman on the phone. 'He will look at your eye Friday morning, and you will probably be able to come home Friday afternoon. I will come to pick you up when I am through teaching.'

'That's wonderful I' I said.

'You will not be able to read for about ten days. He told me he will know by then about the scar tissue.'

'I'll be happy to be out of this hospital,' 1 said. 'I walked around a little today and saw the people on the street outside.'

My father looked at me and didn't say anything.

'I wish I was outside now,' I said. 'I envy them being able to walk around like that. They don't know how lucky they are.'

'No one knows he is fortunate until he becomes unfortunate,' my father said quietly. 'That is the way the world is.'

'It'll be good to be home again. At least I won't have to spend a Shabbat here.'

'We'll have a nice Shabbat together,' my father said. 'A quiet Shabbat where we can talk and not be disturbed. We will sit and drink tea and talk.'. He coughed a little and put the handkerchief to his mouth. He took off his spectacles and wiped his eyes. Then he put them back on and sat on the bed, looking at me. He seemed so tired and pale, as if all his strength had been drained from him.

'I didn't tell you yet, abba. Danny Saunders came to see me today.'

My father did not seem surprised. 'Ah,' he said. 'And?'

'He's a very nice person. I like him.'

'So? All of a sudden you like him.' He was smiling. 'What did he say?'

I told him everything I could remember of my conversation with Danny Saunders. Once, as I talked, he began to cough, and I stopped and watched helplessly as his thin frame bent and shook. Then he wiped his lips and eyes, and told me to continue. He listened intently. When I told him that Danny Saunders had wanted to kill me, his eyes went wide, but he didn't interrupt. When I told him about Danny Saunders' photographic mind, he nodded as if he had known about that all along. When I described as best I could what we had said about our careers, he smiled indulgently. And when I explained why Danny Saunders had told his team that they would kill us apikorsim, he stared at me and I could see the same look of absorption come into his eyes that I had seen earlier in the eyes of Danny Saunders. Then my father nodded. 'People are not always what they seem to be,' he said softly. 'That is the way the world is, Reuven.'

'He's going to come visit me again tomorrow, abba.'

'Ah,' my father murmured. He was silent for a moment. Then he said quietly. 'Reuven, listen to me. The Talmud says that a person should do two things for himself. One is to acquire a teacher. Do you remember the other?'

'Choose a friend,' I said…

'Yes.' You know what a friend is, Reuven? A Greek philosopher said that two people who are true friends are like two bodies with one soul.'

I nodded.

'Reuven, if you can, make Danny Saunders your friend.'

'I like him a lot, abba.'

'No. Listen to me. I am not talking only about liking him. I am telling you to make him your friend and to let him make you his friend. I think -! He stopped and broke into another cough. He coughed a long time. Then he sat quietly on the bed, his hand on his chest, breathing hard. 'Make him your friend,' he said again, and cleared his throat noisily.

'Even though he's a Hasid?' I asked, smiling.

'Make him your friend.' my father repeated. 'We will see.'

'The way he acts, and talks doesn't seem to fit what he wears and the way he looks,' I said. 'It's like two different people.'

My father nodded slowly but was silent. He looked over at Billy, who was still asleep.

'How is your little neighbour?' he asked me.

'He's very nice. There's a new kind of operation they'll be doing on' his eyes. He was in an auto accident, and his mother was killed.'

My father looked at Billy and shook his head. He sighed and stood up, then bent and kissed me on the forehead.

'I will be back to see you tomorrow. Is there anything you need?'