Jewish Life Digital Edition January 2014 | Page 15

cara. I shook my head in disbelief. My funky
friend had crossed a line.
A few days later, our washing machine
broke. We couldn’t afford to get a new one.
One more plague, I thought as I schlepped
two duffel bags to the Laundromat.
More ‘plagues’ occurred. My agent
dropped me – gave up on my second novel
and sent me the divorce papers.
My bancha tea friend called a few days
later with “great news”. A publisher had taken up the memoir that she had been working on for years.
“And this is just after I had a consultation
with the ayin-hore lady,” she noted. For
good measure, she added, “Just because you
can’t see the ayin-hore, doesn’t mean it’s
not there.”
I scribbled down the ayin-hore lady’s
number.
When all else fails, why not try something new?
Still, I couldn’t quite bring myself to make
the call. This was just the kind of crazy thing
my grandmother would’ve suggested. “Go
ahead, darling,” she’d say. “Why not?” Why
not? Because it was silly, and I swore to myself a long time ago, I would not lead a silly
life. I would work rationally and hard, not
relying on superstitions. Whether the Talmud said so or not, I associated ayin-hores
with all the irrationalities and craziness that
fuelled my grandparents’ existence: their incessant, childish lovers’ quarrels; their complete investment in talismans and things
that didn’t matter – gold bangles, Hamsa
necklaces – to make the evil eye avert its
gaze, a neurotic attachment to food, including kibbeh, couscous, Moroccan candy cigars, a grilled green pepper salad that took
hours to make.
Finally, after a few more months of bad
news, I was brought to my knees.
I called the woman furtively, when no
one else was home, certain that my husband, a psychoanalyst, would just dismiss
the evil eye as an unconscious projection of
one’s own evil.
A woman with an Israeli accent picked up
the phone: the ayin-hore lady herself. She
sounded in her 40s or 50s. In the background I heard kitchen noises, as though
she was in the middle of cooking supper. It
was 10am in New Jersey, so it had to be
5pm in Jerusalem.

SHE ADMITTED
SHE’D RECENTLY MADE
CONTACT WITH AN EVIL
EYE EXPERT IN
JERUSALEM. ‘SHE HAD
MINE REMOVED,’ MY
FRIEND BLURTED. LIKE
A GALLBLADDER. LIKE
MASCARA. I SHOOK MY
HEAD IN DISBELIEF. MY
FUNKY FRIEND HAD
CROSSED A LINE.
I introduced myself. “How does this
work?” I asked, hinting at the price.
“You can send me a cheque for $101,”
she said.
I reeled. That was a lot. This wasn’t just a
lark or caper, something I could joke about
afterwards with friends. It meant that I
had bought something or bought into
something, a whole ideology. I hesitated.
“Well,” I thought. “If that was the going
rate for spirits to leave, nowadays….” I took
down her address.
Before she started her procedure – blay
gisn, it’s called in Yi