The Golem (15 page)

A snow-battle was raging outside my window. One snowflake regiment after the other, tiny soldiers in shaggy, white coats, rushed across the window-panes for minutes on end, always in the same direction, as if they were all fleeing from some particularly vicious enemy. Then all of a sudden they would tire of running away, seemed, for some inexplicable reason, to be consumed with anger and dashed back again until they were ambushed from above and below by new hostile armies and everything dissolved into a chaotic, swirling mass.

I felt as though months had elapsed since the strange experiences which I had been through such a short while ago. Had it not been for the fact that several times a day new and ever more grotesque rumours of the Golem would reach my ears and refresh my memory of that night, I think there would have been moments when I suspected I had been the victim of a hallucination.

The thing that stood out most vividly from the fantastic pattern the events had woven round me was what Zwakh had told me about the murder of the so-called ‘Freemason’, which was still unsolved. I really could not see pockmarked Loisa as the murderer, although I was not without my own, dark suspicions. Almost immediately after Prokop claimed to have heard a weird noise from the sewers, we had seen the lad at Loisitchek’s. On the other hand, there was no reason to believe the shout from underground was a cry for help, even assuming it was not simply a figment of the imagination.

The flurries of snow were dazzling my eyes and I was beginning to see everything as a jumble of dancing stripes. I turned my attention back to the cameo I was working on. I had made a wax model of Miriam’s face and I felt that the moonstone, with its bluish sheen, ought to be perfect for it. I was very pleased; it was a happy chance that I had found something so suitable among my stock of stones. The deep-black hornblende setting gave it just the right light, and its shape fitted so well it was as if nature had created it especially to be transformed into a lasting likeness of Miriam’s delicate profile.

Initially it had been my intention to cut a cameo from it representing the Egyptian god Osiris. I had been inspired by the vision of the hermaphrodite from the
Book of Ibbur
which I could recall to mind at will with remarkable clarity but, after I had made the first incisions, I gradually came to see such a close resemblance to the daughter of Shemaiah Hillel, that I altered my plan.

The
Book of Ibbur
!

The memory affected me so strongly that I laid aside my burin. It was incredible, all the things that had come into my life in such a short stretch of time! All at once, like someone who suddenly finds himself transported into the middle of an interminable sandy desert, I became conscious of the immense, profound loneliness separating me from my fellow men. Had I a single friend, apart from Hillel, with whom I could talk about my experiences?

It was true that in the still small hours of recent nights the memory had returned of how, throughout my youth, going back even to my earliest childhood, I had been tormented by an indescribable, agonising thirst for the miraculous, for anything that lay beyond mortality. But the fulfilment of my yearning had come like a violent hurricane, crushing the joy even as it welled up in my soul. I was trembling with fear at the thought of the inevitable moment when I would wake to my past, when those forgotten events would
come alive
in their full, soul-searing immediacy.

But not yet, not yet! Let me first savour the pleasure of watching this unutterable radiance come towards me!

It was in my power! I only had to go into my bedroom and unlock the box in which lay the
Book of Ibbur
, the gift of the invisible ones.

How long ago it was since my hand last touched it when I locked up Angelina’s letters with it!

From time to time, when the wind sends the snow piled up on the roofs cascading down to the ground, there is a dull rumbling from outside. Otherwise all is hushed silence, as the carpet of snow over the cobble-stones absorbs every noise.

I was about to go back to my engraving when suddenly, along the street below, came the sound of horses’ hooves, the clash of steel on stone so sharp I could almost see the flash of sparks. It was impossible to open the window to look down, it was bound to the masonry with icy sinews and the lower half was white with drifting snow. All I could see was Charousek, who was standing and talking, apparently quite amicably, to Wassertrum. I saw the words die on their lips and amazement spread across both their faces as they stared, presumably at the carriage, which was invisible from where I was.

It must be Angelina’s husband, was the thought that flashed through my mind. It couldn’t be Angelina herself, it would be sheer madness for her to drive up in her carriage outside my house in Hahnpassgasse for everyone to see! But what should I tell her husband if that is who it is and he asks me straight out?

