“Why is she a demon?”

“She was made from earth, like Adam. At the same time as Adam. But she wouldn’t accept her femaleness. She refused to lie under him.”

“That made her a demon?”

“Of course,” Luria said, matter-­of-­factly.

“What happened to her?” Rachel asked.

“She defied Adam, she defied God, she spoke the forbidden name and flew off into the air, then fell into the Red Sea,” Luria said. Rachel wanted to laugh in his face.

“Then what?” she asked.

“She comes back at night, seduces men in their sleep, then steals their . . . emissions.” He smiled at the word. “And uses them to beget more demons. In some of the stories she strangles newborn infants, including her own. There’s an amulet against her and I wanted to put one over your bed when you had Leah, but Jacob wouldn’t let me.”

“To protect me?” she asked.

“To protect your daughter,” he said. “You don’t need protection from her.” He nodded at the picture, then stood up and faced her. On impulse she opened the knife drawer under the counter and found and gripped the largest handle. Luria took a step closer and she eased the knife out of the drawer, keeping it hidden behind her, feeling the flat of the blade against her buttocks. He took another step. She held her breath.

“Keep your book,” he said softly.

“Let the children in Tel Aviv have it,” she said.

“Look at that picture,” he told her. “Look at her.”

She looked past him at Lilith and her snake.

“Should the children in Tel Aviv see such things?” he asked. “Should Leah?”

“Why not?”

He leaned very close. If she stabbed him it would have to be in the face, but his hands hung loose at his sides. “Because she’s an abomination, Rachel. A defiant, Godless, demonic abomination.”

She was not going to look away from him. Childish or not, she was not going to look away. Her eyes stung, tears filled them, spilled down her face. He raised his hand and she jumped, but he smiled and kept raising it, palm open in a gesture of harmlessness. Then he wiped her tears carefully away with his thumb. His eyes were kind all at once, and when he spoke, his voice was gentle and concerned.

“Don’t take us on,” he said softly. “You’ll lose, and that will be awful.”

He let his hand fall and he walked out of the kitchen. She listened, thinking he knew she had the knife and he was hiding somewhere in the dark. She heard the front door open and close and she ran through the dining room to the living room, turning on lights as she went. From the front window she saw him walking up the block toward the Main Street Extension and then the phone rang.