She whispers, and her words stream through the door like a gust of snow. She explains everything, perched by the door like a bird on a windowsill, and waits.
A pale, white hand floats up through the opening out of a black frame, holding a small vial of blue liquid between thumb and forefinger. Gingerly she accepts the vial, and the hand snaps back again, the door slams shut. She pauses only a moment, then puts the vial away and leaves the cabinet, slipping out and down the alley, invisibly, into the city.
The sweep of her broad gray skirt and a blur of windows and streetlights passing to a rusting iron lattice crowning a tall, polished, bottle-green building. Wisps of hair are blown around her face as she looks compulsively down at the foundations, obscured by straight-edged shadows from the surrounding rooftops. In the light from below, her face stands out white and tapering in relief against her dark clothes. The light catches in her brimming eyes, reflecting sharp and clear around irises that grow hard and dense, staring down at the fall.
She pulls out the vial and drinks. The instant the thick fluid drains into her mouth she is disoriented and her knees buckle—she reaches for a crumbling metal beam to keep from toppling forward, and already her hand is miles away from her, her body is coming apart, her limbs go warm and numb, expanding away from her, going to sleep, sensation reduced to unconscious whispering diffused by great distance. Suddenly, she realizes she’s leaning out too far and somehow pulls herself back, but a moment later her equilibrium shifts and she leans over the edge again. She’s becoming a dummy, extremities connected by flimsy wires, dead weights. She wants to drop the burden of her heavy body onto the infinitely yielding air below. She jerks her arm and her body pulls back. Now her torso is vanishing, disappearing in a spreading cloud of warmth, her neck starts to droop. Her eyes feel cold, fixed. Then she leans out again, and the weight of her body pulls her distant fingers free. She falls, passing through a shaft of moonlight on her way to the ground, conscious enough to be thankful to see it once more. Her arms are blown up in a ballerina’s halo around her head, her legs bend also with the skirts billowing among them. Then she is absorbed by the shadows below. She approaches the ground like a transparent object brushing a transparent surface, hanging a moment impossible to see, and then, ghostlike, she passes through the ground and disappears . . .
THE GOLEM
Black clouds gather among San Veneficio’s minarets and boil down low, rumbling and flooding the city with their clammy breath scented with rain. Quickly, precisely, and with a minimum of faltering, the Divinity Student makes the last few modifications to his construction machine and reviews the condition of the surrogate body parts. In the meantime Teo checks the electrical connections, nodding sagaciously over his tools. Then, the Divinity Student calls him over, and together they load the machine with exact reproductions of the Divinity Student’s clothes and shoes, and with a reproduction leg brace in two halves, one of which is outfitted with a miniature receiver, tuned to a transmitter in the Divinity Student’s brace, and a small scroll. The gelatin culture that Teo took from the Divinity Student earlier has thrived in solution to a volume of several gallons; this is loaded into a special pump. The Divinity Student sits by the instrument panel, watching Teo load a magazine with pages of the Divinity Student’s writing, all in Catalog-words, in Catalog-grammar, clamping them in place against a metal panel inside a machine resembling a film projector. Outside, rain begins to fall.
The Divinity Student looks down. His right hand is covered with ants, scurrying among his fingers, biting and carrying tiny crumbs of flesh away in their mandibles. He does not feel them. He imagines for a moment dissolving into so many fragments to be carried away by legions of mechanical ants. Then Teo is beside him, brushing the ants away with an outraged expression on his face, a doubled-up towel in his hand. The Divinity Student gives him a long, penetrating look. Then he glances up; he is directly below the ring of apparatus in the observation dome. The rods protrude from their circular frame like the feathery threads of a pin-strut umbrella iris around an empty pupil, staring down vacantly at him.
Teo backs away to a safe distance as the Divinity Student starts throwing switches on the instrument panel, setting the construction machine to work. Teo in a corner, the Divinity Student at the base of the tower, and the machine.
