The Rabbi and the Vampire
Darren Stein
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Darren Stein
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I was not there when the girl came sprinting past the darkened workshops and tanneries towards the Juden Strase, her feet mercifully numb as they slid and slit against the icy cobble stones beneath them. I would see her injuries later - would mop up the blood that she trailed across the floor from her ravaged soles - would tend to the scratches that had torn across her hands and arms from where he had tried to snatch her.
I could imagine her desperately weaving between the putrid reek of steaming vats, broken crates and rusting mechanical devices like a mouse trying to escape a toying tomcat. The terror which drove her through our little gate, left half-ajar and unguarded due to years of mutual conditioning from those both within and without, must have been incentive indeed. And so, her pretty, blonde hair trailing in the wind, she had run to the only light she could see, and crashed through the door into my grandfather’s synagogue to the mirrored horror of those inside.
‘Please!’ she cried, coming to rest on her knees before the crowd of bearded men, who like some pastiche from the fairytale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, stared down at the this alien creature – young and beautiful and in obvious distress. They with their yarmulkes and tzit-tzit; all dressed in modest black suits with only their age, height and girth appearing to differentiate them. She, conversely, wore a white dress, its hems and arms stained with blood and wet from the freezing snow.
‘Please!’ she begged, ‘I seek sanctuary.’
All eyes turned, as they naturally would on any complex question, to the Rabbi - my grandfather - who had risen from his chair at the end of a long table covered in holy books. His dark, brown eyes stared at the young woman from his own worn and startled face. He stroked his long silver beard anxiously and then appeared to make a decision.
‘Bring bandages, boiling water and honey to help disinfect her wounds,’ he said to the men standing beside him.
‘Abraham,’ he turned to me, ‘go and get your mother and sister. It is not right for us to be alone with this woman.’ So begrudgingly, then only ten-years-old, I had run back to my home to do as my grandfather had asked. My mother, already dozing after the day’s exertion, stirred uncomfortably, but followed me with my sixteen-year-old sister to the synagogue.
When we returned, someone had placed the girl in a chair and fetched a glass of water from which she was drinking eagerly. Levi Cohen, one of my grandfather’s students had lifted her legs upon a saddlebag and was examining the wounds beneath her feet.
‘There are pieces of glass wedged between the webbing of her toes,’ he grimaced. ‘She will need to have them removed to prevent serious infection.’
A pained expression crept across the girl’s face. ‘Please,’ she said, addressing my grandfather who she now recognised as a leader. ‘Please grant me sanctuary.’
My grandfather looked at her thoughtfully and then sat down on a chair beside her so that he could speak to her face to face. He seemed more comfortable now that my mother and sister were there.
‘We cannot give you sanctuary, my dear,’ he said, ‘because we have no such thing as sanctuary. Your people, I regret to say, have never recognised the sanctity of our places of worship and study. They have attacked our synagogues and yeshivas with complete disregard for their holiness, and so, I cannot offer you the protection of a place that will be recognised as off-limits to those who might wish to harm you.’
The girl’s eyes dropped in despair.
‘What we can do,’ my grandfather continued, ‘is hide you.’
The girl looked up hopefully, ‘Can you? I mean, I am not sure if you can?’
‘Then you will need to tell us who exactly you are fleeing from?’
She gave him a fearful look, and glanced around the room at the bearded faces of the congregation.
‘Perhaps, gentlemen,’ said my grandfather to his congregants, ‘it would be best if you all went home? My family and I are more than able to care for this young girl.’
‘We thank you for thinking of our safety, Rabbi,’ motioned one of the elderly men, ‘but whatever danger she has brought into the ghetto will affect us all. There is no point trying to martyr yourself.’
‘Indeed,’ my grandfather nodded, ‘you are right. But perhaps we can diminish the impact of it.’
The men looked at him uncertainly.
‘Please,’ he said reassuringly, ‘if there are to be consequences it would naturally be better if you were all with your families. Go home through the rear exit and say psalms for us. We will meet again for prayers in the morning.’
So once again, they bowed to his wishes and shuffled off in silent conversation, looking back with concern at the young women and our little family gathered around her.
My mother took over the binding of her feet while my sister washed the blood from her arms and I tried as gently as possible to bandage them with linen strips.
