The Ninth Day

by Ruth Tenzer Feldman

  Some nerve! I grabbed for the shawl. “Hey, that’s mine. Give it back.”

  That crazy girl must have spun out of my way because the next thing I knew I had collided with the sink, and she was standing by the towel dispenser.

  ”Hope,” she said softly. “A thousand pardons, but it is very hard to find you alone. Dolcette has great need of you, and nearly a whole day has passed. I see that you have brought your garment of fringes to this eating place. I pray that you will trust me.”

  I leaned against the sink, my heart in triple tempo. Even Dagmar wouldn’t track people down after school, steal their stuff, and follow them into the ladies’ room. Unless she was high. Which might be the case with Miss Weirdo.

  I stared at the girl and said nothing, hoping the silent treatment would make things easier. It does sometimes with Dagmar.

  ”My name is Serakh, daughter of Asher,” she said. “The One has guided me to you. Dolcette is sick with fear for her newborn son. I have given your top to her as a pledge that you would come.”

  You could hardly see her white eyelashes.

  ”A dreidel you call it, with the Hebrew letters that stand for ness gadol hayah sham.” Ness was miracle; gadol, great. Hayah sham meant happened there. A great miracle happened there, meaning ancient Israel or the temple in Jerusalem The story of Hanukkah. What Jewish kid didn’t know that? Half-Jewish anyway.

  ”Dolcette is waiting for a great miracle. She takes the top as a sign that you will appear. I have been guided to you for the intertwining. I beg you to return to her with me.”

  I replayed the Hanukkah story in my mind, how Judah Maccabee and the Israelites fought for religious freedom and won back Jerusalem from the Syrians. And how a tiny bit of oil for the Temple light burned miraculously for eight days until the Israelites could make more. There was nothing in the Hanukkah story about a Dolcette.

  She folded my prayer shawl and handed it back. “Please. You have only to touch the long blue thread in this fringe and close your eyes against the light.”

  Not a chance. I kissed the shawl—it seemed like the respectful thing to do to a prayer shawl after it had been dragged into the bathroom—and gave her my fiercest stare.

  The girl glanced at the ceiling, then back at me. Her face aligned in a “trust me” look that Dagmar uses on me and that means anything but.

  ”I am wearing an extra gown for you under my robes. No one will see the clothing of your place and time. Have no fear. You will not be mistaken for a conjurer or a witch.”

  Stoned. Definitely stoned. I edged away, wondering whether I could slip past her and get out the ladies’ room door.

  She leaned closer. “I cannot force you, but shall we have a contest? It is the twenty-fifth of Kislev, yes?”

  I nodded. Today was still technically the twenty-fifth in the Hebrew calendar, the first day of Hanukkah, because days went from sundown to sundown, the way they are counted in the Bible.

  ”Dolcette also celebrates Hanukkah. If I can take you to her within an instant, you will agree to listen to her story. If I fail, I will not come for you again.”

  A contest? This girl was getting on my nerves. I opened the stall doors. Empty. The window was nothing but those glass bricks. No way could Serakh win, unless Dolcette was right outside the ladies’ room door. In that case, when Dolcette came in, I’d run for it.

  ”Fine,” I said.

  Serakh seemed delighted. “Hold tightly to the blue thread and let me touch you,” she said softly.

  I wrapped the shawl’s one blue thread around my fingers. Up close, Serakh smelled like farm animals. Maybe it was the wool. She asked me to close my eyes, but I refused.

  ”As you wish,” she said.

  Oh, God! The blue thread strangled my finger. Bright blue light bombarded me. I squeezed my eyes shut and doubled over in pain. My stomach turned upside down. My lungs screamed for air. I was trapped inside a horrid sound-and-light show, drowning in a flood of panic. No, no, no, no…

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The pain finally eased. I could breathe again—just barely. Something rough scratched my back. Another something poked into my thigh. I opened my eyes to forest and fog.

  Serakh squatted beside me, propping me against a giant oak tree.

  Impossible.

  She held my shoulders, keeping me upright.

  ”Breathe,” she said.

  I shivered in the icy dampness. “Where am I?”

