Clay Man

by Irene N. Watts

  TEXT COPYRIGHT © 2009 BY IRENE N. WATTS

  ILLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT © 2009 BY KATHRYN E. SHOEMAKER

  Published in Canada by Tundra Books,

  75 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 2P9

  www.mcclelland.com

  Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York,

  P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2008910106

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA

  CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Watts, Irene N., 1931-

  Clay man : the Golem of Prague / Irene N. Watts; Kathryn E.

  Shoemaker, illustrator.

  eISBN: 978-1-77049-083-3

  1. Golem – Juvenile fiction. I. Shoemaker, Kathryn E. II. Title.

  PS8595.A873C49 2009 jC813’.54 C2008-907124-7

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

  v3.1

  FOR TANIA AND JEAN-MICHEL GARIÉPY

  – I.N.W.

  FOR HANNAH EVERETT,

  A GIFTED STORYTELLER – K.E.S.

  My continuing thanks to Kathy Lowinger and Sue Tate,

  and to Sarah Duncan for advice.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Before

  1. Ghetto

  2. Passover

  3. “I must make a golem”

  4. “This is the place”

  5. Clay Man

  6. Josef

  7. “Not like other men”

  8. “No smoke without fire”

  9. A Wedding Feast

  10. “Poison”

  11. The Blood Lie

  12. “To save a life”

  13. “He is only sleeping”

  14. “The courage to speak”

  Afterword

  “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,

  and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;

  and man became a living soul.”

  GENESIS 2:7

  BEFORE

  I am of clay

  Old as earth

  I lie here

  Waiting

  River washes over me

  Water cools me, Sun warms me

  I know light and dark

  Light is bright and dark is black

  I lie and wait

  1. GHETTO

  Father says that Prague is the most beautiful city in the world. We live in the small part of the city, in the ghetto, which is also called the Jewish town. We are surrounded by walls. Five hundred Jews live here, inside the walled town. We must wear a yellow circle on our clothes to show who we are.

  Merchants, tradesmen, and those who come to the market square from other quarters of Prague to buy and sell and look for bargains can wear whatever they like.

  Our houses are crooked, crammed close together with no space between. When a voice is raised, or a baby cries, everyone in the street can hear what is happening. Sometimes I forget about being quiet and slam the door of my room. (I have a room to myself now that my brother, Shimon, has gone away to study.)

  When I make a noise, Father looks at me, shakes his head, and says, “Jacob, must I remind you again that I have work to do?”

  Mother hustles me away, sighing. “Do you think this is how Shimon behaved?”

  My older brother lives in Vienna, with a rabbi and his family. He attends the yeshiva there, the school of higher learning. One day he, too, will become a rabbi, like Father.

  Emperor Rudolf, who rules all of Bohemia, comes from Vienna. Now he lives here, in a castle on a hilltop. From there, Father says, he looks over all of Prague – its bridges, spires, domes, and the mighty Vltava, the river that flows through the golden city.

  Father says the emperor is our friend because he permits us to live in the Jewish town. He does not banish us to wander homeless around the world. He wants all of his citizens to live peacefully, side by side.

  The gates of our ghetto are locked at night to keep us safe. No one comes in and no one goes out. Even our dead are buried inside the walls of the town. I want so much to go outside the ghetto … to see the wonders of the city that everyone talks about.

  Mother says all we need is right here: the synagogues in which we worship, schools, markets, and our fine town hall with its Hebrew clock.

  “What need is there to leave the Jewish quarter?” she says. “Here, there is safety – why walk among strangers? We have our own merchants, goldsmiths, butchers, shoemakers, innkeepers, tailors, a doctor, an astronomer and an astrologist, teachers, and many learned men. Be content.”

  My father, Rabbi Judah Loew, is the most learned of them all. He is a great teacher, a wise man known all over the city and even across Bohemia and the lands beyond. He reads and prays, day and night. No problem is too hard for him to solve.

  Everyone seeks his advice. He understands many languages and writes books too. One day, I hear a story about him in the marketplace:

  Years ago, long before I was born, there was a great plague. Hundreds of people in Prague died, but my father encountered the skeletal figure of Death in the cemetery.

  The story people tell is, he showed no fear, but argued for the Jews of the ghetto. He pleaded for each name that Death had written on a list, held in his bony fingers.

  When the plague was over, nearly all the Jews of the ghetto had been spared.

  Some say Father has great powers … that he is a magician. When we walk home together after the service in the synagogue, people stop him and praise his sermon. Then they turn to me.

  I wait, dreading the question they always ask.

  “So, Jacob, will you grow up to be a great teacher like your father?”

  I look at the ground, searching for words. How can I tell them that I don’t like to study, that the Hebrew letters blur on the page, and that my thoughts wander?

