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WORRY

by

Zvi the Fiddler

"God damned twitch," Benjamin said as a spasm distorted his face. Would that tic not leave him be? He wasn't doing anything stressful. He was just walking his dog in the park, a simple activity that should have relaxed him. Still, the left side of his face was contracting violently, closing the eye and twisting his mouth. He'd had that tic a full month. At first his coworkers had thought the spasms funny, especially if they struck while he was talking to Rita, the lead accountant. Rita looked like a model, not a bean counter, while middle aged Benjamin was short, bald, and twenty pounds hopelessly overweight. They had laughed, but he hadn't. Now, no one laughed.

"Zahava?" he called, looking around a grove of trees. "Zahava! Where the hell are you?" The dog had vanished. "Dog, come," he shouted. The golden retriever, tongue hanging out, bounded joyously down the dirt path. "Bad dog," Benny said, fastening the leash to the dog's collar

Another spasm struck, a long one, several seconds. The damn twitches were getting worse. He stopped walking, realizing that the tics, scarcely noticeable last month, were indeed getting worse. His home medical guide said that symptoms of a brain tumor started slowly but grew inexorably. Could he have a brain tumor? Dr. Schwartz said his problem was worry, not tumors, diabetes or anything else Ben had read about, but this twitch wasn't imaginary; it was real.

The dog cocked her head, wondering why they had stopped walking. Ben sighed and released the leash -- just before a cat appeared. The dog, ignoring Benjamin's scream to stop, tore after the luckless feline. A siren wailed in the distance. "Oh God, they're after me for unleashing my dog in a public park," Ben thought and immediately chastised himself for such an outlandish, self-centered thought. He did worry too much, but a brain scan wouldn't hurt.

#

"Benjamin, you don't need a brain scan," Louise Schwartz said, crossing her legs. The corpulent doctor leaned back, adjusted her white lab coat, and braced herself for battle.

Benjamin hunched forward. "But the twitches are increasing."

Schwartz flipped the pages of Benjamin Cohen's three-inch chart. "Two years ago you had a similar twitch." She looked up. "You worried about a brain tumor then, too."

Ben tensed. Why was he afraid of the doctor? The woman was his age or younger, yet he trembled as if confronting his older sister. "Yes, but you said that was from the stress of divorce. I'm not stressed now. Are you positive it isn't a tumor? A brain scan isn't dangerous."

"Benny, first it was hypoglycemia, then persistent Epstein Barr virus. Now you want a scan for a brain tumor. I'm tired of ordering tests because of something you've read."

"But do you know for sure that I don't have a brain tumor? Are you absolutely, completely positive?"

The doctor sighed her defeat and wrote a requisition. Benny, enthused at having prevailed but terrified at being taken seriously, mumbled his thanks and hurried to his car.

Thoughts whirling, Ben drove the four year old Chevy up Powell Street. If he had a tumor, would his ex wife still demand alimony? If so, where would he get it? How could he pay college tuition if he fell ill? Would his younger son ever get admitted to college? Would his sister sneer if the boy didn't get into college?

He worried too much. Why did he worry so much? Topping the crest of Powell, he beheld San Francisco bay sparkling in sunlight, dotted with sailboats underneath white, fluffy clouds. Tourists hanging on to a cablecar gaped at the magnificent panorama. Benny couldn't enjoy it because he was too worried.

The car, veering rightwards, burst his reverie with a tingling adrenaline rush as the front fender barely cleared an old red pickup's taillight. Better not daydream, he thought as the car shifted ever so slowly to the left. He tugged it back, wondering what his boss, who always fumed when Benny mentioned illness, would say if Benny had a tumor. The car again veered to the right, forcing Benny to yank the wheel. This infernal swerving of the car might be hard to fix. He'd miss work, and thus anger his boss and maybe even lose his job. God, then he'd be evicted, join the ranks of the homeless, and suffer the contempt of all who knew him.

The car turned towards the right. With a start, Benny wrenched himself from his ruminations back to the rambling vehicle. The car suddenly veered left, nearly crashing into oncoming traffic, then right again. He was out of control. A truck-driver with thick jowls leaned out of the window and shook his fist, screaming obscenities. Ben broke into a sweat, maneuvering right and left. God, sooner or later he must hit something, be injured, and disabled for life.

