Interview With a Jewish Vampire

by Erica Manfred

  At the China Palace they started grilling me about Sheldon. Judy had wasted no time in spreading the word about my latest exploits.

  “Rhoda, I hear you’re keeping company with a new guy these days?” Ellen asked politely. Unlike Judy she was always polite.

  “He’s new to me all right,” I replied. “But he’s been around for a while, 150 years or so but that’s young for a vampire.”

  “C’mon, Rhoda,” Judy chided. “You can’t kid a kidder. What’s the deal with him? Vampires, shmampires, what does he do for a living?”

  “He’s not exactly living, but he was a rabbi once upon a time. He lives as a Hasid and works as a diamond cutter, a night job.” I hadn’t told my mom yet about Sheldon’s job since it was a trade, not a profession. Even though she was a Socialist, she was still a snob. Only the Orthodox worked in the diamond district and they were as foreign to Mom and her friends as vampires. She was an atheist who disapproved of rabbis, priests, and other true believers.

  “Noooo,” Miriam said in disbelief. “You’re not the kind of girl to get involved with a rabbi. Much less a Hasidic Jew. I thought you were an atheist.”

  Miriam was humoring me, and so were the rest of the girls. She just ignored the whole vampire thing, which was her way. She was very polite and wouldn’t have wanted to make fun of or contradict me. The girls were obviously not going to believe my story about Sheldon. I don’t know why I’d told them the truth—I guess because I wanted to make it easier on Mom, so she wouldn’t have to lie to them as well. I couldn’t lie to her—I’d never been able to lie to her.

  “That’s my mom you’re thinking of, Miriam. She hasn’t been in a synagogue since she was a kid, even though you’d never know it considering how she carries on about me marrying a Jew. Rabbis are supposed to be married and have kids. Vampires are supposed to be solitary creatures of the night. Poor guy has got to be dealing with a severe identity crisis. I’m pretty confused myself.”

  The Chinese food arrived, smelling garlicky and delicious. I put my napkin around my neck and dug into the lobster with black bean sauce, a specialty of the China Palace. What would it be like to never eat lobster with black bean sauce again, or anything edible again? It didn’t seem to bother Sheldon when we were at the Carnegie Deli, but he was slim and probably never had an eating problem even when he ate real food. I supposed it would be reassuring to know you couldn’t ever gain weight. I decided that if I was ever going to become a vampire I’d have to lose at least fifty pounds first. I could not imagine spending eternity in plus-size clothing.

  After dinner, we drove to the beach to take our usual two-mile walk. Mom made it a few blocks before she suggested we sit and look at the ocean. She pretended she wasn’t tired but I could see that she literally couldn’t take another step. She was gasping for breath. I sat with my arm around her protectively. The girls walked on without us. After they got back, Judy suggested she and I walk to the ice cream stand at the end of the pier and get ice cream for everyone. Mom said she’d wait till we got back, looking grateful that she didn’t have to get up.

  “Rhoda, your mom isn’t doing so good, I guess you can see that,” Judy said. “She may need another surgery. You’re going to have to take her up North with you, or get her help down here. She can’t manage alone much longer.”

  “She’s already had a quadruple bypass,” I said. “She doesn’t have any blood vessels left to bypass. She’s very independent. I don’t think she’d accept help—except mine, and I don’t want to move to Florida. I have no space for her—I live in a tiny studio.”

  I didn’t think I could bear to lose Mom. She was all I had in the relatives department, I’d tried to have kids with my ex—but not very hard. We were both too busy with our careers and his career included the shiksa in the next cubicle. My mom waited till she was in her forties to have me, and was grateful not to have any more kids because she said that taking care of my dad and me was enough, but I think she just wasn’t the nurturing type. In another era she would have been a CEO. She liked running things, which didn’t make her the easiest mom to get along with when I was a kid. But she was fiercely loyal and was always there when I needed her. Now it was my turn to be there for her. She was dependent on me and I had to save her life. I didn’t care that she was in her eighties, I couldn’t let her die.

