Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel (9 page)

Miriam announced, “It’s been three hours since Asher’s brit. I’d like to check if he has wet his swaddling.”

“I’ll come too.” Joheved followed her sisters, her six-month-old son on her hip.

Mama had just joined them at Rachel’s door when they heard a loud masculine voice drunkenly call out, “You are to be congratulated, Rabbenu Salomon. For a man who started out with no sons at all, you now have acquired a minyan between your grandsons and sons-in-law.”

All four women, as well as many in the crowd, gasped in horror. How could anyone, even inebriated, be so reckless as to praise a man’s quantity of male descendants? Such a declaration would surely provoke the Evil Eye to lessen the number.

“Who the devil was that?” Mama’s eyes were blazing.

They strained to see the man, but none of them recognized him.

Rachel could hear voices in the courtyard, hushing the stranger. But he would not be silenced.

“I am certainly correct,” he shouted. “The eldest has three, as does the middle daughter. The youngest now has two, plus their three husbands. That’s ten males—a minyan.”

Mama blanched and Rachel had to bite her tongue to keep from blurting out that he was not correct, that his count totaled eleven. She saw Meir, flushed with fury, forcing his way through the celebrants, and then Miriam took her by the arm and led her sisters inside.

By the time Miriam had checked Asher’s swaddling, which thankfully was wet with urine, and after both Rachel and Joheved had nursed their babies, calm had returned to the feast.

Meir was pacing the floor when they came downstairs. “Nobody knows that boor’s name.” He swore under his breath. “It seems that he heard about the brit milah while attending the May Fair in Provins.”

“What does it matter who he is?” Miriam asked.

“It matters to me.”

Joheved took hold of his hand, hovering close to the knife at his belt. “You’re not going to challenge him. The less attention we pay to him the better.”

“I expect you’re right, but, even so, I asked Shemayah to inquire at the New Synagogue.”

Rachel agreed with Meir. “Once your study partner discovers who this fellow is, we can ensure that his business in Troyes is both brief and unsuccessful.” The drunkard had so much as cursed her new baby, and he would pay for it.

Mama fingered the amulet she wore around her neck and said, “Amen to that.”

 

At
disner
the next day, Shemayah reported grimly that the fellow was known as Adam, a merchant from Roanne. “According to those who lodge with him, Adam drank so much wine at our banquet that he has no recollection of anything said there.”

Salomon sat quietly at the table while his family awaited his decision. If told to ignore the incident, they would do so.

Suddenly Judah scowled. “Wait a moment. Adam of Roanne—that name sounds familiar.”

Salomon half closed his eyes and stroked his beard. “
Oui
, I have heard it too . . . One of my responsa, I think.”

“I’m sure that I have never heard of him,” Meir said.

“Then the query must have come while you were at Ramerupt, not during the fair seasons.” Judah’s face froze with concentration. “I have it. Last year, after Passover, you received a letter complaining about a merchant named Adam, asking for your legal opinion.”

Salomon shook his head. “That Adam lived in Vénissieux.”

“But the people of Vénissieux said that he had moved to Roanne.” Judah walked to the cupboard and brought out a small chest. “These are the responsa from last year. I should have the one we want in a moment.”

The room was silent as he rummaged through the chest. “Here. I believe this is the letter in question.”

He handed a sheaf of parchment to Salomon, who read it aloud. “The Jews of Vénissieux complain about a merchant named Adam. He travels behind various rapacious barons and their knights when they loot their rivals’ villages. Adam buys the spoils cheaply and resells them at much higher prices, often to the very people they were stolen from.”

Rachel scowled. “Such an unscrupulous man menaces every Jewish merchant. With so few Jews in the countryside, Edomites who encounter this fellow will believe we’re all that greedy.”

“Exactly.” Salomon continued reading, his voice rising in anger. “Adam’s activities have aroused the hatred of the plundered villagers, and of their lords, who say: ‘This Jew, because he is always ready to buy looted goods, entices our enemies to attack us. He is the real cause of our troubles; yet he walks in safety.’ ”

“But what was the responsa about, Papa? What did the Jews of Vénissieux want from you?” Miriam asked.

