The Alchemist's Door

by Lisa Goldstein

  “What is wrong with that?”

  “Quiet!” he said. He reached out and felt the door standing open between the worlds. Cold wind and darkness and glittering stars swirled behind it. “Help me,” he said to Loew.

  They pushed together. The door resisted. Erzsébet smiled mockingly at them and chewed her fingernail. “I bathed in blood today, Doctor,” she said. “I’m as strong as I’ll ever be. I won’t let you close the door.”

  “Push!” Dee said. He thought of his children, of Katherine taken over by the demon. He could not let anything like that happen again, not to anyone he loved.

  Something behind the door pushed back. Something or several things: the demons were rousing in anger at the closing of their doorway to Prague. A tentacle snaked out and crept along the cobblestones. He kicked at it frantically and it retreated. Erzsébet laughed.

  Great mouths filled with teeth appeared in the doorway. He strained with his last bit of strength; he could feel Loew laboring beside him. And someone else was helping them; he recognized Magdalena.

  Suddenly something gave. He made one last effort. A resounding slam echoed out into the streets.

  “God damn you, Doctor Dee!” Erzsébet said. She turned and ran.

  “No,” Dee said, looking after her. “No, I don’t think I’m the one who’s damned.”

  “Come,” Loew said. “We still have to get rid of the golem’s body.”

  “Oh God,” Dee said. He leaned against the side of a building. “Oh God, I’m so tired.”

  “As well you should be. We did good work here today.” He looked around him and saw Mordechai. “Mordechai, will you help us carry the body?”

  Dee had never heard him sound so deferent. Well, Mordechai was the thirty-sixth man, after all, a righteous man, one of those on whom the world depended.

  “Certainly,” Mordechai said.

  “Where are we going?” Dee asked.

  “The synagogue.”

  “The synagogue? What will you—”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll take him upstairs and put him in the attic. And there let him rest for all the long centuries to come. I will destroy all my notes, and if we are fortunate no one will ever learn what I have done.”

  15

  THE CROWD BEGAN TO DISPERSE. IZAK and Magdalena walked away, Magdalena wearing her true shape, the young woman. Dee realized that she would never be able to change again, that the magic she had used was gone from the world. But she seemed for the first time to inhabit her body: still wary and suspicious, but no longer fearing men and what they might do to her in their lusts. She had faced something far worse, and had triumphed.

  He saw, horrified, that the king still writhed on the ground, muttering something softly to himself. He bent to listen.

  “I want you all killed,” Rudolf said petulantly. “All of you. Why does no one obey me? I am your king, your emperor. I want that one killed first.”

  To Dee’s surprise the king pointed at Kelley. “You did not tell me you found the thirty-sixth, did you, Master Kelley? What were you going to do with him? Do you think you’re strong enough or wise enough to rule the world yourself? I’m sick of your betrayals.”

  Kelley turned and fled. “Bring him to me,” Rudolf said.

  Only Dee and Loew and Mordechai and Sendivogius were left. No one moved. The king threw back his head and howled like a wild animal, then slammed his head against the ground. “Bring him to me, I said! You are all dead, all dead men!”

  Chills broke out along Dee’s arms. “I think he’s gone mad for good this time,” he said.

  “He wasn’t strong enough,” Loew said. “The demon’s possession, the currents of magic flowing around him—it was all too much for him.”

  “You,” Dee said to Sendivogius. “Help him back to the castle. If he recovers his wits I’m sure you’ll be rewarded handsomely. Money, patronage, whatever you want.”

  Sendivogius bent to Rudolf and hoisted the king’s arm over his shoulder. “What are you doing?” Rudolf asked. “I said I wanted you killed. Stop! Where are you taking me?”

  Sendivogius headed toward the castle. The anger seemed to leave the king; he walked quietly, leaning heavily on the other man. Suddenly he stopped and howled aloud. Sendivogius spoke soft words to him, urging him to continue.

