The Golem of Paris

Chapter thirty-three

PRAGUE

OCTOBER 28, 1982

Later, Bina will remember the ascent to the synagogue garret in fragments.

Moving through the women’s section, stepping into a wood-paneled room the dimensions of a phone booth, she and Ota Wichs and the boy Peter pressed bodily close, the dampness of her hair against her neck.

A rope dangled from the ceiling. Ota reached for it, pausing to suggest she shut her eyes.

She complied, and a blast of dust filled every crevice in her head. Four hands guided her to the rungs of a ladder, urged her upward into lightless infinity.

Then nothing.

Now she lies on the attic floor, Wich’s shining face bobbing like a lure.

“Breathe,” he says.

Croak of inhalation, tinged with death rattle.

“Now out. Good. In again. Thank you.”

Father and son raise her up to a seated position.

Her surroundings appear in expanding circles of awareness.

A pulsing lantern. A pile of rags.

And beyond, a wondrous vision unfurls: a sunken garden, the hills of Jerusalem, the Jerusalem she remembers, its golden green horizon, dry and verdant.

The olive tree, in full bloom.

She cries out in amazement. Her voice cracks.

But Ota is forcing her to drink from a flask. “You have had a difficult ascent,” he says, and she sputters and swallows the water along with the dust, which mingles in her throat to become mud. She chokes it down, eyes watering.

When she looks again, the city is gone.

The tree, the garden — a bright promise, broken.

She cries out again, in grief.

“A memory, nothing more,” Ota Wichs says, holding her. “You are here, now, Bina Reich.”

She wrenches free and stands unaided, peering into the unending clutter, cobwebs and shadows, rafters ghoulishly looming.

Ota says, “Whenever you’re ready.”

The garret stretches the length of her imagination.

Purpose settles over her like a past life.

She says, “I’m ready.”

They walk for what seems like hours, covering an immense distance that does not square with the building’s exterior dimensions. Peter carries the lantern, avoiding obstacles invisible to Bina until she trips over them. The floor is slick with frost, uneven beneath a sea of junk: listing coatracks, steamer trunks, fossilized shoes, oxidized candlesticks, orphaned eyeglasses.

All that and more, mixed with enough ritual objects to stock ten synagogues; prayer shawls, candles, velvet scraps of Torah covers, wine bottles ringed in sandy purple, books and books and books.

Ota says, “Almost there.”

Squeezing between two wilting stacks of chairs, they arrive into a kind of clearing, a semicircle fanning out from an enormous rectangular object pushed flush to the wall and covered in a canvas sheet.

Arrayed on the floor are the components of a makeshift pottery studio. A low three-legged stool; a wooden handwheel; rags; a leather tool roll; a galvanized bucket filled with water beginning to ice over.

Wrapped in blotchy muslin, a football-sized lump.

Modernity pokes its head up: a portable propane stove.

You’ll get everything you need on site.

Peter Wichs lights the stove from a match and hefts the bucket over the burner.

Bina kneels before the pottery wheel. It’s old, the wood split and warped. When she gives it a spin, it wobbles.

“I don’t know if I can use this.”

“Try,” Ota Wichs says.

“I can’t do anything if the clay won’t stay on the wheel.”

“It will.”

She frowns, shifts to inspect the leather roll. Inside are two dozen tools of varying sizes and shapes. Spearheads, spoolies, fettling knives. Metal parts look new but wooden handles are well-worn, the grain enriched by oil from human skin.

She selects a potter’s rib and her thumb settles perfectly into a notch rubbed smooth, as if she has been using it for years.

Ota says, “Originally they belonged to the wife of the Maharal. They have been passed down from maker to maker. Now they are yours.”

You need to face up to the nature of your gift.

It’s irresponsible not to.

There are things only you can do.

“Her name was Perel,” she says. “Not ‘the wife of the Maharal.’”

Ota gives a shallow bow. “Were she here, I’m sure she would say the same.”

Peter has nearly finished untying the ropes that hold the canvas sheet, standing on tiptoes atop a stack of crates to release the topmost. His father gathers up a corner of the cloth and counts: “Raz, dva, tři.”

They pull.

A giant cloud engulfs them.

When the dust clears, she beholds a massive piece of furniture. It might be an armoire, except for the many holes drilled into its sides. Ota Wichs unlatches the doors, which swing open on wooden hinges. The shelves have holes drilled in them, too, and they are littered with shards of ceramic.

