The Golem of Paris

Chapter forty-nine

PRAGUE

FALL 1982

Bina steps out onto the far end of Lunatics’ Boulevard, Dmitri close behind.

They pass the other solitary confinement cells. Behind one of those doors, Olga is serving out her punishment. Bina will not get a chance to say good-bye to her.

She won’t get a chance to say good-bye to Fat Irena.

To Majka — poor lovely Majka.

They made a pact, yet she’s stealing away in the dead of the night like a thief.

No stealth in it: the sedative gives her a shuffling gait and her rubber-soled shoes squeak on the linoleum. The noise draws the interest of other patients. Cages rattle, voices demand to know.

Who is leaving?

Why?

Starbursts of fatigue rock her back on her heels.

Dmitri takes her by the arm and hurries her along.

They pass the snoring staff room; doctor’s offices and treatment rooms, Hydrotherapy, Electroshock. She struggles to keep pace with Dmitri’s brisk strides. They pass a series of doors marked with numbers. One, two, three. Four, five, six. Seven. Eight.

Her body knows what’s coming: it’s starting to seize in anticipation.

Dmitri grabs her around the waist before she keels over.

“You must walk,” he says.

She hides from room nine, ceaselessly shaking her head: no, no, no.

“You are leaving. You are going home.”

Sick. A sick joke.

“Look at me,” he says.

She won’t. He takes her chin in his gloved hand and forces it around and up.

“Look at me,” he says. “You have a son.”

She gapes at the face strangely handsome, the features continuously reweaving themselves.

“I read it in your file. What is his name?”

She won’t tell him. Won’t allow him to desecrate it.

She whispers, “Jacob.”

“Don’t you want to see him again? Jacob?”

More than anything else in the world.

“Then you need to walk.” He props her up. “He is not coming to you.”

The guard at the gate snaps off a salute. “Sir.”

Dmitri hands him paperwork certifying that the patient Bina Reich Lev has been remanded into his custody for discharge.

The guard salutes again and goes to unlock the gate.

Snow throws a shroud over the courtyard. Frigid air needles through her thin sweater. Behind her lies an indictment, rows and rows of cell windows. She will not turn to gaze upon their misery, lest she become a pillar of salt.

Dmitri puts his hand on her elbow, urges her forward.

Bina stumbles through the gate. Cured.

He drives aggressively, rolling through red lights, taking turns at high speed, muttering to himself about the poor quality of the brakes.

Nauseated, Bina huddles against the rocking of the vehicle, her lubricated mind twisting this way and that, trying to make sense of what is happening.

All questions boil down to two.

Is she safe?

Will she get home?

There’s a kind of urgent solicitousness in Dmitri’s manner. He keeps glancing over at her, making sure she hasn’t evaporated.

“Are you all right?” he asks. He eases off the gas. “Are you going to be sick?”

She says, “Where are we going?”

Without taking his attention from the road, he reaches over her to unlock the glove compartment and withdraws a rubber-banded packet that he drops in her lap.

Her passport, along with a small stack of money.

Dmitri uses his teeth to remove one leather glove. A black ring on his index finger, identical to the ring Tremsin wears. She’s never noticed it. On the ward, he kept his hands covered.

“There is a train departing for Berlin in two hours,” he says, checking his watch. “Once there you should proceed to your embassy. Beyond that, I cannot help.”

Over the river, through a labyrinth of unpeopled streets. She can tell they’re in Old Town. When he pulls over, however, the silhouette looming beyond the glass is unmistakably that of the Alt-Neu Synagogue.

He shuts off the engine. “A quick errand, first. The golem — it is no longer safe here. You must go up to the garret and fetch the jar so I can move it elsewhere.”

She doesn’t reply.

“There is no need to pretend,” he says. “I read your file. I know who you are.”

Languid wet flakes touch the windshield, dissolve.

She says, “Who are you?”

His smile is stunted. “A friend.”

I am your friend.

We all are.

We always will be.

Checking his watch again, he says, “They have recalled us to Moscow, now that Brezhnev is dead. Doktor Tremsin has already left. I am due to depart before the year’s out. Hence the rush.”

