Interview With a Jewish Vampire Read online

  “I don’t know how rich he is—he invested with Bernie Madoff like a lot of other Jews. I do know that he’s a diamond cutter so he might have some blood diamonds stashed away someplace.” I couldn’t resist that one.

  “Oy vey. Luckily I didn’t have enough money to interest Madoff. Some of my friends lost everything to that gonif. Me, I knew he was too good to be true.” She coughed loudly into the phone, neglecting to cover the mouthpiece. I had to hold the receiver away from my ear.

  “Mom, you’re not sounding good. You’re the one who needs to be worried about.”

  “I’m OK, honey. Just a little out of breath when I walk too far.”

  “I don’t believe it. I’m coming down there to take you to the doctor. I want to hear what he has to say first hand.”

  “Oh, sweetheart. That’s wonderful. I miss you so much.”

  I hung up, went to Expedia and booked a flight for the next week. How did anyone do anything before the Internet, I wondered. Then I went into serious guilt mode. Why wasn't I in Florida taking care of Mom full-time? I was her only child, after all, and I could do my job anywhere? What kind of daughter was I anyway? I answered my own question. One who didn't want to live in a retirement community. One who couldn't see dating elderly widowers or guys who flipped real estate for a living. There were no dark, brooding artist types in Florida, and no vampires for sure. I wondered if they could go out in the daylight, or would they burst into flames? Or just get overheated. Did vampires tan? Sheldon sure could use some color. I hoped he could go out in the daylight, like the vampires in Twilight. Of course they could only go out in cloudy weather, which was why the heroine lived in the Pacific Northwest. I don’t know why she didn’t move to New York City. It was January and I hadn’t seen the sun in weeks.

  I was on the phone interviewing the latest narcissistic New Age guru when the bell rang. I ignored it. I didn’t dare put Mr. Empowerment on hold; he’d hang up and never talk to me again. This guy was a media monk, a Tibetan Buddhist who taught his acolytes how to reach enlightenment through yogic inversions. You were supposed to meditate while standing on your head. Go know! He radiated love and compassion only on Oprah, and “call my publicist, don’t bother me” with the rest of the world.

  The bell gave a loud buzz again. Why the hell did people assume that they could barge in at any hour of the day just because I was home? Working at home meant you were always available. Two hours later when it rang again, I opened the door and found my upstairs neighbor and closest friend Charlene, holding a huge bouquet of white roses, my favorite flower.

  “Charlene, what came over you? I didn't know you felt that way about me,” I said, grabbing the flowers.

  “I don't. Sheldon does.” She looked at me with raised eyebrows.

  I looked at the card. “You are the most exciting woman I’ve met in a hundred years. How about a play or a night of love soon? Nosferatu and you? Sheldon.” I giggled at the joke and swooned over the flowers. It had been a long time since a man had made me laugh or sent me flowers. The last laugh I got from a guy was when my ex got dumped by his twenty- five-year-old girlfriend and asked me to get back together. The last bouquet was the one my father gave me at my sweet sixteen party.

  “Come on in, I’ll tell you all about him.”

  I had no doubt that Charlene would believe every word I said about Sheldon. She was the least skeptical person I’d ever met. Having renounced her nice Catholic girlhood and become a Wiccan, the latest trendy faux religion for rebellious Catholic girls and other misfits, she had long ago abandoned normality for paranormality. Rebellious Jewish girls become Buddhists, Catholic girls become Witches. Why was that? Charlene believed in ghosts, aliens, reincarnation, spirit guides, angels, shape shifters, werewolves, and just about any other supernatural phenomenon that Hollywood or young adult fiction came up with. She would cast a spell for everything from weight loss to finding a new boyfriend. For Charlene, belief in vampires was not a stretch.

