'Can I be honest with you?' I asked him.

'Sure,' he said.

'I'm all mixed up about you. I'm not trying to be funny or anything. I really am mixed up about you. You look like a Hasid, but you don't sound like one. You don't sound like what my father says Jasidim are supposed to sound like. You sound almost as if you don't believe in God.'

He looked at me but didn't respond.

'Are you really going to become a rabbi and take your father's place?'

'Yes,' he said quietly.

'How can you do that if you don't believe in God?'

'I believe in God. I never said I didn't believe in God.'

'You don't sound like a Hasid, though,' I told him.

'What do I sound like?'

'Like a – an apikoros: He smiled but said nothing. It was a sad smile, and his blue eyes seemed sad, too. He looked back out the window, and we sat in silence a long time. It was a warm silence, though, not in the least bit awkward. Finally, he said very quietly, 'I have to take my father's place. I have no choice. It's an inherited position. I'll work it out – somehow. It won't be that bad, being a rabbi. Once I'm a rabbi my people won't care what I read. I'll be sort of like God to them. They won't ask any questions: 'Are you going to like being a rabbi?'

'No,' he said.

'How can you spend your life doing what you don't like?'

'I have no choice,' he said again. 'It's like a dynasty. If the son doesn't take the father's place, the dynasty falls apart. The people expect me to become their rabbi. My family has been their rabbi for six generations now. I can't just walk out on them. I'm – I'm a little trapped. I'll work it out, though – somehow.' But he didn't sound as if he thought he would be able to work it out. He sounded very sad.

We sat quietly a while longer, looking out the window at the people below. There were only a few minutes of sunlight left, and I found myself wondering why my father hadn't yet come to see me. Danny turned away from the window and began to play with his earlock again, caressing it and twirling it around his index finger. Then he shook his head and put his hands in his pockets. He sat back on the bench and looked at me. 'It's funny,' he said. 'It's really funny. I have to be a rabbi and don't want to be one. You don't have to be a rabbi and do want to be one. It's a crazy world.'

I didn't say anything. I had a sudden vivid picture of Mr Savo sitting in his bed, saying, 'Crazy world. Cockeyed.' I wondered how he was feeling and· if the curtain was still around his bed. 'What kind of mathematics are you interested in?' Danny asked…

'I'm really interested in logic. Mathematical logic.'

He looked puzzled.

'Some people call it symbolic logic,' I said.

'I never even heard of it,' he confessed.

'It's really very new. A lot of it began with Russell and Whitehead and a book they wrote called Principia Mathematica.'

'Bertrand Russell?'

'That's right.'

'I didn't know he was a mathematician.'

'Oh, sure. He's a great mathematician. And a logician, too.'

'I'm very bad at mathematics. What's it all about? Mathematical logic, I mean.'

'Well, they try to deduce all of mathematics from simple logical principles and show that mathematics is really based on logic. It's pretty complicated stuff. But I enjoy it.'

'You have a course in that in your schoo!?'

'No. You're not the only person who reads a lot.'

For a moment he looked at me in astonishment. Then he laughed.

'I don't read seven or eight books a week, though, like you,' I said. 'Only about three or four.'

He laughed again. Then he got to his feet and stood facing me.

His eyes were bright and alive with excitement.

'I never even heard of symbolic logic,' he said. 'It sounds fascinating. And you want to be a rabbi? How do they do it? I mean, how can you deduce arithmetic from logic? I don't see -! He stopped and looked at me. 'What's the matter?' he asked.

'There's my father,' I said, and got quickly to my feet.

My father had come out of the elevator at the other end of the hall and was walking toward the eye ward. I thought I would have to call out to attract his attention, but a few steps short of the entrance to the ward he saw us. If he felt any surprise at seeing me with Danny I didn't notice it. His face did not change radically. It went from curiosity to bewildered astonishment. He looked for a moment as though he wanted to run away. I could see he was nervous and agitated, but I didn't have time to think about it, because my father was standing there, looking at the two of us. He was wearing his dark gray, double-breasted suit and his gray hat. He was a good deal shorter than Danny and a little shorter than I, and his face still looked pale and worn. He seemed out of breath, and he was carrying a handkerchief in his right hand.

'I am late,' he said. 'I was afraid they would not let me in.' His voice was hoarse and raspy. 'There was a faculty meeting. How are you, Reuven?'

'I'm fine, abba.'

'Should you be out here in the hall now?'

'It's all right, abba. The man next to me became sick suddenly, and we didn't want to disturb him. Abba, I want you to meet Danny Saunders.'

I could see a faint smile begin to play around the comers of my father's lips. He nodded at Danny.

'This is my father, Danny.'

Danny didn't say anything. He just stood there, staring at my father. I saw my father watching him from behind his steel· rimmed spectacles, the smile playing around the corners of his lips.

'I didn! t -' Danny began, then stopped.

There was a long moment of silence, during which Danny and my father stood looking at each other and I stared at the two of them and nothing was said.

It was my father who finally broke the silence. He did it gently and with quiet warmth. He said, 'I see you play ball as well as you read books, Danny. I hope you are not as violent with a book as you are with a baseball: Now it was my turn to be astonished. 'You know Danny?'

'In a way,' my father said, smiling broadly.

'I – I had no idea,' Danny stammered.

'And how could you have?' My father asked. 'I never told you my name: 'You knew me all the time?'

'Only after the second week. I asked the librarian. You applied for membership once, but did not take out a card.'

'I was afraid to.'

'I understood as much,' my father said.

I suddenly realized it was my father who all along had been suggesting books for Danny to read. My father was the man Danny had been meeting in the library!

'But you never told me!' I said loudly.

My father looked at me. 'What did I never tell you?'

'You never told me you met Danny in the library! You never told me you were giving him books to read!'

My father looked from me to Danny, then back to me. 'Ah,' he said, smiling. 'I see you know about Danny and the library: 'I told him,' Danny said. He had begun to relax a bit, and the look of surprise was gone from his face now.

'And why should I tell you?' my father asked. 'A boy asks me for books to read. What is there to tell?'

'But all this week, even after the accident, you never said a word!'

'I did not think it was for me to tell,' my father said quietly. 'A boy comes into the library, climbs to the third floor, the room with old journals, looks carefully around, finds a table behind a bookcase where almost no one can see him, and sits down to read. Some days I am there, and he comes over to me, apologizes for interrupting me in my work and asks me if I can recommend a book for him to read. He does not know me, and I do not know him. I ask him if he is interested in literature or science, and he tells me he is interested in anything that is worthwhile. I suggest a book, and two hours later he returns, thanks me, and tells me he has finished reading it, is there anything else I can recommend. I am a little astonished, and we sit for a while and discuss the book, and I see he has not only read it and understood it, but has memorized it. So I give him another book to read, one that is a little bit more difficult, and the same thing occurs. He finishes it completely, returns to me, and we sit and discuss it. Once I ask him his name, but I see he becomes very nervous, and I go to another topic quickly. Then I ask the librarian, and I understand everything because I have already heard of Reb Saunders' son from other people. He is very interested in psychology, he tells me. So I recommend more books. It is now almost two months that I have been making such recommendations. Isn't that so, Danny? Do you really think, Reuven, I should have told you? It was for Danny to tell if he wished, not for me.'