Begorrah and Keynahora

Contributed by Rivka Jacobs on 17/03/09

“The girl was, assuredly, pretty enough for a ‘lord’ to fall in love with.”

From “Laura Silver Bell,” by J. S. Le Fanu

Healthy, plump, 16-year-old Sara emerged from her mother’s car with a hop, swung the car door closed, and had barely turned around to say goodbye before her mother put foot to the pedal and the tires of her Mazda squealed away down Kerper Street, heading for Castor Avenue.

“Baby, baby doll, I’m so glad to see you my shaynah!”

Sara spun back and looked up the front walk as her granny, arms stretched before her, waited for a hug.

The girl ran up the two steps from the street, and along the paved walkway, to the stoop leading to the front door of the handsome brownstone house, into her Granny Golda’s waiting arms.

As they embraced, Granny Golda said, “Don’t worry about her. You know she hates to come home to northeast Philadelphia.”

Sara stood back, admiring her granny’s green crocheted vest. Sara too was dressed in green — olive-green sweater, t-shirt, and jeans. “She doesn’t like you, Granny. And you’re her mother. Mom gets on my nerves, but I don’t think I could ever talk about her the way she talks about you.”

Golda Davidovitz shrugged and smiled as she stroked Sara’s blond hair. “I embarrass her. Besides, she’s a good Jew. She doesn’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.”

They walked up the five stone steps of the stoop, touched the mezuzah in the threshold of the doorway, and walked into the living room of Golda’s very comfortable but strangely disquieting home. Sara loved it. The pungent smells, the odd jars of spices and dried plants, the amulets hanging here and there, mirrors turned in all different directions. The red ribbons and scarves tied around table and chair legs, the red pillows and red swags draped in unexpected places. The rooms were all clean — even spotless. The kitchen was modern with up-to-date appliances. But everywhere there was a kind of ancient patina — old furniture from different historical eras that didn’t seem to belong. Pictures of long-dead family members from Europe on the walls, with eyes that seemed to follow you when you walked. Hamsas hung like stained glass in the window pains, were painted on the floor, stenciled on ceilings of each room, glowed from inside glass paper weights and dangling crystal pendants.

People of course called Granny Golda a witch. Not a really good thing for a Jewish woman, being called a witch. In not so distant times, all Jews were considered “monsters” and “witches” and “devils” and burned by the millions. Except in Granny Golda’s case, she really was a witch. A Jewish magic woman, a fortune teller and healer. Granny had told Sara, that there were two levels of Judaism. The Talmudic level, the day-to-day real world, ruled over completely by men. And the folklore or magical sub-Talmudic world, passed on from generation to generation, ruled by women.

They sat in the kitchen. Granny Golda served Sara her favorite tea; Sara still didn’t know exactly what it was made of. Granny sprinkled the tea with some spice, put her thumb between the index and middle finger of her left hand, and said a blessing in Herbrew as she set the tea cup down. Then she kissed Sara on the top of the head, said “keynahora” and spit three times rapidly on the finger tips of her right hand, waving her fingers briefly in the air.

They were waiting for the third member of their party.

“Tell me the story, Granny. Tell me the story of Lara O’Leary again.”

This was their St. Patrick’s Day ritual, and Granny Golda sat down opposite Sara, stirred her tea while inspecting the pattern of the leaves, the smell of the air, the way the ancestors looked at them — seeming to smile — from the many old photos on the walls of the kitchen. “This is going to be a good day,” Granny said with satisfaction. And she began:

“It was 30 years ago, here in northeast Philly. I was a handsome young women then, newly widowed, my daughter (your mother) was in college. I saw clients in my house, and I can tell you it wasn’t easy, with the rabbi and members of our synagogue’s board of directors threatening to kick me out of the congregation. Hmph,” Granny grunted, “and then you should have seen them come to my back door when they needed to ward off the ayin ha ra, the “evil eye.” When they needed their future read, or a blessing, or a curse. When they needed someone to love them, or someone they hated to be punished. Anyway ….”

