The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-six

by Jonathon Keats

  — You haven’t told him about me?

  — He calls you my hallucination.

  — As the months went by, I was beginning to think that you were mine.

  They kissed again, more deeply, emerging from their embrace to find themselves in the middle of his town. Tet emerged from the carriage. The square was abandoned. He began to stammer that the people must be elsewhere.

  The girl laughed at him. She pointed at the clock tower.

  — Don’t be ridiculous. It’s time to wake up, Tet.

  — But we just got here.

  — Open your eyes. You can’t dream forever.

  For several minutes, Tet struggled to stay asleep, to remain with her. He fought ground and sky into a blur. He went blind.

  As he opened his eyes, he saw the carriage riding away. He tried to chase after it. The square was too crowded. Crowded with people gazing in his direction. Behind him, he heard ringing. Was it the carillon? It was a voice, singing out his name.

  He turned. First he saw the burghers. Then he saw his father, come down from the bell tower, struck, at last, by tangible truth: Old Sol stood with the other elders behind the girl, whose dress, stretched taut against her swollen belly, shone white in the morning light. She was laughing. She was calling to Tet. She was calling him to their wedding.

  YOD THE INHUMAN

  When the scholar Meir lost his wife of twenty years, he did not hire the town matchmaker to find him another. Instead he collected mud from the bed of a river, hauled it home, and sculpted it into a girl on the floor of his cellar.

  Meir had studied anatomy, and worked every muscle and sinew into the cold clay more accurately than had ever been achieved in a statue. He’d also studied art, and slimmed the girl’s waist narrower, and opened her eyes wider, than had ever been accomplished by nature. Into each empty socket, he set a star sapphire. Then he pricked his finger, and drew with his blood the cipher for life that he’d once seen inscribed in an ancient holy book.

  The figure began to breathe. In the candlelight, he saw that her skin was tawny like the clay, and her hair was darkest umber, yet, when he beckoned her, he felt nothing loamy to her touch. By morning, she was his mistress.

  Meir gave her his wife’s old clothes to wear, and the dead woman’s wooden brush, so that the girl might keep the sign on her forehead—that enchanting birthmark—always hidden beneath her hairline. He also gave his mistress a name, by which to obey him. He called her Yod.

  In almost every respect, Yod was an improvement over Meir’s wife, with whom he’d fought constantly since the day their marriage was arranged. Henye had come from a family with servants, and she’d had no wish to become one herself, but her husband hadn’t accepted a position in her father’s business, as expected: He’d kept to his scholarship rather than becoming a shipping clerk, and, her whole dowry spent on inexplicable books, she’d been left to cook the meals and mop the floors. That, at least, had been her point of view.

  In Meir’s opinion, his wife had performed every task inadequately, squandering the pennies he made as a scribe and translator—money earned at the expense of his studies—on flour she could have milled or meat she could have butchered or wood she could have timbered, with her own two hands. When she’d reminded him that she was a cripple, clubfooted since birth, he’d retorted that she’d hidden that well enough while she was in the market for a husband, so it couldn’t be too serious an affliction.

  Naturally there were no such faults with Yod, who did what Meir asked of her instantly, without thinking to quibble. Because she hadn’t any needs of her own, all work was the same, and she’d tirelessly keep at it until told to stop. In his house, his rule was absolute, and, within those four walls, he faced the predicament of princes: The totality of Yod’s subservience demanded that he know exactly what he wanted.

  With practice, he got good at that. And his satisfaction with her would have been complete, were it not for the least expected of flaws: Meir had trouble taking pleasure in his mistress.

  With her clubfoot and hairy chin, his wife had not especially attracted him, nor had his bowlegged scholar’s body and urine-blond froth of beard particularly moved her erotically, yet when they’d gotten down to it, shared hatred had enflamed them, and they’d fought their way to ecstasy. Meir had none of that with Yod. In bed she let him do to her whatever he wished. She consented without comment to acts he’d never have contemplated with Henye, and granted without complaint every favor he asked of her. She was as selfless at copulation as she was at cooking and mopping. But the more of his expectations she met, the less satisfied he felt. Every night before he put her to rest by rubbing the mark of life from her forehead, he gazed at her wide sapphire eyes and tight tawny waist, and wondered what could possibly be wanting. And, every morning, when he pricked his finger and reinscribed the vital sign on her still, clay figure, he pondered how she could conceivably not fulfill his desires.

