Rather, they filled me with contempt . . . for him, for all the other broken men and boys I saw shuffling across the rough floor, collapsing into their beds.
For they agreed with him, and in some way I only vaguely grasped, they were complicit with them, knowingly or not.
I tried to see in them what the rabbi had seen in me, the burning to escape, to avoid the end that everyone in the camp would come to . . . knew that they would come to.
I saw nothing.
No spirit. All broken. All accepting.
All pathetic.
I twisted away, clambered to the top of the bunks.
I lay there fuming until my body, apathetic to the anger that seethed within it, banked the fire with sleep.
***
I dreamt that night I lay in bed in our family home, peaceful, happy.
Then, the commotion started, the yelling, the rumble of the tanks, the chatter of gunfire.
My father herded us into the main part of the house.
Lights flashed, people screamed.
A shadow fell over the front window, and the door was kicked in.
Shapes poured in, gun bolts clacked, and a hush fell over my huddled family.
Another shadow fell over the front window, pushed through the stone wall of the house.
The soldiers who turned to face it were swept aside, flung into the darkness.
I could hear their bones breaking, the reverberating clang as their helmets struck stone.
The shape loomed in the darkness.
My father uttered one word, thick with terrified hope.
Golem.
***
“A golem?” the rabbi said as he dunked his bread into a slurry of potatoes and water. “You dreamt of this and now you want to make one of your own? Fancy yourself a Judah Loew ben Bezalel?”
I flushed in anger and embarrassment.
“And this golem . . . what would you have it do?”
I considered this for a moment. “Kill them. Tear up the camp, allow us to escape.”
“To where? All around is war. All around, the Germans are doing this.” He spread his hands slowly so as not to attract attention.
“Isn’t it at least worth trying, rabbi?” I blurted, leaning across the table. “What can it hurt?”
The rabbi sat for a second appraising me, a thin gruel of potatoes running into his beard. He didn’t say anything for a few moments, and I know . . . I know now that he was thinking of how to humor me, to give me something to do. Something to occupy my time until they came to cart me off to the furnaces and some other scrawny kid would shovel my ashes into the barrow and carry it up the hill.
He broke the silence with a small shrug of his shrunken shoulders.
“Build a golem then. What can it hurt?”
I scanned his deeply lined face for signs that he was patronizing me, which, of course, he was.
“I’ll need a shem.”
He finished his bread. “Tonight, after dinner, I’ll give you the shem you need. Until then, you should eat. Building a golem will require all of your strength.”
Nodding in agreement, I crammed the food into my mouth.
***
Ash. And mud.
I had a surfeit of both.
What is clay if not ash and mud?
My golem would be built of the ash of my people, the mud of our prison.
And he would be the stronger for both.
I started putting some of both aside in the narrow confines of the pit behind the furnaces. As hot as it was, it was also damp most of the time. Rainwater ran down the incline and pooled there, and the ground was usually a slurry of mud and ash.
In the shadows, I spent spare moments mixing, shaping, creating the form of a man stretched atop the ground.
The other boys watched with narrow, fretful eyes, knowing that the guards would shoot me if they saw what I was doing . . . but they seldom came. It was uncomfortably hot, difficult to breathe. Normally, they stayed above ground, smoking their cigarettes and chatting.
It didn’t take long to build, and a few days without rain ensured that the clay hardened—cured, I guess—in the awful heat of the furnaces. It lay still on the ground, fused to it, as if it had emerged directly from the earth.
I had made it huge, about eight feet tall, with broad shoulders, legs like tree trunks, arms capable of dealing tremendous punishment. Its eyes were deep, empty craters and its mouth was open, ready to accept the shem the rabbi had promised.
He gave it to me willingly, a little too willingly I thought even then.
We were back in the bunkhouse after dinner. As before, he grabbed my ankle as I went to bed.
When I descended, he pressed a small folded piece of paper into my hand.
I opened my palm, and the paper unfolded. I could see writing on it, Hebrew.
“A piece of the Torah, rabbi?”
He nodded solemnly, pointed at a word scrawled across the printed text in a thin, spikey script.
Emet.
Truth.
“Put this into your golem, and he will obey,” he said. “Or so the story goes.”
I stared at the scrap of paper, said nothing.
“When he has done your bidding, remove the shem, cross the ‘e’ from emet, put it back. He will return to clay.”
Met
Dead.
I closed my hand onto the paper.
“Thank you, rabbi.”
I climbed to my bunk and fell asleep.
All that night, my fist never uncurled from the paper.
***
At breakfast the next day, I didn’t see the rabbi in his usual place at the table. That concerned me momentarily as I shoveled my food in. Only momentarily, I’m ashamed to say. I was anxious to get to the pit, to bring my golem to life.
I supposed . . . knew what had happened to him, where he’d been taken.
But I could feel the piece of paper in my pocket, feel its heat through the rough wool trousers, goading me on.
At the entrance to the pit, the guards stopped me, and my heart galloped in my chest.
“You’re early,” he said, twisting my shirt in his fist. “Anxious to begin the day? Shoveling out what remains of your friends?”
