I walked over to Goldie and looked at her more closely. She looked like a terra cotta sculpture of a stout balabusta—a Jewish housewife from the old country. The statue had a large bosom and big hips, wore a long, shapeless dress and old-fashioned buttoned-up boots. She was so realistically carved that you could see the individual strands of her hair, which was drawn up into a bun. Her face was plain, with wrinkles, a large nose and sagging jowls; her mouth was puckered and her eyebrows contracted as if she were frowning. I felt she was looking at me, and not in a good way. The weirdest thing was the Hebrew word inscribed on her forehead.
“What’s that?” I pointed at it.
“That’s how I control Goldie—by changing the word on her forehead. She was brought to life when emet meaning ‘truth’ was written in Hebrew on her forehead. Now, when I want to deactivate her I remove the first letter, the aleph, in emet, which changes the word to met, meaning death.”
“Where did you get her? Did you sculpt her?”
“No, my father did. He was a talented sculptor but religious Jews aren’t supposed to make representations of human beings. Making a golem is different. When he was our rabbi, he created her to protect the Jews in our shetl from pogroms which is why Jews create golem in the first place. She wasn’t much use though, she insisted on cooking and cleaning rather than protecting, so my father just allowed her to be our servant. When he died and I became the rabbi, I inherited her from him. I took her with me when I came to America.”
“How convenient, a servant you don’t have to pay or feed, and who stays in the corner until you need her,” I said sarcastically. “Better than a wife for sure.”
“It’s not quite that simple,” Sheldon said. “Goldie has a strong personality and she’s very controlling. When she’s animated she’s very possessive and likes to order me around. I go along with it to please her. It’s nice to have someone who cares.”
“What happens when you want to de-animate her?”
“She doesn’t like it, but I tell her she needs to rest so she goes along with it.”
“I could swear she’s glaring at me.” I turned away from her, feeling as if I was being watched. “I think she disapproves of me.”
“C’mon Rhoda, you’re imagining things. That’s just the way she looks.” He stared at Goldie disapprovingly, as if he believed me and was warning her to knock it off.
“Vampires, golems, what other supernatural creatures are there?” I changed the subject, sensing that Goldie was a sensitive area for him.
“Well as far as I know there are no werewolves, or at least I haven’t met one, which is a good thing because the thought of a wolf, much less a were one, gives me shpilkis.”
“You didn’t tell me you were such a wuss.”
“Just because I’m a vampire doesn’t mean I’m not still a Jewish boy from the shtetl. We Jews were fair game for anti-Semitic peasants when I was a kid. I learned to be plenty scared of everything. In this country you Jews don’t know from fear.”
He was right. I’d never thought about it that way. If I were worried about Cossacks showing up to mow down my family I might not be so brazen either.
“I guess I’ll have to be your protector,” I laughed.
“Not so fast, I’m the one who chased off those muggers in the Park. I’m just not fond of wolves.”
“When is the last time you met a wolf?”
“I heard them howling in the woods when I was a kid. The sound terrified me.”
“Let’s hope there aren’t any werewolves,” I shivered. “I prefer my mythical creatures to look human, even if they aren’t.”
Sheldon wanted to make love again but we were still on the pullout couch in his living room, with Goldie across the room. There was no bed in the bedroom, just his coffin, so we couldn’t go in there. I insisted he turn her towards the wall so she couldn’t see us, and hopefully she couldn’t hear when she was de-animated. I didn’t believe for a minute that Goldie wasn’t aware of what was going on in the room. Maybe she couldn’t move, but the eternal vigilance of the Jewish mother never rests. However, eventually I had to rest. I fell asleep totally worn out. Sheldon was inexhaustible. I’d never had multiple orgasms before, but with him I just kept coming. I was amazed by my own capacity for pleasure—who knew I was such a sexpot? I was overflowing with oxytocin—the bonding hormone that floods females after great sex. I was in love and I was also horny as hell. When I woke up ready to go at it again, Sheldon wasn’t there. I panicked, immediately having fantasies of being left yet again. I called his name—no response. Then I parted the dark curtains and the room flooded with sunlight. It really looked shabby in daylight—with peeling wallpaper, worn-out oriental carpets and a battered claw-foot table. Goldie remained in her corner, immobile. I closed the curtains and then I remembered the coffin. I walked into the bedroom and cracked the lid a tiny bit. There was Sheldon with a beatific smile on his face, sleeping as peacefully as the dead. Actually he was dead. He certainly wasn’t breathing. That was kind of scary—what if he never rose again? What if he stayed dead? I found myself panicking again. Waking up with a vampire wasn’t as easy as Sookie Stackhouse made it look.