‘I think,’ she said, ‘it was an aristocrat.’
My grandfather raised his eyebrows while my mother began to shake nervously.
‘He came into the city from the castle in the mountains. He told my parents he was a relative of the Count.’
My grandfather watched her apprehensively.
‘I see,’ he said after a few moments hesitation. ‘I understand you must be very frightened.’
She was breathing quickly again, ‘I think he means to kill me. I think he wanted to...eat me.’
My sister squealed and then brought her fist to her mouth out of embarrassment. My mother turned to my grandfather.
‘Papa, she cannot stay here! She is a danger to us all,’ she cried.
My grandfather placed his hand reassuringly on my mother’s shoulder.
‘I understand the nature of the situation,’ he smiled, ‘and I appreciate your advice. It is not without its virtue.’ He then turned to my sister.
‘Chana. Get this young lady one of your Sabbath dresses.’ My sister’s eyes widened in horror. ‘I will buy you a new one.’ And though my sister seemed uncomfortable with this prospect, the pay-off seemed to appease her and she hurried home to pick out one of her least favourite outfits.
I took-over my sister’s role as nurse and tried my best to wash and clean her wounds with a moist cloth before daubing honey over the cuts and scratches. As the girl winced at my touch, I bandaged her arms with twists of fabric, but she did not resist. Far worse was my mother’s attempts to draw the splinters and glass from out of her savaged feet, and I could see her biting her lip in order to resist the temptation to withdraw her limbs or escape the pain.
When my sister returned with some clothing, my grandfather stood and ushered me towards the corner of the room. There we stood staring at the blank wall, neither speaking nor moving as the women helped her into the clean garments.
‘Thankyou,’ she said, notably to my sister who she recognised for having given up one of her dresses.
My sister smiled and nodded politely, but did not speak, looking at her beautiful visage with caution.
‘You have cared for the stranger,’ my grandfather purred, ‘a great mitzvah – a good deed. And now you must return home,’ he said earnestly.’
‘But papa...’ my mother tried to argue, but my grandfather raised a finger, and as always my mother showed complete obedience. ‘Try to mop up the blood with some lemon juice to hide the smell, and then hurry home. Lock the doors and do not open them until I return. You too can say psalms for me,’ he said, assuring her that this would be the most constructive act she could perform.
‘Abraham,’ he then turned to me. ‘Before you join your mother and sister, you will show this young lady the recess where you and your friends hide behind the Aaron Kodesh. Help her lie comfortably and then wall the space around her with holy books before pulling back the bookshelf to conceal the opening.’
I frowned as I slowly processed all he had asked me and then directed the young girl towards the raised platform at the end of the room. The Aaron Kodesh housed the holy Torah in what amounted to a curtained cupboard. Behind it was a small recess just large enough for two adults to sit side-by-side. Limping and clearly in a lot of pain, the girl struggled to crawl behind the wooden fixture, her new dress snagging on a wooden splinter and ripping her replacement clothes. Then suddenly from outside came a loud piercing screech as if from some type of animal. The girl froze in terror and looked back at my grandfather.
‘You will have to hide with her, Abraham,’ said my grandfather earnestly. ‘Quickly now, and mind you do not make a sound, no matter what you see or hear.’
I pulled the bookshelves closed behind us and stacked some prayer books in front of the cracks to try and make our presence less apparent. While the girl hyperventilated in fear, I held her hand in an attempt to comfort her, and then knelt down and pressed my eye against a tiny hole in the Aaron Kodesh, just making out my grandfather in the hazy view it afforded.
Somehow, he did not seem frightened, but rather determined. He looked towards the entrance to the synagogue and then spoke out in a loud and clear voice.
‘You need not continue to wait for me to exit the building,’ he said, ‘you may enter if you so wish!’
And in an instant it seemed that there was suddenly another presence in the room.
‘How very gracious,’ said a tightly clipped and sardonic voice. A tall man dressed in elegant, dark-green, garments stood before my grandfather. He had sharp, pale features, and a black moustache and sideburns that grew thinly across his face.
‘Shalom Aleichem,’ said my grandfather.
The man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
‘I believe you might have something that belongs to me, Jew?’ said the man offhandedly as his eyes studied the room. He gazed down at the book strewn table, but appeared to be careful not to touch anything.