A friend.

She says, “Is he...?”

Dmitri starts to laugh. “Him? No. No. He is the man I work for. He has given me opportunities. I try to be loyal. After he got his marching orders for Prague, I was the only member of the circle who volunteered to come into exile with him. Truthfully, I was glad. It was always the city of my dreams. I studied Czech hoping that I could one day come. I owe him much. But he is a man. No more.”

Bina wonders what more a person could be.

She recalls Frayda crushing her hands; an inhuman shadow looming up.

“I won’t be with him forever,” Dmitri says. “For me, greater things lie ahead.”

It must never be allowed to get out.

Under no circumstances can it leave this building.

Bina says, “What are you going to do with it?”

“That is not your concern,” he says. He squints ahead, perks up. “Nu.”

He springs from the car.

A small shape is coming up the sidewalk toward them, a flashlight bobbing.

Little Peter Wichs.

Outside, Dmitri says, “Did you bring it?”

Peter unzips his coat and tugs out his twine necklace with the key to the shul.

Dmitri turns to her expectantly.

She looks at Peter.

He raises a mittened hand, smiles shyly.

Aware that she is relying on the assurances of a child, she gets out of the car.

Passing the cobbled terrace at the rear of the synagogue, they head up the alleyway, pausing once to allow Bina to vomit.

“You will be fine,” Dmitri says. “There is only this to get through, and then you will be on your way home.”

At the main entrance, he stands well back as Peter unlocks the door.

“We will wait for you here,” Dmitri says.

She says, “I’ll need an assistant.”

Dmitri says nothing. His eyes dart between her and the boy.

“Either him or you,” she says.

Dmitri blinks. The prospect of entering the building clearly unnerves him.

“Do you want me to do this or not?” she asks.

A beat. Dmitri says, “Your passport.”

She hands him the packet. He slips it in his coat pocket. “Be quick about it.”

Bina places a hand on Peter’s shoulder, and together they step down into the darkened synagogue.

In the basement, she prepares for immersion by rinsing off in the camp shower. The freezing water kicks her partly from her stupor. A repulsive second skin covers her from head to toe, filling the plastic tub with a cloudy black liquid, her feet disappearing.

Taking a threadbare towel from the bureau, she scrapes herself down further.

The towel turns black.

She takes another, commences scraping.

It turns black.

She goes through the entire stack, nine in all, and still she is mottled and streaked like a farm animal. Without warning, she breaks into sobs. Her immersion will not be valid. She isn’t clean, she will never be clean again, she feels so out of control.

Think about what matters.

Think about Jacob.

She grabs ahold of her bucking mood, wrestles it to the earth.

Walks to the edge of the mikveh, encounters her ruined reflection.

Stepping down into the warm water, she wades forward until it covers her breasts.

She dips once, quickly, and resurfaces. Crosses her arms over her heart, dividing the upper and lower bodies, the holy from the profane, an act she has performed countless times. But the distinction has lost all meaning, and she lets her arms drop, weeping once more as she recites the blessing.

Blessed are You, our God, King of the universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us regarding immersion.

She plunges.

Up on the ground floor, Peter has unlocked the women’s section.

They cross to the curtain that conceals the garret entrance. Peter slides it aside and they crowd into the booth. Bina seals her lips, her eyes, waits for the blast of dust.

Nothing happens.

She looks at Peter.

He has his flashlight pointed at the trapdoor in the ceiling.

He’s waiting for her to pull the rope.

He’s too short to reach it.

Her whirling sense of déjà vu dissolves, as she perceives the contrast between then and now, what’s missing.

Ota Wichs.

She considers what Dmitri appears to know.

The jar. Its location. Its significance. Her significance.

She considers that he has saved her, in a way, escorting her out of hell.

To bring her here.

Is there really a train to Berlin?

There are other things he does not know.

Under no circumstances can it leave this building.

Or he knows, and does not care.

For me, greater things lie ahead.

She says, “That man outside. Have you ever met him before?”

