The Alchemist's Door

by Lisa Goldstein

  “A long time,” she said.

  It was the same answer she had given before. He wished she would be more open with him. “But where did—”

  “Hush,” she said. “Listen.”

  They stood still a moment. “I don’t hear anything,” Izak said.

  She shook her head and they continued along the street. A moment later she held up her hand and stopped again. “Someone’s following us,” she said.

  “I don’t—

  “You can only hear it when we’re moving.” She turned, and to Izak’s horror she headed back the way they had come. He hurried after her.

  There was no one there; the heavy heat kept most people inside. But Magdalena continued down the street, peering into doorways as she passed. Finally she stopped and laughed. “Izak,” she said. “Come look at this.”

  He went toward her, his heart pounding, wondering what this strange woman found amusing. Yossel stood in the doorway, hunched over, trying to hide his tremendous height.

  “He thought we wouldn’t notice if he followed us,” she said, still laughing.

  “It’s not funny,” Izak said. “He tried to destroy the Quarter once. You didn’t see it—it was terrible. And look—he’s gotten free of Loew. Who knows what he’ll do now?”

  “My master forgot to work his usual magic,” the golem said. “So I walked away. I deserve to be free too.”

  “That’s true, you do,” Magdalena said. “Don’t you see, Izak—we’re all outcasts, all at the mercy of people who think they have a right to control us. We should stick together.”

  Suddenly Izak saw the golem from her point of view. It was true—both he and the golem had managed to escape Rabbi Loew and his harsh edicts. He felt a surge of sympathy for the creature, as though they were brothers with Loew as their terrible father.

  “What do you want?” Magdalena asked him. “Do you need some of our food?”

  “No. I want to be safe from my master. He is searching for me.”

  “Well, come on, then. We’ll show you our hiding place.”

  She led them back to the alleyway, and they settled down among Magdalena’s blankets. “So you’ve run away from Rabbi Loew,” she said. “That was brave of you. He’s a powerful man.”

  “Yes.” Yossel paused; Izak sensed that he was working out a complex thought. “But I have to leave him. All children must leave their parents and find their own way eventually.”

  “He’s more than a father, though, isn’t he?” Magdalena said, thoughtfully nibbling a rind of bread. “He’s your creator. The only man I know of who ever created life. I think he envies women and the life that grows inside them—that’s why he made you. He has to have mastery over everything, your Rabbi Loew, even birth.”

  “He made me to protect the Quarter,” Yossel said. “And there was something about a thirty-sixth man … .”

  “The thirty-sixth man, yes,” Magdalena said. “He and Doctor Dee were looking for him.”

  “What man?” Izak said, looking from one to the other. “Why does everyone know about this but me?”

  “You mean he never told you?” Magdalena said. “That’s why Edward Kelley kidnapped you, to force them to share what information they had with him. You went through all of that, and no one explained to you what it was about?”

  “No one tells me anything.”

  Yossel and Magdalena repeated what they knew: the thirty-six men, Rudolf’s interest in the search, the various lists. Izak sat amazed, forgetting even to eat. So that was what had happened. He had been a pawn, a piece to be moved back and forth on a board. “You’re right,” he said to Magdalena. “They don’t care at all, these great men of the world. They’re too busy with their plans to think about us.”

  “Let’s go away,” Yossel said. “I want to see the world, to learn more. We can make our own way, our own rules.”

  It sounded wonderful, Izak thought. The three of them, traveling together, having adventures. Yossel would protect them, and Magdalena would find them food … . But he had to stay, at least for a while; there was something he had to do in the Quarter first.

  “I can’t leave just yet,” Izak said. “I have to revenge myself on the man who used my mother so badly. That peddler, Mordechai.”

  “I don’t understand,” Yossel said. “What do you mean by revenge? Why do you hate him so much?”

  “He’s my father. He used my mother and then left her. He-”

  The golem’s deep voice rode over his. “The peddler is not your father,” he said.