“The Jews there were outraged at being associated with Adam, particularly since several of them were taken captive and held for ransom on his account. They placed him in
herem
and banished him, but he merely moved to Roanne and continued his evil ways.” Salomon held out his hands helplessly. “They turned to me for support, but there was nothing I or they could do. Each Jewish community is independent, and if Roanne chooses to tolerate Adam’s behavior, despite the danger, it is its prerogative.”

Joheved didn’t need to hear any more. “The Jews of Vénissieux have put Adam under
herem
, and for good reason. What if he starts buying stolen property in Champagne? Next the petty nobles will be pillaging each other’s villages to sell to him, and we will have no peace in Ramerupt.”

“Don’t worry.” Meir patted Joheved’s hand. “We will denounce him at services so everyone will know his history.”

“Adam is an uncommon name,” Miriam pointed out. “But we can’t accuse him without proof that he’s the same man.”

Salomon turned to Shemayah. “Go back to the New Synagogue and find out whether Adam of Roanne once lived in Vénissieux, and if so, did that community excommunicate him?”

“He
must
be the same man,” Rachel said. “There couldn’t be two men so wicked with that same name, and the sooner he leaves Troyes the better.”

Mama whispered what they all were thinking. “I pray that it’s not too late.”

A stab of fear pierced Rachel’s heart, and she hugged her new son close. Surely Papa’s piety would protect his family from the Evil Eye. Yet demons hated Torah scholars above all and seized any opportunity to harass them. When Joheved gave birth to a boy less than a month after Miriam had her youngest son, the bad luck of pairs brought on Lillit’s attack. Joheved nearly succumbed to childbed fever, and her first baby named Salomon died a year later. All of Papa’s Torah study wasn’t powerful enough to save his namesake then; would it be powerful enough now, with eight grandsons in jeopardy?

 

Walking home from Shavuot services, Rachel pulled Joheved aside and whispered, “Now that Adam has left Troyes, do you think we still have to worry about our babies—may the Holy One protect them?”

Little Salomon squirmed in Joheved’s arms, and she shifted him to her other hip. Her son could walk while holding on, but she wasn’t about to put him down in the muddy road, filthy with every kind of garbage a person could throw in it.

“I don’t know. My worries over him never cease.” A smile lit her face as she watched Meir take hold of their daughters’ hands and cautiously cross the street. “I worry about all my children.”

Adam from Roanne had proved to be the very man that the Jews of Vénissieux had put in
herem
, and it took less than a week before Troyes affirmed the ban. Once everyone in the community refused to speak to him and made sure they stood at least four cubits away, it became clear that he would do no business in the city.

Rachel checked that the red threads around Asher’s wrists weren’t too tight; he was growing so fast. Though Adam had only given the Evil Eye to Salomon’s male family members, Mama saw to it that all her grandchildren wore red threads these days.

Mama also insisted that Papa inspect every mezuzah within their courtyard; never mind that they were written less than three years ago. And each night, after Rachel nursed Asher and tucked her older children in their beds, Papa blessed them with verses from Numbers that were especially effective in protecting children from the Evil Eye.

In the morning, before they headed for synagogue, Papa followed the advice that the Sages gave in the ninth chapter of Tractate Berachot.

When Rachel asked how he knew they were descended from Joseph, rather than another of Jacob’s sons, he explained that all Jewish people were Joseph’s progeny and that the Evil Eye is easily fooled. Thus the incantation works whether a man is of Joseph’s seed or not.

Rachel wished she shared Papa’s confidence a few days later when Shemiah came to her complaining, “Mama, I don’t feel good.”

five

Rachel’s chest tightened. “What’s the matter?” “I feel hot and my throat hurts.” Shemiah sneezed and blew his nose onto the ground. “And my nose is dripping all the time.”

