"Salt and Metal: Jewish Demon Tales" available for purchase on Amazon.
The Malach HaMavet used to frequent Rav Bibi bar Abaye. He said to his messenger, “Bring me Miriam the hairdresser.”
He went and brought him Miriam, a children’s nurse.
“I told you Miriam the hairdresser!”
He answered, “Then I will return her.”
He said, “Since you have brought her, let her be added. But how were you able to take her [before her time]?”
“She was holding a shovel in her hand and was heating and raking an oven. She put it on her foot and burnt herself, damaging her mazel, so I brought her.”
Rav Bibi bar Abaye asked him: “Do you have permission to do that?”
He answered: “Is it not written: ‘There are those taken away without justice’?”
He countered: “But it says, ‘One generation passes away, and another generation comes!’ (Koheles 1:4)”
So, he explained: “I have charge of them until they have completed the generation, and then I hand them over to Dumah!”
He asked, “In the end, what will you do with her [missing] years?”
He said: “If there is a Rabbinic scholar who overlooks things,
I will give them to him in her place.” (Chagigah 4b)
*
I was not meant to be the wife of man. In the little shtetl of Bethel, in the frosty rime of Karelia, I was born to a shoemaker and weaver, the only daughter of their long, treasured marriage. Miriam Dumah, my birthright of mud.
They said our family was named after the silence of my father’s footsteps and his handicraft shoes (as soft as a whisper). But truly, did that not mark me for Malakh HaMavet from the beginning?
My mother, Bluma, and father, Iosif, had prayed at the synagogue day and night for twelve years for a child. I was nothing short of a miracle in Bluma’s 32nd year.
G-d reached deep into Bluma’s womb, plucked me out like a swimming fish. My hair was full when I was born, like an ink stain, darker than Bluma’s blonde locks and Iosif’s red beard. They named me Miriam after the prophetess sister of Moshe.
I opened wide blue eyes, the color of cornflower in the weeds, and I saw him. I know babies do not have much form or memories, but I remember it all like a Sabbath prayer:
Malakh HaMavet, standing over Bluma’s breast as I nursed. Malakh HaMavet took his gray, ridged finger, and uttered a “shush” at me that shut me up for good.
I did not speak much, growing up. Weaving took up most of my days. Fetching water at the well like Rachel. Making Sabbath challah, trying to not eat gefiltefish on Passover.
Playing with the girlchildren, especially Lilah - the seamstress’s final daughter - was my only escape. I was also taught to read.
Lilah envied the dolls papa Iosif bought for me, made of fine china bones and cloth, and hers made only of straw. Karelia was old, and cold, in those days, and what little we had, the shoemaker could afford for his quiet, gloomy daughter.
The Russian goyim paid much for Iosif’s shoes. Patent leather. Said to be silent. “Dumah.” Good for walking the streets at night. And always, when I fell asleep in my attic room, atop the straw bale mattress, there waited Malakh HaMavet standing at the foot of my bed, his yellow eyes and gall-laden sword balanced like an acrobat.
(I liked to go to the circus, it was true. Sometimes, I thought my punishing angel was a dancer).
As it is said: The Angel of Death Slays, And Remains Justified.
“Shush,” Dumah said. That was his name, I learned at twelve, studying like usual. Of course, I didn’t dare tell anyone, least of all the rabbi, what I saw. But we learned psalms with our initials. For, when we Jews die, it is said Malakh HaMavet will ask us all our name. To prevent the great shaking of souls that happens before one enters Hazarmavet, Court of the Dead, and to make for a more peaceful transition, one must answer their name.
It is to save a soul, I suppose. But where we all went – well, the rabbis do not agree. Gehenna? Gan Eden? Reincarnation? Sheol? All I knew was, “Shush.”
*
“Mama, what is Hazarmavet?” I asked over weaving one day. We were making a tapestry of Milham, the Hol Bird, in the Immortal City of Luz.
