Jewish Life Digital Edition January 2014 | Page 16

worried, as if this were real, had validity, as
if it weren’t sheer nonsense.
Finally, she announced she was done. She
talked about my ayin-hore situation. I don’t
recall everything she said about me, but she
ended with, “There are people who are talking about you, who are jealous of you, begrudge your success.” What success? I
thought. “Very, very jealous. They try to pull
you down. I have never seen anyone who
has so many people giving her an ayin-hore.
Oy, oy, so many bubbles in the lead. And so
big. But don’t worry,” she said with satisfaction, “I got them all.”
Good, I thought grimly. Stomp them all.
Obliterate every last one.
Because who could know what forces
were out there in the universe? After all, if
germs and bacteria and electrons and protons existed way before anyone discovered
their reality, why was it inconceivable that
invisible demons – ayin-hores – existed,
even if we couldn’t yet prove they were
there? I thought of all those imps, dybbuks
and demons in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s fic-

tion. I thought of the phrase, “Looks can
kill.” Well, maybe jealousy can kill, too.
We shmoozed some more, the ayin-hore
lady and I, as the world continued to stream
through her kitchen. She interrupted me,
interrupted herself, totally unfazed by the
chaos, the sheer bedlam. The woman was
nothing if not haimish. Then she gave me a
heartfelt blessing, and we said goodbye.
After I got off the phone, I felt elated, relieved. I wanted to call my mother to tell her
everything. I felt closer to her and to my
grandmother, as if I had claimed some longdenied part of myself. In fact, I felt better
than I had in months.
Just as I was about to write the cheque, I
got distracted. Tomorrow, I’d send it. The
next day I wrote the cheque, but couldn’t
find an envelope. The following week, more
excuses kept cropping up. At some point it
hit me that I didn’t want to pay her. True, I
felt better, but I couldn’t believe that a
woman busting lead bubbles in a kitchen
sink in Jerusalem could’ve brought that
about. I couldn’t believe I had succumbed to

something so ridiculous. It occurred to me
that not paying was a way of hiding from
myself what I had consented to – something
silly and irrational, something I’d sworn I’d
never do. Paying made the episode too real.
This way I could pretend it never happened.
But wouldn’t not keeping my word be its
own form of ayin-hore? I have been a fool
for love many times. Why couldn’t I let myself be a fool for this? Why couldn’t I just let
myself be a fool?
And so I confessed to my husband and
asked if he could mail the cheque for me.
“Of course,” he said. “Anything to help get
rid of the ayin-hore.”

PS…
Since this piece initially came out, people
have been asking if the “curse” ever lifted.
Well, my husband’s career ripened and prospered, my daughter’s condition improved
dramatically, and around then I won close to
$13 000 in fellowships and awards for