She crouched on the riverbank, skirt bunched in cold fists. Sprigs of new flowers quivered at the edge of the woods, and tufts of green grass. Beyond the trees, fire licked up into the gray spring sky.
Judith made herself stand on unsteady legs, her mouth dry as dust. Nothing would protect her in the season of renewal — not her frail body or her gray hair. At this very moment her husband, Motle, would be rushing to the shtetl gates, like last year, like every year, his black rabbi’s coat flapping in the cold air, his fists raised against the onslaught. Last year he’d been spattered with mud, struck in the face, and trampled nearly to death. This year it would be no different, Motle stepping into the path of the horses and their righteous riders, Motle with his arms flung out, shouting in his thunderous voice for them to stop.
This time Judith knew in her heart that he would not be spared. It was her duty to be at his side, no matter that her courage was no match for his. She took a stumbling step, and another, and began to run, gasping over the iron taste of fear, terror bursting her old woman’s lungs. Fear made the air in front of her eyes swarm with black specks, like a cloud of flies, and her knees shook so much that she thought she would have to crawl through the trees to where thatched roofs burned under folds of smoke. She fell under bare branches, grabbing at last season’s thorns and dry weeds until she found herself at the edge of her tiny village, transformed from the place she had grown up into a choking nightmare of fire.
Riders plunged between burning houses, half real in the wavering heat. They galloped after women with long dresses and covered heads. They tore through freshly turned gardens to overtake men in dark coats who fell in the dirt, torn by hooves and clubs and bullets.
“Motle!” The cry wrenched out of Judith’s mouth. A horse shoved past, riderless. The reins slapped Judith’s face and her strength left her legs. She fell in the mud, only to find Motle there, blood in his white beard, his hat and yarmulke ground into dead grass, hands flung out in his final gesture. Stop!
That night she hid by the river until she heard the sounds of weeping in the reeds. She crept out into the moonlit dark and found Nekomeh, a friend since childhood, and her own cousin, Moireh. Judith hardly recognized them, hunched and thin in their black dresses, eyes red in their swollen faces, whispering the names of their children and husbands. Judith huddled with them, weighted down by her old grief and now this new one. First her daughter, Reva, taken years ago by the comparative mercy of fever. Now Motle, gone in an eye blink.
“Who’s going to say the Kaddish for the dead?” whispered Moireh. “All the men … we can’t say Kaddish without the men.”
“You’re the rabbi’s wife,” Nekomeh said to Judith. “You should know. What can we do?”
Moireh trembled in her shawl. “We have to get away. My cousins live in Leva Tefla, down the river.”
“That’s fifty miles,” said Nekomeh.
Moireh nodded, put her hands over her face and began to sob.
Judith stared at the river. Mist lay over the water, as insubstantial as she felt. If the wind were to blow, just a little, she thought her body would drift away, a shred at a time.
They gathered the bodies as well as they could in the dark and buried them in a narrow, seeping ditch. It was the best three old women could do, and as the moon rose, they went back to the river to lie down, exhausted, in the reeds.
In Judith’s dream Motle’s bloodless face stared up from his shallow grave and his lips began to speak.
Old wife, you will never make it to Leva Tefla, not the three of you women alone. You must have some kind of protection.
What can I do? she asked, crouched at the edge of the miserable rut she had left him in. What can I do? You were the strong one. You were the one who blocked the gates.
You must do what women do. You must make a new life.
The sides of the grave crumbled inward. Dirt slid over him in gentle runnels until his features were covered with a fine layer of silt, but not obscured. Judith watched her husband turn from a man made of flesh to a man made of earth.
She opened her eyes and sat up in the light of the moon. She reached over to touch Nekomeh’s hand.
“Wake up,” said Judith. “I know what to do.”
“Why are you doing this?” Nekomeh asked again.
Judith sat back on her heels, more covered with dirt than the thing she was building. “I told you why.” Arms and legs were slowly taking shape under the wan moon. Mud pressed into mud. Clay smoothed against clay. She was no sculptor, and it bothered her that the shoulders were too narrow and the legs too long. She’d wanted to give it Motle’s wide-set eyes, broad brow and beard, but the shape of the face was too vague — a dent where the mouth would go, pebbles to mark the eyes. Now she pushed away the pebbles and hesitated over the empty sockets.
“You’re wasting time,” said Nekomeh, sounding exhausted. “If we start now, we can get to Tefla in five days. It isn’t going to work, anyway. It was just a dream.”
Moireh rubbed her eyes. “My mother, may she rest in peace, used to speak to me in my dreams. She would give me advice about my marriage. Most of it didn’t help.” She touched her arm where it had been broken, years before, not by any gentile but by her husband in a drunken fury.
“My husband always said dreams were misleading without a proper interpretation,” said Nekomeh. “Are you sure Motle didn’t mean it was time to leave?”
“I’m sure.” Judith separated clay fingers. The mud thing lay on its back, gripping at the ground, either reluctant to emerge or holding itself back. Judith smoothed mud along the length of one arm. The moon came out from behind a cloud and the faceless form seemed to solidify.
“It’s too thin,” said Moireh.
There was a long silence and finally Nekomeh said, “A golem is just a fairy tale.”
“This is what he told me to do,” said Judith. “He told me we would never make it to Leva without protection.”
“It’s no safer to stay here,” said Nekomeh. “You think the Goyim are going to wait for the ashes to cool before they go looking through our houses? You think they won’t be curious about who was left to dig the graves?” She touched Judith’s arm. “You can’t wait for it to come to life. We have to go, Judith. Right now.”
Clay stared eyelessly upward, expressionless dirt made white by the moon.
“I can’t,” said Judith.
“You’re afraid to go,” Nekomeh said gently. “We understand. Motle was the strong one. He always took care of you, but this time you have to take care of yourself. You have to come with us, Judeleh. Don’t you understand? If you stay here, you’ll be killed.”
Judith didn’t answer. She patted mud into the thing’s unformed face, smoothing and scraping and rearranging, pushing at the eyes, now wider than she thought they should be, now too narrow. The nose had turned out soft, not hawkish, like Motle’s. The chin was too delicate. She started to ask for Nekomeh’s opinion, but when she looked around, she was alone.
The only sound was the low surge of the river and the wind. Cold had settled into her joints. The night was too chill for the comforting voices of frogs or crickets, and she could almost hear her bones creak. Judith wiped her hands on her skirt. All she had to do was get up and move on, but to dismiss the dream was too much, a betrayal.