Janet Berliner

Over the course of the week I spent with Michael Crichton in December, 1993, we talked a lot about writing and craft. This little snippet is from the first day when we talked about how he got started writing and who influenced him.

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At sixteen, I was writing for the local newspaper. I was also the photographer–I took the pictures and developed them. I covered high school sports. I was very tall, and playing a lot of basketball, just for fun. And I was reading. Conan Doyle. Poe. The classics, that my parents obliged me to read. To this day, I can’t believe that I plowed through Lorna Doone! I can’t remember which of my parents thought it was a good idea that I read that horrible, bad book. Conan Doyle, on the other hand, made a huge impact on me. Generally, I prefer non-fiction. Always have. Particularly to do with building things, making things, building a computer, making an electric motor with paper clips. I made model airplanes until my eyes crossed.

Reading non-fiction was easy, but the notion that I should be involved in fiction was a very difficult sell to me. In a certain way, it still is. There’s a tremendous amount of fiction that I just, for one reason or another, start to read and simply can’t complete. I don’t know whether it’s an aspect of my personality or what. The first fiction that clicked for me was Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes. For the first time, I was reading fiction for pleasure. Not being obliged to do it, not doing it because my parents bribed me with a dollar a book, but actually wanting to, and saying I’ve finished this book, I want another one. What’s noticeable to me about Conan Doyle in retrospect is the pacing of the book. And there is motive. Sherlock Holmes is someone who could easily be real. These books were not “literary,” not Lorna Doone. I liked that.

This watershed implied that there might also be something else out there, other fiction I could actually enjoy reading. I started looking for that “something else.” Someone suggested that if I liked Sherlock Holmes, I’d like Poe, and I did, even though the tone and pacing were so very different. I liked Mark Twain, too. I think Poe and Twain, more than Conan Doyle, had very thoughtful ideas. They are often perceived academically as naive, nativist writers. Twain is seen as one step up from Paul Bunyan, one step up from the fabulous recording of these tales of naive Americana, and it’s nothing of the sort. They were very sophisticated writers. You need only examine Twain’s “The Reader’s Essay on Fenimore Cooper” to realize that he is making remarkable literary distinctions. He knows exactly what he is doing, and he’s tremendously talented. And there’s Poe’s essay on composition. I found that extremely interesting, particularly his ideas about if you don’t need it, exclude it.

And those wonderful, clean sentences. “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.” One sentence, and this story is going. No Lorna Doone here. I was drawn to that. I was also drawn to Robert Louis Stevenson. And I think it’s fair to say that in early adolescence I read every science fiction book I could find, though, strangely, I don’t believe I read any Asimov except for his non-fiction. Science fiction in those days was either very much more nuts and bolts, or a sort of Orwellian social commentary. The intensity is kind of a blur. I do remember that I wanted to read it all, but that I didn’t love it all.

During my early reading, my affinity was for styles which bordered on a pulp pace, though I’ve always admired Simenon and I really liked Chandler. Clearly, I owe a debt to Burroughs and Verne, it is there. I have always been interested in taking an old narrative form and making it contemporary. I have done this many times. My novel, Congo, owes its existence to H. Rider Haggard.

Coincident with an interest in girls, I stopped reading science fiction and began to read Hemingway. It was all done in Europe, and every bit of it was wonderful. What was clear by then was that, by temperament and in other ways, I tend to be drawn to relatively terse authors. That’s what I like, and that’s also what I do. Defoe is another one I like. Also Melville’s semi-journalizing, semi-autobiographical account of life on a ship, I just tore right through.

Again, I tend to like fiction where I can feel I’m touching fact, and I am interested in the effect of environment on a character’s actions. I think it is true that I have never been sympathetic to that mode of fiction which elaborates ideas of motivation in a very complex way. I don’t believe it, I don’t operate that way in my daily life, I’m not interested in it, though I think it’s fine that other people are. But I don’t willingly read it.

I am drawn by idea-driven or plot-driven material, by the notion that you can form a complete character based upon the actions of that character. I am attracted to that quality of reality, and the pace of it. You can pay some modest attention to what a specific behavior means in terms of the character, but extensive focus on motivation leaves me exhausted and bored. That’s the way that I was, and it’s the way I still am.