  Dee watched them until they were out of sight. Then he and the others positioned themselves around the golem, Mordechai at his head and Dee and Loew at his feet. Mordechai called out, “One, two, three!” and they all lifted the body together. It was surprisingly light. Because Mordechai, the thirty-sixth righteous man, was helping them?

  Perhaps, Dee thought, it was because he himself suddenly felt wonderfully renewed, as if he could carry the golem with no help from anyone. He had not backed down. He had finally faced his demon.

  They began the long walk to the Jewish Quarter. Mordechai was in the lead, walking backwards and every so often craning around to see the road. “The golem—” Loew said.

  “Yes?”

  “At the end, when he looked at me. Do you think he sacrificed himself knowingly? That he obeyed me to save my life?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe he did.”

  They walked for a while in silence. “What was that you recited?” Loew asked.

  “I—it was something my son taught me. It means—”

  “I know what it means.” He sounded amused. “I wondered why you said it.”

  “I don’t know. It popped into my head just then. No, wait. I said it because—because the goal of the alchemist is the union of opposites. Man and woman, sun and moon. And Englishman and Bohemian, I suppose. Or Christian and Jew.”

  “What are you saying? That an old tongue twister is really an alchemical formula?”

  Dee laughed. “Well, no, not really. I think what I mean is that there is something to be said for unions, for meetings, for traveling. That two separate things, or ideas, or countrymen, can combine into one thing, something different, maybe something better. Me, for example. I feel as if I’ve changed a great deal since I came here.” He laughed again. “I told Vilém that I could best pursue the goal of alchemy outside the study. It’s not about making gold, not really. That’s what Kelley never understood.”

  “I don’t think I follow you.”

  “Don’t you? But you learned something too, didn’t you? I saw your face change when the demon possessed you.”

  “I did, yes.”

  They had been keeping their eyes on Mordechai ahead of them, but now they turned and looked at each other. Dee opened his mouth, and then Loew, but neither said anything. They had been about to trade confidences, Dee knew, to say what they had learned from the demon, but each of them had changed his mind at the end. It was too personal to speak of.

  “Anyway, there will be no more alchemy, if Erzsébet was right,” Dee said. “The door is closed now.” He spoke the words to summon his glow-light, but nothing happened. “Magic is gone from the world.”

  “But there is still learning,” Loew said. “Learning, and the meeting of opposites.”

  “Yes,” Dee said. “That’s true.”

  As they walked Dee noticed people stop and stare at them, then hurry away. A few crossed themselves, something Dee had rarely seen since the reign of Catholic Queen Mary thirty years ago. Everyone, it seemed, was aware that something strange had happened, something uncanny, and no one wanted to linger very long in the presence of magic.

  Finally they came to the bridge across the river. Mordechai looked behind him and maneuvered the clay body through the archway. Drivers swore at them as they veered out in front of the coaches, then fell silent when they saw the great body of the golem.

  At the other bank Dee at last felt a dull pain in his arms and called a halt. They set their burden down. “What will happen to Magdalena, I wonder?” he said when he got his breath back. He rubbed his arms. “And Izak, too. I saw them leave together.”

  Loew scowled. “Izak should not have gone away with t
hat woman,” he said. “He—” He shook his head. “Well, I suppose it’s out of my hands now.”

  He has learned something, Dee thought. “Perhaps they’ll be happy together,” he said. “We can wish that for them, anyway.”

  Loew looked doubtful; he hadn’t learned as much as Dee had hoped. They picked up the body and continued on. At the synagogue they stopped two men cleaning the bronze lamps and asked for their help. The men backed away, clearly unwilling to touch the golem. “It’s not alive,” Loew said. “It can’t hurt you.”

  The men still looked uncertain. “It’s dead,” Dee said. It was not dead, not in the sense that he understood the word, but the men seemed mollified.

  The five of them carried the golem up the narrow staircase to the attic. Light came in through high windows, illuminating a slow stream of dust. Dee saw a few torn prayer books, a broken chair, a branched candelabra. The climb had tired him and he nearly dropped the body, but the others managed to catch it and set it down gently.

