The Red Magician

by Lisa Goldstein

  “Oh,” he said. His brown eyes gleamed. “Well, think about it—”

  “Ali!” said Erzsébet. “Ali, we’re home! Come on!”

  “Think about it and maybe you can tell me tomorrow. Oh, no.” He stopped, stricken. “No, I leave tomorrow—”

  “Ali!”

  “Just a minute! Let me think. Passover. I’ll be back for Passover, at Erzsi’s house. Tell me then.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Good-bye!” he called, and followed Erzsébet. Kicsi watched him go.

  The next day Kicsi went with Sarah to Sholom’s house.

  “Hello,” said Perl, subdued now by the nearness of death. “Please, please come in.” Sholom stood by the door, smiling shyly. He shrugged. He did not have words for this situation.

  “This way,” Perl went on. “Over here. Here’s his room.”

  They followed her. János lay on his bed, asleep. His face was furrowed with pain.

  “What—what do we do now?” said Kicsi. She was whispering.

  “I’m not really sure,” said Perl. “Maybe—maybe take out the necklace and hold it over him.”

  Kicsi undid the clasp. With a sudden movement she lifted the sleeping boy’s pillow and placed the star underneath. János moaned softly.

  “There. Let him sleep on that overnight,” she said.

  “I don’t—I don’t know what to say,” Sholom said suddenly. “Thank you. Thank you very much. You are—I think you are some sort of witch yourself. Look at her eyes,” he said to Sarah. “She has been touched by magic.” He stopped, embarrassed at having said so much. “Do you think—do you think it will work?”

  “I don’t know,” said Kicsi. “Gut Shabbos.”

  “Gut Shabbos,” said Sholom. They left him looking at the child.

  Sarah had invited Erzsébet and her family to the Sabbath dinner. As they sat down, Erzsébet said, “What did you think of my cousin?”

  “Aladár?” said Kicsi. “He seemed very nice. He’s going to school now, isn’t he?”

  “To college.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Sixteen, I think.”

  “Well,” said Kicsi. “I’m fourteen.” Suddenly she remembered the rabbi speaking to Vörös: “… and I sense that you are old, older than you look.”

  “You are not—you’re thirteen, same as I am.”

  “I’m almost fourteen.”

  “Oh,” said Erzsébet, laughing. “Almost fourteen.”

  They began to laugh and could not stop. “Did you like him?” said Erzsébet.

  “Yes,” said Kicsi. She hoped Erzsébet would say more about him. It was much easier for her to talk about Aladár than it was to talk about Vörös. She wondered how old Vörös really was and why she had never told anyone about him and the rabbi. Magicians, she decided, deal too much in secrecy and silence. She would have no more secrets. “Yes, I like him very much. When will he come back? He said something …”

  “Next Passover,” said Erzsébet, eating her chicken. “He’ll be spending Passover with us, because his parents live so far from the college. I think he likes you too.”

  The days passed slowly. Kicsi thought of Vörös and the rabbi. She thought of how she would tell Aladár about the golem. She rehearsed the story to herself, often, as she walked to and from school.

  The first snow came and with it the news that Magda was going to marry and live with her husband in a nearby village. The wedding was large, and the villagers attended mostly, Kicsi thought, because of the family’s connection with magic. But nothing happened at the wedding—the glass remained unbroken until the groom broke it himself.

  Sholom’s son János died in the middle of winter. Kicsi could not say why she went to the funeral, but she felt that she had to. The ground in the graveyard had frozen, and the iron shovels of the grave diggers bent before they broke through. Afterward Sholom came up to her and thanked her, haltingly, for coming. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said, over and over. Silver tears shone in his eyes. “Thank you. You did what you could. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Days passed. Houses stood free of the snow, emerging as slowly after the winter as the new leaves on the trees. Rain came and washed the snow down the streets. With the spring came Passover. Kicsi began to watch the roads.

  Her first surprise came when he drove up in a car. She knew very few people who owned cars, or drove in them. Some students passing through let him off at Erzsébet’s house, honking the horn loudly. Erzsébet’s family ran outside, gathering around him.

