Enchantress: A Novel of Rav Hisda's Daughter (50 page)

“Bibi intends to abandon our esoteric studies. He says it’s too risky. I can’t bear to see him limping around, knowing I am responsible for his injuries.”

Chama’s eyes were so filled with pain that I put my arms around him to comfort him. I knew exactly how he felt, for guilt over my daughter’s death was what impelled me to continue my
charasha
training. “You must come to Machoza with us,” I declared. “We will both persuade Rava to make you his disciple.”

“Thank you, Mother.” He stood up to leave.

I patted the seat next to me and smiled. “Before you go, tell me what the
mazikim
looked like.”

He treated me to an enthusiastic description of the chicken-size demons who bore a distinct similarity to Ashmedai, including the leathery wings.

 • • • 

Despite my mixed feelings, once Sukkot was over I decided to summon Ashmedai to learn more about Solomon’s ring. While I looked forward to the pleasure I’d have with Rava afterward, I distrusted the demon king and feared him. So again I chose an auspicious day and hour in the middle of the night, and again I had Rava wait outside the door. But this time, when the smoke cleared, what I saw sent me staggering to the nearest wall for support.

Ashmedai had taken Rami’s form, not as when we were young, but as he might have looked if he were still alive—a man in his late forties. Nebazak had warned me, but the shock still had me reeling. I should have commanded the demon to change shape immediately, but I couldn’t do it. I just stood there, staring at him until I felt the first tingling of arousal.

“Do you prefer this form?” He sounded apologetic. “I’m afraid that most people find my normal appearance frightening.”

Heart pounding, I needed every bit of my
charasha
training to calm myself. “The form you take is irrelevant to me. What I want from you is the truth about how this works.” I held up King Solomon’s ring.

“I will try,” he said with a grin.

I immediately looked away, but it was too late. Ashmedai had perfectly duplicated Rami’s wonderful smile. The heat flared between my thighs in response, along with my anger. I jammed the ring on my finger. “You will obey.”

“Take it off! Take it off,” he whimpered. “I will do as you say. I will tell you everything.”

“Why should I remove it if it makes you do as you’re told?”

“It hurts, like I’m wearing a collar that’s too tight.”

He choked and tears filled his eyes. I couldn’t stand it. It was as though I were torturing Rami.

I took the ring off. “Before I summon you again I need to consider whether I can believe your answers when I’m not wearing this.” I also needed to prepare myself for seeing him as Rami. “Ashmedai, I release you; go on your way.”

As before, I turned to Rava to bring me relief from the demon’s torment. But my pleasure was conflicted; when I closed my eyes I saw Rami before me.

 • • • 

It took me six months to find the courage to summon Ashmedai again. By then Rava had reluctantly given in to my pleas to teach Chama the secret Torah. I couldn’t bring myself to tell Rava that Ashmedai had taken on Rami’s appearance. Because he knew how antagonistic the demon was to Torah scholars, Rava allowed me to be the one to control him. But if my husband ever saw Ashmedai as a rival . . . I didn’t even want to think about it. Still, why else would Ashmedai assume Rami’s form if not to manipulate me?

So I summoned him the way I’d been taught, and when he appeared as Rami, I put on the ring. “When you prove I can trust you, I’ll take it off.”

His eyes narrowed, and for a moment I saw the demon within.

“Then I will wait and have my revenge later.”

“Then I will wear it always,” I retorted.

He seemed to realize he had gone too far, for he smiled and his voice sweetened. “Surely we can compromise.”

So far my body had not responded to his presence, despite my looking directly at him. Perhaps that was one of the ring’s powers. It gave me an idea.

“While I wear the ring, you will explain its uses and answer my questions truthfully and without evasion,” I proposed. “You are to keep all our conversations private. Discuss them with no one.”