‘Everything ultimately belongs to G-d,’ my grandfather bowed.
‘Indeed,’ the man smiled, ‘alas, it seems there is little difference between our preachers and yours.’
He proceeded to pace up and down investigating his environment while my grandfather remained impassive. ‘Reality,’ he said, ‘is somewhat different. Everything ultimately belongs to the powerful here on earth.’
‘You seem agitated, Sir,’ said my grandfather.
‘You’re damn right I’m agitated,’ snapped the man, ‘we both know a girl came into the ghetto, I can smell her. Now hand her over, Jew!’ he shouted approaching my grandfather, but did not touch him.
The girl grabbed my arm as I watched, burying her face into my back. My grandfather however, looked into the man’s eyes.
‘You have clearly not been doing this for very long?’ he pondered openly, regarding the man carefully.
‘Excuse me?’ he growled.
‘This,’ he motioned back-and-forth, referring to the two of them. ‘The count it seems has not instructed you about your history.’
‘What!’
‘Forgive me,’ my grandfather demurred, ‘our history.’
The man appeared to be confused.
‘If you do not give me what I have come for, Jew, I will rip your throat open and feast on your blood!’
‘Oh you cannot touch me,’ said I grandfather cautiously. ‘No vampire can.’
Up until that time, I had never heard the word “vampire”. The girl next to me cringed at the sound of the word and the man himself seemed shocked that he had been identified.
‘So you know what I am?’ he said.
‘Oh yes,’ nodded my grandfather, ‘but it seems you do not know what I am.’
The man...the vampire stared at him.
‘If you were to ask the count, he will tell you that you cannot suck the blood of a Jew.’
‘And why not?’ asked the vampire with curious irritation.
‘Because we are a holy people - a nation of priests. As G-d’s chosen people we do not need symbols of faith to ward you off. We have our blood covenant. Our holiness runs through our veins, the very life-force that you so desire.’
‘Nonsense!’ laughed the vampire, but he seemed uncertain.
‘Do not take my word for it,’ beckoned my grandfather, ‘I will happily give you my arm or my neck so that you may taste for yourself. But I warn you, it will be the last thing that you ever drink.’
‘I don’t have to kill you to drink your blood, old Jew. I can simply kill you for the pleasure,’ and he grinned widely.
‘True,’ my grandfather agreed. ‘It is unfortunate that your kind have long caused difficulties for my people. The count would drain the blood from a young, Christian child and place the body at the ghetto gates. The Christians would than accuse the Jews of murdering the child and using their blood to bake our Passover Matzah. Vicious pogroms would be perpetrated against my community as a result.’
‘Ingenious,’ grinned the vampire.
‘Perhaps,’ my grandfather said sadly.
‘We have known of you kind for thousands of years. The first vampires were called, Am Lak – the lickers of blood, from the tribe called the Amalekites.’
A sense of recognition crossed the vampire’s face. ‘From the bible,’ he said, ‘they attacked the Israelites from behind, and Moses raised his hands while they fought off the attack, and whenever he lowered them the Amalekites would win, and whenever he raised them the Hebrews would win.’
‘Well done,’ my grandfather smiled, ‘you know your scripture.’
‘I have not always been this way,’ the vampire stared down at my grandfather who had now sat upon a chair. ‘There was something else,’ he said approaching the old man, ‘G-d instructed the Israelites to kill the Amalekites. To wipe them off the face of the earth.’
‘That is also true,’ said my grandfather, ‘it is a very powerful commandment, and one which till now I have never had the honor of fulfilling.’
‘What!’ cried the vampire, but it was too late. My grandfather seized the vampire by the arms and from his seated position pulled him towards him.
My grandfather started to recite in Hebrew as the vampire began to struggle.
‘I shall surely erase the memory of Amalek from under the heavens,’ and with that the vampire began to shake and scream in agony, ‘God is my miracle. For the Hand is on the throne of God. God maintains a war against Amalek, from generation to generation.’
As my grandfather continued, reciting the verses a total of three times, the vampire appeared to waver and collapse, his body thinning and desiccating before my very eyes. Finally when my grandfather stopped, there was nothing but the lavish garments that the beast had worn.
