by Pete Hamill
Those words, Fünfter Palast, were the name of the ruined Fifth Palace. It had once belonged to an emperor who went mad a century before Rudolf came to Prague. That forgotten emperor imagined all sorts of enemies coming to get him, so he had built a network of secret tunnels from the Fifth Palace to other buildings in the area. He lived to escape. One tunnel even reached into the cellars of the Old-New Synagogue, where he could disguise himself as a Jew and disappear into the fog. Another was connected to the Green Building, where Brother Thaddeus now lived. When the emperor finally abdicated, his enemies destroyed the Fifth Palace. Now the entrances were buried in the ruins, and no maps or plans had survived.
That night, Michael followed Rabbi Loew and the Golem as they dodged spies and policemen in the streets and went to the ruins of the Fifth Palace. The Golem lifted huge slabs of broken walls and collapsed beams, clearing a path, until they found steps leading underground to a sealed door. The Golem ripped the door off its hinges as if playing with a dollhouse. Rabbi Loew stepped inside. Ahead of them lay a dark, damp tunnel. Rats crawled at their feet. Water dripped from the ceilings. Michael saw it all, moving in the darkness of the tale.
Then Rabbi Loew lit two havdalah candles and he and the Golem eased into the tunnel. After a while, they came to a kind of crossroads, where other tunnels led away in different directions. The Golem paused, sniffing the air. Then he indicated with a nod of his head that Rabbi Loew was to follow him into the tunnel to the right. There was a coppery stench in the air. Rabbi Loew looked as if he were entering the outskirts of Hell.
Finally they came to a large room with glistening stone walls, filled with rotting tables, cobwebbed pots, beakers, tubes: the abandoned workshop of an alchemist. Rabbi Loew felt a chill that would remain with him the rest of his life. Even now, more than four hundred years later, it seeped into Michael.
And then the Golem became excited, growling, alert, his nose flaring. He made his way into a dark corner. He returned with two baskets. They were not draped in cobwebs. In one of them, Rabbi Loew found almost thirty vials filled with fresh human blood. Each was labeled with the name of a well-known Jew. In the other, wrapped in a Jewish prayer shawl called a tallis, was the body of a child.
“Right away,” Rabbi Hirsch whispered, “he knows the plot.”
It was obvious: just before Passover, Brother Thaddeus would have the body and the vials of blood moved through the tunnels to the cellar of the Old-New Synagogue. From there, under cover of night, his henchmen would plant the vials throughout the Jewish Quarter, and the child’s body in Rabbi Loew’s own house. Brother Thaddeus could then bring the police to discover them and “prove” that the Jews were engaging in human sacrifice.
A blood libel!
Rabbi Loew acted quickly. He told the Golem to carry the child’s body back through the tunnels and hide it in the wine cellar of Brother Thaddeus’s mansion. The Golem smiled and went away with the body, while Rabbi Loew prayed for the child’s soul. When the Golem returned, Rabbi Loew ordered him to dig a deep hole in the earthen floor and bury the vials of blood. The Golem did what he was told, covering the holes with dirt, stones, and smashed beams. Then they retraced their steps. They noticed something new: the squealing of the rats had ended.
The next morning—it was the day before Passover—the police began raiding houses all over the Jewish Quarter, using a list of names from Brother Thaddeus. Michael watched them arrive in horse-drawn carriages outside the house of Rabbi Loew, two detectives in plain clothes, one tall and gray, the other short, fat, and flushed. More than thirty uniformed policemen were behind them on horseback. And then a gloating Brother Thaddeus arrived in his own fine carriage, his leather boots clacking on the cobblestones.
The police found nothing. Brother Thaddeus was stunned. As he marched with the police past the ruins of the Fifth Palace, he suggested to the detectives that they search the cellars of the ruined palace and the nearby Old-New Synagogue. He reminded them that there were always rumors of secret tunnels.
The detectives did what he asked, and for hours they searched. They found nothing. Michael saw Brother Thaddeus grow pale. Beads of sweat appeared on his bald head. He blinked his hairless eyelids and scurried away, in search of his henchmen, to find out what had gone wrong. But, fearful of his rage, they had vanished into the hills when they realized the blood was missing.
