The Ninth Day

by Ruth Tenzer Feldman

  Thanks for nothing! I coughed. Serakh cleared her throat.

  ”My oven is free to widows and orphans,” he said.

  Serakh curtsied. She nudged me, and I did the same. “You are most gracious,” she said. “I will put raisins in my first loaf and give it to you and your wife in honor of your newborn son. You are blessed.”

  The old man muttered, “That’s what I tell him, but all he does is frown and turn away. You would think his wife bore him twin daughters with withered arms and club feet.”

  Avram’s face hardened. “Enough, Shmuel. Tend to your work.”

  Serakh stepped back, dragging me with her. “I meant no offense, good sir.”

  Avram smashed his lips together. He walked toward the oven. “Good day,” he said over his shoulder. I thought I heard a quaver in his voice.

  ”Good day,” Serakh said.

  ”Good day,” I repeated, relishing my fluid speech. “And thank you.”

  Serakh took my elbow and led me down the narrow alley. “He shows no sign of illness, no pox or palsy. I fear he is enthralled by the inclination to do evil and does not know it. What shall we do?”

  I spread out my arms and exhaled my frustration. “I have no idea.”

  ”It pains me to hear this.”

  ”I’m sorry,” I said. And I was. But what could I have learned since yesterday?

  She tented her hands and brought them to her lips. We stood together in silence. Then she said, “Have you come to trust me? Do you believe now in the intertwining?”

  I closed my eyes and counted to ten, the way I had when I first met Serakh. I opened them to find I was still in the Jewish neighborhood of Paris sometime in the Middle Ages. No flashback or hallucination or dream or wild concoction of brain chemistry. Time is flexible. The universe is complicated. “Yes,” I said.

  Serakh smiled. “Good. Then you will discover what needs to be done. Now let us visit with Dolcette. She has need of us.”

  I followed Serakh along a narrow winding alley, stepping as carefully as I could from one clean, dry patch of dirt to another. The buildings on either side leaned into toward each other, almost touching, cutting off warmth and hiding the sunlight.

  Dolcette’s kitchen door was unbolted. When no one answered Serakh’s knock, we stepped inside and when up to Dolcette’s bedroom. Her door was closed. Serakh knocked again.

  The door opened halfway and two women motioned for us to step inside. Neither of them seemed happy to see us. The older one could have been Dolcette’s grandmother, with a gaunt face and arthritic fingers. The younger one, maybe Dagmar’s age, had thick black eyebrows and a large mole near her left eye. The older woman shut the door, blocking our exit, her eyes darting from us to a large wooden bucket a few feet away.

  Dolcette sat in bed with Mon Treacute;sor, wrapped in a tight bundle, sleeping against her chest. She glared at us as if she were the evil twin of the girl I’d met the last time.

  ”I cannot trust you,” she said, her voice shaky, her eyes filled with fear. “Do not come any closer.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Serakh seemed as confused as I was. I mouthed “Avram?” She dipped her chin in approval.

  ”We have just come from Avram at the bakery,” I told Dolcette. “Your husband sends his best.”

  ”Turn away from them, child,” the old woman commanded. “Do not look into their eyes.”

  ”Tante Rose, I won’t know the truth unless I see their faces.” Tante? Aunt in French. So, not her grandmother. Was the other woman her cousin?

  Serakh spread her arms out, palms up. “We mean you no harm, Dolcette. We are here only to help you. Surely you have known this from the moment of your child’s birth.”

  ”Ha!” The older woman thrust an arthritic finger at Serakh. “You appeared at the birthing. You came again—with your sister witch—at the very hour we left poor Dolcette alone. You cast a spell on her newborn. Why else does he sleep so deeply and suckle so lustily? You told Dolcette that you are the wet nurse Avram hired. You lie! Celeste, tell us what happened this morning.”

  The woman with the mole wrung her hands, her voice barely above a whisper. “I spoke with Master Avram this morning,” she said. “He asked after my mistress and the baby, as he will not see them before the brit milah. He told me that he did not hire a wet nurse.”

  Serakh clenched her fist. She faced Tante Rose. “When we met at the birthing, I did not claim to be the wet nurse. It was you who thought me so. You accuse us falsely. There is no spell. We have handled the child with care.”