I am a child of the Diaspora. My parents and grandparents, together with a few other family members, fled Nazi Germany in the mid-thirties. The rest did not make it out. Those who did are, even now, spread around the world: Australia, South America, Israel, London, Austria, and South Africa. To say that we were a dysfunctional family is a redundancy, but since I knew no other way and thought all children had homes like mine, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Am I scarred by it? Probably. Does it matter? Not really, except in that I am who I am because of it.

When I was six, my mother married for the third time.
During her periods of adjustment–which never quite happened–I was sent to live with my beloved grandparents. As I recall, the third one was shortly before Passover. Their flat was a’flutter with cleaning and cooking. My boredom quickly became a nuisance to Oma, my grandmother, who decided my grandfather, Opa, should teach me to play Canasta.

I learned fast. After a Passover game to help digestion after the Seder, I was declared a natural.

“But I didn’t win,” I said.

Oma left to make a pot of tea. “You explain to her, James,” she said in German.

Opa took out his small, oval snuffbox. Delicately, he dipped into it with his left pinky. Holding one nostril closed, he inserted snuff into the other and inhaled. There followed a gigantic sneeze, a shudder, and a satisfied sigh.

“This is the most important lesson you will ever learn in your life–it should only be a long and healthy one. We cannot influence the cards we are dealt in life. What we can do is learn to see the opportunities opened by those cards and have the courage to grab them by the throat and use them. That is what you did and that is why you will be a winner.”

And so they began to teach me — my grandfather about
always being just a little bit kinder than necessary, my grandmother about opportunity, and both of them about the value of listening more than I talked.

A little light-hearted post-Christmas gift idea.

Many years ago, Adam-Troy Castro put together what he called the world’s smallest shared word horror anthology. He called it “Crazy Akbar’s House Of Pain” and allowed us each around a dozen lines for our contributions. His “About the authors” segment read simply “They’re weird.” You were one of the contributors, Dave. This time I‘ve added the backstory.

At the time I wrote the original, I was younger and not in a wheelchair. More than that, we weren’t doing battle over a so-called healthcare bill. Now, it all seems so much more appropriate.

It all began at Denver airport. My plane was delayed because of a major snowstorm. Fortunately, I was in good company, drinking Irish coffee with Ed Bryant and Michael Moorcock. The place was jammed with nice, normal people. As time moved along, we became less nice and normal and became silly—a tendency not unusual for the three of us. Why the subject came up I’ll never know, but we decided to solve the problem of the elderly. We were not quiet, but not so loud that we realized we were being overheard by the people around us. Even if we were, so what, when clearly our tongues were firmly lodged in our cheeks.

After some discussion, we came up with the idea of placing ads in a variety of catalogs. The ads would read as follows:

STAPELTON .45 CALIBER WHEELCHAIR. Self-protection and fun for the handicapped and the elderly. No reason to feel deprived. Our fully automatic wheelchairs come with swivel base, knives on the spokes, one-touch guns, and poisoned blow-darts. Have some fun. Take to the highways and enjoy road rage like everyone else. ORDER B#-OO45.

It took a while for us to become aware of the deathly silence at the tables around us, not that it mattered. We filled the silence by getting noisier
Until—and this is true—security arrived, three men in uniform, inviting us to join them in a march out of the room. Well, it wasn’t so much an invitation as an order.

Were we disturbing the peace? No. We were apparently inciting violence.

Are we on a List? Will there be a knock at the door in the middle of the night? Should I start building my chair? Bet I could sell a few and with the economy the way it is, it may be a good idea. Bet I could sell a bunch of them.

Go ahead. Report me. I could use the excitement.

Friends and relatives around he world sing the same song: “We don’t have Thanksgiving here.” Here is New Zealand, South Africa, England, Israel…and on and on. This year, because we are down to three of us—my guardian angel/chef and one friend who lives alone—I stopped to think about what that means.

“We don’t have Thanksgiving here.”

I’m confined to the house and have been for five years, so I often think about things too carefully.

This time, my thoughts centered around why every day isn’t Thanksgiving. It is for me. I couldn’t survive without a daily listing of the things and people for which I am grateful and of the traditions we have made out own. Every year, we give a turkey to the homeless. There have been years when that means we don’t have one. We give them on other days, too, but there’s something special for me giving one on Thanksgiving Day. Does giving a turkey mean I am an American? I don’t think so. Why can’t those expats do the same thing? I don’t know because I’ve never asked.

