by Kim Fielding
“No, no. You are much stronger than I. Golem, kneel.”
The golem obeyed. His trousers were too short to cover his knees well, and the cobbles were very cold against his lower legs.
The rabbi nodded. “Jakob, with all your might, I want you to strike the golem’s head with your hammer.”
“I…. Sir?” Jakob looked suddenly pale and uncertain.
“Go ahead.” The rabbi waved his hands. “As hard as you can.”
For a brief moment, Jakob’s gaze locked with the golem’s. The man looked close to panic, and the golem wished he could say something to comfort him. Instead, he gave another small smile. Jakob had such beautiful eyes, very brown and deep as the starry sky.
Slowly, Jakob set the chisel onto the ground. As he walked closer to the golem, it took all the golem’s willpower not to reach out and touch him. He wanted so badly to know whether those curls were as soft as they looked, whether the muscles on the man’s chest felt as tight as his own.
Jakob grasped the hammer very firmly in both hands, briefly closed his eyes and opened them again, and swung. His aim was true. The hammer hit the golem squarely on the side of the head, making a sound very like that of the boulder the golem had split. But although the golem was rocked slightly to the side, and although he uttered a cry at the pain, his head was not damaged.
Dropping the hammer noisily onto the street, Jakob turned to Rabbi Eleazar. “That blow would have shattered stone.”
The rabbi nodded. And for the first time, Gospodin Novák appeared truly shaken. But perhaps the rabbi thought his friend needed more convincing. “Golem, stand. Jakob, drive the chisel into the golem’s chest. As hard as you can.”
As the golem rose to his feet, Jakob backed away. “But…. Rabbi. The hammer hurt him.”
“You won’t damage him.”
Jakob shook his head. “But he feels pain.”
“He is not a person, son. Please. It is important that the duke realize what a mistake it would be to rise against us.”
Jakob’s movements were even slower this time, but he picked up the chisel and again approached the golem. He didn’t raise the tool right away, though. He was a tall man, the golem now realized, although still at least a foot shorter than the golem himself. So Jakob had to tilt his head back to look up into the golem’s face. The golem smiled at him again and gave him the tiniest of nods, encouraging him to listen to the rabbi. The chisel would hurt, but it was the golem’s job to protect the people.
“I’m sorry,” Jakob whispered so quietly that surely nobody but the golem heard him.
At the kindness of those words and the sadness in Jakob’s eyes, something warm swelled within the golem. It was as if something within him was singing in joy and gratitude, because for a moment at least, Jakob had cared what the golem felt. When Jakob lifted the toothed chisel and jammed it into the golem’s chest, the blade bit deep and pain bloomed, but the golem hardly noticed.
Jakob pulled the chisel away and dropped it next to the hammer. The wound in the golem’s chest sealed immediately, leaving no scar.
“So you see, Gospodin Novák?” Rabbi Eleazar said.
“I see. And I will most certainly tell the duke. But Eleazar, he is a stubborn man and his debts are very large. I do not know if he will be reasonable.”
“Then I will pray that his heart is softened and his mind sees what is best.”
Gospodin Novák nodded and made a slight bow to the rabbi, who nodded back. Then Novák climbed into his carriage. His driver hupped at the horses, which trotted away through the parting crowd.
Voices erupted. Nobody quite dared to approach the golem—nobody but Jakob, who remained standing quite close by. The others rushed the rabbi, asking him questions, congratulating him, arguing with each other. After an existence spent almost entirely alone, the golem felt overwhelmed. He might have run away—back into the shul and up to the attic, shaming himself and his master—but Jakob was still very near.
“You were watching me,” Jakob whispered. “I saw… I thought I saw, up in that window….”
His master was preoccupied, so the golem hazarded speech. “I’m sorry,” he whispered back.
“You can talk!”
“Yes.”
Jakob tilted his head a little and regarded the golem. “Why did you watch me?”
