Interview With a Jewish Vampire (13 page)

“
She’s a miserable old lady vampire,” Sheldon said. She can’t see her grandkids, she can’t have bagels and lox, she….well she does have friends but she’s not happy.

“
My mother doesn’t have any grandkids, she has me, and she can’t eat bagels and lox anyway because of her heart.”

“
How about friends?” he asked. “What will she do with herself as the only vampire in Century Village?”

“
Her friends love her. They’ll accept her the way she is. They’ll get used to going out late. They never go out during the day anyway, it’s too hot. She’ll miss the early birds but she can walk on the beach with them in the evening. She can still play mah-jongg and visit after dark. She won’t be able to go to museums but she can still see movies and plays. The most important thing is she’ll be alive—I’ll still have a mom.” I started crying, not on purpose but it did a job on Sheldon. He got very upset. Maybe he wasn’t used to women weeping.

“
Please don’t cry, honey, please, please.” He threw his arms around me, pulled my head on his shoulder and started patting my back.

“
I don’t know what to dooooooo …” I moaned. “I don’t want to lose Mom. She’s all I’ve got.”

“
You’ve got me, baby,” he said comfortingly.

“
You’re not my Mom. No one will ever love me like my Mom.”

Then Sheldon started crying. He was heaving and sobbing loudly, this time not holding back like he had at
Fiddler
, but there were still no tears. We had our arms around each other and were both crying.

“
I miss my mother too, Rhoda. When I became a vampire I had to disappear. It would have scared her to death, knowing I was a dybbuk, or some other evil creature. She was very religious. It was easier for her to think I’d died. Or that’s what I thought. She went into mourning for me and never stopped. Eventually she died too, of consumption. Everyone died in those days of consumption. When Hershel got it and it looked like he was going to die I turned him into a vampire so I could have a family. He begged me to do it. I understand what you’re going through. I will always regret not changing my mother. I love that you’re so devoted to yours.”

“
Will you do it?” I begged.

“
I want to do it for you. If I couldn’t save my mother at least I could save yours. But let me think it through. An old person shouldn’t become a vampire. They’ll be old forever.”

“
She won’t feel old, will she?”

“
Yes and no” he said. “She’ll have some vampire powers, and her heart will be OK because it won’t beat anymore. She’ll still have arthritic knees and wrinkles, but no aches and pains. I once talked to Zelda about her change and that’s what she told me. She said she didn’t like having to hobble around forever but her joints didn’t change when she died. But she was really strong and could knock out a boxer if she had to. She could fly a little too. Actually vampires can develop different skills. She needed some way to move fast so she developed flying.”

“
I won’t tell mom that she’s not going to become young again, or she won’t do it.”

“
What are you going to tell her?” Sheldon asked.

“
Ummm. Not sure. I guess I’ll play it by ear. Actually you’ll be the one telling her. We’re going to Florida together.”

“
Florida!!” Sheldon almost shrieked. “That’s rogue vampire territory.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
Vampires who don’t want to play by the rules move to Florida—or Mexico. Also vampires who like warm weather. Florida is more—well—easygoing than New York. All those drug dealers and drug wars—you can get away with murder there, and a lot of vampires do. I’m a New York vampire through and through.”

“
What’s a New York vampire?”

“
I have a terror of beaches and palm trees. Too sunny. No cold, dark graveyards. Not that I ever go to cold, dark graveyards but I could if I wanted to. I could even go up to the Cloisters and hang out in a castle. I do that sometimes just to feel at home. It’s not open at night but I sneak in. Transylvania isn’t exactly tropical.”

“
Well I hope you can deal with Florida weather—for me. I’ll book us a night flight. Now what do we do with your coffin? Do you want to travel in it?”

“
Not really. What if it gets lost? What if the airline loses it? We’ll leave late and I’ll ship it separately.”

“
Maybe you don’t really need it.”

“
I don’t want to take that chance.”