How about we each start a tradition and pass it along to countries that “Don’t have Thanksgiving.”

I’m proud to say I did it, inadvertently, some twenty years ago.

I was working three jobs, which included part time teaching at two universities. I was teaching communications, a required course to enter the MS program.

Some weeks before Thanksgiving, the pleading began for the Wednesday before to be a day off. Growing tired of the song, I came up with an idea. Each student had to find a homeless or lonely person, e.g. someone eating turkey and mash at Denney’s, and invite that person to join their dinner at home. If the invitation was refused, the alternative was an invitation to eat together at a coffee shop. Just the two of them. They had to write essays about the experience. Long ones. Detailed ones.

After the groan, there was common acceptance.

The resulting essays were astounding.

I’m told that the exercise has become a required part of the course on all campuses. Better yet, I’ve heard from many student that they lobbied for it at other schools.

Why do I tell you this? Because it makes me feel good and because it’s so simple to implement. Doesn’t have to be turkey. Doesn’t have to be in English.

Looking ahead, here’s one for Hannukah. I used to make each of my kids wrap at least eight of their own toys, no matter how big or small. A book, a marble, a truck. They had to add to the eight for any gift they received. I drove them to a homeless shelter and an orphanage where they dropped them off. Today their children and their children’s friends do the same thing. The world sucks. Why not make it a tiny bit better.

For now, Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Welcome to Storytellers Unplugged. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

by Rick Steinberg

Vincent Price once told me that a beautiful woman with no flaws or scars or bad skin/experiences in her life must make a lousy lay.  And as we wandered on through his gallery at East Los Angeles City College he held to the point.

“Who would not want to spend an hour or so aboard a slice of perfection.  It’s a reasonable request; sexual expression is a form of physical adoration, and in these cases you get the additional nymphet born new experience of encounter bi-singular orgasmic pleasure.”

I had to ask.

“Bi-singular orgasmic pleasures,” he explained, “happen when two people are simultaneously brought to a perfumed stickiness caused by ejaculating over the same person.”

The woman in question.

The act sounds great, you begin thinking, until it suddenly dawns on you that, had you been stricken by Edwardian Sexual Mores, the outcome would have been much the same.  The woman involved would have been sexually sated, and thrilled by her own actions as a receptor.

As well as for her actions as a skilled and “penetrating” actor in the post-Victorian bacchanal.

Now Mr. Price quite gallantly took nothing away from this ability to seduce one’s self into a deeply meaningful sexual conquest.  His only regret was that the now limp adherent seemed somehow cheated.

Consider the quandary facing the “man” in Vincent’s situation, the ethical dilemma:

To try and take something less sticky and more emotionally tasty from his efforts, the man is left asking (more in the tone of a carpenter than an ardent lover) “Was I good for you?”

In fearful desperation not “was it good for you?”

A brief silence while she wrestled her left hand from under the covers, rolled a little on to her right . . . biting her lips as she shifted her weight while moaning something between a vibrato and cat’s purr about:

“No, uhhh . . . no, uh Robert –“

“My name is Brian.”

A coy, girlish smile covers the moment as the movement beneath her blanket causes her to stiffen . . . and then slowly release herself into the covert grasp.

Again.

And again.

“Bobby,” she finally says in a voice still hoarse with passion, “without you, well . . .”

“Yeah,” you ask leaning closer at the sight of part of a breast and a slight “something” stain on the blanket . . . down there. “Bobby,” she finishes as her tongue plays widely with her lips, “there’s beer in the fridge while you, uh . . . oh . . . wait for me.”

And before he can reply in anger, surprise, sexual intrigue or sexual abandonment, she is once again deeply involved with her most perfect lover.

Herself.

So where does that leave us writers dedicated more to what the words are about than we are to their perfect dictionary meanings?  Where the look in the eye at the moment of penetration can reveal far more about characters than where the coitus is staged.

A world wherein people – with their never-ending tastes and journeys – acquire a knowledge and a skill at revealing themselves when they most don’t want.  Or that when they do, that perfect coalescing of time, tide, and words reaps from the universe some basic truths about the ultimate intimacy.

Sharing souls, not sweat.

There is more to say here, and at some time in the future, I will share.  But time and tide covered by pain, medications and singular frustrations forces me to abandon it.

