The Alchemist's Door (24 page)

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Authors: Lisa Goldstein

BOOK: The Alchemist's Door
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A
KNOCK CAME AT LOEW'S DOOR, AND A moment later he heard Pearl go answer it. Footsteps sounded down the corridor to his study, then Pearl put her head around the door and said, “Hanna wants to talk to you.”
Hanna was Izak's mother. Sighing, Loew closed the book he had been studying. “Tell her to come in,” he said.
Hanna took the chair on the other side of Loew's desk. She was a plain woman with a short-sighted squint, and mousecolored hair tucked under a plain kerchief. Had she really once slept with Mordechai the peddler? She did not seem the sort to do anything so shocking.
She twisted her hands in her lap, her eyes lowered modestly. Finally Loew realized that she was waiting for him to speak first. “What can I help you with, my daughter?”
“It's Izak,” she said.
Loew tried not to sigh. What had the young man done now? Sometimes he thought that Izak had caused him more trouble than the rest of the inhabitants of the Quarter combined.
“He's gone,” Hanna said.
“Gone? I'm sorry to hear that. Still, he stayed here for nearly two years before he left—there's obviously something about this place that's important to him. Perhaps he'll come back.”
“No, you don't understand,” Hanna said. “I don't think he wanted to go.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think someone took him.”
“Someone—”
“He didn't take any of his clothes or other things. His—his letters from Sarah.”
“Well, perhaps he left on impulse. How long has he been gone?”
“Four days. And there's another thing. Someone sent me a letter.”
“A letter? What did it say?”
“I don't know. I can't read. Here.”
She took a letter from her pocket and handed it to Loew. He adjusted his spectacles and read it quickly to himself.
“I have Izak,” it said. “Tell Rabbi Loew that I will trade him for information on the thirty-sixth man. Tell him that he should leave the name of this man at the base of the statue on the southeast corner of the Cattle Market. Yours sincerely, Edward Kelley.”
He looked up to find Hanna's eyes on him. She seemed stricken, as though she had read the bad news in his expression. “Yes, well,” he said carefully. “It appears you're right. Someone took him.”
“But why? What do they want with him?”
“They want to—to trade him for information.”
“But that's good, isn't it? You can give this person the information he wants and get Izak back. Can't you?”
What could he tell her? That he didn't have the information, and he wouldn't give it to Kelley in any case? He couldn't bring himself to dishearten her further. “I'll take care of it. Try not to worry.”
“What will you do?” She lowered her eyes again and smiled shyly. “Will you set the golem on him?”
“I'll see,” Loew said.
After she left, he stood and began to pace his small study. This was all Izak's fault. If the boy hadn't gotten into the habit of wandering outside, away from the safety of the Quarter …
No. He couldn't let his anger with Izak cloud his judgment. It was Edward Kelley's fault. He would have to see what
Yossel could do. He headed down the hallway, went into his son's old room, and sat on the bed.
Yossel turned his strange clay-colored eyes toward him. “Good day,” the golem said. His pronunciation had improved greatly over the months.
“Good day,” Loew said. “I'm going to need your help again.”
“Yes, I would like to help,” Yossel said.
“I need you to find someone for me,” Loew said. “Do you think you can do that?”
Yossel nodded slowly.
“Do you remember Izak?” The golem nodded again. “He's being held captive by a man named Edward Kelley. I'm going to need you, to leave the Quarter and search for him. You'll have to go at night—I don't want you to frighten anyone, and I don't want Rudolf to hear about you. Do you think you can do that? Walk the streets in secret, looking for Izak or Kelley?”
Yossel nodded again.
“Start your search at the Cattle Market. He probably lives nearby, since that's where he told me to leave the information he wants.”
The golem's expression did not change. Why was he explaining all of this? Loew wondered. Why was he treating Yossel as if he was a person, a member of the congregation?
“Yes,” Yossel said finally. “I will do as you say. And then—then will you teach me all the things I want to know?”
“We'll see,” Loew said. He stirred uneasily.
EVERY NIGHT, AS HE AND PEARL LAY IN BED, HE COULD HEAR the heavy tread of the golem as he walked down the hallway and stepped out the door. If Pearl was awake she would shiver and turn toward her husband. “I wish you could keep him somewhere else,” she said once.
“Where would you have me put him?”
“I don't know. Away from us. What if he hurts one of the children? Or the grandchildren?”
“Don't worry. I'm very careful—he won't slip out of my control again.”
“God willing,” Pearl said.
Yossel always returned before they woke. After morning prayers Loew would go to his room and ask if he had discovered anything, but the answer was always the same—the golem had seen neither Izak nor Kelley.
Friday came, and Loew took the
shem
from Yossel's mouth. On Saturday evening, after the Sabbath, he put the paper back, and the golem shambled to the street to begin his rounds. The next day Loew went into his room and asked, “Did you see anything?”
He expected the usual answer, but to his surprise the golem said, “Yes.”
“Yes? You found Izak? Or Kelley?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“You asked me if I saw anything. I walked along the street of the silversmiths, heading to the gate that leads outside. I turned onto another street, and there ahead of me I saw a beautiful girl.”
“A—a girl?” An evil picture came unbidden to Loew's mind, of the golem roughly handling a child, perhaps hurting or even killing her. “Who?” he asked harshly.
“Her name is Rivka.”
Rivka, Loew thought uneasily. More of a young woman than a girl. She had long, dark hair, and an expression Loew thought too forthright for a woman. “Yes, I know Rivka.”