But no, the problem wasn't the car; it was himself, his arms convulsively pulling the steering wheel first one way, then the other, like Dr. Strangelove, hands moving independently of his will. His heart pounded, eyes bulging as he forced his limbs to steer the wildly careening vehicle. He gasped for air, frantically searching for the brake. The brake. He couldn't find the brake, with a red light was coming up, cars on Chestnut oblivious to his runaway vehicle.

Suddenly his foot slammed the brake pedal and screeched the car to a halt. He fell back in his seat, sweating, panting and limp, the episode at an end. He drove uneventfully home.

What had happened?

#

The doctor proclaimed the verdict of the CAT scan with sepulchral finality.

"Negative. Normal study. No tumor."

Benjamin's shoulders sagged. "What's wrong? After that seizure I thought it must be a tumor. Tumors cause seizures, you know."

"I know Benny."

"We should get an EEG. With photic stimulation."

"You didn't have a seizure Benny. Your problem is worry, not seizures."

"But what happened in the car? I nearly crashed."

"It wasn't a seizure. You didn't lose consciousness."

"A focal, Jacksonian seizure. They don't cause unconsciousness."

"Throw away that damned book, Benny," Louise Schwartz said, her face red. "Burn it and scatter the ashes. It wasn't a seizure."

"Then what's wrong with me?" he asked, pleading.

"You worry yourself into a frenzy and terrify yourself with your worries."

His face twitched painfully. The doctor looked away. "Why do I worry so much?"

She threw up her hands. "I don't know. Maybe you need a psychiatrist. Maybe you have a dybbuk. But whatever it is, EEGs and MRIs won't help. Now get out. I have sick patients to see."

#

Zahava ran to sniff a hole in the ground. A dybbuk, Dr. Schwartz had said, a dybbuk, an evil spirit that inhabits people in distress, causing mischief. Benny, whipping the leash against his thigh, strode past the dog, who abandoned a gopher to join her master. He had always blamed illness for his difficulties. Could his worries be due to an evil spirit instead?

"No! Bad dog!" he shouted at the animal, now rolling on the ground, ecstatically waving her legs in the air. The dog jumped up to look for another gopher. All his life he had agonized. Once, in college, he had fretted over a failed course for months, ruminating day and night until finally he wished he had a brain tumor, not feared it but wished for it as a possibly curable cause for his obsession. Then, a decade ago, when layoffs had threatened, he had tortured himself with grief and worry almost to the point of suicide. Why did he brood so much?

Could he have a dybbuk? Of course the doctor had been joking, but could he have a dybbuk nonetheless? Where would he have gotten such a thing? How would he get rid of it?

#

The rabbi, a tall, avuncular man with a narrow, grayish mustache, smiled and folded his hands around his paunch. "Well, Mr. Cohen, what can I do for you today?"

Benny glanced briefly at large, abstract paintings of Jerusalem and the Western Wall decorating the spacious office. "Rabbi, I have a request, and I want you to take me seriously."

"Of course I take you seriously. I take all my congregants seriously." The smile held firm. "What's on your mind?"

"I think I'm possessed by a dybbuk. I want you to exorcise it."

"A dybbuk?" The smile stiffened but did not break.

"Yes. A dybbuk. You know, an evil spirit..."

"I know what a dybbuk is. But Mr. Cohen, the dybbuk is imaginary, a belief born of ignorance. Reform Jews don't accept such superstitions."

Benjamin took a deep breath. He had expected this. "Rabbi, how do you explain my predicament." His eye twitched violently, painfully. Conveniently. "That tic, for example. Also, last week I couldn't control my car and almost hit a truck. And how do you explain my continual worrying. I feel like a soul in torment."

The rabbi's smile, now rigid, still did not die. "Benjamin, you worry because you're a gentle, caring soul. You need to toughen yourself. And if you are having spasms or neurological problems, see a doctor, not a rabbi."