Peter shakes his head. “He called on the phone.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. He said to come tonight and bring the key to the shul. He said don’t tell my stepmother.”

“Did he tell you what he wants me to do?”

“Move the golem,” Peter says. “He said my father asked him to do it.”

Silence.

She says, “Have you seen your father recently? Spoken to him?”

“No. But the man said that he would take me to him if I did what he said.”

A brick in her throat. She starts to reply, but Peter speaks first:

“He lied, didn’t he.”

She says nothing.

A businesslike nod. “I thought so. I was excited when he told me. But he lied. My father is dead.”

She says, “He might still be alive.”

“That’s what Pavla thinks,” Peter says.

“Well, she’s — I’m sure she’s right.”

“No,” the boy says leadenly. “She’s wrong.”

He appears to be aging before her very eyes.

“He’s been arrested before,” he says. “We always got a letter. But we didn’t get one, this time. So I know. It was the same when they took my mother.”

No child of nine ought to wield such arid logic.

Bina says, “I’m so sorry, Peter.”

He is tight around the mouth, but dry-eyed, his mind already aligned with hers, toward survival.

“All right,” he says. “What should we do?”

She describes a plan, as best she can. It’s getting harder and harder to keep her thoughts in order. “Does that sound all right?”

Peter nods. He shuts his eyes against the dust. “Go ahead.”

Her second ascent is more difficult than the first. The sedative moves through her bloodstream in spurts, and her limbs feel alternately flimsy and sandbagged as she climbs through stinging, choking clouds of dust. She has no strong arms to guide her; no enduring faith; she follows only her instincts and the bead of Peter’s flashlight as it ricochets in infinity; flickering, feinting, collapsing to zero.

Jacob.

A heartbeat, a wheel, a contracting womb.

Jacob. Jacob. Jacob.

Up, up, up she goes, toward the new light that spreads like a canopy. She pulls herself onto the attic floor, striving to raise her head, hoping to catch another sweet glimpse of her Jerusalem.

Her chance has passed.

Nothing but broken furniture.

And no time to mourn: Peter has kindled the lantern and stands expectantly.

Bina coughs, pounds her chest. Rises.

They begin to walk.

In her memory, the journey across the garret took hours. Now space telescopes, and they arrive at the scene, laid as it was on the night of the National Day celebration.

Cabinet, wheel, stool, portable stove.

The lump of clay. The bucket of water, gone scummy.

The tool roll.

She was supposed to come back.

She was supposed to make as many jars as possible.

A hundred more, we’ll be fine.

Bina and Peter remove the drop cloth and open the cabinet.

Inside is the completed pair of jars. Despite never having been fired, they’ve set up well, the surfaces dully polished.

She moves them aside and thrusts her arm deep into the cabinet. Her fingertips skim the old jar that holds the beetle. She senses its warmth, the magnetism. She can’t quite reach it. Ota made sure of that.

Peter drags over a crate for her to stand on, hands her the arm from a coatrack.

“Thank you.”

She uses the hook to ease the jar out, trying not to knock it over, not to touch it with her bare skin. Once she’s gotten it close enough, she lets the boy take over.

He sets the jar on the floor beside one of the newer jars.

“You need to help me,” he says. “I only have two hands.”

She smiles despite her nerves. “Tell me what to do.”

“You lift the lids. I’ll tip her out into that one. Then you put the lid down.”

She nods. She gets down on her knees. Then she says, “Her?”

“Ready?” Peter says.

She positions her hands over the clay knobs.

“One, two, three.”

The operation takes a fraction of a second, Peter’s lithe hands darting in, the beetle tumbling through open space and landing at the bottom of the new jar, where it stirs and rolls over, sitting up like a dog, its forelegs working excitedly, waving.

Bina stares, mesmerized.

Peter acts fast, snatching the lid from between her fingers and dropping it into place. There’s a moment, before it comes down, when Bina sees the beetle’s limbs fly toward her, a gesture of indignation and anguish.

Peter puts the golem in the cabinet, using the coatrack arm to edge the jar far back on the shelf. They cover the cabinet with the drop cloth and tie it down.

