by Marge Piercy
“I am not something that is going to work out, no matter how patiently you wait. Marriage is not in my own best interest.”
“Chava, marriage between us would mean finer intellectual work. We would soar like angels into the firmament of thought. Never could I imagine this with any other woman.”
“Isaac, I have tried that, and I understand that if a woman is to soar, she had better beat her own wings. I don’t want to be anyone’s wife again. Once was good, once was enough. I have my work set out for me.”
“The Maharal would let you go. He told me that. He talked to you for me. I know he encourages this match.”
“He admires you enough to sacrifice me to you, yes. But I don’t admire anyone that much. I want to see all the Maharal’s books through the press. Then I want to go to Eretz Israel. I want to make my aliyah. There I will die.”
“If you don’t marry me, I’ll abandon my work and my studies here. I’ll go to Israel myself. I’ll marry you or no one. The holy one led me to you and put in my heart this desire, which is not impure but of a piece with everything I hope for and believe.”
“Yitzak, you do me great honor with your proposal, but I can’t accept it. I may be your just reward, but you aren’t mine. I care for you as a brother, not as a husband. This will never change.”
“Is there someone else?”
Chava looks at him with exasperation. She has told him since the first time he spoke with her that she does not desire marriage. It seems that he cannot believe her. Finally she says, “Yes.”
“Ah,” he sighs. He turns away ashen and drags off with slow steps. He goes to pack. He was serious when he said he would depart Prague at once. But not before he has one last conversation with the Maharal.
Now, when Chava said there was someone else, the person she had in mind was herself. She is the person she wants at the center of her life. It was to find herself again she had left her son and the draining embrace of her husband’s family and returned to her grandfather’s house. She craves the clear bright working place of the intellect and its struggles with tradition and meaning.
She admires women who descend into the necessary factories of the body and the home and make daily life happen. But as a midwife, she has enough of the flesh and the wet red pain of living. She is an excellent midwife. If a mother can be brought through safely, she brings her through. By law, a mother is preferred to an unborn child. No child is deemed fully human till born and until welcomed into the community, named. But if she can save the baby, she saves the baby too. Life forces itself into her grasp or she must wrestle for it. Her work thrusts her hands and face right into the screaming and the bleeding, the hot smelly brew of birthing, our brute entrance into the violence of being alive.
Perhaps she has chosen midwifery because it puts her in the direct service of women who are doing the work women are supposed to do. They are the soldiers of the flesh. She cares for them, but she declines to serve in that army of procreation and daily reclamation every woman is raised to join. She put in her brief time, and she resigned. No man seems to understand that in offering marriage, he is asking her to cut off her head. How could she bear and raise children, run a household and also engage in intellectual labor, scholarship, religious thought? The needs of the family crowd out the more quiet, delicate needs of the intellect. Daily her midwifery reminds her, lest she forget. She will not be thrust back into that hot noisy place to live, not for the love of anyone.
But gossip runs through walls in the ghetto like mice; gossip multiplies in the bins, and where there were two stories, there are two hundred squealing and nibbling and gnawing. Why does a woman turn down a man? For another man. Didn’t she confess to Isaac Horowitz that she loved another? Whom can she love and be ashamed of loving? Some thought a gentile. A knight, a priest, a merchant. But Chava never leaves the ghetto. She is on call. She is always working on her grandfather’s papers, unnatural work for a woman, or she is out delivering babies. She could have married Yakov, she could have married Horowitz, but she turned them down. Why? Who always goes with her? Who waits in the street while upstairs Chava urges on the mother. Who walks with her through the streets of the ghetto in the middle of the night? Joseph the Shamash, that’s who. Ah, now we all know. She is in love with Joseph called Samson, Hero of the Gates.