"My doctor says there is nothing wrong. She's the one who suggested the dybbuk."

The smile finally broke. "Then get another doctor," he said, thumping the desk. "Benny, I'm sorry. I don't have time for this nonsense. There are no magic solutions to your problems. Don't be so sensitive and you'll feel better."

#

Driving home Benjamin consoled himself. Of course a Reform Rabbi wouldn't believe in dybbuks. It wasn't personal and didn't mean the Rabbi didn't like him. Even though he had raised his voice, it didn't mean the Rabbi didn't like him.

Back home he opened a can of dog-food for Zahava and a can of soup for himself. He poured the soup into an ancient saucepan on the stove, collapsed into a beige sofa in the living room, and tried to think. Reform Jews didn't believe in dybbuks, but Hasidim, who preserved the old ways, might be different. Benny had never talked to a Hasidic Rabbi; perhaps he should now.

Suddenly a shrieking smoke alarm jolted him from his reverie. In the kitchen, flames were shooting from the saucepan. Hands shaking, Benny doused the blaze with water. Then, examining the charred pan, he saw a small hole in the bottom. Evidently fatty soup had dripped down onto the red-hot burner and had burst into flame. How could he have missed that hole? What kind of jerk was he?

His faced twitched painfully for several seconds. Only one answer. It wasn't his fault; it was the dybbuk.

#

In the Hasidic rabbi's tiny office, a small heater, clattering near the old wooden desk, made Benny swelter. An ancient Rabbi's portrait hung above a bookcase filled with ancient volumes; the dirty green walls were otherwise bare. The rabbi, a tall thin man with white beard and gray earlocks, motioned Benny to a straight back wooden chair. "Mr. Cohen, you said it was important."

"Rabbi, I think I've been possessed by a dybbuk. I need your help."

The Rabbi, sitting behind a desk with ancient scrolls and a new computer, tightened his features. "Tell me why you think this."

Benny narrated his litany of twitches, worries, and near accidents. "I've never had so many close calls. It can't all be carelessness."

The rabbi sighed and leaned back. "I don't know how to answer you. Many people, like your reform rabbi, dismiss dybbuks as superstition. Certainly, it is easier to postulate supernatural misfortune than to take responsibility for one's life. Yet the supernatural could exist.

"Let me refer you to someone." The elderly man adjusted his spectacles, and moved the mouse. A printer chattered and spit out a sheet of paper. Such technology at the hand of a venerable looking holy man disappointed Ben, but he said nothing. "Reb Nochmann Levinson. The man knows more about dybbuks than anyone else in San Francisco. Call him."

#

The wail of a clarinet, playing music Benjamin Cohen had not heard for decades, poured from Nochmann's duplex. Nochmann Levinson, five inches shorter and at least 15 years younger than Benny, was a wiry man with a black beard, black frock, and black hat. He continually moved, smiling and gesticulating as he spoke. "Mr. Cohen, it's a pleasure to serve you," he said and pulled Benjamin into the large, cluttered living room to dance in time with the music.

Benny pulled away awkwardly. "I'm sorry, Mr. Levinson, but I'm here on important business."

"What can be more important than dancing, rejoicing in Hashem's gifts?" The mystic's smile was at once disingenuous and manipulative.

"Perhaps another time." Ben's palms sweated.

"Well then, to business," Levinson said and pulled the worried man to a worn overstuffed sofa covered with antimacassars. "Would you like something to drink?"

"No thank you."

"A glazele tea, perhaps?"

"No, really. I'm not thirsty."

"Soda?"

"No."

"A bissele shnappsele maybe?"

"No!," he said, shouting. "Absolutely not!"

The mystic raised his eyebrows at the outburst. "Well then, on the phone you said something about a dybbuk?"

"Yes!" Benny enthusiastically narrated his story. The mystic listened intently, nodding his head gently until Benny finished. Then he made a sharp jerk of affirmation.

"So?" Benny asked.

"So!" Nochmann answered.

"So, do I have a dybbuk or not?"

"So. That is the question, isn't it?"

"So, is there an answer?"

"What's the difference?" He smiled.