The soldier tightened his grip on my shirt, yanked me off my feet and threw me to the muddy ground. I stayed there, letting the gritty water cool my forehead, my cheeks.
A boot kicked my stomach, just enough to drive the wind from me.
“Up! Up and get to work, if you’re so anxious!”
I fought to catch my breath, to say something, but instead just smiled . . . smiled.
Like a fool.
I suppose they thought I was, for they started laughing.
And I was a fool.
I went down the incline, and the heat from the furnace brought the stain of blood back to my face.
The other boys weren’t here yet, so I strode directly to the farthest end, knelt by my golem.
His mud skin was dry, cracking in places. I put my palm to his chest, felt the cold, stone-like swell of it.
My other hand fished the paper from my pocket, slipped it into the dark, strict rectangle of his mouth.
What is there to say?
The golem came to life, of course.
I don’t mean “of course” because that is what I expected.
I mean “of course” because if he hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here today chatting about it.
As I knelt beside him, there was a crackling, soft at first, then louder; like slivers of glass snapping.
Another sound, this one a low, terrible moaning.
He bent at the waist, sat up. The dried mud that held him to the earth broke, shattered as he rose.
I still had my palm against his chest, and now I could feel the moaning vibrate through his huge form, reverberate through the clay. I could feel the slow, deep respiration as the creature took in air . . . breathed!
After a moment, I noticed that he breathed in ti
me with me. His massive chest rose and fell with mine, as if I breathed through him.
I fell backwards, sprawled to the hot, damp ground, scrabbled away as he rose to his feet.
His lumpen head, imperfectly crafted by the hands of a child working in the dark, turned to me.
There was something in the hollow depressions of his eyes, something that didn’t precisely glow, but pulsed with a flat, nacreous light.
“Command me,” he said, his voice strange, deeply grating.
I tried to make sounds for a moment. My throat seemed closed with heat and the dust of his rising.
“Kill everyone against me. Help me escape. Don’t let me die.”
He said nothing, simply inclined his head.
He stepped over me, strode past me, went up the incline.
As he stood outlined against the wan, grey sky, I leapt to my feet, chased after him.
I was halfway up when I heard the chatter of machine guns.
Emerging from the heat of the pit, I stumbled to a halt.
The golem towered above four guards. His fists were huge, as big as their helmeted heads.
They were falling back, disbelief stark on their faces.
The golem swung on them, and one of his enormous fists struck the guard that had thrown me to the ground.
His fist kept moving as if it hadn’t connected, arcing high in the air, and my elation gave way to disappointment.
What if even a golem couldn’t get me out of here?
Then I saw it, the soldier’s head and part of a shoulder, flying through the air on the same trajectory as the fist, tumbling awkwardly, trailing gore.
God help me, I cheered . . . a wordless shout of wonderment and exhilaration.
Still the machine guns spat bullets, but they did no damage.
The golem plowed into the remaining soldiers, literally tore them apart.
The noise from the guns had barely faded when more soldiers poured in, shouting at it, barking orders.
Gunfire erupted again, wild, everywhere, spattering the dirt around me. I threw an arm up to shield my head, crouched and ran to the side of the furnace building.
The golem shredded these soldiers, too, making no effort to protect himself from their bullets. I could see his great, brown arms rising, dropping.
Soldiers fell to the ground and were stamped on.
Soldiers flew through the air to land with wet, sickening thuds.
The creature plodded to the commandant’s headquarters. More Germans appeared, were killed. The men in the watchtowers fired, but couldn’t stop him.
As I watched, he walked into the headquarters, right through a wall. There was a terrific splintering of wood, screams, more gunfire.
My fellow prisoners had begun to take notice. In the trenches, in the latrines, from the lines lurching to the furnace, the men stopped to watch. Even though they didn’t know what was happening, they knew it wasn’t good for the Germans.
A ragged cheer went up, much like my own earlier, as the golem burst from the commandant’s office. The figure he held over his head was cursing, screaming.
The commandant.
The golem tightened his grip on the wriggling man, brought him down hard and fast to break his body across one stony knee. A spray of viscera burst in the air, and the golem dropped both halves absently.
A few soldiers still fired at him, but he remained still. He was covered in blood, shining from it.
He seemed to look at me with those terrible, dark eyes, then turned to the crowd that had gathered, the other prisoners.
After a moment, he lurched into motion, headed toward them.
The prisoners, knowing the legend, thought he was coming to accept their gratitude.
Dear God . . . dear God.
I leaned against the side of the building for support as he waded into them with the same silent deliberateness he had shown with the Germans.
The hoarse cheers turned to screams.
“No!” I pushed from the building, raced to him.
Men ran, fell in the mud, crawled away from the golem.
He slapped at them, punched, stomped them into the mud where they lay.
I skidded to a halt, punched at the pillar of one thigh.
“Stop!” I yelled. “I command it. Golem, stop!”
He turned on me, one enormous clod of a fist raised to smash whatever this annoyance was.