It’s a drying cabinet, used to store pottery before firing.

Back home, she has one of her own, much smaller and made of steel mesh.

Ota reaches in armpit-deep and withdraws a jar about the size of a softball. When he holds it to the lantern light, the clay appears translucent, with subtle gradations of color swirled in, like a sheet of mica.

“It’s fine work,” she says.

“As will yours be.”

“You’ve never seen my work,” she says.

“Your reputation precedes you,” he says.

He tilts the jar, revealing a hairline crack in the lid. “As you can see, it has already begun to deteriorate. Once that happens, we try to replace it as soon as possible. But tell me, please. The clay — is it enough?”

“For one jar? That’s plenty.”

“No, no. More than one. As many as you can.” He scratches at his shaggy head, calculating: “You can work for a few hours tonight. Tomorrow is Shabbat, then four nights next week before your flight leaves...”

He tenses. Glances at his son. “I sincerely hope that yours will last longer than the last batch. So if you think you will need more clay, tell me, I will send Peter to the riverbank.”

The boy is toiling silently, wiping down the work area. Bina hates to think of him running through the streets of Prague in the dead of night, lugging a bucket of mud.

“Why don’t we start and see how it goes?”

“Very well.”

She puts her hand out for the jar. “May I?”

Ota hesitates, then places it in her palm.

Her skin tingles. She feels warmth, and a slight pulse, as though the clay is alive.

An overwhelming desire fills her: lift the lid.

She starts to reach for it.

Ota catches her by the wrist, not exactly gently.

“Better not,” he says.

But the clay is singing to her.

She says, “I need to look at the interior if I’m going to be able to copy it.”

He hesitates again. “I will do it, please.”

He takes the jar from her. Gingerly he raises the lid.

Inside the jar, an enormous roach lies belly up. Jet-black, with a great tusk erupting from its head, it reminds her of the juke that crawled out of her shower drain so many lifetimes ago.

But bigger. Twice as wide.

Not a roach at all. A beetle.

She ought to recoil, but she finds herself suffused with peace, fascinated by the reflections in its hard underbelly. She wants nothing more than to touch it.

Her hand begins to move through liquid space.

Legs stir.

Ota hurries to clap on the lid, nearly pinching her finger.

“You must never do that,” he says.

She stares at the jar, blinking.

“Bina Reich. Are you hearing me? It must never be allowed to get out. Under no circumstances can it leave this building. Do you understand?”

She nods, thinking vaguely that he got her name wrong again.

“The ones who sent you,” he says. “They didn’t tell you what to expect.”

She shakes her head.

“What did they tell you?”

“Just that I needed to make a piece.”

His laughter devolves into a sigh. “I’ll never understand them. But I suppose they don’t much understand people, either.”

He returns the jar to the cabinet, pushing it as deep as he can, beyond her reach.

Small bubbles have begun to break the surface of the water in the bucket. As Bina sets the clay next to the stove to thaw, Ota excuses himself: he must return to the park before Hrubý notes his absence. He will come to collect her before dawn.

“Peter will remain behind, to assist you.”

She glances at the boy, a toy soldier, awaiting orders. Truthfully she’d rather work alone, without his hovering over her. But she nods.

Ota bows and departs, his footsteps receding.

She prods the clay. It isn’t getting softer. At this rate, it could take an hour.

“What we need is a pot,” she says.

Peter runs off.

Clanking and shifting.

He returns with a tarnished saucepan.

“That should work,” she says. “Well done. We’re also going to need a color TV.”

He hesitates, then starts to go.

“Wait, wait. I’m kidding.”

He smiles uncertainly.

Bina rests the saucepan atop the now-simmering bucket, creating a double boiler. As the clay warms, it separates, parts of it becoming dry and crumbly, others slimy.

She moves the bucket off the fire; scoops up a handful, and begins kneading it to fuse it back together, wedging it against the floorboards.

“You see what I’m doing?” she says. “This forces air out, and redistributes the water, which is important when you’re dealing with clay that has been frozen. We’ll have to let the piece dry thoroughly. Otherwise you get pockets of steam that expand when the piece is fired. What do you imagine happens then?”

Peter thinks. “It cracks.”

“Exactly,” she says. “Very good. Here — you give it a try.”

He takes some clay from the saucepan, mushes it between his palms, then slams the mass down, repeatedly, with startling ferocity.