My grandfather seemed exhausted. Beads of sweat peppered his brow and he sat breathless. I did not dare speak or call out to him, I was frozen in awe at what I had witnessed. Finally he raised his hand and beckoned in my direction, as if knowing that I could see him. I pushed the shelves aside and slid out, leaving the nervous girl behind me.
I quickly ran and fetched my grandfather a glass of water and helped him drink, his hands still shaking from the ordeal.
‘Thankyou, Abraham,’ he smiled.
I looked down at the man’s clothes. ‘Is he really gone, grandfather?’ I asked.
My grandfather nodded.
‘We can only hope that the series of events that brought him here do not bring others of his kind,’ he said.
‘Others,’ I thought.
‘It is perhaps time we helped return that young girl to her family,’ he said. ‘Go and get your mother and sister and together we will take her back to the Christian side.’
And so our little family escorted the young woman out of the ghetto to her home. My grandfather had reasoned that the city’s authorities would be less likely to suspect a whole family of foul play than two males accompanying an injured woman in the early hours of the morning, irrespective of their age. Her family were indeed relieved, elated and very grateful that their daughter had been saved from both a humiliating and deadly fate by no-less than a group of Jews.
Emily Stoker, as her name turned out to be, spoke very highly of my grandfather and his role in protecting her, as well as how I had sat with her in the darkness and helped stop her from screaming or going insane when her pursuer had appeared. And so it was that some days later, her father, a wealthy industrialist entered the ghetto and approached our little synagogue. He had a proposition for our family, a way he proposed to thank us and grant us an opportunity that we would never otherwise receive. He wished to adopt me. To take me out of the ghetto and give me a secular education - access to opportunities that I would never receive either in the ghetto or as a Jew.
My grandfather was vehemently against it. He argued that my identity was not a matter for compromise. Yet it was my mother who stood against him. After all the years of acquiescence to his will, she stood firm on the man’s offer.
‘Abraham knows who he is Papa,’ she cried. ‘He will return to us one day. And although I understand your fears for him, I can see the hope he would never otherwise have.’
A few weeks later, I left the ghetto to attend schools in Berlin, than Paris, and finally Dublin, where my adoptive family established themselves after the Revolutionary outbreaks of the 1840’s. Although I visited my family in the early years, I did not maintain my religious identity. As my grandfather had feared, it was all too easy to assimilate; to lose the rigidity of Jewish observance when not amongst a broader community of one’s own. That was the existential danger of pulling down the ghetto walls. How would we maintain our identity when we were no longer forced to be Jews?
Although there is much that I had forgotten, I would always remember the night where I watched an old Rabbi kill a vampire with words from the holy Torah. I would never forget the one commandment that G-d had given to my ancestors, to kill the Amelikites – those lickers of blood. So later, when I began to write, I decided to expose these creatures for what they were – to identify their characteristics, and extol their weaknesses, so that others would know them when they encountered them, and understand how to eradicate them when necessary. Although some friends have given me hope that I have been successful. The results, I believe, will be known only long after I am gone.
Bram.
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Note of Thanks
Thankyou for taking the time to read The Rabbi and the Vampire. I hope that you enjoyed it or at the very least, found it interesting. I would welcome any feedback at the Smashwords website.
About the Author
Darren Stein is an Australian artist and poet. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1973, Stein worked in the townships and squatter camps around Johannesburg and Soweto during the transition to democracy in the early 1990’s. His fields included adult literacy, voter education, election monitoring, and subsequently Police reform which worked towards building reconciliation between local community groups and the Post-Apartheid police forces. After suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by his exposure to the violence of the period, he immigrated to Sydney, Australia.
Darren obtained his Bachelor’s degree in History and English from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa (1994), and completed two Masters degrees in Political Science (1997) and Education (2001) from the University of Sydney. In 2004 he won the Florence J. Melton Fellowship from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and completed a Post-Graduate Diploma in Religious Studies. He currently teaches history and comparative religion at Masada College on Sydney’s North Shore. He is married to a wonderful wife named Rikki with whom he has two children.
His poetry has appeared in various anthologies, including Over the Rainbow (1996), The Liquid Mirror (1998), An Endless Place (1999), and Storage Space: A collection of contemporary poetry (2008). His art can be viewed via online exhibit through his website which is searchable on most internet browsers.