  Because Meir no longer took work as a scribe or translator, and Yod fetched his wood and water, he seldom spoke to other people anymore. But he did have one old acquaintance: He and the village rabbi, Selig, had once been schoolmates.

  They were as different as two men could be. Plump and gregarious, the rabbi had a biblically large family that crowded his home, and defined his life, as fully as Meir’s was informed by his library. That Selig had no books didn’t concern folks. At school he would have flunked without Meir’s Talmudic expertise, yet here he was town maggid—while Meir was ignored—because Selig was blessed with common sense.

  He received Meir with a ripe kiss on each cheek and a deracinating embrace, while unwashed grandchildren clutched at the fringes of the scholar’s gown. He offered Meir tea, and, when his guest demurred, proposed a walk along the river. He ushered the scholar through a thicket of untended garden, out into the open. They traveled in silence along the river, through croft and meadow, until at last the rabbi asked whether Meir intended to marry the golem he’d made.

  — What makes you call Yod a golem?

  — Because she is one. A girl like that doesn’t just appear on her own. In town, they’re calling you a sorcerer.

  — Then others also know about her? Did you tell them?

  — They told me, Meir. They saw a stranger with star sapphire eyes and tawny skin draw water from the well, half her weight to the bucket, and watched where she brought it. If you ever left your books for a minute, you’d hear them talking. The men are hoarse with envy.

  — They shouldn’t be. She works hard, and you see how she looks, but that isn’t all a man wants.

  — She isn’t a good lover. What did you expect, Meir? The girl is made of mud.

  — She follows all of my orders.

  — A golem will. The point is, she can’t feel.

  Meir hadn’t considered that, for psychology was one field that he had not studied. The rabbi wrapped a hand around the scholar’s stooped shoulders, content to have solved his problem. He didn’t mind that Meir was quiet again as they walked back to town. He took it to mean that this whole vexing golem business had been laid to rest.

  Yet Meir’s silence was not calm: Selig hadn’t cured his affliction, but merely diagnosed it for him. He declined the rabbi’s supper invitation. He extracted himself from Selig’s farewell embrace. As the sun went down, he scurried home to Yod, for he knew what had to be done.

  That was the night of Yod’s first lesson. Meir began by showing her pain, because it seemed less ambiguous than pleasure, more fundamental. In bed, he pinched her flesh. Hurt, he said.

  Hurt, she repeated, expressionless.

  He pinched her harder, on the neck. Hurt, he said, louder.

  Hurt, she mimicked, and smiled.

  He slapped Yod hard across the mouth. He cursed her stupidity. He flipped her onto her belly, pulled her dress up over her rump, and relieved himself inside her numb slot. As he clutched her head to rub her out, she murmured. The word she exhaled, in a voice he’d never before heard, was hurt.
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  For several days after that, he ravaged her body with every form of torture he could conjure—bruise, blister, burn—to foster the broadest possible understanding of pain. Then he sought to show her pleasure.

  At first, she was too tender. She could speak only of hurt, no matter how Meir handled her. But every hour that he stroked her hair, whispering calm in her ear, she trembled less with terror.

  She began coming to him between chores, laying her head on his lap, and burbling calm in her contralto singsong. He gave her kisses, which she learned to yearn. From that came naturally the urge that, in her fervid clutch, he told her was lust, but which she pronounced love.

