Golem

By Mark Budman

My first sense was hearing. A man spoke in a deep, powerful voice, and a child piped in occasionally. A carriage passed, hoofs clanking on stone. I heard a woman, muted by partitions. Of course, I had never seen a man, or a carriage, or a child, or a woman. Yet I knew what they should look or sound like, as if their images were stored in my mind and some innate force conjured them up at the right moment.                                                               

          I felt my body; I lay on a bed, covered with a light, warm blanket. My hands were folded on my chest. My long legs hung over, supported by a hard, unyielding surface. I began to smell the aroma of a boiling chicken, still with the scent of blood in it. It was so diluted that no human could possibly detect it.                                                               

          When I was able to open my eyes, I saw a low, white ceiling and a white, unadorned wall. I turned my head with difficulty and noticed a bearded man and a boy sitting at a table full of books. Both wore skullcaps and somber cotton suits. They continued talking, not noticing my awakening.  But then the boy glimpsed me, dropped the quill he was holding and got up. His face turned pale.                                                                

          “Look, Rabbi,” the boy said, pointing his finger, “he’s awake!” 

          “Get up,” the man said, approaching me. His bushy beard streaked with gray touched his barrel chest. He had a face with multiple creases; I knew they were called wrinkles. The face flushed red and his eyes shone. “I am Rabbi Löw, your creator, and you will obey my command.”

          I got up, overturning the stools that supported my legs, and stood, stooping.  My head hurt, and I wasn’t in a mood to obey anybody’s command. I was in a mood to crush skulls. I stepped forward, but this Rabbi Löw apparently recognized my intentions. 

          “Stop!”                                                               

          His voice twisted through the air and entered my forehead like a cannon ball. I staggered, but regained my balance.                                                                

          “Sit!”                                                               

          I sat down on the floor. Now, he towered over me.  I liked him already because of the power of his voice.                                                                

          “That’s better,” he said. “Now, you will go and teach Father Gusak a lesson. Make sure that after you are done with him, he will no longer incite the mob against us. Every Sabbath day, he comes to our synagogue, the mob on his heels, and forces us to listen to a conversion sermon. But last night, he accused us of blood libel again. I fear a pogrom.” 

          He paused and touched my shoulder.  “Don’t spill any blood, though. Human blood is still precious, even here, in Prague.”                                                                

          When I turned to leave, he added, “Just don’t get your forehead wet.”  

          Covered by a black cloak, I went from one tiny room to another, passing women and children who pulled back, hiding their faces. One woman screamed and dropped her tray. A cooked chicken made its last flight, to the floor. Once outside, I walked the narrow, pungent streets, stepping over garbage and human waste, my heavy clay feet drumming against the slippery stones. Passersby yielded and crisscrossed their faces with their fingers. A curious custom! 

          A couple of dogs followed me, growling, their fangs bare.  I turned and showed them my teeth. They ran away, their tails between their legs. Pity. I was about to growl, too. I bet they would run away with the speed of a musket bullet. If I were a human, I would chuckle. But I was not equipped for that.                                                                 

          A man in a billowing red shirt, matching pantaloons and a hat with a feather, gasped and half-pulled out a sword from its scabbard. His goatee pointed at me like a spearhead. I stepped

forward, and he backed away.  I wanted to know what a blade could do to my hardened clay.  Maybe he had a pistol and would shoot at me as well. Some other time....          

          There it was, a two-story house with a red-tiled roof and a rooster on the shield above the door....  A house bigger than the Rabbi’s, with stained glass windows and with stone gargoyles

on the roof.... Across the street from a tavern with three dancing bears drawn on the wall.... That was it.  I made a fist and knocked at the door. Dust and bits of mortar flew. An old woman let me in.                                                                

          Once inside, I removed my cloak. The room strongly smelled of meat that I couldn’t recognize. It was not chicken, beef, or lamb.  Something repulsive.  I suppose I only knew what Rabbi wanted me to know.

          A few candles gave little light, but upon seeing my face, the woman stepped back, tripped over a bunch of shoes and fell over. Her head hit the marble tiles of the floor. She uttered a small

cry and went silent. I bent down, touched the red liquid streaming from her mouth and sucked on my finger. It tasted good.

          I went upstairs, opened the door and saw a man in a dark, somber suit, about the Rabbi’s age, sitting behind the table full of books.  His face was shaven, with a few nicks, and his graying hair was uncovered.  A blond-haired boy in a silk brown shirt and matching velvet pants sat next to him, writing something down. The tip of his tongue protruded between his lips. 

          “Father Gusak?”                                                                

          The man got up. I could smell his fear across the room.

          “What are you?” He picked up a metal, stone-encrusted object from the table and brought it up with a shaky hand. It was flat, with the smaller bar connected across the longer one. An image of a semi-naked man with a thorned wreath in his long hair was nailed to it.  Strangely, this image was not stored in my mind. Was it a knife of some kind? He surely needed one because his voice was weak. Yet I felt no harm even if it were a weapon. 

          A similar object only bigger, hung on the wall behind him. Curious. I noticed that the boy hid under the table. Let him be.                                                                

          “I’m here to teach you a lesson, Father,” I said.  “Sit down.”    

          He sat, clutching the thing, his face pale, his teeth chattering. I could hear his heart pounding inside his chest. I fought against my urge to rip it out and examine it closely.  I knew I didn’t have a heart. My own chest and even my head were totally empty; while walking, I drummed my fists against them to test them out a few times.          

          But does the word “lesson” have more than one meaning? The Rabbi said nothing about it, and I had no clue. But I had to act. “In the beginning,” I said,” God created the heavens and the earth.” And I proceeded to repeat, word for word, the entire lesson the Rabbi gave to the boy when I just awoke.  The Father listened, his face getting hard like a clay mask. 

          “Why are you telling me this, you, a creature from Hell?” he said when I was done. “Don’t you think I know this already? Don’t you think it’s an abomination for you to speak the God’s word?”

          “Why do you call me a creature from Hell?”                                                               

          “Because that’s what you are. You even have the seal of the Devil on your forehead.”

          That instead of saying thanks you for the lesson! I wished I had a permission to hit him, but I had to head back.                  

          On the way back, a rain started.  Thunder clapped like the voice of God. The pedestrians scattered. I shielded my forehead with my hand under the cloak. 

          When I returned, I asked the Rabbi, “What is written on my forehead?”  

          He was alone in the room, and he faced me with his head tilted back.  They all did that. I guess human eyes couldn’t roll up sufficiently. That also called for an investigation.

          “It’s the name of God,” the Rabbi said. “It gives you life.... So, did you scare that Gusak? Tell me he trembled like a tree in the autumn wind!”                                                             

          “I did,” I said. “But I spilled blood. It tastes good.”                                                              

          The Rabbi’s lips quivered. He stared at me with big, watery eyes. Then he left and returned with a wet rag.                                                                 

          “Lie down!”

          I lay down on the floor, and he wiped my forehead with the rag. I lost my vision first.... 

          The last words I’ve heard were the Rabbi’s prayer. “Forgive me, the Creator of the Universe. I meant only to scare him....”

          Yet I retained my consciousness; perhaps a part of the God’s name remained on my head. I lay in the dark now, unable to sense anything, unable even to judge the passage of time.  I know that one of these days the Rabbi would come back to me, and write the name of God on my forehead again. Because someone has to teach this stubborn Father Gusak another lesson. And I long to explain the miracle of creation to him, and maybe, if I am lucky, to taste blood one more time.