For the moment.

For now, I have learned two great truths about literature and sex.  1) When hardcovers fall off a back-shelf in a long darkened bookstore . . . it is etiquette to help clean-up the mess before leaving.  And 2) Be sure to wear a condom on your member, but not your heart.

Next time:  When sex scenes are required, which should actually be written, and which would be better served by a flashback memory to the Mickey Mouse Club; and a slightly disturbing kiss from “a friend of the family.”

Until then . . . Believe, just believe.

By Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem

Janet is buried hip deep in a deadline that she’s having trouble with thanks to the wonders of doctors deciding to “adjust” medication levels that were working. So, she asked her long-time friends Melanie and Steve Tem to fill in this month. In March, Wizards of the Coast Discoveries will be releasing the novel-length reimagining of their multi-award-winning novella “The Man On The Ceiling.” Publisher’s Weekly has already praised as “This visceral, psychological view of the horrors that occur in an average person’s life will draw in readers with delicate, exquisitely detailed and almost hypnotic language.” In honor of that, Steve and Melanie offer a back-and-forth on why writers write what they write, whatever you want to call it.

-=-=-=-=-

Steve: I remember that very early on I had this idea that it was an important part of the writer’s mission to give testimony, to say ‘This is the way it was for me during my time on the planet.’ But how do you do that as a fiction writer? Your job isn’t to write speeches, or to preach. And how do you risk embarrassing yourself? I know when I started out I wanted to be at least a little cool, to present an air of professionalism, to show that I was in control of my materials.

Melanie: It seems to me that often, in writing as in “real life,” giving testimony or bearing witness is all we can do–giving testimony to “here’s what it’s like for me right here and right now,” and bearing witness to what it’s like for other people as we imagine it and embody it through our characters and plots and through our willingness to take in other people’s stories.

And that’s no small thing.

Steve: That is no small thing, but it seems to me there are many forces which seduce us away from this basic mission. When you’re starting out, you want to sell stories, you want to build your resume, so you study the markets and you attempt to write what editor A appears to be buying. Or maybe you respond to a theme anthology invitation even though you don’t feel particularly driven to write on that theme. Nothing wrong with either of those approaches, but if you take that road enough times I think you forget there are other roads you can take.

If I may stretch the metaphor, I think writing about what really compels you is often an “off road” approach. You don’t have a particular market in mind, and the weight of emotion that often comes with this kind of writing often means that finding the right characters and structure to carry that weight becomes a difficult technical task. Sometimes it’s like relearning how to write with each new story.

 Melanie: At the same time, though, I often enjoy writing to “prompts”–which, in the case of markets, can be theme anthologies or market guidelines. For me, there are so many stories to be told that sometimes it’s a matter of sort of letting the line, with a creative magnet on the end of it, down into the teeming mass of possible stories and seeing what sticks to it.

Which is definitely a stretched simile.

Steve: That’s a good point. Sometimes, rather than trying to “say” something, you get better results by setting up an intriguing situation–a “prompt” or god-forbid a “market requirement”–and then see what comes out of that writing process. Better writers than I have suggested that “if you want to communicate, use a telephone,” the idea being that if you set up your situation properly, it will trigger all that stuff in the back of your mind, the stuff that really obsesses you, and that will come out on the page.

One of the things that was scariest, and most exciting, about working on the new “novel” version of The Man On The Ceiling was that some chapters just started out as writing prompts–”Naming Names” or “A Sense of Place” or something weird like “Reality Puddles.” One of us would start writing, and all this material would come pouring out–memories, dreams, reflections–things that were really essential to us, coming out onto the page and (with judicious editing of course) finding a structure.

Melanie: TMOC was quite a ride! I found myself dredging up all sorts of “prompts.” “Reality puddles” was a phrase given to me many years ago by a schizophrenic teen who preferred to honor and explore the unique perspective rather than medicating it; in the midst of all the crazy imagery, this young adventurer told me, “every once in a while reality puddles, and I can rest.” That stayed with me.

“Asymptote,” “Hitting the Quarter Mark,” “A Sense of Place”–all those phrases, chapter headings in TMOC, were things someone said to me or I picked up in conversation and stored away in my subconscious. Later, when I needed them–when I sort of sent out the message to my subconscious–there they were, like found objects.