“
Let’s experiment before you go. See what you can tolerate. Maybe you just need the dirt from a graveyard nearby and you could sleep in a bed with blackout curtains?”

Sheldon looked terrified. “Sleep without my coffin? It’s my security blanket, I’d have insomnia anywhere else. Goldie reads me to sleep when I’m in it.”

“
What a mama’s boy you are!” I laughed.

“
Will you read me to sleep?”

“
Sure. What the hell. As long as it’s not nursery rhymes.”

“
I prefer Isaac Bashevis Singer’s stories.”

“
You’re on. While we’re talking about it, what about Goldie. Where is she? I thought she lived with you?’

“
She does. She’s right over there.” He pointed at the statue.

I shrieked in terror. “That thing is a golem? It comes to life?”

“
Only when I want her to. There’s nothing to be afraid of. She’s a pussycat. She’s inanimate except when I animate her. There’s an ancient spell I use. She can stay there forever when I’m away.”

I walked over to Goldie and looked at her more closely. She looked like a terra cotta sculpture of a stout
balabusta
—a Jewish housewife from the old country. The statue had a large bosom and big hips, wore a long, shapeless dress and old-fashioned buttoned-up boots. She was so realistically carved that you could see the individual strands of her hair, which was drawn up into a bun. Her face was plain, with wrinkles, a large nose and sagging jowls; her mouth was puckered and her eyebrows contracted as if she were frowning. I felt she was looking at me, and not in a good way. The weirdest thing was the Hebrew word inscribed on her forehead.

“
What’s that?” I pointed at it.

“
That’s how I control Goldie—by changing the word on her forehead. She was brought to life when emet meaning ‘truth’ was written in Hebrew on her forehead. Now, when I want to deactivate her I remove the first letter, the
aleph
, in emet, which changes the word to met, meaning death.”

“
Where did you get her? Did you sculpt her?”

“
No, my father did. He was a talented sculptor but religious Jews aren’t supposed to make representations of human beings. Making a golem is different. When he was our rabbi, he created her to protect the Jews in our shetl from pogroms which is why Jews create golem in the first place. She wasn’t much use though, she insisted on cooking and cleaning rather than protecting, so my father just allowed her to be our servant. When he died and I became the rabbi, I inherited her from him. I took her with me when I came to America.”

“
How convenient, a servant you don’t have to pay or feed, and who stays in the corner until you need her,” I said sarcastically. “Better than a wife for sure.”

“
It’s not quite that simple,” Sheldon said. “Goldie has a strong personality and she’s very controlling. When she’s animated she’s very possessive and likes to order me around. I go along with it to please her. It’s nice to have someone who cares.”

“
What happens when you want to de-animate her?”

“
She doesn’t like it, but I tell her she needs to rest so she goes along with it.”

“
I could swear she’s glaring at me.” I turned away from her, feeling as if I was being watched. “I think she disapproves of me.”

“
C’mon Rhoda, you’re imagining things. That’s just the way she looks.” He stared at Goldie disapprovingly, as if he believed me and was warning her to knock it off.

“
Vampires, golems, what other supernatural creatures are there?” I changed the subject, sensing that Goldie was a sensitive area for him.

“
Well as far as I know there are no werewolves, or at least I haven’t met one, which is a good thing because the thought of a wolf, much less a were one, gives me shpilkis.”

“
You didn’t tell me you were such a wuss.”

“
Just because I’m a vampire doesn’t mean I’m not still a Jewish boy from the shtetl. We Jews were fair game for anti-Semitic peasants when I was a kid. I learned to be plenty scared of everything. In this country you Jews don’t know from fear.”

He was right. I’d never thought about it that way. If I were worried about Cossacks showing up to mow down my family I might not be so brazen either.

“
I guess I’ll have to be your protector,” I laughed.

“
Not so fast, I’m the one who chased off those muggers in the Park. I’m just not fond of wolves.”

“
When is the last time you met a wolf?”

“
I heard them howling in the woods when I was a kid. The sound terrified me.”