  Dee stood back. What would future generations make of the clay body in their attic? Would someone try to make it live again? Or would it gradually fall apart, join the dust around it and become forgotten?

  They left the room. There was a key in the lock, and Loew turned it and put it in his pocket before heading downstairs.

  “Well, my friend,” Loew said. “I think this is finally goodbye.”

  “Not yet,” Dee said. “I have one more thing to do before I go.” He turned to Mordechai. “Can I have use of your flint and a candle? If Erzsébet is right, I have no magic left.”

  HE LEFT THE JEWISH QUARTER AND HEADED SOUTH. IT HAD been dawn when Loew had come to his door to tell him about Mordechai’s arrest and now, somehow, it was nearly evening. Several times as he walked he glimpsed the river through the maze of buildings on his right, and saw the sun flashing off the water as it began to set.

  The journey he had to make was a long one and he rested twice, once in a manicured park and once by a fountain in the shape of a centaur, the water pouring from its mouth. The streets were nearly empty; he wondered if everyone in the city had somehow felt the magic he and the others had unleashed and fled indoors until it passed.

  Finally he arrived at Kelley’s manor house. It seemed deserted; no lights shone in the windows and no smoke curled from the chimneys. He went to the front door and knocked boldly, waited a moment and knocked again.

  As he expected, no one came to answer the door. Kelley could be cowering somewhere in his chilly house, too fearful to even light a fire, but Dee did not think so. He knew the other man too well by now. When Kelley had heard Rudolf pronounce sentence on him he had run as fast and far as he could; he was almost certainly on one of the roads leading out of Prague.

  Dee tried the door, and it opened to his touch. He imagined the house responding to the surge of magic rushing through the city, imagined the ghosts rousing and the old terrors growing stronger.

  He stopped on the threshold and lit Mordechai’s candle, then stepped inside. He braced himself for more of the house’s phantoms but nothing happened; he caught only the faintest shudder of wind and a few quiet voices muttering to themselves. Holding the candle out in front of him like a talisman he headed farther into the house.

  The stairs were where he remembered them and he mounted to the next floor. The candle flame flickered, casting long shadows on the walls; the cold marble carvings seemed to move in the dim light.

  He reached Kelley’s study and went inside. As he had hoped, all his equipment was still there. He brought his candle closer and saw what he had come for, the gray velvet bag containing the showstone. Kelley had taken it back from Rudolf.

  He held it in his hands, feeling the chill ball of glass through the cloth, turning it around and around in his long fingers. He grasped the bag by the neck and lifted it high in the air, intending to shatter it against the floor. And then, for no reason he understood, at that time or later, he changed his mind and carried it out of the house.

  It was very late by the time he returned to his inn. A clock somewhere was striking the hours, on and on, but he was too tired to keep an accurate count. The stars dazzled, as if someone had thrown all the emperor’s jewels into the sky. He climbed the stairs to his room and fell on the bed.

  He woke to the sun in his eyes. He stood up carefully, feeling every muscle protest. And he realized he was ravenous; with a shock he remembered that he had had nothing to eat the day before.

  An hour later, fed and dressed and blinking in the sunlight, he made his way to the Jewish Quarter. A clock rang once; the sound seemed to shimmer in the bright air. Was it truly one o’clock? Had he slept as long as that?

  When he got to Loew’s house he saw that a group of people stood at the door, arguing fiercely. “Where is it, then?” someone asked, and someone else shouted, “Yes, what have you done with it?”

  “He’s gone,” Loew said. Dee could not see him over the heads of the crowd, but his voice carried loudly into the street. “He won’t trouble you any more.”

  “How do we know you’re telling the truth?”

  “Yes, show him to us. Or is he still hiding in your house, about to run wild, to kill and maim like he did the last time?”

  “He never killed or maimed anyone,” Loew said. “You know that as well as—”

  “He’s in the synagogue,” someone said, cutting Loew off. “In the attic. My brother and I helped put him there yesterday.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Which synagogue?”