You better be careful what you say to a writer….

Steve: So it’s an exploration, not just into your own passions and the realities you observe, but into the invisible worlds behind those realities, into imagination and into deep metaphor, worlds which inform what you feel and the realities you observe. You go there, and you report back. You testify. For me, this is what fantasy writing is all about.

This kind of testimony concerning “what it was like” has been traditionally, I believe, reserved for “serious” writers writing in the realistic tradition. The likes of Charles Dickens, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Dos Passos, Frank Norris, Don DeLillo–wildly different in their approaches, certainly, but all seeming to report on the events and the psychology of their times. Reporters and witnesses. Fantasy writers are almost invariably excluded. Critics and readers generally don’t expect fantasy to provide information as to what it was like. They tend to expect fantasy to report on “this is where we escaped to.” And of course a lot of fantasy writers buy into this. Readers/the critics/the writers tend to see fantasy as something separate from the writings that provide us with testimony. They see fantasy in terms of entertainment values alone.

I like to think that fantasy can do both. I think that even as a young reader I thought of fantasy in terms of testimony, providing information about what couldn’t be seen, what couldn’t be touched, and yet which had a very real and concrete affect on my life.

Melanie: My goal is to accept as few labels as I can get away with. I eschew those personality tests, for instance, like Meyers-Briggs, that make me choose which I would rather do, go to a party or take a walk alone in the mountains, and won’t let me give my real choice, which is “both.” I think the “types” that are said to come out of those inventories are reductionist. We should be striving for greater diversity, broader experience, deeper truth–not trying to make things simple.

So I have trouble with labels like “fantasy,” “horror,” “serious literature.” All of the above, I say–and more!

 

 

By Janet Berliner

 

My best student sent me a holiday card and added the words, “Writing is hard.” 

I wrote back, “Who promised easy?”

Then I thought about it. A lot. 

Writing is hard. Being published is almost impossible.  Making a living out of words is about as close as you can get to a fool’s dream.  So, why try?

In 1936, the great Oscar Hammerstein II wrote: “Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, I gotta love one man till I die.” Somehow I’m sure he won’t roll over in his grave if I paraphrase as follows, “I gotta love those tales till I die,” because either way it’s about love.

And so we write–in closets, in journals, for hire and on spec. Okay you say.  What’s new about that?  What’s new, I think, is that we forget what we could be doing –what most of the world does–working 9 to 5 in a job we detest while praying there won’t be cutbacks.

I’m saying that, in doing what we passionately love, we’ve been given a gift that truly keeps on giving, and too often we forget how damn lucky we are.

Which too-lengthy sentence provides me with a segue for the other thing I want to talk about: The season of gifting.

Realizing, as most of have, that we spend a lot of money at this time of year, not only on presents, but on cards and wrapping, I long ago changed paths. Children and best friends still get gifts from me, but overall I send contributions to Childreach – Plan International, a children’s charity I’ve supported for many years. The money goes directly to the children and the villages in the country of my choice. I have two African foster children whom I’ve supported monthly for fifteen years.  Their letters, photos, and growth have given me far more than I gave them. For $22 a month, I help provide meds and schooling, mosquito nets and toilets. 

At Christmas and other gift-giving times, I send $10 donations for mosquito netting.  $10 protects one family from malaria, the biggest killer along with AIDS. Childreach sends a (pretty) card to the person whose name was put on the donation, and I have a triple winner: I feel good, Childreach can provide more help, the recipient feels good.

My daughter has adopted two glorious Chinese daughters, so I do the same with Half The Sky.  That’s what she wants for birthdays and anniversaries.

Think about it.

I hope you had a happy holiday and that the New Year brings you and yours good health and productivity.

Aftermath

by
Janet Berliner

NOTE: This story was originally written at the request of Richard Dansky for Jerusalem at Night, a Vampire: The Dark Ages supplemental rulebook.

In Canaan, which was also known as the land of Israel, in the spring of the year Christians called 1197, Moslems prayed openly but with a sense of unease. Jews, for whom the spring coincided with the celebration of Passover, called the year 4957. They prayed, too, in secret and with no less nervousness. Moslems and Jews alike were people whose families had endured and survived the injustices and cruelties of three Crusades. They knew, to a man and to a woman, that this brief respite from war would not last; a fourth Crusade would follow the third as surely as camels carried their own water across the desert.