  ”Shh…Take a moment to recover.” The girl helped me to stand and then slipped a warm woolen caftan over my shoulders and my prayer shawl. Still groggy, I let her stuff my hair under a large, beige linen cap.

  ”Wipe the pigment from your lips,” she ordered, handing me a long brownish-gray rectangular cloth.” When I hesitated, she asked, “Shall I do this for you?”

  I forced my head from side to side and then rubbed my mouth. The cloth reeked of onions and sour milk.

  She rubbed dirt into the lipstick stain, and then tied that putrid cloth under my chin and over the top of the cap. “We must hide the bandages as they are not of this place and time.” Had the caftan and cloth been black, I could have passed for a nun.

  I grabbed her hands. “Stop. Wait. Tell me what happened. Tell me where I am. Who are you?”

  She didn’t try pull away from my grip. “I am Serakh, daughter of Asher, as I have said. We have crossed to a spot on the olam that is different from your own. The olam stretches to all points in the universe from the beginning of time to the end of days. I beg you to turn away from your fear. You are safe with me.”

  I had no idea what this crazy girl was talking about, except for the fear part. Which, for some odd reason, was quickly being replaced by curiosity. “Where is Dolcette?”

  ”A few steps away. Let us walk together. I will help you.”

  We were closer to civilization than I’d thought. What looked like a forest was only a cluster of a dozen or so trees. A neighborhood of old wooden and stone buildings crowded together several yards away. A chorus of voices echoed from somewhere nearby. Serakh clamped her hand over my mouth, her fingers rough and calloused against my lips. “We must be silent,” she whispered in my ear, her breath smelling of olives and lamb, with a hint of decay.

  The voices faded. She took her hand away and pointed to my penny loafers. “Can you remove the silver discs on top lest they attract attention? I will keep these adornments safe in my pouch. Your robes will hide most of your foot covering.”

  I focused on the dimes I had slipped into the penny slots, dimes for phone calls. For one mad moment, I contemplated finding the pay phones at Barston’s and calling Dad. Which is real and which isn’t? There’s no getting out of your own head.

  ”We have only to enter the nearest house and you shall see Dolcette.”

  The wool itched my neck and shoulders. “What?”

  ”Dolcette,” Serakh repeated. “You have vowed that if I showed you Dolcette in an instant, you would talk with her. You see her house, yes? Dolcette lies within. Now that you are dressed in these garments, it is safe to go inside.”

  I gave Serakh the dimes. Her hand felt solid enough. Real. “This is not happening,” I assured myself out loud. “I’m in the ladies’ room at Barston’s.”

  ”You do not trust your eyes?”

  No. Or my nose. Or my ears. My brain is betraying me.

  Before I could open my mouth again, Serakh had clutched my hand and guided me toward the buildings. As we left the trees, I glimpsed a river on my left and a high-arched wooden bridge from the land we were on to the opposite shore. In the distance, on my side of the bridge, a tile roof peeked over the tops of the trees. A manor house? A castle? Impossible.

  ”Dolcette has given birth to a boy in the first moments of Hanukkah. The women who attend her have gone to the market. Her husband shelters elsewhere until the eighth
day of his son’s life. This is the perfect hour for you to be here.”

  ”To be where?”

  Serakh nodded. “Ah, my apologies. I have not said, Tikvah. Here I shall call you Tikvah, as it will be a familiar name for Dolcette. We are in the Jewish quarter of Paris, by the indulgence of King Philip. The Christian knights have passed, and we are safe for now.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ”Paris? Paris, France?” I tugged at Serakh, forcing her to stop. My mind must have conjured up a mad madrigal scene from the Middle Ages, a bizarre 3D version of “Now Is the Month of Maying.” Only it felt more like December.

  Serakh leaned closer and frowned. “Take care that you are quiet. Stay by my side and say nothing. You will come to understand soon.”

  Two minutes later, we stood in a kitchen dimly lit by a fire in a stone hearth. Serakh pointed to a copper or brass triangle that hung on the wall near a rough wooden table. The triangle was solid, with eight teaspoon-sized cups on the bottom and another teaspoon-sized cup half way up one side. I’d seen enough Hanukkah objects in Mom’s gift shop to know this was the kind of menorah they used centuries ago.