  Every month she got together with her coven in the Bronx and did something called “raising energy,” which was a mystery to me. She insisted she was a white witch and the spells were benign, but I’d wondered recently about the series of suspicious, if minor, accidents that had kept her despised boss out of work. Charlene had reported them to me with a strangely triumphant air. You wouldn’t want to get her bad side—she was six feet tall, worked out and was ferociously loyal to her friends. Even though her height, rippling biceps and long black hair made her look formidable, her soft little girl voice was disarming, she looked like Wonder Woman but sounded like Tickle Me Elmo. She dressed in tight, sexy outfits that complimented her curves, attracting male attention wherever we went, but I wasn’t jealous of her looks. Instead I basked in her reflected glamour. We were both divorced, the same age and inseparable. An affair with a vampire would be like “What else is nu?” to her.

  Charlene sat down awkwardly on my tiny yellow sofa, which complemented my tiny antique rocker. I had to give up all my big country pine pieces when I left Scarsdale and downsize to dollhouse furniture that fit into my miniscule studio apartment. I was short so didn’t mind their size, even though I never sat on the rocker for fear that I’d break it. Charlene’s knees came almost up to her chin when she sat on my sofa.

  “Does he have any single friends?” was her first question after I told her the whole story. “I want a paranormal lover, too.”

  It sounded like she wanted the latest fashion accessory.

  “That will be the first question I’ll ask the next time I see him.”

  “Really, Rhoda. My sex life is dead. Why can’t it be undead? Wiccans are all women, there are no sexy male witches.”

  “Aren’t they called warlocks?” I asked.

  “Not if you’re politically correct,” she told me.

  “Well, I know nothing about his social circle. For all I know he’s the only vampire, certainly the only Jewish one.”

  “I’m not fussy,” she said, “a vampire of any faith will do.”

  “Give it a break, Vick.”

  “Why don’t you call him?”

  “I don’t have his number, or any idea where he lives except it’s in Crown Heights somewhere. But I’m sure he’ll call.”

  “Do you know his email address?” she asked.

  “Damn, why didn’t I think to ask for it? I could always email him through JDate He has a profile there.”

  “Ooh,” Charlene cooed, “show me his picture.”

  I logged into JDate and searched for “Jewish Vampire,” which, believe it or not, was his JDate username. No luck. His profile was gone.

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” Charlene said. “He took down his profile because he’d met you and doesn’t want to keep looking. Don’t you hate those guys who keep their profiles up after dating you and even having sex?”

  “Yes, especially when they deny that they’re still looking but you log on and find out that they’ve been online that day. But then how many women want to have sex with a vampire?”

  “C’mon, Rhoda. Just about every thirteen-year-old girl in the known universe.”

  “Luckily he likes older women. Zaftig older women.”

  “So he’s a vampire chubby chaser,” Charlene laughed.

  “Nah, he’s just a shy vampire. He says he hasn’t been with a woman in a hundred years if you can believe that. I interviewed him but I wish I’d asked more questions. There’s so much more I want to know about him. Like his last name and phone number.”

  “And you call yourself a journalist,” Charlene teased me. “The biggest story of your life and you sleep with it instead of interrogating it.”

  “You would have done the same thing. I tell you he mesmerized me. I totally forgot what I do for a living.”

  “I guess he put his vampire mojo on you, you lucky girl.”

  “I don’t think it’s lucky to be in love with a vampire. The potential complications boggle the mind, starting with, well, me getting old and hi
m staying the same.”

  “Love? Are you in love?”

  “Charlene, I told you to throw me in a cold shower the next time I told you I’ve never felt this way before. But I’ve never felt this way before. Just thinking about him makes me feel…well…all warm and fuzzy and secure. Like I can trust him. ”

  “Well, here you are on JDate for years and if the only guy you can trust turns out to be a vampire maybe it’s time to look elsewhere.”

  “I don’t want to look anywhere. I just want to see him again.”

  “You will, you will. Guys who send flowers always call. It’s a dating rule.”

  Chapter Four

  Sure enough, Sheldon did call, the next day, with theatre tickets for that night. He’d gotten us orchestra seats for the revival of Fiddler on the Roof with Alfred Molina. It had gotten great reviews and six Tony nominations. He offered to take me to dinner before the show.

  “Won’t that make you uncomfortable, Shel? What are you going to eat?”

  “You, with my eyes, darling,” he said, sounding like a bad imitation of a romantic hero in a 1930s movie.