Under Ashmedai’s tutelage, I learned that while I wore the ring, he was under my absolute control. He must come immediately when I summoned him, which I could safely do anywhere, not just outside a magic circle. He must follow my orders, tell me only the complete truth, and neither evade my questions nor refuse to answer them. But that was only while I wore the ring.

As for the ring’s other properties, I had already discovered the ability to talk to animals. Ashmedai advised that birds were the most useful creatures because they could fly great distances and report what they saw. The ring would make me even more sensitive to magic.

Contrary to rumors, the ring would not enable me to fly or become invisible, although no one else could perceive that I was wearing it. Nor would it make me impervious to poison, injury, or pain. However, if a treasure were hidden nearby, I would know it. He acknowledged he could not tell that a woman was wearing the ring, unless she summoned him; however, he knew instantly if a man put it on. He also admitted that his power over women was unaffected by the ring. He had stopped trying to arouse me once he saw that he was merely benefiting my husband.

 • • • 

I gladly continued my studies with Nebazak, who was now my friend as well as my teacher. Except in being a formidable
charasheta
, she was everything Yalta was not—kind, generous with her knowledge, and humble. Ambivalent about seeing Ashmedai in Rami’s guise, I told her about his appearing as my first husband. Her face blanched and she begged me not to summon him again, declaring that this was the path to pain and ruin.

But having learned the secrets of King Solomon’s ring, I was determined to wield its power—even if it meant consorting with the king of demons. Surely this was how I would become the powerful
charasheta
Pabak had predicted, maybe greater than Yalta, or even Mother. I didn’t mind that Yalta had not called a meeting of her sorcery council since the one I attended after first summoning Ashmedai, for it gave me more hours to enjoy the presence of grandchildren in my home. Chama’s children were approximately the same ages as mine and watching them play together gave me unimaginable delight.

Joseph’s
yetzer hara
made it increasingly frustrating for him to live in the same house as Tamar. Since Em was getting on in years, and once she died, Abaye might soon follow, there was no reason to delay the wedding. Rava and I stipulated that the celebration take place at our home in Machoza, even if Joseph and Tamar returned to her parents in Pumbedita the following week.

What a celebration it was. My sister, Achti, now widowed, did not attend, but my three remaining brothers, Pinchas, Mari, and Tachlifa, were there with their wives. Despite his blindness and frailty, Rav Yosef had come from Pumbedita to rejoice at the match between the children of his two most prominent students. Rava and Abaye were known to be the leading scholars of their generation, so rabbis and students came from the West as well as from Bavel.

Unfortunately that included Rav Zeira, whose thinning gray hair and bowed back made me sigh with pity. I listened sadly as he bemoaned the ongoing famine and pestilence in Galilee, as well as the growing number of Notzrim pilgrims swarming the land to make shrines of places where their false messiah did his so-called miracles. Adding to Zeira’s misery was the Caesarea Torah school closing after Rabbi Avahu’s death and the difficulty of attracting students to the remaining school in Tiberias. After enduring only enough of his complaints to be polite, I excused myself and directed our slaves to seat him and Rava as far apart as possible.

Once the meal started, I waited until everyone was busy eating, then whispered to Rava, “How did Joseph take your instructions to ensure sons this morning?”

“Better than I expected,” he replied. “But then we both drank a good deal of wine.”

 • • • 

When it came time for Joseph to demonstrate his learning, I was filled with trepidation at his noticeable anxiety. He had to teach Torah, not only in front of his father, but before nearly the entire rabbinic community. I wanted to soothe my son’s quaking limbs as he stood before the illustrious audience, but instead I smiled confidently.

My apprehension grew when Joseph chose to teach about the relationship between fathers and sons, for until Joseph moved to Pumbedita, he and Rava had been like two roosters in the same courtyard.

“The sages ask why it was necessary to write both ‘Honor your father and your mother’ in Shemot and ‘Revere your mother and your father’ in Vayikra,” he began, his voice trembling. “Rebbi taught that Our Creator knows a son honors his mother more than his father because she speaks to him with sweet words, thus He put honoring father before honoring mother.”