  “He’s not?” Izak said. “How do you know? Who’s my father then?”

  “I know because I wander the Quarter and I hear things. People do not think I have any understanding, you know. They will say anything in front of me.”

  “But who is my father?” Izak said impatiently.

  “A neighbor of yours. The butcher, Baruch. His wife was the one who started the rumor about the peddler. She never knew for certain about her husband, of course, but she wanted to throw suspicion onto someone else. I heard her screaming at him one night, berating him about his faithlessness, telling him all she had done to protect him.”

  “My—my neighbor? My mother and Baruch? But she hates him. She crosses the street when she sees him coming.”

  “It was not lovingly done,” Yossel said. “It was rape.”

  “No wonder,” Izak said softly. “No wonder she never told me. She must have been so ashamed … .”

  “Will you come with me, then?” Yossel asked.

  “That’s enough,” a voice said. It was Rabbi Loew.

  Suddenly the alleyway was crowded with people, Loew and Dee and several strong men from the Quarter.

  “How long have you been standing there listening to us?” Magdalena asked.

  “Long enough,” Loew said. “Yossel, come with me.”

  The golem looked at him. A complex expression passed over his face, affection mingled with resentment. “Ah,” he said. “My creator.” He sounded almost mocking.

  “Get out of there,” Loew said.

  “Why should he?” Magdalena asked. “What does he owe to you?”

  “He owes everything to me. I created him, after all.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” Yossel said. To Izak’s horror the golem stood up.

  “Don’t go,” Izak said. “Stay here with us. After all you’ve said—”

  “I would like to,” Yossel said. “But I can’t disobey.” He stood and walked toward Loew. The other man grasped him by his thick wrist.

  “Why not?” Izak called after them. He heard the despair in his voice. “Break away—you’re stronger than he is. Don’t leave—”

  Neither Loew nor the golem answered.

  BY THE TIME LOEW RETURNED TO THE SQUARE MANY OF THE men had come back for the midday meal. Women bustled around, handing them food and drink. People cried out and backed away as Loew led Yossel docilely into the square, and he saw the expressions he had grown used to, fear and astonishment.

  “Where was he?” someone called.

  Loew ignored him. He raised his voice and said to the townspeople, “Don’t worry—he won’t escape again. Thank you, everyone. You’re free to go.”

  Dee walked with Loew and the golem to the rabbi’s house. Loew led Yossel to his room, then reached into his mouth and removed the shem.

  As soon as the light of intelligence left the golem’s eyes Loew said, “It worries me that Izak and Magdalena have become such friends.”

  “They seem to feel they have something in common, that they’re both outcasts,” Dee said. “And something in common with the golem as well.”

  “Yes, I heard that. They want to travel the world together, they said. Well, at least Yossel will not be able to go with them.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “I should, I suppose, unmake him completely—that’s what the people here want me to do—”

  “But you find that difficult. He’s your creation, after all.”

&n
bsp; “Yes, exactly. It is a blasphemous thought, but I cannot help but wonder if God had this much difficulty with his creation. And then I realize that he did, that the first man and woman disobeyed him as Yossel disobeys me.” He sighed. “Well, it will soon be time for evening prayers. Perhaps God will tell me what he wants me to do next.”

  “Farewell, then,” Dee said.

  “You’re leaving. Of course. Thank you for your help, and I sincerely hope I will not have to trouble you with our problems again.”

  Dee laughed. “Perhaps the next time I will trouble you with mine.”

  LOEW FOUND IT HARD TO CONCENTRATE ON THE EVENING prayers; he thought again and again of Yossel, of how he had found him in the company of vagabonds. This was not what he had planned for his creation, not at all. The golem had come with him obediently enough, but Loew sensed his growing restlessness, even anger. And Izak—what was he to do with Izak? Why didn’t the boy stay in the Quarter where he belonged?

  A distant sound disturbed his reverie, a faint rhythmic noise that insinuated itself into the chanting of the prayers. Footsteps marching, heading toward the synagogue. Soldiers?

