The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-six Read online

  — A pretty shrew, if you’ll pardon my saying so.

  — Then you see why she has to go.

  — I do, I do. Perhaps I can help you. There’s a man I’ve heard of who lives by the sea, and for some years has sought a bride.

  — Is he crippled? Is he cruel?

  — Rebbetzin, folks say that he’s a fool.

  The rebbetzin had laughed at that. She’d squeezed the matchmaker’s hand. She might even have kissed the old maid, had the rabbi not walked in, roused by the unfamiliar sound of mirth in his house. The rebbetzin had stood, then. She’d told her husband that a suitable groom had been found.

  — He lives in this town?

  — There isn’t a man in this village who deserves her.

  — Then he is a great scholar?

  — What man could be as wise as Chaya?

  Naturally, the rabbi hadn’t had a response. And, because he was too frail to travel, the next morning he’d stood helplessly in his doorway while his wife had put their daughter in a carriage with a loaf of bread and a note bearing the name of her betrothed. He’d waved farewell, but the girl, wrapped tight in a black shawl, hadn’t even looked at him. Only out on the open road had she allowed herself, inaudible amid the horses’ clamor, to loosen the cloth and pour out her tears.

  • • •

  Alef’s fellow fishermen seldom saw his wife after their wedding. Chaya refused to mingle with the common folk, lest they mock her, cultured rabbi’s daughter, for being married to the village idiot. But, as much as she dreaded their jeers, what upset her more was to hear them tease her husband: Certainly Alef was a fool, as she told him whenever he was dumb enough to utter a word in her presence, yet cuts inflicted by others, which he was too dull to feel, pained her as if she were the one being gutted. Chaya might have thought that this was just one more symptom of her humiliation, were it not accompanied by another emotion—the insatiable urge to be held by him.

  Alef was a large man, framed like a boat, into which slender Chaya fit as if he’d been hewn for her. Not that she believed those old romances that for every girl in the world a special boy was born: She could refute such notions historically, philosophically, and mathematically, to name but a few possibilities. Yet none of her arguments could hold up, even for a moment, to the force of a kiss. Every night came to the same conclusion. And every morning, lying in bed long after her husband had gone fishing, she’d wonder what, for all her reason, had happened.

  By evening, she’d be seething, blaming Alef for taking away her sapience and saddling her with love. She never spoke to her husband in such terms, which would have been wasted on him. Instead, each night, when he returned to their home and confessed what had become of their evening meal, she’d drag him inside and squeal: Are you a fool? If he tried to respond, to justify his fishlessness, she’d recite her favorite proverb in the ancient tongue: The ignorant cannot be righteous. Since he couldn’t reckon what she was saying, he’d accept all blame and listen to her sputter and curse until, exhausted by her own fuming, she’d come to be embraced by him. Then he’d take her to bed, where their differences were what brought them together again.

  Chaya’s behavior bewildered Alef. Why did her feelings for him turn with the hours of the day, while he adored her with the constancy of years? What could he do not to lose her each afternoon? What was wrong with him?

  He pondered these questions at sea and on land. He asked the opinion of the carp he caught, but, knowing no affection outside of spawning, they didn’t respond. His fellow fishermen, on the other hand, were eager to assist him, if only he’d request their advice. Every day they asked about his wife. They inquired about her scholarship. Was she still intent to unseat the village rebbe, as she’d threatened to do following a doctrinal dispute on Alef’s wedding day? Did she plan to take the old maggid’s place? Or did she want to put Alef on the pulpit? At the height of his confusion, the fishermen would act as if he already were the village pontiff and ask him to deliver a sermon, and, when he stuttered that he didn’t know what to say, they’d applaud him for his wisdom.

  Then one day a storm grounded every sailor except for Alef. (The weather didn’t bother him, as he never thought to fear it; sweeping the world of hubris, the torrents always took care to let his small vessel pass.) When he harbored in the late afternoon, the docks were all but abandoned. Only Yudel, one of the shrewdest fishers, was there, repairing his mast. He called Alef over.