  ”The first day of Hanukkah,” Serakh said. “The women who attend Dolcette will light the oil for the second day at sundown. I have taken you back to the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev.

  in a distant year, but during the same hour of the holiday that you celebrate in your place and time.”

  “I can’t believe this,” I whispered. Still, the table didn’t float. The walls didn’t turn into cottage cheese. Nothing seemed surreal. Other than the entire situation, of course.

  Serakh led me up narrow stone steps and into a cramped bedroom with a low, timbered ceiling. A half-shuttered window on the far wall let in fading light from the late afternoon sky. The wood-planked floor was bare. An oak bed contained what seemed to be a human form covered in a thick cotton quilt. A large candle burned on a small table, casting light on a blue-and-white ceramic pitcher and bowl, and a small leather pouch.

  Serakh bent over a rectangular wooden box on the floor and picked up what looked like a football wrapped like a mummy with a doll’s head on top.

  ”Hold him,” she said.

  The tiniest human I’d ever seen. My arms automatically formed a cradle as I gazed at his sweet face. Closed eyes, tiny nose, puckered lips barely moving, seemingly sucking on air.

  Serakh stood beside me, her face soft and gentle. “Dolcette calls him mon trésor. Her husband will name him at the brit milah.”

  Mon Treacute;sor. After two and a half years of high school French, that was easy enough: “my treasure.” Brit milah was Hebrew, which I hardly knew except for the regular prayers and pieces for the temple choir. I guessed that it meant the same as a bris. Circumcision—the cut that counts for Jewish boys.

  The quilt moved, revealing a head with long dark curls escaping from a large linen cap like mine. Serakh whispered and cooed, feeling the forehead of a girl who looked young enough to be in Berkeley High. Her eyelids were puffy, as if she’d been crying, and she smelled of lavender and sweat. Dolcette—who else could she be?—moaned and slowly sat up in bed.

  She grabbed Serakh’s sleeve. “Oh, Madame, you are back. I have been praying for your return. Quick. Take the baby now while they are away.”

  She spoke in English, which I suppose made sense in my alternate reality. A part of me struggled to remember that I was still in Barston’s.

  ”There is still time,” Serakh said. “This is Tikvah. She is the sister of my husband of blessed memory. She is a worthy young woman, wise in many ways.”

  Really? I cleared my throat.

  Dolcette smiled at me. “Tikvah is the perfect name for a Jewess. You give me hope. Are you also new to Paris?”

  Paris again. This looked nothing like the city I’d studied in French class.

  ”We come from afar,” Serakh explained for the both of us.

  Mon Trésor let out an amazingly loud wail for such tiny lungs.

  ”Bring him here,” Serakh instructed. “He’s ready to nurse.”

  Serakh took the baby and told Dolcette to loosen the top of her gown.

  Dolcette frowned. “But aren’t you the wet nurse? Shouldn’t you be the one to give my baby sustenance?”

  Serakh positioned the baby’s head near Dolcette’s left breast, which looked too large for her thin arms and chest. “You are the mother. You must learn to feed your child as well, especially in the beginning.”

  Mon Trésor opened his mouth and lunged at Dolcette’s nipple. Serakh gently pulled his lower lip down and eased him away.

  ”He needs to have the whole nipple in his mouth or you will not nurse well,” she told Dolcette. “Let us try again.”

  Lunge two—as bad, apparently, as the first. Serakh eased him away again. She examined his mouth, then handed the crying bundle back to me and took a small knife from the leather pouch. “No harm will come to your child,” she told Dolcette. “I will help him.”

  Dolcette’s whole face exuded trust, the way Grandpa’s does while I cut his toenails. Curious, I jiggled the baby and made shushing noises, but he kept fussing.

  Serakh poured water from the pitcher over her right hand and then she cut off a sliver of her right thumbnail. She held the knife over the candle, the short metal blade reflecting the weak fire. With her index finger, she pulled the skin back from the ball of her thumb and touched the blade to her nail. She winced, then put the knife down, and told me to sit on the edge of the bed with Mon Treacute;sor facing away from me. “Hold his head steady,” she instructed. I didn’t dare do otherwise.

