CHAPTER 3
Katrina lay awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling. The sheets had wound around her from her tossing, and finally she let out her breath in a whoosh and sat up. She had left her drapes wide open, and the moon illuminated her room with a bluish-white glow. She stood and padded to the window and gazed out past the temple, past the street lights, into the murky wood line. She tried to imagine the Golem, picturing in her mind a large statue resting beneath a tree, perhaps beneath the ground, waiting for the call.
She was familiar with Kabbalah; at least the basics. She knew she was not old enough to properly understand its teachings, and she wondered whether the Golem, if it ever existed, would even respond to someone of her youth. She thought of her mother, considered telling her about her find, but she would never believe her. She would chuckle, tell Katrina to spend her time thinking about things that mattered. Katrina looked out to the dark horizon, wondering if it was out there somewhere, waiting. Finally she yawned, and returned to her bed and fell into a deep sleep.
That night, as she slept, her imagination conjured her Golem. In her dream, this Golem was made of stone, and his footsteps sounded like brick rubbing against brick. She was standing high on a mountain, holding the leather bound book she had found. This Golem towered over her, blotting out the sun as it looked down at her. She raised her hands in the air, then pointed toward an army of people approaching her from behind. Golem scraped his huge stone legs as he strode to meet the attackers. Golem opened his mouth and released a loud sound that reminded her of a combustion engine, revving, sputtering, coughing. . . .
Suddenly the dream was stripped away, leaving her staring at her ceiling. Outside, she could hear the sound of multiple engines that sounded like her Golem’s scream. She sat up and looked out of her window, seeing several green military-style trucks jostling across the uneven road leading into town. The occupants hopped out of the backs of these trucks and began to unload equipment and supplies. Within minutes these soldiers began placing saw horses and barbed wire at the main arteries of the city and in certain spots within. As they were constructing the barriers, the women were passing through on their way into the city. Several of their neighbors had stopped by in mornings past, begging them to join the protests, but her mother refused. The last time they came, Katrina was in the room with her mother, and when she opened the door and listened to their exhortations, she turned terrified eyes toward her daughter, shaking her head and almost pushing her out of the doorway. Katrina and her mother were hungry, they were angry like everyone else, but her fear of losing her daughter always trumped any competing priorities. Her mother’s sheltering instinct was smothering, and the older Katrina grew, the stronger it became.
Lunch was a simmering pot of turnips and leeks and some old bread crumbs in a pot of watery stock. Katrina looked over at her mother as she chewed, mechanically, taking no pleasure in the sacrament of a meal. Katrina rested her elbows against the smooth wood of their small table and watched as her mother, to no-one in particular, began to speak between bites. Katrina knew when her mother intended to discuss politics or the government because she always prefaced it with a glance toward the door. When she began her rant, it was always in hushed tones.
“It’s the Hungarians, you know. Jaruzelski, the damn fool, he is doing whatever they say. Ever since they got here, the Army has been at war with us; the police are killing their own people. They’re almost as bad as the Nazis. If your father were here . . . .”
Katrina only half listened, her secret burning a hole in her chest. Her elbows began to grow uncomfortable against the hard wood and she shifted in her chair, and finally feeling on the verge of exploding, released some of the pressure.
“Mother, I went exploring in the basement yesterday. I found something.”
Her mother continued to chew, scanned her daughter’s face for a moment, blankly, then swallowed. She looked at her daughter strangely, as if frozen, her hand hovering inches from her bowl, spoon empty, then understanding seemed to flow into her mind. Her mother frowned and pinched her eyebrows and mouth as she did when she was disappointed in her daughter.
“That is the house of God, precious, it’s not a place for exploring.”
Her mother looked down at her bowl and dipped her spoon in and out of the liquid, watching it slosh. Her frown deepened. “What did you find, my dear? A secret container full of ham and borscht?”
Her mother’s dry sense of humor was sometimes hard for her to catch, but when she looked back up at her daughter, she saw the twinkle in her mother’s eyes. Katrina smiled.
“No, mother, I found something perhaps much better. I found a book.”
Her mother had picked up a piece of turnip with her spoon, and stopped before it reached her mouth. Her face was now one of curiosity.
“What kind of book?”
“Well, I am not sure. I didn’t look closely at it. But there was a letter in it. I think it is a book of magic. I think it is Kabbalah.”
The turnip chunk rolled off her spoon with a plop and she stared at her daughter. Her gaze was impenetrable and made Katrina uncomfortable. Her mother looked toward the door, then toward the window, as if her daughter had produced a very valuable treasure that she had stolen from a neighbor. Finally, she leaned forward and focused on her daughter.
