Free My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok Page A

“May Michael be at my right hand; Gabriel at my left; before me, Uriel; behind me, Raphael; and above my head the divine presence of God. Amen, Asher. For us both. Amen.” She went slowly from my room and crossed the hallway into the living room. She was in the living room a long time. Then I heard her go along the hallway to her bedroom. The bedroom door closed softly. I lay in the darkness and listened to the snow on my window.
    The storm ended sometime in the night. My father flew back from Boston early the next day and was home when I returned from school.
    The following morning, we heard over the radio that nine doctors, six of them Jews, had been arrested by Soviet police on a charge of plotting to murder leaders of the Russian army and navy.
    The blood drained from my father’s face. “Ribbono Shel Olom,” I heard him say. “What do You want from us?”
    My mother had been standing near the stove. She sat down slowly. Her face was pale.
    The news broadcast continued. The doctors had been accused by Moscow of being connected with the international Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organization called the Joint DistributionCommittee, which had been set up, according to Moscow, by the American intelligence service. A Soviet news broadcast had announced that the doctors had confessed to trying to kill top Soviet leaders by harmful medical treatment and bad diagnosis. They were accused of having killed Comrade A. Zhdanov, a leading member of the Politburo, by deliberately misdiagnosing his myocardial infarction.
    There was a brief pause. The announcer began a commercial. My father turned off the radio.
    “He’s going to use this,” my father said in a frightened voice to my mother. “He will start a blood bath.”
    The phone rang. He went quickly from the kitchen.
    My mother and I sat at the table in silence.
    My father came back into the kitchen. “I have a meeting with the Rebbe and Rav Mendel Dorochoff.”
    My mother sighed and nodded slowly.
    “Eat something first,” she said.
    “Later.”
    “Aryeh, have some orange juice.”
    He said the appropriate blessing and drank a small glass of orange juice. Then he put on his jacket and coat and hat and left the apartment.
    “Will Papa go away again today?” I asked my mother.
    “There will probably be meetings all day today.” She looked at me. “Let’s try not to be frightened, Asher. Remember we said we would try?” After a moment, she said, “I think your father will be going away more often now.” She said it resignedly and with darkness in her eyes.
    Later that morning, I came into my school building and walked along the corridor to my classroom. Most of the students were already there. Some were settled at their desks. Others were running noisily around the room. I took off my coat and scarf and galoshes and went to my desk.
    The boy in the desk next to mine looked up from the bookhe was reading. He was short and chubby and wore thick glasses. I did not like him.
    “How much is nine times twenty-two?” he asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    “How much is nine times twelve?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You’ll fail the arithmetic test.”
    I had forgotten about that test. “I don’t care.”
    “I wish my father was on the Rebbe’s staff. I could fail and get away with it also.”
    “I wish it, too,” I said.
    We did not have the arithmetic test that day. A special assembly was called. There were over three hundred boys in our school. We all filed into the auditorium. The mashpia, Rav Yosef Cutler, climbed onto the stage and spoke softly in Yiddish into the microphone.
    “Dear children. Today the enemies of the Jewish people have again shown us how much they hate us and our Torah. The Russian bear has cast six of our people into the pit. Our tears and our prayers go out to our brothers the children of Israel in this moment of darkness. For hundreds of years, Jews have suffered from the murderous hatred of the Russians, first under the czars and