Body of Glass (13 page)

She was like a cat in that she hated closed doors. A locked drawer, a sealed box, a protected program, a book hidden away turned her insatiable the way other children longed for candy or French fries. The hint that something was beyond her understanding would make her study any tome. She liked to creep up quietly when I was gossiping, just to overhear stories that could have meant nothing to her about people she scarcely knew. She was burrowing around in the Base by the time she was twelve, in and out of everybody’s files, my little star-nosed mole. I would shriek at her, “Privacy is sacred! You can’t just rummage through people’s lives and secrets.”

“It’s what we don’t know that makes us stupid,” she would say in hunched defiance. She refused to be ashamed. We should all know everything.

When I think of myself in my twenties, I see a fervent scattered creature snatching at sensations, grabbing for ideas, impatient as my own baby for answers and gratification. I was always trying to argue her into doing things my way, trying to talk her into obedience. My words washed over her, trying to erode her granite cliffs. I talked and talked; she stood mute, glaring.

You, too, were reluctant to speak at first. Do you remember, Yod? Some say that Judah’s Golem — which means ‘matter, lump’ — could not speak, but this is an error based on other golems of legend. He does not chatter but is taciturn, as befits a man of clay. But as he opens his grey eyes on this night of Rosh Hodesh of the month of Adar he asks the Maharal, “Father, was this a good thing to do?”

“It was a necessary thing. And you should not call me Father.” The Maharal had endured a stormy enough relationship with his only son, Bezalel. Bezalel’s death still feels to the Maharal both bitter and unnatural. Therefore the Golem calling him Father is particularly galling. A son should bury his father, not the other way round. Bezalel died of a petty disease, a cold that moved into his lungs, just as Leah had. It was an absurd death, which still grieved the Maharal. Judah had attempted to get his son designated as his successor as High Rabbi of Prague, but he had been refused, and Bezalel had left in anger. This being he has summoned is not his son. “You should call me Rabbi. Your name will be Joseph.”

The Maharal hands the Golem the cloak in which he wrapped the Torah, to cover his nakedness, for the three of them had formed him as a man. They had done so without thinking about it or discussing it. The Maharal would probably have said that he did not think he could improve on the design. They simply made a man of clay.

“Joseph,” the Golem repeats obediently. He lumbers to his feet, sways and seems about to fall, while from each side the Maharal motions Itzak and Yakov forward to support him. They are obviously reluctant to touch him. “Can you walk, Joseph? Look, one foot and then the other. Just so.” The Maharal patiently demonstrates. “We must hurry back to the ghetto before dawn. Come, we must help him. I can smell dawn coming. We must hasten, or we’ll be caught by the watch.”

But no one moves forward to touch the Golem. The Maharal himself experiences a reluctance to put his hand on that strange flesh. Would he be as cold as clay? Would he feel as if he were dead? The Maharal must set an example, and he puts his arm around the huge being.

The Golem sways forward, his mouth slightly open, his face screwed into concentration with the effort. He bends like an oak in a strong wind, towering over the Maharal. He has short wild reddish hair and a muddy complexion. The Maharal had not made him with an eye to handsomeness, but neither is he deformed. He is thick-necked, broad-shouldered, built squarely and with massive, slightly flattened features, a hint of the Tartar.

Joseph first takes a step that throws him off balance, and once again he must be propped up. Now finally Itzak and Yakov assume positions on either side, letting him hold on to them. The weight almost knocks them off their feet. Then he takes a baby step. That works. He takes another baby step. At this rate it will take them all night to get out of the woods. There is no question of carrying him, for he is bigger than any of them and, from the weight of his hand on their shoulders, both the younger men can tell he is heavy indeed. A little faster, friend,” Itzak gasps out, Joseph’s weight straining him.

Finally Joseph steps tree of them and, in an awkward, jerky manner, walks at last. A step at a time, he proceeds. Then he trips over a log. He topples forward, striking his chin on the ground with a great thud. As they try to haul him up and he strives to rise, he crashes backwards.

It takes all three of them to get him up again and moving. Itzak asks, “Rabbi, what will we tell people when they ask where this huge man came from?”

“Say, from Galicia. People will believe anything of Galitzianers. His mother sent him away to keep him out of the army. I found him, a feebleminded beggar in the street. He will be the shamash at the synagogue.” Recently their shamash has found the job too difficult. He is an old man, he wants his rest. The Maharal turns to the Golem. He speaks more coldly to Joseph than to Itzak and Yakov. “You will cut wood, draw water, light the fires, take out the ashes, sweep the floors in the Altneushul, our beautiful synagogue. Do you understand?”

“I will do what you say. How can clay understand?”

The Maharal is not sure if the Golem is mocking him, but he chooses to ignore his doubt. He turns and heads for the city, followed hastily by Itzak and more slowly by Yakov, who strolls just a short distance ahead of the Golem, acting out his lack of fear. Yakov has recovered his dignity and is concerned not to lose it again. The Golem treads heavily in the rear, gaping at every tree, every bush. The flight of an owl through the darkness brings him to a standstill, mouth open. The Maharal feels his eighty-one years, his fatigue. This night has drained his last energies. His head whines with fever. It is hard to stride on as if possessed of inner strength when he wants to lie down on the earth. He cannot even imagine sleep, for he has been insomniac too long, fretting, fussing, picking at his sore conscience. All he can hope is to rest and be warm and dry again.

