The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-six (4 page)

The wolves already knew of Chaya, from what Alef had told them during his recent sojourn. They escorted her, a girl of much culture and little meat, at a respectful distance, discreetly protecting her from highway robbers and other predators who might take an interest in something other than her brains. They accompanied her to the forest clearing, where the demon was outdoors, tending his night garden. They watched her approach him, regretting that it was not in their power to guard her from her own impudence.

The dybbuk cultivated mushrooms, each one as wondrously hued as an orchid. Chaya looked over his shoulder at the one he was watering, and pronounced its name. The dybbuk dropped his cup. He’d never before heard the word spoken aloud. He asked her to say it again. She uttered the name more slowly for him. He sighed. As magnificent as his fungus was, the sound was more spectacular: He knew that, to have earned such an appellation, there must be a finer specimen of the mushroom elsewhere.

He might have enlisted Chaya’s expertise on care and feeding, were it not unseemly for a demon to seek a girl’s advice. Instead, he invited her inside. He held the door for her. While he pulled it shut, she peered into the pickling barrel, at a thousand sunken souls.

She asked which one was Alef’s. The dybbuk shrugged. He didn’t keep records.
I leave the auditing to the powers above,
he said. And then he assured her that she needn’t be bashful about giving up hers: The procedure left no mark on the body, and he guaranteed lifetime confidentiality. As long as she was discreet, no one would notice any change to her except, of course, that she’d be vastly richer, or prettier, than before.

— I’m not here to sell my soul.

— Nobody leaves my cottage without making a deal.

— Would you trade a soul for pearls?

— How many gems would you like, little girl?

Chaya frowned. She took the two pearlets that Alef had given her from a pocket in the apron of her skirt. She showed them to the demon. If he would return her husband’s soul, she said, he could have the gems, both of them.

He laughed at her. He laughed like a smokestack spouting soot. He told her to close her hand. When she opened it, there were twenty pearls. And as soon as she shut it again, there were none.

— What will you take for it, then? Our hovel? Alef’s boat? Would you return his soul if I offered you my body for the night?

— Don’t you understand, rabbi’s daughter? I’m not a shipping magnate or a real estate broker, and I’m not a playboy either. I’m a demon. Everything I want comes freely to me.

— Everything except a soul.

— So I collect them, one at a time, from folks who’ve had them, scarcely aware, all along. I deem myself a connoisseur.

— And I consider you a glutton.

Chaya walked out on him. She trampled through his garden, squashing exotic mushrooms, and trudged into the forest.

After several hours, morning dawned. Chaya was still in deep wood, but up ahead she saw a man. His meager flesh barely stretched skintight over his bones. He sat in the dirt, neither home nor wife in sight, surrounded by sacks such as those she’d seen ragpickers carry. She asked if he was a beggar.

— You can’t help me.

— Who says I’m offering? I have troubles of my own. What’s in the sacks?

— The weight of my misfortune.

Chaya was a strong girl, given her slight build. She tried to lift a bag. She strained. She swore. She couldn’t budge it. So she looked inside, and was blinded.

While sight seeped back into Chaya’s eyes, she reached into the sack and scooped out a palmful of coins. They were unlike any she’d ever seen, even the ancient and arcane denominations in the synagogue coffers. She could not decipher the inscriptions on them, nor could she identify the species of beast adorning the face of each. Curiouser, though, was the substance, as soft and sticky as honey.

As the bullion warmed in her palm and trickled through her fingers, she marveled at the purity of the metal.

— It’s twenty-five-karat gold. That’s what I get for selling my soul.

— Then you, too, visited the dybbuk last night?

— Last night? I was there a decade ago. It’s taken ten years just to haul my hoard this far into the forest.

— Why don’t you leave it, if it’s only a hindrance?

— Without my soul, this burden is all I’ve got. The burden of my greed. And what did you take in exchange for your soul?

— I didn’t sell.

