Orson Card - Enchantment

He also noticed that she was wearing a wig. How odd. Had she gone Hasidic all of a sudden? Not likely. No doubt just having a bad hair day.

Ruthie opened the trunk. Ivan stepped into the road just long enough to get the picnic hamper out, then carried it around the house into the back yard. Behind him, the dog barked. But Mrs. Sprewel wasn't yelling at Terrel anymore, and the kite was still up.

Ruth saw the wasp land on Ivan's back as he bent over the trunk to pick up the hamper. She didn't say anything to Ivan. Instead she silently invoked the wasp: Sting the bastard! Thinks he can hold me like old times, thinks he still has the right to pull me close enough to mash my breasts up against his chest and hold me there—well, that's a right I give to those who deserve it.

The wasp didn't sting him. But it didn't fly away, either. As Ruth followed him around the house, she could see the wasp crawling along his shirt. Plenty of time. Besides, if the wasp didn't sting him, she had the brownies. Plenty of itch and sting in those, if she chose to serve them to him. Not all the brownies, of course. Just two of them on which she placed the itching powder from the gypsy's bag, then put icing over them. She probably wouldn't serve those to Ivan and his bride. She had much greater hopes for the one big piece of chicken breast that she injected with the thin clear fluid from the gypsy's jar. Let Ivan eat that while Katerina was in the house on some made-up little errand and see whether he wanted to be married to the shiksa after that.

I can't believe I'm even taking these things seriously, thought Ruth. This is magic, witchcraft, superstition.

But why shouldn't it work? Witchcraft was simply an alternate way of viewing the universe, every bit as valid as science. Folkways were often wiser and more in harmony with the earth than the hard-edged metallic thinking of the engineers. Ivan used to laugh at her when she said things like that, and once he asked her if she believed that principle applied to recipes and directions. "Don't you expect directions to have a one-to-one correspondence with the highway system?" But that was just patriarchal thinking. Anything women said or thought had to be put down by men. She hadn't realized that Ivan was such a patriarchalist until after he betrayed her, but love is blind.

"Can I ask you one question?" she said as she followed him around the side of the house.

"Sure," said Ivan.

"Did you marry her as Ivan Smetski or Itzak Shlomo?"

"What?"

"Was it a Christian wedding or a Jewish one?"

He didn't answer. Which meant it was a Christian wedding. He betrayed everybody, from God to all the Jews who died in the Holocaust, and right on down to Ruth. And he didn't care. Because he was in love.

Well, what happens if you fall back in love with me? Do you switch religions again? How many times does this make? What are you, God's little tennis match, back and forth, back and forth? Double fault this time, Itzak.

"Why do you care?" asked Ivan.

For a moment she wondered what he was asking about. Then she realized he was finally answering her question from before. "Every time a Jew dies, all other Jews should mourn," she said.

He stopped abruptly and turned around. Standing there holding the heavy picnic hamper, he looked her in the eye and said, "If this is a sample of what this picnic's about, let's get this stuff back in your trunk and you can go on home."

"No, I'm—I'm sorry, Ivan, no, I'm not going to snipe at you. I was just remembering what my grandmother always said."

"My parents don't think I'm dead because I married her."

"I'm sure they don't," said Ruth. "Nor do I. I'm here, aren't I?"

"Why are you here?"

"For lunch," said Ruth. "And to try to make sense of my own life. I suddenly find myself at loose ends. I not only lost a fiancé, I also lost a very close friend. I'd like to see if I can have the friend back."

"Not like before," said Ivan. "I'm part of something else now."

"I know, Ivan. But what if she likes me, too? Then maybe I can be friends with the two of you."

He regarded her for a moment.

What, you think you have polygraph eyes? You can tell if I'm lying just by looking at me?

"You're a class act, Ruth," said Ivan.

"Also, the lunch is good. But simple. I was going to get really fancy, but I didn't dare serve caviar to a Russian."

He laughed, turned around, and continued around the outside of the house.

Katerina had no idea what to make of Ivan's exaggerated sense of courtesy. Yes, he had broken his betrothal to this woman, but that was all the more reason to avoid her. Ivan insisted that there was nothing to fear except, perhaps, an emotional scene, and they could avoid that just by being generous and natural and patient in their conversation.

Katerina had much more specific fears, mostly involving poisons in the food and drink. To her, it was an immediate danger sign that Ruthie had insisted on providing all the food herself. She found it incomprehensible that Ivan thought this was a laughable idea. Had they never heard of poison here?

Esther had reassured her. "All our food comes from outside the house," Esther explained, "so I have many charms and spells against it here. And not just poisons, but against potions and powders and whatnot. Vigilance is always good, but I don't think you'll take any harm from what you can eat. Or at least you won't be able to eat what would do you harm."

She showed Katerina what charms she used, and at Katerina's insistence provided Ivan and Katerina with additional charms that they wore around their necks—not that either of them told Ivan what his charm was for. "There's a general spell to protect you by sensing if someone at the table knows that some of the food is poisoned," Esther explained, "and there are charms that should make it impossible to eat anything that is not what it's supposed to be. But I'm no match for the knowledge of the Wicked Widow, so keep your own watch."

With those protections and warnings, Katerina felt barely reassured enough to go ahead with the picnic. And she had to admit to herself that part of the reason she dreaded the event was because, after all, this was the woman that Ivan had chosen for himself without an angry bear looming over him.

Ruthie was gracious enough—no sniping remarks, or at least nothing that made Ivan hesitate in his translation. But it was obvious that Ruthie loved the fact that the conversation was in English, and that much of it moved so rapidly that Ivan could only translate the gist of what was said, and then only after the fact. Katerina was being systematically excluded. But that was to be expected. As long as Katerina didn't let it get her angry enough to leave, she was fine.

Ruthie set out the chicken on their plates and then handed several jars to Ivan to open. Katerina reached for one—her grip was as good as Ivan's, or better, as they both knew—but Ruthie babbled something in English to Ivan, who turned to Katerina and, with only the faintest hint of a smile to let her know that he was aware of how Ruthie was manipulating them, he translated: "She forgot the salt. She wants you to go get it from the kitchen."

Esther felt it as a chill creeping up her back. She shuddered. Something had just come into her protected realm. But not a person. She wasn't sure what it could be.

She looked out the window into the back yard, where Vanya was having his incomprehensible picnic with Ruthie and Katerina. It reminded her of those old pictures of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. Except none of them was wearing such an obvious wig as Ruthie. What kind of fashion statement was she trying to make? Or was it just a terrible haircut or dye job that she had to cover up for a few weeks?