The Golem has mastered walking now. He moves well and powerfully. From time to time he stops to thrust out his arms or raise one above his head, to shake his head like a dog throwing off water, to nod or to blink, to move his jaw as if masticating something. The Maharal realizes that Joseph is trying out various physical functions, exercising his small and large muscles, experimenting. He wriggles his ears and his nose like a rabbit. The Maharal has an urge to rebuke Joseph for his grimaces as he would a boy in cheder, but he stops himself. The Golem is a mere baby in the world. He will learn discipline as soon as the Maharal can begin his instruction, but they must be quiet so near the city.

When they arrive at the place in the wall where the creek sidles through, they see two men of the watch with their pikes, waiting to capture them. They may be hung; they may be tortured and then hung. Whatever is in store, it looks like grisly death in some form, unless the men can be bribed. The Maharal has a few coppers in his pocket, a fine belt with a gold buckle, but that’s it. He does not think that will buy them off. They get a cut of the possessions of men they arrest.

“Joseph,” he says softly to the creature towering over him. “We’re in danger. Those two watchmen will not let us back into the ghetto. We will die unless you can disable them. They haven’t seen us, and they don’t know you yet. See if you can slip up and knock them on the head so they won’t see us pass through the wall to safety.”

“I obey,” the Golem answers. Silently and swiftly he glides through the darkness. The watchmen turn to see him just before he sets upon them. They only have time to cry out once as he seizes both, one in each hand, and smashes their heads together. He lets them drop.

The Maharal runs forward to bend over their bodies. The skulls are crushed. Blood seeps out. “Joseph, you’ve killed them!”

“They broke so easily.” Joseph frowns in puzzlement. “Did I do something wrong? Are you angry at me, Father Teacher?”

“Killing is wrong,” the Maharal begins, but then the Golem had been created to protect. “You should use no more force than is necessary at any given time.”

“But I did protect you. Now they can’t talk of who came out of the ghetto tonight.”

“But their bodies outside the wall will call attention to the secret exit. Jews will be blamed for the murder. The idea, Joseph, is to save us from trouble, not to get us into trouble.”

“Let him take them to the river and throw them in. There will be nothing to connect them to us,” Yakov says. “I’ll go with him, Rabbi. Wait inside.”

Itzak and the Maharal hide in the bushes, waiting. Already the sky is streaked with the pale grey of predawn, not as if light came but as if the darkness were wearing through. The wind picks at them more bitterly, knifing through their clothes. The Maharal feels faint. He leans against Itzak. His long fasts have caught up with him.

Itzak takes advantage of the Maharal’s weakness to say, “Teacher, perhaps this was a mistake. We could easily return him to clay right now, and no one would ever know. No one but us has seen him.”

“Except for the watchmen,” Judah says quietly. The murders have shaken him deeply. Of course he has seen people executed in the square or set upon by ruffians and murdered; these are violent times, and no one with eyes can avoid seeing fresh corpses. But he feels implicated in this crime, and that is new and disturbing.

“Maharal, we can send him back to clay. As if he had never been.”

Judah musters enough strength to pull himself upright. In a few moments he will collapse in his own warm bed and Perl will minister to him. Perl will be waiting, he knows. She will scold him for wearing himself out, for staying out all night, for starving himself. She will feed him warm soup, she will bring a warm brick to his bed and wrap him in a goose-down comforter. He will be warm, and he will sleep. “What I have done is proper. I was given a vision and told what to do. He is our defender. He’ll learn. And he’s obedient. We must simply be careful what we tell him to do — be precise, be careful exactly what we say. Because what we order, he will carry out.”

The Maharal is unsure if he is truly glad to see the Golem striding out of the thinning darkness or if he had secretly hoped that the Golem had vanished into the night and only Yakov would return.

“Joseph,” the Maharal begins as soon as they are safely inside. “Killing is wrong. You were created to keep the peace for us.”

“I protected you. The way I must.” The Golem stands there flatfooted, patient. He looks as if he could stand all day just staring at the walls, at the stones of the narrow twisty street. The houses of the poor are built of whole logs; the fancier houses of dressed timber or stone. Everything fascinates him: a cat slithering over a wall to safety, a few blades of grass pushing out between paving stones. “Why are you angry at me?”

“You must be more careful, Joseph. Your strength is great, but your mind is weak.”

“Maybe it can grow, Teacher. Maybe my mind can be strong too. But I must keep you safe.”

Thus begins the service of the Golem to the Jews of Prague, while the Maharal is filled with bitter doubt. What has he summoned to life? What violence has he loosed on the world? He is a man of peace. He wants only to protect his flock. All the violence of his life has been verbal. The prayers he leads in the synagogue speak constantly of peace ― Shalom, Shalom ― although for the Jews peace seldom lasts. What peace they know is the peace of the few without power or weapons surrounded by the many with both. Thaddeus is preaching against them every week. The powerful crafts guilds have already claimed one victim, Chaim the Silversmith, whose mangled body, every nail torn off, eye dangling on his smashed cheek, toothless gums, battered feet, he can close his eyes and see, unwillingly. No one leaving the ghetto misses experiencing insult and sometimes random attacks in the streets of the city. Something is seething, something that lives like a tick on warm fresh blood.

Judah has fought his rabbinical rivals with words. With words he demolishes their arguments, with words he slashes at their work of words, their books, their circulated manuscripts, their sermons and lectures. With words he created this golem. But this monster does not fight by throwing words.

eleven

Shira