Enchantress: A Novel of Rav Hisda's Daughter (29 page)

“He knew it was you just from how the wine was mixed?” I’d heard that blind people often acquired extra acuity in their remaining senses, but this was incredible.

Rava nodded. “I said that it was indeed me, and he told me not to sit down until I explained a text from Bamidbar to him.”

“Which one?”

“Where Moses recounts three places the Israelites traveled to in the wilderness—Matanah, Nahaliel, and Bamot—despite never having mentioned any of them earlier.”

“Clearly Rav Yosef had a particular exegesis in mind.”

“I knew he wanted to humble me, so I found an explanation to that purpose.” He paused to compose himself. “When one makes himself as the wilderness—that is, open to all—the Torah is presented to him as a
matanah
, or gift. After it is given to him, Elohim makes Torah his
nahaliel
, or inheritance, and when he receives this inheritance, he ascends to
bamot
, great heights.”

“That doesn’t sound very humble,” I said as I switched our son to the other breast.

He raised an eyebrow in annoyance. “Yet if he elevates himself and becomes haughty, Elohim casts him down so he sinks into the very earth, as it is written, ‘from Bamot to the valley, down below the wilderness.’ But should he repent his arrogance, Elohim will raise him again; as the prophet Isaiah says, ‘Every valley shall be exalted.’”

“Was Rav Yosef appeased?” I asked.

“I believe so.”

I locked eyes with him and asked the more important question. “Were you humbled?”

“You are wise to doubt my sincerity. But on the boat back here, I recalled the prayer Rav Hamnuna says before confessing on Yom Kippur. I intend to recite it daily,” he declared.

“What is it?”

Rava took a deep breath and composed himself. “Elohim, before I was formed, I was of no worth. And now that I have been formed, I am as worthless as if I had not been formed. Behold I am before You like a vessel full of shame and reproach. May it be Your will that I sin no more, and what I have sinned wipe away in Your mercy, but not through suffering.”

I smiled up at him. I’d missed him. “I appreciate your asking not to suffer, for that would cause me suffering too.”

PART TWO

King Hormizd’s and King Shapur’s Reigns

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTH YEAR OF KING HORMIZD II’S REIGN
• 308 CE •

J
oseph’s brother Sama was born three years later, and their brother Chanina three years after that. It was too hot for them to go out, so Joseph and his tutor sat on cushions in one corner of Em’s
traklin
, reciting Torah lessons, while Homa used wax tablets to teach Sama and her daughter Tamar their letters in another. I had just put Chanina in his cradle when Em came in.

“Good, you’re here,” she addressed me. “I need your help.”

“I just nursed Chanina, so the boys can do without me for a while,” I said, for Em’s furrowed brow conveyed more anxiety than her words. “What is the problem?”

“It’s a girl with a fever and trouble breathing. I’m almost certain she’s been attacked by a Shayd shel Beitkisay.” Em grimaced. “The mother is lax about making her children wash their hands after using the privy.”

I nodded my understanding. Children often poked their fingers in their nose. Undoubtedly a demon, perhaps Shivta or Bat Melech, had escaped the privy on the girl’s hands and then entered to attack her lungs. “If any of those
shaydim
are responsible, I can come exorcise them now.”

I put on my cloak and said the blessing over the
tzitzit
hanging from its four corners. Father taught that this mitzvah pertained to the garment, and that only the person who attached the
tzitzit
initially should recite the blessing. Rav Nachman disagreed, declaring
tzitzit
a personal mitzvah to be said whenever the garment is donned. Rava preferred to follow Rav Nachman so he could recite the blessing more often.

I did so as well, despite those rabbis who exempted women from the mitzvah. Thankfully, most accepted the Baraita that taught: “All are obligated in
tzitzit
, whether
Kohanim
, Levites, Israel, converts, women, or slaves.”

Em and I stopped outside the girl’s home while I concentrated on the presence of demons. “We have time. Nasus and Samael aren’t here.” If I had sensed either of those two harbingers of death, all my incantations would have been for naught.

Once in the sickroom, I could see the small winged demons hovering over the patient’s bed like a dark cloud of gnats. “You were right, Em. We have both Shivta and Bat Melech here.”

Em chased out the anxious mother and her sniffling children, then applied a poultice to the wheezing girl’s chest. She called out to the mother, “You can bring in the garlic broth now.”

I shut my eyes, focused on addressing the demons, and said the first incantation, calling on them by name to go, get out, depart, leave, flee, and otherwise abandon the patient, never to return. At the same time, Em helped the girl drink some of the steaming broth. I said the incantation again, more forcefully, but demons ignored me and swarmed in closer.

Em taught that the most effective incantations should be said forty-seven times, and indeed by the fortieth I could feel the demons beginning to flee past me in panic. I spoke the last seven with great severity, timing the final recitation with the patient emptying her third cup. Confident that no
shaydim
remained, I turned to Em and nodded. It was just a matter of collecting our fee and warning the mother to be more diligent about her children washing their hands.

 • • • 

Most evenings Rava and I ended the day with the same ritual. After the final meal, he quizzed Joseph and Sama on their learning while I nursed Chanina and put him to bed. Once the boys were asleep, Rava and I lay down, our bodies snuggled together, and shared what happened that day.