Bina wraps the second new jar in a rag. “I’ll make copies and send them to you. I’ll need the tools.”

“Clay, too,” he says.

She regards the lump, dried rock hard. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to revive it. I’ll try.”

They pack the items in a tallis bag. When she wraps the old, cracked jar, it no longer feels living, but cold and stiff.

She gives the shuttered cabinet a parting glance.

As they pick their way across the garret, square throbs of dislocation press at the interior of her skull, hideous surges of terror and delight, the urge to laugh, to scream, to speak. Her blurred vision is clearing, but not to normal; instead there is an excruciating sharpness, a hellish bombardment of detail.

They arrive at the peaked door that opens above the rear terrace. Up close, it’s hardly larger than it looks from thirty-five feet below.

She anxiously fingers the iron bar that holds it shut, the hinges bloated with rust. “Have you ever gone out this way?”

Peter shakes his head. “It’s not supposed to be opened.”

“You can come back later and lock it,” she says.

He nods.

“You’ll go first. When you reach the bottom, what are you going to do?”

“Run as fast as I can.”

“Where?”

“Away from you.”

“That’s right,” she says. “It’s me he wants, not you. But you must be careful all the same. He’s supposed to leave Prague soon. Until he does, you won’t be safe. Don’t go anywhere without a grown-up.”

As if that matters.

She says, “Do you understand, Peter?”

He nods again.

Still she hesitates. She can’t abandon him.

“I just thought of something,” she says. “You could come with me. I can tell the embassy — we’ll tell them that it’s not safe for you to stay here. We’ll ask for asylum.”

“No,” he says.

“You’d like America once you got there,” she says. “Pavla, too.” She is a con woman, crazy promises rushing out of her. “I’m sure we can—”

He cuts her off with a shake of the head. “I can’t leave.”

“But why not?”

His answer is to indicate the walls around them.

No particular pride. Just resignation to fate.

He’s in charge, now.

She says, “I’ll send you the jars as I make them. And I’ll write to you. You must write back. Tell me you’re okay.”

He nods.

“And always be careful. Not just for the near future, but always.”

“I am,” he says, and he nods toward the door. “It’s time.”

She lifts the bar, grasps the handle.

Pulls.

The door doesn’t move.

She tries again, without success.

Digs her heels into the floorboards and throws her weight back.

The door refuses to budge. Peter steps in to help, putting his arms around her waist and leaning, the two of them straining until they get traction, a few inches, a few more, the hinges emitting a piercing shriek.

She whispers for him to go, go.

He flops onto his stomach and disappears over the edge.

Bina leans out to make sure she won’t accidentally kick him in the head. The moment her face touches the bare air, the garbage-strewn cobblestones begin flying up toward her, like a lover coming in for a kiss, her thoughts condensing awfully.

Jump.

She won’t fall, she’ll float.

How lovely.

She pitches forward.

Catches herself on the door frame, shoves back, heart storming.

Quickly she gets down, worming backward, feeling with her foot for the top rung, descending, the tallis bag pinched hard between thumb and forefinger.

Jump.

Down, down, down, her eyes fixed on the plaster, rubber-soled shoes treadless on slick rungs, frozen metal burning her bare hands.

Jump, jump.

A high-pitched scream.

She looks back over her shoulder.

Below, Peter Wichs dangles from the bottom rung, still high off the ground, his legs kicking air as he tries to reascend.

Dmitri stands off to the side of the terrace, gun in hand, watching him placidly.

“I have it,” she shouts.

Dmitri looks up at her.

She waves the tallis bag. “It’s in here.”

Jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump

“Do anything to him and I will smash it against the wall.”

Peter has stopped kicking and is hanging limply. She grips the bag with one hand, the rung with the other; her own forearm is beginning to quiver. She can imagine that he will not last much longer.

“Help him,” she yells.

Dmitri pockets the gun and walks over to the ladder. He’s so tall that his outstretched hands nearly reach Peter’s hips.

Peter stares up at her, terrified.

“It’s okay,” she says, nodding. “You can do it.”

