“Polyxena is a woman—”
“A servant, then. An old servant. No one is interested in talking to me.”
“Well, of course they have to get used to the idea that you know something—”
“You would think they’d be used to it by now,” she said angrily.
In the days that followed she did not come down to join their conversations. But Dee soon had other things to occupy him. The snow and ice on the roads melted, and Jane wrote him that she had booked passage for the family to Trebona.
It had been nearly a year since he had last seen her, and when she and the children came into Vilém’s house he found himself unable to take his eyes off her. The reddish blond hair was thinner and mixed with gray now, and the lines on her face had grown deeper, but he still thought her the most beautiful woman he had even seen. He held her tightly. “I feel as if I’ve come home,” he said softly.
Michael had grown from an infant to a toddler and was beginning to speak a few words. “He speaks Czech, mostly, and German,” Jane said. “So do the other children. I can barely understand them sometimes.”
Jane and the children settled in. Arthur and Katherine ran wild over the estate, climbing trees, fishing in the artificial ponds, helping the huge shaggy white dogs herd the sheep. Their skin turned a deep nut brown from the sun. Dee worried that they were growing unfit for life in London, if they ever returned to London, and he took time out from his research to tutor them several days a week.
Once or twice Dee heard something clatter to the floor as Katherine passed. There was nothing uncanny about it, he told himself firmly; his daughter was growing, and still clumsy, like all young children.
One day Dee and Jane passed Magdalena in a corridor. “How did she get here?” Jane asked him.
“She followed me to Hungary, actually,” Dee said. He had a brief thought of her as a young woman, but he thrust it away. “She wanted to be my servant.”
“You’re a good man, husband,” Jane said.
“I hope so,” he answered.
In May of 1586 a traveler brought Dee some bad news. King Rudolf had convinced the new pope, Sixtus V, to issue an edict banishing Dee from Prague. Dee had been charged with “necromancy and commerce with Satan.”
“This is not as grave as it appears,” Vilém said. “Rudolf does not know of your presence here—you’re safe as long as you stay on my estate. And we can find ways to persuade Sixtus to rescind his edict.”
“It’s worrisome in one way, though,” Dee said. “I’d hoped Rudolf had forgotten all about us.”
“Perhaps he will, eventually,” Vilém said. “I’ve never known him to keep his mind on one thing for long.” He looked thoughtful. “Except for his grievances against Matthias, of course.”
Dee smiled ruefully. “You don’t comfort me, my friend.”
11
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 aga
in.”
“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.
All four were sleeping peacefully. He held the candle over each in turn and said their names silently, as though performing an incantation: “Arthur, Katherine, Rowland, Michael.” Then he turned and went back to his room.
He woke what seemed a short time later. A terrible feeling of dread weighed upon him, a feeling he had thought he had left behind when he came to Trebona.
He listened hard. The same footsteps were heading down the corridor.
Once again the footsteps stopped at his door and he hear
d the malicious laugh. Once again he stumbled to the corridor and looked left and right down the hallway. Once again he visited his children’s room, and once again he saw nothing amiss.
He did not go back to sleep, and so was awake when the footsteps came again and the entire performance was repeated. And repeated again an hour later, though this time Dee could see the sky turning pale beyond his window and knew that dawn was near. Somewhere a cock crowed.
He lay still, watching the sky grow lighter. Objects emerged slowly out of the gloom, defining themselves: bed, wardrobe, chair. Their very ordinariness reassured him. When he heard servants bustling down the hall he dressed and went downstairs.
Count Vilém sat alone at a great oak table, breakfasting on bread and beer. “Good day, John!” he called to him. “Care to join me?”
Dee sat. His eyes felt stuffed with sand. Vilém gestured to a servant standing motionless by the table; the man left and returned with a platter of bread and beer. Dee stared at it, wishing he had some of that reviving drink Loew had once served him—what was it called? Coffee, that was it.
“John,” Vilém said. “John, are you listening to me? A traveler brought some letters last night.”
Dee forced himself to pay attention. “Letters. Yes.”
“Listen to this,” Vilém said, opening one of the envelopes in front of him. “It’s from a friend of mine in Prague. ‘I was recently introduced to a man who is fashioning a cup from a giant green stone,’ he writes. ‘He claims the stone is an emerald, though I have never seen or heard of one so large. He is a Jew, and says he is making the cup in anticipation of the coming of the Messiah. There are strange mystic currents in Prague. Everyone feels that something is about to happen soon, though no two people can agree on what it will be. You must leave Trebona, my friend, and come to the city—otherwise you will miss it.’”
Vilém looked up. “What do you think? Is something about to happen?” He saw Dee’s expression and put his letter down. “What is wrong?”
“I heard something last night,” Dee said. “Footsteps.”
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