“Are you from Paris?” I asked Rabbi Zeller.
“Not originally, no, from Lyon,” he said. “But I’ve been here working with Rabbi Richter for ten years now.”
“And you came to Paris with your wife?” I leaned toward him. “Or do you not yet have a wife?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw my grandmother frown. Why? I was simply making small talk and being friendly.
“I do have a wife, but I met her here. We’ve only recently been married.” The rabbi smiled.
“How do you find Paris as a newlywed? Isn’t it a bit too tempting?”
Cousin Jacob interrupted. “Excuse me.” He cleared his throat. “I think now would be an appropriate moment to show you both something.” He nodded to my grandmother and myself. “Don’t you think, Rabbi Zeller?”
“I do,” the younger man said.
Jacob stood and gestured to the parlor door. “This way.”
We followed him out of the room and down a hallway filled with bookshelves. The musty smell nauseated me. At the end we went through a door and down a flight of whitewashed stone steps. At the bottom, cold air accosted us as we entered what appeared to be a storage cellar crowded with stacked crates and trunks. On the other side of the room was yet one more door. This one oddly ornate for being underground in a storeroom.
“Here we are,” Cousin Jacob said as he opened it.
I stepped into a beautiful, pale aqua and turquoise tiled chamber lit by what seemed to be hundreds of candelabras. The ceiling and floor were covered by mosaics in a rainbow of underwater hues. In the center, a square pool of water glinted in the low lights. The air was warmer, damp, and perfumed with incense.
A mosaic mural decorated the walls. Depicting an oasis in the desert, it featured swaying palm and date trees.
Framing the top edge were Hebraic letters.
Not having been taught the language, I didn’t attempt to read them. But impossibly, I knew what they said.
Blessed are You, God, Majestic Spirit of the Universe,
Who makes us holy by embracing us in living waters.
“Where exactly are we?” I asked.
“In the basement of our temple,” Cousin Jacob explained as he lit more of the candelabras. “This is the sacred mikvah, a holy and ancient part of our faith where we purify and cleanse ourselves. When a person immerses herself fully in this sacred water, she is on the path to rectifying blemishes to the soul.”
I walked around the pool. I noticed a small hole about the size of a lemon on one wall, and on the opposite was what looked like a removable cover. The candlelight reflected off the surface, sparkling like diamonds. It all seemed familiar except I didn’t have any memory of seeing anything like this before.
Had my father shown me a similar room in an ancient temple we’d visited on our travels? In Venice when we’d gone to see the Jewish Quarter?
“Sandrine,” Cousin Jacob said, interrupting my reverie, “we—your grandmother, Rabbi Zeller and I—want to help you.”
Something was amiss. I should have fled before when it was possible. There was danger down here for me.
I backed up, away from the pool. I turned, looking for the door. But all the walls were tiled. I couldn’t make out the exit. It had to be there. We’d come in through a door. But now it was hidden.
“Your grandmother believes, as do I,” Cousin Jacob continued, “that you could benefit greatly from a purification.”
I wrapped my arms around my chest and shook my head. I felt as if they were coming for me, as if I were about to be attacked. “No,” I said. “I’m not religious. It won’t work on me.”
“God knows you are a Jew and a member of the tribe of Israel.”
“But what do I need to be purified of? I don’t understand.” I looked from Cousin Jacob to my grandmother, who was standing beside him. She was hard as nails, a businesswoman, in charge, and yet for the last two days, when she had regarded me, it was with fear and trepidation, as if I were a rabid dog that had trapped her in a small room. I saw that fear there now, even more strongly.
“When your father talked to you about the Kabala, did he tell you about spirits that enter into a susceptible person’s soul, their very being, and take over?” Cousin Jacob asked.
“Dybbukim. Yes. What of them? They’re just ancient folklore . . . metaphors for immorality.”
“We take the holy and mystical books more seriously than that, Sandrine. We believe in these malicious sprits. They are the dislocated souls of the dead, and they can prey on a susceptible person, eventually possessing them and causing them to act on the dead person’s behalf. When we met at the funeral, I sensed that such a creature may be preying on you.”
“You think that I . . .” I was so stunned I didn’t even know the words to use. I turned to my grandmother. “And you believe this nonsense?”
I needn’t have asked; I could see it so clearly in her eyes.
“Yes, I believe you might be possessed by a demon—” she said.
I burst out laughing. “This is preposterous.”
Without my noticing, while I’d been questioning my grandmother, the two men had closed in on me. The young handsome rabbi and my cousin had moved so close I could smell their stale body odor and garlicky breath.
“You planned this?” I shouted at my grandmother. “There never was an invitation to dinner. That was a ruse to get me here so you could”—I waved my arms—“enact some ridiculous ritual and cleanse me? Because I’m painting? Because I’m becoming an artist?”
“You aren’t yourself, Sandrine,” my grandmother said.
“You haven’t seen me in years. How do you know who I am?”
“You’re brazen and brash and rude and willful.”
“That’s who I am now. My brute of a husband cheated my father out of his pride and his fortune. My father killed himself. I’ve changed, of course, but . . .”
“No. One woman arrived in Paris. She was sad and mournful but very much my Sandrine, my granddaughter. But in these weeks you’ve changed in ways that cannot be explained in any other way than possession. You are Sandrine with another inside of you. It’s happened before in our family. There are legends. For generations, certain daughters . . . the susceptible ones who are yearning for love . . . who are capable of love, have been thus afflicted. There’s the painting, too. It’s a sure sign. That’s what she lived for. To love and to paint. That’s what she’s been waiting for, to find the right host to allow her to do just that, to—”
“This is utter nonsense,” I interrupted. “I am myself and no one else, and you are delusional.” I smiled at her sadly. “This is so far-fetched. I’m sorry I shocked you with my new outfit, but that’s all it is. Let’s go home, Grand-mère.”
Tears filled her eyes, and I saw her soften. But only for a moment. “No, Sandrine. I know the signs. The painting—”
“I’ve always loved art.”
“La Lune was a painter. A great courtesan. An artist. But she was also a—”
I cut her off again. Whatever she was going to say, I didn’t want to hear it. Not here. Not uttered as a curse. “This is absurd.”
Cousin Jacob sounded impatient. “If it is absurd, then you cannot object to granting your grandmother her wish.”
“If it’s absurd, then I don’t have to grant her anything.”
But neither Cousin Jacob nor Rabbi Zeller heeded me as they closed their eyes and began their ritual.
“Baruch ata adonai eloheinu melech ha-olam asher kid-shanu bi-tevilah b’mayyim hayyim . . .” both men intoned.
I ran from them and my grandmother and over to where, from slight deviations in the mosaics, I was sure the door was. And yes, there was a small recess, and in it was a silver knob.
I turned it, but it was locked.