Normally I took pleasure in this, but when I told him about my success at vanquishing the Shaydim shel Beitkisay, I couldn’t help but sigh afterward.

“Why the sigh?” Rava asked. “It sounds as though you had a successful day.”

“I know I should feel proud and thankful that Elohim has blessed me with these abilities to heal children, but I can’t forget that incredible magic we did at Father’s at Pesach.”

“I can’t either, but it’s not good to dwell on such things,” Rava said. “A taste of that kind of power is dangerous; it only makes you hungry for more.”

Later, as I listened to his gentle snoring, I ignored his warning and took my mind back to the blustery spring day when we arrived in Sura to spend the festival with my family. It had been a frightening voyage, with a strong east wind making it difficult for the boatmen to control the sails. It was so windy when we arrived that no one could stand upright.

Blowing for days without end, the east wind sucked all moisture from the air and replaced it with dust and sand. My sisters-in-law whispered that women miscarried and men’s seed dried out in the womb because of it, while Tachlifa told of entire caravans buried in huge sandstorms.

How could we celebrate Pesach if our Seder was ruined by a sandstorm?

Desperate to prevent this debacle, I recalled that Father had once cast a spell to start the wind blowing after a sorceress had stopped it. So I asked if he could still control the wind by magic. Father stroked his beard in thought for some time before replying that he hadn’t cast such a spell in years. But our family prevailed upon him to try. Otherwise every bite of matzah would come with a mouthful of grit.

To my astonishment, Father suggested that I learn the incantation so I could add my efforts to his.

“I thought only men could do priestly magic,” I said after I’d repeated the spell to his satisfaction. Thankfully, it was similar to one I already knew from Rava’s book of spells,
Sepher ha-Razim
. It appealed to the angels of the third firmament, who ruled over the winds.

“This isn’t priestly magic. This is ordinary
charasha
,” he replied. “But you must be
tahor
.”

I nodded. “I am still nursing, so I have not been
niddah
since Chanina was born.”

“Immerse anyway and sleep alone tonight,” he advised me. “We will begin at dawn.”

When I excitedly told Rava what Father had said, his enthusiasm surpassed mine. “Rav Oshaiya taught me that incantation. I can help too.”

“Have you actually done it?” We’d been married eight years, and this was the first time Rava admitted to performing magic.

“A few times, but only to prove that I could, and never on anything so big,” he replied. “One shouldn’t bother the angels too often for trivial tasks.”

The next morning I was awake and dressed before dawn. In case it helped the angels recognize me, I borrowed the white linen clothes Rahel wore when installing her
kasa d’charasha
. Fighting the torrent of sand swirling around me as we climbed to the roof, I was especially thankful for the veil.

Father directed that he would speak first, then Rava, and I should follow last. This was not an incantation to be repeated, like a healing spell. Each of us would have only one chance to work our magic. I nodded, and once on the roof, I clung tightly to the parapet to keep from being blown off. Out in the date groves, the trees were bent almost to the ground.

When Father saw we were secure, he lifted a hand over his eyes and turned to face the storm. The wind was shrieking so loudly I couldn’t hear his words, but he sounded urgent and compelling. When he finished, the wind roared even more ferociously, but I couldn’t tell if this was a response to Father’s adjuration or the storm strengthening naturally. Next Rava stepped forward and shouted his incantation, his deep voice more authoritative and demanding than I’d ever heard it.

Though I could feel their powerful magic trying to control the wind, there was no change in the force blasting us. Father gestured to me to take my turn. I could never be as strong as he or Rava had been, so I recited the incantation as a plea, my heart beseeching the angels to intercede with the east wind for us. For we were pious Jews who only wanted to observe the mitzvah of Pesach as Elohim had commanded us, to celebrate how His wonders and miracles had brought us out of Egypt.

Was it my imagination or were the gusts weaker? Though Father, Rava, and I said nothing about it at the midday meal, we acknowledged by half smiles and raised eyebrows that the once raging storm was weakening. By bedtime I shared their triumph at how our efforts had tamed the east wind. We might not be as powerful as Moses, but with the angels’ help, we had done a small wonder.

I slept late the next morning, and when I woke, the wind had calmed. The kitchen slaves were nearly finished grinding the wheat for matzah, wheat thankfully not contaminated by blowing sand. By sunset, time to begin the seder, all that remained of the fierce sandstorm was a gentle breeze. Along with the other miracles we recalled at Pesach, that night I celebrated having successfully cast such a powerful spell.

 • • • 

After taming the east wind in Sura, my discontent with the petty magic I performed with Em only grew, though what could be more important and useful than healing people and protecting them from demons? It didn’t help my mood that Rava was in a bad temper at having lost a case when Abaye’s opinion prevailed over his.

“How did that happen?” I’d questioned him in surprise. Rava hadn’t lost an argument to Abaye since we were married, and only once or twice in all the years before that.

“We had two disputed divorce cases that hinged on the husband’s intent. I maintained that his intent determined the
get
’s validity, but Abaye held it irrelevant.”