  Pleasure changed Yod more than pain. She wasn’t always obedient anymore. She had her own cravings. When Meir didn’t give her the affection she expected, she sat in a chair and pouted, and, if he threatened punishment, she struck first and hit hardest. Every night, he was exhausted by her. Her passion bruised and blistered and burned. In pain, he began to question the wisdom of teaching a golem to feel. But Meir was too weary to see the rabbi or even to look up the matter in his books. And then one evening, after she’d extracted from him every dribble of desire, he fell asleep without blotting her forehead cipher.

  Yod had never seen a man dormant. Her master wasn’t at all pleasurable like that. After waiting an eternity, perhaps several minutes in duration, for Meir to revive, she climbed out of bed, and opened the door. Outside, the moon was full. Its glow felt like a cool slip over her bare skin. Yod shivered. Whispering her words—hurt and calm and love—and gathering them under her tongue again for safekeeping, she stepped into the night, seeking feeling.

  In Meir’s dreams, he couldn’t move because his flesh was mud. When he awoke, his whole body was frigid. Through the predawn dim, he saw that his door was open. Then a deeper chill beset him: His girl was gone.

  Dashing into the street, his shabby robes still open, he tried to determine who’d broken into his home: What man in his town would attempt such a bold theft? Then he rephrased the question: To possess his Yod, who wouldn’t?

  He accosted the first folks he met, a clutch of drunken farmhands stumbling down the steps of the village tavern. He stood in front of them, blocking their path.

  — Did any of you steal my girl?

  — Steal her? She gave herself to us.

  — She wouldn’t. You have her, then?

  — We sent her away when we were done. We banged your girl good, Meir, but she wanted more men.

  — You’re lying. You know I’ll have you beaten.

  The laborers looked at one another. They knocked him down, kicked him into the gutter, and buried him in laughter.

  After a spell, Meir rolled himself over, roused by an odor stronger than smelling salts. The beggar Issachar was leaning over him, wondering if he was hurt. Meir staggered to his feet, mumbling about having stumbled on a loose paving stone. Then he asked if the beggar had perchance been up all night. Issachar nodded his hooded head; he couldn’t afford to rest. The scholar asked if he’d seen Yod.

  — The girl with tawny skin and star sapphire eyes? I was just with her.

  — With her? What do you mean? Where?

  — Behind the tavern in the alley. She begged me. I couldn’t turn her away. How often does a beggar have a chance to give?

  — You raped her.

  The scholar lunged at Issachar, but the beggar’s stench—guardian angel of tramps—knocked Meir back into the gutter. Issachar did not laugh at him, nor did he run. The beggar simply stood his ground. At last, Meir apologized. Climbing to his feet again, he asked where Yod had gone. Issachar unfolded a finger, long and crooked. He pointed toward the woods.

  Of course Meir was learned enough to know that the forest was where evil thoughts fled as imps and sprites to become full-grown demons, and that even a golem couldn’t long withstand their nocturnal torments. He headed for his library, but wound up, agitated beyond reckoning, at the house of the rabbi.

  Selig was still in bed, smothered in children, regaling them with old folktales while they giggled and stole sips of sweet tea from his chipped cup. Meir’s appearance stilled them. They stared at him—a man beaten and broken like a wretch from their grandfather’s legends—and scrambled.

  Selig gently grasped his hand. He pulled Meir close and quietly observed that the scholar had not followed his advice.

  — But I did. I made Yod feel.

  — I don’t think that was my suggestion. You know I’m not a clever man. Tell me what happened.

  The scholar gave him a thorough accounting. He omitted nothing.

  — Then you’re free of her.

  — Free of her? I need her.

  — There’s plenty of mud by the river. If you’re so desperate for a mistress, why not make another?

  — She wouldn’t be Yod.

  — That depends on what you name her.

  — You don’t understand, Selig. I made her feel.

  — You made her feel? You’re in love, Meir. There’s nothing to be done, unless you’re prepared to pursue her.