  Does no one understand how hard it is to be the son of a famous rabbi? Worse, to be the younger brother of Shimon, who has always loved learning?

  I want to go outside the ghetto gates, explore the fine streets and squares, run across bridges, swim in the river, and climb up the hill to the castle. I hear that in one of the castle towers, astronomers watch the sky day and night through a special instrument.

  From my bedroom window, I see only a patch of sky – the rest is hidden by the walls that shut us in. Does the sky look bigger away from our narrow alleys, gloomy courtyards, and crooked lanes?

  Why do the clouds change shape? What makes the sun and moon and stars appear and disappear? What causes the tides to ebb and flow? How is the world put together? I want to find out. Will the ancient texts we read day after day help me do that? One day, I will go and find the answers to all my questions.

  2. PASSOVER

  Winter will soon be over. I long for spring. In March, we celebrate Passover. Each year, as the youngest son, I ask the question, “Why is this night different from all other nights?”

  Father tells the story of how our ancestor
s left Egypt to wander in the wilderness. Anything was better than staying in Egypt, where they had been slaves. Finally, after many, many years, Pharaoh, the ruler, agreed to let them go.

  This is the first year for Rebecca, my baby sister, to hear the story. She listens, watching Father, for once not grabbing at his beard!

  “Pharaoh had broken his promise to our people many times. Would he change his mind again? The Jews were anxious to begin their journey. They feared that mighty Pharaoh would order his guards to prevent them, his Jewish slaves, from leaving and force them to stay in Egypt. They knew they must hurry away.

  “The baking was not ready. What was to be done? They needed food for the journey. They took the bread out of the ovens before it had time to rise. This is why we eat unleavened bread, matzos, during Passover. On this festival, we remind ourselves of the difficulties our people had to overcome.”

  For most of the year, we live in peace with our neighbors on the other side of the wall. But Christians celebrate their Easter festival around the same time as we do Passover, and we are anxious. This is a dangerous time to be a Jew.

  The people from outside spread lies and accuse us of dreadful deeds. They stand at the gates of the ghetto, raising their fists and voices against us. Their words give me bad dreams, even though I will soon be ten years old.

  Father says it is only a few ignorant people who spread the “Blood Lie.” It is how they attack what they do not understand.

  No one knows when the lie started, Father says, but it has plagued Jews for centuries. Every year at this time, the people accuse us of killing Christian children, of mixing our matzos with their blood.

  THIS EVENING, elders from our congregation come to the house to talk with Father. I am sent to bed. Voices are raised, and I overhear some of what they say.

  “Read the Torah – in the words of our bible lies our defense,” Father says.

  “But who can tell how far our enemies will go to prove the Blood Lie?” an elder asks.

  “The emperor does not allow us weapons. What can we do to defend ourselves when they threaten to burn our synagogues, Rabbi?”

  “Not even the land upon which our houses stand is our own, and yet they begrudge us our very homes.”

  The elders are afraid and so am I!

  “Emperor Rudolf may not protect us forever, Rabbi. What then?”

  “He is a wise ruler. The people listen to him. He will calm their fears. After all, this is the year 1590 – we no longer live in the Dark Ages. I will pray for guidance. Go to your homes and do the same. All will be well,” Father says.

  I hear them thanking him. Father will find a way to let us welcome Passover safely. Nothing bad will happen, and I am comforted.

  3. “I MUST MAKE A GOLEM”

  After the elders leave, I wait. I do not want to disturb Father at his prayers. When all is quiet, I knock on his study door, as I do every night before I go to sleep. He keeps these few minutes for me only.

  He tells me to come in. I stand beside him and read the title of the book that is open in front of him. I have heard my teacher mention it – the Sefer Yezirah – a book of mystical writings about the Creation, too difficult for all but the most learned men, scholars of kabbala, to understand.

  “There is great wisdom in these pages, Jacob. I am seeking answers that remain hidden from me. I hope, through study and prayer, that all will be revealed. The truth is not easy to find.”

  “What is hidden from you, Father? What kind of truth?”

  “Jacob, can you tell me how the world was created?” It is Father’s way – to reply to a question with another.

  For once I know the answer: “God commanded it, Father.”

  “How did He command it?”

  “He said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light.’ ”

  “Good. He commanded the world into being with the power of his words.”

  Then Father asks another question: “How are words formed, Jacob?” I hope I have the answer to this one too.

  “With the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, written and read from right to left.” When one has a rabbi for a father, everything is a lesson!

  “You will yet become a scholar like your brother. That is correct. Our Hebrew alphabet contains the holy name of the Creator. By arranging and rearranging the letters of the alphabet, I pray that the solution to the dangers that face us will be revealed to me.” Father bends over the pages of the book. I say good night and leave him to his reading.