“
Let’s hope there aren’t any werewolves,” I shivered. “I prefer my mythical creatures to look human, even if they aren’t.”

Sheldon wanted to make love again but we were still on the pullout couch in his living room, with Goldie across the room. There was no bed in the bedroom, just his coffin, so we couldn’t go in there. I insisted he turn her towards the wall so she couldn’t see us, and hopefully she couldn’t hear when she was de-animated. I didn’t believe for a minute that Goldie wasn’t aware of what was going on in the room. Maybe she couldn’t move, but the eternal vigilance of the Jewish mother never rests. However, eventually I had to rest. I fell asleep totally worn out. Sheldon was inexhaustible. I’d never had multiple orgasms before, but with him I just kept coming. I was amazed by my own capacity for pleasure—who knew I was such a sexpot? I was overflowing with oxytocin—the bonding hormone that floods females after great sex. I was in love and I was also horny as hell. When I woke up ready to go at it again, Sheldon wasn’t there. I panicked, immediately having fantasies of being left yet again. I called his name—no response. Then I parted the dark curtains and the room flooded with sunlight. It really looked shabby in daylight—with peeling wallpaper, worn-out oriental carpets and a battered claw-foot table. Goldie remained in her corner, immobile. I closed the curtains and then I remembered the coffin. I walked into the bedroom and cracked the lid a tiny bit. There was Sheldon with a beatific smile on his face, sleeping as peacefully as the dead. Actually he was dead. He certainly wasn’t breathing. That was kind of scary—what if he never rose again? What if he stayed dead? I found myself panicking again. Waking up with a vampire wasn’t as easy as Sookie Stackhouse made it look.

I knew I’d feel better with some coffee in my system, so I got dressed quickly, and was almost out the door before I remembered that I still didn’t have Sheldon’s phone number. I started rummaging around for his cell phone—no way he was escaping from me again—and found it on the dresser in the bedroom. I put the number into my phone and let myself out, leaving the door unlocked, not a good idea in Brooklyn but I had no choice, I didn’t have the key. I remembered Sheldon telling me the building was inhabited by other Jewish vampires, so hopefully he’d be safe. I walked to the subway, picking up coffee and a bagel with cream cheese and lox on the way. It was delicious. Despite the lousy deli on the Hasidic tour, it was possible to get good Jewish food in Crown Heights. I ordered a dozen bagels and half a pound of lox to take home. I’d need sustenance for my trip to Florida. While I was at it I grabbed a pound of pastrami and a half-pound of chopped liver. Who knew when I’d be near a Jewish deli again? There weren’t any on the Upper East Side and I was rarely downtown. As I walked to the subway I started regretting my purchase. I felt guilty about eating all that food when Sheldon had to subsist on rat blood. Plus I still wanted to lose weight. No matter how much Sheldon said he loved my body, I didn’t want to be stuck at this size forever.

I was next to the window and Sheldon sat in the middle on Delta flight 304 to Fort Lauderdale. It was the latest flight we could get, leaving at 9 pm, non-stop, arriving at midnight. We’d rented a hearse to go the airport so we could take Sheldon’s coffin. We tried to discreetly check it at the baggage counter but it created quite a stir. A security official in a black suit raced up to us.

“
Are you shipping a body, sir? There are procedures for that. You fill out a form and the baggage handlers pick it up at the curb.”

“
It’s empty,” I told him.

“
Please open the coffin, ma’am,” he said menacingly.

Maybe he thought there was a suicide bomber inside, or contraband.

When I opened it he gazed at the well-worn satin lining, totally mystified. The coffin definitely looked lived in.

“
Why are you taking this coffin to Fort Lauderdale? And why isn’t it going to a funeral home? What do you intend to do with it?”

In the past I would have said, “None of your business,” but now, with all the tightened security, any mysterious baggage was the airline’s business.

“
It’s an antique. I’m contributing it to a museum.”

“
What museum?”