I knew I’d feel better with some coffee in my system, so I got dressed quickly, and was almost out the door before I remembered that I still didn’t have Sheldon’s phone number. I started rummaging around for his cell phone—no way he was escaping from me again—and found it on the dresser in the bedroom. I put the number into my phone and let myself out, leaving the door unlocked, not a good idea in Brooklyn but I had no choice, I didn’t have the key. I remembered Sheldon telling me the building was inhabited by other Jewish vampires, so hopefully he’d be safe. I walked to the subway, picking up coffee and a bagel with cream cheese and lox on the way. It was delicious. Despite the lousy deli on the Hasidic tour, it was possible to get good Jewish food in Crown Heights. I ordered a dozen bagels and half a pound of lox to take home. I’d need sustenance for my trip to Florida. While I was at it I grabbed a pound of pastrami and a half-pound of chopped liver. Who knew when I’d be near a Jewish deli again? There weren’t any on the Upper East Side and I was rarely downtown. As I walked to the subway I started regretting my purchase. I felt guilty about eating all that food when Sheldon had to subsist on rat blood. Plus I still wanted to lose weight. No matter how much Sheldon said he loved my body, I didn’t want to be stuck at this size forever.
Chapter Thirteen
I was next to the window and Sheldon sat in the middle on Delta flight 304 to Fort Lauderdale. It was the latest flight we could get, leaving at 9 pm, non-stop, arriving at midnight. We’d rented a hearse to go the airport so we could take Sheldon’s coffin. We tried to discreetly check it at the baggage counter but it created quite a stir. A security official in a black suit raced up to us.
“Are you shipping a body, sir? There are procedures for that. You fill out a form and the baggage handlers pick it up at the curb.”
“It’s empty,” I told him.
“Please open the coffin, ma’am,” he said menacingly.
Maybe he thought there was a suicide bomber inside, or contraband.
When I opened it he gazed at the well-worn satin lining, totally mystified. The coffin definitely looked lived in.
“Why are you taking this coffin to Fort Lauderdale? And why isn’t it going to a funeral home? What do you intend to do with it?”
In the past I would have said, “None of your business,” but now, with all the tightened security, any mysterious baggage was the airline’s business.
“It’s an antique. I’m contributing it to a museum.”
“What museum?”
“The Century Village Museum of the Dead. They have artifacts of death from various eras. It’s soothing to the residents who are, you know, on their way there.”
I just made that up off the top of my head but it seemed to satisfy the young security guard, who had probably never been to a museum, much less contemplated dying. Before allow
ing it to go through, he felt around the inside looking for contraband. It was a relief to finally see it traveling down the conveyor belt to the baggage compartment.
We boarded the plane and sat by the window. The man at the end of our row took one look at Sheldon and found another seat. He had that effect on some people. The flight attendant came by and asked if we wanted anything to drink. Sheldon said, “Type A, please,” and showed his fangs. He loved to freak people out, especially pretty young women, which really annoyed me.
“Sorry.” I made a circular motion next to my head. “He’s delusional. Thinks he’s a vampire. Humor him. Bring him a glass of red wine. I’ll have a Diet Coke please. Thanks.”