“Good,” she says, a bit alarmed by his violence. “You don’t want to overwork it, either. Actually, that looks about right.”

She wets her palms and rolls a ball, assessing the clay’s character. How forgiving it is; how stubborn. As many personalities as man.

“Once I get the wheel going, I need you to make sure it doesn’t stop. And you’re in charge of making sure the water doesn’t freeze, either. But you can’t let it get so hot that it burns me. You’ll have to keep moving it on and off the fire.” She pauses. “I know that’s a lot to concentrate on. Do you think you can handle it?”

Peter nods.

She sets the pliant clay in the middle of the handwheel. “Here we go.”

At speed, the wheel loses its wobble, flattening out in the horizontal plane. Already her arms feel tired. At home she uses a kickwheel, and the cold has tightened her muscles.

She pokes the crown of the clay, forming the beginnings of an interior. Peter keeps the wheel going with methodical strokes, his lips moving as he counts the rhythm. Watching him, she feels the distance to her own family, and she briefly surrenders to longing, blotting wet eyes in the crook of her elbow.

He stops counting, looks at her curiously.

She smiles. “Come on, now. Don’t stop, please.”

He resumes turning the wheel.

Bina rewets her hands. “Do you go to school?”

“Of course.”

“What’s your favorite subject?”

“History.”

“That’s a good one,” she says, wondering which version they teach in Czechoslovakia. “Do you help your father out a lot?”

“I have to.” Peter sits up, dignified. “It will be my job to take care of the synagogue when he dies.”

“I see,” she says. “What about your brothers and sisters?”

He shakes his head. “It must be me.”

“You’re an only child.”

He nods.

“My son is an only child, too,” she says. “Only children are special.”

He shrugs.

She deepens the hollow, forming the sides of the jar. “Your father must be very proud of you. Your mother, too.”

“My mother is dead.”

“The woman I met at the picnic—”

“Pavla is my stepmother,” he says. “My real mother died when I was five.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

He listlessly traces the edge of a floorboard.

“My parents died a few years ago,” she says. “They were older. I was older. But I still miss them.”

Peter nods.

“What was your mother’s name?”

“Rachel.”

“That’s a pretty name. An important name. In the Bible, she was the wife of Jacob.”

The boy grins. “You told my father not to call Perel ‘the wife of the Maharal.’”

Bina laughs. Scoots back from the wheel. “Would you like to try?”

“My father wouldn’t like it.”

“Then it’s a good thing he isn’t here.”

Peter smiles. He crawls over.

“Let’s get your hands wet... Okay, now, the less you move, the better. The clay will shape itself. Your job is to encourage, not to control.”

She gives the wheel a couple of pushes, guides him into position.

“Like this. See? See how it’s growing?”

He is wide-eyed, delighted and petrified in equal measure.

“You’re doing great... Whoops. Okay. Don’t worry. We’ll fix that... All right. We’re losing speed. Let me work awhile, then you can try again.”

He keeps the wheel turning, keeps the water temperate. Bina thought that she would need to refer to the old jar, but as she sinks into concentration, her fingers take up a march, the cadence confident, innate. The clay feels wonderful, at once pliable and strong and responsive. She presses herself: Can she make the walls thinner? How thin, before they fold? And the lids — it’s the lids that take the longest. To ensure a perfect fit, she labors over them by hand, scraping, smoothing.

By the time Ota returns, she has completed a pair of jars, setting them on a shelf to dry.

He inspects the results, smiles at her with evident relief.

“I knew you would succeed.”

He leans in, his nose inches from the surface of the clay. “I’m tempted to make the transfer right here and now.”

“You’ll still need to fire them,” she says. “And they need to dry first.”

He nods reluctantly.

Peter begins straightening up, dousing the stove, rewrapping the remaining clay.

“Yes, very good,” Ota says. He worries his chin. “Now, if you can make a hundred more, we’ll be fine.”

The next night is the Sabbath eve. With no events scheduled, the rest of the group scatters to various wine bars and beds across the city.

Boarding the tram to Prague 11, Ota Wichs remarks to Bina that Hrubý must be having a fit, trying to figure out whom to follow.

Shabbat dinner at the Wichs home is a stripped-down affair, in keeping with its setting: fifty square meters on the sixth floor of a joyless concrete monolith. Husband, wife, and child share a bedroom, a toilet, and a combination kitchen/dining/living space. For the sake of economy — and to stave off claustrophobia — furnishings are minimal.