Granny checked the clock above the refrigerator and listened for a moment. “Anyway, many of my clients came from the Irish neighborhoods, in the Frankford and Mayfield areas. We all got along just fine. I would go see their magic women when I felt the need, too. Well, anyway, there was a young girl, just your age, who used to come to see me every few days. Her name was Lara O’Leary. She lived on Wakeling, and was a student (when she felt like attending) at Frankford High School. She told me she had been adopted, and that her adoptive parents didn’t really care what she did, and she pretty much ran wild.”

“She was a beautiful girl,” Granny Golda continued. “With dark brown and shiny, long curly hair. A peaches-and-cream complexion, and large dark eyes. She wore a little makeup, but didn’t really need it. But Lara was a sad and lonely child. She liked to come over and I’d fix her something to eat, read her cards, tell her stories about dybbuks and the alukah, and Lilith the Queen of Demons. She’d tell me stories of banshees and ghosts of poor girls betrayed and brutally murdered. Lara was a smart girl, but also very innocent and sometimes foolish.”

“I told her, that I’d known many an Irish-American family who carried their ancient haunts and banshees with them to these shores. I told her, not only did the ancient Americas have their own dark spirits, fairie folk as they like to represent themselves, creatures that took human form, preyed on human beings, but her family in particular, had been followed over here by a particular nasty throng of fairie. I had sensed it at once. These weren’t O’Leary sprites, but those of the bloodline of Lara’s biological parents, who she had never known. Oh Lara laughed. But I worried about her. You didn’t need to believe in ghosts and dybbuks and Lilith to realize that Lara was a target for trouble, walking by herself in the local neighborhoods, late at night.”

“One day, in mid-March, she knocked on my back door around eight at night. I knew it was her, I sensed her coming. I wasn’t surprised. She rushed in to my kitchen, breathless.’ I’m being watched, I’m being followed,’ she said. ‘ Sit down,’ I said. ‘ Calm down. Tell me what happened.’ Lara looked very pretty in a white and peach spring dress and matching jacket, with light colored stockings and low-heeled shoes. She explained how a man, a handsome very well dressed man, had been driving by her house in an expensive car (it looked like a Jaguar, she said), and had been following her on foot, and in his car, for the last few days. ‘ He’s out there now,’ she whispered deliriously, her face flushed, her eyes shining.”

“I thought, is she afraid or is she excited, or both? ‘ Lara, child,’ I grabbed both her hands. ‘ Are you saying he’s out there at the moment?’ I said all the prayers I could think of, I checked with the family, I checked all my omens and my signs, and the blood turned cold in my veins and I started to tremble.”

“She jumped up to run to the front part of the house and look out the living room’s bay window, but I grabbed her, and we walked together in a measured way. We stood to the side of the curtain, and I ordered her to stay out of sight. I drew the drapery aside just a bit, and sure enough, there was a car parked outside of my house. And there was a man. But what was Lara thinking? What was Lara dreaming? The car was a beat-up Ford from the 1960s, with dents and scratches and one window covered in plastic. The man who stood in the street, leaning against the driver side door, his arms folded, looking right back at me, was thin, dirty, bearded, with long scraggly hair, torn and stained clothing. He practically glowed in the dark, he was so white.”

“I shivered again, and turned back to Lara. She had stepped next to me, and grabbed the curtain out of my hand, and now was openly smiling at that loathsome creature waiting in the street, just beyond the gutter filled with draining rain water.”

” ‘ Lara,’ I said, ‘ I’ll take you home. We’ll go together.’ Now, I didn’t drive, so that meant we had to walk to Castor Avenue to get the 59 bus. I told Lara to call her parents and tell them where she was. She said her parents were not home. I gathered all that I could for protection, including the spice necklace, like the one I gave you. I draped Lara in the amulets, and said blessings over her, and tied a red ribbon around her left wrist. I did the same for myself, and layered myself and clothed myself in blessings.”

