The Golem (28 page)

But I will not rail against fate. My hatred is a hatred that goes beyond the grave, and I still have my own blood, that I can shed in whatever way I like, so that it will pursue his wherever it may go in the realm of shades.

Every day since they buried his bones I have been sitting beside his grave, listening for a voice within my breast that will tell me what to do. I think I already know, but I intend to wait a while until the inner word becomes as clear as a bubbling spring. We humans are an impure race, and often it takes weeks of fasting and waking until we can understand the whisperings of our soul.

Last week I was officially informed by the court that Wassertrum had made me his sole heir. I presume I do not need to assure you, Herr Pernath, that I will not touch one copper of it. I will take care not to give ‘him’ a hold on me ‘on the other side’. The houses he owned will be auctioned, the objects he touched will be burnt, and after my death one third of the money realised will go to you. In my mind’s eye I can already see you jumping up and protesting, but I can reassure you. Everything you will receive is yours by right, with interest. I have known for a long time that years ago Wassertrum cheated your father and his family out of everything they owned; it is only now that I have the documents to prove it.

Another third will be distributed among the twelve members of the Regiment who knew Dr. Hulbert personally. I want each one to be rich enough to be able to enter ‘good’ society in Prague.

The final third will be distributed equally among the next seven to commit a murder in the course of robbery, but who are released because there is insufficient evidence against them. I owe that to public morality.

I think that is everything. Farewell my dear, dear friend; I hope you will sometimes think of me.

With sincere gratitude,

Innocence Charousek.

Deeply moved, I put the letter down. I could feel no joy at the prospect of imminent release. Charousek! Poor fellow! Looking after me like a brother simply because I once gave him a hundred crowns. If only I could at least shake him by the hand! But I sensed that he was right; that day would never come. I could see him standing before me, his restless eyes, consumptive’s shoulders and high, noble forehead. Perhaps this blighted existence would have turned out differently if a helping hand had been held out to him early enough.

I read through his letter once more.

How much method there was in Charousek’s madness! Was he mad at all? I was ashamed that I had entertained that idea, even for a moment. Did not the hints he dropped tell me enough? He was a person like Hillel, like Miriam, like myself, a person over whom his own soul had taken control, guiding him upwards through the wild gorges and gulfs of this life to the snow-capped peaks of an untrodden land beyond. Was not he, who had spent his whole life plotting murder, much purer than any of those who look down their noses at the rest of humanity as they pretend to follow the skin-deep commandments of some unknown, mythical prophet?

He kept the commandment dictated to him by an all-powerful urge, without thought of a ‘reward’, either here or in the world beyond. Was this nothing other than the most religious devotion to duty in the most profound, most arcane sense of the word?

‘Cowardly, cunning, bloodthirsty, sick, disturbed: a criminal personality’, I could hear what the judgment of the multitude would be, if they were to come and light their way through the passages of his soul with their dim stable lamps, that envious multitude that will never comprehend that the poisonous autumn crocus is a thousand times more beautiful and noble than the useful chive.

Again the bolts were drawn back outside, and I heard someone being pushed into the cell, but I didn’t even turn round, so completely were my thoughts absorbed by the contents of the letter.

Not a word about Angelina, nothing about Hillel.

Of course, Charousek must have written it in great haste, I could tell by the writing. Would he send me another secret letter? My hopes were fixed on the morrow and the exercise with the other prisoners in the yard. That was when it would be easiest for one of the Regiment to pass something to me.

I was startled out of my reflections by a quiet voice. “Would you permit me to introduce myself, sir? My name is Laponder, Amadeus Laponder.”

I turned round. A short, slightly built and still fairly young man in elegant clothes, only without a hat like all remand prisoners, was giving me a polite bow.

He was as closely shaved as an actor, and there was something strange about his large, shining, light-green, almond-shaped eyes: however directly they were looking at me, they did not seem to register me; there was something absent-minded about them.