  — What are you doing on the water in this weather?

  — I’m trying to catch some fish.

  — Swells like these could swallow your boat, Alef. You’re a married man. What would your wife do without you?

  — I’m sure she’d get along.

  — She must love you, though.

  — I don’t know.

  — What’s the matter? You can’t satisfy her?

  — I guess not.

  — For some men, it’s like that. I can tell that you’re miserable. I know that you’ve been meaning to confide in me for a while. So I’ll let you in on a secret. There is a cure for your ailment. Would you do anything for Chaya, no matter what?

  When Alef shyly nodded, Yudel told him where he must go and what he must do. He insisted that Alef not see his wife first, and made him swear never to tell her where he’d been: If he did, he might not see her again. Yudel accompanied Alef to the forest floor. Then he scurried to the tavern to tell the other fishermen about the fool’s errand.

  Alef hiked long hours through woods midnight deep and darker than the day before creation. Wolves surrounded him, spiraling like planets through the heavens. He welcomed their stoic company, for walking through forest at night is lonely. He told them of all the fish he knew, and praised his sagacious wife. But when he told them what he was about to do on her behalf, their eyes widened and, in a blink, they scattered.

  Alone again, he came to a clearing. In the moon’s ancient light, he saw the silhouette of a small windowless shack, seemingly built in the cast of its own shadow. He climbed onto the deck, soft as tar beneath his boots, and pounded the door three times with his fist.

  The old dybbuk who answered fit Yudel’s description, as much as any description could fit such a demon. His skin seemed to be molded of the same dark substance as his home. He wore no clothes, yet only his face and hands appeared naked; on the rest of his carcass, the wrinkles of black hide hung as heavy as an overcoat.

  The dybbuk invited Alef inside. A faint glow illuminated the hovel, light seeping from a barrel such as those in which herring is pickled. The demon stood back while Alef approached the vat, having never known fish to be radiant.

  He stared at them for a long while. They had no eyes, nor had they scales. They were slippery and pale, protoplasmic lumps no larger than Alef’s hand, sunken under a thick, clear syrup.

  — Where do they come from?

  — They’re human.

  — They don’t look like people.

  — That’s because you’ve seen only the parts folks show. These are people’s souls.

  — Those are souls?

  — The most in captivity anywhere in the world. Now tell me: What can I offer for yours, Alef? What brings you here?

  — Yudel the fisherman tells me that you can help me satisfy my wife.

  — You’re flaccid?

  — People say that I’m stupid. I don’t know. Every day, my Chaya asks me if I’m a fool. I just want to give her an answer.

  — You think an answer would satisfy her?

  — She’s a great scholar. If she has to wonder, it must be the deepest mystery.

  — Yes, I see. You drive a hard bargain, but I’ll do it. You’ll give your soul to know if you’re a fool.

  The dybbuk asked Alef to take off his cloak. Then he sat the fisherman on a squat wooden stool in the middle of the room. With a tin cup, he drew some syrup from the pickling barrel and washed it over his arms. He took another draft. Pinching Alef’s nose, the dybbuk poured it down his throat. As Alef
choked, the demon thrust a black hand down his gullet, gripping the spasm at the nub, withdrawing a pallid gland. He held it, still heaving, in front of Alef, and then dropped it in the vat.

  The room glowed much brighter than before. Alef could see that the demon’s living conditions were awfully poor. He’d neither hearth nor bed. That dybbuks naturally have want of neither food nor sleep only added, in Alef’s estimation, to the demon’s destitution. As he took his leave, he didn’t wonder, as previous victims of the dybbuk invariably had, whether giving up his soul was a foolish thing to do. After all, he’d a brick oven and straw mattress, and even a wife with whom to share them. Evidently the unblessed creature needed his soul more than he did.

