During the siege they would calm us, saying they could see we would be safe. When the shelling was at its worst one of the guests placed his hand on a child to calm him, show he wouldn’t be harmed by the shells. The boy did settle, briefly, but the guest laid his hand on him too long. The boy saw beyond the war and onto something else. What he saw terrified him. He wept and screamed, but could not say what had horrified him. I often think of that boy, now that I know what he could see.
When the shelling ended and still our guests warned of a coming danger, my father began planning their escape. My father contacted a rabbi he had trained with, who had moved to England after becoming ordained. He was able to put my father in touch with a Reverend Jenkinson. His thinking was that an English priest was able to move more freely and with less suspicion than an Austrian Jew in those days (and today, too, I suppose). My father begged him to visit and see if he could arrange a safe passage for some ‘desperate refugees,’ as my father called them.
I met this Jenkinson when he came. He ate dinner with us the night he met our guests. He said nothing about it over the meal, but shared stories of Leeds and England. After dinner, though, he and father discussed plans. Soon they would load the guests onto trucks bound for Jewish shops throughout Europe, relaying their cargo between different businesses. Before this could happen, he needed to talk to a man named Livett back in England. Jenkinson returned to Vienna once more with Livett, this time under the auspices of inspecting the building which was to form the basis of a housing project in Leeds—I believe you know it well.
In 1938, it was clear to even those without prophetic powers that they had to leave then or never. One night, packed into trucks loaded with spices, they left. Within a month German troops marched into Austria. Had they stayed any longer, they would have suffered the same fate as my family.
You will know more than I what happened to them when they reached England. My father had plans to maintain contact with Jenkinson and the guests, but the war changed everything.
I have often wondered how much those we cared for knew of what was coming. They gave us no warning, other than how it threatened them. I do not hate them for it, I have seen how fear can make men act.
Take care of them, Hal: they are scared, and can never return home.
One who knows,
Ignaz Mitsrayim.
PART TWO
15
Leeds, 1977
HAL AWOKE GROGGILY. He’d gone to bed long after midnight, having stayed late at the Yorkshire Evening Post’s offices. He always stayed late on the days he filed copy; he’d sit with the subeditors until they told him to stop looming.
He’d wanted to be sure his article on the impending demolition of Quarry Hill wasn’t passed over or missed out by some accident. It had never happened before, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave until he saw his article filed along with the others.
It was still night time, he realised. Something must have woken him up.
Then he heard it, a light knock at the front door. Hal slipped downstairs to see who it was before their knocking woke up everyone in the house.
Stood in the garden was a Farreter.
“I must speak with you, golem,” the creature said.
Hal stood in the doorway, knuckles white on the handle. He had not seen any of the Farreter since being driven from their bunker a decade ago. He had tried to wipe them from his mind, but still, there were nights when he woke up from nightmares of seeing through Goan’s eyes.
“You come to my house?” Hal hissed.
“You must speak with us. We are in desperate need.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Please, we have nowhere else to go.”
As Hal’s eyes grew accustomed to the dark he saw that the creature’s skin was covered in sores and burns. His resolve weakened. Stepping aside, he ushered the creature into the house and down the hall to the kitchen.
In the light of the kitchen, Hal realised he recognised the Farreter as Rikhter, the leader of the group, the one who had driven him and Shahid from the bunker.
“Why are you here?”
“I am so sorry, Golem. We didn’t know.”
“Why do you keep calling me Golem?”
“Because that is what he called you. It’s what he meant you to be. You were fated to die on that roof and he saved your life; you were to become inanimate, but he imbued you with a new purpose. To protect him, to protect us.”
“I am not his. Did you know he was a killer? That he killed my friend, a defenceless child?”
Rikhter shook his head. “We didn’t know. He hid it from us. Our brother has always been difficult, complicating us. We didn’t look closely. You must understand, he saved us and shamed us in the same moment. We have never forgiven him and it made us blind.”
“What do you mean?”
“Before we came here, to your world, our people have always been observers. It was our way for centuries. Many travellers wanted to use our sight, but we vowed neutrality. We believed this would make us safe, but it made us enemies—we were blamed for our inaction. In time they came to eradicate us. Many thousands of our people were killed, more were enslaved.
“When the yeger came for our tribe, we were prepared to accept our fate as we had been taught; all of us except for Shande. Using his foresight and their technologies, he was able to bring us here, to your planet. We thought he had delivered us to hell. We arrived to a world of blind, feral whiteness. The cold air blistered and burned our skin. We believed we were being punished for our flight, for interfering with the channel. But we were sheltered from the storm by a kind people. It’s hard to explain what it was to survive. That was a new idea for my people. In our culture you die when you are appointed to die. That is the way of things. It is your time because you saw it to be so. Shande isn’t the first to act as he has, but radicals like him were exiled on our world; even speaking of them was forbidden. Trapped in that basement, we couldn’t escape what he had done, couldn’t escape that we had benefitted from his transgression. We pinned that shame on him and did what we could to ignore him. Not that we could escape him in our bunker.”