Joseph caught my eye, and I nodded back my approval.

“And Our Creator knows that a son is more reverent to his father than to his mother because his father teaches him Torah. Thus He put revering mother before revering father.” Joseph spoke a bit louder. “But what is the difference between honor for parents and reverence?”

A Baraita asked that exact question, and I was proud when my son quoted it. “Reverence means not standing or sitting in his father’s place, not contradicting his father’s words, and not giving an opinion when his father is debating the law,” Joseph explained. “Honor means to provide the father food and drink when he’s aged, to dress and cover him, and to bring him in and take him out.”

Rava stood there watching, his arms crossed over his chest, his dark eyes expressionless.

My brother Pinchas waved to get Joseph’s attention. “Rav Hisda taught that a father may renounce the honor due him, but a teacher may not, because that is honor due the Torah.”

Rav Yosef stood up and waited for silence. “A teacher may certainly renounce his honor,” he declared. “Just as the Holy One renounced His honor and led the Israelites in the desert.”

Rava was Rav Nachman’s disciple now, not Rav Yosef’s. Still, many eyebrows, including my son’s, rose when Rava challenged his old teacher. “The Holy One, since the world is His and Torah is His, can indeed renounce His honor. But a teacher—is Torah his that he may renounce its honor?”

Joseph took a deep breath and locked eyes with Rava: “That is exactly what is written in Psalms.”

It was suddenly so quiet I could hear pots rattling in the kitchen. Joseph had just publicly violated the command to revere his father. Rava’s jaw clenched, almost imperceptibly, as he fought to control his outrage.

Then he regained his composure. “My son is correct. It is the teacher’s Torah, as written in the First Psalm, ‘his Torah he studies day and night.’ So a teacher, or a father, may indeed renounce the honor due him.”

It was so smoothly done that their audience probably thought the contest had been arranged in advance. Joseph added some examples of the lengths various sages went to in honoring their parents, concluding with how one rabbi went so far as to provoke his son to anger in order to teach the youth to restrain his temper.

Then with obvious relief, he returned to his seat and turned his attention to a beaming Tamar. There in her wedding finery, I saw how she was an amalgam of her parents—pudgy like Abaye, yet with something of Homa’s sensuality. The latter trait had certainly captivated my son.

I was also delighted at how well our son had acquitted himself, but I had mixed feelings about Rava’s reaction. True, I was pleased with the way Rava retracted his error, considering it was Joseph who had pointed it out. Yet I was dismayed when he didn’t give Joseph so much as a compliment, never mind the hearty hug our son deserved. To my surprise, Rava continued to demonstrate that he’d renounced his honor by refilling the men’s wine cups personally instead of letting our slaves do it.

Still, later that night he admitted he felt insulted when Pinchas and Mari did not rise for him when he served them, although his students Pappa and Huna did. “Your brothers are scholars,” he complained. “Are my students not scholars too?”

I soothed him by agreeing that although he had renounced his honor, they still should have stood for him. But I knew his true complaint was that Joseph had proved him wrong in front of everyone.

THIRTY-ONE

TENTH YEAR OF KING SHAPUR II’S REIGN
• 319 CE •

R
ava’s instructions to our son must have been efficacious, because ten months later we were back in Pumbedita for the brit milah of Joseph and Tamar’s son, Mar. Zeira was there as well, having taken up residence in the city. It was no secret than Rav Yosef was on his deathbed, and even less so that Zeira wanted to succeed him.

Abaye seemed undaunted by Zeira’s ambitions, but Rava was infuriated at how this interloper from the West, who had fasted one hundred fasts to forget what he’d learned in Bavel, deemed himself worthy to head Pumbedita’s
beit din
and Torah school. Rava’s anger flared higher when Rabbah bar Masnah arrived in town, ostensibly to celebrate Pesach with cousins, but evidently with the same objective as Zeira.