Interview With a Jewish Vampire

by Erica Manfred

  Jean gestured me to follow him. “I’ll get you some real food, Miss Rhoda, I’m famous for my jerk stew. Let’s leave these bloodaholics to their evil ways.”

  I was taken aback by the “evil” word, but he said it so good-naturedly that I let it pass.

  Jean fed me some fabulous spicy stew in his little house, down the walkway from the lodge, which was decorated with colorful Haitian folk art and squishy, comfortable furniture. I’d bought a few paintings from Haitians on the street in New York City and treasured them. His wife Yasmin, a statuesque pretty black woman with straightened, neatly coifed hair and a peasant skirt, came in and sat down with us. She had a lilting accent that sounded Jamaican.

  “How did you two get involved with a bunch of vampires?”

  Yasmin laughed. “It was that or live in with white folks. I get to live with my husband and kids here and have my own house and a nice life. I used to have to leave my kids with my sister in Jamaica so I could take care of white ladies. Plus we like these vampires. They’re the good ones, they don’t hurt anyone and they pay for the animals, which we get to sell to a kosher butcher after Izzy certifies them. Very profitable.”

  “Who are the bad ones?” I asked.

  “You don’t want to know!” Yasmin said, making the sign of the cross. “They’re dangerous.”

  By the time Mom came back from her dinner, if you can call it dinner, with Sheldon, I was napping on Yasmin’s couch. I woke up abruptly when they came in. Sheldon had his arm around Mom’s shoulders in a paternal gesture and was herding her towards me. Tess was nowhere in sight. Mom was acting strange although the strangeness was hard to define. It was as if she were herself but herself on speed. She’d always been speedy, but now she was all over the place,

  “What an adorable painting,” she said to Yasmin, pointing at one of the Haitian artworks on the wall, a colorful oil of a woman with a bundle on her head. “Wherever did you get it?”

  Before Yasmin could answer Mom lifted some flowers out of a vase and breathed them in deeply. “Ah, what a scent. I don’t believe I’ve ever smelled flowers like these before. What are they?”

  Before Yasmin could answer that question she zipped over to where I was sitting, plunked herself down and effused, “Rhoda I have no idea what you and Sheldon did to me but I feel reborn. Why didn’t you do this to me years ago? Why have I been so old for so long?”

  “Mom, how could I have done it years ago? I needed Sheldon. I’m not a vampire.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Well you’ll just have to become one. It’s an incredible experience. I wonder how long it will last?”

  “Forever,” Sheldon chimed in.

  “There’s no such thing as forever,” Mom said sternly in her schoolteacher voice. “Everyone knows that.” Not waiting for a response, she got up and zoomed over to a corner where there were a few modern sculptures that seemed to be assembled out of odd bits of junkyard refuse and rubber tires. I thought they were odd looking, but Mom picked one up and started gazing at it raptly.

  “This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. It looks like a woman bending over her baby.”

  She was tripping out-- acting like I did after my first hit of LSD—as if everything in the world were new and wondrous. I found it disconcerting to say the least to see my practical, no-nonsense mom transformed into a hippie on an acid trip.

  Yasmin proudly announced, “That’s the work of Jean Camille Nasson, a famous Haitian sculptor.”

  I would have been impressed if I weren’t so worried. “Sheldon, what’s going on? She is not acting like herself.”

  “Don’t worry, bubeleh, it’s just the effect of first blood. After that first feeding a new vampire sees everything as if it were brand new. It won’t last. By tomorrow she’ll be her cynical self again.”

  In the meantime mom was scaring me.

  “How come she thinks she’s not going to live forever?”

  “That concept takes some time to get used to, Rhoda. You can’t wrap your mind around it right away. It took me a long time to realize I was immortal. It was frightening—and not pleasant. When you have all the time in the world, it’s hard to figure out what to do with yourself.”

  “Mom has never had a problem keeping busy. I’m sure she’ll just go on doing what she’s always done—movies, concerts, walks on the beach, sewing.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that,” Sheldon said. “Some vampires change. They get hungry for excitement along with blood. Your mom may be that type.”

