Bubbe Ruth has had enough. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on? Mamele, darling, turn off the stove.”
She calls my mother Mamele (pronounced MAM-uh-luh) even though my mom is her daughter. Then again, she calls the Caribbean woman who delivers the mail Mamele too. She even calls my cousin Lila, who is just eighteen and going to college, Mamele. I guess that’s what old Jewish ladies call everyone.
So I tell her. I tell her everything. From the knocking on the door to the strange girl in the window to Mrs. Sarah Delano Cabot. And finally the nightmare of the kitchen table.
I assume Bubbe Ruth will laugh and pat my hand, like she usually does when I tell her anything, but instead she listens intently, leaning forward and staring at me through her thick glasses. Every once in a while, a small “oy” escapes her lips.
When I’m finished, she leans back in her chair and sighs. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe all grandmothers sigh like this. But I have a feeling Mrs. Sarah Delano Cabot’s mother does not sigh like this.
She doesn’t say anything for a long time as she sits there, my mother fussing in the kitchen, preparing the food. This is also something that has never happened. For Bubbe Ruth not to supervise my mother is breaking a tradition as old as I can remember. Her face looks like all the blood has drained out of it.
My dad is concerned. “Ruth, are you all right? Should I call a doctor?”
Bubbe Ruth waves her hand. “A doctor I don’t need. A rabbi, maybe.”
My mom rushes over. “Mom, you’re…not dying or anything?” she asks, which is a pretty funny way to find out how someone is feeling if you ask me, but Bubbe Ruth just looks annoyed.
“Of course I’m not dying, Mamele. Danele here is the one who needs the rabbi.”
Bubbe Ruth peers at me, then cocks her head. “Go touch the mezuzah.”
Okay, if you’re not Jewish, that is going to sound really weird. A mezuzah is a wooden or silver box containing some biblical verses that’s attached to the doorpost of a Jewish home.
Even though she’s not particularly religious, Bubbe Ruth has one on her door, and my dad and mom always touch it on the way in. For good luck, I guess. Or out of respect.
Like saying kein ayin hara, a mezuzah is supposed to keep evil away from the house. Jews have a lot of things they do to keep evil away. It seems to me those things haven’t helped them too much in the last two thousand years, but whenever I say that, my dad says, “Don’t be smart.”
I look at Bubbe Ruth funny. Why should I go out and touch the mezuzah?
She’s getting annoyed. “Your ears stopped working? Touch the mezuzah.”
I shrug and get up and go to the front door. I reach up and touch the mezuzah. “There, I’ve done it. Happy now?”
Bubbe Ruth looks relieved. “That’s good, darling. It means you’re not the one who is possessed. If the evil spirit was in you, you wouldn’t be able to do that.”
My dad takes off his glasses and rubs his hands through his hair. “Please don’t encourage him,” he says evenly.
Bubbe Ruth looks at him. “Who’s encouraging? I’m just telling him what he needs to know.”
My mother has put the food on the table. “Come eat!” she calls.
We sit down, and after Bubbe Ruth blesses the challah loaf, we start to eat.
“What did you mean, ‘what he needs to know’?” I ask.
Bubbe Ruth holds up her fork. “Talking later. First we eat.”
Finally, after all the dishes are washed and put away, and we’ve had “a little cake” and some of the rugelach from Haddad’s, and I’m jumping out of my skin I’m so impatient, Bubbe eases herself into her old recliner.
Rubbing her hands, she nods.
“So! I’m no expert, but it sounds like you have gotten yourself a dybbuk,” she announces.
“Oh, Mom,” my mother says. “Please don’t do this.”
Bubbe Ruth gives her daughter a sharp look. “Listen to Miss Know-It-All. Well, you don’t know it all, Mamele. If he’s hearing someone singing ‘Raisins and Almonds,’ it’s a Jewish ghost.”
“We’re not living in the shtetl, Ruth,” my dad says, referring to the little villages in Russia where Jews used to live, like in Fiddler on the Roof. “This is Brooklyn.”
