The Golem of Hollywood

The Shattering of the Vessel

The thought of the tall men — terrible serenity — haunts her as she and the Rebbetzin hurry to the shul and ascend to the garret.

She sets the box of fresh clay beside the pottery wheel. Perel unpacks her toolkit and begins rolling up her sleeves.

“Oh, oh, oh. Curse me. We need water.”

Dazed, she reaches automatically for the bucket and starts toward the ladder.

“Wait,” Perel cries.

She freezes.

“You can’t go out there.” Then, soothingly: “They can’t come in here. It’s not allowed. Do you understand, Yankele? Here, you’re safe from them. I promise you that.”

She nods. The Rebbetzin’s certainty bewilders her.

“It’s not them you need to worry about. Yudl doesn’t know you visit me here, does he? Has he ever asked you about it?”

She shakes her head.

“Good.” Perel rolls down her sleeves and snatches up the bucket. “I’ll be back soon.”

The floorboards whine as she paces.

I said he’d get attached, and I was right.

It’s not them you need to worry about.

And her mind fills with images: a nodding tribunal; black fire on white fire.

One thing at a time.

The implication devastates her.

They are not the danger.

Rebbe is the danger.

He who has been a father to her; who has blessed her like a son.

What awful power do they have over him, that they can turn him against her? She tears at her hair in grief, beats her breast like a penitent, yearning to bolt and run as fast and far as she can.

The outline of the arched doorway dims from purple to inky black. To get water shouldn’t take this long.

She pictures the Rebbetzin lugging the heavy bucket through the street, those slender arms straining. Thoughts shift to catastrophe. The tall ones have caught Perel. What horrible fate awaits her? Will Rebbe intercede? He must. He is a good man; he loves his wife.

But he loves her, too, or he claimed to.

At long last she hears a creak and a slam, and uneven footfalls blunder down the stone corridor and through the women’s section — a person bearing a tremendous burden, knocking into chairs, coming for the garret, coming for her.

“It’s me, Yankele.”

She peers down through the trap. Perel straggles into view. She sets down the brimming bucket and bends, hands to knees, breathless.

“My arms are going to fall off. Come, take this up, while I immerse.”

When the Rebbetzin returns to the garret, her wet hair lies flat.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” she says. “I was trying to buy us time.”

From her pocket, Perel produces Rebbe’s shul key — then a second exactly like it. “I had Chana Wichs give me her husband’s copy, too, just in case. I swore her to secrecy. We’ll see how long that lasts. Nobody likes to lie to the Rebbe, and Chana’s lips aren’t exactly the tightest. But at least for now, poor Yudl’s going to think he’s lost his mind, looking for that key... All right,” Perel says, clapping her hands together, “think, think, think. We must be precise, we don’t have time for error. First we must make some room. Help me, please.”

Under the Rebbetzin’s direction, she moves bookcases, clearing a wide circle.

“The wheel I won’t need, you can put it over there.” Perel rolls her sleeves up again and sweeps her skirts under her. She kneels before the box of clay and scoops a largish handful, then four more, mounding them together on the floor. “While I’m getting started with this, you” — Perel pats the remaining clay — “handle that. I’m going to need all of it. You know what to do?”

She nods uncertainly.

“Well? What are you waiting for?”

Throwing her faith in the Rebbetzin, she upends the box in the middle of the circle. Clay slops out.

Perel bites her lip. “I hope it’s enough. But — go on, now. No time to waste.”

She does what she has seen Perel do night after night, first compacting the loose clay and squeezing out excess water; then lifting the mass and wedging it against the floor to drive out air. Riverbank beetles, kidnapped and entombed, crunch as she presses down with her full might, folding, turning, repeating. Perel — the long muscles of her forearms rippling beneath her rippling silver skin — does the same with her own smaller block of clay, reaching over periodically to check the texture.

“Remember: overworking it is as bad as underworking it.”

She goes about her job numbly, trying to drive out the memory of Rebbe’s words.

It will be done.

“That’s good. Now, two piles, one about so — oh. Oh, Yankele. You’re trembling.”

Perel crawls over to clasp her hands. Warm mud oozes between their palms.

“You’re frightened. Of course you are? Who wouldn’t be? But you must be brave.”

She looks into the Rebbetzin’s glistening green eyes.

“He doesn’t want to do it,” Perel says. “He has no choice. Anyway, I won’t let him. You must trust me, Yankele.”

She does. She must. Other than the Rebbetzin, she has no one else left.

They resume work.

“Two equal piles, please. A rectangle, like so. The second pile, make it into four logs. Two of them about this wide, two a bit fatter. Each pair, try to make it the same length, if you can. They don’t have to be perfect.”

