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In the lunchroom one day, one of the Hasidim accused a member of the Revisionist youth group of being worse than Hitler. Hitler had only succeeded in destroying the Jewish body, he shouted in Yiddish, but the Revisionists were trying to destroy the Jewish soul. There was almost a fist-fight, and the two students were kept apart with difficulty by members of their respective sides. The incident left a bitter taste in everyone's mouth and succeeded only in increasing the tension between the pro-Zionist and anti-Zionist students.

As I expected, Danny did not join any of the Zionist groups.

Privately, he told me he wanted to join my group. But he couldn't. Did I remember his father's explosion over Zionism? he wanted to know. I told him I had had nightmares about that explosion. How would I like an explosion like that with every meal? Danny asked me. I didn't think the question required an answer and told him so. Danny nodded grimly. Besides, he added, the antiZionists among the Hasidic students looked upon him as their leader. How would it be if he joined a Zionist group? It would do nothing but add to the already existing bitterness. He was trapped by his beard and earlocks, he said, and there was nothing he could do. But one day… He did not finish the sentence. He remained aloof, however, never participating in the quarrels between the pro-Zionist and anti-Zionist groups. And during the near fist-fight in the lunchroom, his face went rigid as stone, and I saw him look with hatred at the Hasidic student who had started the quarrel. But he said nothing, and after the disputants had been half carried, half dragged, from the lunchroom he returned immediately to the math problem we had been discussing.

In the third week of February, the newspapers reported that British Foreign Minister Bevin had announced his intention to bring the Palestine issue to the United Nations in September. My father was delighted, despite the fact that the news cost him some extra nights of work rewriting the speech he was to give at the rally.

He read the speech to me the Shabbat afternoon before the rally. In it he described the two-thousand-year-old Jewish dream of a return to Zion, the Jewish blood that had been shed through the centuries, the indifference of the world to the problem of a Jewish homeland, the desperate need to arouse the world to the realization of how vital it was that such a homeland be established immediately on the soil of Palestine. Where else could the remnant of Jewry that had escaped Hitler's ovens go? The slaughter of six million Jews would have meaning only on the day a Jewish state was established. Only then would their sacrifice begin to make some sense; only then would the songs of faith they had sung on their way to the gas chambers take on meaning; only then would Jewry again become a light to the world, as Ahad Ha'am had foreseen.

I was deeply moved by the speech, and I was very proud of my father. It was wonderful to know that he would soon be standing in front of thousands of people, reading the same words he read to me that Shabbat.

The day before the scheduled date of the Madison Square Garden rally there was a violent snowstorm, and my father walked like a ghost through our apartment, staring white-faced out the window at the swirling snow. It fell the entire day, then stopped. The city struggled to free itself of its white burden, but the streets remained choked all the next day, and my father left in the evening for the rally, wearing a look of doom, his face ashen. I couldn't go with him because I had a logic exam the next day and had to remain home to study. I forced myself to concentrate on the logic problems, but somehow they seemed inconsequential to me. I kept seeing my father standing at the rostrum in front of a vast, empty hall, speaking to seats made vacant by the snow. I dreaded the moment I would hear his key in the lock of our apartment door.

I did as much studying as I could, hating Professor Flesser for springing the exam on us the way he had done; then I wandered aimlessly through the apartment, thinking how stupid it was to have all my father's work ruined by something like a snowstorm.

Shortly before one in the morning, I heard him open the door.

I was in the kitchen, drinking milk, and I ran out into the hallway. His face was flushed with excitement. The rally had been a wild success. The Garden had been packed, and two thousand people had stood on the street outside, listening to the speeches over loudspeakers. He was elated. We sat at the kitchen table, and he told me all about it. The police had blocked off the street; the crowd's response to the speeches urging an end to the British mandate and the establishment of a Jewish state had been overwhelming. My father's talk had been wildly cheered. A senator who had spoken earlier had come up to him after the rally and had enthusiastically shaken his hand, promising him his complete support. There was no question that the rally had been a success. It had been a stunning success – despite the snow-choked streets.

It was after three in the morning when we finally went to bed. The rally made the front pages of all the New York papers the next day. The English papers carried excerpts of the senator's speech and briefly mentioned my father. But all the Yiddish papers quoted him extensively. I was the center of considerable attention on the part of the Zionist students and the target of icy hatred from the ranks of the anti-Zionists. I paid no attention to the fact that Danny did not meet me in the lunchroom. Between my fatigue over lack of sleep and my excitement over the rally, I did quite poorly in the logic exam. But I didn't care. Logic didn't seem at all important now. I kept seeing my father's excited face and heard his voice telling me over and over again about the rally.