A torso swings into view on a platform, lungs and a heart are installed, held in place by one pair of arms while several others, smaller praying-mantis arms, tipped with spinnerets, snake around into the body cavity on tiny hinges, busily suturing veins and arteries, organs into place. The arms retract and another pair installs the diaphragm with staples, and then the Divinity Student’s pages are stuffed in and the abdomen sewn shut over them, a pair of pincers holds the muscle together in a small upraised ridge while a spinneret travels down and sews the two halves together, its needle buzzing violently. While this is going on the legs and arms appear, dripping with formaldehyde from the tanks, and are held precisely up to the joints and sutured in place by a many-headed suturing array, dozens of tiny, whirring accelerating sewing heads flashing up and down with the deliberate motion exclusively characteristic of living things.
Above and to the left of the platform, which rotates back and forth as needed, tiny struts rework and rewire the jaws, the skull gaping in midair as the teeth are repositioned, pulled, inserted, filed down. Miniature files and sanders grind puffs of powdered bone from the cheek and jawline, and around the eyesockets, while the top is sawn off and lined with tissue paper. The individual muscles are bolted on with artificial ligaments and steel welds. Meanwhile the brain is prepared for insertion—threadlike probes sink in and out of its folds like hummingbird beaks, delivering minute pulses of current to keep the neurons active, playing over the entire brain as it hangs suspended from beneath, swung into position above the skull. Then the arms lower it down slowly into the skull, the eyes—dangling deflated from the optic nerves like shrivelled prunes—are tugged forward into the sockets, then reinflated with vitreous humor when in position. Meanwhile, whip-arms the gage of wire hangers work feverishly around the brain, soldering connections, hand-over-hand clamps opening and closing, threading the spine down through a small tail of vertebrae—the skullcap claps down and is welded in place and a hood of skin, attached to the throat, is pulled up and over from behind, the face appears, stretched on a metal ring, and is pulled taut across the muscles and sutured beneath the chin, hair is tweezed into the scalp and eyebrows and eyelashes strand by strand by tiny repeaters. Flashes of lightning flicker through the windows, skip across the floor.
Now the head, a perfect likeness, is lowered and joined to the body, the spinnerets sewing crazily, the surgical silk singing through the runners. The Divinity Student watches the body assemble itself dreamily, nodding back and forth on his stool, in a trance. The head is attached, the body is complete. Thicker needles puncture the skin and pump the veins and arteries full of the Divinity Student’s gelatin culture, the body becomes less flaccid-looking. Then strips of cloth, sleeves, buttons, the soles and tops of the shoes are brought together around the body and sewn together—the body is fully dressed. It bobs and weaves back and forth, lowered and raised from one station in the machine to another with smooth mechanical regularity trailing flutters of winding and unwinding synchronized systems. Finally, the right leg is lifted and the two halves of the brace clap shut around it and are spot-welded in place with loud raucous buzzes and little plumes of smoke. The leg is lowered smoothly. The body is ready. For a moment the Divinity Student waits, his face uplifted, the transmitter in his brace winks on, the receiver in the Golem’s brace winks on.
Then a blast of lightning strikes current up a wire like a neon tube—the iris of rods in the apparatus over the Divinity Student’s head extends downward—with the speed of striking snakes the tips of the rods jab into his arms and legs and shoot down between his vertebrae to run the length of his spine from the inside, and up into his brain, spreading fingers of wire through every p
art of him—the rods retract with equal suddenness, taking him with them; he sails passively up through the air as if he were falling into the pupil of that eye overhead, to be fixed suspended in the center of that pupil, the rods radiating out from him like a metal web, his body hanging in space, turning upward toward the sky . . . simultaneously, a curved glass lid has already dropped out of the gloom over the machine, down over the body on the platform, and a pair of curved glass sections swerve up from underneath, and all come together to form an ellipsoidal glass enclosure around the body, like a clear egg. The hiss of gas as halogen and argon and supercooled formaldehyde vapor isotopes come flooding in, invisible, rustling through the body’s hair and clothes, and the lights over the platform go out, leaving it in darkness; the machine is cringing back into itself.