Sheldon and I had worked out the logistics of the trip, which were pretty complicated. I didn’t want to scare Mom by arriving with a coffin, so I decided to stash it—and Sheldon himself during the day—in her storage space, which was a locked cage in a dark room in the back of the building, perfect for a vampire to hide out in during the day. Luckily I already had the key so I didn’t have to tell her about the coffin. All that was in there was moldy luggage. I’d introduce Sheldon to Mom when we arrived and he’d be sleeping in his coffin by the time she got up. I’d talk to her about my plan during the day, while he was sleeping, and then he’d join me at night and help me convince her. I’d already told her he was a vampire but she still didn’t believe me. I was very nervous about this whole plan. Once we were on the plane I started having second thoughts.
“Sheldon, do you really think this will work?”
“Rhoda, it was your idea, not mine. I think I can do the change. I changed my brother, but he was young, and near death from pneumonia. But Zelda was changed and she’s probably your mom’s age so it’s possible.”
“How does it work? Will it be scary for her?”
“Have you read Dracula? It’s like that. I suck a little of her blood every night until she grows weaker and weaker and finally dies. Then she rises.”
“Yuck.”
“It’s really pretty painless, unlike in some vampire novels. Nothing like Twilight. No pain. Just intense sleepiness.”
The aspect that really grossed me out didn’t have anything to do with blood. “How about the…sexual thing. I mean when Dracula changed what’s her name, Mina, didn’t she really get her jollies from it. Or he did. She swooned and all that. He seemed to lust for her too.”
“That was just Victorian repression—they were afraid of sex so Stoker turned Dracula into some kind of sexual metaphor. He was a nasty vampire, that’s all. He liked sucking the blood of beautiful women because he was a sadistic monster. Sadists love killing beautiful things. OK, maybe Mina and Lucy turned him on, but he loved killing Jews too and I didn’t turn him on. Don’t get me started. That piece of drek. Believe me your mother isn’t going to turn me on or vice versa. It will be very hard for me to change her.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s still completely living, not like my brother, who was dying. I have to be very careful to suck just the right amount of blood for the right number of nights. It depends on the individual. If she dies too soon I won’t have a chance to give her my blood, which is vital to the process. If a vampire just drains a human they die—it’s the slow process of draining over time that allows the change to take place—at least I think it is. And I don’t know exactly how much blood to give her. I’ve never done it before to a healthy person. I think I’m going to call the Talamasca. They know everything.”
“I read about them somewhere.”
“They’re a secret society, or they were, until Anne Rice outed them. They’re scholars of the paranormal with motherhouses all over the world. They do workshops at Omega and Esalen and even the Ghost Hunters on TV consult them. I shocked the socks off them when I told them there were Jewish vampires. They thought Lilith was the only one. But she just got a bad rap from patriarchal idiots. But that’s a long story.”
“OK, I’ll leave the details to you.”
When we landed at Fort Lauderdale Airport we had to locate Sheldon’s coffin on the baggage carousel. It was undoubtedly the strangest piece of luggage any of the staring passengers had ever seen. He and I got it onto one of those luggage carts and into our hired limo. It wasn’t too heavy since Sheldon wasn’t in it. We’d hired our own limo for the trip to Century Village since sitting in a group limo with a coffin in the middle of the floor was not something either of us wanted to face.
When we drove into Century I was wondering what Sheldon thought of it. When I first saw it, I’d thought it looked like man’s first settlement on the moon—or a prison--stark and barren, with rows of ugly concrete buildings and very little foliage. Now, fifteen years later, there were trees and flowers everywhere. Florida’s tropical weather made it hard for any place to look barren for long.
We got to Mom’s section, Grantham A--the buildings all had pretentious waspy names. There should have been a Grand Concourse or an Avenue A to remind the residents of home. We stashed the coffin in Mom’s storage space before going to her apartment.
Mom was waiting up for us, just the way she always waited up for me. She opened the door with a big grin on her face, excited to meet Sheldon. It surprised me how happy I felt to see her, but then I always felt happy when I saw her—like I was a little girl again who missed her mommy.
“Rhoda has told me so much about you, Sheldon. She didn’t exaggerate about you. You do look like Jeff Goldblum.”
Sheldon smiled shyly, obviously embarrassed. He probably he would have blushed if he could. “Can I get you something to eat? How about a nice bagel and coffee? That was a long flight.”
“Mom, I told you Sheldon doesn’t eat.”
