Page 4 of The World That We Knew

Boats of refugees were being turned away, in New York and Cuba and England. Still, there were people who managed to forge papers, and those with relatives in another country had a better chance of finding asylum.

“It’s a beginning,” Hanni insisted. “What would you have me do? Let my child stay here, where she will certainly perish?”

The rabbi’s wife and daughter exchanged a look. When the rabbi left Russia, he had decided he would never run again. Their people were being arrested every day; still he had not changed his mind. Half of the Jews in their village in Russia had been murdered in a single day, and the survivors continued to dream of crimson-streaked snow and children who would never grow up to be men and women. The rabbi vowed never again to be chased from his home by tyrants. He refused to leave Berlin despite his wife’s pleas.

“This is not a discussion for us to have,” the rabbi’s wife declared, though she herself had begged her husband to take them to Eretz Israel. Did he not see that soon there would be no escape other than to be raised up into the World to Come? Did she herself not have children whose lives were in danger?

In another room the youngest son whimpered in his sleep. After that the women lowered their voices. Sound echoed here, and should the rabbi wake to see them he would be furious. If their visitor called attention to them, the entire congregation would be in danger.

“Be quick. What is it that you want?” The rabbi’s wife observed Hanni, carefully taking in her wide expressive mouth and black liquid eyes. Her clothes were plain and worn. A brown cotton dress, black stockings, a shawl that covered her hair. She had been beautiful, but she no longer cared about her appearance.

“I need protection for my daughter when she travels.”

“Go with her if you want to protect her,” the rabbi’s wife suggested.

“My mother is too ill to go and I can’t leave her behind.” Surely, everyone understood the commandment to honor one’s parent. Hanni took the rabbi’s wife’s hand in her own, and for a moment the room seemed to float. “My daughter is too beautiful and innocent to be on her own. I need someone who will never leave her side and will fight every enemy on her behalf.” She took a breath so that she would have the courage to ask for what she wanted. “Someone that is created.”

“Created?” The rabbi’s wife pulled her hand away. Her voice was brittle. Now she understood what the stranger wanted. Magic and darkness that could only lead to tragedy. “You’re a fool to think such things can be done easily, and to satisfy a mother’s whim! Do you think you’re the only one with a beautiful daughter? All over this city daughters are being murdered. What of my children? What of the children next door?”

“I would do what I could for them, had I the means.”

“What you want, you cannot have,” the rabbi’s wife said. “If it can be done at all, and I’m not saying it can be, educated scholars must do the deed, men of God who know the mysteries of life, not a woman who knows only how to bring babies into the world.” She stood, smacking her palms on the table. “This conversation is over. It is likely a sin to speak of these matters! You are asking for a creature that is little more than an animal, a beast one step above the world of demons and spirits. We have no business with such things!”

Hanni took a leather purse from her pocket. Inside there was a diamond ring and a pair of emerald earrings, her mother’s treasure from Russia. These jewels were all they had, a payment worth thousands of Reichsmarks, but if anything, the offer further outraged the rabbi’s wife.

“The act of creation is holy! One must have read from The Book of Concealed Mysteries and make a covenant with the Almighty. Who are you to ask for this? You think you can pay for what is God’s to give! No, I’m sorry, you must look elsewhere for another kind of help.”

Hanni was beside herself. She could feel her daughter’s chance slipping away. “You’re a mother! I thought you would understand!”

“I understand that we must adhere to God’s will. You’re looking into things you have no right to know about. Go home to your mother and your child! Leave us alone.”

Ettie was told to usher their guest out. The rabbi’s wife must return to bed before her husband woke and took note of her absence. She was nothing, a wife and a mother, not a magician. “Don’t come here again,” she told Hanni, whose face was now streaked with tears. “If you think I don’t understand, I do. But I am smart enough to know that sometimes you have to give up and leave things in the hands of the Almighty.”

Ettie led Hanni from the kitchen. Perhaps the rabbi’s daughter knew how broken she was, for as they walked the red-haired girl leaned in close to whisper. She smelled of cloves and lamp oil.

“I can help you. I know how to do it.”

Hanni stopped, her heart hitting against her chest. The two were huddled in a corner by the door.

“How do you know?” Was it possible that someone so young could be party to anything concerning this sort of business? Tante Ruth had said only men could bring a golem to life.

The rabbi’s daughter shrugged and was evasive. “Trust me, I know.” The girl had almond-shaped eyes and skin dusted with freckles. A line of worry crossed her forehead as she gazed over her shoulder to make certain her mother wouldn’t appear before she spoke further.

“Why should I believe you?” Hanni asked.

“I’ve watched them,” Ettie told her. “My father and his students gathered not long ago. It was an experiment to see if such a being could be created again, as it was in Russia. It was accomplished, here in this house. I sat outside the door and I can memorize whatever I hear. It’s a gift I have. I can recall what my father said, word for word.”

Hanni was damp with sweat. If the impossible was possible, who was to say a girl could not perform magic? “Are you sure? The results will be correct?”

The rabbi’s wife had gone back to bed, and the house was utterly still. All the family, including Ettie’s favorite sister, Marta, were asleep in one cold bedchamber. Hanni and Ettie continued to whisper.

“When you deal with spirits,” the girl went on, “you don’t know exactly what you will get. A golem can be like a dog, following at your heels, or it can be more, perceptive, intelligent really. I have heard my father teach about such a thing. It may look human, but it has no soul. It is pure and elemental and it has a single goal, to protect. I saw the one they made, a huge man. I looked through a crack in the door with one eye, but one eye was all I needed. It came to life naked and eager to do their bidding. But my father made an error, which can happen even to the wisest of scholars, and the creature was too strong. It was growling, and when it grabbed a lantern it didn’t even notice its fingers were aflame. It might have burned the house down. I heard them say it was uncontrollable. If they didn’t act, nothing would be able to stop it from doing as it pleased. So they did away with it. They hadn’t used the right ingredients. They dug soil from our yard, but it wasn’t pure enough. Clay that has never been used for any purpose must be found. My father and his students laid the creature back to rest; they reversed what they had done. They walked backward in a circle, erased what they must, and let him become the dust he had been before he’d been called up.”

“So just like that, they disposed of it?”

“You must understand one thing. It cannot have a long life span. There is danger in letting it exist for too long. My father taught about what could happen, and often the maker of the creature is its first target. All things yearn to be free, even a monster wants that for itself. But for the time you need it, it will complete its duties. But of course, you must earn such an undertaking.”

“What must I do to earn it?” If she must be free of sin, then surely Hanni would fail whatever test the Almighty might place before her. “I’m a woman who has done as I must.”