Bluma sighed. “Tis where the dead dine, in a glade, by a river, sharing wine and meat in perfect silence. My, Miriam, why are you always so morbid? You are fifteen. Should not your mind be turned to pretty dresses?”
I looked over Bluma’s shoulder. Malakh HaMavet – Dumah – was knitting blue wool into a scarf. He took his knitting needles, clacked them under his dry lips like sand.
“Shush.”
“Yes, I would like a red dress, I suppose,” I sighed.
My Milham came out angry. What would a phoenix have to be angry about? Drowning in flames, to become a worm in Heliopolis.
I worked on the shamir next. Did the shamir come from the phoenix? Boring into Solomon’s temple with immortal strength. Perhaps this Dumah, my constant silent companion, knew Solomon. Had harvested his soul. Had played craps with Ashmedai as the demon prince fucked his way through Solomon’s harem while King Solomon wandered pantsless in exile.
Men were like that, after all.
Mama bought me the red dress that night at the dressmaker’s shop. It made me bold.
I sat on my bed, attempting to play my fiddle. Malakh HaMavet stood at the end of the bed, his wings folded.
Dumah. Two Dumahs, one Death, one Life-in-Death. My black hair was braided back with a green ribbon like an apple. Malakh HaMavet had his taloned fingers in his ear holes. I could never see much, under his brown and white hood and tunic so dark, it looked like midnight.
I coughed. Dumah narrowed his yellow eyes.
“Shush!”
I lost it, for the first time in my life. The rosined bow screeched against my poor little fiddle. I set it down in anger. Never confront an angel, I had always thought. Dumah always carries his poisoned sword, for fuck’s sake. But I was bold that night. I was almost sixteen. Marriage would come at eighteen.
“Dumah,” I said, smoothing my skirts. I was angry, oh so angry at the matronly, schoolmarm angel who looked like death and decay, and always smelled of roses and rain.
Dumah raised his ridged, scaled eyebrows. His hair was a loose black braid, long to his waist, like sand. It shed sleep in amber dust.
“You talk to me, mortal?” Death’s voice was like a psalm.
I trembled. What? What was this sound? This sudden reckoning of an angel?
Oh, how beautiful. Like an organ. I always thought it would be wretched. It was full of terror, divinity, and was fully sublime.
“As I said. Shush.”
I steeled myself.
“No, Dumah, I will not in fact, ‘shush,’” I grunted. Then, the spirit that had Jael drive a tent spike through her angered enemy’s head overcame me.
I grabbed Dumah’s sword. It was light. The gall dripped. It stained the carpet in acid sizzles. I pointed it at him. “Answer me. Why do you follow me?”
Dumah narrowed his liquid yellow, pupiless, white-less eyes even more, to cat slits. He walked forward, touching the edge of the sword. “Why should I answer, Miriam Dumah, daughter of Bluma?”
“Because I am a godly woman, Dumah.”
He wrenched the sword from me in a single tear, then set it in his hilt. Dumah came close to me, so close, his amber hair’s sand dripped onto me, smelling of roses and ambergris. It melted like snow on my breasts, leaving no stains.
Gently, Dumah’s eyes widened, and he pushed my black hair behind my ear. I trembled, staring at his ghoulish face. “Again, Miriam. I say: Shush.”
“No! You follow me, everywhere. I keep your secrets, Malakh HaMavet. But it is not in G-d’s will for you to follow a young maiden. Always at her side. Tis preternatural.”
I could feel the Gehenna flame that radiated from the pitiless angel. Without speaking, he picked up the fiddle, then played a reel and jig that made me cry. I could not help but dance, dance, spin. Silence fell over the whole world, frozen, as Dumah – my Dumah – played the Dance of the Dead.
Only Death and I were alive. For the first time in my life, his hood fell from his head. He was beautiful. He looked monstrous. There were tears in his eyes.
Dumah set the fiddle down. The pall on the world lifted. I smelled tea in the kitchen.
He bowed. Then, stood straight. “You are a godly woman, Miriam. You are right. It is best I go.”
With that, he vanished.
