Rabbi Bergerman sat on the other side of the thin sheet rocking himself in prayer; in one pocket he secretly fingered an amulet he’d bought from a kabbalist to protect himself against evil on such occasions. He was…well, frankly, terrified.
He stole a glimpse at the outline of Myra Gluckstein through the thin sheet. He’d been in love with her for decades, from the moment she’d arrived at Crown Heights seventy years before—then a tiny community of a few houses—a petite but voluptuous woman who seemed all black hair, lips, and eyes with an intellect that could wither a man in two sentences. And here she was, sitting a mere foot away in what appeared to be—and here Mordecai squinted very hard to make out more details of her blurred shape—a very alluring yellow dressing gown. A sudden snort from the snore jolted him out of his reverie.
“Rabbi!” Miriam whispered, “what do you think? Could it be a dybbuk?”
A dybbuk? Morecedei pondered the question. He was not a kabbalist—in fact he had always actively opposed such superstition—but here was undeniable proof of the supernatural, or at least some freak of nature, but a dybbuk…?
“How can it be a dybbuk, Miriam, when it has no body to possess?”
“Maybe it is looking for one,” Myra interjected, a sinister note in her voice. “And naturally, being a male snore, it would be looking for a male body….”
Horrified at such a notion the aged rabbi leaped up and ran from the room, forgetting his walker all together.
They caught up with him at the front door where he was fumbling with the ten locks Aaron had insisted on installing.
“Hey, kid, relax! I was only joking!” Myra pleaded.
Her daughter-in-law stepped forward. “Please, Rabbi, you’re the only one who knows. You must help us!”
Rabbi Bergerman turned slowly. The young widow was in tears and Myra glared at him as if he was the guilty party. There was no way he could abandon the two women. Resigned to his fate he reached out for his walker, which Miriam had brought from the bedroom.
“Okay, okay, I hear you. Enough with the tears already.”
They held council around the kitchen table while upstairs the snore continued to whistle around the room, poking at the cushions taped across the windows, seeping under the pillows on the bed and around the legs of the dead man’s desk, as if it were looking for something. Which indeed it was.
In the kitchen Mordecai took the opportunity to lean closer to Myra. He could smell the face cream she had used for the past fifty years, the scent bringing back instant memories. Glancing down he noticed her ankles below the hem of the tantalizing dressing gown—they were still good.
“Mordecai, concentrate!” Myra reprimanded him, thinking he was dozing off. “We have a crisis at hand!”
The rabbi focused his attention. “So, this is what I think. There are two ways to go here. One: I bring in a zaddik—a holy man—and a minyan—maybe I could find ten men who would keep their mouths shut, maybe not—and the zaddik could read Psalm 91, then order the snore out. That is the traditional way of dealing with a dybbuk. But as this is not a dybbuk, and the snore does not appear to be looking for a body to invade, this might not be the way to go.”
The rabbi paused and downed the glass of kosher wine Miriam had placed in front of him. “Therefore, two: I suggest that you consult a kabbalist. Naturally it would have to be a Sephardic, as we have none in Crown Heights,” he concluded, avoiding Myra’s piercing gaze, his hands now folded self-righteously in front of him.
“Is there anyone you know who we can trust?” Miriam asked anxiously.
Rabbi Bergerman looked around the kitchen, then lowered his voice as if there were spies. “It just so happens that I know a guy in Queens,” he whispered, his hand reaching into his pocket for the amulet and the business card he kept with it, just in case. “You can page him now, he’s on twenty-four-hour call. He’s no schmuck, a very successful businessman.” Mordecai placed the elegant card with its raised gold lettering firmly on the table.
Meanwhile, upstairs in the bedroom, the file slipped a little farther out from the back of the filing cabinet.
The next day at school Miriam received a phone call from the principal. The woman’s voice sounded nervous and strangely tense as she asked Miriam to come immediately to her office. She had an unexpected visitor. Miriam put down the phone already imagining bad news from her family in Chicago, or some disaster she hadn’t calculated on.