  Her second surprise was that he remembered her. “Kicsi!” he said when he saw her standing by the house. She had followed the car to Erzsébet’s house. “Hello! Have you decided to tell me that story yet?” Erzsébet’s family surrounded him, hugging him, taking his luggage. They pulled him into the house.

  “Yes!” she called after him as he waved to her. He was laughing, protesting feebly against Erzsébet’s parents. “Tomorrow!”

  He was waiting for her in front of Erzsébet’s house the next day. They walked to the forest and she showed him the clay the golem had been made of and the charred wood where the forest had caught fire. Clumps of mushrooms grew where the trees had stood.

  “Are you sure—I don’t mean to doubt your sanity, really—but are you sure you saw what you think you did?” said Aladár. “It’s a little hard to believe.”

  “Of course I’m sure,” said Kicsi, plucking at the mushrooms. “I still have his knapsack. There wasn’t time for him to take it when he left.”

  “His knapsack? So he intends to come back.”

  “I hope so,” said Kicsi, standing. “Come on home with me. I’ll show you where I keep it.”

  When they reached the house Kicsi led him to the corridor near the pantry. She pulled loose a few bricks and reached inside the wall. “No one knows it’s here,” she said, taking out the sack. The gray cat came alongside them, sniffing at the hole in the wall. “Look.”

  Aladár opened the sack, looked carefully at the charms and herbs. His fingers came finally to the small pouch at the bottom. “I wonder what’s in here,” he said.

  “Don’t—”

  He started to take out the pouch. His face went blank, and very white. He replaced the pouch slowly. “I don’t think I’ll try that again,” he said, trying to laugh.

  “No,” said Kicsi.

  “Do you know what’s in it?”

  “No,” she said. “I can’t take it out either.”

  “Well then,” he said. “Maybe everything you’ve told me is true.”

  “Of course—” she said, but broke off when she saw his smile.

  “I know,” he said.

  “It’s funny,” she said. “You’re the first person I’ve told. I didn’t think anyone would believe me, but somehow I knew you would. I knew you wouldn’t laugh.”

  “You didn’t want to tell me, either,” said Aladár. “I think you enjoyed keeping your secret.”

  “I learned that from Vörös. He was very secretive. Or maybe”—she frowned as a new thought came to her—“maybe I just never knew the right questions to ask. Magicians,” she went on—and felt gratified to see that Aladár’s eyes were wide with interest—“magicians, you know, never say much about themselves. It’s too dangerous.”

  “And are you like that? Are you secretive?”

  “Nooo,” she said slowly. The cat curled itself up by the knapsack. “No, not usually. I think—somehow—that Vörös bound me to silence.”

  “Well, then,” said Aladár. “Tell me about yourself. You know, when Erzsi told me that she had a friend named Little One I expected—I don’t know—I expected you to be very small, maybe a dwarf.” He laughed. “But you’re almost as tall as your sisters.”

  “I know. They’ve always called me that, though. I’ve always been the smallest one in the family.”

  “Doesn’t it ever bother you?”

  “No, not that. That doesn’t bother me. It’s—being the youngest, a
nd having to wear all the old hand-me-downs, and being forgotten, and having my parents call me by someone else’s name …”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Aladár. “I’m an only child.”

  “An only—” Kicsi stopped. “I can’t imagine that. It sounds wonderful.”

  “Really? And I thought your family was wonderful. There’s always someone around to talk to—”

  “Too many people, usually. There’s never any privacy. I’m surprised no one’s interrupted us yet.”

  “There’s too much privacy in my family. My parents are very—distant. I can’t talk to them. Finally I decided I just had to go away, go to college.”

  “What’s it like, college? What do you study? Do you—”

  “Kicsi!” someone called.

  “See what I mean?” said Kicsi. She folded the knapsack and put it back in the wall. The cat walked disdainfully away. “There’s always something.”