"Well, uh? If I have a dybbuk maybe I can get rid of it and learn how to stop worrying so much."

"And twitching."

"And twitching."

"And having near accidents."

"And having frequent near accidents."

"But what if you have a dybbuk and you can't get rid of it?"

Benny's shoulders fell. "Then I'd be no better off."

"On the other hand, if you don't have a dybbuk but can still learn how to stop worrying and having accidents..."

"Near accidents."

"Near accidents."

"That would be wonderful. But I've tried. I've tried all my life to stop worrying and I can't." He stood and paced around the room. "It's driving me crazy. I must have a dybbuk."

Another smile. "Wonderful logic. If you don't have a dybbuk, you're crazy. Therefore you have a dybbuk."

Benny blushed. "It sounds crazy when you put it that way."

Levinson laughed, and his silly frivolity ebbed. "No. We'll leave the craziness for a while. Tell me about yourself."

Benny shrugged and sat down. "What's to tell. I'm an accountant, fairly successful. A CPA"

"CPA eh? Last of the Jewish holy trinity."

Benny frowned. "Divorced two years ago after a twenty year marriage. Life is worse now. I have two sons, one already in college. Is that enough detail?"

"Perfect. Are you observant?"

"You mean Jewishly? No. I don't believe in it."

"But you believe in dybbuks?" Nochmann scrutinized him.

Ben shook his head. "There must be some explanation for my worries."

"Actually, I think you do have a dybbuk."

"You do?" Hope surged.

"I make no promises. Leave me now. Next week we will meet again."

#

A week later Benny, with trepidation, knocked on Levinson's door. "Enter!" a deep voice commanded. Inside, heavy black drapes covered the windows, a low-pitched gong resounded and a crow cawed. A circle of six thick, flickering candles on waist high brass candlesticks revealed fog covering the floor and, in the distance, furniture piled against the wall. A robed monk like figure stretched his hands towards Benjamin Cohen and asked, "Are you ready for the appointed hour?"

Benjamin paled, his knees shaking. "I am ready. What is required of me?"

"The trial will be strenuous. Can you endure it?"

"I ... I think so."

"Remove your shirt and enter the circle." He took a whip from his robe and cracked it.

Benny gasped. "I can't. I'm afraid. Do I have to do this?"

The figure shrugged and threw back the cowl, revealing Levinson's impishly smiling face. "No, you don't have to." He flipped on the lights, turned off the fog machine, and replaced the sound effects with Jewish klezmer melodies. "A shame. It's a good show."

Benny, fists clenched, reddened. "Damnit, Levinson, I'm not here to play games."

"Neither am I. Well, maybe these are a bit playful," he said, cracking the whip again before putting it away, "but I am serious about the exorcism."

Benny sighed and sat on a chair at the edge of the room. "Okay. Let's get started."

Nochmann laughed. "This is an official religious ceremony. We need ten men, a minion," he said, and rearranged old bric-a-brac, restoring the room to it's cluttered appearance while the members of the minion drifted in, one at a time. Nochmann conducted a brief service in Hebrew, of which Benny understood nothing. At times the group circled Benjamin, and Nochmann exhorted the dybbuk sternly, but if the dybbuk was frightened, it gave no sign. No demon tongues spoke through Benjamin's mouth and no impossible contortions twisted his body. Yet, almost against his will, he felt inexplicably relieved.

"Thank you. I'm sure it worked," he said afterwards, shaking Levinson's hand vigorously.

"Good," was all the mystic said.

"It's time for mincha prayers," an elderly man with a heavy Yiddish accent told Benjamin. "Will you join us?"

"Sorry, but I have to leave." Benny drove home happily. Not once did his eye twitch. Not once did a recalcitrant steering wheel or brake pedal bedevil him. Thank God, but what if the spell broke and the dybbuk returned? What would he do then?

#

By week's end the twitch had recurred. He tried explain it away as a normal tic until he erased a crucial business file, his hand moving against his will to delete data. Benjamin had to work two hours to recover the loss.

The dybbuk was back.

#

Nochmann, sipping black, pungent, tea, looked across the old kitchen table at Benjamin. "Oh, I knew it hadn't worked."