  The sound grew louder. The door to the synagogue burst open, and ten or twelve men in Rudolf’s uniform pushed their way inside. The king had finally decided to move against him, Loew realized with horror, and the golem was no longer there to protect him.

  Everyone quieted. The soldiers squinted, trying to see in the dim light from the high windows and hanging lamps.

  “Where is Rabbi Loew?” the soldier in front called out. “Give us Loew and we’ll go away.”

  “There he is!” another said, pointing to the chief rabbi standing at the front of the synagogue.

  Before Loew could say anything the soldiers made their way down the narrow aisle. The people in the synagogue stood and watched as they passed, beginning to mutter to each other. One of the soldiers brushed a hanging bronze lamp and the shadows swayed back and forth, throwing fantastic pictures on the wall.

  The leader reached the chief rabbi. The old man stood without moving, his eyes blinking rapidly as if he were trying to block out the events in front of him. In one fluid movement the leader wrenched the rabbi’s arm behind him and put his sword to the other man’s throat. The rest of the soldiers formed a ring around him.

  “I’m not the man you’re looking for!” the rabbi said, breaking from his paralysis and trying to twist away from the sword. “I’m not Judah Loew!”

  “Where is he, then?” the soldier asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t see him—he didn’t come to prayers tonight.”

  Loew did not dare move. From the corner of his eye he could see other men standing still as well, as still as the benches behind them. The bronze lamp rocked back and forth, slowing, its rusty squeaks loud in the silence.

  “I don’t believe you,” the soldier said. “We hear he’s a pious man, very pious. Not the kind of man to miss his prayers.”

  “I’m telling you the truth!” the rabbi said. “I don’t know where he is.”

  The leader looked out over the congregation. “Is this true?” he asked.

  There were nods among the men. A few of them said, “Yes,” quietly, as if they did not want to provoke the leader any further.

  “Then where is he? Where is Judah Loew?”

  No one said anything. Loew found that he was looking at the dark stain on the synagogue wall, the blood of martyrs.

  “I will kill this man if you do not tell me where Loew is,” the soldier said. “And then I will kill another, and another, for as long as I have to. And finally the answer will not matter, because you will all be dead. Now, I ask you again. Where is Rabbi Loew? Is he among you?”

  Loew stepped toward the aisle. It was one thing to hide among other men, another to allow those men to die for him.

  Someone else called out something; Loew could not hear it over his own panic. The man standing next to Loew grabbed him by the wrist.

  “It’s me!” a voice shouted. “I’m Rabbi Loew!”

  It was the peddler, Mordechai. Izak’s father, if the rumors could be believed. Mordechai walked calmly toward the front of the synagogue, one hand raised slightly in surrender. He was still wearing his long shapeless cloak, and he held a staff in his other hand.

  Loew moved forward. The man next to him held on firmly to his wrist. “Let him go,” the man whispered. “You’re worth more to us than he is.”

  Loew shook him off, but by that time the soldiers were marching back down the aisle, their captive held firmly between two of them.

  Loew watched them, uncertain. Should he say something? Should he let Mordechai go, let Rudolf discover the soldiers’ mistake? But what would Rudolf do then?

  The soldiers left the synagogue. It’s over, Loew thought. I can’t do anything. But something he said to Dee came back to him—“When a person saves a life, it is as though he saved an entire world”—and he felt deeply ashamed. He was not worth more than Mordechai, not in God’s eyes.

  THE NEXT MORNING DEE HEARD POUNDING AT HIS DOOR once again. He went to answer it, certain he knew who it must be. And there, just as he expected, stood Rabbi Loew.

  Dee laughed wryly. Loew scowled a moment, seeming to wonder what was so amusing, and then he too laughed. “It doesn’t look as if I’ll ever leave Prague,” Dee said.