  “Well,” said Aladár. “You’d better go, I guess. I hope—can I see you again tomorrow?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Kicsi. She took a deep breath. No more secrets, she thought. “I like you,” she said.

  “I like you too,” said Aladár. “Good-bye.”

  But the next day she woke to loud and piercing screams. She heard Imre’s voice in the living room, and then, from the next room, the sounds of Tibor getting dressed.

  “What is it?” said Ilona sleepily. She had always been a heavy sleeper. “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Kicsi said. “Come on, get dressed. There’s something going on.”

  “All right. All right, in a minute. You go on.”

  She dressed quickly and followed Imre, Sarah, and Tibor outside. The town was dark and still, but the dawn was coming soon. Soft circles of lamplight fell against the graveled streets. Up ahead Kicsi saw the lamplighter, following the crowd to the synagogue.

  “It’s locked,” said someone.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Get the sexton, he has the keys.”

  Through the crowd Kicsi caught sight of Aladár, standing near the synagogue with Erzsébet’s family. She ran to him.

  “Does this happen a lot in your village?” Aladár said. “Golems and demons and rabbi’s curses—It’s crazy.” He shook his head. “This doesn’t happen where I come from.” He broke off as the rabbi ran up the street, followed by the sexton. “He runs fast for such an old man, doesn’t he?” Aladár whispered.

  “Shhh,” said Kicsi. “It’s just someone locked in the building.” She hoped fiercely that it was, that it wasn’t what she had thought at first. That it wasn’t Vörös, or Vörös’s soul.

  The screams from the synagogue were louder now. Like most of the townspeople, Kicsi had not had time to put on heavy clothes and shoes; she stood shivering in the cold as the sexton opened the old synagogue doors.

  A man with thin arms and legs and a rounded belly came to the door. A few of the townspeople began to laugh, or to turn away.

  “Who’s that?” Aladár whispered.

  “That’s the village no-good,” said Kicsi.

  “What? Who?”

  “Wait a minute,” said Kicsi. “I think he’s trying to tell us something.”

  The no-good opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Then: “Dead,” he whispered.

  “What?” said the sexton impatiently. He held the other man by the arm and pulled him out of the building, then locked the doors. “You shouldn’t have been in there,” he said. “What happened? Did you get locked in?”

  “Dead,” the man repeated. “I was in there with them all night, all the dead ones. All of them dead.”

  “Who are, uncle?” said someone in the crowd.

  “All of them,” said the no-good. “A—a man on a horse. A tall man. And someone with a candle, and someone with a sword. And there was a man, a man with a crown, and—and lights in his eyes. And a woman with water streaming through her hair, and her eyes—no, I won’t say what her eyes were like. But she looked at me, I’ll say that much.” He backed against the doors and nearly collapsed against them. His next words were so low they could barely be heard. “That’s when I started to scream.”

  László, an old man, spat on the ground three times. “An omen,” Sholom said, his voice low with fear.

  The no-good’s teeth were chattering and he could not say another word. “Come on,” the sexton said, not unkindly. “I’ll take you home. You could do with some food. Let’s go.”

  “What do you make of that?” said Imre.

  “He’s always been slightly crazy,” said István, Erzsébet’s father. He was a heavyset man with a red face. “I wouldn’t worry about him.”

  “But not like this,” said Imre. “Hungry, sometimes, and dirty, yes, but he’s never seen ghosts. Someone with a candle … I wonder what it means.”

  The crowd began to break apart. László hurried past. “It’s an omen, that’s what it means,” he said. “A death in the village. Sholom was right.”

  István shrugged. “Uncle’s got a good meal and a place to sleep nights,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any more to it than that.”

  “You don’t think it was any kind of warning?” said Imre.

  “Warning? I don’t think so. The rabbi would know. He—” István looked around. “Strange,” he said. “He was here, wasn’t he? I wonder where he went.”

  Ilona joined them, her face flushed with sleep. “What do you think?” she said to Kicsi. “Is he crazy or did he really see—”

  “I don’t know,” said Kicsi. “Erzsébet’s father thinks he’s crazy.”