  Chapter Six

  I got home after a week in Florida, even more frantic that I hadn’t heard from Sheldon. While I was in Florida I’d obsessively checked my cell phone and called my home phone for messages from Sheldon. Nothing. I couldn’t understand it. We’d gotten so close that night when we saw Fiddler on the Roof. He’d opened up to me, showed me his tortured Jewish inner child. Then again, what could I have been thinking? The guy was a vampire, or he said he was a vampire. The real question was what was wrong with me? Was I so desperate for a man who treated me decently that I’d buy any story I was told? Betrayal by my ex had undermined any trust I’d ever had in men—which wasn’t a lot to begin with. Right now I wasn’t sure of anything. Maybe Sheldon really had been putting me on. What proof did I have of his real identity—phony fangs, a trick mirror that didn’t fog up, a low body temperature? What was wrong with me? Why did I believe him in the first place? Maybe he was just another player trying to get laid. But last time he didn’t want sex. What was that about? Men—alive or dead—had always been a mystery to me—they still were.

  I traipsed upstairs to Charlene’s apartment, forcing myself to walk rather than take the elevator. I desperately needed the exercise.

  “No call, no email, no nothing, Vick. I’m desperate. What should I do? I’m sure he’s seeing someone else. He probably lied to me about me being his first in a hundred years. It was just a really good line.”

  Charlene was nonchalant. She never got worked up about men, except her ex-husband who had left her for his secretary. Once you got her on the subject of what a rat he was she never shut up. She didn’t worry about attracting men because, unlike me, she had the “it” factor, that mysterious allure that drew men to her no matter what she did. Charlene could stand in the corner at a party and, while I was frantically circulating, trying to flirt, men would congregate around her vying for her attention. What the hell was her secret? OK, so she was tall, voluptuous, with long black curly hair and could have been a swimsuit model. OK, so I was short, plump and could have been a Jennie Craig “before” model. But looks weren’t everything. Who the hell said that? Not my mother, who was always trying to get me to lose weight.

  “Jeez, I don’t know why guys think they have to feed you a line even after they get you into bed. Or tell you they’ll call if they have no intention of calling. ”

  “Charlene, Sheldon was different. Not just that he was a vampire, or said he was. He really seemed enthralled with me.”

  “Has it occurred to you that maybe that’s why he’s had second thoughts about pursuing a romance with you? He’s a vampire. Think blood-sucking, painful death, maybe arising from the dead, maybe not. He may not really be a vegetarian vampire like Edward Cullen. Maybe he’s a Dracula vampire like, well, Dracula. Maybe he’s tempted to kill you, or doesn’t want to kill you, or is afraid of falling in love with a mortal, or maybe his Blackberry died and there aren’t any pay phones that work in Brooklyn anymore. Who the hell knows?”

  She took a long drag from her Marlboro and I coughed. I’d begged her to stop, I finally had given up smoking when I couldn’t breathe anymore but Charlene thought she was immortal. She jogged every day and thought that magically made up for smoking. I kept trying to explain that her lungs didn’t care if she jogged—they longed for clean air. I wanted her to stop for selfish reasons—I couldn’t stand to be in her smelly apartment. When she visited me I enforced my no smoking rule.

  “Could you please blow the smoke out the window while I’m here?” I begged her.

  Charlene opened the window and blew out amazingly round smoke rings.

  “Maybe he’s just not into me—literal
ly. He doesn’t go for my blood type. It’s hard enough to figure out why a regular guy doesn’t call, much less a vampire.”

  Charlene laughed. “I wish that during a first date you could implant a remote recording device on a guy and find out what he’s saying about you.”

  “Guys don’t talk about women to their friends, at least that’s what they claim.”

  “I wonder if he hangs out with other vampires?” Charlene speculated. “Maybe someone knows him.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “If he does hang out with other vampires they’ve got to be Jewish. I can’t see Sheldon with a bunch of goyishe vamps. He’s just too ethnic. He dresses like a Hasid and lives in Crown Heights. Or that’s what he said.”