  To his surprise Loew spat several times and said something in Hebrew; Dee caught the words “ayin ha-ra,” the evil eye. “You must not say such things,” Loew said. “You don’t know who might be listening.”

  “You’re probably right,” Dee said. “But come, my friend—what’s happened? What brings you here?”

  Loew told him about Rudolf’s soldiers, about the peddler who had gone off with them in Loew’s place. “Why would Mordechai of all people play the hero?” Loew asked. “I never thought him capable of something like that. On the contrary, he seemed the worst sort of coward, a man who would seduce women and then leave them with child.”

  For a moment Dee did not understand what Loew was talking about. Then he realized that Loew had not listened as closely as he had to the conversation in the alleyway, that the other man had missed something important. “I don’t know that Mordechai is Izak’s father,” he said. “The golem said he overheard some people talking, and that he thinks Izak’s father is someone else, a man named Baruch.”

  “Baruch? Izak’s neighbor, you mean? But then why does everyone assume it’s Mordechai?”

  “Because—” Dee struggled to remember the conversation. He had not paid much attention; he had been more interested in capturing Yossel. “Baruch’s wife was the one who spread the rumor. She wanted to draw suspicion away from her husband.”

  “Then Mordechai—”

  “—is not a bad man.”

  “Traveler, Jewish Quarter!” Loew said suddenly.

  “What are you saying? That he’s one of the thirty-six?”

  “It’s possible. He risked his life for me. And he visits us about once a month—once every thirty-six days, I’ll bet. And in that case—”

  Dee finished his thought for him. “In that case, the thirty-sixth man is in Rudolf’s hands.”

  13

  IZAK WOKE AND WONDERED WHERE HE was. He stared up at the square of light above him and after a moment realized that it was formed by buildings hemming him in. Then he turned over and saw Magdalena, sleeping in a nest of blankets beside him.

  Suddenly all the strange events of the day before came back to him: the conversation with the man of clay; the revelation, wrenching his life out of its accustomed shape, that the peddler was not his father as everyone had supposed. And Rabbi Loew, interfering once again, coming to take the golem away.

  Magdalena opened one eye and brushed her wiry gray hair away from her face. “Well,” she said, “are you ready to go out into the city?”

  “Of course,” he said, and they set off on their rounds again.

  A few hours later they returned to their hid
ing place, carrying the spoils of their search. “Isn’t it dangerous for a woman to live on the street the way you do?” Izak asked. “How long have you been doing this?”

  “Oh, many years,” she said.

  “That’s what you said the last time. Do you still want to travel together, the way the golem said? Because if we do, we’re going to have to know things about each other. I can tell you all about my life, but there isn’t much to say. But you—you’ve been places, seen things … .”

  Magdalena sat still a moment. She wasn’t ignoring his question, Izak saw, but thinking about the best way to answer it. “I haven’t been on the streets as many years as you suppose,” she said slowly.

  “No? But-”

  She lifted her hand. “Hush,” she said. Suddenly her hair became a light brown, her eyes clear blue. She straightened from her bent crone’s shape.

  Izak scuttled back against the wall, his heart beating rapidly. Was this witchcraft? Sorcery? Was she an old woman who had magicked herself into a beautiful young girl, or had she always been the girl, and the woman was the illusion? “What—” he said, barely able to speak. “What—”

  “Hush,” she said again. Her voice calmed him. “This is my true shape. I took the other to protect myself. No one ever notices an old woman.”

  He reached out toward her. She moved back, so quickly he didn’t see her go. “I once vowed that no man would ever touch me without my consent,” she said. “If you do that again I’ll turn you into a toad.”

  To his own surprise he laughed. “If you could turn people into toads you’d have done it long before this. You don’t need to threaten me. I’ll never harm you, never touch you unless you give your permission.”

  “You’ll never touch me, then,” she said fiercely. “I’ve been … hurt at the hands of men. No one will ever do that to me again.”

  “I would never harm you, in any case,” he said softly. “Not all men are monsters. But I understand that you have to learn that for yourself.”