“That’s ridiculous, Rhoda, everybody eats.”
I took a deep breath and figured I’d better get this over with as quickly as possible. It wasn’t going to be easy.
“Mom, I told you about Sheldon, that he’s a vampire. Don’t you remember? Could you please take a close look at him? Sheldon, show her.”
“I don’t really know how to make this easy for you, Mrs. Ginsburg. I know you were raised in a time when Jews believed in evil spirits, dybbuks, and the like.”
“Oh please, call me Fanny. And my grandmother believed in evil spirits. My mother was a socialist and so am I. I’m an atheist, always have been. I don’t believe in God, angels, devils, dybbuks, or any other supernatural being. Karl Marx didn’t so why should I?”
Sheldon obediently took a mirror out of his pocket and breathed on it—no fog. In fact, no reflection. He took Mom’s hand and put it on his chest—no heartbeat. He smiled and showed her his fangs. The real shocker was when he grabbed a knife and sliced it across the palm of his hand, making a deep cut which healed while we watched. Then he rose off the floor about six inches and glided around the room.
Mom grabbed her chest, gasped and fell on the couch. I was afraid she was going to have a heart attack then and there and it would be too late to save her.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Ginsburg. I didn’t want to shock you.”
“Please call me Fanny,” she said, breathing heavily and struggling to sit up. I ran over and sat down next to her, put my arm around her and helped her stay upright on the couch.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” she said, pushing me away. Mom didn’t want anyone helping her, she was still in denial about her health. She was also very sensitive about people’s feelings. She didn’t want Sheldon to think her collapse was his fault.
“I’m used to being polite to my elders. But I guess I’m actually your elder so I’ll call you Fanny.” Sheldon laughed in a comforting way, ignoring her distress. He realized that it would make her feel worse if he made a fuss about it. He was trying his best to be charming. Which wasn’t hard for him.
We sat down on either side of her on the couch so she wouldn’t feel that she had to get up.
“Rhoda, what is this creature?”
“I told you, Mom, he’s a vampire. He’
s also a diamond cutter—for a living that is.”
“You couldn’t have found a vampire doctor?” She tried to make a weak joke. “I guess if you love him I can deal with him not being human. At least he’s Jewish,” she laughed. At that point I knew she was OK, she’d cope.
“He’s also not a Republican,” I added. Mom always said she’d rather I marry anyone but a Republican. She hated Republicans more than she hated…well, anyone, except maybe Orthodox Jews. She hated them too. Lucky Sheldon wasn’t really a Hasidic rabbi, he was just using that identity for a cover. She wanted me to find a nice Jewish guy—but not too Jewish—any more religious than Reform would be too religious. I felt the same way. The way the ultra-Orthodox treated women as baby-making machines creeped me out.
“Vampires always vote democratic,” I reassured her, not telling her that Sheldon couldn’t vote. “In fact Sheldon was in the Russian Revolution. He knew Trotsky really well.” My mom was a Trotskyite in her youth, but I’d made that up. For all I knew Sheldon was a buddy of the Czar, or more likely Rasputin.
“Leon Trotsky and I were very close at one time,” Sheldon chimed in. “I was with him in Mexico before he was murdered. Unfortunately, I was asleep when the Stalinists came for him or I could have saved him. Such a shame. What a brilliant man.”
I could tell he was winning Mom over. Sheldon either was really in Mexico at the time, or he knew his history. I’d have to ask him later.
“How old are you, young man?” Mom asked.
“Well, older than you, but not that old. I come from the time of Dracula. Late Nineteenth Century.”
“Maybe you knew my grandmother. She came from Vitebsk, a shtetl in Russia. The same shtetl as Chagall actually. You know our family is probably related to Chagall—everyone in Vitebsk was related to everyone else. That’s probably why my Rhoda has such an artistic streak. Did you ever see her paintings? She’s so talented.”
My mom worshipped art. She always bragged about her family’s tenuous connection to Chagall. “That’s hers.” She pointed to a pastel still life on her wall that I’d done a long time ago when I studied at the Art Students League.
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