  Chaya waited up for Alef, restless. Ever since their wedding, she hadn’t passed a night alone, and, because she’d never had occasion to miss him, she didn’t appreciate that the aching she felt in every organ was but a symptom of separation, an inflammation of love. Nor did it comfort her to visit the tavern at midnight, asking if anyone had seen her husband, and to be met with derision. Probably mistook you for a bearded clam and drowned, the sailors jeered. Then Yudel followed her home, tried to fondle her, and offered to dive for her oyster. She hurled an iron pot at him, hitting him in the groin. He staggered back to the tavern, to drink away the pain. And what did she do? She attempted to pray.

  The liturgical training that Chaya had received from her father told her what words to say, with which rituals, but, as unimpeachably as she knew how to worship in theory, the truth is that she’d never before done it in practice. Prayer was for peasants, witless folk who’d good reason to be subservient. Chaya had been dependent on no one before Alef. Only the agony of his absence brought her to her knees, on the cabin’s hard dirt floor. From down there, she whispered some sacred words, found they had no substance in her mouth. She uttered others, still holier. She could not feel them on her breath. She sputtered secret incantations, heavenly formulations that mortals were never meant to possess. She couldn’t even hear her own voice. She started to cry. Her throat opened. Her chest filled. Her sobbing sounded like great bells pealing, ringing in a new dawn.

  She did not hear her husband return. He softly shut the door. He came close, knelt in front of her. He touched a finger to her cheek, caught a falling tear.

  She screamed. She staggered backward. He wondered if she didn’t recognize him, if he looked different, soulless. Had he blackened like the dybbuk? Would Chaya be upset by that? Then he heard his name. She was cursing him, her persecutor, for making her adore him, only to abandon her.

  He could not say that he’d been away for her sake without divulging where he’d gone, and since she did not ask the question for which he’d so dutifully sought an answer, all that he could do, as she battered him with accusations, was to look on in dumb innocence. That only made her angrier. She invoked every curse of antiquity. The ignorant cannot be righteous, she screeched.

  Silence is the fence around wisdom, the fool at last replied. He said it almost in a whisper, but what stunned Chaya was that he’d spoken it, flawlessly, in the ancient tongue.

  — Where did you learn that, Alef?

  — I’m not sure.

  — It’s a line from Talmud.

  — The words just came to me.

  — You don’t even know Hebrew.

  — I’m not learned.

  — Yet you’re speaking to me in Hebrew now.

  Alef recognized that she was right. He also noticed that she’d become quiet. When he embraced her, she held him even tighter than on their wedding night, peering into his eyes with even greater wonder than when they’d first come together.

  The following morning, Alef found that he knew more than Talmud. Out at the seashore, sailors pestered him with trick questions of an arithmetical nature to make him blush and stammer—if you lose four of the three fish you catch, how many are left?—but he calmly responded by giving them a lesson in negative digits. Then he unmoored his boat, and, while the others puzzled over the proofs he’d written in the sand, sailed into open waters.

  He dropped his line. The string went taut. He tugged to see where it had snagged—and hauled a fluke into the boat. No sooner had he cast again than he hooked another one. He pulled in five of them, then ten. His hull was just about full when he remembered that his wife didn’t like fluke, which she considered common: At their wedding, Chaya had declared that she ate only salmon. So he dropped his line, and hooked her one.

  It was still early when Alef sailed back into harbor. The other fishermen were where he’d left them, quibbling. Some argued that the old dybbuk was playing with them, using soulless Alef as his puppet. Others maintained that, by forsaking his soul, Alef himself became a demon. They agreed only that Chaya must not know what had happened, must not discover where they’d let Yudel send her husband, for her pot-hurling fury raged fiercer than damnation.

  Then Alef was upon them. He smiled. Nervously, they grinned. He presented each with a large fish. He gave away all that he had except for the salmon, which he proudly carried home to his wife.

  He handed it to her when she opened the door. The fish was as large as her torso. She did not ask if Alef was a fool. She looked at the salmon, dripping cold water down her chest, and then at her husband, blond head beatific, crowned in sweat.

  — Where did you get this fish?

  — I caught it. It’s the kind you like, Chaya.

  — I know that. But most days you can’t even land an anchovy.