The first three Crusades had been devastating. Entire Moslem families had been decimated; Jews, falsely accused of engaging in blood rites too horrific to contemplate, refused to convert to Christianity, to deny ha-rachamim, their Merciful Father, and laid down their lives for the sanctification of His name.

The Crusades denied fathers the pleasure of seeing their sons grow up; they denuded both communities of single men who could marry their daughters, so that they could no longer obey the Lord’s or Allah’s instruction to go forth and multiply.

And so it was that Meyer ben Joseph and Hamid el Faisir, who were the leaders of their communities and knew that they all needed protection against the evil to come, befriended each other. “If we are destroyed, it will not matter to the few survivors which God we worshipped,” Meyer said.

Hamid assented.

On the first night of Passover, in the same spirit of cooperation, Hamid agreed to be present at the religious meal which his new friend Meyer called the Seder. “In this way,” Hamid told his people, “I shall be an eye witness to their rituals. If they do not drink of the blood of Christian children, as has been reported, then we shall defend our City together against the soldiers when they come.”

And so it came to be that Hamid and his family joined Meyer, his wife, Rose, and their only surviving child Devora on the first night of Passover. They reclined and listened with respect as Meyer told the story of his people’s journey across the desert in search of the Promised Land, they enjoyed the melodic songs, and they bowed their heads respectfully during the prayers.

“Pour the last of the wine, Meyer,” Rose said, finally. “I sense that our guests are growing hungry.”

Meyer poured a small amount of prayer wine for each person, though he knew that his Moslem guests did not drink. He was emptying the last of the carafe into into a large goblet set aside for the Prophet Elijah, when there came a knock at the door. Meyer’s hand jerked in surprise and a few drops missed the large goblet and landed on his wife’s handwoven tablecloth. He grimaced; there was little more where that had come from. The extra glass of wine they poured each year–the extra place setting at the table–was a tradition he would never have ignored. But for a stranger to know the exact moment in the Seder bordered on miraculous.

“Timing is everything,” he said, thinking, the Prophet has a good nose.

“Go, Devora. Open the door for our visitor,” he said, addressing his sixteen-year-old daughter.

She was not surprised, for each year at Passover her father had not so subtly knocked under the table and instructed her youngest brother to open the door and welcome the Prophet Elijah. Of course, there had never been anyone there, though her father said that Elijah’s spirit entered.

Not so this time.

Standing at the door in the darkness was a robed stranger, a tall man whose handsome face spoke of unbearable weariness. Slightly behind him stood a second man whose appearance and bearing cast him in the role of manservant.

“Welcome to our home,” Meyer said, beckoning the strangers to the table and thinking that Rose would have to set yet another place at the table. “It may not be much, but it is one of the best in Mea Shearim.”

Gesturing first to his manservant in such a manner that it was apparent he would remain outside, the Stranger entered Meyer’s house. He did not remove his robe, nor did he look into the eyes of his host.

“Will you pray with us over the wine?” Meyer asked, thinking that he must remember later to have Devora take food and wine outside to the manservant

The man sat but did not speak, neither did he eat or drink, even after the prayers were done. He was dark and swarthy, but did not seem to be of Jerusalem.

“What road have you travelled, Stranger?” Meyer asked, wondering if the man had been sent to observe the blood rites of which the Jews were accused. If so, he would leave disappointed.

“I travel the Road of Humanitatis,” the man said.

Those were all the words he spoke.

When the meal was over, there was one more tradition to be observed before the final song could be sung. Earlier, Devora–the oldest and the youngest–had hidden a piece of unleavened bread known as the Afikomen. Now she was sent to retrieve it.

“Let our daughter also take food and wine to the man who is outside in the moonlight,” Meyer said to Rose. “She will be rewarded for returning the Afikomen to the table,” Meyer explained to his guests, “for without it the Seder cannot be completed. It will not take long for her to find it. Rose and I watched her hide it in the garden.”

After a few moments, when Devora had not returned, the Stranger stood as if to leave. Meyer bade him Godspeed and glanced at the family of Hamid el Faisir, wishing they too would depart. Despite his best efforts it had been a strained night; he wanted it to be over.

