A Curable Romantic (40 page)

“Before that, she poisoned her husband
and
his business partner.”

“With whom she was maintaining amorous relations.”

“Then there were the epidemics.”

“The choleras.”

“The plagues.”

“When she worked in that kitchen that time, you remember,”
reminded his brother.

“Her lives, as a rule, tend towards the unhappy and the brief.”

“And the painful.”

“Oh, yes, the painful. For all concerned.”

“Ourselves not in the least.”

At this, Dr. Freud uttered a guttural sound, though so quietly I imagined I was the only one who’d heard him. Having rejected fantasies of divine justice and retribution as nothing more than a system through which a priestly elite might control and exploit the credulous masses, he was having none of it now.

“And what exactly is it that you want from us?” he demanded.

Behind the bedsheet, the two figures, outlined in white light, looked at each other. If I had to translate that look — the hunch of their powerful shoulders, the swivel of their muscular necks — I would say that something in Dr. Freud’s truculence displeased them.

“Well, to be blunt,”
said formally, “the first thing you must do is call a rabbi.”

“Someone,”
said, “who understands and reveres the power of Heaven.”

“No, I forbid it,” Dr. Freud said.

“Oh?”

“I won’t have a religious functionary, some pious clerk, interfering with my case.”

“Your
case?”
said. “What a queer phraseology!”

“Though you and your brother may claim to be here on behalf of Frau Ita Sammelsohn, late of this world, I, Dr. Sigmund Freud, have been called in to assist Fräulein Emma Eckstein and am employed by her family to do so.”

“Shlomo ben Ya’akov!”
cried.

“You may address me as Herr Doktor, my good sir!”

“Very well then, Herr Doktor, if you insist on remaining in charge of this ‘case,’ as you call it, you shall need candles.”

“Black tapers,”
supplied the commentary.

“A ram’s horn.”

“Make it two. They break easily. Oh, and white robes for the quorum.”

“And what exactly are you proposing?” I asked.

turned to
“It seems you’ll have to explain it to them from the beginning.”

must be persuaded to leave,”
said. “That is what is being proposed. Now, very generally, this is an impossible task with a dybbuk. And knowing
I can assure you it’s unlikely she will choose to depart on her own.”

“And if she leaves?” I said.

“Upon her bodily eviction, she will be taken into the sling and tossed from one corner of the universe to the other until she comes to understand something of the unmarrable perfection of Heaven. In its mercy, Heaven cast her into a body in which it was assumed she could do no further harm. But mischief and quarrelsomeness are the lot of women, I’m afraid.”

“She only wanted to be loved,” I said in her defense.

“Loved?”

“Justifications! Excuses!”

“Those who blacken the name of Heaven always have a perfectly good reason for doing so.”

“Make no mistake,”
told us. “She’ll be driven out by the usual means: incense, prayer, psalms, supplications, and the recitation of the holy names. The holy light is ultimately impossible to resist.”