  “You have been watching too many old movies. I’m serious. What will you eat?”

  “I can drink a little wine. I like to watch humans eat. I get a vicarious thrill, remembering what it used to feel like.”

  “What’s your favorite vicarious food?”

  “Jewish deli, of course. How about eating at the Carnegie?”

  “Where they charge fifteen bucks for a pastrami sandwich? It’s a rip-off?”

  “I like to go by and smell the pastrami fumes. It will be fun to watch you eat.”

  I didn’t have the best memories of the Carnegie Deli. The last time I was there I was supposed to interview Henny Youngman over lunch. Henny is the Borscht Belt comic who came up with the line “take my wife please.” It wound up being the most humiliating experience I’d ever had as a journalist. Henny totally ignored me, refused to answer questions, wouldn’t look my way, and spent the hour waving at celebrities who came by. At least I thought they were celebrities. I was sure he was ignoring me because I wasn’t glamorous. If I’d been some cute, blonde, curvy TV anchor type in a miniskirt and heels, instead of a shlumpy, overweight working writer wearing jeans, maybe he would have treated me differently. Or maybe he’d have treated me worse. I could see him being crude and lewd with attractive women. I suffered through the lunch and wound up using a handout he gave me of his jokes for the story. I hoped someone had taken his wife—someone a lot nicer than him. I refused to let this memory ruin my dinner with Sheldon. Or ruin the pastrami sandwich I was looking forward to. Tonight I was the cute, curvy blonde – to Sheldon anyway.

  The Carnegie Deli is on 55th and Broadway, a corner with wide sidewalks, which was lucky because there was such a crowd waiting to get in. I was shocked by the length of the line outside on a weekday night. Everyone looked like they’d just arrived from Des Moines—they had that Midwest goyishe look. It seemed the Carnegie Deli had become a big tourist attraction since the last time I’d been here. It was once a smaller place with about twenty long tables where strangers all sat together. Now it had eaten up half the block. I saw Sheldon in the back of the line and sidled up to him.

  “Been here long, Mister?”

  “A few minutes,” he said. “Let’s go inside.”

  “Sheldon, there’s a line.”

  “Not for us there isn’t.”

  He marched me right up to the front of the line, gave the hostile-looking waiter guarding the entrance a penetrating look, and we were ushered to a quiet table in the back. Considering how noisy and jammed the place was, I was stunned. The Carnegie was famous for its nasty waiters and here we were being treated like royalty.

  “OK, Sheldon, how did you do it? I know you’re not a movie star.”

  “I glamoured him. We’re not supposed to do that unless it’s an emergency, but I couldn’t resist impressing you.”

  “And exactly what does glamouring involve?”

  “It’s a vampire thing. I can’t really explain it. I just have to concentrate, stare into someone’s eyes, and they do my bidding—within reason of course. He’ll forget what happened afterwards. Right about now he’s wondering who we are and how we wound up at this desirable table.” Sheldon grinned mischievously. “Impressed you, didn’t I?”

  “Impressed doesn’t quite cover it. Awed is more like it. Now, if you materialize a pastrami sandwich in the midst of this mob I’ll really be impressed.”

  He snapped his fingers loudly but the waiters ignored him. I supposed glamouring only works up close. By the time the waiter brought our order it was getting dangerously close to show time. The pastrami sandwich was enormous. The Carnegie was famous for half-a-foot-high sandwiches.

  I couldn’t open my mouth wide enough to actually bite into it, so I removed about three-quarters of the meat and started eating. It tasted kind of dry. The pastrami I remembered was juicy and succulent. I looked at the slices and didn’t see the big slabs of white marbling I remembered.

  “They took out all the fat.” I frowned. “I guess it’s supposed to be low calorie. It’s also low taste. Are you enjoying the smell at least?”

  “I can’t smell it,” Sheldon admitted. “I don’t breathe enough to smell.”

  “But that’s why you wanted to come here.”

  “Well, I thought you might like it and I didn’t want to make you feel guilty about eating. And now the pastrami isn’t even good, so let’s go to the show.”