  Before I go to sleep, I tell myself that one day I will be brave enough to confess to Father that I don’t want the same things as Shimon. I am afraid of disappointing him.

  In my dream, I walk outside the ghetto, along the bank of the river Vltava, as I have wanted to do for so long.

  I stop to plunge my hands in the water. Red clay oozes between my fingers. I grab big handfuls – enough to sculpt something splendid. I knead and shape, without planning what the clay will become. A head forms in my hands. Will it become the head of a fierce lion, with a mane? Our family name, Loew, means lion. But this does not look like a beast – it resembles the head of a giant man. I continue to work, molding the neck and shoulders. I will make him taller even than Shimon.

  I am so busy with my task that I do not notice the tide creeping in until my feet are covered by swirls of dark water. When it recedes, the shape has disappeared, taken back by the river. I am left alone on the bank. Nothing remains of what I made.

  Father’s cry wakes me – I run to him! His study door is open, the candle flickering beside him. Who is Father talking to?

  “I must make a golem, create him of earth, fire, water, and air … a golem to protect us from our enemies.… Who is there?”

  “Jacob, Father. I was dreaming. I woke up when you called out.”

  “What was your dream?” Father’s hand rests on the open pages of the Sefer Yezirah. He shuts the book.

  “I played by the river and I made a shape from clay.”

  “What kind of shape?” Father asks harshly. Is he angry with me? His eyes gaze into mine as if I have done something wrong.

  “It was only a dream, Father. I did not really leave the ghetto. The water came and washed away what I made. I don’t remember.”

  Father puts his hand on my head in a gesture of blessing. “It is not yet day. Go back to bed, my son.”

  I do as I’m told, but his whisper follows me: “It is the same, the same dream.”

  I lie awake until dawn. How can we both dream the same dream? I was only playing with clay – why would my father, the great rabbi, dream of such childish things?

  4. “THIS IS THE PLACE”

  All week, Father’s study door remains shut. No one is allowed to disturb him. He does not come into the kitchen for meals. Mother says he is fasting – rabbis fast even more often than ordinary men.

  Seven nights after my dream of the river, I hear noises in the night. Father’s door creaks as it opens and closes. I recognize his tread on the stairs. Quietly, so as not to wake my mother and the baby, I follow him outside, but he has vanished.

  It is the darkest part of the night, when shapes and shadows, spirits and demons haunt the ghetto.

  A rat skitters across the slippery cobblestones – he is braver and more used to the darkness than I am. Then a sliver of moon appears, and I no longer wish I had not come. I see Father and two men walking ahead of me. They wear white garments, clothes kept for Holy Days. Are they going to the synagogue to pray? I watch them glide through the uneven streets like ghosts.

  The thought makes me shiver, so I hurry not to be too far behind them. I keep close to the shuttered houses. Father pauses to confer with his companions. So as not to be noticed, I try to breathe softly and cover my face with my sleeve until they move on.

  There is just enough light for me to recognize the stooped shoulders of Isaac, Father’s most trusted student. He carries a bundle. The other man, walking beside him, is Samuel – the husband of my older
sister, Devora. The town hall clock sounds the hour, three times.

  The moon disappears again, for a mist shrouds the ghetto in these fearful hours before dawn. Why has Father not lit the torches they have brought with them? Everyone knows that fire keeps away evil creatures.

  They pass the Old-New Synagogue and approach the cemetery, whose crooked tombstones startle me, looming out of the gloom, leaning and swaying in the dark like old men at prayer.

  Soon Father and his companions reach the gates of the ghetto. I begin to call out, but stifle my cry. I know that Father would send me home. He unlocks the gates, passes through, and locks them again. I press my face against the barrier, afraid to lose sight of the three men. How can I follow now?

  Then I remember that further down, where the walls do not quite meet, the stones have crumbled. My fingers feel their way to the opening, no wider than the span of a man’s hand. I push through sideways, ignoring the rough edges scraping at my clothes. Are they trying to hold me back? Except in my dreams, I have never been outside the ghetto walls.

  The moon emerges once more, and the light changes the men’s white garments to blue. They walk more quickly now, lengthening the distance between us.

  I have no time to admire the fine houses with their beautifully painted signs and numbers; ours have none. Here the streets are broader and cleaner, and they do not smell of herring and onions like ours do. I almost wish I was home again.

  We leave the city behind. Father disappears into a small wooded grove, and the others follow. I hear them stumbling over roots and through brambles. I smell the river … hear it rushing by. The winter ice has melted.

  Ahead is a clearing. Now I become a shadow, twisting and turning among the gnarled branches. I find a low thick bush, behind which to crouch. I can see, but cannot be seen.