Bubbe Ruth doesn’t even look at him. “You think there aren’t dybbuks in Brooklyn? Ask your aunt Sheila.”
My mother sighs. “Aunt Sheila has been dead for five years.”
“Sheila, may she rest in peace, always talked about her neighbor. You never heard?”
My dad closes his eyes. He clearly wants this conversation to end, but he knows that’s not going to happen anytime soon. “I remember Sheila saying something, but—”
“Her neighbor Naomi Feldstein, she was possessed by the spirit of her husband’s first wife. A terrible business.”
“You mean that’s what she told him when she went out and spent a fortune on a new living room set and put it on their credit card,” Mom says.
“Go ahead and laugh. That wasn’t the only thing,” Bubbe Ruth replies.
Dad turns to me and whispers, “She had a little fling with her periodontist.”
Bubbe Ruth whirls toward him. “I heard that! It wasn’t her fault. She had the dybbuk in her!”
“So I have a few questions,” I say.
My dad nods. “Okay, a periodontist is a special kind of dentist who takes care of your gums.”
“No!” I say. “What is this dybbuk, anyway?”
Bubbe Ruth takes my hand. “Darling, don’t be scared.” Which is what people say when they expect you to be scared out of your wits.
“A dybbuk is a restless spirit,” she says. “A dead person who can’t move on to the next life. Someone in your apartment has unfinished business. Sometimes a dybbuk is there to torment you. But sometimes it’s there because it needs help. I think this one needs you.”
My father groans. “This is literally a bubbe meise.”
“That’s Yiddish for ‘old wives’ tale,’ ” my mother explains.
I should say this is the most Yiddish I have ever heard anyone outside of Bubbe Ruth use in my family.
Bubbe Ruth tugs at my sleeve. “Listen, Danele, I don’t want to frighten you. It might not be a dybbuk.”
My mom looks relieved. “Thank you, Mom. Listen to your grandmother, Danny.”
“It could be an ibbur. That’s a nicer spirit. They don’t wish you harm.”
The sound of my dad face-palming could be heard in the next apartment, I bet.
“Ruth, you’re not helping,” he says.
She glares at him. “I’m not helping? You let your son be scared out of his mind by a restless spirit, and I’m the one who’s not helping?” She turns to me. “So as I was saying, a dybbuk is usually hanging around for two reasons. One, there is some unfinished business. Something left behind, or disturbed. Or else it is there to torment a guilty person, someone who did a bad thing.”
Bubbe Ruth looks me in the eye. “Did you do a bad thing?”
I think hard. I mean, I’m not perfect, but I haven’t killed anyone. Or stolen anything.
“Not that I can think of. I guess I told my parents I was doing my homework a few times when I was actually playing video games.”
Bubbe Ruth laughs. “For that, you don’t get haunted. It could also be an ibbur. That’s a righteous person who stays behind to guide the living to a virtuous life or to help them accomplish something.”
“But why our apartment? And why now?” I ask.
Bubbe Ruth side-eyes my dad. “All I can tell you is that a dybbuk cannot enter a house with a mezuzah. I told your father to put one up when you moved in, but no, he knew better.”
“Not this again,” my dad groans.
Bubbe Ruth shrugs. “I’m just saying.”
> “She doesn’t seem very happy,” I say.
Bubbe Ruth nods. “You know it’s a she, which is a good first step.”
“First step in what?” my mother asks.
Bubbe Ruth looks at her daughter like she’s an idiot. “The first step in getting rid of her, of course.”
“Wait. You know how to get rid of the dybbuk?” I ask excitedly.
“We don’t know if it’s a dybbuk,” chides Bubbe Ruth. “But yes.”
My father has had enough. “Enough already. You’re just making things worse.”
Bubbe Ruth’s voice is getting louder. “I’m making things worse? If you’d told me about this when things started—”
My mom steps in. “Okay, let’s just calm down. No yelling.”
“Who’s yelling?” yells Bubbe Ruth. “I’m just talking regular.”
“Mom!”