Another blast stabs down out of the clouds and the wires snap against the floor like whips, tiny lights wink on around the Divinity Student in his ring of support rods, and the connected machines start to take measurements and administer medications and chemicals, small doses of current—below, the chamber flickers searing white and inside the alembic Teo can see the body intermittently frozen in convulsions, and more lightning arcing down, the body is jerking and reeling in an egg of white-blue light fed by glass coils candescing under the platform as more wires flare and crackle, throwing curves rigidly, streaming smoke from burning insulation, lightning again and again and the body jackknifes in angular twists like the wires, clattering against the inside of the enclosure. Then the glass lid rises, the two segments beneath drop away. The gas inside turns blue and opaque when it comes into contact with the outside air. The Golem swings both legs together over the edge of the table, pivoting on his hip, and pushes off as he comes upright to land on his feet, standing, white vapor oozing from his clothes and steaming body. Without hesitating, he marches to the door, loping firmly on his broken leg, enormous discharges of static flaring from his brace as he walks, like camera flashes popping in the air around him—he steps outside. And in the tower, sighing, the Divinity Student is rolling over as the dome slides open above him, sparking flashes of static electricity like miniature sheet lightning. Outside, the Golem stands in the street and looks up at the clouds, feeling the rain pouring down over his head, his glasses, rilling in refreshing sheets down his face and across his heavy coat, cool trickling streams across his burning temples and in his charred eyes. The clouds come down within twenty feet of the street and seethe directly overhead, as if on his convection. Inside, the Divinity Student stares up into a limitless expanse of frigid blackness and tiny stars glittering like puny flashes of lightning. In them he sees a thousand years from now San Veneficio buried by volcanic ash, and the new citizens of the new city walk past the observation dome protruding from the ground, a hemisphere of thick glass filled with formaldehyde, and the Divinity Student is still there, barely visible, far below in the murky depth of the tower, resting on his bed of untarnished metal rods, his flesh bleached colorless, white, and shriveled by the preservative, his skin folded and seamed, clothes and hair drained of color hang motionless around him. Every few hours, his sunken eyes twitch in their sockets, following the movements of the hazy, tea-colored shadows undulating over the surface of the dome, across miles and miles, from the city beneath the city. The moon, a visible other world, lifting him past the ground, pulling him up with it as it rises, lowering him as it sinks. Far below in a welter of confused double impressions below and behind him, Teo’s last goodbye gutters out.
The cold air washes over his face like alcohol, interrupted by warm shafts of dawning copper-colored sunlight up the tree-lined, unpaved drive to the house. The Golem is walking on his own, still leaning heavily on his brace, and waving his cane in a slow arc in front of him. It has a curved silver handle, and the shaft is thin and painted black, ending in a long diagonal fracture where the tip is broken off. Steam still spills in tiny threads from his face; more from between his eyelashes—the sunlight is so brilliant it blocks out sound. He moves as if he were under deep water, his blank eyes fixed on the small gabled house with peaked roof and peeling white paint. As he looks up, the features of his face begin again to cohere, resolving into an expression of mute, unsettled anticipation. To his right, beyond the trees, is a wide lot with dewy grass growing in thick clumps, in a smell of wet dirt. To the other side are a row of charred-black houses with their backs turned. His path is a minor deviation from the main road where these brick houses huddle. He has come to find a woman named Christine Dalman, she was promised to him in marriage a long time ago. He had been only a boy then, and had not yet run off to the Seminary. Now however he knows he must find this woman, and keep an ancient promise—in his memory he sees his mother talking with a dark man on the other side of the fence, he sees the bargain being struck, he somehow receives her name, her image. Gleaming skin and eyes, gleaming lips, shining teeth, shining hair. Wrecked as he is, he must keep this long-deferred appointment, and determine what is to be done. He knows the Divinity Student made him for this purpose.
The Golem’s movements are random and unconscious, but chemically vigorous; his nerves fire through numb dead limbs, but as he steps up to the porch, he experiences a feeling—a strangled, plaintive sensation ignites in his chest and steams up into his throat, leaves his head smoldering. This place is familiar. He’s feeling waves of weird nostalgia and dread. Turning around the rim of the hedge he sees the two detectives, their names warble in his head from unfamiliar memories, recorded through distorted senses—Pracke and Kipe.