  The crowd began to disperse, following the man who had spoken. Loew stood at his door, watching them go. “Well, it can’t be helped,” he said. “I should have known something like this couldn’t be kept quiet.”

  “Don’t worry—they don’t know how to restore it to life,” Dee said.

  Loew looked up, seeming to see Dee for the first time. He smiled wryly. “Let’s hope not, anyway.”

  “This time I’ve truly come to say goodbye,” Dee said. “I’m going back to Trebona, to my wife and family.”

  “Goodbye, my friend. I hope you can visit me here once or twice. I don’t think Rudolf will bother us any further.”

  “Of course I will,” Dee said.

  They stood a while, unsure what to say. Dee moved forward awkwardly and embraced the other man. Loew stiffened for a moment and then returned the embrace. Unions, Dee thought. Meetings. Never one in the whole history of the world as strange as this.

  He returned to his inn to pack, and took a coach to Trebona.

  HE STAYED WITH HIS FAMILY AT COUNT VILEM’S HOUSE FOR two more years, visiting Loew in Prague several times. A year after he returned he learned of the death of King István, and he wondered what would happen to Erzsébet without her protector.

  Jane bore him another son in March of 1588, whom they christened Theodore. In the fall of that year they began to hear news of a great sea battle that had taken place between the English navy and the powerful Armada of Spain. Early rumors said that England had triumphed over Spain, but Dee thought that that could not be true, that England could not possibly overcome the might of the Armada.

  And yet it was; in the next few weeks they received several letters confirming it. (He had almost grown unused to the luxury of letters; he had traveled so much that letters had followed him across Europe like flocks of birds, always landing one address behind him.) He drank into the night with Count Vilém in celebration, giddy with joy.

  England now began to occupy his thoughts more and more. He wanted to go back, to see his people again, and his queen. He had saved a good deal of Vilém’s allowance, and he spent an entire day adding and subtracting, realizing finally that they could indeed afford to return home.

  The family set off in a magnificent train: three new coaches drawn by four young Hungarian horses each, three wagons for their furniture and clothing and books, and three riding horses. They made their way back slowly; he could not
help but contrast this journey with their hasty and terrified flight outward, and he saw a good many things—castles and churches, people and libraries—that he had missed before.

  They stopped for a long time in Bremen, putting their riding horses to pasture in the town meadow. He presented the twelve coach horses to the Landgrave of Hesse, who had given him protection as he moved through the landgrave’s territories. From Bremen they sailed on to England.

  They reached his house at Mortlake near Christmas, where they found a number of unpleasant surprises waiting for them. His precious library had indeed been plundered and burned as Kelley had prophesied, and his financial affairs, which he had left in the hands of Jane’s brother Nicholas Fromond, lay in ruins.

  For the next few years he lived quietly, studying and visiting his neighbors and attempting to replace his lost books. He thought about his time in Bohemia a great deal. Kelley had been right about the library burning, and he had seen Mordechai in the glass. Could some of the other things he claimed be true as well? Did his wondrous angels really exist? He tried to make contact with them but could not: Because he had never been able to see them? Because Kelley had lied? Because the doors between the worlds had closed for good? He continued to write to Judah Loew, of course, and Loew told him the same thing: that he was unable to see or hear spirits and could no longer do the simplest magic.

  But no matter how much Dee experimented he could not bring himself to look in the showstone; over the years he lost track of it and finally came to consider it lost.

  More children were born. In a fit of nostalgia for the wonders Kelley had shown him he named one daughter Madimia, after the child-angel. Perhaps there really was a Madimi, somewhere out there in that realm of angels that was now closed to him. He regretted this flight of fancy when a third daughter was born, and he gave her the prosaic name of Frances.

  The large family put a great strain on his finances. He tried several times to win patronage, but to no avail. Finally, at the end of 1592, he began work on a document which he called The Compendious Rehearsal of John Dee, a list of the many things he had learned and written and would write in the future, “if God grant me health and life.” He meant to send the manuscript to Queen Elizabeth, to show her how deserving he was of her patronage.