— Then you’re a very fortunate girl. All through these woods, you’ll come across folks who bartered theirs.

— Are they hard to find? Do you know them well?

— What do I have to share with other people? We keep to ourselves.

Chaya soon found that the man had spoken truly. She saw many folks, always alone, some up in trees, others huddled on the ground. They shied like untame animals as she passed. She paused to gaze at a woman crouched in a bush. The girl wore nothing but dust and shadows. Blackberry brambles grew in her hair. Yet, even at a distance, Chaya could see that the girl’s softness would be the envy of a princess, and that her ripe lips could seduce a king. Chaya remarked that the girl was more beautiful than any she’d ever met, and felt tingling inadequacy in her own flesh. Glancing back at Chaya, the girl began to weep.

— What’s the matter?

— You can’t help me.

— I met a man who sold his soul for gold too heavy to carry. But what could be the burden of beauty?

— You’ve no idea. Before I went to that cursed dybbuk, I was an old hag. I lived by a lake, and I’d spit at my ugliness every day when I knelt to drink. Sometimes at dusk, peasant girls would come to bathe. They’d splash and play, and I’d imagine what a happy life I’d lead if I were pretty. That demon didn’t just snatch my soul, you see. When he gave me this flesh, he took away my dreams.

— But you could go to town and marry any man you wished.

— Marry? I’m a hundred years old, girlie.

Slowly she stood. Her back was bent, her legs bowed. She clamped a hand on Chaya’s arm, brittle bones quivering in their new skin.

— Do you still think I’m such a beauty? When the dybbuk took my soul, he left an emptiness. The ugliness festers there, where I can’t even spit on it.

Chaya shuddered. She pulled away and hurried home, horrified by the miseries that Alef must be suffering as his soul-lessness sank in. She steadied herself as she neared their hovel. Whatever his condition, she vowed not to put him down: Irredeemably foolish as he’d been in his diabolical dealings, she would not call him a fool again. She opened the door. And found him humming to himself, cooking up a bouillabaisse.

Was Alef so stupid as not to be afflicted? Was he so smart? Chaya was befuddled, and more so by the bouillabaisse, which wasn’t even native to their region. She asked if he knew what he was doing. He shrugged and made her sushi.

He did not inquire where she’d been all night long. After supper, he simply brought her to bed and showed her how much he’d missed her. What could be said? In the essential respects, she had to confess, Alef was the same.

Only the implications were different. Instead of giving up one fish, or even a dozen, Alef handed out a hundred. He was equally free with his advice. He showed carpenters how to frame their houses taller, farmers how to plow their fields deeper, and millers how to motorize their operations, a plan that had to be scuttled for want of electricity. Day after day, Chaya watched her husband cure diseases and adjudicate disputes.

It was harder for her than when he’d been the town laughingstock. Everything he knew taught her all that she did not. And what was the benefit? In the corner of the hovel, stewing like a bouillabaisse, she’d watch him dole out fish by the bucket while giving away ideas that made other folks’ fortunes: An anesthetic. Movable type. An assembly line. By evening her vow would be broken in all but name, as she berated Alef for stupidly helping strangers fleece him while he neglected his own devoted wife. To these complaints he’d respond not with words but with pearls, which he’d string together with kisses until all was well.

At last a rich merchant from the city, who’d heard rumors of Alef’s genius, paid him a visit, and begged his expertise: The merchant wanted to know how to transmute lead into gold. As the fisherman began to answer, Chaya sprang from her chair, and, screaming obscenities that would turn platinum into iron, chased the knave out the door. She stared at her husband, eyes ablaze.
You are a fool,
she hissed.

Alef nodded. A smile enveloped his face.

— For a long time, I didn’t know, Chaya. You asked me every day, and I couldn’t tell you until finally I went to the dybbuk to find out.

— You didn’t have to do that.

— I did, though. It’s no simple question, like how to create gold. To comprehend what I don’t understand depends on knowing all there is to know.