  “Why are you talking about me as if I’m not here,” Mom said. “I am not going to change. I’m still a socialist and always will be.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mom was really irritating on the way back. She sat behind us and kept pointing out landscape features. The worst thing was that it was night and I couldn’t see them.

  “Rhoda, look at that gorgeous lake. Let’s stop and take a swim.”

  “You must be nuts, Ma. I can’t see a lake. And if I could I sure wouldn’t want to take a swim at four a.m.”

  “Really. It’s four a.m. I can see everything like it’s, well, daytime.”

  “Look up ma, no sun.”

  “I won’t have trouble driving at night anymore.”

  “Stay out of the sun, Fanny,” Tess admonished her. “You’re a newbie and you might get a bad burn. Plus it will hurt your eyes really badly, even with sunglasses.”

  “I’m going to miss the sun,” Mom said sadly. It was her first real expression of dismay at her new state. It suddenly hit me that bad things could happen to good vampires. Anything that hurt Mom from now on would be my fault—and would make me feel guilty. She could blame me for anything that went wrong with her new life. Mom, like all Jewish mothers, was an expert at pushing guilt. She’d pretty much given it up in her old age but I wasn’t sure why. Maybe she realized I really was a good daughter and she started feeling guilty about depending on me so much. Guilt was a double-edged Jewish sword, and we both wielded it expertly.

  I was driving since Sheldon didn’t have a license and Tess was in back with mom. I didn’t trust her to drive quite yet. She might start ignoring the speed limit.

  “Shel.” I turned to him, talking in a low voice so Mom wouldn’t hear. “Do you think we did the right thing? All kinds of things could go wrong. You saw her attack that truck driver.”

  “Rhoda, do you think I’m deaf?” Mom piped up from the back seat. “I can hear every word you say. I did not attack a truck driver.”

  Sheldon laughed. “You may not know this, Rhoda, but along with night vision she now has vampire hearing. You can’t whisper behind her back anymore.”

  “Your hearing may have improved, Mom, but your memory is still a bit dim.” I automatically turned around to talk to her, almost swerving off the road before remembering that I didn’t have to turn around for her to hear me. “You sure did attack a truck driver and you better not do that again.”

  “You really don’t have to worry, dear,” Tess said reassuringly. “I will keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn’t get into trouble. We Century Village Golden Grandmas do a lot of fun things that will keep her busy.”

  “Like what?” Mom asked.

  “We travel. I never mentioned vampire cruises, did I?”

  “Vampire cruises? You’ve got to be kidding.” I was stunned. It seems vampires had their own nighttime world that existed right beside the human world. How was it possible no one knew it about it?

  “Aristotle Onassis started a cruise line for us. It’s so convenient. We can board at night, explore at night, and he even serves real, perfectly preserved blood. It’s not as tasty as live blood, but good enough. That’s what billions can do, even after death.” Tess hugged Mom. “Fanny you are going to have a great time.”

  “What?” I shrieked. “Aristotle Onassis is a vampire?”

  “Quite a few fabulously rich men are,” Tess said matter-of-factly, leaning forward to talk in my ear. “If you had all the money in
the world and you were getting really old wouldn’t you look into eternal life? He had enough resources to hire investigators to find us. Now he’s one of us. And there are more. I won’t out them, though. Most of them are very secretive. Onassis only goes out in disguise.”

  “Did you know about this, Shel?”

  “No. I’ve led a very sheltered afterlife, Rhoda. I’ve been studying Torah and davvening all these years,” Sheldon grinned at me lasciviously. “ But now that we’re together why don’t we go on one of these cruises? As long as we can spend a lot of time in the cabin.” He did a double eyebrow raise that reminded me of Groucho.

  “They’re only for vampires, no humans.” Tess sounded apologetic. “But maybe Rhoda will decide to become one of us.”

  “That is not a possibility. Not yet,” Sheldon said. “I like her just the way she is.”

  “I admit it sounds like fun,” Mom chimed in, sounding very enthusiastic. I knew how much she loved foreign travel. “But how do you get into museums. I couldn’t imagine traveling to Europe, let’s say, and missing the Louvre.”