  “What about the rabbi?” said Aladár.

  “The rabbi? I don’t know. What does he say?”

  “He doesn’t,” said Aladár. “He’s disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” said Ilona. “When?”

  “He hasn’t disappeared,” said Kicsi. “He’s just gone home.”

  “Probably back to sleep,” said Ilona. “That’s what I’d do. I’ll see you later.” She hurried away.

  “He disappeared,” said Aladár again. “I saw him looking inside the synagogue, and when I looked again he was gone.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” said Kicsi.

  “What do you mean, it doesn’t mean anything?” said Aladár. “You know what he can do. And what about the dead in the synagogue? What is he doing?”

  “I don’t know.” Kicsi shook her head. “Why would he disappear? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “He knows something,” said Aladár. He stopped. They had reached Erzsébet’s house. “We have to follow him. Watch him.”

  “We do? Why?”

  “You did it before, didn’t you?”

  “I—Yes, I did, but that was different. That was because of Vörös. I don’t want to follow the rabbi. He’s—he’s dangerous. It’s not safe.”

  “I’ll do it alone, then,” said Aladár. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

  “No. All right. I’ll do it if you want,” said Kicsi slowly. “I have to go home. I didn’t even have breakfast yet. I’ll see you later.”

  “All right,” said Aladár. “Good-bye. And thanks!”

  He was waiting for her when she left the house nearly an hour later. “Where do we start?” he asked, coming to meet her. “His house or the synagogue?”

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Kicsi. “What if he just went home without anyone noticing? Wouldn’t we look silly?”

  “He didn’t,” said Aladár. “You know he didn’t. Kicsi.” He looked at her seriously. “Are you afraid?”

  “Afraid?” she said. “Well, yes. I am. You haven’t seen him when he does magic. You think it’s all a game.”

  “It’s all right,” said Aladár. “I’m afraid too. Where do you want to start?”

  “The—the synagogue, I guess.”

  “You’d better show me the way, then.”

  They set off together. The day was hot for early spring. Yellow
daffodils grew by the side of the road. They saw no one as they passed Sholom’s house and the graveyard, and came at last to the synagogue. Kicsi thought of the time the glass had shattered in the courtyard, thought of Vörös’s warning, and she shivered against the heat.

  “It’s locked,” said Aladár, trying the door. “He’s not here.”

  They stood a while, looking at the heavy doors.

  “Listen,” said Kicsi. “Do you hear anything?”

  “What?”

  “A—murmuring sound. Like a crowd of people far away.”

  “It’s the wind,” Aladár said. “Isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Kicsi. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “To his house. I don’t think—I don’t think that we’re safe here. That we’re safe alone.”

  “All right,” said Aladár.

  He followed her along the winding road back to the rabbi’s house. Suddenly she stopped. “Look,” she said.

  Through a window at the side of the house they could see the rabbi. He was bent over his desk, looking through a book with a cracked leather binding. Piles of old books were stacked to either side of him. As they watched, he put on his glasses and bent closer to the book.

  “You were right,” said Aladár, whispering. “He’s just studying.”

  “No,” said Kicsi. “Can you see the books? Careful! What language are they in? Is it—Hebrew?”

  “I can’t—wait. Wait a minute.” Aladár moved forward slowly, until he was almost at the windowsill. “I don’t know,” he said, coming back to her. “I think so.”

  “He’s learning their names,” said Kicsi.

  “What?”

  “Shhh. The dead. He has to learn their names to have power over them.”

  The rabbi looked up at his desk. The sun outside the window threw the shadow of his glasses onto his face, so that for a moment he looked like a demon with huge staring eyes. Kicsi and Aladár stood still, rapt with fear.

  “Come on,” Aladár said urgently, taking her arm. “Let’s go. Pretend we were just passing by.”

  Kicsi began to move. She glanced at Aladár, who still held her arm. Had he said that he was frightened too? He didn’t seem to be afraid.

  They turned the corner, still walking slowly. “That was close,” said Aladár. “What do you mean? Why does he have to learn their names?”