That night I dreamt about white lilies. I was starving. I was in a field of them, licking rainwater off the petals to try to fill my stomach. As I licked, I had to avoid getting any pollen or petals in my mouth, because the lilies were poisonous. But I was so hungry! At one point, while I sucked the droplets off one of the petals, I found myself biting into the petal itself—chewing that up and sucking out the juice from inside. It felt exciting to be doing something I shouldn’t do. It felt good to be nursing myself on the earthy, vegetal flavor. I ate it all the way to the stem. “I’m not dying,” I said. “I’m not dying.”
“Of course you’re not,” came a voice. “Nobody brings flowers to a Jewish funeral.”
It was Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel. He was standing inside a tall, white calla lily, the one calla lily amongst all the other regular lilies, which thrust skyward like an upturned trumpet.
“Hi Rabbi,” I said, wiping pollen off my lower lip.
“Hello, Rachel,” he said, his long beard hanging over the edge of the flower, as though he were Rapunzel. “Nice to see you noshing. It’s a mitzvah, you know.”
“They’re delicious.”
“That’s what I’m told. I abstain. Not kosher. I can only do the calla lilies.”
“Oh.”
“Which is interesting, because, if you’ll notice, the lilies of the field are shaped like the Star of David. But god has a sense of humor.”
“Totally,” I said, now biting into the stem of my lily. “Okay if I eat this in front of you?”
“Please, go ahead,” he said, waving his hand. “I don’t want to interrupt your nosh. I just came to let you know that it’s nice to see you trusting your kishkas.”
“My kishkas?”
“Your guts! Your intuition.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” I asked.
“You are!” he said. “You did it. I mean, you didn’t do it do it… with Miriam, which would also be a mitzvah, by the way, but you were right about one thing. She likes you.”
I heard a loud buzzing sound. It was like the end-of-period buzzer in a basketball game, except it was coming from above.
“God really enjoys basketball,” said the rabbi, laughing.
But he looked scared. Then the buzzer sounded again. The rabbi’s eyes widened. I had a terrible feeling that this was it. This was the end of the game. I had poisoned myself after all. The buzzer was letting me know I would soon be dead.
I opened my eyes and blinked. I saw the clock. It said 1:15. There was still 1 minute and 15 seconds left of the game. Then I realized I was in my apartment. What I was hearing was not the buzz of death. It was the buzzer on my intercom. I was scared. I ignored the buzzer and inched down farther under my blanket. Then it rang again—this time a little longer.
I threw the blankets off, got up, slipping and sliding around the floor in my wool socks, and made my way to the intercom.
“Hello?” I said, annoyed.
“It’s Miriam. Hi.”
Had I summoned her?
“One second!” I said.
I fixed my socks and raced down the hallway. Then I had a better idea. I made a U-turn and went back into my apartment. Kishkas. I pressed the intercom again.
“Want to just come upstairs?” I asked.