"How did you know?"

The mystic smiled ruefully. "I could see in your face. A curse shackles you to the dybbuk."

"But who. And why should someone curse me?"

"People curse when they have been cursed themselves." Levinson poured a cup of tea for his guest. "As for who? Someone early in life, someone important to you."

Cohen's mind raced. "Do you mean my parents?"

"No. People afflicted by parental curses do not become CPAs with children in college. No, someone like a brother, an older brother."

"I don't have a brother."

Nochmann nodded. "A sister perhaps?"

"Yes." Ben stared into space. "I have a older sister. She and I have not been close ..."

#

"Judy, can I come in?" Benjamin asked. A gaunt woman with a gray business suit and gray scraggly hair stood at the open door of a Victorian house and frowned at her brother.

"This is a hell of a time to barge in unannounced, Benny. I'm getting ready for work. What do you want now?"

Benny looked away from peeling paint on the doorjamb. "It's a little hard to explain."

"Suit yourself." She walked away, leaving him to follow into a darkened living room.

"Judy, I need a favor."

"For Christ's sake, you always need a favor." She emptied ashtrays on a coffee table, avoiding his eye.

"Judy, it'll help both of us. There is this man I met, I'd like us to see."

"What, a psychiatrist?" She glowered.

"No. He's a..." How to say it without sounding ridiculous? "A mystic. A Jewish mystic. He performs exorcisms. He could rid evil spirits from both of us." Benny blushed.

Judy shook her head. "Oh God, religious fanatics now. I need a drink." She went to a cupboard, filled a water glass one third with brown liquid, and gulped it down.

"For crying out loud," Benny said. "It's only ten o'clock. Are you drinking already?"

"And what the hell business is it of yours if I am?"

"You didn't drink when you were in AA." Ignoring him, she grabbed a hairbrush and furiously attacked her scalp. "And you were a lot nicer to me then."

"You were a wimp, whether I was drinking or not," she said softly.

"Judy, please. I have a problem. I need your help."

"You shouldn't have so many problems. You always have problems, always sick, always complaining. Poor Benny. People should feel sorry for him his entire god damned life."

"Give me a break. It wasn't my fault I was sickly."

"'Give me a break. Give me a break.' Benny, you complain but you've always had everything. You were a boy so you were golden. I was a girl and I was dreck. Everything went to you, bar mitzvah, college, everything."

"You had a big wedding which I didn't. And you could have gone to college if your grades had been better."

"You're an asshole, Benny," she screamed, suddenly red faced. "You're an asshole since the day you were born."

#

The following week was wretched, Benjamin, face constantly in spasm, unable to concentrate at work and at home. The dybbuk made Zahava growl. Could she have gotten rabies? If so, would he catch it, making people laugh at him for inadequately immunizing his dog?

The week after, his sister, ashen and ancient, appeared at his doorstep. "Judy. Come in. Why are you here?" Benny asked.

"Shut up, Benny." She sighed. "We'll go to your mystic, if you want."

Ben called Levinson, and they went, Judy sitting in stony silence, ignoring Benny's attempts at conversation. Nochmann greeted them professionally, bowing graciously to Judy. "And you are Ms...."

"Poland. Judy Poland."

He nodded. "Ms. Poland, why have you come today."

She sighed and, face downcast, said, "This past week I couldn't stop drinking. For three days I was in a haze." She smiled wistfully at the memory. "Then the pain started, pain in my stomach. God, it was horrible. I thought I was going to die. I was in the hospital three days."

"Judy, why didn't you tell me..." Benny said but Levinson waved him quiet.

"The doctors said it was pancreatitis, that it'll come back if I keep drinking. And my supervisor thinks my job is gone.

"So I'm here. I can't stop drinking. I can't even remember not wanting a drink, not even those three years in AA when I was sober. The desire controls me like an actual dybbuk. I'm desperate. That's why I'm here." She shrugged. "I'm desperate."

"Excellent." Nochmann smiled. "Let us begin." He took two black robes from a drawer. "Put these on," he said and left the room.