“He killed people, innocent people.”
“He kept that hidden from us.”
“How? You see everything.”
“No.” Rikhter paused. “We closed ourselves to him. We knew he was a radical. We were with him when he talked to those who found us first. He told them about our people and they told him about theirs. We were present during those transgressions. But in this second home we locked the door to our bunker and didn’t see what he did outside—we didn’t care to. That is our crime.”
Hal closed his fists, not trusting himself to speak.
“You don’t know what it’s like. That bunker, our constant cell, it screams its future at us. When we lie in our beds, we see the roof caving in, when we sit at our tables for meals the floors and walls tell us it will become a tomb. It started as a whisper that we could ignore when we first arrived, but now, with the demolition coming closer and closer, we cannot escape what we see. We know what it is to survive now, and this constant knowledge of our fate is a torture to us.”
“How did you find out he was a murderer?”
“It was Novi who discovered them. He couldn’t take the visions anymore. He felt like he was suffocating. He unbolted the door to the bunker and fled, he got as far as the boiler room before his panic subsided. He couldn’t bring himself to go outside—there are too many unknowns in your world. As he calmed down he started to hear something calling to him. He located a bundle hidden in the boiler room that contained tokens: a knife, a watch. And this—” Rikhter placed a small silver medal on the table.
Hal snatched it up, inspecting it closely, turning it over in his hands. It was his father’s medal, he was sure of it. Rage flamed in Hal. All these years, it hadn’t been lost, it had been kept from him.
“He kept them from us, Golem,” Rikhter said. “He meant fo
r us never to find them.”
“What do they show you?”
“Ugly crimes. He cut short the fates of two people, changing the direction of the channel. We don’t know why.”
“Two people?”
“Yes, your friend, and many years ago, a woman.”
“Sarah Williams,” Hal said. Shahid had been right from the first. “Why have you come here?”
“Please, you must help us escape Quarry Hill.”
“Why would I do that? You did nothing to help the people who took you in in Vienna. You’ve done nothing but hide under the estate for forty years. And you’ve sat by and let your brother murder two innocent people.”
“We fled a war created by an envy of our sight. It wasn’t right, but lending our knowledge to strangers, even caring ones, that was too great a risk.”
“Why should I help you?” Hal repeated.
“Because you can,” Hal heard from behind him. He turned to the doorway and saw Daniel watching them both.
“Who is this man forming a puddle in my kitchen, Hal?” Daniel asked, walking into the room. He stopped when he saw Rikhter’s eyeless, skinless face. He showed neither fear nor even shock, but simply took it for what it was. He was silent for a moment.
“Something tells me I’m about to hear how my grandson came to learn Hebrew.”
THE THREE OF them sat in the kitchen for an hour. Hal told his grandfather everything: how Goan had saved him, how he and Shahid had discovered all they could about the strange figure, what they had found in the boiler room. Hal read them both the letter he had received from Vienna. Daniel listened patiently, asking only a few questions.
When Hal was finished, Daniel turned to Rikhter and asked, “How long do the Farreter have?”
“We do not see beyond this week.”
“Then we must act soon. You will stay here today, and tomorrow night we’ll have a plan. Hal, show our guest to your bed and come back downstairs.”
When Hal returned, Daniel was still at the table, watching the morning light through the window.
“It is not for us to decide who is worthy of help,” Hal’s grandfather said into the stillness. “The Farreter could have helped, and yet did nothing; that was wrong. But now we can help, and if we choose to do nothing, we are no better.”
He told Hal to start preparing the kitchen for a meeting, and then took his coat and left.
16
AS THE SUN rose, men began appearing at the house. Hal invited them into the kitchen and served them coffee. Hal had seen them all in Eli’s home over the years, often for Shabbat. They owned shops and businesses in the area. As the kitchen filled, the conversation grew louder; they spoke as old friends, discussing the past, the future, their families.
The noise brought down the other people in the house. Hal’s mum asked what was going on and he just said that Daniel would explain when he got back.
Shortly after the nearby church’s bell rang, Daniel returned, bringing with him the last guest.
“Thank you for coming,” Daniel said, quieting the room. “I invited you here because we need your help.” Turning to Hal he said, “Go get your guest.”
Hal went upstairs, finding Rikhter awake, standing at Hal’s desk, running his hands over the photos of Hal’s father.
“It’s time,” Hal said, leading Rikhter to the kitchen. The room was silent with expectation.
“My grandson will explain,” Daniel announced.
Hal looked to Daniel and back, momentarily afraid of addressing the room. Eli gave him a supportive nod from the back of the kitchen. He took a breath and, for the second time that night, explained all he knew of the Farreter: who they were, where they were from, how they’d come to be here. The men stood impassively throughout.
“—their part of the estate will be demolished within the week, so we must act now to save them,” he eventually finished.
