Dietterich’s office was cramped, the shelves overflowing with books. He offered coffee, and I accepted: black with two sugars. He handed me a mug and then dropped into his seat with a slight groan. When we met last year, I judged him to be my age, thirty-five or so. He’d aged. Gray streaked his temples. Deep lines fanned the corners of his eyes and his face was pinched, with a furrow chiseled into either side of his nose.
“So,” he said, blowing on his coffee. “How can I help you?”
“I need your opinion.” I showed him the drawings, and he studied them in silence. I sipped coffee and waited. The coffee was worse than mine. I put the mug on the floor.
When his eyes inched up again, he was frowning. “Where did you get this?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you. It’s an ongoing investigation. I can only ask the questions, not answer them.”
“All right.” Dietterich placed his mug on a side table. “Yes, I know the symbols. What this is, exactly, I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it doesn’t make sense. In essence, you have part of a formula.”
“Formula?”
“Yes, for a protective amulet.”
“Against what?”
Dietterich hesitated, then said. “Evil. You have to understand, Detective. Judaism is a religion without a pantheon. In the distant past, calamities were ascribed to evil demons and dark forces, whereas Judaism holds that these things come from Hashem, from God. But illiterate and superstitious peasants are slow to change. Superstitions persisted into the early half of the last century.”
I remembered Gold, and her key. “You’re talking mysticism.”
“Yes. Our Tanya, for instance, is based upon very ancient Kabbalah, but only certain aspects, you understand. There are many obscure areas of Kabbalah known only to very devout Jews, or to scholars. Most work is not in translation, because of the dangers.”
“Dangers.”
“Of misinterpretation. Leading Jews to pursue paths that are specifically prohibited because these practices are antithetical to our faith. How do I say it?” Dietterich put a finger to his lips. “There is a branch of theory, and a branch of practice. Devout scholars study, but that is all.”
“Tell me about the practice.”
Dietterich raised his hands, palms up. “What’s to say? There are no Jewish witches.”
“Well, someone hasn’t gotten the message.”
“You think a Jew did this?” He moved his head firmly from side to side. “No. The prohibition in Exodus is very clear.”
“But you said it yourself: superstitions persist. So, is this what the drawings are about?”
“These drawings are just bits and pieces.” He went to a bookshelf, tilted out a book, and brought it back, flipping pages. I read the cover: Amulets and Superstitions. “Here,” he said, then came to stand behind my right shoulder.
There was Hebrew text above and below a rectangle filled with crude, almost childish drawings. The rectangle was divided into two. On the left were what looked like bulbous birds with no wings, and bubble feet with no talons. On the right, there were two bizarre quadrangles, and then a drawing I recognized: the pole with the phalanges.
“What is that?”
“Part of a formula. This is a copy of a design for an amulet from a book that’s in the British Museum, the Book of Râzîêl.” He pronounced it RAY-zay-el. “The formula’s very precise. On the left are representations of three angels: Sanvi, Sanasanvi, and Samnaglof.”
“And on the right?”
“Adam, Eve,” and then he came to the pole, “and Lilith.”
“Lilith?”
Dietterich sighed. “A myth. In Genesis, there is a curious section concerning creation. At the end of the first chapter, Hashem creates male and female. But, if you look at the second chapter, verse eighteen, Adam is alone again, and Eve is not created until verse twenty-two.”
“So who is that first woman?”
“Lilith. The Mystics called her the First Eve. You find her in Midrash, in legends. According to Midrash, Lilith refused Hashem’s injunction to submit to Adam. So she fled, using Hashem’s Ineffable Name: Y–H–W–H. Hashem sent these three angels—Sanvi, Sanasanvi, and Samnaglof—to bring her back, but Lilith refused. In the end they let her go, but only if she agreed to leave whenever their names or images were invoked.”
“Which is why they’re on the amulet. You draw the angels, and Lilith has to obey and go away.”
“Exactly. Anyway, Adam was lonely, and so Eve was created, and here is where things become very murky. According to some Midrash, Adam blamed Eve for the expulsion from Eden, and he reunited with Lilith. Some say he had relations with one of Lilith’s daughters, Piznai, and produced many demon-children called lutins. Others say Lilith was Adam’s consort, but then when Adam reconciled with Eve, Lilith vowed to take revenge by killing human children, primarily infant boys before their bris milah, their circumcision, on the eighth day after birth. The legends say that Hashem punishes Lilith by killing a hundred of her demon-children every day.”
“Sounds like a soap.”
“Yes,” said Dietterich, tugging at his beard. “Demons, demon-children. All nonsense.”
“But it’s in your rabbinic tradition.”
“No, it’s Midrash. They’re stories, not canonical.”
I decided not to press. “So how does this figure in?”
“The amulet is protective. The Hebrew text at the top names the Seventy Great Angels who would protect in a general way. Sanvi, Sanasanvi, and Samnaglof protect the mother and her child. The text below is an incantation designed to ward off Lilith.”
“How widespread was this practice?”
“Of the amulet? It varied. Eastern Europe, Germany. Jewish peasants had a custom called Watch Night, where women would stand guard over the baby the evening before his bris.”
“And the drawing I showed you? It’s protective?”
“No,” he said, his tone almost fierce. He held up my notepad, shook it. “No, you see that’s why I’m telling you: no Jew did this.”
“But I thought you said—“
“It’s wrong,” he said, thrusting the notepad toward me. “They got it wrong. The Magen David? The Hebrew? Usually, the Hebrew stands for angels. But here, the Hebrew stands for demons: Ashmedi, Samael, and Azazel.”
“Why would they be on the same amulet with Lilith?”
“Because whoever made this didn’t want to keep Lilith away,” said Dietterich, his eyes drilling me in place. “He summoned her.”
My phone buzzed as I crossed the Roosevelt Bridge into DC. It was Kay. “Done,” she said.
“Good. And the cut?”
“A big zero.” She sounded tired. “Jason, that little boy . . . he just . . . died.”
Rollins met me as I came off the elevator. “You’re late. Gold’s here. I put her in Room Three.”
“Okay.” I walked to my desk and retrieved a tape recorder from the bottom drawer.
Rollins watched. “I ran the drawings. Nothing matches.”
I checked the batteries then tore the cellophane off two fresh ninety-minute cassettes. “Nothing’s going to.”
“You think Gold . . . ?”
I popped in a cassette. “I don’t know.”
“On the basis of?”
“Nothing. That’s the problem.”
“Yeah.” Rollins eyed the recorder. “Should we advise her of her rights?”