Meanwhile, the Rabbi was dancing around the room. No one but my grandfather could see or hear him. The joy of the disincarnated man to be once again among Jews was so great that, for the first time, he took control of Alejandro’s body and recited (in hoarse Hebrew) a psalm of thankfulness to the Lord:
Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Everyone panicked. The boy was possessed by a dybbuk! That devil would have to be flushed from his gut! The Rabbi saw his error and leapt out of my grandfather’s body. And no matter how hard Alejandro protested, trying to explain that his friend promised never again to enter his body, they went ahead with the exorcism. They rubbed him down with seven different herbs; they made him swallow an infusion of cow manure; they bathed him in the Dnieper, whose waters were many degrees below zero; and then, to warm him up, they gave him a steam bath and thrashed him with nettles.
Even though they considered him cured, they still felt a superstitious mistrust for a while. But as my grandfather grew they got used to his invisible companion. They began to consult him: first about Talmudic interpretations, then about animal illnesses, and then, seeing the positive results in the first two instances, they moved on to human maladies. Finally, they made him a judge in all their disputes. The entire village praised the Rabbi’s intelligence and knowledge, but they had no regard whatsoever for Alejandro. Timid by nature and essentially humble, he had no idea how to capitalize on his position as an intermediary. People invited the Rabbi, not him. Whenever he came into the synagogue, they’d ask for the Rabbi, because from time to time the man from the Caucasus would disappear to visit other dimensions, where he’d converse with the holy spirits.
If the Rabbi accompanied him, they’d seat him in the first row. If not, no one bothered to speak to him or offer him a chair. The man from the Caucasus had said that what he liked most was to see children. So whenever people came to consult him in Alejandro’s modest room next to the stable, they brought along their offspring, bathed, combed, and dressed for the Sabbath. This exhibition was all the pay he got. No one bothered to bring an apple pie, a pot of stuffed fish, a bit of chopped liver. Nothing. Only the Rabbi existed; my grandfather was the real invisible man. From the cradle he was never accustomed to being indulged, so this made him neither sad nor happy. He milked the cows, prayed, and at night, before sleep overcame him, he had long conversations with his friend from the Interworld.
One day, at the first light of dawn, Teresa approached him. She was small but with robust legs, imposing breasts, and an iron will. She fixed her dark eyes, two coals swimming feverishly in sunken sockets, on him and said:
“I’ve been observing you for a while. I’m of age to have children. I want you to be the father. I’m an orphan like you but not as poor. You’ll come to live in the house my aunts left to me. We’re going to organize these consultations so that we can feed the children. You will be paid. The Rabbi needs nothing because he doesn’t exist. He’s the product of your madness. Yes, you’re crazy! But it doesn’t matter: what you’ve invented is beautiful. What you think he’s worth, that’s what you’re worth. That knowledge only comes from you. Learn to respect yourself so others will respect you. Never again will they speak directly with the phantom. They will tell their problem to you and will have to come back later to hear the answer. They will no longer see you entranced, talking to an invisible being. I’ll set the prices, and we will not accept dinner invitations where they try to take advantage of you. The Rabbi will stay home. He will never go out on the street with you, and if he doesn’t like that, he can leave — if he can. But as soon as he leaves you, he’ll dissolve into nothingness.”
And without awaiting an answer from Alejandro, she kissed him full on the mouth, stretched out with him under the udders of the cows, and took permanent possession of his sex. He, after gushing forth his soul in his seed, squeezed the udders and bathed the two of them in a shower of hot milk. When they married, she was pregnant with José. The community accepted the new rules, so never again did the family table lack for chicken soup or fried potatoes or a fresh cauliflower or a plate of porridge. Ten months after José’s birth, they had twin boys. The year after that, twin girls.
In the corset shop, in the presence of her neighbor ladies, Teresa would brag about living with a holy husband who never stopped praying, even during his five hours of sleep. Moreover, he would always eat, no matter what the dish happened to be, with the same rhythm so he could chew without ceasing to recite the psalms. And when he wasn’t praying, he only knew how to say two words: “Thank you.”
Everything was going so well and then, catastrophe! José dead! An extraordinary son, good among the good, obedient, well mannered, clean, with an angelic voice for singing in Yiddish, of resplendent beauty. Yes, his natural joyfulness brightened sorrows; he was a dash of salt in the tasteless soup of life, a shower of color for the gray world. Whenever he strolled past the trees at night, the sleeping birds would awaken and start to sing as if it were daybreak. He was born smiling, he blessed anyone who crossed his path, he never complained or criticized, he was the best student at the yeshiva. Why did a ray of sunshine have to die?
Teresa clung violently to her grief. Forgetting it, she thought, would be a betrayal. She refused to accept that he was gone, and she held him there swallowing muddy water, blue from asphyxiation, an incessant victim, a lamb in eternal agony. This she did to justify her hatred not only of God and her community but also of the river, the plants, the animals, the dirt, Russia, all of humanity. She forbade my grandfather from solving the problems of others and demanded — otherwise she would kill herself — that he never again mention the Rabbi.
They sold the little they had and went to live in Odessa. There they were taken in by Fiera Seca, Teresa’s sister, who was two years younger. Their father, my great-grandfather, had been married and widowed three times. His three previous wives had died giving birth the first time, and the children in turn had never lasted more than three days in the cradle. According to the old gossips, Death was in love with him and out of jealousy snatched away the wives and their fruit.
Abraham Groismann was a strong, tall man with a curly red beard and big green eyes. He made a living through apiculture. And while all that business about Death’s love for him was just an old wives’ tale,the love of his bees, on the other hand, was a clear fact. Whenever he harvested the honey from the hundred or so little multicolored hives, the bees would cover him from head to foot, without ever stinging. Then they would follow him like a docile cloud to the shed where he bottled the delicious honey. Many nights, especially during the glacial winters, they would gather on his bed to form a dark, warm, and vibrant blanket.
Teresa’s mother, Raquel, was thirteen when she gave birth in the cemetery. The old crones put her in a grave and wrapped her in seven sheets so Death wouldn’t see. There, in the cool earth, surrounded by dark bones, my grandmother bore her first child, whose mouth was filled quickly with a fragrant nipple to maintain the silence that was essentiaclass="underline" Death had a thousand ears! Abraham, convinced that once again he was going to lose mother and child, prepared his heart for the tragedy by repressing any feelings. Their survival wouldn’t generate either heat or cold. He just went on submerged in his sea of bees, speaking with them in an inaccessible universe. But when Raquel, now fifteen, became pregnant once again, hope blazed in his soul.