When the widow entered the office, the stranger had his back to her. He was tall, dressed immaculately in a suit that even Miriam could tell would have cost more than her entire wardrobe, and he was carrying a briefcase. He spoke before turning around to her; a gesture that Miriam found profoundly insulting.
“Mrs. Gluckstein, you are very young to be a widow.”
He swung around and Miriam knew instantly that he wasn’t Jewish and somehow (she couldn’t tell how) that he was threatening. Oozing with insincerity he held out a hand gloved in expensive leather. Miriam realized that he was handsome and a good deal older than herself.
“Michael O’Brien. I was a colleague of your husband’s.”
Miriam nodded, remembering Aaron’s description of his superior—a TV Nazi, he’d called him. Originally it had been a joke between them—his complaints about the man’s officious manner, his insistence on absolute order within the department—but recently, a few months before Aaron’s death, Aaron’s tone had changed when he mentioned O’Brien’s name. A note of tentativeness had entered his voice, as if somewhere he’d realized that he’d underestimated the man’s power and, perhaps, his malice. Miriam now looked upon the man himself, and determined to be neither intimidated nor seduced. Ignoring his outstretched hand, she smiled slightly; to shake it would be a breach of religious law. Mr. O’Brien stared down for a second, then, realizing, laughed awkwardly.
“Sorry, I forgot. Solomon explained a few things, but it’s so complicated—it’s difficult to remember all the etiquette.”
“Aaron, his name is Aaron here.”
“Funny, at work he was known as Solomon.”
“Aaron Solomon; Solomon was his second name.” Miriam offered the man a chair, upon which he sat with perfect grace.
“I am sorry for your loss. It must have been quite a shock—”
“Forgive me, Mr. O’Brien, but you have disturbed me at work. Is there a problem with Aaron’s estate or something? Because I thought it was all clear-cut.”
“Oh it is, it is. Aaron’s company shares will naturally become yours and his pension also. No, that isn’t why I am here, Mrs. Gluckstein.” He stared down at his perfect black leather gloves. “No, I’m here because our department is missing a file.”
At this he met Miriam’s gaze for the first time since she had entered the room. There was absolutely no emotion in his stare. A tremble swept through her body.
“What has this to do with Aaron?”
“I believe he may have taken it home with him the night before he died.”
“He mentioned nothing and I certainly haven’t seen a file about the house.”
For years afterward, Miriam would ask herself why she had lied at that moment. It was the first deceit of her life. Dismayed, she stood there, her words finite and, it seemed to her, slightly repugnant. Later she would surmise that it was Aaron’s spirit guiding her and, perhaps, the kind of animal instinct that enables a man to cross a deserted road a second before a speeding car screeches around the corner. Mr. O’Brien stepped toward her. Something about him made her feel like a rabbit caught in the gaze of a predator.
“You have to understand, Mrs. Gluckstein, how important this file is to the company. Its loss could have a devastating impact. We know how loyal Aaron was to Safecom; he was, in fact, one of our most loyal employees. That is why we have assumed up until now that the misappropriation of the file was accidental. This assumption could change, with very unpleasant consequences for the settlement of Aaron’s estate.”
“Are you threatening me,
Mr. O’Brien?”
“A righteous woman such as yourself? Don’t be ridiculous. I am just making the gentle suggestion that you look for, find, and return this file unopened as soon as possible. Otherwise I can’t promise that someone else won’t take over this inquiry, someone far less sympathetic.”
“What inquiry?”
“Good day to you, Mrs. Gluckstein.” He tipped his hat and left.
Claiming a migraine Miriam excused herself to her fellow staff and rushed back home.
The bedroom windows were still covered over and the room was dark. Miriam switched on the desk lamp and looked around. Nothing seemed amiss. She had cleared out Aaron’s desk after the shiva and had found nothing strange; just the usual collection of odds and ends that defined a man’s life: an old bar mitzvah photo with his father, several lotto tickets curled up with a rubber band, a thousand staples and unused paper clips, a rubber stamp from work, and an unsent love poem to herself. His shocking verse had made her weep, then laugh, but there was no sign of a stolen file.