  “I’ll ask my coven,” Charlene offered. “I bet someone knows a vampire who knows other vampires who know Jewish vampires. There’s got to be a vampire underground. Haven’t you read Anne Rice? They even have secret vampire balls. Now that would be a trip.”

  “OK, go ahead and ask. What have I got to lose? But I can’t exactly hunt him down. If he doesn’t want me too bad; it’s his loss. I’ll move on. I always do.” I sniffled a little. I was tired of moving on. I would have liked to move in for a change.

  More bad news arrived when I got downstairs—a voice mail from Dr. Cohen, Mom’s doctor, asking me to call him. Ominous. Cohen never called unless he wanted me to pressure my mom into doing something she was refusing to do. He was a cute young Jewish doctor who was very fond of my mother, flirting with her whenever she went to see him, which was often. Even though I’d been to his office with her numerous times, he never flirted with me, more’s the pity.

  “So? What’s going on?” I asked anxiously when I heard his voice.

  “Has your mother told you the results of her echocardiogram?” he asked.

  “No, I didn’t even know she had one.”

  “You’ve noticed her being out of breath a lot, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve been worried about that. I thought it was due to the bypass surgery.”

  “No, the bypass went well, but the latest echo shows she has a faulty heart valve which needs to be replaced.”

  “Why hasn’t she told me?” I asked him.

  “She was afraid to tell you because she doesn’t want another surgery. She’s refusing to do it. I can hardly blame her. She’s already been through two heart surgeries. I’m hoping you can talk her into it.”

  “What will happen if she doesn’t have it?”

  “She’ll have a heart attack and die. I’m not sure when, but it could be soon.”

  “Oh no, no. She’s going to have that surgery.”

  “You’re a good kid,” he laughed. “She’s lucky to have you.”

  “She’s all I’ve got. I’m lucky to have her, too.”

  I collapsed on the couch and sobbed when I hung up. How could I ask Mom to go through another major surgery, the last one was horrible. I had to try, though, so I picked up the phone.

  “Mom, it’s me. Dr. Cohen told me the news.”

  “Dammit. I told him to keep it to himself. I didn’t want to upset you.”

  “What kind of meshugenah are you? You’re dying and you don’t want to upset me. What would be sufficient reason to upset me?”

  “I’m not dying. I’m fine.”

  “You can hardly walk a block without gasping for breath. You will have a heart attack and die if you don’t have this surgery.”

  “I’m eighty-one years old. I have to die sometime.”

  “Eighty-one isn’t that old anymore. Angela Lansbury is eighty-four and she’s doing eight shows a week on Broadway.”

  “If I had her stamina I’d join the senior Rockettes. I bet you didn’t know we have a bunch of ex-Rockettes down here who put on a show every Christmas.”

  “Stop changing the subject. Ma, you can’t do this to me. I need you. You’re the only family I have.”

  “Oh, Rhoda, why didn’t you stay married? I’d feel so much better if you were married.”

  “He left me, ma, for a bimbette, don’t you remember?” I wondered if she was losing her mind as well as her body.

  “Didn’t he break up with that girl? Can’t you get him back?” She remembered.

  “I’d rather put on a burka and live with the Taliban.”

  “Well, he probably wouldn’t have left you if you’d worn a burka,” she laughed. “He always wanted you barefoot and pregnant.”

  “That’s another thing. I never got pregnant due to his sluggish sperm, but he blamed it on me. The bimbette never got pregnant either. Ma, will you think about the surgery, just think about it. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Chapter Seven

  It was a dark and stormy night. Or it should have been. I felt really foolish standing in a circle, holding hands with a bunch of witches. Charlene’s coven meeting was in the large living room of a condo on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. The apartment was furnished with expensive couches and antique throw rugs. Having been brought up by parents who were obsessed with design I noticed these things. We had to schlep to the Bronx because the Manhattan coven members had apartments that were too small to accommodate the entire thirteen members. Usually they didn’t let a stranger go to their private ceremonies but since I was Charlene’s best friend and Charlene was the High Priestess they didn’t have much choice. Actually she’d been trying to talk me into joining for years but I’d refused, partly because I felt that if I was going to get religious I’d go to a synagogue and partly because it was in the Bronx.