  “That’s just like you Mom. You have eternal life, you can travel the world and you’re worried about museums.” I was relieved, though, that she was still a culture vulture, still the same mom.

  “Rhoda, you just are not sufficiently interested in culture,” Mom chided me from the back seat in her schoolteacher voice. “I can’t imagine how that happened when I dragged you to every museum in New York when you were a child.”

  “The operative word is ‘dragged,’ Mom. No wonder my feet hurt every time I pass the Met.”

  Ignoring me, Tess answered Mom’s question. “Onassis can unlock doors, Fanny. He gets us in everywhere. And we have the museums to ourselves. No gawking tourists to get in your way.”

  “So what do we do at Century? Not much nightlife there?” Mom asked.

  “Midnight swims in the ocean are a treat,” Tess replied. “I know how much you like to swim, Fanny. And we go clubbing.”

  “Clubbing? What’s that?”

  “Mom.” Now it was my chance to chide. “How can you not know what clubbing is? It means going to nightclubs.”

  “Like the Copa?”

  “Fanny, there hasn’t been a Copa for fifty years. And you were too young to go there when there was,” Tess informed her stiffly. “No, we go to Miami. South Beach. Lots of nightclubs and dancing.”

  “Isn’t that just for young people?” Mom sounded incredulous. “I can’t imagine they’d even let you in.”

  “We’re a novelty to them,” Tess laughed. “Remember, I was Disco Sally, I know the ropes. The kids think we’re cute. And when they see we can out-dance them they go nuts.”

  “Clubbing…..mm mm.” Mom said, bewildered. “It’s a whole different world. I can’t imagine wanting to socialize with kids. I don’t even like kids today—with all those tattoos and pierced bodies. But dancing sounds like fun.”

  “Dancing with old folks isn’t much fun for us, Fanny, we’re too spry for them. We can keep up with kids so why not dance with kids?”

  “I’ll give it a try. Why not? I’m game.”

  That’s what I love about my mom. She’s always been game for anything. I took her snorkeling in Key Largo for her seventy-fifth birthday. She was terrified but had a ball. Maybe I’d done the right thing by her in turning her into a vampire. I breathed a relieved sigh inwardly. It was going to be alright. She was going to start enjoying her life again, and I could enjoy mine—with Sheldon.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  By the time we got back to Century it was almost daylight. Mom was worried about sleeping. “I don’t know how I’m going to fall asleep Rhoda, I’m still wide awake,” she said when we got back to the apartment.

  “You’re on vampire time now, Fanny,” Sheldon told her. “Your vampire body clock will put you to sleep at sunrise automatically. In the meantime just read a book or watch TV. You need some extra rest—the change takes a lot of energy.”

  “Do vampires get insomnia, Sheldon?” she sounded worried. “I’ve been plagued with insomnia my entire life, ever since I was a kid. It would be worth missing daylight just to get a good night’s, or day’s, sleep.”

  “No, Fanny, we sleep like babies, dead babies, for twelve hours. You’ll have a wonderful, deep sleep. When you wake up you’ll feel refreshed, and you won’t remember your dreams.”

  He must have seen a hypnotist on TV; he knew the lingo. I knew it wasn’t true--that Sheldon had insomnia--but maybe the power of suggestion would keep Mom from having it.

  “OK, g’nite you two,” she said, giving us a little wave and heading for her bedroom. “I’ll use ear plugs so I can’t hear you.”

  I wondered what had come over her. She’d never been particularly considerate before. Maybe becoming a vampire had improved her manners. “That’s sweet of you Mom, thanks,” I said.

  As Mom adjusted to vampire hours, I was slowly adjusting too. I didn’t want to miss any time with Sheldon. I was ready to make love before the sun came up but he looked totally exhausted.

  “Is there something wrong, Sheldon? I’ve never seen you this tired, or tired at all actually. You’re either raring to go or sleeping, nothing in between.”

  “Changing your mom took it out of me, Rhoda. I lost some blood you know.” He lay down on the bed and yawned, ready to snooze.