When their daughter still did not return with the Afikomen, which fairly translated meant Aftermath, Rose said, “I am worried about our daughter. It is that time of the month for her. She should not be outside alone and in the dark for so long.”

Meyer excused himself and went to find his daughter.

He found her in the small arbor which stood permanently in the garden, ready to be decorated each Autumn in thanks for G-d’s bounty. She held the Afikomen in her hand. Silently, she gave it to her father.

Silently, he took it.

“We have been waiting for you,” Meyer said. “All but the Stranger, who came out of the night and has returned to it.”

“I have been with him,” Devora responded. “And I have fed his manservant.”

* * *

Devora, daughter of Rose and of Meyer ben Joseph, never spoke again of the two men or even of the child of the manservant, conceived that Passover during her time of bleeding and growing in her womb. More and more, she became morose. Each time she passed a mirror, it was spotted with droplets of blood and she was shamed before her father, the remaining man of her family. Soon she ceased to be obedient to him or to any man. As if she wished to die in childbirth, she baked challahs and deliberately neglected to take from the dough and give what she had taken to a priest in tithing.

Meyer did not like his daughter’s behaviors but he accepted them as part of the changes wrought by childbearing, a process he did not pretend to understand. Rose was more frightened than angered. Though it was the word of God and of Allah that Their followers go forth and multiply, it was also His word that no child be conceived during niddah–menstruation–and for good reason.

She feared for the life of her daughter and trembled for her daughter’s child, lest that child–conceived in blood–be claimed by the demon queen, Lilith.

* * *

The child, a girl, grew strong inside the womb of her mother, Devora. Like all embryos growing into the fullness of their heritage, this one saw the history of her people by the light of a candle which burned in the womb, a white glow which allowed her to see the beginning and the end of the universe.

Inside the womb, an angel kept watch over her, teaching her the torah; outside the womb, Lilith–overpowered by the remembrance of her own childless and unhappy marriage–watched the angel and seethed with jealousy of Devora’s motherhood. She bided her time, smiling evily as Rose constructed an amulet from the Sefer Raziel to protect the mother and child after birth and hung amulets aplenty around the walls and on the birth-bed to discourage the demonic queen from claiming the child.

Just before birth, when–as it was written–the angel readied itself to touch the child lightly on her top lip so that the cleavage on her upper lip could be formed and she could forget all she had learned, Lilith interfered. Dousing the light in the womb, she pushed the infant into the birth canal.

In that moment, Devora’s soul took leave of its earthly body. In that moment, Marisa was born. She emerged from her mother’s womb with a collective consciousness and with an arrogance which, in combination with her facial flaw, set her apart from the other children in Mea Shearim.

* * *

Of the 613 Laws of the Torah, Rekhilut–the first, though the least prohibitive, law against bad-of-mouth gossip–was the most frequently disobeyed in the quarter where Marisa was born. In the case of this girl-child, the gossip derived more from fear than from any intent to do harm. It was no secret that she had been conceived during niddah, nor could it be kept secret that the child had no cleavage on her upper lip. Since her mother had died in childbirth, it was logical to assume that she had been claimed as the daughter and servant of Lilith. But the greatest fear was the one spoken in whispers, that because of the circumstances of her conception and birth, Marisa could be infected with the most dreaded of all diseases, leprosy.

Meyer and Rose showered all of their love upon their granddaughter, whom they called Marisa Devora and who was the last of their living kin. Unfortunately, no amount of their goodwill could change the nervousness of a community which had been so badly hurt by the passage of the years that they feared anything which might bring more trouble into their midst.

Again, Hamid el Faisir, who had reported favorably on the household ben Joseph, came together with Meyer. This time they joined forces to try to protect Marisa from those who, driven by unreasoned anxiety, threatened harm to the fatherless child.

The strength of the two proved to be sadly insufficient against the many. One evening, when it was almost sundown, Marisa was wrest from them and taken into the desert. There, a dried water-hole had been filled with the blood of several lambs and a meager shelter had been built to shield the child from the last rays of the desert sun.

As if she were being baptised in blood, the little girl was submerged and held there until nightfall. Being barely six years old, she could certainly not fight her way out of the grasp of strong adults. She could have cried out, but she did not even do that and appeared, instead, to submit herself to the wishes of the good people of Jerusalem.

In the house in the district of Mea Shearim, Hamid said in an anguished voice, “Surely they intend to dry her off and carry her home at the rise of the moon.”