Peter shuts his eyes and lets go. The Russian catches him easily and carries him to the center of the cobblestones and sets him down, wrapping a fatherly arm across the boy’s chest.

“Your turn,” he says.

She doesn’t move.

Dmitri takes out the gun and presses it to Peter’s temple.

“You won’t,” she says.

And she’s right: she still has the bag.

Dmitri smiles. “Doktor Tremsin ordered me to kill you before I left. He doesn’t know who you are, what a loss that would be for the world.”

“Let him go,” Bina says.

“I saved you. Still you chose to deceive me. Why would you do that?”

She raises the bag to smash it.

Dmitri lifts his arm.

Peter stands paralyzed. A dark stain in his trouser leg. He’s wet himself.

She yells to get his attention.

“Go,” she says. “Now.”

Peter comes to life, scrambling up the stairs to Pařížská Street, running for the shadows.

Bina waits until she can no longer hear the echo of his footsteps, then turns to grasp the rung with both hands, to catch her breath, which feels insanely lush as it billows out and fogs the plaster, her thoughts gathering in an unstoppable mob.

Behind her, Dmitri is speaking: “You can’t stay there forever.”

She shakes her head, hard. An instant of focus, instantly decaying.

She cranes back. “Put the gun down. Your car keys, too.”

A beat. He sets the pistol and the keys on the ground.

“My passport.”

He adds it to the pile.

She orders him into the corner, away from the stairs. He obeys, retreating to the rear wall. The terrace is shallow, he could reach her in one ambitious stride.

Bina descends shakily, pausing every few rungs to ensure that he hasn’t moved.

Reaching the bottom rung, she dangles, drops.

Her ankle buckles but she hurries to stand, holding the bag above her head, as if she’s going to hurl it to the ground.

He has not come any closer.

She inches forward to collect the gun, the keys, her passport.

“I’ve done exactly as you asked,” he says. “Time for you to uphold your end.”

“I’m going to put it down there. Don’t move until I say or I will crush it.”

He nods.

She kneels where the terrace meets the alleyway. Through the fog clotting her brain she is vaguely aware of pain in her ankle, the joint beginning to swell. She opens the tallis bag and sets the old cracked jar on the ground.

The fact that it’s wrapped will give her time.

She buries it in trash, to give herself more.

She bolts up the stairs, timing him in her mind.

He is hurrying forth to claim his prize.

She reaches the street.

He is brushing off the garbage, carefully peeling away the cloth.

She reaches the car. So many keys on the ring; and what a moment for her hands, her most faithful servants, to disobey her.

He is lifting the lid.

Discovering nothing inside.

She has not gotten hold of a second key when he comes thundering up the steps. She points the gun and fires and keeps firing till the gun clicks, but still he is coming, and she drops the weapon and flees, skating on the icy pavement until she gains purchase and breaks toward the river, head down, legs pumping.

It is perhaps four in the morning. There is no one else on the street. No taxis. No trams. She should be shouting all the same but her flight is a graceless ballet, her lopsided gait and her pinched breath and behind her the drum of boots on the pavement, his shadow lengthening to overtake her.

Without knowing quite what she intends to do — throw a jar at him? throw the clay? — she fumbles inside the tallis bag, grasps a smooth finger of wood, and as a giant hand swallows her shoulder, she swings her arm around and up, jamming the blade of the potter’s knife through his scarf and into the side of his neck.

She twists.

Then they are falling, falling together, his body crushing hers, his mouth opening in ungodly silence.

She yanks the knife out and uncorks a cold torrent of blood, blood saturating the woolen scarf and rushing through to drench her, blood in unbelievable quantity, breaking the wine-rimmed cracks between his fingers as he clutches at the gash; blood icy and viscous and numbing like seawater, his eyes smashing around crazily inside their sockets, his expression rictal and incredulous, the immense weight of his torso pinning her until she can wriggle free and crawl away, leaving him writhing on the sidewalk, drowning in a deep mute ocean of blood.

Finding the knife, the bag, she stumbles to her feet and runs.