The Promise by Chaim Potok

to the woman who played in front of the net. He was dressed in shorts and tennis sneakers and was bare to the waist. His nakedness emphasized his hugeness. The woman on his side of the net wore white shorts and a white polo shirt and dark glasses. She was a striking woman, tall, slender, lithe, with short chestnut hair and beautifully proportioned features, and she moved about in front of the net with the agile grace of a natural athlete, twisting, turning, pivoting, spiking the ball over the net, carefully avoiding even those balls she could return by herself in order to let Abraham Gordon set them up for her. The two of them played together as a tight team, each seeming to anticipate instinctively the movements of the other, and Joseph and Sarah Gordon appeared to be not too much of a threat to them, though they were making them work hard for each point they scored.
    Joseph Gordon saw me. He saw me as he was preparing himself to return a sharp serve heading his way from the arm of his brother, and he caught the ball instead and sang out, “The captain of the S.S.
Malter
!”
    Abraham Gordon introduced me to his wife. She removed her sunglasses and I saw she had blue eyes, deep blue, Michael’s eyes. She wore no make-up. She offered me her hand and greeted me in a deep contralto voice. “Michael speaks of you as though you were his brother,” she said. “I’m very pleased.”
    I didn’t know what to say to that, so I smiled and said nothing.
    “I was wondering if you and your father were related to Henry Malter.”
    “No.”
    “Do you know who I mean?”
    “The author of the critical edition of
Ta’anit
.”
    “You are not related.”
    “No.”
    “How strange. Malter is not a particularly common name. Was it shortened?”
    “Yes. From Maltovsky.”
    “Your father is from Russia?”
    “Yes.”
    “And he shortened his name?” Her manner was friendly but somewhat formal and distant.
    “He lived with a cousin when he first came here. His cousin convinced him to shorten it.”
    “What is his cousin’s name?”
    “He’s dead. We have no living relatives.”
    “I see.”
    “Reuven,” Joseph Gordon said, “how about joining us for some volleyball?” He was standing next to Ruth Gordon, smiling and tossing the ball from hand to hand.
    “Reuven has come to go sailing with Michael,” Ruth Gordon said.
    “I need help,” Joseph Gordon said.
    “Nothing will help you,” Abraham Gordon said cheerfully. He wiped his brow with the back of his forearm. His body was covered with sweat.
    “ ‘Let not him that girds on his armor boast as one who takes it off,’ ” Joseph Gordon quoted in Sephardic Hebrew from the First Book of Kings.
    Abraham Gordon laughed.
    “Where’s Rachel?” I asked.
    “Inside the house,” Sarah Gordon said unhappily.
    “Roaming through Ithaca,” Joseph Gordon said. “I could have used her.”
    “I told you,” Abraham Gordon said. “Nothing will help.”
    “She ought to be out in the sun on a day like this,” Sarah Gordon said. “But she’s inside the house.”
    Ruth Gordon gazed over at Michael, who was sitting in the shade of the patio overhang, absorbed in his book.
    “Michael,” she called.
    Michael looked up immediately, startled.
    “Reuven has come to take you sailing.”
    Michael looked at me and his pale face lighted up.
    “You have made a sailor out of my son,” Ruth Gordon said to me.
    I saw Michael carefully insert a bookmark into place and put the book down on his chair. He came over to us, smiling.
    “Hello,” he said to me. “Did you bring a Sailfish again?”
    “Yes.”
    Ruth Gordon was watching her son intently.
    “Can we go out right away?” Michael asked.
    I looked at Ruth and Abraham Gordon.
    “Go ahead,” said Abraham Gordon.
    “Have a good time, dear,” Ruth Gordon said to her son.
    “Scram, you two,” Abraham Gordon said. “I want to finish trouncing my brother on the field of battle.”
    “A ruthless warrior,” Joseph Gordon