She sat at the desk, remembering her last conversation with Aaron about the ethics of the individual acting for the greater good. Had he been trying to tell her something about his situation at work? A deluge of memories came to her: Aaron coming back one evening from work uncharacteristically harassed and aggressive, shutting off from her when she tried to ask what was wrong; her waking in the middle of the night to find Aaron sitting outside in their small courtyard, staring up at the stars in just his pajamas. Had he been troubled by something? Had O’Brien been threatening him in some way? Had this been a contributing factor to his heart attack? The thought made her shiver.
A sudden breeze slipped under the door, chilling her ankles, and the room seemed to give a little sigh. With a thud the file finally fell out from the back of the cabinet onto the carpet. Astonished, Miriam picked it up.
An hour later she closed the file and, shaking from head to toe, rushed to the bathroom where she splashed cold water onto her face. Her immediate impulse was to burn the file and rid herself of the responsibility of such a document. What was Aaron thinking? He must have stumbled upon it by accident, she rationalized; she couldn’t imagine that he had sought out such information willingly. Not Aaron. But then why was he frightened? As a religious man, having found such information he would have felt morally obliged to…do what? She stared into the mirror: she’d lost more weight over the past week and the nights of exhaustion showed, making her look like a haunted child.
What will I do now, she wondered, remembering Mr. O’Brien’s blank eyes. Picking up the file, she hid it at the very back of the last drawer in the filing cabinet. What she needed was time to plan.
Later that same evening the two women were interrupted at their meal by the front doorbell chiming the HaTikvah. Myra froze, a spoonful of chicken soup held to her mouth.
“He’s early. The kabbalist is early.”
Miriam checked the huge clock on the wall. “Only by twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes, twenty minutes—that’s a lifetime in some insects’ lives.” Myra threw down her spoon. Undaunted, the doorbell continued playing the Israeli national anthem.
“You want I should let him in?” Miriam asked, worried about the neighbors.
Guessing her fears, Myra sighed deeply. “Don’t worry, I told the Fleischmanns he’s your brother visiting from Chicago. I suppose we can’t let the ignorant primitive freeze.”
Miriam waved her finger at her mother-in-law.
“Myra, you promised: no name-calling and none of this primitive stuff. He is here to do an important job.”
Myra nodded, but promising nothing went back to her soup.
Dressed in black leather trousers and an expensive-looking woollen coat, with amber worry beads, dreadlocks, and a woollen beanie of some Middle Eastern weave, the kabbalist looked more like an uptown drug dealer than a man of mystical wisdom. As Miriam opened the door he was speaking in fluent Hebrew on his cell phone, seemingly oblivious to the tribe of Fleischmann children gathered in a curious mass behind him.
“Hello, I’m Hillel from Queens,” he said in a thick Israeli accent, flicking shut his phone and smiling at Miriam. “I’ve come about a haunting.”
“Shh!” Miriam said. She glared at the children who, not unlike herself, must have been amazed to see that Miriam’s brother from Chicago was black.
“Jacob,” Miriam said loudly to the eldest, “say hello to my half-brother Hillel from Israel!”
“Hello,” Jacob muttered shyly, then scampered off, his siblings following like starlings. After checking the street Miriam pulled the kabbalist into the house.
She took Hillel’s coat, then led him toward the kitchen.
“Maybe you would like some refreshments, Rebbe?”
“Please, I am not a rabbi, Mrs. Gluckstein, I am simply a kabbalist. But I do speak fluent Aramaic and am well versed in both the Zohar and the Mishnah.”
They entered the kitchen where a shocked Myra stared solidly at Hillel for a good two minutes.
“You know, I marched in the civil rights movement and I personally shook the hand of Martin Luther King,” she finally announced solemnly. Miriam blushed to the roots of her hair.
“Mother, Hillel is Israeli, a Yemenite.”
Myra’s body language went from reverence to irreverence in a minute.
“Sorry, I mistook you for African-American. So, you are here to rid us of the snore. What hokey-pokey rubbish are you going to serve up—and more importantly, what do you charge?”
Hillel, who Miriam had noticed was a charming man of about thirty, winked lasciviously at the old woman, which won her over immediately.