“We walked out the back door, and headed down the alley, to Castor Avenue. As we emerged on Castor, sure enough, there was the car, driving slowly behind us. ‘ Isn’t it beautiful, ‘ Lara cooed. I said, ‘ No, sweetie, it isn’t. It’s a wreck. He’s a monster. Don’t look behind you. Keep walking.’ Our bus came a minute or two after we arrived at the stop. I paid the fare, and after we sat down, we looked out the window. The beat-up Ford was following the bus. It was around nine in the evening. As we came down Oxford Avenue towards Lara’s neighborhood, suddenly the bus was stopping at every intersection, and more and more people were climbing aboard. Outside on the streets there were throngs of party-goers, the corner bars were surrounded by revelers, there were lights and music, and couples wearing paper leprechaun hats and green clothing.”

“Lara and I looked at each other at the same time. ‘ I completely forgot,” she whispered. ‘How could I forget? I didn’t even wear green.’ I quickly took my sprig of parsley from my jacket pocket and tucked it into the hairclip on the side of her head. ‘ There you go. Not quite a four-leaf clover.’ We got off the bus on Wakeling, across from Lara’s high school. We could see the ugly Ford further down the street, parked again, as if waiting. But then another wave of tipsy couples passed in front of our view. ‘ We’re almost to your house,’ I said as I tugged on her arm.”

“As we approached Lara’s home, I glanced behind us, and felt a great relief that the creature could no longer be seen. However, I still felt very nervous as I bundled Lara up to her front door. She fumbled for her keys. I told her, ‘You have to go to church tomorrow, as soon as you can.’ Lara opened her door and laughed. ‘No way!’ I stepped into her home behind her and shut her door with a slam. ‘Now listen to me sweetie,’ I said in my best mom voice. ‘I have a daughter just a bit older than you are. And I care about what happens to you. You listen to me now. That one, out there, he isn’t human. He is one of the dark forces, the fairie folk, and I mean a real fairie, not the bad word that people call some men. (Lara giggled, and tip-toed to her door and peeped out through the little round window near the top.) ‘You were already falling into his weir. You saw some handsome movie star wearing an expensive silk suit and driving an expensive, shiny car, but that is not who he really is.’ She turned to me and shrugged. ‘Look at me, Lara. Listen. Sharply.’ I snapped my fingers and got her attention. ‘ We are a sisterhood. You are our daughter. You either trust me, and follow my advice, or you will be lost. It’s your choice.’ ”

“With that I left and made my way back home.”

Sara shifted in her chair and smiled broadly. Granny Golda had already sensed the arrival. Sara listened as a car pulled up the back alley and parked in their car port. “Right on time,” Granny said.

Sara finished the story. “And she did listen to you, didn’t she Gran? And she did go to church, and a few months later that church burned down. And then, for the next five years, there was a slasher who killed many women in Frankford, and they never caught him, but Lara O’Leary was saved, by you!”

The door from the alley to the basement, opened, closed, and they heard a light and confident step coming up the basement stairway. The door to the kitchen, across from where Sara sat, opened, and in burst a cheerful, beautiful women in her 40s, dressing in a stunning Kelly-green suit, her gold jewelry jangling and shining. She smelled like a freshly plowed field of sweet flowers. She ran to Granny Golda and gave her a hug, and then embraced young Sara as well.

Sara excitedly burbled, “Lara, Lara, we were just telling the story!”

Lara O’Leary laughed and set down her parcels, put her satchel on the floor. She held Granny’s hand on one side, and Sara’s hand with the other. “The sisterhood,” she said.

“The three weird sisters,” Granny joked. Macbeth references aside, Lara O’Leary was one of the most powerful magic women on the east coast. Granny Golda was proud to say she had taught her once; the student had exceeded the teacher long ago. Now, without any words being exchanged, over the last several years, Lara had begun to teach Sara.

“Green tea, anyone,” Lara said as she took out a plastic baggie containing a mix of something definitely green and moved to the stove to heat up the kettle once again. “For luck!”