  I’d allowed Charlene to drag me up there on this freezing night in December—which actually was the darkest night of the year—to a winter solstice ceremony because one of the coven members claimed acquaintance with a vampire, who maybe knew Sheldon. Maybe they all knew each other, there might be some vast vampire network, or at least a telephone tree. Even though I still couldn’t stop thinking about him, I wasn’t planning to throw myself at him in desperation; I was no stalker. I’d been ready to accept that he was just not into me after a week with no call, when Charlene had another idea. After Dr. Cohen called I’d raced up to her apartment, gasping for breath through my tears.

  “I know I’m supposed to be resigned to my mom dying, Charlene, she’s eighty-one and she’s not going to live forever. But I just can’t deal with it. I can’t. I’ve lost too much—a husband, the family we were supposed to have. I’m forty-one, I’ll probably never have kids. She’s all I’ve got—and you of course.”

  “Wow. Living forever. Now there’s a concept.”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “Don’t you know someone who lives forever?” she suggested coyly. “And couldn’t he… arrange for other people to do the same.”

  “What? Turn my mother into a vampire? That’s the most grotesque idea I ever heard.”

  “And why is it grotesque? Is Sheldon grotesque? From what you told me he’s a real gentleman. Just because you’re a vampire doesn’t mean you have to be a killer. Haven’t you read Twilight? Maybe he could teach your mom his secrets—make her a de-fanged immortal.”

  “Can you just see my mom as a vampire?” I had to laugh. “She’d be mortified. She’s so conventional. How could she keep hanging out with her friends? That’s the only thing she likes to do. They’re all in bed by sunset.”

  “I’m sure they’ll adjust. They love her and want to keep her around too. If they have to give up early bird specials they’ll survive. I’m sure the food later at night is a whole lot better.”

  “But my poor mom won’t be able to eat it. She’ll be cruising the streets looking for poor, unsuspecting victims.” I couldn’t imagine my kindly mom, who volunteered at the hard of hearing association and mentored ghetto kids, tracking down human prey. What if she attacked those kids?

  “Sheldon sounded eminently civilized,” Charlene reassured me. “He hardly attacked you, and showed no interest in sucking your blood.”

  “I have no idea how he gets blood,” I said. “
He says he gets it from animals. I hope that doesn’t mean he kidnaps people’s pets. Maybe he goes hunting for big game in the Catskills, like the Cullens. Can you see my mom doing that? She’s strictly a City girl.”

  “C’mon, Rhoda, you have no idea how he survives or how she would. The first step is to find him and ask him.”

  “That seems to be the problem. He’s disappeared.”

  “I bet Karen knows him. She’s networked up the wazoo. She’s even been invited to dinner at the White House. OK, she crashed, but she didn’t get caught like that blond broad who crashed the White House state dinner. She knows everyone and as soon as vampires got hot she starting bragging that she knows some personally.”

  “You believe her?’

  “You would too if you knew her. That girl is the Arianna Huffington of the paranormal. She actually was a consultant on the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. How do you think they came up with all that ancient vampire and monster lore?”

  Finally I agreed. Maybe Sheldon could save Mom by bringing her into his undead fraternity. If turning her into a vampire was her last chance at life—maybe eternal life was pushing it, I just wanted her to live a few more years—what other choice did I have? Plus, let’s face it, I was desperate to see him. One night with a vampire was worth years with most Manhattan men, who talked incessantly about their boring jobs and couldn’t get it up half the time, or couldn’t keep it up if they did. Sheldon didn’t talk about his job, and in bed, well there was no contest.

  So that’s how I wound up on the Grand Concourse in a white robe reciting ancient Celtic verses. At least they sounded like ancient Celtic verses. Charlene gave me a cheat sheet and I recited:

  Lady spin your circle bright, weave your web of dark and light;