  Tante Rose reached for a bucket by the door. “You are here once more to cast another spell. Be gone!” She threw the bucket’s watery contents at Serakh.

  I thought, for one crazy instant, of Dorothy spilling that pail of water on the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz movie. I half-expected Serakh to cry out, “I’m melting!” But she just stood there, her robe soaked, her eyes blazing.

  ”Foolish woman,” she said. “Tikvah and I will return when Dolcette is in wiser company than yours.” Serakh yanked off her headscarf and used it to wipe her face. Her long white braid tumbled down across her shoulders.

  Dolcette gasped. She seemed to study Serakh’s face for the first time, as if she hadn’t noticed the white eyebrows and white eyelashes before.

  ”She’s not a witch,” I said, sweeping my hands up over my head. “She’s…She’s an angel!” Why not? They believed anything in the Middle Ages.

  ”Blasphemer! Spawn of the devil!” Tante Rose blocked the door. “We will destroy you.”

  Celeste grabbed my waist.

  As I squirmed out of her grasp, the embroidered prayer shawl that Grandpa gave me fell on the floor

  ”Tante Rose, look,” Dolcette shouted. “It’s Mama’s tallis!”

  I hugged my shawl to my chest. “No. Absolutely not. This belonged to my grandmother.”

  Serakh put a protective arm around my shoulder. “Trust me again,” she whispered. Then she turned toward Dolcette. “Your mother has sent us to see to your welfare,” she announced. “This garment of fringes is her token.”

  What?

  Mon Treacute;sor whimpered. Dolcette kissed his forehead and rocked him gently. He made sucking sounds with his tiny lips, and then grew quiet again. Celeste took the baby and retreated to a corner of the room.

  ”Your mother would not have done such a thing,” Tante Rose said.

  Dolcette held up her hand for silence. “I need to think.”

  Tante Rose smacked her lips. “Young mothers do not need to think. They need to rest and listen to their elders.” She glared at me. “How did you get this tallis from Madame Miriam?”

  Miriam. My grandmother’s name. Miriam Josefsohn Jacobowitiz.

  ”She has come by the garment honestly,” Serakh said. No lie there. “She wears it under her robes to keep it safe in our travels. Miriam bat Shlomo of Troyes would have wanted it so.”

  ”You do know my mother then,” Dolcette said.

  ”Most certainly,” Serakh said, answering for one of us. I had no idea who this other Miriam was. My grandmother would have been Miriam, daughter of Julius, of Portland.

  Tante Rose looked skeptical. “Soon we shall get the truth. Rav Judah and Madame Miriam are coming for the brit milah. They have already started on their travels. It’s a long way from…” She stared at me, waiting for an answer.

  Serakh coughed. Our eyes met. She mouthed “Troyes.” But that didn’t sound right. I remembered what Avram had just told us at the bakery—Rav Judah with the fresh eggs.

  ”Falaise,” I said.

  Serakh’s eyebrows danced with surprise. Dolcette smiled. So did Celeste. Tante Rose positively snorted.

  My shoulders relaxed. “A lovely woman,” I added. “I look forward to seeing her again.” It felt good to hear my words flow smoothly, even
while I was lying through my teeth.

  ”And so you shall,” Tante Rose said, making it sound more like a challenge than an invitation.

  Dolcette leaned back against her pillow. “I have such a craving for broth,” she said.

  An odd remark, but Tante Rose seemed pleased. “Excellent. Finally you have an appetite. Celeste, stay here with these…guests. I can manage on my own in the kitchen.”

  Four beats after Tante Rose left, Dolcette asked Celeste to put the baby in his cradle. While Celeste’s back was turned, Dolcette nodded at us and put her finger to her lips. Then she gripped her abdomen and moaned.

  Celeste rushed to her side. Dolcette grimaced in pain. Serakh turned away from them and covered her mouth, but her eyes were smiling.

  ”Oh, my poor mistress,” Celeste said. “I will fetch your aunt.”

  Dolcette shook her head. “No, no, she is busy with the broth. Celeste, my dear, please run to Madame Juliane for willow bark and ask Tante Rose to make me her healing tea.”

