Of Love and Evil (The Songs of the Seraphim 2)

“ ‘Oh, Lord of my salvation, when I cry out in the darkness before you, let my prayers reach you.’ ” I struggled, unable to remember, paraphrasing, “ ‘I am near to the brink of Sheol. Bend your ear to my pain.’ ”

I went on singing, breaking into words when phrases came back to me, humming if no words came. My eyes moved over the shadowy room before me, and I realized that I was not alone.

There standing before the repository, and not very far away from me, was a small elderly man.

We looked at one another, and his face revealed a great astonishment, and it wasn’t difficult to figure why. He was amazed that I could see him, just as I was myself.

I had stopped playing. I merely looked at him, determined to show no fear, and indeed I felt no fear. I felt only a growing excitement and a wonder, and a desperation to know what to do.

“You are no dybbuk,” I whispered under my breath. He didn’t appear to hear the words. He was looking me over in detail. And I did the same now with him, memorizing all that I saw with the old training of an assassin, determined to miss nothing of what was being presented to me here.

He was smallish, a little bent and very ancient, with a bald pate and a rich mane of long white hair falling down to his shoulders. He had a white mustache and a white beard. His black velvet clothes, though once elegant, were now shabby and dusty and torn here and there. Blue tassels were sewn to the ends of his mantle and he wore the hated yellow badge over his heart, which marked him as a Jew. He stood collected, fiercely examining me through a pair of glittering spectacles, with small burning eyes.

Spectacles. I hadn’t known people in this era had such things. But he was definitely wearing spectacles and now and then the flames of my candles glittered in the lenses.

Malchiah, give me the grace to speak to him.

“You realize that I can see you,” I said. “I don’t come as an enemy. I come only to discover why it is that you haunt. What has left you so restless? What has left you unwilling to go on into the light?”

For a second he was silent, motionless and reflective. Then he started towards me.

I thought my heart would stop. He came on steadily until he stood directly in front of me. I held my breath. He was seemingly solid, human, breathing, as he looked at me from beneath his white brows.

It was no consolation to me that I myself was a spirit in this realm, that he was no more of a miracle than I was myself. I was afraid, but determined to conceal it.

He walked past me and out into the passage.

At once I had the candelabrum, and forgetting the lute, I turned and went behind him. He went on towards the staircase and then began a rapid soundless descent.

I followed.

Not once did he look back. Hunched and small he moved rapidly, with the dexterity of a ghost perhaps, until he came to the bolted cellar door. He passed through this, and I hurriedly unbolted it to follow him, discovering him near the bottom of the stairs as I rushed after him, the candles slowly revealing the wreckage of the cellar all around us.

Broken tables and chairs lay everywhere on the flags. Dusty wine casks lined the walls. Bundles of old furniture, tied with rope, were stacked above the casks, with some broken open and spilling their shattered contents down to the floor. Hundreds of moldering books lay in heaps with spines broken and pages crushed.

Lamp stands and candelabra had been overthrown, and baskets scattered. Old garments had been twisted and strewn about.

The small elderly man now stood in the middle of the floor staring at me.

“What is it you want me to know?” I asked. I wanted to make the Sign of the Cross, but this would be an affront to him. “In the name of the Lord in Heaven, what is it that I can do?”

He went into a rage.

He bellowed and roared at me, stamping his foot over and over against the cellar floor, and glaring down at it, and then he began to reach for those small things that already lay strewn about. He grabbed hold of a bottle and smashed it on the stones. He hurled books at the stones. He tore loose parchment pages and attempted vainly to fling them down, furious as they floated and swirled around him. He stamped and pointed, and bellowed as if he were a wild beast.

“Stop this, please, I beg you!” I cried out. “You are no dybbuk. I know this. I hear your cries. Tell me your heart.”

But I couldn’t tell whether or not he heard this over his own cries.

He began to hurl objects at me. Chair legs, bits of crockery, broken bottles—whatever he could snatch up, he threw at me.

It seemed the whole cellar was shaking; bundles of furniture were tumbling down off the kegs as if we were in an earthquake. A bottle of wine struck me hard on the side of my head and I felt the vinegary liquid pour down over my shoulder. I backed up, reeling, dizzy. But I held the lighted candelabrum firmly as if for my life.

I was tempted to condemn him for this and argue with him, to appeal to his gratitude that I had deigned to come here on his account, but I realized immediately that this was boastful and proud and stupid. He was miserable. What were my intentions to him?

I bowed my head and prayed softly. Lord, please do not let me fail as I did with Lodovico. Again, I chose a half-remembered psalm, and as I chanted the ancient words of appeal, he gradually stopped.

He stood still pointing to the floor. Yes, he was pointing.

Suddenly I heard Pico in the doorway at the top of the stairs.

“Master, for the love of Heaven, come out!” he cried.

No, not now, I thought desperately.

The ghost had vanished.

Every portable object in the room seemed suddenly to be flying through the air. The candles were blown out.

In hopeless darkness, I dropped the candelabrum, turned and ran towards the dim light at the top of the steps. I was certain I could feel hands pulling at me, fingers snatching at my hair, breath against my face.

In sheer panic, I kept going until I could grab ahold of Pico, and push him out of the way, and slam the cellar door. I threw the bolt.

I lay back catching my breath.

“Master, there’s blood on your face,” Pico cried.

From behind the door came the most piteous howling and then a thunderous noise as if the large wine casks were being rolled across the cellar floor.

“Never mind the blood,” I said. “Take me to Signore Antonio. I have to speak to him now.”

I headed out of the house.

“At this hour?” Pico protested, but I wouldn’t be deterred.

“He knows who this ghost is, he must know,” I said. I tried to remember what I’d been told. A Hebrew scholar had lived in the house, yes, twenty years ago. This Hebrew scholar had arranged the synagogue on the top floor. Had Signore Antonio never guessed that this man might be the ghost?