— Alef, that’s nonsense.

— To discover the leak in a bucket, you have to fill it, Chaya. At first I thought that the dybbuk had misunderstood my wish, but the more wisdom I dispense, the more I find what my head never held.

— And you aren’t tormented by that?

— A fool is never tormented. Torment isn’t about what you don’t know. It’s about what you have and can’t give.

After that, Chaya no longer interfered with Alef’s generosity. Instead, she tried to emulate it. She found that giving was an effort, that, even with her impressive intellect, she couldn’t do as well as Alef did in his simplicity. She envied his foolishness. All night long she clung to him as her sole source of meaning.

And in the morning she’d go out into the forest to tend to the soulless. She’d bring them fish, which she taught them how to cook into a bouillabaisse. She’d tell them that they didn’t have to be tortured. She’d patiently explain that the torment they felt, they inflicted on themselves. They consumed her fish, but rejected her logic. They said that to believe the soul was insignificant, she must surely have lost her sense.

One day, after Chaya had given away every fish in her basket, she found herself near where the dybbuk lived. She decided to visit.

She stepped onto his deck, which seeped through her toes in the afternoon heat. She called out the demon’s name. He opened his door a crack, squinting into the sun, trying to ascertain whether the heavens were in flames. Then he saw, standing on his stoop, hands on hips as if she were a neighbor, little Chaya.

— Don’t you see that it’s the middle of the day? I’m a creature of the night. What do you have in the basket?

— It’s empty. There were fish in it.

— I’ve never tasted fish. You can’t imagine what it’s like having a mouth but no appetite.

Chaya looked at the demon under the bright sun. His black hide shimmered with sweat, but his mouth was a void that trapped even light. His was a deeper hunger.

— Do you still want my soul? I’ve decided that you can have it.

— What will you take in exchange? You’re pretty, but I can make you a queen.

— No, thank you.

— You’re clever, but I can make you a goddess.

— I’ll give you my soul, but I don’t want anything for it.

— Perhaps you’re not so shrewd after all.

In a single stroke, he reached his hand down Chaya’s throat and pulled her slender soul out. He brought it inside and plunged it, still breathing, into his vat. Then, because he wished her to have something in return, he showed her the exotic spiders he kept, ruby and emerald cabochon gems skittering around on their eight-point crowns. He offered her any one she liked. They climbed across his knuckles. He fancied that he’d never looked so princely. He didn’t even see Chaya wave good-bye.

Years passed. As Alef and Chaya aged together, each grew to fill the space in the other where there’d been a soul before. They never discussed it, for they’d become too intimate for words. And nobody else noticed, so busy were they taking all that the couple gave.

Folks prospered. Their village became a town. Fine houses were built, and neighbors complained about Alef’s ungainly hovel. The fool and his wife moved into the slums. What fish they didn’t give away was stolen. But that just saved them the hassle of distribution.

One evening they were visited by a very old man. While people often still came to profit from Alef’s knowledge, none looked as needy as this fellow. He wore a heavy old cloak and hat, and walked with a crook as knotted as his crippled body.

Chaya brought him a chair. She couldn’t see his face under the hat’s broad brim, but, the instant his eyes met hers, she felt sure that she’d encountered him before. She asked the man if there was something they could do for him.

He shook his head. It was winter and getting dark, and he simply wished for a place to rest.

Chaya went to Alef, who was standing by the hearth, ladling bouillabaisse into a copper cup. She brought it to their guest. She sat by him while Alef prepared the bed in the adjoining room, where he and Chaya slept, so that the man could pass the night in comfort. The visitor didn’t talk. He raised the cup to his mouth several times, but, when he set it down, it was always still full. Chaya asked if there was another meal that he’d prefer, anything at all. Or perhaps there was some ailment he had, and Alef could tell him the cure for it. He shook his head again. She thought she heard him sigh, though it might have been the winter wind sweeping by.