“Surely they do,” Meyer agreed, his eyes filled with tears for his granddaughter. “What do you say, Rose?”

Rose said nothing. She left the house and walked into the desert. Even had she wanted to speak, her anger and foreboding would have prevented the words from forming on her tongue. As the rim of the moon appeared on the horizon, she came upon the child.

She stood at a distance, her gaze was riveted upon the little girl.

The child had never looked more contented. She dabbled happily in the red pond, drinking from her cupped hand with an eagerness she had never shown for her grandmother’s chicken soup.

Looking up, Rose saw the Stranger, tall and hooded, riding a camel led by his manservant. “No,” she cried out, as the townsfolk stepped aside and he laid claim to Marisa Devora.

The child raised her arms and the manservant lifted her up. The Stranger took her, seated her astride the camel with him, and rode away.

Rose wept, but she did nothing to try to stop him.

* * *

At dawn, the people of Jerusalem returned to their daily business and to gossiping of other things. Only then did Rose cease her weeping and make her report to Meyer ben Joseph and Hamid el Faisir. She did not tell them that she had heard a female voice, calling the man and the child to join her. She did not say that Lilith had taken the man and the child to her bosom.

Meyer and his friend Hamid embraced each other. Now it was their turn to weep. Then they dried their tears and waited as the message of Marisa Devora and the dark stranger travelled to Cyprus and reached the ears of Amalric; “Beware,” the messenger said. “In the land of Canaan, there is a daughter of Lilith who is loved by man and God and Allah and marked by the Devil. Do not cause her to be angry, for her anger could devour you all.”

* * * * *

by Janet Berliner

This will be a very short blog, not because I’m lazy but because it’s something I feel strongly about, something that needs to be said in a short and pointed manner.

We write and talk a lot about success–the yearning for it, the fear of it and the acceptance of it when it comes. That’s all good stuff and necessary for our wellbeing. What we don’t discuss is the attitude change that happens all-too-frequently in our friends and colleagues.

Here’s my theory, based on my own experience and that of many others:

There are people who are what I call ‘Funeral Followers’. They get warm and fuzzy coming to the aid of their sick, struggling friends. They love to commiserate. But here’s what happens when those friends have something good to share. The Funeral Followers disappear. Or they come up with things they would change in a book already out. Or they write reviews–most often for nothing–where they bury the lead and start with something negative like: “This book arguably has the worst cover blurb I’ve ever read.”

Sure, they ultimately praise the author as a genius, but they know full well that it’s the first sentence that counts, in a Google search for example. It’s that whole first impression thing. Think of it this way. I’m dressed by a designer for a black tie affair. I go to the bathroom before making my grand entrance and the unthinkable happens: Trailing toilet paper adheres to the back of my outfit.

On the way into the grand ballroom, I meet a lot of people I know. Does one tell me about it? Noooo. Of course not.

I remember once, waiting at Michael’s in New York to have breakfast with Larry Ashmead. A well-dressed woman sat down across me. She had neglected to take the dry cleaning tag off her designer jacket. The moment I noticed, I told her how great she looked and told her about the tag. She was grateful almost to the point of tears.

Michael’s being the place where publishing makes many of its deals, I could have thought, ‘Hey, don’t say a word. She may be after the same book deal you want.’

Sad to say, many if not most people do take the latter route.

At this point, if you’re still with me, you’re probably getting your panties in a knot and asking why I’d be saying this to you when you would never do such things.

I’m writing this as a warning, thus the title.

Here’s one personal example. If I’d been warned, I’d have shed fewer tears and felt less betrayed.

I started a Writers Workshop, which lasted for six years. The writers were my peers and my friends, or so I believed. My first breakthrough novel launched the day before our monthly meeting, which I thought would be something of a celebration. Only it wasn’t. One person of the nine who attended brought a cake. He was a guest who had not yet written anything. As for the rest, they ignored the entire event.

For me, that was the end of the workshop and the end of any kind of real friendship with all but one of the members . . . the one who couldn’t make it that Sunday.

Does this matter in the scheme of the Universe? Of course not. Did it matter to me? Absolutely.

And when your first book comes out, or you first see your name in a New York Times Book Review ad or even on “the List”, remember my warning. Not everyone you call friend will be happy for you.