Meanwhile, Perel has rolled her own clay into a sphere.

“That’s fine. Put them at the corners — yes. Just so. Don’t worry. As I said, it doesn’t have to be perfect yet. I’ll fix it. Tell me: do you see, now?”

She nods. She is excited. And terrified.

They’re making a person.

On hands and knees, Perel moves about the figure, coaxing joints together, forming hollows, using the tip of the knife to render the tracery of veins and hair and skin. The aura flares in ecstasy, scalding the room and subsiding. The rough block slims miraculously to a torso; uneven stumps smooth to limbs, slender arms and long legs twine with muscles like a braided candle. Hillocks of breasts and open plain of stomach; soft grassy sex and valley below — the magnificent body of a woman.

The thrill of memory courses through her.

Her body.

The face requires patience, love, and mercy. Perel does not find it beneath her dignity to bend over, contorting herself, balancing on one elbow as she scrapes out the seashell contours of an ear. Nostrils open, lips part, ready to draw breath. Consternation tightens the brow — bad dreams, to which a determined jaw refuses to surrender.

She sees. And remembers more.

The Rebbetzin descends the garret to the ritual bath, immersing herself a second time. She returns full of agitation, rubbing her fingertips together as she walks circuits around the body, examining every last crevice and detail until she is satisfied.

“Are you ready?” Perel sits. “Lie down, please. Put your head in my lap.”

She obeys, careful not to disturb the beautiful clay body.

Perel smiles at her upside down. “Thank you for everything you have given me.”

Thank you.

“I’ll miss you.”

I’ll miss you, too.

“You’ll always have a home here.” A sad laugh. “Although I’m sure it goes without saying that it might be wise to stay away for a while.”

Perel strokes her head. “It won’t hurt. It will be easy, like drawing a hair out of milk.”

Soft touches smooth the distortions of her lumpy skull, her crumpled ears. Her eyes close. She had forgotten what sleepiness feels like. It’s lovely, a pillowy fall from a great height, a descent that never ends. She feels heat on her face, the charge that fills the infinitesimal gap between two skins, and Perel’s lips touch hers, and her mouth opens, and though she has been warned never to do this, though she knows what will happen, she trusts, and parts her lips wider, and brings forth her tongue.

The knot begins to loosen.

She can feel it unraveling, dissolving, and she exhales and sleep wraps her in a cloak of clay.

“You are here.”

Stunned and numb, stomach greasy, chest thudding, ears ringing, she lies on her back, gazing through fuzzy infant eyes at Perel’s shining face, doubled and cloudy and swimming in the gloom.

“How do you feel?”

“Tired.”

The sound of her own voice stuns them: then the Rebbetzin bursts into tears, and then into laughter, and then they both do, the two of them trembling and whooping and hugging.

“Blessed are You, O Lord, Our God and King of the Universe,” Perel says, “Who has given us life and sustained us and brought us to this time.”

“Amen.”

It’s no less shocking the second time around. They explode in a round of giddy peals.

Perel helps her to a sitting position. “I’m going to let you go, all right? Will you fall over?”

“I won’t fall.” The cloak itches against her back. She’s naked. The realization causes her to shiver violently. Perel fetches an old prayer shawl and covers her with it. “Better than nothing.”

“Thank you.”

“Can you stand?”

“I think so.”

They are roughly the same height now, a shocking equality. Together they shuffle around the garret, her watery limbs firming up, regaining their intelligence, until she moves smoothly, gracefully, exploring her body in space, examining herself, top to bottom.

Blue veins underlie the silky pale flesh of her arms. She spreads her toes in the dust, shrugs her shoulders, twists at the waist. Everything feels familiar, and comfortable. She runs her fingers over her head. She has hair. Long hair, thick and soft. She brings the ends around to see what color it is. The lantern light paints in tones of linen and earth. Her eyes — what color are they? She trips over to the bucket, landing on her knees.

Perel lunges to grab her arm. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, fine.” The water reveals eyes of indeterminate hue. Her face appears even more lovely than she had hoped for, the features finer and softer than they were in clay.

“Are you happy with how you look?”

She nods. It is a lovely face, yes; but more important, it is hers — the face she remembers.

Perel says, “I modeled it after my Leah.”

She knows not what to make of that. But she’s certain of what to say.

“She must have been a beautiful girl.”

A silence.

“There is one more thing,” Perel says. “The knot that stilled your tongue.”

She sticks out her tongue, touches it, finds smooth, yielding tissue — no parchment. She looks at the Rebbetzin, who hesitates, and blushes, and then inclines her head downward.

Toward her pubis.

“I had to put it somewhere,” Perel says. “It shouldn’t come out. It’s deep. But you should be careful, of course.”