Bubbe Ruth speaks in a very loud whisper. “Is this better?”
Dad sighs. “Just talk like you normally do.”
Bubbe Ruth smiles and rubs her hands. “Fine. Lovely. So let’s assume this is a dybbuk. To get rid of a dybbuk, we have to find out why it hasn’t moved on. You have to interview it.”
“I have to do what?”
“This is how you get the information you need to convince it to leave. And very important: You need to learn its name. Or what it was called when it was in our world.”
“What does that do?” I ask.
“Knowing the name allows you to command it,” she declares.
My dad has kept quiet as long as he can. “According to who?”
“People who know about these things, that’s who,” Bubbe Ruth says simply.
“Like you?” Dad says, barely keeping it together.
Bubbe turns and looks at him. “I’ll have you know, Mr. I Don’t Go to Services or Put a Mezuzah on My Front Door, that in the old country, my grandfather Mordechai, may he rest in peace, helped rid many of his neighbors of dybbuks. He was known all over Kiev. He told me stories. I remember.”
My dad turns and whispers to my mom. “She barely remembers what she had for lunch, but she remembers this.”
“I heard that!” Bubbe Ruth shouts. For an old lady, she hears pretty well.
I hug her. “Thanks for all the good information, Bubbe. I promise if this spirit shows up again, I will try to get her to talk to me.”
Bubbe Ruth seems delighted by my hug. I hear her saying softly—well, softly for her—to my parents, “Listen. If it helps him get a good night’s sleep, isn’t it worth it?”
I let go of Bubbe, and my dad has a totally different expression on his face. He hugs Bubbe Ruth too, and thanks her.
“I’m sorry. You know something? You are a very wise lady,” he says.
Bubbe Ruth laughs and hits him on the shoulder, and then I swear she winks at my mother. “Enough foolishness. It’s getting late!”
“So that’s it. Either I’m full-on crazy, or there’s some Jewish spirit who needs my help to right some wrong or find relief from her torment.”
I’ve just finished catching up Nat and Gus on all that’s happened and all that I’ve learned since I last saw them.
Nat is silent, turning over everything I’ve said in her mind.
There is an unmistakable crunching sound from Gus. It’s clear from the bulge in his cheek that, yet again, he has put an entire ultimate malted milk ball in his mouth.
“Hey! Where’d you get that?” Nat snaps. “You better not have taken it from the jar without asking.”
Gus holds up a plastic bag with a dozen more malted milk balls in it, with a price label affixed to it, showing that he actually bought them. “My allowance.”
He crunches again.
“Do you have to do that?” Nat asks.
Gus smiles, trying to swallow what’s in his mouth. “Helf me fink.”
“You’re drooling again,” I point out.
Gus wipes his mouth with his sleeve.
“We have like a thousand napkins in this store, Gus. That’s so gross,” Nat growls.
Typically at this point Gus would answer by seeing how many malted milk balls he could fit in his mouth at one time just to see Nat’s reaction, but we are interrupted.
“Gus Baublitz has decided to become a customer? This is my lucky day!” It’s Sammy, beaming even more than usual, his voice filling the store. Haddad’s has just opened, so customers won’t be filling up the store for a few more minutes. Sammy has time to chat.
He reaches behind Nat and rearranges the gourmet mustards on the shelf. As he works he talks to us. “How’s the meat business treating your father?” he asks Gus.
“He’s good,” Gus says.
Sammy smiles. “It’s hard to find a good butcher, you know. It’s rare to get the job well done.”
He never tires of telling corny jokes, but it feels good, because it’s so normal. He turns to me.
“How’s your ghost problem?”
I tell him a little bit about Bubbe Ruth.
He nods. “A lovely lady, your grandmother. I haven’t seen her in ages. She should come by the store.”
“She doesn’t get down here all that often,” I say. “It’s hard for her to use the subway, and—”
Sammy waves a hand in annoyance. “She doesn’t need the subway. The city has free senior vans that’ll take her anywhere she wants to go.”
“I’m not sure she wants to go anywhere,” I admit.