That evening I waited for Danny more than half an hour just inside the double door of the school before I decided to go home alone. The next morning he wasn't in front of the synagogue. I waited as long as I could, then took the trolley to school. I was sitting at a table preparing for the Talmud session, when I saw him pass me and nod his head in the direction of the door. He looked white-faced and grim, and he was blinking his eyes nervously. He went out, and a moment later I followed. I saw him go into the bathroom, and I went in after him. The bathroom was empty. Danny was urinating into one of the urinals. I stood next to him and assumed the urinating position. Was he all right? I wanted to know. He wasn't all right, he told me bitterly. His father had read the account of the rally in the Yiddish press. There had been an explosion yesterday at breakfast, last night at supper, and this morning again at breakfast. Danny was not to see me, talk to me, listen to me, be found within four feet of me. My father and I had been excommunicated from the Saunders family. If Reb Saunders even once heard of Danny being anywhere in my presence, he would remove him immediately from the college and send him to an out-of-town yeshiva for his rabbinic ordination. There would be no college education, no bachelor's degree, nothing, just a rabbinic ordination. If we tried meeting in secret, Reb Saunders would find out about it. My father's speech had done it. Reb Saunders didn't mind his son reading forbidden books, but never would he let his son be the friend of the son of a man who was advocating the establishment of a secular Jewish state run by Jewish goyim. It was even dangerous for Danny to meet me in the bathroom, but he had to tell me. As if to emphasize how dangerous it was, a Hasidic student came into the bath· room just then, took one look at me, and chose the urinal farthest from me. A moment later, Danny walked out. When I came into the hallway, he was gone.

I had expected it, but now that it had happened I couldn't believe it. Reb Saunders had drawn the line not at secular literature, not at Freud – assuming he knew somehow that Danny had been reading Freud – but at Zionism. I found it impossible to believe. My father and I had been excommunicated – not only from the Saunders family, apparently, but also from the anti Zionist element of the Hasidic student body. They avoided all contact with me, and even stepped out of my way so I would not brush against them in the halls. Occasionally I overheard them talking about the Malter goyim. During lunch I sat at a table with some of my non-Hasidic classmates and stared at the section of the room the Hasidic students always took for themselves. They sat together in the lunchroom, and my eyes moved slowly over them, over their dark clothes, fringes, beards, and earlocks and it seemed to me that every word they were saying was directed against me and my father. Danny sat among them, silent, his face tight. His eyes caught mine, held, then looked slowly away. I felt cold with the look of helpless pleading I saw in them. It seemed so incredible to me, so outrageously absurd. Not Freud but Zionism had finally shattered our friendship. I went through the rest of· the day alternating between violent rage at Reb Saunders' blindness and anguished frustration at Danny's helplessness.

When I told my father about it that night, he listened in silence.

He was quiet for a long time afterward; then he sighed and shook his head, his eyes misty. He had known it would happen, he said sadly. How could it not happen?

'I don't understand it, abba. ' I was almost in tears. 'In a million years I'll never understand it. He let Danny read all the books I gave him, he let us be friends all these years even though he knew I was your son. Now he breaks us up over this. I just don't understand it. '

'Reuven, what went on between you and Danny all these years was private. Who really knew? It was probably not difficult for Reb Saunders to answer questions from his followers, assuming there were any questions, which I doubt, simply by saying that I was at least an observer of the Commandments. But he has no answer anymore to my Zionism. What can he tell his people now? Nothing. He had to do what he did. How could he let you continue to be friends? I am sorry I was the cause of it. I brought you together, and now I am the cause of your separation. I am deeply sorry. '

'He's such a – a fanatic! ' I almost shouted.

'Reuven, ' my father said quietly, 'the fanaticism of men like Reb Saunders kept us alive for two thousand years of exile. If the Jews of Palestine have an ounce of that same fanaticism and use it wisely, we will soon have a Jewish state. '

I couldn't say anything else. I was afraid my anger would bring me to say the wrong words.

I went to bed early that night but lay awake a long time, trying to remember all the things Danny and I had done together since the Sunday afternoon his ball had struck me in the eye.

The Chosen

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Chaim Potok

Глава 13

Часть 7

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