And so the eight days of Passover ended without the planned pogrom. And then it was Easter. Brother Thaddeus invited all the most important people in Prague to a lavish banquet, including the mayor and the chief of police, who brought his detectives as bodyguards. They were all assembled at table when Brother Thaddeus sent a servant to the wine cellar to bring up some of the oldest and finest bottles. After a few minutes, the servant returned, his eyes wide with horror.
“She’s there!” he exclaimed. “There—in the cellar!”
Pandemonium!
All rushed to the wine cellar, except Brother Thaddeus.
When they returned, the police chief was carrying the dead baby. Michael saw its face, as white as flour. The detectives glanced at each other and then at Brother Thaddeus. The monk backed into a corner like a trapped animal. The mayor said: “It was you.” And Brother Thaddeus began to weep.
There was a long silence in the basement of the Brooklyn synagogue.
“Did they hang him?” Michael said. “Chop his head off?”
“No. Him, they didn’t need to make a martyr, and Rabbi Loew agreed. So Brother Thaddeus was sent to prison for twelve years. He died there, blaming the Jews.”
“And what happened to the Golem?”
“He—well, it’s another story. And sad. Because it is a love story. And all love stories are sad.”
For a moment, Michael Devlin saw his mother and father together, dancing slowly, like a couple in a sad movie. He in an army uniform, she in a gown. Dancing in marble halls. Rabbi Hirsch stared at his own fingers, and for the first time Michael noticed that he was wearing a wedding band on the third finger of his left hand.
“The problem is simple,” the rabbi said. “The Golem is made of mud, yes. He is very large, yes. Very strong, yes. He can’t speak and he have to obey every order from Rabbi Loew. But he also have his own thinking, does his own plans. Worse, worse—he have the feelings of a human being.” He paused. “And after Brother Thaddeus is put in jail, after the great danger to the Jews is over—for a little while anyway—Rabbi Loew takes it easy. And so does the Golem. He looks so normal, gardening and that kind of stuff, Rabbi Loew even gives him a name: Yossel. Like Joseph. Joseph Golem.”
In his relaxation, Joseph Golem began to notice a young woman named Dvorele. She was an orphan. Her family had been destroyed by Brother Thaddeus’s followers, their house burned in one of those fires that had leveled so many Jewish homes in the countryside. After months of wandering, she had found refuge in the household of Rabbi Loew. There, she worked in the kitchen under the supervision of the rabbi’s wife, Pearl. She helped clean the rooms. She did laundry. She began to learn how to read and write. Michael could see her clearly: small and dark, with huge brown eyes, like Rosalie Caputo in the sixth grade at Sacred Heart, and speaking very little, as if still paralyzed by the horror that had taken the lives of her parents, her three brothers and two sisters.
“Joseph Golem watches her,” Rabbi Hirsch said, “and helps her with work, and soon—too bad!—love comes up in his heart.”
Michael thought of Boris Karloff in the Frankenstein movie, playing with the flowers and the little girl beside the lake. He saw the Golem trying to explain what he felt to Dvorele, how he tried to get her to sense the great stirring within his heart. But he couldn’t speak. He rolled his eyes. He looked sad. He put his hands to his forehead. He pointed at his heart and then at Dvorele, trying to make her understand. But she shied away from him, busying herself with peeling potatoes or dusting the bookshelves in Rabbi Loew’s study. Joseph Golem pined for her. At night, lying on his eight-foot cot in his cellar room
, he sometimes wept.
One cold night, Rabbi Loew heard the great heaving sobs of Joseph Golem. He rose from his bed, lit a candle, and went down to visit the creature. At the sight of the Golem, turning and twisting in his bed, his teeth grinding and his hands kneading each other, the rabbi felt a great pity.
“Joseph Golem needs to say the words,” Rabbi Hirsch said, “but he does not have language. Not Yiddish. Not Hebrew. Not German. Not Czech. And love, it’s almost always about words.”
That night, Rabbi Loew comforted the giant Golem, whispering prayers, soothing his addled heart. Finally, Joseph Golem fell into a deep sleep. Rabbi Loew stared at him for a long time before returning to his own bed.
“He is thinking, time is short for this poor fellow,” Rabbi Hirsch said. “He needs to pray to find out what to do.”