The room was quiet for a moment. Some of the men stared at Rikhter, looking for proof of the strange story they had heard.
They began to speak all at once, talking over each other—
“—We could split them up, keep them in the community—”
“—We should use them. What can they tell us about the coming year?—”
“—Why should we help?—”
“—They left good Jews to die—”
Hal raised a hand to get their attention and said, “They are not a resource to be exploited. Their race was nearly wiped out because of that sort of thinking. Sharing their knowledge goes against everything they believe in; we must respect that.
“We need to get them out of the city. Quarry Hill began as a sanctuary, but it has become a prison. They can’t leave their bunker out of fear of discovery. Many of them have not seen the sky in forty years. They need somewhere open, somewhere private where they can be safe. And we need to keep them together. They are a family, they move as one; and splitting them up increases the risks.”
“Each year we celebrate Pesach,” Daniel said. “We tell stories of the Jews fleeing from the horrors of Egypt to find a safe home, a sanctuary away from persecution. Can any of you in good faith do that again if you turn down the chance to help these people?”
One arm rose at the back of the room: a man in his 50s who Hal recognised from the nearby bakery.
“I know a place. A place they may be safe. My cousin lives in Argyll in Scotland. There’s a farming community up there who may be able to take them in.”
“That could work,” Hal said. “Next we need to sort out transport. Who has a van we can use?”
Over the next hour, with little dissent, they fleshed out a plan. The group had to act fast, deciding to move that night.
IT BEGAN RAINING that afternoon. By night it had become a constant, heavy downpour. The mechanical rubbery squeak of the windscreen wipers filled the cabin of Eli’s van, and for a half-second after every swipe, Hal caught a watery glimpse of the sleeping city. The headlights barely cut into the darkness and near-impenetrable rain, but from what Hal could see there was no one on the streets.
As the convoy of vans circled the estate, driving towards the Oastler arch, Hal saw the demolition work had already begun, workmen breaking the buildings apart with machinery. It had the look of a half-finished dissection, flayed walls exposing gutted homes. Jackson House, Hal’s old home, was already gone, a pile of rubble marking the block’s final rest. Even the still-untouched buildings were ruinous, their walls cracked and crumbling, the metal frame exposed, visible on the surface like varicose veins. The narrow arch through Kitson House was blocked with rubble. In the darkness, the tunnel looked like a mouth, the rusting iron its fangs.
The vans entered the estate through the Oastler arch, driving past silent machinery. It was an eerie sight. There was no light on the estate; the shattered buildings still blocked out the city lights, and the courtyard’s lamps had been disconnected when the last residents moved out.
The vans parked near the playing fields, not wanting to get stuck in the mud. The men got out of the vans and formed a huddle. They all dressed in raincoats and carried torches.
“Rikhter and I will go in first,” Hal shouted over the rain. “The tunnel is narrow, so we’ll have to go single file. You three”—Hal pointed at some of the drivers—“will stay with Eli in the vans. If anyone comes, sound your horns and drive away. There’s no good excuse for being here, and no need to get in trouble. Daniel, you’ll stay in the boiler room; if the vans leave, sound the warning to us and join us in the bunker. Joseph”—the bakery owner—“you’re with me. Finally, everyone: if you see a man wearing a china mask, do not approach him. Warn us and then leave.”
“I’m coming with you,” Eli said. “If you and Dad are going to be in the bunker, that’s where I need to be.”
Hal didn’t argue. His step-father’s company would be reassuring.
Hal led the way across the field, lighting the way with his torch, Rikhter at his side. The creature wrapped itself tightly in H
al’s father’s coat, trying to keep out the cold and the rain. The rainfall had turned the field into mud, and they had to keep moving as the waterlogged ground tried to trip them or suck them down. Hal retrieved the boiler room key from his pocket—he’d kept it all these years—and let them inside, out of the rain.
The boiler room was cold and silent, the machines now still. The smell of oil remained, but Hal could now smell a coppery quality to it, a suggestion of blood. He felt like he’d stepped into a mausoleum.
Daniel took up his post at the door and Hal unlocked the hatch into the tunnel. Rikhter led the way, Hal lighting the tunnel ahead. Eli and Joseph followed.
Rikhter knocked on the metal door. He had ordered for it to be bolted behind him after he left. There was no answer, and Rikhter knocked again. Joseph turned to shine his torch back the way they had come. Rikhter knocked again, louder this time. Hal could feel the tension in the group as they waited. Finally, they heard the sound of the bolt being drawn.
“Novi,” Rikhter said when the door opened. “I have brought the golem.”
It’s hard to read the face of the Farreter, but Hal thought he saw Novi’s relax at the sight of them. The Farreter guard opened the door wider and let them inside.
The bunker was a lot smaller than it had seemed, those years ago. The candlelight and dancing shadows had hidden how tight a space it really was. It was a grim cage for twenty-seven creatures to spend so long inside.
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