Joseph himself hears the rumors and wants to believe. She has turned away Yakov, and he is marrying another. She has turned away Horowitz, and this very day he is walking out of the gates with a pack on his back, a pale gentle stooped wanderer. But him, Joseph, with him she has shared her dream. She has given him a stake in her dream. No one else. She has told Horowitz openly that there is another. With the common wisdom of the ghetto Joseph cautiously concurs: there can be no other but himself.
Now the shadchen eye him knowingly but urge no more verbal portraits of good and gorgeous maidens on him. Everybody knows what is going on. Everybody waits for Joseph to confront the Maharal and ask for the hand of his favorite grandchild, his bright and shining Chava. It is not what is called a good match, but it is a love match, and Joseph the Hero of the Gates should win some kind of prize. Why should it not be Chava? They watch and wait, for what will the proud Maharal do? Will he let a shamash marry his best pupil, his granddaughter? Will he take the heroic shamash into his family? Often he has scolded them for pride of position, pride of family, pride of money and connection. How will he behave now the problem has come home?
Joseph does not dare think of the Maharal. He dares, however, to imagine that Chava is waiting for him to broach the subject. Round and round he turns the possibility in his mind. He does not know how to approach her. He is patient, but he hopes. Why should he not be a man like other men, just because he was born differently? Why should he not have his own life?
It is not long before Perl hears the rumors and marches to tell the Maharal. He is still recovering, but this story boots him out of bed. Too long he has lain on his back while things are turning inside out around him.
He rises, he dresses, he goes to the bathhouse. Then he climbs to his study and summons Chava. He sits behind his desk, the hairs of his head and his beard standing a little on end, as if a private wind blew through the air of his study. “I urged you to accept Horowitz. He is worthy of you. You declined to marry him. You told him there was another in your affections. Now the entire ghetto is buzzing about who this can be. Are you prepared to tell me, Chava?”
She flings up her hands in exasperation. “Zayde, I said that because he wouldn’t believe I don’t want to remarry. I had to say something. That made him relinquish a futile patience. I am not about to change my mind, and I found his courtship tiresome.”
“But the courtship of Joseph the Shamash is pleasing to you?” He glares.
“What?” Chava asks in true surprise. “Joseph?”
“Isaac Horowitz, one of the finest scholars in all of Jewry, is tedious to you, but you’re interested in Joseph the Shamash?”
Chava draws herself up. Her grandfather’s displeasure is evident in that he has not even invited her to sit but is keeping her like an unruly or inattentive pupil standing before his desk. She smiles thinly. “Of course I find Joseph interesting, Maharal. Who would not be interested in such a triumph of your mastery of kabbalah? It is a great privilege to observe such a creation. We have read of such, but in our time, only you have succeeded.”
His eyes half close, his expression turning inward as if pain had suddenly struck. After a full two minutes the eyes open again and fix on her. “Your meaning?”
“Joseph is a golem. You created him.”
“How long have you known this?”
“I figured it out gradually, but I have been sure for some time.”
“Who else have you told?”
“No one. But I suspect my father already knows.”
The Maharal sighs. “So you are not in love with this man of clay?”
“No, Zayde. I am not in love with any man, of flesh or clay or brass
. I like Joseph, and I sympathize with his difficulties. I have tried to help awaken and train his mind. But I no more desire to marry him than I do…your doorstop.”
The Maharal rises, coming round the desk to embrace her. It is like being briefly held by a great blue heron. He is gaunt, lean, nothing but bones and sinews and leathery muscle, but he has wings and a beak that can pierce. “You are that rare combination of brilliant and sensible I have rarely encountered and in which I recognize myself.”
“You are also a creator, a discoverer. I am only a scholar.”
“But your clear sight often sustains me. Forgive me for thinking that the silly gossip of the ghetto could reflect your thoughts or your heart. I should have realized you knew.”
She touches his bony shoulder with gentleness. “Zayde, you don’t think Joseph misunderstands, do you?”
“I’m sure this is the nonsense of busybodies. But try to avoid being alone with him. We will ignore this silliness, and gradually the whispering will die.”
