Free The Little Russian by Susan Sherman Page A

only continued. Soon he was laughing at funerals and once he molested the serving girl, a shikse no less, and was even suspected of stealing money from the owner of a ribbon factory. Naturally the rabbi was at his wit’s end. He was just about to give up and send the boy to an asylum, when it came to him.”
    “What?”
    Here he paused for effect. “That his son was possessed by a succubus.”
    Silence.
    Mameh held the needle in midair. Lhaye stared at Hershel, her lips slightly parted. Berta burst out laughing.
    Tateh straightened. “Berta . . .”
    “You don’t believe in this nonsense.”
    “Reb Alshonsky is our guest.”
    “But he doesn’t believe in it either. He’s just having fun with us. It’s ludicrous, and he knows it.”
    “No, she’s right. I didn’t believe it at first. I thought the boy was bad or crazy or had eaten something that made him sick or some other perfectly rational explanation. But then I was there in Dunivits on the night they performed the exorcism and I saw it all with my own eyes.”
    “Oh, please . . . there’s no such thing as a succubus. It’s a fairy story to scare children.”
    Mameh turned on her daughter. “Listen to you . . . such a maivin . You would be wise not to laugh at such things, my girl. You do not know everything.” Then she turned to Hershel: “Please excuse my daughter. She speaks out of turn. It’s one of her many faults.” These were the first words she had spoken to him all evening. When Hershel’s eyes flicked over to Berta with an unmistakable look of triumph, she realized what he had been up to and sucked in a smile.

    THAT NIGHT she lay next to Lhaye, listening to Hershel tossing and turning across the hall, the straw mattress rustling under his body. She pictured him, bare chested, rolling to one side then the other, pulling up the covers and throwing them off again.
    Finally she fell asleep and woke up sometime in the middle of the night to the sound of an animal whimpering in pain. At first she couldn’t place it. She thought it might’ve been the little whistle Lhaye made when she slept, but then she heard it again. It was Hershel groaning in his sleep. When the groaning grew louder and threatened to wake the household, she rose and put a shawl on over her nightdress, her hair hanging in a thick braid down her back, and went out into the freezing hall. She shivered in her bare feet, her breath visible in the frosty air. When she pulled back the curtain she found him asleep on his side. She reached out and shook his shoulder. “Wake up . . . Hershel, wake up.”
    He opened his eyes and grabbed her arm. For an instant, he didn’t recognize her.
    “Sorry,” he said.
    “You had a dream.”
    “I know. I’m fine.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes. Go back to sleep.”
    She went back to bed and wanted to think about what she had just seen, but soon she too was drifting off. She was still aware of the bed and Lhaye sleeping next to her but also of a swirl of shapes behind her closed eyes. The shapes soon merged and became recognizable objects: a chair, the kitchen stove, a country road.
     
    HERSHEL CAME back a few weeks later and told them a story about a miracle rabbi who had saved a town from a pogrom by casting a spell on the pogromists. That night Mameh served chicken and it wasn’t even Shabbes. The lace runner was proudly displayed on the table. Mameh listened to the story with slightly parted lips, her eyes fixed on her guest, her pupils dilated in the dim light, listening to every detail
while her chicken got cold. Mameh was a great believer in miracle rabbis.
    After dinner she invited Hershel to sit with her on the settee. “Here. On this side,” she said, plumping up the one pillow. Tateh was no longer wearing his good coat. He sat in his armchair and quietly nodded off. The girls were in the kitchen.
    “Shall I tell you about the pauper who died in Esther Churgin’s shed?” he asked. He sat back on the pillow, propped his elbow