Judy, frowning, donned the robe. Benjamin hesitated but put his on also. Suddenly the lights went out. Levinson, coattails flying, ran past them, murmuring only "circuit breaker." As they finished dressing, the lights came on and the mystic, also robed, returned.

"Where are the others?" Benny asked.

"What others?"

"Don't we need a minion, ten men, for an official exorcism?"

Levinson shrugged. "So this won't be official," and led them to a somber, darkened room, empty except for a chair and desk at one side and the six tall candlesticks at the other. Fear seized Benjamin when he saw the candlesticks and drapes. "Are you going to use the whip again?"

"That does it," Judy snapped. "I draw the line at S and M."

"No, no, Mrs. Poland, there is nothing kinky here. It's a misunderstanding. I promise you no whips, no perversions of any kind," the mystic said quickly. Judy looked dubious but stayed.

Levinson arranged the candles in a circle. Benny protested. "You said those were just for show."

"I said they were a good show, not 'just' for show. Now, would you and Mrs. Poland please enter the circle." With a look of disgust, Judy complied.

Benny gasped with fear, and forced himself to enter the circle.

Levinson raised his hands with a flourish. The ceiling light dimmed and went out, and flames sprang to life on the candles, casting a subdued hue that somehow made the room look huge, enormous, like a great cathedral rather than an ordinary office. Benny, nervous, shivered. The mystic looked towards heaven and began to sing, a plaintive, intensely nostalgic Hebrew melody with English words, "God and God of our ancestors, Benjamin Harold Cohen and Judy Cohen Poland, two of your children, stand before you." How did he know my middle name, Benny wondered. "Hear their cries, oh Lord, that they may be solaced. Judy Cohen Poland, speak your anguish."

Thunder rumbled ominously, a wind blew, and the candles flickered. Silence filled the room for several seconds. "Judy will never go along with this," Benjamin thought.

Then Judy started to sob. "He stole my youth. Mom and Dad loved me before he arrived. Then I was nothing; all that mattered was the baby. I couldn't play, laugh or cry, or do anything because I might bother that God awful, always needy baby.

"When Mom was depressed, I had to care for him. When he got good grades, everyone cheered. Me, they didn't care about. He got attention and approval. I got dreck. He took everything, even my childhood. I wish he had never been born," she said, her voice rising as she fell to her knees, tears streaming. Again thunder rolled and wind blew, blowing out the candles, leaving the room in an eerie darkness, as if suspended in space.

Once more the candles burst into flame, illuminating the three of them, a tableau in the middle of emptiness. "Now your turn," the mystic said to Benjamin.

"What should I say?"

"State your case. Tell how you feel."

Benny clutched his head. "It wasn't my fault," he said, moaning.

Levinson said. "You don't need to excuse yourself. Describe yourself without apology."

"I took nothing from her because I got nothing. All I remember of my own childhood is unhappiness and fear. I satisfied no one. I was too thin, too shy, cried too much and was whiny. They blamed me for my own unhappiness, as if I had deliberately chosen to annoy them. The more I cried, the more they rejected me, and the more I cried. I didn't dress well enough. I was too sensitive. I wasn't social enough. Nothing I did was ever enough because I was never enough.

"I didn't steal your happy childhood because I didn't have any happy childhood myself. I've been rejected from the day I was born. Sometimes I wish I were dead." He screamed and fell to the floor next to his sister.

"Ribono Shel Haolom," Nochmann said suddenly. "Master of the universe, you have heard the cries of your children. Who is right and who is wrong? We pray for your judgment."

Once more the wind blew, howling, waxing into a gust which overwhelmed the candles while thunder approached and crashed over the three figures. Lightning flashed, first a single bolt in the darkness, then forks of fire cutting across the ceiling-sky, illuminating the heavens. The celestial flames multiplied upwards into deepest space, into an infinity of stars and galaxies, and revealed the immensity of creation filling the emptiness with the indescribable beauty of reality.