They start when they see him: he knows they recognize him, and see that he has changed. Instantly, they turn and disappear into the house with the air of bearing urgent news. The Golem steps heavily onto the porch, and through the swinging front door.
There’s a hallway directly before him, with a narrow staircase to one side and doors to the right and left; police inspectors are scurrying all throughout the house. The door at the end of the hall is open, framing, perfectly, the Prefect of Police, reclining with crossed legs in a leather armchair, in the room beyond. The Golem accelerates down the hall, drawn toward the Prefect as if he were at the end of a string looped around the Prefect’s little finger. The door looms wide and swallows him; Pracke and Kipe are standing in the corner their faces blank with stupid astonishment.
The Prefect of Police, his name is Griepentrog, is sitting directly across the little room from the door. Behind him, the rising sun strikes the heavy curtains, and they glow the color of a honeycomb, illuminating him with a soft, caressing glow. He is dressed in a spotless, pressed white suit with a high starched collar, his legs crossed across the knee exposing a long thin ankle in a gray stocking. Looking up at them, his face is the color and texture of yellowed newspaper; his hands are small, soft, and pink, like a baby’s, with gleaming, manicured fingernails. He grips a long white cigarette at a crisp angle next to his face. It oozes a heavy blue smoke that rises like slow-moving air bubbles in deep water, a line of smoke like a strand of resin depending from the cool shadows of the ceiling. He takes a languid sip from the cigarette, drawing the last thread of smoke between his parted lips with a small circling motion of his pointed red tongue. His thin eyelids hang low over his amber-colored eyes, floating in limpid orange jelly from the cigarettes. When he exhales, the smoke trickles from his nostrils into the curling edge of his nose, eddying in the pits on either side; then the two tributaries of smoke stream up through his eyebrows and fan out in a thin, barely visible membrane over his broad, impressive forehead, nestling in his thick gelatinous hair. His hair is the color of powdered charcoal dusted with lead, and spreads from his temples like the head of a mushroom. He gazes at them with catlike contentment on his girlish face, his pursed lips framed by two small moustaches, like crossed brooms, above, and a comma of beard below. Out of his happy perfection, he welcomes them with an inclination of his head.
“Well, hel-lo!” he says, another dream come true. “Have you come to help us with our investigation?
”
The Golem jerks the corners of his mouth up and drops his lower lip, returning the Prefect’s false smile.
“Yes!” says the Golem in a clotted voice.
The Prefect grins wider. “Good! We could certainly use someone like you!”
The Golem’s face is flushed and hot. The acid, unnatural body odor that emanates from beneath his coat is filling the room, deadening the florid aroma of the Prefect’s cigarette. A cavity of sick dread is opening up in him—the emotion is his and nightmarishly painful—sucking at his quickening sense of expectation, his face is turning bright red radiating palpable waves of heat that rustle across Pracke’s face and Kipe’s face like a cloud of flies, his odor getting chokingly strong, and the Prefect is still smiling and calm, with his spotless suit, and his eyes slitted in satisfied crescents in his papery face. The two detectives shuffle back into the doorway, trying to draw clean air from the hall and the drafty wakes of the other inspectors as they stream from room to room to room behind them. For a moment there is no sound except for the rhythmic thud of their footsteps all throughout the house. Then the Prefect speaks again, in the inflections of a playschool teacher.
“Would you like to work with the Police?”
The Golem nods erratically, his hideous grin widens in his red face. “Yes!”
“Fine. Then why don’t you assist the detectives here. When you’re finished looking at the house, Pracke and Kipe will take you to the station, where you can examine the records we already have.” He is speaking slowly and carefully. “This case has been very difficult for us,” he puts his hand to his chest to indicate us, “and you have talents that we need very badly. It makes me very happy to know you have decided to accept our invitation.”
The Golum Page 5