The Last Demon

darkness of Egypt another 2,689 years is up to you.’
    The rabbi of Tishevitz remains silent for a long time. His face becomes as white as the slips of paper on which he writes his commentaries.
    ‘How do I know you’re speaking the truth?’ he asks in a trembling voice. ‘Forgive me, Holy Angel, but I require a sign.’
    ‘You are right. I will give you a sign.’
    And I raise such a wind in the rabbi’s study that the slip of paper on which he is writing rises from the table and starts flying like a pigeon. The pages of the Gemara turn by themselves. The curtain of the Holy Scroll billows. The rabbi’s yarmulka jumps from his head, soars to the ceiling, and drops back onto his skull.
    ‘Is that how Nature behaves?’ I ask.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Do you believe me now?’
    The rabbi of Tishevitz hesitates. ‘What do you want me to do?’
    ‘The leader of this generation must be famous.’
    ‘How do you become famous?’
    ‘Go and travel in the world.’
    ‘What do I do in the world?’
    ‘Preach and collect money.’
    ‘For what do I collect?’
    ‘First of all collect. Later on I’ll tell you what to do with the money.’
    ‘Who will contribute?’
    ‘When I order, Jews give.’
    ‘How will I support myself?’
    ‘A rabbinical emissary is entitled to a part of what he collects.’
    ‘And my family?’
    ‘You will get enough for all.’
    ‘What am I supposed to do right now?’
    ‘Shut the Gemara.’
    ‘Ah, but my soul yearns for Torah,’ the rabbi of Tishevitz groans. Nevertheless, he lifts the cover of the book, ready to shut it. If he had done that, he would have been through. What did Joseph de la Rinah do? Just hand Samael a pinch of snuff. I am already laughing
to myself, ‘Rabbi of Tishevitz, I have you all wrapped up.’ The little bathhouse imp, standing in a corner, cocks an ear and turns green with envy. True, I have promised to do him a favor, but the jealousy of our kind is stronger than anything. Suddenly the rabbi says, ‘Forgive me, my Lord, but I require another sign.’
    ‘What do you want me to do? Stop the sun?’
    ‘Just show me your feet.’
    The moment the rabbi of Tishevitz speaks these words, I know everything is lost. We can disguise all the parts of our body but the feet. From the smallest imp right up to Ketev Meriri we all have the claws of geese. The little imp in the corner bursts out laughing. For the first time in a thousand years I, the master of speech, lose my tongue.
    ‘I don’t show my feet,’ I call out in rage.
    ‘That means you’re a devil.
Pik
, get out of here,’ the rabbi cries. He races to his bookcase, pulls out
The Book of Creation
and waves it menacingly over me. What devil can withstand
The Book of Creation
? I run from the rabbi’s study with my spirit in pieces.
    To make a long story short, I remain stuck in Tishevitz. No more Lublin, no more Odessa. In one second all my stratagems turn to ashes. An order comes from Asmodeus himself. ‘Stay in Tishevitz and fry. Don’t go further than a man is allowed to walk on the Sabbath.’
    How long am I here? Eternity plus a Wednesday. I’ve seen it all, the destruction of Tishevitz, the destruction of Poland. There are no more Jews, no more demons. The women don’t pour out water any longer on the night of the winter solstice. They don’t avoid giving things in even numbers. They no longer knock at dawn at the antechamber of the synagogue. They don’t warn us before emptying the slops. The rabbi was martyred on a Friday in the month of Nisan. The community was slaughtered, the holy books burned, the cemetery desecrated.
The Book of Creation
has been returned to the Creator. Gentiles wash themselves in the ritual bath. Abraham Zalman’s chapel has been turned into a pigsty. There is no longer an Angel of Good or an Angel of Evil. No more sins, no more temptations! The generation is already guilty seven times over, but Messiah does not come. To whom should he come? Messiah did not come for the Jews, so the Jews went to Messiah. There is no further need for demons. We have also been annihilated. I am the last, a refugee. I can go anywhere I please, but where should a demon like me go? To the murderers?
    I found a Yiddish storybook between two broken barrels in the house which once belonged to Velvel the barrelmaker. I sit there, the last of the demons. I eat dust. I sleep on a feather duster. I keep on reading gibberish. The style of the book is in our manner; Sabbath pudding
cooked in