But the next day, Rabbi Loew had to travel to Pilsen on rabbinical business. There was no time to pray for counsel from God. As soon as he departed, Joseph Golem approached Dvorele in the small garden of the rabbi’s house. It was a day in spring. Bees feasted on blooming flowers. Water played in the fountain that one of the Sephardim had built from memories of Andalusia. Joseph Golem smiled and took Dvorele’s tiny hand and pointed at the distant mountains.
Come with me, he seemed to be saying.
Come to the mountains of Bohemia, to their clear streams and green meadows.
Come, sweet Dvorele, and be with me.
But Dvorele had grown up beyond those mountains. And she thought that Joseph Golem wanted to return her to the horror she had escaped. She screamed. She screamed from deep within herself, from her heart and her lungs and her bowels. And she ran from Joseph Golem.
The Golem could not be hurt by knives or spears, but he suddenly erupted in rejection and rage. Michael pictured him toppling the fountain. Then he tore limbs off the beech trees. He smashed the shack where the gardener stored his tools. And in that wreckage, he found an axe.
Armed with an axe, he smashed the back gate of the garden and rushed into the city. In his wordless, heartbroken anger, he chopped at the wheels of carriages and the doors of the rich. He destroyed the carts of the vendors of fish and vegetables. He broke down the doors of the Jewish Town Hall and reduced walls and masonry to powder and rubble. Michael saw people fleeing before him. And to Joseph Golem this became another rejection, more fuel for his blazing, wordless anger.
Michael hid behind a vegetable cart, as one of the councillors hopped on a horse to overtake Rabbi Loew, who was on the road to Pilsen. But Joseph Golem continued his rampage through the ghetto. Doors, windows, fountains, gardens: all were torn up, battered, destroyed. He saw a painting of the mountains and slashed at it with the blade of his axe. It was as if the great creature was looking in the quarter for something he could never find.
Finally, around sundown, Rabbi Loew returned. As he stepped from his carriage, he ignored Michael. His eyes were taking in the wreckage. The rabbi found Joseph Golem sitting in a deserted square, his axe resting on his giant thigh. The creature’s eyes informed the rabbi that he was inconsolable. Rabbi Loew approached slowly, carefully, saying nothing. And for the first time, the Golem reacted in rage and rebellion against the man who had given him life. He threw his head back and released a wordless bellow that could be heard for seven miles. Then he snatched up his axe and began to march on Rabbi Loew. Michael thought: He must see Rabbi Loew as the true cause of his grief. If Rabbi Loew had not raised him from the mud of the Vltava, Joseph Golem would not be suffering the anguish of love.
The Golem stepped forward. He raised his axe. Before Rabbi Loew could give him an order, a small voice rang out sharply in the empty square.
“Stop!”
It was Dvorele.
She walked slowly into the space between the rabbi and the Golem. The great creature lowered the axe.
“Put it down, Joseph,” she said softly.
The creature was wary, suspicious. He glanced at Rabbi Loew and then at the girl. But she was now fearless, as if God had put some iron into her. She came forward and took Joseph Golem’s free hand. The axe fell from the other. She stood then on the tips of her toes, and reached up, and touched his face. The Golem fell awkwardly into a sitting position. Dvorele kissed his cheek. The rage seeped out of him. He seemed to melt.
“Come,” she said to Joseph Golem, turning finally to Rabbi Loew. “Let us go home.”
Holding his hand, she led the Golem back to Rabbi Loew’s house. The rabbi held open the door and the Golem stepped into the vestibule.
“You must sleep,” Dvorele said to him.
The Golem nodded. Rabbi Loew led him upstairs to his own bedroom. He took pillows from the bed, which was too small for Joseph Golem, and laid them on the floor. The Golem was soon asleep.
Rabbi Loew moved quickly. He called for the two assistants who had gone with him that night to the banks of the Vltava. He took the silver spoon from a secret cupboard. He dressed completely in white. He removed the shem from its parchment case. Then he stood at the foot of the Golem, as on the Vltava he had stood at the head. He and his assistants prayed over the sleeping creature. And then Rabbi Loew slipped the shem into the Golem’s mouth and in a grieving voice said the words from the Kabbalah, this time in reverse.
The Golem’s huge body began to twitch. His eyes opened, full of fear and loss.