Deny it, of course, deny everything!

Quickly I tried to work out what might have happened. It can only be her husband; he’ll have received an anonymous letter – from Wassertrum most likely – telling him she’s meeting her lover here; she’ll have thought up some excuse, probably that she’s commissioned a cameo or something of the kind from me. There! A furious knocking at my door and – Angelina was standing before me.

She was incapable of speech, but the expression on her face told me everything: there was no point in hiding any more, the game was up.

And yet there was something inside me that rejected this interpretation. I just could not bring myself to think that the feeling that I could help her had been a delusion. I led her to the armchair and silently stroked her hair as she, like a weary child, pressed her face to my breast. We could hear the crackling of the logs in the stove and see the red glow of the flames fluttering across the floorboards, flaring up and dying away – flaring up and dying away – flaring up and dying away …

I seemed to hear a voice inside me singing, ‘Where is the heart of coral red?’ I started up. Where am I? How long has she been sitting here?

I questioned her, cautiously, gently, oh! so gently, so as not to alarm her, taking care that my probing should not touch the painful wound. Piece by piece, I learnt all I needed to know, putting it together like a mosaic.

“Your husband knows …?”

“No, not yet; he’s away.”

So Charousek had guessed correctly: it was Dr. Savioli whose life was in danger. And it was because it was Savioli’s life that was being threatened and not hers any more, that she was here. I realised she no longer had any thought of concealment.

Wassertrum had been to see Savioli again; had forced his way to his sick-bed by means of threats and force.

Go on! Go on! What did he want from him?

What he wanted? Half Savioli had told her, half she had guessed: Wassertrum wanted … wanted … Savioli … to … to take his own life. Now she knew the reason for Wassertrum’s wild, unbridled hatred: it was Savioli who had driven his son, Wassory the eye specialist, to his death.

The first thought that flashed through my mind was to dash down and reveal everything to Wassertrum, to tell him that it was
Charousek
who had struck the blow, Savioli had only been his instrument … ‘Traitor! Traitor!’ screamed a voice inside my brain, ‘You would hand over Charousek to the vengeance of that vindictive rogue, a penniless, consumptive student who tried to
help
you and her!’ I felt as though I were being torn into two bleeding halves. Then a calm, ice-cold voice gave me the solution. ‘You fool! The answer is in your own hand. All you have to do is pick up that file on the table over there, run down the stairs and stick it into that junk-dealer’s throat until the point comes out through the back of his neck!’

My heart sent up a jubilant cry of thanksgiving to God.

I continued my questioning. “And Dr. Savioli?”

He would kill himself, there was no doubt about it, unless she managed to save him. The nurses were not letting him out of their sight; they had drugged him with morphine, but perhaps he would suddenly wake up, perhaps he was … even now … and … and … No! No! She had to leave, she mustn’t waste another second; she would write to her husband, confess everything; let him take the child from her, as long as Savioli was saved; if she told her husband, that would rob Wassertrum of the only weapon he possessed against them.

She must reveal their secret herself before he could betray it.

“No, Angelina, that you will
not
do”, I cried, thinking of the file, and my voice cracked with jubilant delight at the thought of the power I held in my hand.

Angelina tried to tear herself away; I held her tight.

“Just answer me one thing: will your husband take Wassertrum’s word for it?”

“But he has evidence, he obviously has my letters, perhaps a picture of me, all the things that were hidden in the desk next door.”

Letters? A picture? The desk? I could control myself no longer. I drew Angelina to my breast and kissed her. Her hair fell in a golden veil over my face. Then I grasped her slim hands, and told her, the words coming tumbling out of my mouth, that Wassertrum’s mortal enemy, a penniless Czech student, had taken the letters and everything for safe keeping; they were now in my possession, securely locked away.

She flung her arms around my neck, laughing and crying at the same time. She kissed me, then ran to the door, turned back and kissed me again. Then she was gone.