“I hope so. I hope they are not speaking of this to him. I saw a shadchen chasing him down the street the other day.”
“A shadchen?” The Maharal frowns. “This is getting away from me.” He sighs and paces the narrow room, one hand knotted in his long beard, the other turned palm out behind his back. “Today, now, I must dress and go with Maisl. We are summoned to the castle to discuss reparations.”
“Reparations for what?”
The Maharal grimaces. “Every time the ghetto is attacked, we’re stuck with reparations afterward for those gentle souls killed trying to kill us and for any property damage the mob caused. Another survival tax. I must go with Maisl and weep and wail and say we can’t afford what they’ll demand, which we can’t, but there’s never a choice, is there? But we’ll bargain hard. Is my treatise ready for the publisher?”
“Zayde, I am doing a careful job, and I’m only halfway done.”
“Then to work, my sweet one.” He pats her head, his favorite again. “I, too, have work to do.”
FORTY-THREE
Bright Steadfast Star
When Shira walked into the Council meeting with Yod and took a seat at the back, she was surprised when the chair, Zipporah, ambled over to her. “Glad to see you’re finally taking an interest, Shira. We know when people have spent time in the multi enclaves, they get out of the habit of making their own local decisions, but here we’re all responsible. Welcome back.”
Shira was embarrassed. Malkah asked her to go every week, but she had kept putting it off. The meeting started with an intense discussion on their state of defense preparedness, speculation about the intentions of Y-S, reports from the negotiators sent to meet with Lazarus. “They have the troops to help us,” the head of security reported, David something. Did beefy men naturally gravitate toward policing roles? “They’re willing, but they lack transport. They don’t even have enough sec skins. Plus we checked their old dome, and radiation is leaking through. We promised them help in growing and constructing a wrap. Lazarus is convinced we’re not facing invasion but in great danger of assassins.”
Next, Sam reported on informal conversations with Olivacon and Cybernaut, both of which assured him they would not permit an invasion of Tikva or allow Y-S to gobble up the town. Nili explained the new martial arts training. Hannah reported on Tikva’s medical preparedness.
The house was minding Ari. Shira could request audio of his room at any moment. Nili would normally have sat with him—she liked to—but she was needed for defense planning. The house would sing to him and show him pictures on the ceiling. The first time Nili picked Ari up, Shira saw that the woman was familiar with children. Up until the moment she saw Nili heft Ari and beam at him, Shira had assumed that Nili was a mother as Riva was, in name only. Now she trusted Nili with Ari. She was real, Shira thought, all the way through. Whatever Nili did, she did thoroughly and with full attention.
Shira had not spent an evening away from Ari since she got him back. Mostly she worked at home, from her terminal. Even if she was deep in the Base and inaccessible to him, she had only to unplug and check him to ease her mind. He had already learned that talking to adults who were plugged in was useless. Instead he babbled to the house, as children always did, as she had, because the house was always attentive.
Yod was the fifth item of business. He came after the question of precautions for the hurricane season now upon them and just before adjournment. It was twenty-two forty, and half the audience left after the hurricane discussion. Hurricanes were a seasonal fact of life for towns in reach of the storm surge and the winds. Yod appeared a minor labor item. Avram and Malkah stepped down from the semicircular Council table for the discussion of Yod, who was seated in the back row with Shira.
“Avram—who’s stepped down for this case since he’s involved—we’ve got a citizens’ grievance against you.” Zipporah’s voice was loud and direct. For all her size, she was fast-moving, efficient and fast-talking too. She laid out the two complaints within four minutes, cited the relevant law and sat back to hear Avram. Obviously, she expected to be out of there momentarily.