And then he crumbled into clay.
The assistants separated the clay from the creature’s garments. They shook out the garments and folded them neatly. One assistant brought in two boxes resembling coffins. Rabbi Loew used the silver spoon to pack the clay into one box and tied it shut. The assistants lined the other with thick brocaded cloth, and Rabbi Loew placed the shem and the silver spoon on top. The assistants used nails to seal this coffin.
“Poor creature,” one of the assistants whispered.
Rabbi Loew’s eyes filled with tears.
“Yes,” he said, glancing at the unsealed box. “You must scatter the clay on the banks of the Vltava. We must pray for him, the fine, sweet Golem.”
“Will we ever see him again?” the other assistant asked.
“If we need him,” Rabbi Loew said.
He took the small sealed coffin to the attic of the Old-New Synagogue, to rest among worn and discarded Torah scrolls and holy garments that had rotted with age. Rabbi Loew decreed that nobody could ever again visit the attic, except the chief rabbi. And that rabbi alone would know the secret of the creation of the Golem.
“And so it was,” Rabbi Hirsch said, and entered a long silence. “For centuries.”
Michael cleared his throat.
“And Dvorele?” he said. “What happened to Dvorele?”
Rabbi Hirsch smiled.
“Along comes a handsome boy,” he said. “Also an orphan. He falls in love with Dvorele and marries her, and nine wonderful children they have together.”
Michael Devlin took a deep breath and exhaled hard, knowing that the story was over. Most stories and movies had happy endings, and this was a happy ending.
The rabbi glanced nervously at the door to the sanctuary.
12
Michael ran through the winter darkness down Kelly Street. His head was full of Prague and the Golem and the spires of distant cathedrals. Men moved through fog. Rats scurried in tunnels. Stones turned into roses. Love caused rage. He wondered who was wandering the streets of Prague at that very moment, and who was in the Old-New Synagogue, and whether the remains of the Golem were safe in their small, ancient coffin. He wondered about the magic words of the Kabbalah and the secret name of God.
And then, as he reached the dark alley that ran behind the Venus movie house, something hit him in the back and he was grabbed and spun and slammed against a wall.
Frankie McCarthy was an inch from his face in the darkness. He was so close that Michael could smell sour beer.
“Hello, Mr. altar boy,” Frankie said. “How’s the little Kike-lover?”
Michael shuddered and said nothi
ng.
“You were wit’ that beard a long time, weren’t you? What’s that all about?”
“I’m helping him learn English,” Michael murmured.
“Oh, you’re a teacher now? I’m freezin’ my ass off waitin’ to talk to you, and you’re a fuckin’ teacher?”
Frankie lit a cigarette, grinning in the glow of the match. Then he stepped to the side, whirled suddenly, and slapped Michael hard in the face. The boy’s ears rang. His face burned.
“You wouldn’t teach that Yid anything he shouldn’t know, would you, boy? I mean, you wouldn’t, like, teach him about what happened to Mister G, would you?”
“No.”
“But I hear you had some visitors, up your house,” Frankie said. “I hear the bulls came to see you and stood there a long time. You didn’t happen to teach them anything, did you, teacher?”
“No.”
“How come I don’t believe you, teach? How come I think you could be a perfect fuckin’ canary?”
“The cops came to the house. My mother made them leave. I didn’t say anything to them about anything.”
Suddenly Frankie’s hand came up and a four-inch blade snapped out at the touch of a button.
“You better not, boy. You better not say nothin’ to nobody. Not to that old Hebe up the block. Not to no priest. Not to your mother. Definitely not to the fuckin’ cops. You do? Something bad happens to me? I pay back. That’s what Frankie McCarthy does. Frankie McCarthy pays back. I know where you live. So does every one of the Falcons. I know where your mother works.”
Leave her out of this, prick, Michael thought, but said nothing. Frankie smiled in a mirthless way. Then he closed the knife.
“You remember that, teach,” he said. “You remember what could happen, you teach the wrong shit.”
He flipped his cigarette butt into the alley, then turned and walked slowly to the corner. Michael reached for the wall and steadied himself. His heart was thumping. He watched Frankie McCarthy cross Ellison Avenue and push through the steamed-over glass door of the Star Pool Room.