I muttered my name and returned his bow, intending to turn away again immediately, but for a long time I could not take my eyes off him, so alien he seemed with the permanent mandarin-like smile which the upturned corners of his curved mouth seemed to give his face. With his smooth, transparent skin, his narrow, girlish nose and delicate nostrils, he looked almost like a Chinese statue of the Buddha sculpted in rose quartz. ‘Amadeus Laponder, Amadeus Laponder’, I kept repeating to myself. ‘What crime can he have committed?’

“Have you already been interrogated?” I asked after a while.

“That’s where I’ve just come from. I hope I won’t have to impose on you for too long”, Laponder replied politely.

‘The poor devil’, I thought to myself, ‘he’s no idea how they treat remand prisoners here.’ I decided to prepare him for it gradually.

“You eventually get used to sitting doing nothing, once the first days are past; they’re the worst.”

An expression of gratitude appeared on his face.

Another pause.

“Did the interrogation last long, Herr Laponder?”

“No. They simply asked me if I confessed and then I had to sign my statement.”

“You signed a confession!” I exclaimed.

“Naturally.”

He said it as if it were a matter of course.

It can’t be a serious crime, I decided, he doesn’t show any sign of nerves at all. Probably challenging someone to a duel, or something of the kind.

“Unfortunately I’ve been in here so long it seems like a whole lifetime”, I gave an involuntary sigh and his face immediately took on a sympathetic expression. “I sincerely hope you won’t have to go through that, Herr Laponder. By all appearances, you’ll soon be out of here.”

“Depends how you look at it”, he said calmly, but it sounded as if there was a double meaning hidden in his words.

“You don’t believe you will?” I asked with a smile. He shook his head.

“What do you mean? What awful crime have you committed? Please excuse the question, Herr Laponder, but I am genuinely interested, I’m not asking simply out of curiosity.”

He hesitated for a moment, then he said, without batting an eyelid, “Murder with rape.”

I felt as if he had hit me over the head with a club. I could not utter a word for horror and disgust.

He seemed to notice and discreetly looked to one side, but there was not the slightest slackening of his automaton smile to suggest he had been hurt by my sudden change in behaviour.

Our conversation ended there, and we silently avoided each other’s gaze.

When it became dark and I went to bed, he immediately followed my example, undressed, carefully hung his clothes on the nail in the wall, lay down and appeared, from his deep, regular breathing, to have fallen fast asleep straight away.

I, on the other hand, could not get to sleep all night. The idea that I was sharing a tiny cell with such a monster, even breathing the same air as he, was so horribly disturbing that it drove all the other events of the day, even Charousek’s letter, completely from my mind. I had lain down in such a position that I had the murderer constantly in view; I could not have borne having him behind me. The cell was dimly lit by a shimmer of moonlight, and I could see Laponder lying there motionless, almost rigid. There was something corpselike about his features, and his half-open mouth only intensified the impression.

For many hours he lay there, not changing his position once; not, that is, until a long time after midnight when a moonbeam fell on his face and he became slightly restless, moving his lips silently, like someone talking in his sleep. It seemed to be always the same words, perhaps a sentence of two syllables, something like, “Let me. Let me. Let me.”

For the next few days I took no notice of him, nor did he break the silence at all. His manner remained as friendly as ever. He seemed to be able to tell if I wanted to walk up and down, and would immediately draw back his feet, if he was sitting on his bunk, so as not to be in my way. I began to reproach myself for my brusqueness, but with the best will in the world, I could not overcome my repugnance for him. However much I hoped I might become accustomed to his presence, it did not happen. It even kept me awake at night. I scarcely managed to get more than a quarter of an hour’s sleep at a time.

Every evening the same ritual would be repeated, down to the very last detail: he would wait respectfully until I was lying down, then he would undress, fold his clothes meticulously, hang them up, and so on, and so on.

One night, it must have been around two, I was standing on the shelf again, drowsy from lack of sleep, staring at the full moon, whose beams were reflected like a film of glittering oil on the copper dial of the clock, full of melancholy thoughts of Miriam.