When his dull eyes fell on me, though, he stopped, cocked his head like a dog trying to understand its master.
“What are you doing?” I shouted, not afraid that it would hurt me.
As screams echoed in my ears, the golem bent to me.
“Kill everyone against me. Help me escape. Don’t let me die,” he rumbled, then rose to his full height and strode after the fleeing.
I stood there, slack-jawed. I wanted to scream, to explain what I’d meant, to make him understand that these men weren’t the ones against me.
But I knew, even then I knew, and this understanding spread within me like dark ink in water.
I slumped to the cold, wet ground and wept.
I could feel my shirt and trousers grow damp as the wool leeched up the muddied, bloodied waters.
I watched him shuffle away, dispatching slow moving, half-dead men struggling to flee.
I watched for a long time, believed I had to. Believed I owed it to them all.
At some point, a building caught fire, probably an untended stove.
The fire took quickly, jumped from one wooden structure to the next.
When I looked up again, it was twilight. I saw shadows on the ground, cast by the dozens of fires engulfing the camp.
There were no screams. No gunfire. No moaning or pleading.
Just the roar of flames.
I looked up, saw that he stood over me, silent, unmoving.
I closed my eyes, held my breath.
I have held it ever since.
***
Grandpa Lev lay back on the bed, a deep sigh rattling through his body.
Phil held his hand, didn’t know what to say.
“That morning, we simply walked away. Escaped.”
Lev laughed at that word, and it was bitter and sharp and anything but humorous.
“We?”
Lev turned to his grandson. “The golem and I. He wouldn’t leave my side. I tried . . . Lord, I tried. But he followed me . . . always found me. I ran all the way here, to America. And he found me even here.”
“Grandpa . . . ”
“No, no,” Lev said. “This isn’t where you ask me if I’m making this up. Not where you think I’m crazy. This is where you do that thing for me . . . if you love me.”
Phil looked hard at his grandfather. “You know I love you, but . . . ”
“I’m trying to die . . . but I can’t. He won’t let me. I asked him to kill me, hundreds of times over the years, and he wouldn’t.”
“You asked it . . . this golem . . . to kill you?”
“That’s the part of the story you disbelieve?” Lev asked, and this time he cracked a small smile. “Of course I did. How to live with the self-loathing that had birthed him? The cost of my escape? The shame? Didn’t you listen?”
“Grandpa, I listened, but . . . ”
“It wasn’t just that. That was my first mistake, not choosing my words correctly. Because in the end, the golem’s breath was mine. More so his heart was mine, my poor, injured, foolish boy’s heart. Even I didn’t understand what was in it. My hatred of the men in the camp for not wanting to escape . . . not trying. How could I understand? It was a blight within me. And I passed it to the golem.”
Phil frowned, searched for words.
Finally, “You said the first mistake.”
“Such a smart one,” he said, patting Phil’s cheek. “That’s why I need your help.”
***
Phil never knew that his grandparents’ house had a basement. Certainly, he’d never been in it, never seen anyone go into it or emerge
from it.
It was simply a locked door in the kitchen, one that he’d dismissed long ago as the door to a closet or storage room of some sort.
It wasn’t out of bounds or forbidden, it was simply never addressed. That kept it safe over the years from everything but the occasional curious jiggle of its knob, first from Lev’s children, then his grandchildren. Never addressed, never forbidden, it simply disappeared in the house.
Now, Phil stood before it holding a shining, newly cut key.
Feeling a little silly, he slipped the key into the door lock, turned it.
It turned easily, obviously well lubricated and maintained over the previous seven decades.
He drew the door open onto a set of stairs that led into darkness smelling of damp and gritty concrete.
Phil flipped a small switch, and weak light illuminated the steps.
He descended into a vast empty space filled with cobwebs and shadows. And that smell . . . damp earth, concrete . . . no . . . mud.
It was mud.
The darkness in the farthest corner of the space congealed, moved.
Phil stepped back to the stairs, put a reality-affirming hand on the bannister.
The basement was not low-ceilinged, but the shadow could not rise to its full height. Its shoulders bent and its head bowed as if in obeisance.
“You are of the blood,” came the voice. “Will you release me?”
Phil licked his lips, swallowed in an attempt to work up enough spit to talk.
“Release?”
The thing shambled forward with the sound of rock scraping rock.
“My job is done, yet the maker will not release me. He would have me kill him as payment for my release. This I cannot do. It violates his command.”
Phil tried to make sense of this, tried to assign a rational explanation for what he was seeing, hearing.
“Come out,” he said.
The golem crept forward until he bumped into a hanging incandescent bulb. The wavering light showed his form, massive, brown. His limbs were thick and rumpled like a bed sheet. His chest was broad, corrugated. His head was a misshapen clay oval, with deep eyes and the stark line of a mouth.
Phil thought he could see the curl, just the slightest curl of paper in that mouth.
“Release me.”
Though the voice was rough and nearly monotone, Phil could hear ages of grief and loneliness in it. Had his grandfather kept him down here all this time, alone, coming down at intervals to ask it to kill him?
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