“I… I was alone. And you move so well with the stone. Like a dance.” The golem didn’t add that Jakob was beautiful, thinking the man would not want to hear such words from a monster like him.
Jakob chewed his lower lip thoughtfully and stroked his short beard. The golem wanted to say more—how Jakob’s presence made his lonely days bearable, how he wanted to touch him, how sometimes he imagined Jakob’s hands on his body. But again, the man would not want to know these things, so the golem remained silent.
After a few minutes, Rabbi Eleazar walked to the golem. “Enough. The hour is growing late. Return upstairs. God willing, we won’t need you again.”
But the golem didn’t want to go. “Please, Master. I can work. Whatever you tell me to do. I’ll be good.”
Rabbi Eleazar opened his mouth, no doubt to say no, but a woman had pushed her way close. She was middle-aged, tall and bosomy, and she wore an apron under her thick gray sweater. When the golem saw her eyes, he recognized them—they were the same as Jakob’s. This must be his mother, whom the golem had occasionally seen carrying food or water to her family.
“Let us put that strength to use, Rabbi,” she said. “It would be a shame to waste it.”
“He was made to protect us.”
“And he will. But who says he can’t do some work at the same time? In fact, this will be better. If the gentiles see him laboring, they’ll be reminded of his power.”
The rabbi looked doubtful, but several men and women chimed in to support Jakob’s mother, and at last he shrugged. “Fine. And who intends to employ him?”
There was a deep silence. The golem wondered if he disgusted these people or if they feared him. Perhaps they thought him too stupid to do anything but lift things or break them. He wasn’t stupid, though. He could learn.
Jakob looked at the rabbi. “I can use him. I’ve been wanting to build myself a little house, but my father and my brothers are busy.”
“Very well,” Rabbi Eleazar said, and the golem wanted to leap with happiness. “But keep him near. And he’ll spend nights in the shul.”
“All right. Beginning tomorrow?”
“Yes.” The rabbi brushed his hands together. In a loud voice, he said, “It will be sundown soon. The minyan needs to prepare for maariv service, as do I.”
People began to wander off, still talking excitedly among themselves. Jakob lingered for a moment. His expression was troubled. But then he nodded slightly at the golem before collecting his tools and walking away.
The golem watched him for a few moments, then turned and followed his master back inside.
4
Despite the golem’s love for evening prayers, they weren’t enough to calm his excitement. He paced the attic from end to end, replaying the afternoon’s events, speculating as to what would happen the next day. He would be permitted out of the attic to work, and at Jakob’s side! He squeezed himself tightly as if he might otherwise burst with pleasure.
The room grew too dark for him to see, and he settled down in his nest of a bed. But he couldn’t fall asleep. He wondered if Jakob was also lying awake, thinking about him. The man hadn’t seemed angry at having been watched. He seemed… curious, as if the golem were a puzzle he might like to solve. The golem vowed to work very hard, to make Jakob happy he’d requested the assistance. Maybe Jakob would even allow him to talk a little, to ask a few questions. There were so many things the golem wanted to know.
Alone in the dark and dusty attic, the golem whispered the mason’s name. “Jakob. Jakob. Jakob.” It was a good name, he thought. A strong name.
The golem awoke before the sun. He waited impatiently for morning prayer
s to finish. He always preferred the evening prayers anyway, because the man with the wonderful voice sang only then. The golem folded his bedding and stored it on the shelf. He straightened his too-short trousers and too-small vest. He rubbed the two metal buttons until they shone. Then he stood near the door and waited. Time passed very slowly; he began to wonder if Jakob had changed his mind.
Just as the golem started to truly worry, the door opened. “Come on, then,” said Rabbi Eleazar. He looked a bit rumpled, as if he’d dressed in a hurry that morning. But the golem grinned and hurried to follow him down the stairs. If the rabbi hadn’t been in front of him, the golem would have taken the stairs several at a time, leaping down like a goat.