I felt like my shadow had been torn from me.
That night, for the first time in a long while, I cried.
I never touched the fiddle again.
*
No man would marry me. I got offers. Dozens. But each fell ill like Sarai’s suitors, and it was rumored I was haunted by Ashmedai, each suitor of mine sickening until they withdrew their proposal. Then, the rosy blush returned to his pale cheek.
The rabbi proclaimed: This girl is chosen by G-d. The Dumahs are righteous people.
But the people spoke: tis a demon. She’s haunted.
The Dumahs had a good reputation. Papa and mama’s business got even more popular as they had customers come to gawk at the beautiful, slender girl that looked like Naamah. My limbs lengthened, my skin paled, my eyes lightened in blue to a ghostly shade. It was like I was dying alive.
Life-in-Death. Dumah’s twin.
And always, a pink luscious shade to my lips, like pomegranates. And rosy tints to my cheeks.
I took work as a nurse, far away from my shtetl of Bethel. I was twenty-seven, far past marriageable age. The customers had stopped gawking. At night, I never saw Malakh HaMavet.
But I always felt him next to me, breathing hot fire over my shoulder.
“Shush.”
*
St. Petersburg had drinks I could get lost in. I worked for a minor lord. A count with thirteen children, who was jolly and kind, who did not care where I had come from. He paid for my training to be a governess. The count gave French green chartreuse as a present to me each month, and more coin than I knew what to do with. I had a good life. I wrote to Lilah, wrote to Bluma, sent gifts of fine cologne to Iosif.
I missed Bethel, but not much. The count’s children adored me.
But I knew it would end, one day, when I burned my feet on hot coal. Sweat. Fever. Laid up in bed. My charges weeping.
“Tis only a little wound, my sweetling,” I cheered them, through the sweat of my fever. The count’s eldest, a nineteen-year-old child, professed his undying love to me, marriage.
“I cannot be without you, Miriam.”
“Do not say such a cursed thing, Peter. Shush.”
Peter fell ill. He died. I was cast out. They blamed me. Somehow, in their rage.
I took my bottles of green chartreuse, paid for a tenement hall.
Shush, the walls said.
Shush.
*
When I died, it was not remarkable.
Except, there was, as always, Death. At every undug grave.
At everyone’s passing, Malakh HaMavet. Mine was no exception.
“What is your name?” Dumah asked.
I remembered the psalm verse cypher. Answered correctly.
Dumah smiled. He kissed me. It tasted like sand.
“Once, dearest Miriam, my brother Samael bargained your life for a rabbi's from hundreds of years ago. It was so long before you were born. I tried to care for you best as I could. Samael said he would mind you in the in-between, but like Eve, Ha Satan abandons his projects. That is why I said “shush.” Because, to speak, is to attract his attention. And I wanted you all to myself.”
I looked down at my body as Dumah lifted me into the stars. “Will I miss it, Dumah?”
“Where we are going is beauty, Miriam. You will receive your loved ones and friends in my palace, in time.”
My heart softened. I remembered how Dumah played the fiddle. So sweet. I cried. “And the boys that fell ill?”
“Samael’s doing.”
“And the shushes?”
“Silence is the same as love, Miriam. It is the way hearts speak. Silence, like a kiss, carries the sacred.”
*
Dumah’s body was a puzzle. I put the pieces together. He devoured me with kisses. He was gentle on our wedding night. Michael married us. I was now transformed. An angel of death as well.
My life unfurls like seven pomegranate seeds. Miriam, the nursemaid, who was born into silence.
Now, I can speak. Now, my husband loves me. I got my revenge on Samael. It was easy enough to deceive Ha Satan. He thirsts after forbidden fruit, after all, and Dumah is lord of those groves.
We have children. In Gan Eden. We have pets. I am happy. I braid challah.
The Angel of Death, where he strikes. Is Justified.
Shush, I tell Rachel my baby daughter, singing B’shem HaShem to her to coax her to sleep as Dumah fiddles.
Shush.
Comments