  Serakh guided her thumbnail under his tongue. His crying arched to a scream for a second, and then she took him in her arms and rocked him. When he quieted, she guided him back toward Dolcette’s breast and stuffed nearly the whole nipple into his tiny mouth.

  Dolcette gasped and then relaxed into a smile. Mon Trésor’s pink hand rested on her breast. His jaw worked hard, and he seemed to be nursing well. Serakh begin to sing softly, starting with a perfect B flat. The melody had a Middle Eastern flavor to it, in a minor key, sad but sweet. She reached under Dolcette’s pillow and extracted the dreidel I’d given to her when she invaded my bedroom. A flower dreidel, one of my better ones, with a sunflower I’d painted on the side that had the Hebrew letter S. At least my brain had made one logical connection in all this craziness.

  ”Love your new child with an easy heart,” she told Dolcette. “The young woman who crafted this token is here with us now.”

  Dolcette’s mouth dropped open. She looked at me as if I was her guardian angel and Supergirl rolled into one.

  Serakh kissed Dolcette’s forehead. “First you must let the baby nurse.” She hummed another melody line and then told us, “The baby was tongue-tied. It is a common problem. The sâge-femme should have cut the extra strand of flesh under his tongue when he was born. Now he will feed better now and speak better when he gets older.”

  I stared at my dreidel with its ness gadol haya sham. A great miracle happened there. Maybe today I’d get the miracle I’d yearned for since forever. That barbaric act Serakh did, cutting something in the baby’s mouth—maybe that’s what I needed. Forget all those speech therapists and exercises. Maybe my tongue just needed to be freed.

  I touched Serakh’s sleeve. She looked at me, her hazel eyes narrow and questioning. I took a breath.

  ”What you just did to the baby. With your fingernail. I…um …I was…because in real life, I stutter.”

  Her face softened. “I understand. Can you do this?” She opened her mouth and rolled the tip of her tongue toward her nose and then toward her chin.

  I stuck out my tongue and did the same. It was easy. Can’t everyone do that?

  ”You are not tongue-tied,” she said. “You have no such restraint.”

  My eyes felt full. I
bit my lip. Stupid. Why did I even get my hopes up?

  Serakh put her hand on my left cheek. “Moshe our great leader speaks with effort. Still he is chosen by The One to guide our people from Egypt and make of them a nation.”

  ”That’s a story. Nobody believes it.”

  ”It is so.” Serakh arched her eyebrows.

  I shook my head.

  ”I know,” she said. “I was there.”

  Enough. I had to get back to reality. I closed my eyes, hoping to open them in Barston’s. And I shouted, “Leona!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  ”Lee oh nah?” Serakh frowned. “I do not understand this phrase.”

  I spread my arms and twirled in a crazy pirouette. “You don’t understand? Ha! Imagine me.”

  Serakh caught me in mid-twirl. “The contest is almost over. I will take you back soon. But first we must hear what troubles Dolcette. Help me change her discharge rag while the baby nurses.”

  I did as I was told. Was there a choice? Afterward, I felt a sudden gratitude to the person who invented sanitary napkins. Serakh took the baby from Dolcette and patted his back until he burped. “Please now, child, while the others are away, speak from your heart.”

  Dolcette’s lips quivered. Serakh hummed softly. Mon Treacute;sor gurgled. I sat on a stool near Dolcette’s bed and waited to hear what my brain was going to make up next.

  Dolcette took a breath and began, her eyes darting first to me, then to Serakh, than back to me, as if seeking sanctuary. Finally she said, “Avram is from Mainz.”

  ”This you told me at the hour of birth.” Serakh looked grave. “It explains much.”

  I was clueless.

  ”Three years ago, my father found Avram wandering in the forest north of the king’s realm and brought him to safety in Paris. Avram told us that he had been buying rye from the famers east of the Rhine for those terrible days. When he returned to Mainz, he discovered that everyone in his family was dead. His friends—dead. The great rabbi. Hundreds of Jews. All dead. Those Jews that the Christian knights had spared sacrificed themselves and their children so as not to fall into blasphemy and sin. They honored the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, and were taken immediately to Heaven to sit at His feet.”