Sammy looks stern. He folds his arms. “You tell her I’m very hurt she hasn’t come to visit the store. I’ll even have one of the ladies make her cabbage soup.”
“I’ll give her the message,” I promise.
From the other side of the store, like always, an excited voice calls out, “Sammy!” As if someone’s seeing a long-lost relative. This time it’s an Asian woman with her husband and two uncomfortable kids who look like they’re our age.
Sammy looks at us and grins. “It’s showtime!” He turns and says, “Eleanor!”
She beams because he’s remembered her name. This scene is going to be repeated dozens of times today, but to her it’s special.
Eleanor pushes her kids forward. “You remember Stephen and Laura?”
“Of course!” Sammy exclaims. “They’ve gotten so big!”
I wonder how many times he’s said that over the past thirty years.
I turn to see Nat still lost in thought. Finally, she says, “I’m glad you found out what the song is.”
“Do you think I’m just remembering it from when I was a baby?” I ask.
Nat shakes her head. “I think whatever happened isn’t about you. It’s about that girl in the window. She’s some poor soul worried about her little boy.”
“She looked a little young to be a mother,” Gus says.
Nat nods. “But girls had babies a lot younger then.”
“We don’t know when ‘then’ is,” I remind her. “I mean, it could be any time. And it doesn’t have to be a baby. It could be her little brother. Or a doll. Who knows?”
“That’s true,” Nat says. “So how are we going to find out?”
Gus reaches into his bag for another ultimate malted milk ball. “I guess you’ll have to ask her, huh?”
* * *
My parents and I have finished dinner, and there’s a sense of anticipation as we wait for Asako and Tomoko to return from their Broadway show. Well, anticipation from my parents. And dread from me. Who knows what tonight might bring?
They arrived this morning and dropped off their bags. According to their application, they’re both twenty-five and “office workers,” whatever that is.
Mom has watched a bunch of videos online because she wants to be nice to them. She bows when they come in, which makes my dad crazy because he thinks she’
s being ridiculous. We’re not Japanese. The closest thing is my aunt Amanda’s family—they’re Japanese American, which of course my mom wants to tell Asako and Tomoko. As if they care.
They bow back and smile.
“Our room is where, please?” asks Asako, the taller one. They both have long straight hair. Asako’s is light brown. She seems comfortable trying out her English. Tomoko is more reserved and tends to look at the floor a lot. I bet I’d be that way if I ever visited Japan.
My mom takes them to the room, chattering away about her sister-in-law and how the family came over from Japan to Hawaii, and have they ever been to Hawaii?
My dad is glued to his monitor. His jaw is tight, and his mouth a straight line. He hates the idea that Mom is patronizing them. He said to her, “I’m begging you. Just be polite. They might be shy.”
My mom was annoyed. “I just want them to feel welcome.”
It turns out Asako and Tomoko already have a list of things they want to get done while they’re here. Tomoko has a notebook with a picture of a fried egg with a face on the cover. It’s very cute, which even I know the Japanese word for, kawaii. I know it because so many kids at school are into Japanese pop culture. They watch a lot of anime. A lot. It’s a good thing Gus isn’t here or he’d ask them all about some show he’s watched a hundred episodes of, and who knows if they even are into that stuff?
As soon as Asako and Tomoko dropped off their bags and freshened up, they ran out, because they wanted to have breakfast at Junior’s, which is a Brooklyn landmark, world famous for its cheesecake.
They have things printed out from the Internet, from a Japanese website that is clearly about all the things you have to do in Brooklyn. I am blown away to see that one of them is visiting Haddad’s!
There’s a buzz at the door, and my mom springs up. Asako and Tomoko are there, festooned with shopping bags from various shops and souvenir places. They are each clutching a Playbill from some Broadway musical I’ve never heard of. They seem very happy and excited. My mother bows again, and then catching my dad’s glare she apologizes, which sets off another round of giggles from the two women. I don’t think it’s because they think it’s funny, they’re just uncomfortable.
The Ghost in Apartment 2R Page 14