“I will.”

“Don’t look so surprised,” the Rebbetzin says. “It’s the source of life, and you are alive.”

Her heart swells with gratitude; the back of her throat aches.

“Do you have a name?”

She smiles. Of course she does.

It’s...

What.

She says, “My name is...”

Silence.

Perel frowns. “Yes?”

“It’s...”

Ridiculous. She has her body back. She has her voice back. And yet the only name she can come up with is a man’s name — the name she’s been living with.

Yankele.

Her mind coughs up words in a forgotten tongue.

Mi ani? Yankele.

Who am I? Yankele.

The letters of each word reassemble themselves.

A new name. She will own it.

She says, “My name is Mai.”

Perel smiles, relieved. “Nice to meet you, Mai.”

Before she can reply, a loud banging comes from the first floor — followed by a silence, and then a tremendous crash, an axe splintering wood.

They’re breaking the front door down.

Perel runs to the trapdoor, kicks it shut. “Help me.”

Not so very long ago, Mai could have managed the bookcase on her own; now it takes the two of them, working together, to drag it atop the trap. Moments later men’s voices ring out, and boots mount on the ladder, and fists beat at the floor.

“Perele,” Rebbe calls, his voice pinched and distraught. “Perele, are you in there?”

Perel seizes Mai by the arm. Together they tiptoe across the garret.

“Perele. Please open up.”

They come to the arched door. Perel lifts the iron bar holding it shut, hauls the door open. Frigid air streams in.

Below, the cobblestones swim.

The Rebbetzin clasps Mai’s hands. “Go.”

Mai hesitates. She’s still dizzy, not to mention barely clothed, and Perel’s grip on her feels like the pull of ten thousand men.

“Go,” Perel says, releasing her hands. “Go as fast as you can. Don’t stop running.”

Mai eases one leg down the side of the building, feeling with her toes in search of the first rung. The metal is freezing, her muscles jellied, and after three steps she slips, letting out a shriek, clinging to one rung, her new soft woman’s body banging into the rough brick. The prayer shawl falls, leaving her exposed to the world. Above her, Perel hisses to go, hurry, go, and she regains purchase and starts again to climb, watching the brick in front of her so as not to get dizzy, and she thinks she’s doing well until Perel screams for her to stop.

She looks up.

The Rebbetzin is waving her arms frantically. “Come back.”

She looks down.

David Ganz is waiting at the bottom.

He appears thoroughly confused — as well he should be, for he has come seeking a giant man and instead finds himself staring up at a naked woman. For a moment no one moves. Then he sprints to the rungs and climbs up after her.

“Faster,” Perel yells. “Come on.”

It’s almost funny: what she would not give to have Yankele’s body back, just for a moment. Ganz is gaining on her, his fingers starting to close around her ankle — hesitantly, because in all his life he has never touched a strange woman, and she jerks free, awakening him to his duty, and he seizes her leg in earnest, dragging her down, the tendons in her wrists straining, her throbbing fingers starting to uncurl. What does he think he’s doing? He’s going to pull her off. That’s precisely what he means to do. He’s going to kill her.

In his raspy voice he asks her to stop; come peacefully; he will not hurt her.

She knows that story.

She’s heard it before.

But her hands are slick and weak and she knows that she cannot hold out much longer.

If it’s going to happen, she’s going to be the one to decide.

It’s not a bad way to die.

She’s done it before.

She lets go of the rungs and surrenders herself to the air.

Her twisting form plummets past Ganz’s sweaty, cringing face; Perel’s screams echo interminably from above.

Then a strange thing happens.

The cobblestones rushing up to greet her begin to slow, as though she is falling through water, and then syrup, and finally glass, and then the stones stop at a fixed size, at a fixed distance, and she floats.

She looks at her arms.

She has no arms.

In their place she sees a gossamer blur, emitting a loud buzzing.

She can’t find her legs, either. She moves them, trying to locate them, and to her astonishment receives an answer from not two limbs but six, wriggling with minds of their own.

Dimly she hears Perel imploring her to go, fly, go; she hears David Ganz’s frantic voice and now Chayim Wichs and Rebbe have joined the mix; but they sound far away, and garbled, and she ignores them, focused on learning how to move in this new form, tilting her hard-shelled body, willing herself through clotted air, thick as broth, an intoxicating metamorphosis. The scale of the world has shifted, her field of vision a beaded mosaic, many thousand tiles compounded together, swirling wondrously. It is not seeing as she has ever known it and yet it is natural to her. The ground vanishes into meaninglessness. She feels so light that it is a wonder she ever could have thought she would fall.

She rises toward the stars, leaving Prague behind.