"Ain sof," the phrase came to Benjamin -- "no end" -- and "Ha'makom" - "the space," Hebrew phrases used by the ancients to indicate God. To Benjamin it seemed as if the Deity in all its glory had somehow appeared in the Hasid's office. The force of the sensations, the awareness of the sheer vastness of existence imploded Benjamin's awareness, fragmenting, then annealing his soul, and changing forever his sense of self. He knelt on the floor, overwhelmed by the volume of the event, receptive to everything, thoughts quiet in the noise and light as the display continued, seemingly without end.

Finally, the thunder subsided and the lightning stilled. Benjamin Cohen knelt alone in the quiet and the dark, unable to move, his mind empty.

Nochmann Levinson walked to the wall and flicked the lightswitch. Judy and Benny stood up slowly, looking around at the study, not the glorious heavens that had so recently enveloped them, but a drab, small office.

"How are you two feeling?" the Hasid asked cheerfully.

"All right I guess," Benny said.

"Good!" The mystic rubbed his hands. His eyes burned intensely. "Can I offer you folks a drink, a bissele schnapps?"

"Ugh," Judy said, with visible disgust. Benny's eyes widened.

Levinson laughed. "I understand. Well, it would be nice to chat but the hour is late." He took an electronic organizer from under his robe. "I have an enchantment to lift this afternoon. It has been a pleasure doing business with you folks. Abi gezunt."

#

Judy and Benjamin sat in a coffee shop near Nochmann's house. A waitress with thick thighs, dressed in the eatery's mandatory short skirt uniform, took their order, tea for Judy and coffee for Benjamin. Benny looked at cracks in the Formica table while waiting to be served.

Judy broke the silence. "A very weird man."

Benjamin nodded. "Yes, indeed."

"God. I almost could believe we had been under a starry sky, instead of standing in his office." She tapped her fingers. "We were in an office, weren't we?"

"Probably. He has several sound effects. Maybe he has visuals as well. Or maybe we truly saw heavenly fire. It's academic. Whatever happened didn't depend on lightning."

"Well, something happened." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I don't want a drink."

He looked at her.

"Yes, I do not want a drink. Incredibly, for the first time in my adult life I do not want to get bombed out of my mind. I have always craved liquor. The craving itself was agonizing. And now I'm free of it."

The waitress brought their orders. Judy stirred her tea, avoiding her brother's eye. "Uh, I really am grateful for this. I guess I should thank you for bringing me here."

He shrugged. "I thank you for coming. Without you, Levinson couldn't have helped me."

"But you don't drink, Benny. That was another resentment I had, that you didn't have to get drunk like I did."

"No, I didn't drink but I worried. My worrying probably caused as much pain as your drinking. And now it's gone." He sipped his coffee and smiled wryly. "I'm not even worried about worrying. For once, I'm at peace."

"It's incredible. We stand inside a stupid room and look at stars and galaxies and suddenly I no longer have to get smashed. It's enough to make you believe in magic." She took out a cigarette, tamped it on the table, then grimaced. "Ugh. I don't even want one of these. I don't understand how it happened"

"Maybe it was magic. Or divine intervention. Who are we to say it's impossible."

She looked at him with contempt and shook her head. "Whatever happened, you know Benny, you may not have chosen to ruin my life, but you ruined it nonetheless."

His mouth set. "You can put it however you want."

She concentrated on her teacup. "I don't know how to put it. You stir up bad memories. I don't think we will ever be friends. There are too many losses connected with you."

"And what about me? Don't you think I have losses? Do you still think I was the golden boy who had everything?"

She shook her head. "No, I don't think that. I realize -- intellectually I realize though I can't feel in here" she thumped her chest, "that you had a hard time also. And that is why I forgive you."

His anger flared. "Forgive me? For what? My birth, that I took up room which you wanted? I think you resent the very fact of my being alive. And I make no apologies for living, none whatsoever. I don't need your forgiveness."

"Perhaps." She sighed and looked down. "It doesn't matter." She left a tip and walked out of the restaurant.

Copyright 1998. This means only that you should give me credit by including my E-mail (fiddlerzvi@.att.net) and webpage (http://home.att.net/~fiddlerzvi/) address and this copyright notice if you share this story with anyone.

Why not write Zvi the Fiddler and let him know how much you liked this story?

Revised 11/01