“Kabbalah? What does the letter say?”
Katrina produced the letter from her apron and slid it across the table to her, folded in half. Her mother stared at the letter for a moment, then put down her spoon and reached her hand over to pick up the letter. She did so carefully, as if it were so very delicate that it would crumble if she touched it too hard. Katrina watched her mother’s face as she read, seeing her eyebrows rise with each line. When her mother finished reading it she looked over her head, out the window, lost in thought, then returned to the letter and read it again, more slowly this time. Her mother had very pale skin, and Katrina could see the flush forming in her neck and cheeks. When she was much younger, she always knew when her mother was angry because the flush would begin to form. Finally, her mother put the letter down upon the table, put the palms of her hands over it, and looked to her daughter. Her hands were shaking.
“This was written by Tzippi Isserles. You met her once, but you were probably too young to remember her. She died a few years ago. I believe their children moved away. Her husband was murdered by the Nazis. People used to talk . . .” Her mother swallowed, then stared at her hands laid flat over the letter. She pushed the letter a few inches across the table with her hands as if it was a planchette.
“When I was a child, people used to say that after her husband was killed, she used magic to bring to life a golem to extract vengeance from the Nazis. I always thought it was a good story. Tell me, my dear, where did you find this letter and the book?”
Katrina was too focused on the story to comprehend the question that followed it. This woman conjured a golem! She wanted so terribly to believe it. She wanted the letter to be real, the golem to be real. Katrina’s mind raced until she felt her mother’s hands on her forearms. She had reached across their small table and brought her back to the real world.
Katrina told her mother everything. Once she started, she realized there was no point holding back. Her mother listened patiently, occasionally stroking the letter with her fingertips. Outside, the marchers were chanting, demanding more food rations, demanding fair treatment, demanding an end to martial law. The installation of the police and their barricades did not cow them; now that they had begun manning the barricades, the sounds were now punctuated with arguments and yelling. Katrina tried not to be distracted by the sounds wafting up from the streets, but noticed the unmistakable voice of Bob Dylan on someone’s radio playing The Times, They Are A’Changing, the small radio reducing that voice to a tinny specter floating over the din of the fighting. It was the perfect accompaniment to the din.
Finally, her mother looked past Katrina, over her shoulder, out to the blue sky. Kat
rina could not see what lay beneath her mother’s face, could not read her. She seemed not to notice at all the cacophony below. Katrina tried to remain quiet, and eventually her patience was rewarded.
“I was a little too young to remember the Nazis, thank God. But I remember one thing. I remember, when I was perhaps five years old, I remember my parents rushing me home with a blanket over my head. I could hear people arguing, yelling, and as my father rushed across the street with me in his arms, the blanket came away from my eyes just for a moment, and it was just enough for me to see a body in the street. He had no uniform, but when I grew a little older, I figured he was a Nazi soldier. When the Germans surrendered, most of the army just disappeared into the forests, burning their uniforms and emerging as farmers, police men, factory workers. But some in Lodz remembered their faces. Even now, on occasion, someone recognizes a Nazi from the War. It never ends well for them. I believe this man I saw there in the street was a Nazi soldier that patrolled Lodz, and a year or so after the war some villagers recognized his face and killed him. I suppose I had some sympathy for him, but then again, after the stories I heard, the photographs I have seen, perhaps now, not so much.”
Finally, her mother turned away from the window and looked hard at her daughter. It was a brooding but tired stare.
“But my dear Katrina, it is God’s hand that chooses life and death, not ours. Not the Mother’s. The Golem, that is no gift from God. It is a weapon. It is no better than the gun those policemen have on their belts outside. Once we take that first step, there is no turning back. It is a sin. Thou Shalt Not Kill, my dear. God will protect us. God is watching over us. You must believe that. God is here.”
The chanting outside broke into an argument as if on cue, and her mother closed her eyes, as if to tune out the fighting in the street. She dropped her head and looked at her hands. Katrina’s heart broke watching her mother’s terrified, defeated expression as she listened to the fighting below. Poland was on the brink of civil war.
Katrina watched her mother for a moment, remembering something she read, the one passage she read from the book.
“The Mother is the Giver of Death.”
Her mother looked up and squinted at her daughter. Then she whispered “because her womb is the gate of ingress to matter. Where did you hear that?”
“The book. Mother, God is not watching. He is sleeping. Just like the Golem. Where was God when the Nazis were here?”
Her mother remained silent, already battling her own demons. Katrina watched her for a moment, then got up to leave, placing her hand on her mother’s shoulder as she walked past her.
Vengeance Page 3