  I sat down next to him, stroking his face gently. I loved his features, they were so aristocratic, so old-world handsome, like a renaissance painting. He didn’t look like anyone I’d ever dated. Well, there was that one time I’d had a fling with a model, but he was so taken with himself that he barely paid any attention to me.

  “What are you staring at, Rhoda,” he asked me, looking bewildered. “Do I have blood on my face or something?”

  “You have no idea how adorable you are.”

  “No one has ever called me adorable before. I like it.” He started kissing me passionately, not tired anymore.

  “How about a quickie?” I asked.

  “I don’t do quickies. I’m going to live forever. I want to stretch it out.” He pulled me down on top of him and pulled off my T-shirt. I stayed on top this time, a position we hadn’t tried before. I could barely keep up with him--he was so hard and moved me up and down on him so fast.

  “Don’t throw me off, Shel. I feel like I’m on a bucking bronco.” I managed to stay in the saddle somehow and got totally lost looking in his gorgeous green eyes. I liked looking down at him, feeling in control of this powerful, supernatural creature. It lent an extra thrill to lovemaking. The bed we were on was creaking loudly. I hoped Mom had fallen asleep already.

  By the time we finished about an hour later we were both exhausted. Sheldon pulled me down next to him, leaned on his elbow and looked at me. “I may be immortal, Rhoda, but I’m not eighteen anymore.”

  “What? I thought you were just as peppy as an eighteen-year-old.”

  “No one is that peppy, you should have met me at that age. Thank goodness I didn’t become a vampire as a teenager. can’t imagine being horny all the time for eternity.”

  “C’mon, let’s take a shower together.” I took his hand and pulled him towards the bathroom with the stall shower, which was the bathroom we used. Actually only I used the toilet. It seems vampires absorb all their food directly into their bodies and don’t eliminate anything. Very efficient and easy on the plumbing.

  “What temperature do you prefer?” I asked Sheldon, pushing the lever.

  “I like it hot, of course,” he told me, “since I’m so cold. Hot water feels delicious. But I have to be careful not to make it too hot because I’ll burn myself without realizing it. I don’t actually feel hot and cold the way you do.”

  “While soaping me up, Sheldon mentioned the fact that we had two more old ladies to turn into vampires. “I don’t know how I’m going to survive that,” he told me as he soaped my right thigh. I started wishing dawn weren’t so close. I was definitely interested in an
other round.

  “First of all I don’t want to lose my abstinence. Sucking blood from your mom was a serious breach of B.A. rules.”

  I hadn’t asked him how it had affected him because I was trying to be sensitive and not hurt his feelings, so I was glad he’d brought that up himself.

  “Are you OK with it now?”

  “Actually the blood of the very old isn’t all that tasty. Your mom wasn’t anywhere near as delicious as you would be,” he laughed. “Nowhere near as tasty as some of the young ones I had when I was first changed. I wasn’t all that tempted to finish her off. But I was…a little tempted.”

  “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know,” the idea was pretty revolting. Actually it was a big turn off.

  “I had no idea you used to suck blood from humans.”

  “Many, many years ago. I killed them, often accidentally. B.A. saved me. Why don’t I take your mom to a B.A. meeting before we leave Florida. That should keep both of us in line.”

  “Sure, great idea. How about Miriam and Ellen? You still have to change them.”

  “Rhoda, I’m going to ask Tess and one of her friends to change Ellen and Miriam. I can’t do it. It’s not good for my mental or physical health. Drinking human blood is a shanda and giving my blood makes me weak. I can’t possibly change two more people,”

  It was my turn to soap. Sheldon was always clean because he didn’t sweat. He didn’t need to shower really, but his hair and face got dirty just like mine. I didn’t care about his hair and face, however, and went to work on his muscular arms and armpits which smelled of apricots for some reason, working my way to the line of fine hair down the middle of his chest. I started stroking his smooth back. Thank goodness he wasn’t all hairy. There was something repulsive about the idea of a hairy back on a vampire—or on anyone.

  “Shel, do you think Tess can find anyone else willing to do it. It’s very draining, literally, and they’re old—yes vampires—but old. Plus Ellen and Miriam aren’t their friends.”