She reached out and felt his forehead for fever. It was warm but not burning. “Go on up to bed. I’ll have Cook prepare some chicken broth for you.”

Just to be sure, Rachel checked her daughter’s forehead too, but little Rivka seemed fine. So she headed for Miriam’s, to obtain whatever herbal infusion her sister would recommend for a mild fever with an overabundance of phlegm in the nostrils.

“Broth boiled with parsley for a light fever, and sage to reduce the phlegm,” Miriam replied. “If there’s a cough as well, I recommend adding some water mint. As a matter of fact, I have a pot on the hearth right now for Elisha.”

Rachel gulped. “Elisha’s sick too?”

“He’s just a little warm, with some excess phlegm.” Miriam took in Rachel’s fearful expression and tried to sound calm. “With a diet of foods that are mildly warm and dry, to balance the cold and moist phlegm, I would expect our children, may the Holy One protect them, to be better in a week.”

“Do you have enough broth for Shemiah too?”

“Of course.”

But things were not to be so easily mended. By the end of the week, all Miriam’s children were sneezing, coughing, and complaining how bad they felt. Meir sent word that his too were suffering the same malady, and that he was needed in Ramerupt to help Joheved care for them. Papa reported that few women were in synagogue these days; they were all home caring for sick children.

At Rachel’s house, Shemiah was neither better nor worse, and his sister was ill as well. Little Rivka burned with fever and was so fussy that Rachel, who was nursing Asher every three hours, needed Mama to look after her.

It was Mama who had the first inkling of what troubled the children of Troyes; that it was not merely a common case of excess phlegm. She was sitting at Miriam’s dining table after
souper
, trying to rock her cranky granddaughter to sleep while Miriam hovered over a pot of some new medicine. That’s when they heard the coughing sounds coming from upstairs.

“Miriam, who’s making that noise?”

“I’m not sure, Mama.” She cocked her head to listen. “It could be Elisha or Shimson.”

A short while later, the coughing began again, although this time it seemed to be a different child. Mama left little Rivka in her cradle and rushed upstairs, Miriam and Rachel at her heels. They arrived in the boys’ room in time to see that it was Elisha whose body was doubled over in a coughing fit. He couldn’t seem to stop, and each spasm was followed by a strange hooting noise as he struggled to breathe in enough air.

Miriam took her son in her arms and tried to soothe him, but his coughing continued until, with another desperate gulp of air, Elisha began to vomit. Rachel was terrified that he would choke to death in front of her, but his coughing spell eventually subsided. She began to relax until she saw the horror on Mama’s face.

“Heaven help us.” Mama was clutching the amulet at her neck. “Shibeta has returned.”

Once the three women were downstairs, Rachel turned to her mother, her eyes wide with fright. “You’re certain?”

Mama’s chin began to quiver. “I’ll remember that sound if I live to be 120: the awful cough that goes on forever while she’s choking them, and then that dreadful yelp they make when she lets go for a moment and they try to catch their breath.”

Miriam put her arms around their weeping mother, who continued, “You and Joheved were strong enough to fight her, to survive her nightly attacks, but not my little boy. For three months I thought I’d finally given your father a son, but Shibeta was determined to take him.”

Rachel felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. Shibeta! The only demon that new parents dreaded more was Lillit. Shibeta, who strangled infants and young children in the night. Shibeta was here in Troyes, in their own courtyard. “How can we fight her?” Rachel could not bring herself to name the demon. As she feared, Papa’s pious efforts had not prevented the Evil Eye from summoning her.

Miriam stared at Rachel sternly, defying her to give up hope. “Like the Evil Eye, Shibeta is dry and cold. Keep a pot of simmering water on your hearth, and as soon as she attacks, bring a bowl of it to your child’s face so he can breathe in the steam.”

“You can also use a steaming wet towel,” Mama added.

“We must be diligent in our prayers,” Miriam said. “And give our children as much broth as possible so Shibeta doesn’t desiccate them.”

“How long until she leaves?” Rachel felt sick with dread.