  Celeste looked doubtful. Dolcette moaned again.

  In another three beats, Celeste was gone. Serakh closed the bedroom door. Dolcette’s eyes were riveted on mine. “You have spoken with my mother?”

  I looked at Serakh, hoping she’d answer for us now.

  ”We have been to the bakery,” Serakh said, repeating what I’d told Dolcette earlier. “We’ve spoken with your husband Avram.”

  ”He seemed very sad,” I added, taking up the story from there. “Has he said anything more to you about his vow?”

  Dolcette frowned in confusion. “My husband wouldn’t think to enter this room so soon after our baby’s birth, with me in an unclean state. I won’t see Avram until the day of the brit milah, and maybe not even then. How can I face him, knowing what he plans to do?” Her shoulders twitched.

  My mistake. “Of course,” I said. “I understand. Can’t Celeste and Tante Rose help you?”

  ”They refuse to listen to me. They think I am possessed by the evil spirit of Lilith, despite the amulets we have used to guard against her. I sleep with a knife under my pillow to protect the baby from Lilith, but who will protect him from his own father?”

  ”What about your rabbi?”

  Another frown.

  I bit my lip. Wrong again. This community would consider Dolcette unclean for every man, especially a rabbi. “Serakh and I could go to see him on your behalf.”

  ”Perhaps,” Serakh said, with a look I took to mean I was making a complete mess of this. Surely the rabbi wouldn’t defend Avram’s actions. No, I refused to believe that was possible.

  She straightened Dolcette’s quilt and patted her hand. “Is your grandfather well enough to travel to the brit milah? Rav Shlomo is such a wise and tolerant scholar. He has written that those Jews who were forced to convert after the great tragedy in the Rhineland should be welcomed back into the community if they wish.”

  Dolcette shook her head. He wasn’t coming? She didn’t trust him to save Mon Treacute;sor? I started to ask Dolcette when the door creaked open.

  Celeste returned with a cup of broth and a vicious slap mark on her cheek. I clenched my jaw.

  ”Tante Rose has gone for the willow bark,” Celeste mumbled. “She told me not to leave your room again.”

  Serakh straightened her shoulders and cleared her throat. “We do not wish to trouble Tante Rose,” she announced. “We will visit again when Madame Miriam arrives. I promise you.”

  ”Pray, stay with us longer,” Dolcette said. “We have so much to discuss.”

  Serakh’s voice grew serious. “We must go.”

  Dolcette didn’t argue. Celeste led us downstairs. Tante Rose didn’t hide her delight as we curtsied good-bye and headed for the trees by the river.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  We must have surprised the dickens out of Sylvester. This time he crouched under my desk. I curled up in bed, my muscles cramped and my lungs struggling for air. Serakh stayed with me until I recovered enough to ask about the prayer shawl.

  ”How can this belong to my grandmother and Dolcette’s mother? They lived centuries apart. It doesn’t make sense.” As if everything else did.

  Serakh caressed the embroidery. “Do you know what these words mean?”

  ”My grandfather told me. Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof. Pursue justice.”

  ”A fine man, your grandfather, although he did not wish your grandmother to travel with me. This you will not believe. Dolcette’s mother is the person your grandfather would know as the daughter of Rashi. She is another Miriam. She embroidered this very garment, which has passed from Miriam to Miriam over the generations.”

  I hugged my pillow and let my eyes rest on the poster of Monet’s water lilies decorating my wall. Rashi was a Jewish scholar from the Middle Ages. The time period fit with Dolcette. Of course, this was all true because I was hearing it from a person who materializes and dematerializes in a blue flash. Just as I do.

  Sure. Right. A giggle erupted from my chest. And another and another.

  Serakh creased her forehead. “What is the humor?”

  I couldn’t stop. “I mean…look at the two of us…and you…you of all people…magical you…you’re telling me it’s hard to believe…”

  Giggles are contagious. Serakh’s deep alto laughter filled the bedroom. Even Sylvester lightened up, crawling out from under the desk, although his tail still twitched. I felt my muscles relax and my body unwind.

  Suddenly Serakh put her hands over my mouth. “Someone is coming. I must go. Find the answer. I will pray for you.”