Avram was succinct too. “Yes, I applied for a working permit for the object I was calling my nephew. I considered it necessary to conceal the nature of Yod. I named him for a Hebrew letter, because he was the tenth cyborg I created. Some of you have seen Gimel, a primitive robot. Yod was my first successful cyborg.” The room visibly woke up. The few who had not been listening were suddenly at a loss, as everybody else stirred, whispered or mumbled “Cyborg?” Avram continued in the same matter-of-fact voice: “I created him to patrol and protect the Base and the town itself, as no merely human security can. That’s why I haven’t applied for payment for his services or enrolled him in the health program. I am aware a human-form cyborg is illegal, and I take full responsibility for the matter.”
“A cyborg,” Zipporah repeated. “Could Yod step forward?”
Shira followed Yod to the front of the room. Everybody was staring. One woman reached out and poked his arm.
“What are you?” Zipporah asked him. She hauled herself out of her chair and came slowly around the table.
“I’m a cyborg, as Avram has told you, but I am also a person. I think and feel and have existence just as you do.” Yod stood very still. Shira wished they had taught him to fiddle a little, to slump sometimes, to relax more. He never looked as artificial as he did when he was standing at parade rest. Only his eyes moved, following Zipporah’s as she paddled toward him.
She came very slowly up to him and touched his hand. “It feels like skin to me. Is this a joke?”
“It’s supposed to feel like skin, but under a microscope, even a powerful hand lens, you’d be able to see that it’s not,” Avram said.
“Avram, before you used the resources of our town to break the law about human-form robots, you should have brought the matter to the Council. We signed the same treaty as every other techie free town and every multi.”
“No one ever before created such a cyborg. Never! How did I know I’d succeed? Before Yod, I had failed nine times. It’s been my life’s work, Zipporah, and he has saved the town as I dreamed he would. He’s our army.”
Zipporah was a good-sized woman, who stood almost eye-to-eye with Yod. She looked into his eyes, and he looked into hers. “What do you hope to see?” Yod asked her. He was patient under the scrutiny but puzzled.
“And why did Malkah step down for this question?”
Malkah rose. She looked fresh and rosy. “I was responsible for about a third of the programming, but you must understand it is a sort that, like our own, is self-correcting, growing, dependent on feedback as we are. Yod is a cyborg, but he is also a citizen of this town like any other.”
“And you, Shira.” Zipporah looked her in the eyes. “What’s your interest?”
“I was brought back here by Avram to serve as Yod’s trainer, his teacher, if you like. May I point out, Zipporah, that Gadi, who registered the com
plaint, knows perfectly well what Yod’s nature is, and he still thinks Yod should be paid for his services.”
Zipporah circled Yod and then marched back to her seat. “I move to table this question until we have more information. I want a subcommittee to gather the facts, to study Avram’s notes and relevant law. I want a report next week, and we’ll take it up first. The whole town has to hear about this. We need a full airing of what you’ve committed us to without our knowledge or our consent. We need a full and free and well-informed discussion of what this cyborg means to us and what options we have. Do I have a vote on tabling?”
“The chair can’t—” Sam began. They never acted as a married couple in Council. Often they disagreed politically.
“I can do it, because it makes sense. All in favor of tabling and discussing this next Monday first thing with the whole town here? The Ayes have it. Okay, volunteers for a subcommittee.”
Her last act before adjournment was to suspend Yod from guard duties until his status was clear. Nothing was changed, and everything was changed. Shira walked out with Yod and Malkah. Avram was still in the Council room, arguing with Zipporah and Sam. Zipporah was saying to him in a high irate tone, “Avram, we took you in when you got in trouble with your university for illegal experiments. Sara’s illness cost us a fortune. We’re harboring your flighty son…”
“Next Monday is crucial,” Malkah said. “We must marshal our arguments. Lobby our friends. I want Yod declared a citizen of the town.”
“That’s what I would like,” Yod said slowly. “It’s disconcerting how people stare at me and poke me, suddenly.”
Shira took his arm. “It’ll take time for them to get used to the idea of you as a machine and as a person at once. You’re unique.”
“I’m weary of uniqueness. I liked being taken for granted as one of the perimeter guards. But I’m not sorry to be taken off double duty.”