  — In the Talmud it says . . .

  — Don’t quote that book to me.

  — Then mathematically speaking . . .

  — What the hell is happening?

  — I just know where fish are in the ocean.

  — Every one?

  — Even the clams.

  — Those aren’t fish. They’re forbidden.

  — I can tell which oysters have pearls.

  — Those can’t be eaten either. But it wouldn’t be criminal to give me a few jewels.

  Alef pulled a couple of oysters out of his pocket and opened them with his thumbs. From each, he plucked a little oval pearl. Later, after they’d gorged on fish and on each other’s flesh, Alef laid the pearls on Chaya’s cheeks, where, the night before, tears had shimmered.

  He slept soundly, dreaming of quantum mechanics and relativity. By the time he awoke, his wife was no longer in bed beside him. Instead there was a note, telling him that she’d gone to visit her parents.

  Chaya had not been home in the year since her wedding. She hadn’t even responded to her father’s letters, laden with questions she’d have been humiliated to answer and money she’d have been ashamed to spend. She wrapped herself tight in her cloak as she neared the town gate, covering her face in the manner of a foreigner, lest anybody recognize her, pathetic creature, driven away by carriage, hobbling back shoeless.

  She arrived at dusk. The house was quiet. The rebbetzin had gone to market, and Chaya’s brothers were now married to the daughters of a wealthy merchant, who had given each a small estate. She opened the door to her father’s study, and slipped inside. Without looking up from the tract he was writing, he asked her if an omniscient being could know ignorance.

  She started to answer, and then stopped. She tried a different approach, which brought her to another impasse, or perhaps the same one from a different direction. At last she confessed that she wasn’t certain.

  He set down his pen. With both arms, he embraced her.

  — For months, I’ve been trying to solve this problem, Chaya. In the first month, I was certain that I could do it. In the second month, I was comforted that, if I didn’t, then you would. In the third month, I became troubled that you could, yet I couldn’t. And in the fourth month, I became distraught that you could, but wouldn’t. Ever since then, I haven’t been able to write a word in these commentaries. All year, I dreamed that you would come to me like this, break the riddle, and spring me from my trap. But now that you’re here, a
nd I hear that you don’t know either, I realize that the resolution doesn’t matter. I remained imprisoned by it only because I wanted to see you, but couldn’t. Your father is not very wise.

  — And your daughter is not very good. At least I should have written.

  — Your husband’s a sage, Chaya. It’s right that he commands all your attention.

  — Now you mock me. You know that Mama married me to a fool.

  — He doesn’t understand the sacred texts as well as you do?

  — He was illiterate until a couple of days ago. While you were busy with your learned commentaries, Mama married me to a fisherman who . . . who . . . could be outsmarted by a lowly carp, and . . .

  — Illiterate until a couple of days ago? You’ve been teaching him, then?

  She shook her head. She told him everything that had happened. She laid two pearls on the table in front of him. She was mystified. Could he explain?

  The rabbi picked up the pearls, but did not scrutinize them. Instead, he peered into his daughter’s eyes. He saw that they had changed. It seemed that the light had dimmed, as he’d once observed in his own bride. Then he perceived that the fire he’d previously seen from up close was now distant, insurmountably far from him, and, for the light to reach him at all, it must be orders of magnitude brighter than before. Chaya’s ardor made him shiver. He looked down and told her what the evidence made obvious: Her Alef had sold his soul to a dybbuk. Since she did not respond, he told her the consequences suffered by people who bartered their souls, the agonies that he’d witnessed, tortures that might have infected everyone had he not banished those cursed folks from the community. He reminded Chaya that life was passed down the generations by the soul’s nocturnal secretions, and that, because a man without a soul could not have children, his wife could legally divorce him. Chaya said that she never would. The rabbi nodded, for it was the response that he’d expected. Then she asked him where she might meet this demon.

  He stopped nodding. He stared at her. Even to utter the word dybbuk made him shudder, yet she wished to visit this creature as if he were a country pawnbroker.