Two old men stood in the foyer, frowning at him. One of them carried a thick book and the other had a walking stick, which he raised as if to protect himself. Neither said a word as Rabbi Eleazar opened one of the big front doors and motioned outward. “Obey Jakob as you obey me,” he ordered. “While you work, he is your master.”
The golem nodded enthusiastically.
Jakob waited at the bottom of the shul’s front steps. He wore a thick cloak against the morning cold, and a heavy hat was pressed down over his curls. A large wooden box sat at his feet. He looked nervous and didn’t return the golem’s smile. He didn’t speak either. He simply shrugged, picked up the box, and began to march down the street. People gaped as the golem rushed to catch up.
The box looked heavy. “Master? I can carry that for you.”
Jakob flinched a little. “Don’t call me that.”
“I’m sorry. What shall I call you?”
“Jakob.”
The golem sighed in relief. He didn’t want to make Jakob angry before their day had even begun.
Passersby stopped in their tracks as Jakob and the golem walked by, and other people stared from house windows. Jakob looked steadfastly ahead, not even glancing at the golem. He walked until the street ended at a stone wall. Then he turned onto a street that paralleled the wall. The golem noticed that plants had rooted themselves in the small cracks between the stones. Maybe in the spring, some would flower. He thought it very brave of them to chance an existence somewhere so precarious.
An arched gateway led through the wall. There were heavy wooden doors to block the opening, but they were propped wide open. Judging from the weeds and bits of debris at their bases, neither door had been closed in a long time.
As soon as Jakob and the golem exited the town through the gateway, the road became packed dirt instead of cobbles. The golem liked the way the soil felt under his soles, although he couldn’t help wondering whether the road minded being walked on. Did it hurt when metal-rimmed wagon wheels rolled over it, or when horses clomped their metal-shod hooves?
Very few buildings stood outside the wall, although a few small houses nestled among the fields. People worked in the fields, gathering the last of the season’s harvest, and a few cows and goats watched curiously as the golem walked by.
Jakob turned off the road onto a narrow path that was hardly more than trodden grass. The path curved around a stand of trees, then rose up a small, steep hill. A space had been cleared atop the hill, and a few stones had been set around the boundaries of Jakob’s future home. The golem wondered why Jakob wanted to live so far from everyone else, but he didn’t ask. Instead he watched the clouds scud across the sky as Jakob set down the wooden box and removed his tools.
“I need more stone.” Jakob pointed to the field below. “I was going to borrow a cart, but perhaps—”
“I can carry it!” the golem exclaimed. “I’m very strong.”
The shadow of a smile flickered at the corners of Jakob’s lips. “I know.”
The golem ran back down the path toward the spot Jakob had indicated. Sure enough, a large pile of rocks sprawled untidily, as if the farmers had been too annoyed by their presence to bother stacking them neatly. No doubt the rocks would prove more useful in the walls of Jakob’s house than scattered across the field. The golem hefted two of them—one under each arm—and rushed back to Jakob.
“Where would you like them, Jakob?”
Jakob’s eyebrows were raised high. “You carry them as if they weighed nothing.”
“I was made to be strong.”
“Yes.” Jakob shook his head slightly and pointed at a spot a few yards from the cleared space. “Put them there.”
The golem obeyed. “Do you want them all?”
“Not all at once. I have to shape them before I can set them in place. Bring the biggest ones now so I can plan the base of the walls.”
“Yes, Jakob.” The golem hurried back down the hill.
Although he carried a great many stones, the golem never tired. He was so happy to be outdoors, to be working, to be helping Jakob—he thought that maybe the flexing of his muscles and the strength of his bones were his body’s way of expressing joy, his own way of praying.
Jakob spoke very little. Most of his attention was on inspecting the stones, turning them this way and that—sometimes with the golem’s help—reading them as if they were books. Sometimes he chiseled them, the sounds echoing brightly. The golem stole glances as he unloaded each new pair of rocks. Although the stones were large and rough and the tools heavy, Jakob handled them carefully. Almost reverently.