Suddenly I heard the soft sound of her voice behind me.

At once I was awake, wide-awake. I turned round and listened. I could not understand the words exactly, but it sounded like, “Ask me. Ask me.”

It was definitely Miriam’s voice
.

Trembling with excitement, I climbed down, as quietly as I could, and went over to Laponder’s bed. The moonlight was shining full on his face, and I could see clearly that his lids were open, but only the whites of his eyes were visible. From the rigidity of his cheek muscles I could tell he was in a deep sleep.

Only his lips were moving, as they had a few days ago, and gradually the words coming through his clenched teeth became distinctly audible, “Ask me. Ask me.”

The voice sounded just like Miriam’s.

“Miriam? Miriam?” I cried out involuntarily, immediately lowering my voice so as not to wake the sleeping Laponder. I waited until his face had returned to its former rigid state, then repeated softly, “Miriam? Miriam?”

His lips formed one word, scarcely audible but yet distinct, “Yes.”

I put my ear close to his mouth. After a while I could hear
Miriam’s voice
whispering to me; so unmistakable was the voice, that an icy shiver rippled over my skin. I drank in her words so greedily that I only took in the gist. She spoke of her love for me, of her unutterable happiness that we had finally found one another, would never part. She spoke without pausing for breath, like someone who is afraid of being interrupted and wants to make use of every second.

Then the voice faltered, went completely silent for a while.

“Miriam?” I asked, holding my breath and trembling with fear, “Miriam, are you dead?”

For a long time there was no answer, then, almost inaudibly, “No – I am alive – I am sleeping.”

That was all.

I listened and listened.

In vain. There was nothing more.

Trembling with the nervous strain, I had to support myself on the edge of the bunk so as not to collapse on top of Laponder. The illusion was so complete, that for a brief moment I thought it was Miriam lying before me and it took all my power of self-control not to place a kiss on the murderer’s lips.

“Enoch! Enoch!” I suddenly heard him say, at first almost incoherently, then in clearer and more articulated tones, “Enoch! Enoch!”

Immediately I recognised Hillel’s voice. “Is that you, Hillel?”

No answer.

I remembered having read somewhere that to get sleepers to talk one should not direct the questions at their ears, but at the network of nerves in the solar plexus.

This I did.

“Hillel?”

“Yes. I hear you.”

“Is Miriam well? You know everything?” I asked quickly.

“Yes. I know everything. Have known for a long time. Do not worry, Enoch, and do not fear.”

“Can you forgive me, Hillel?”

“I told you, do not worry.”

“Will we see each other soon?” I was afraid I would not be able to understand the answer; even the previous one had been little more than a faint breath.

“I hope so. I will wait … for you … if I can … then I must … land …”

“Where? To which land?” I almost grabbed Laponder. “To which land? To which land?”

“Land … of Gad … southern … Palestine …”

The voice faded away.

In my confusion a hundred questions shot through my head. Why did he call me Enoch? What about Zwakh? Jaromir? The watch? Vrieslander? Angelina?
Charousek
?

“Farewell, I hope you will sometimes think of me”, came, suddenly loud and clear, from the lips of the murderer. This time the words were in Charousek’s tone, but as if I had spoken them myself.

Then I remembered: they were the very words with which he had ended his letter.

Laponder’s face was in darkness now, the moonlight falling on the end of his mattress. In a quarter of an hour it would have disappeared from the cell.

I put question after question, but received no more answers. Laponder lay there, motionless as a corpse, his lids closed. I reproached myself that all this time I had only seen Laponder as a murderer, not as a man. From what I had just heard, he was obviously a somnambulist, someone who was susceptible to the influence of the full moon. Perhaps he had committed the rape and murder in a kind of trance.

It was certain even.

Now, as morning began to break, the rigidity in his features gave way to a beatific smile. A man who has a murder on his conscience cannot sleep as peacefully as that, I told myself. I could hardly wait for the moment when he would wake up.