Ota and Peter and Bina sit on the floor around the coffee table, while Pavla Wichs ceaselessly shuttles to and from the counter, bringing alternating courses of brown bread and cheese in an attempt to create the impression of variety.

When the last crumbs are gone, they recite the Grace After Meals. Pavla does not participate, and as she bends to collect her husband’s plate, a small crucifix swings free of her blouse. Catching Bina’s eye, she smiles and gives a helpless shrug.

The singing ends.

“Děkuji vám,” Bina says. “Everything was delicious.”

Pavla excuses herself and disappears into the bedroom.

While Peter begins doing the dishes, Ota retrieves a photo album from a shallow pressboard bookcase. His knees crick as he settles on the floor, paging through black-and-white snapshots with scalloped edges.

He stops at a picture of two men, early twenties, shirts unbuttoned three deep, sleeves rolled. It’s a moment of intimacy, a private joke.

The taller man wears his dark hair swept into glossy waves; he faces the camera without noticing it, crease-eyed in laughter, taut cheeks drawn back to the molars.

His companion is squarely built, balding, his expression contented as he cocks his hip and gazes out of frame. Smoke leaks from the butt between his fingers.

Wichs taps the smoker. “Karel Wichs, my father.”

He slides his finger over to the other man. “Your uncle Jakub.”

Well, but — no. Bina knows better. She knows what her uncle looked like. His portrait sat on her parents’ living room mantel.

“Here,” Wichs says, prying the photo up at the corners.

Sure enough, the date on the back is wrong: 3. květen 1928. Her mother was born in 1927. Jakub was five years older, making him six at the time of this picture.

“I think you’re mistaken,” Bina says. “He was a child when this was taken.”

“Ah. Of course you are confused. This is your father’s brother, Jakub Reich. Not your mother’s brother Jakub. Yes, confusing. Two Jakubs. Like the Holy Roman emperors, all Ottos and Henrys.” His smile falters. “I thought you would be pleased.”

“No,” she says. “I am. I’m...”

What? Part of her is filled with gratitude. Another part, a surprisingly large part, swells with resentment. The man in the photo looks far too happy to be her relative.

She says, “My father never mentioned anyone named Jakub.”

“That does not prove he did not exist. I assure you, he did. My father spoke of him often. They were dear friends. They fought together in the resistance. Jakub was shot attempting to bomb the tracks to Theresienstadt.”

Maybe he’s her uncle after all. He shares the futility gene.

And if he had succeeded?

Perhaps her mother’s family would not have died. Perhaps Jozef would not have come to America. Perhaps she would not exist.

Ota says, “To me, it is good to know these things. It takes away some of my loneliness — to know that we are not the first, we will not be the last. It was your uncle who made the last batch of jars, when my father was the sexton. There was a connection between them, and now between us. We both have sons—”

Bina says, “Please don’t talk about that.”

The kitchen sink shuts off; the faint swish of the dish towel.

She says, “I should go home.”

Ota nods disappointedly. “Of course. You must be tired.”

He remounts the photo. “I shall escort you to the tram.”

“I was planning on walking.”

“Then we will walk together. For your safety.”

“Everyone says the streets are safe.”

“This is true. Very little to steal. Still, it is not chivalrous to let you go alone. Don’t argue, please, I insist.”

“Can I come, Papa?” Peter asks.

“Certainly not.”

“Then who will walk back with you?” Peter says. “It is not chivalrous.”

His father, bested, sighs. “Put on your scarf.”

They don’t get very far. It’s waiting for them, right outside the building: a black snub-nosed car, engine running, coils of exhaust snaking toward the sky. Behind the smeared windshield sits a bulky shape, black paws resting on the steering wheel. The passenger door opens on agonized hinges and Undersecretary Antonín Hrubý gets out.

He’s wearing the same brown suit.

Bina wonders if he ever takes it off.

“Good evening,” he says. “If you wouldn’t mind coming along with me, Mrs. Lev. You too, Mr. Wichs.”

“My dear sir,” Wichs says. A servile smile. “I wonder, is it possible for me to please understand the purpose of this request?”

Hrubý’s head yaws. “Is it possible...?”

Lazy traffic rumbles along the highway.

Ota touches Peter’s shoulder. “Go home. Tell Pavla I’ll be back soon.”

The boy does not move.

“Listen to your father,” Hrubý says, holding the rear door. “He’s a clever man.”