  I didn’t care. I wasn’t all that hungry anyway. Sheldon left a twenty on the table and we elbowed our way out into the cold. “Let’s take a cab,” I suggested. “It’s getting close to show time.”

  “Have you noticed the traffic, Rhoda? Let’s walk. We’ll get there faster, I promise.”

  He put his arm around me and I found as we walked that I was actually gliding. He was skimming over the ground, with me in tow.

  “Hey, this is a great way to get to the theatre on time.”

  It wasn’t very far, only ten blocks to the Minskoff Theatre at Forty-Fifth Street, but we got there in two minutes flat.

  We settled into the best seats in the house, third row orchestra on the aisle. “How did you get these on such short notice, Shel? More glamouring?”

  “No, this time it was a ticket scalper. Hasidic guy. I gave him a good deal on some diamonds recently.”

  I leaned towards him and gave him a smooch on the check. “This is so incredibly sweet of you. I never sit this close—who can afford it? I love musicals. I saw Fiddler in the movies but I’ve always wanted to see the show.”

  “I’ve never seen it. I actually haven’t been to a Broadway theatre, and I never go to movies. No pun intended, but I’ve been dying to see this show. I never had anyone to go with. My Hasidic vampire buddies aren’t exactly into Broadway musicals.”

  “You wouldn’t go alone?” I asked.

  “Nah. That’s no fun. When I first came to New York, it was the heyday of the Yiddish theatre and Herschel and I went a lot. Herschel’s my brother. But he never liked American culture, plus he doesn’t want to be that close to humans anymore. He tries to only drink blood from animals too, but he’s easily tempted. I’m stronger than him. I made him after all. But that’s a long story for another time.”

  I didn’t have time to ask questions. The lights in the theatre dimmed, the orchestra started playing and I sat back in my seat, feeling that delicious anticipation I always experienced before a show. When I was a kid my parents took me to all the Broadway musicals, and tonight the first bars of the score made me feel like a kid again, entranced by the magic of live theatre.

  Sheldon put his arm around me and gave me a little hug. I leaned my head on his shoulder, feeling thrilled to be at the theatre with a real, live man for a change, instead of Charlene or my mother. OK, maybe not live, but certainly manly. We raptly watched as Klesmer, Yiddish folk and Russian gypsy music was transformed into one of the mos
t gorgeous scores ever written.

  After about a half hour I noticed that Sheldon’s shoulders were shaking. I looked at his face and saw that it was twisted into a grimace and he was sobbing. He was making gasping, honking noises that I could see he was trying to stifle. There were no tears, however, certainly no bloody tears despite the myth about vampires crying blood. It was frightening to see. His hand gripped my shoulder so tightly it hurt, but I tried not to complain, he looked so miserable.

  “What is it, Sheldon? What’s going on?” I was scared. I couldn’t imagine what was wrong. He’d seemed to be enjoying himself immensely just a minute earlier. He’d clapped wildly after every number.

  “Anatevka, Anatevka… that was my home…I miss it so much. I had no idea how much until tonight,” he moaned.

  “You came from Transylvania, not Russia, I whispered.” Anatevka was the fictional Russian shtetl in the show.

  “Same thing. I miss the shtetl. I miss my family. I miss my wife and children. I miss Tevye.”

  “Shhhh,” came whispers from behind us. We stopped talking and he put his head on my shoulder as I stroked his face and held his hand while he cried. I couldn’t help feeling a stab of jealousy although his wife and children were long dead. I had no idea what he meant by Tevye unless his town also had a Tevye. Eventually he stopped crying.

  “Do you want to leave now?” I asked him at intermission.

  “I wouldn’t leave for anything on earth,” he said dreamily. “I may come back every night. I feel like I’ve gone back in time, to when I was happy and part of a family—not lonely and hopeless.”

  “Who is Tevye?”

  “My father was named Tevye, believe it or not. He was a big, burly guy, like Tevye in the play, with a long grey beard and the bluest eyes. We lived in the town of Bresov where he was our rabbi and I was his successor. We used to dance in lines, just like in the show, we Hasids were into joy, into ecstasy, especially when we danced. I wish I could get up on that stage and dance—I’m a good dancer.”