  I turned my face to the wall and covered my head with my pillow to avoid the flash. Sylvester yowled again. Then silence. I put my head on my pillow and pretended to be asleep, waiting for Dad or Dagmar to appear. The clock ticked. One minute. Two. Was Serakh’s hearing that much better than mine? I took another breath. Exhausted, my body demanded sleep. I lost count of the minutes.

  I woke up to Dagmar jostling my shoulders. “Get up, get up. You’ve been dead to the world for a million years.”

  I blinked.

  She dangled something like a bottle of nose drops in front of my face. “Patchouli oil,” she said, her face beaming with pleasure. “It’s perfect for your dreidels.”

  I sat up and rolled my shoulders. It was still morning, a little after eleven. I’d slept less than an hour.

  ”Trust me on this. We’ll rub a drop on each dreidel and everybody will want one.” Dagmar waltzed around the room with the bottle. “Colors and smells all spinning and whirling together. Colors turning into smells, smells changing into tastes and shapes and sounds. Patchouli dreidels—the beautiful mind-stretching experience.”

  My mind had had enough stretching for one day. Still, I took an aspirin and got to work. It felt good to do something I understood.

  Patchouli smells okay if you like musk. Dagmar blasted my creations with hot air and listened to twenty minutes of madrigals before she gave me the madrigals-drive-me-crazy look. I put on my new Joan Baez/5 album, and she bobbed her head to most of it, except my favorite, the aria by Villa-Lobos: “Brachianas Brasiliera No. 5.”

  We switched to Peter, Paul, and Mary’s In Concert. Which was fine by me. Dagmar thrust the hair dryer in the air and belted out the PP&M cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” Dagmar’s voice kept going flat. I hummed along, trying to keep her on key. She has the breath control of a rabbit in heat—or me when I’m not at least trying to sing.

  When I went upstairs for lunch, Grandpa was still in his pajamas and had hardly touched breakfast. “Your father insisted on giving me my pills, which do nothing, I tell you. But I refuse to get dressed. Who is coming to see me?”

  I cajoled my grandfather into eating two small cubes of cheese and drinking half a glass of diluted orange juice. I brought him the handbell Mom gave us when we wer
e at home sick and might need her. He patted my knee and assured me he was fine. Which he clearly wasn’t.

  ”He l-looks p-pale,” I told Dagmar, when I came downstairs later, leaving open the door to the main floor.

  She took a handful of chocolate chip cookies from the box I’d brought down. “Is his breathing labored? Does he have the sweats? Is he shivering?”

  I shook my head. None of the above.

  ”Then he’s just tired today, Nurse Hope. Old people get tired. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  I decided to believe her.

  Dagmar snagged Dad when he came for his bike. “Henrik, two minutes of your time.” She’s the only American I know who calls him by his Danish name instead of Henry.

  Dad rubbed his newly shaved chin and checked his watch. “I can give you six minutes.”

  Dagmar showed him my dreidels drying in their chicken wire cradles. “Look what Miriam Hope made. Aren’t they beautiful?”

  The Miriam Hope bit was for Dad’s benefit. He prefers that to Hope.

  ”We so want to sell them tomorrow during the Joan Baez concert. This means so much to us.”

  What concert?

  Dagmar clasped her hands in a dramatic prayer pose. “Can’t your teaching assistants and lab assistants take over for one eensy-teensy day? Just this once while Rachel is gone? We’ll make a tuna casserole for you and leave it in the fridge.”

  Dad looked at me, his eyes soft. “You’ve taken excellent care of your grandfather, especially with your mom away. Normally I would say yes.”

  ”She did a ton of homework before Thanksgiving. She’s caught up in all her classes now,” Dagmar said. “One short day won’t hurt, Henrik. Just this once. A concert in the fresh air would be therapeutic, don’t you think?”

  I frowned and stared at the floor. Just because Dagmar calls the library for me doesn’t mean she can act like I’m not in the room.

  ”Is this true about being caught up, Miriam Hope? You missed nearly three weeks of school.”

  ”I-I have a p-paper d-due in h-history. I’ll g-go to choral m-music in the m-morning. I w-won’t m-miss that.”