Fifth Gospel(54)

‘Perhaps these dreams are caused by a chill of the head?’ he suggested. ‘If we cure the chill, the dreams might stop and the demons, not having a place in them, might leave!’ But he did not consult the women, for he was lost in the clever paths of his thoughts. ‘The remedy is to pour a quart of goat milk – mind that it is a white goat – to pour a quart of goat milk over three cabbage stalks in a pot, and to boil this together, stirring with a piece of Marmehon wood. It should be drunk during the full moon. And just to make certain you must wear an amulet of plants and herbs containing a verse from the Pentateuch.’ He looked up. ‘This has been tried?’

Mary nodded, losing all hope in her heart.

‘To no avail?’ he looked to Martha.

Martha affirmed it, from her safe position.

He put away his parchments and was taken with the devil of a thought. He shook his head like a dog with canker and scratched his nose at the place where sat numerous little devils and then, of a sudden, made a pause. He looked this way and that, full of concentration. ‘Do you know…I think I can smell them…’ he said. ‘Yes...’ He was cautious. ‘Indeed...I smell demons!’ he exclaimed. ‘They are here,’ he shrieked, ‘among us!’ he shouted. ‘What will we do?’

The black creatures disappeared into his nose and into his ears, and a sudden thought occurred to him. He dug into a great woven bag to retrieve from it some herbs and a large bone. He brandished these items like weapons that are to be used with extreme caution. ‘These,’ he said, significantly, ‘will exorcise the demons!’

‘Cress and a bone?’ Martha was sceptical, and sat forward to look at them.

‘Yes, woman! Cress and a bone! Ancient are the ways of the learned ones!’ he said, with mystical authority. ‘Besides, we have no other recourse!’

He stood and made a gesture in the air, an ancient, dust-laden sign, and cried out with such boldness and unexpected vehemence that it startled Mary and caused Martha to make a little shriek in her corner of the garden.

‘Burst! Curst! Dashed! Banned! Bar-Tit, Bar-Tema, Bar-Tena, Chashmagoz, Merigoz, and Isteham, Ruach Raaah, Ruach Tumeah, Seirim, Shedim, Sheyda, Mazzikin, Geber Shediyin!’’

He struck Mary on the head with the herbs then and shouted, ‘I cast you out and I enchant you into this cress!’ He flung it to the ground. ‘And I beat you, with the jawbone of an ass!’

When it seemed he had punished the herb sufficiently, he surveyed his work and found that it was good. He straightened, coughing, wheezing, and coughing again, he said to Martha, ‘Bury it in the garden, dear woman, far from the house and spread the ashes of a dead bird over it. That should do the trick!’

Satisfied, he popped some nuts into his mouth.

Mary had her eyes closed and when she opened them again she saw that for all his magic the rabbi had not cured her, for she could still see demons all about him, slipping in and out, crawling over his face and tickling his chin. She closed her eyes again until she smelt the old rabbi’s sour, rank breath on her face.

‘Open your eyes, child,’ he said gently, paternally.

When she did, she saw that he was peering at her so close that his nose near touched hers.

‘Look, child…’ he said, with his own look of pleased complacency. ‘What do you see? Well? Are they still there, the demons and the visions?’

She hesitated. ‘I…’

‘Come…come child, you can tell me!’

‘Yes…rabbi.’

‘Yes…yes…what?’

‘Yes, I still see them…my visions are not flown away.’

Frowning, he straightened and grew thoughtful. ‘Describe them to me, my child!’

‘They are foolish, hideous, bashful things!’ Tears fell from her eyes. ‘Horrible to behold!

‘Oh!’ he said, ‘Where do you see them?’

‘All around you…rabbi,’ she said finally, ‘inside your mouth and in your ears, on your back and crawling through your hair and beard! They come out when you speak and enter when you cough!’

‘By the beard of Abraham!’ he gasped, and stepped back so abruptly that it caused a mishap to his back. Holding it he shouted, ‘What do you mean, insolent child? Around me? Inside me? When I cough or speak!

‘The banishment you made was not successful on them, rabbi!’ Mary said.

Panicked, he stepped on the hems of his robes and they became entangled with his legs and he dropped his parchments to the ground. ‘I was not banishing them from me, evil, evil, girl!’ he cried, and hastily taking up his documents, headed for the gate. ‘I was banishing them from you!’ He paused at the gate and pulled his features into a distorted terrain of wrinkles. ‘To help this girl, would take a miracle. She is Hêrem. She is cursed!’ he shouted before leaving.