The golem had just brought up another pair of rocks and was about to get more when Jakob held up a hand to stop him. “Lunchtime,” Jakob said. “I brought bread and cheese.”
“I don’t eat.”
Jakob blinked. “Never?”
“No.”
“Then how do you survive?”
“I… I don’t know.”
After a moment’s pause, Jakob shrugged. “Well, rest anyway. It exhausts me just to watch you work.” He took a small fabric-wrapped bundle from his wooden box and sat on the ground with his back against one of the larger stones.
The golem hesitated a bit before sitting next to him. He hadn’t noticed while he was working, but from this height, he could see the entire town laid out below. It looked neat and orderly. On the other side of the town, the road led to a larger city—also encircled by a stone wall and with a few pointed spires rising high. Beyond that, a green-gray river twisted like a lazy serpent. Perhaps the golem’s clay came from that river’s banks.
“What is that place?” the golem asked, pointing at the larger city.
Jakob had unwrapped his lunch and now tore a chunk from a small loaf of bread. He mumbled a quick prayer under his breath before answering. “That’s where the gentiles live.”
“You have separate towns?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I suppose… people feel more comfortable living with others who are like them.”
The golem nodded, although he didn’t really understand. “Do they have golems too?”
Jakob gave a short laugh. “I very much doubt it. Nobody here has ever seen anything like you. We’ve heard stories, but… but we thought they were only tales told by old people to pass the long winter nights.”
Those words saddened the golem, who’d held a small hope that there were others like him somewhere. “Maybe in other cities? Far away.”
“Maybe. I’ve never been farther from here than two days’ walk.”
“And the world is very big, isn’t it?”
“So I’ve heard. My corner of it is very small.”
The golem looked out at the fields and towns spread beneath him and thought how much more there was here than in his dusty attic. He didn’t say so, though. Instead, he watched as Jakob chewed a bite of cheese. He couldn’t say why, but he was fascinated with watching those lips move, that throat swallow.
“I’m sorry,” Jakob said after a while. “I didn’t think to ask your name.”
“I don’t have one.”
Jakob frowned. “If I’m going to work with you, I want to call you something besides just golem.”
“Call me whatever you wi
sh,” said the golem, who was pleased to be called anything at all.
“Hmm.” Jakob ate a few more bites. Then he turned to look directly at the golem, and his gaze settled on the golem’s chest. “Move your vest, please. Let me read.”
The vest only partially obscured the letters the rabbi had inscribed. The golem moved the fabric out of the way.
“Emet,” pronounced Jakob. “I suppose that could be your name.”
“Does it mean something?” The golem chewed his lip anxiously. What if it meant monster or freak?
But Jakob smiled gently at him. “It means truth. Which isn’t a bad idea for a name, really. Better than my own, which is a lie.”
“I don’t—Jakob is a lie?”
“You don’t know the Torah, do you? How would you. Jakob was the father of the Hebrews. He had twelve sons who became the twelve tribes of Israel. But me, I’ll never be anyone’s father.”
It was the longest speech the golem had yet heard from Jakob, and it took him a moment to process the meaning. “You cannot have children?” asked the golem.
“I will not. And that is the truth, Emet.” Jakob smiled, although his eyes were sad. He finished his meal without further conversation, stood, and returned to work.
Emet continued to haul stones. He was rewarded every time he reached the summit of the hill and Jakob gave him a small smile. As light as the rocks had seemed before, now they were no more burdensome than clouds, and Emet barely felt his feet touch the ground—because Jakob had given him a name. Just like a real person. And it was a good name too. While Jakob’s name was as sharp and solid as the edges of his stones, Emet felt deep and rumbly.
Emet would gladly have continued to work until it was too dark to see. But well before the sun sank behind the horizon, Jakob gathered his tools and placed them in the wooden box. “You’ve done more today than my brothers could have in a week. At this rate my house will be built well before the worst of winter.” He lifted the box and started down the hill.