“You see, these Sephardim know how to flirt,” Myra cackled loudly.
“If I succeed I charge, if I fail I don’t. But if I do succeed there is one condition: that you allow me to publicize the case—anonymously, of course—on my Website,” Hillel concluded.
Myra nodded imperiously and the kabbalist reached into his rucksack and pulled out a small lump wrapped in gauze. He turned back to Miriam, his face now quite serious.
“The possession is of an aural nature, I understand?”
“It is the loud snore of my dear dead husband.”
“And he has been dead for…?”
“Three weeks.”
As she spoke the kabbalist unwrapped the lump to reveal a moist mass of clay, which he started to knead with his fingers.
Miriam continued, “We sat shiva, he was buried according to custom, his grave is undisturbed as far as we know, and yet every night, at the time Aaron himself would have gone to sleep, about ten or so, the snore starts up.”
“I have heard of weeping haunting a room,” Hillel mused, “and I have dealt with several dybbuks, including one that was Ladino, but I have never had a snore before or a dybbuk that wasn’t looking for a home to lodge itself into.” His fingers teased out two legs and one arm from the soft clay.
“What did your husband look like?” he continued.
“He was tall…not thin…”
Hillel created a head and another arm, then wrapped a belly around the middle.
“My son was fatter than that, believe me,” Myra chipped, fascinated by the quick-moving fingers that flashed across the small clay figure.
“His face?”
Miriam walked over to the dresser and pulled out a photo. She lay it on the table next to Hillel. He studied it, then swiftly made a rough model of Aaron’s features.
“You see, it is like this. The light of your husband’s soul has been fractured into many pieces, and one of these pieces has been left behind in this world—this is his snore.”
He held up the tiny duplicate of Aaron. “If I can incite the snore to enter this vessel, then I will bury it and the last fragment of Aaron Solomon Gluckstein’s soul will be laid to rest. But first we will try more traditional methods.”
That evening Hillel checked every mezuzah nailed up over every doorway except
, naturally, the bathroom. The ornaments, each of which contained a small section of the Torah, seemed intact. Muttering a Hebrew incantation he then ran an amulet—a clay tablet covered in ancient symbols—in a line across the bedroom floor from the doorway to the bed.
Finally everything was in place. Hillel glanced at the clock: 9:45 p.m.
Miriam followed his gaze. “It will start any minute now.”
“I need you and your mother-in-law in the other room; a female body will be a distraction. But you can watch through the doors.”
Myra and Miriam squeezed into the small adjoining bathroom and waited. Sure enough, at the stroke of ten the snore began: an invisible breeze that ruffled the bedspread ever so slightly. But the kabbalist heard it immediately. Wearing a beaded prayer shawl over his shoulders and several amulets around his neck, he reached for his battered copy of the Zohar and turned to the appropriate passage. He began to chant in Hebrew, rocking backward and forward on his heels.
The snore continued to grow in volume, completely ignoring the kabbalist’s mumblings. Soon it was almost impossible for Hillel to hear himself without shouting. Finally he yelled, “Dybbuk, be gone!” Arrogantly, the snore continued its vibrational tirade without missing a beat.
Hillel stared at the empty bed in amazement. Never had he heard such a supernatural sound: it was bigger than the faint whisperings he’d once exorcised from a mortuary; it was louder than the human murmurings that had appeared mysteriously inside a dog; more resonant than the haunted Deepfreeze in Mr. Kimmel’s herring shop. The snore had a kind of bass beat that thudded against the eardrum and caused the chest to vibrate. For one surreal moment Hillel contemplated sampling the apparition for a rap artist he knew in the Bronx, but decided that would be too irreligious even for him. There was only one thing left before resorting to the clay doll and that was the shofar.
Reluctantly he pulled out the polished ram’s horn that he kept wrapped in a handkerchief of silk. The twisted horn had first belonged to his great-grandfather over a hundred years ago in Yemen. The words May this blow sound through Time like Light through Dust were etched into one side. The shofar was normally used in the temple to herald Rosh Hashanah, the new year, and Hillel had been careful about misusing the sacred instrument. But it was the ultimate weapon in exorcism.
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