I stood there in a daze. I could still feel her breath on my cheek.

I heard the thunder of her carriage over the cobbles, the furious gallop of the horses’ hooves. A minute later everything was silent. Silent as the grave.

The silence filled my heart, too.

Suddenly the door creaked softly behind me and Charousek appeared in the room.

“Excuse me, Herr Pernath, but I knocked for a long time; you didn’t seem to hear.”

I just nodded.

“I hope you don’t assume I’ve made my peace with Wassertrum, because you saw me talking to him just now?” Charousek’s mocking grin told me it was just one of his bitter jokes. “I must say, fortune seems to be on my side. That vermin down there is beginning to take a liking to me, Herr Pernath. It’s a strange thing, the call of the blood”, he added softly, almost as though speaking to himself. I had no idea what he was talking about, and assumed I had missed part of what he had said. I was still trembling from the after-effects of all the excitement.

“He wanted to give me a coat”, Charousek went on in his normal voice. “I thanked him but said no, of course. My skin is hot enough as it is. And then he forced some money on me.”

I was about to exclaim, ‘You didn’t accept it?’ but just managed to keep my tongue. Round red blotches appeared on Charousek’s cheeks. “Naturally I accepted the money.”

My head was going round and round. “Ac…cepted it?” I stammered.

“I would never have thought such pure, unalloyed joy was possible here on earth.” He paused for a moment and twisted his face into a grotesque expression. “Is it not elevating, dear brethren, to contemplate ever new proofs of the wisdom and prudence with which Providence’s thrifty hand orders Mother Nature’s domestic economy?” He was declaiming like a preacher, at the same time jingling the coins in his pocket. “Verily, I shall regard it as my sacred duty to devote this charitable gift to the worthiest of ends, right down to the very last kreutzer.”

Was he drunk? Or mad?

Charousek suddenly changed his tone. “The fact that it is Wassertrum himself who is paying for his … medicine, is not without a certain diabolical humour, don’t you think?”

The hidden meaning behind Charousek’s words gradually began to dawn on me; I felt a shiver of horror at the feverish look in his eyes.

“But that’s enough about that, Herr Pernath. First let us deal with more immediate matters. That lady just now, that was
her,
wasn’t it? What did she think she was doing, driving up here so openly?”

I told Charousek what had happened.

“Wassertrum certainly has no evidence”, he interrupted triumphantly, “otherwise he wouldn’t have searched the studio again this morning. Odd you didn’t hear him? He spent a good hour there.”

I was puzzled how he came by all this precise knowledge, and told him so.

“May I?” In order to illustrate his explanation, he took a cigarette from the table, lit it and began, “You see, if you open the door now, the draught coming in from the stairwell will blow the cigarette smoke in the other direction. It is perhaps the only law of nature with which Herr Wassertrum is well acquainted and with that in mind he had a small, concealed aperture inserted in the wall of the studio overlooking the street – the house belongs to him, as you know. It is a kind of ventilation shaft, and in it he has hung a little scrap of red cloth, so that when anyone goes into or out of the room – that is, opens the door – Wassertrum can tell from below by the fluttering of the red rag. However,
I
know that too.” Charousek added drily, “and, if necessary, I can see it perfectly from the basement opposite, which a merciful Providence has graciously assigned to me for my abode. The neat little trick with the ventilation shaft is that worthy patriarch’s very own, but I’ve known about it for years.”

“Your hatred for him must be beyond all human bounds, for you to follow his every step like that. And you’ve been doing it for years, you tell me!?”

“Hatred?” Charousek gave a twisted smile. “Hatred? Hatred’s not the word for it. The word to express my feelings for him has yet to be invented. To be precise, it’s not
him
I hate, it’s his
blood
. Can you understand that? Like a wild animal, I can scent if someone has a single drop of his blood in their veins and” – he clenched his teeth – “that happens now and then here in the Ghetto.” He had worked himself up into such a fury, that he was incapable of going on. He went over to the window and stared out. I could hear his heavy suppressed breathing. For a while neither of us spoke.