“I asked her why she was awake when all the world was sleeping. She did not run away, or cry out—she did not seem afraid of me at all. She said that the moonlight woke her, and
that she had to go outside and see how everything had been changed by the moon. She showed me how the moon turns the world its own color, that everything becomes the same silvery white. I had never noticed that before.”
“What are you saying? That you didn't look for Izak or Kelley?”
“Oh, I looked for them. I only spent a few hours talking to the girl. But I knew after the first hour that I wanted to marry her.”
“To marry!”
“Yes. Don't worry—I didn't say anything about it to her. I know I have to ask your permission first.”
“It's impossible. You can't marry.”
“Why not?”
“Because you're not a man. You don't have a soul. Because only men who are created in the image of God can marry.”
“But I
am
created in the image of God. I look like men, and men look like God.”
Loew had not thought the golem capable of such complex reasoning. “You're talking foolishness,” he said, trying not to let his disquiet show. “Or blasphemy. Either way I don't want you to talk to that girl again. Do you understand me?”
Yossel said nothing.
A few mornings later Loew's fears were confirmed. “I saw Rivka again,” Yossel said, even before Loew could ask him how his search had gone.
“I told you not to talk to her,” Loew said.
“I couldn't help it. She looked so beautiful. She told me she had enjoyed our conversation, and hoped to see me again.”
“She did, did she?”
“Yes. I asked her if she would marry me—”
“What!”
“I had to ask her myself, since you would not give your permission.”
“And what did she say?” Loew asked, curious in spite of himself.
“She laughed. She said she was not ready to marry anyone. She gave me a peach. It was so soft—I never felt anything that soft. It was white in the moonlight. She told me to eat it, but I said that I had never eaten anything before, that you had never given me food. She laughed again and motioned to me to eat it anyway. It was astonishing. Why didn't you tell me there were such things in the world?”
For a moment Loew saw the scene before his eyes: the woman; the moon; the round white peach, a second moon. The golem, hulking over all. He would have to talk to Rivka, tell her to stay away from Yossel. “Never mind that,” he said. “I told you I didn't want you talking to her again. Do you understand? You're to do as I tell you.”
“But—”
Loew felt a thrill of fear. He had never imagined this, never expected that the golem would be so contrary. Dreadful pictures filled his mind, the golem rampaging through the Quarter, killing people, killing Pearl or one of the children … .
“Don't contradict me!” he said loudly. Too loudly: he felt helpless, without control. “I'm your creator—I tell you what to do. Your task is to listen and obey.”
“Just as your creator tells you what to do. And you listen and obey.”
“Exactly,” Loew said, though he knew that to compare him to God was the worst sort of blasphemy. There was only one God. “Will you do that?”
The golem said nothing.
“Will you? Or do I have to keep you here with me at all times?”
There was still no answer from the golem. “Open your mouth,” Loew said roughly.
“What?”
“Don't ask questions. Open it.”
Yossel did as he said. Loew took the piece of paper from the golem's mouth. The light of intelligence went out of his eyes and his head fell slightly and came to rest on his shoulder. Loew watched him carefully, but he made no move after that.
Loew headed toward his study, deep in thought. What had he done? Had he been wrong to create the golem? He had not thought it through, had not considered all the consequences. And despite himself he could not help feeling sorry for Yossel. He had given the clay figure organs of generation just as men have, but only because he had wanted him to resemble a man in every respect. He had not thought of the effect this would have on Yossel himself.
Perhaps he should erase the
aleph
on his forehead, let the golem sink back into inert clay. But what if Rudolf attacked again?
And there was another reason to keep him alive, one that Loew could barely admit to himself. As far as he knew he was the first man in the world to create life from nothing. How could he destroy that creation? How could he give up this astonishing thing he had done?
He had gone as far as his study before he realized that he had another problem besides Yossel. If he did not animate the golem, there would be no one to help him search for Izak and Kelley. Loew would have to write to Dee for help. He had tried to keep his dilemma from Dee, had not wanted to burden the man with more problems than he already had, but now he saw that he had no choice, that he needed Dee's advice about Kelley. He sat heavily at his desk and took out pen and paper, inkwell and sand.
DEE WOKE SUDDENLY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, HIS HEART pounding loudly. Where was he? In Prague, in Poland, in Transylvania? He could see nothing.
Jane stirred beside him, and he remembered. Count Vilém, Trebona, alchemy. What had woken him? He strained to see, to hear. Then he heard it: someone was coming down the corridor toward his room.
The footsteps grew heavier. He sat up, struggling to throw off a blanket that seemed tied in knots. The footsteps came closer, then stopped in front of his door. Someone or something laughed maliciously.
Who was it? In the dark, horrible fancies filled his mind. It could be the demon; it could even be Erszébet, following him from Transylvania, ready to wreak some terrible vengeance. He had no shortage of enemies.
He listened intently but heard nothing else. Sweat covered his body; he felt ill, in the grip of some fever. Summoning all his courage, reciting the psalm against demons, he went to the door and opened it.
There was no one there. Dee took a candle from one of the sconces lining the wall and walked a little way down the corridor. He opened the door to the children's room and went inside.

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