The Inquisitor's Apprentice

week, I’m sending it back. I never buy a fish until I see the whites of its eyes!”

This Friday the shopping seemed like it would never end. But at last the sun sank over the Bowery. the shouting faded, and the crowds began to break up and drift away. Mrs. Kessler looked upon her purchases and found them good — or at least as good as a hardworking Jewish mother was willing to admit that anything in this wicked world could be.

“I’ve got a few pennies left,” she told her children as they hefted their overflowing baskets and began to stagger home. “Let’s stop off at Mrs. Lassky’s bakery for some rugelach.”

“No thanks,” Bekah said. “I’m not hungry. and anyway I have homework.”

Mrs. Kessler watched her daughter go with narrowed eyes, fingering the little silver locket she always wore around her neck. “So secretive,” she murmured. “You’d almost think … well, never mind. It’s a mystery what girls want these days.”

It might be a mystery what Bekah wanted, but there was no mistaking what the girls lining up outside Mrs. Lassky’s bakery were after. The big English sign over the door said LASSKY & DAUGHTERS KOSHER BAKED GOODS. But the English sign was only there to fool the cops. And since there was no such thing as a Jewish Inquisitor in the New York Police Department, the handwritten Hebrew signs taped to the shop window made no bones about what was really for sale inside:

NOSH ON THIS!

OUR

DELICIOUSLY EFFICACIOUS KNISHES

ARE GUARANTEED TO

GET ANY GIRL MARRIED WITHIN THE YEAR

(MULTIPLE DOSES MAY BE REQUIRED

IN SPECIAL CASES)

STOP SAYING “OY VEY!”

START SAYING “OYTZER!”

ONE BITE OF OUR

MYSTERIOUSLY MONOGAMOUS

MARZIPAN

WILL MAKE HIM YOURS FOREVER!

TIRED OF WAITING FOR HER

TO MAKE UP HER MIND?

HAVE A MOTHER-IN-LATKE

YOU PICK THE PERFECT SON-IN-LAW,

WE DO THE REST!

Sacha had never quite understood why magic was illegal in America. He just knew that it was. And that his mother and practically every other housewife on Hester Street cheerfully ignored the law whenever disapproving husbands and fathers — not to mention the NYPD Inquisitors — were safely elsewhere.

Luckily, though, Sacha didn’t have to worry about that. He’d made it all the way through his bar Mitzvah without showing an ounce of magical talent — and he couldn’t have been happier about it.

Inside Mrs. Lassky’s tiny shop, the air was thick with magic. Customers packed every nook and cranny like pickled herring. Half of them were shouting out orders, the other half were trying to pay, and they were all yammering away at each other like gossip was about to be outlawed tomorrow. Behind the counter, the Lassky twins scurried back and forth under drifting clouds of pastry flour. Mrs. Lassky sat at the ornate cash register accepting cash, compliments — and, yes, even the occasional complaint.

“Do you see anything on that sign about a perfect husband?” she was saying as Sacha and his mother finally reached the front of the line. “A perfect son-in-law I can deliver. But a perfect husband? There is no such thing!”

The other women waiting in line at the counter began chiming in one after another.

“She’s right, bubeleh! Show me a woman with a perfect husband, and I’ll show you a widow!”

“Perfect, shmerfect! Take it from me, sweetie. If it’s after ten in the morning and he’s not drunk, he’s perfect!”

When Mrs. Lassky caught sight of Sacha, she leaned over the counter and pinched him on both cheeks. “So handsome you’re getting, just like your Uncle Mordechai! But skinny! We need to fatten you up a little. How about a nice hot Make-Her-Challah-for-You? Not that you need any luck with the ladies.” She pinched his cheeks again for good measure. “Sooo adorable!”

“No thanks,” Sacha said, blushing furiously and wiping flour off his face. “Just a rugelach. And plain’s fine.”

“Well, if you change your mind, remember I’ve got two lovely daughters.”

“Speaking of daughters,” Sacha’s mother said ominously, “I’ll have a Mother-in-Latke.”

“Oh, Ruthie, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Your Bekah’s the prettiest girl on Hester Street.”

“Kayn aynhoreh!” Mrs. Kessler muttered, making the sign to ward off the evil eye. “And anyway she’s as stubborn as a mule. You should hear the wild ideas she’s picking up at night school.” Mrs. Kessler made it sound as if you could catch ideas like you caught head lice. “Do you know what she told me the other day? That marriage is just a bourgeois convention. I could’ve schreied!”

“Well,” Mrs. Lassky said, “I don’t know anything about bourgeois convection,” Mrs. Lassky said. “But I do know about son-in-laws. Come here, girls! And bring the latkes so I can make one up special for Mrs. Kessler!”

Sacha’s mother squinted at the tray of steaming hot latkes. “Hmm. I could do with a little less handsome. Handsome is as handsome does — and it doesn’t do much after the wedding night. And while you’re at it, why don’t you add a dash of frugality and another shake or two of work ethic?”

“Your mother,” Mrs. Lassky told Sacha, “is a wise woman.”

And then she did it.

Whatever it was.

Something flimmered over her head, like the hazy halo that blossomed around street lamps on foggy nights. Sacha guessed it must be what people called an aura. Except that the word aura sounded all mysterious and scientific. and the flimmery light around Mrs. Lassky and her latkes just looked grandmotherly and frazzled, and a little silly and, well … a lot like Mrs. Lassky herself.

“What did you just do?” he asked her.

“Nothing, sweetie. Don’t worry your curly head about it.”

“But you did something. Something magi—ow!”

Sacha’s mother had just kicked him hard in the shin.

“Why’d you kick me?” he yelped, hopping up and down on one foot. “Don’t fib,” his mother snapped. “nobody likes a liar!”

Later Sacha would wonder how he could have been so stupid. But at the time, he was too outraged to hear the bell tinkling over the bakery’s front door. Or to see Mrs. Lassky’s mouth falling open in horror. Or to notice the crowd behind him parting like the Red Sea for Moses.

“I am not a liar!” he insisted. “I saw it!”

But just as he was about to say what he’d seen, a heavy hand clapped him on the shoulder and spun him around — and he was face-to-face with a New York Police Department Inquisitor in full uniform.