  For all his erudition, the scholar could not find fault in what the rabbi said, and, in his desperate state, the alternate solution that he found in his books—burying the girl’s name in an unmarked grave—seemed downright ludicrous. That morning, he pawned his library and took a loan in gold against his home. From a peddler, he bought a cart horse with legs more bowed than his own, and, after several failed attempts to mount her, hobbled through town on the old nag’s back. Everyone stopped to taunt him, the Kabbalah-conjurer who held himself so high and mighty above them, only to be cuckolded by his own golem. They threw rotten fruit and clots of dirt, and made such lewd remarks about Yod that Meir wondered who—man, woman, or child—hadn’t molested her.

  The forest was so vast that the demons spoke seven different dialects. Some lived in the trees, sailing on the winds, while others were subterranean and blind. Obviously, their cultures also differed. The largest were beasts of destruction, ground-dwelling brutes who’d fell whole civilizations and foul themselves when they were done. The slightest of them, airborne wisps as gentle as dust, thrived on deception, sweeping societies with rumor and prejudice, high on their own delusion. But neither of these demons concerned people much: The workings of natural disaster were too calamitous, and of human nature too ubiquitous, for folks to address. Theft and rape and murder, on the other hand, were demons of a scale that everybody could grasp, and in many countries bordering on the forest, princes offered a bounty on such evils. Peasants would band together after dark, significantly decreasing the local crime rate, even if no demons were actually caught.

  Folks learned to season their vigilance with cunning. They set traps and lay in wait. And one night, in a small principality where river met sea, some old peasants made a catch.

  While not exactly beastly, the creature clearly was no ordinary girl. Sprawled on the ground, stark naked, bleeding where the trap clasped her ankle, she stared at her captors through star sapphire eyes, mouthing the word hurt.

  The language she spoke was foreign to them. They suspected that it might be a hex. They gagged her and bound her in rope. To the palace, they dragged her through the dirt. They hollered for their prince. They called for their reward.

  The prince met them in the courtyard. The farmers tipped their hats as His Majesty approached, but they did not lower their voices. Each shouting to be heard over the rest, all of them tried to impress the young royal with how courageous they’d been to capture such a demon. When the prince saw the girl lying at their feet, though, he no longer heard their boasts. He got down on his knees like a commoner, to untie her.

  He broke through the knots with strong hands. The peasants looked on in horror. Did His Majesty know the danger of releasing such a fierce beast within the palace gates?

  — She isn’t a demon.

  — She came from the forest. You can be sure she is one.

  — Look at her slender waist, her wide eyes
. She’s probably an abducted princess. A girl like this could get taken up by the devil himself.

  She shivered. The prince wrapped his own velveteen robe around her bare shoulders. He asked her where she came from. When she didn’t respond, he surmised that she must be an exotic princess indeed, and led her to his chambers to investigate further. The peasants demanded their bounty. The prince replied that if anyone ever again called her unnatural, their reward would be the gallows.

  The next day, His Majesty announced that he was marrying her. His courtiers, many of them old enough to remember the day his father married his noble mother, and most of whose daughters had been his mistresses on the basis of princely promises, wanted to see her credentials. They asked from what court she’d been abducted. Touching her tawny skin, he deemed her pedigree Arabian or African. They demanded to know her name. Turning his royal back, he said that they could address her as Your Majesty when they met her the following morning at his wedding.

  Yod, of course, had never before been bathed in rose water. She’d never had her hair woven into a hundred sinuous braids, laced with strands of seed pearl, and she’d never been stitched into a gown of fresh magnolia petals, embroidered with pollinated thread. Yet almost every incident in her brief life had been unprecedented. She hadn’t the experience to know surprise. As the prince set her with his finest gems—clusters of diamonds around her neck, crystal crown upon her head—he was reassured that he’d chosen his wife well: To carry such magnificence so lightly, he surmised, her gentle blood must flow back, unobstructed, to the Garden of Eden.

  Watching her saunter down the palace steps in slippers of gold leaf, even his haughtiest courtiers laid their nobility humbly at her feet, in deepest bows and curtsies. They all listened as the prince exchanged vows with his betrothed. Yod pronounced her words precisely as he’d taught her. She didn’t yet know what they meant, but when she kissed him, her lips expressed perfectly how she felt.