“Poor creature,” one of the assistants whispered.
Rabbi Loew’s eyes filled with tears.
“Yes,” he said, glancing at the unsealed box. “You must scatter the clay on the banks of the Vltava. We must pray for him, the fine, sweet Golem.”
“Will we ever see him again?” the other assistant asked.
“If we need him,” Rabbi Loew said.
He took the small sealed coffin to the attic of the Old-New Synagogue, to rest among worn and discarded Torah scrolls and holy garments that had rotted with age. Rabbi Loew decreed that nobody could ever again visit the attic, except the chief rabbi. And that rabbi alone would know the secret of the creation of the Golem.
“And so it was,” Rabbi Hirsch said, and entered a long silence. “For centuries.”
Michael cleared his throat.
“And Dvorele?” he said. “What happened to Dvorele?”
Rabbi Hirsch smiled.
“Along comes a handsome boy,” he said. “Also an orphan. He falls in love with Dvorele and marries her, and nine wonderful children they have together.”
Michael Devlin took a deep breath and exhaled hard, knowing that the story was over. Most stories and movies had happy endings, and this was a happy ending.
The rabbi glanced nervously at the door to the sanctuary.
12
Michael ran through the winter darkness down Kelly Street. His head was full of Prague and the Golem and the spires of distant cathedrals. Men moved through fog. Rats scurried in tunnels. Stones turned into roses. Love caused rage. He wondered who was wandering the streets of Prague at that very moment, and who was in the Old-New Synagogue, and whether the remains of the Golem were safe in their small, ancient coffin. He wondered about the magic words of the Kabbalah and the secret name of God.
And then, as he reached the dark alley that ran behind the Venus movie house, something hit him in the back and he was grabbed and spun and slammed against a wall.
Frankie McCarthy was an inch from his face in the darkness. He was so close that Michael could smell sour beer.
“Hello, Mr. altar boy,” Frankie said. “How’s the little Kike-lover?”
Michael shuddered and said nothing.
“You were wit’ that beard a long time, weren’t you? What’s that all about?”
“I’m helping him learn English,” Michael murmured.
“Oh, you’re a teacher now? I’m freezin’ my ass off waitin’ to talk to you, and you’re a fuckin’ teacher?”
Frankie lit a cigarette, grinning in the glow of the match. Then he stepped to the side, whirled suddenly, and slapped Michael hard in the face. The boy’s ears rang. His face burned.
“You wouldn’t teach that Yid anything he shouldn’t know, would you, boy? I mean, you wouldn’t, like, teach him about what happened to Mister G, would you?”
“No.”
“But I hear you had some visitors, up your house,” Frankie said. “I hear the bulls came to see you and stood there a long time. You didn’t happen to teach them anything, did you, teacher?”
“No.”
“How come I don’t believe you, teach? How come I think you could be a perfect fuckin’ canary?”
“The cops came to the house. My mother made them leave. I didn’t say anything to them about anything.”
Suddenly Frankie’s hand came up and a four-inch blade snapped out at the touch of a button.
“You better not, boy. You better not say nothin’ to nobody. Not to that old Hebe up the block. Not to no priest. Not to your mother. Definitely not to the fuckin’ cops. You do? Something bad happens to me? I pay back. That’s what Frankie McCarthy does. Frankie McCarthy pays back. I know where you live. So does every one of the Falcons. I know where your mother works.”
Leave her out of this, prick, Michael thought, but said nothing. Frankie smiled in a mirthless way. Then he closed the knife.
“You remember that, teach,” he said. “You remember what could happen, you teach the wrong shit.”
He flipped his cigarette butt into the alley, then turned and walked slowly to the corner. Michael reached for the wall and steadied himself. His heart was thumping. He watched Frankie McCarthy cross Ellison Avenue and push through the steamed-over glass door of the Star Pool Room.
“You prick,” Michael said out loud, using all those words he’d heard on the streets and almost never used. “You fucking shithead. You cocksucker.”
All the way home, he wished he could summon the Golem.
13
At their afternoon sessions, Rabbi Hirsch said the words quickly in English and Michael returned them in Yiddish.
“Yes!”
“Yoh!”
“Thank you!”
“A dank!”
“You’re welcome!”
“Nishto… nishto…”
“Nishto far vos.”
“Nishto far vos!”
Rabbi Hirsch smiled. “Good, not too goyish.”
“It has to be goyish,” Michael said. “I’m a goy.”
“Maybe it’s true, that the Irish are the lost tribe of Israel.” Then deadpan: “What?”
“Vos?”
“This!”
“Dos!”
“Where?”
“Vu?”
“Here.”
“Doh.”
“When?”
“Ven?”
“Now.”
“Itzt.”
“Who?”
“Ver?”
“Now the numbers,” the rabbi said, holding up fingers as Michael said the words.
“Ains, tsvai, drei, fir, finf, zeks, zihen, acht, nein, tsen, elef, tsvelf, dreitsen…”
“Wait, wait, my shoes already I have to take off!”
The rabbi didn’t take off his shoes to count, of course; he made tea. Michael was wearing a yarmulke, a satiny black skullcap that the rabbi had given him, explaining that some head covering must be worn in the house of God. This did not make him a Jew; Rabbi Hirsch made clear that he had no interest in converting Michael to Judaism. Wearing a yarmulke was just a sign of respect for the rules of this particular house of God. Michael told the rabbi that at Sacred Heart only the women were made to cover their heads, while the men held their hats in their hands throughout the services, and the rabbi shrugged. This made Michael wonder again why God had different rules for different people, but he didn’t say this to Rabbi Hirsch.
“Tai?” the rabbi said, gesturing at the teapot.
“Zaiergut,” Michael said. “A dunk.”
While the rabbi prepared tea, Michael went to the bookcase and examined some of the volumes, but he still could not read the alphabets. Rabbi Hirsch had explained some of the basic characters, but they would not stay in Michael’s mind. This was a frustration, because after hearing the tales of the Golem, he had come to feel that the books in their ancient scripts contained secrets he must learn. The alphabets of God, he called them. The alphabets of the world.
He loved opening the volumes and seeing the beautifully designed pages; they were like the huge missals from which the priests at Sacred Heart sang Gregorian chants at high masses. They gave him a similar sense of order and perfection and mystery.
“Later, you can learn to read,” the rabbi said, bringing two glasses of tea to the table. He moved an open letter out of the way. “First, speak. Men first speaked, uh, spoke, and then later they wrote.”