The tanner’s convalescence lasted many weeks, but more painful than the healing of his wounds was the humiliation boiling inside him. Thus he schemed to enact a wicked revenge. He charged the local priest to investigate the disappearance of a Christian child, a boy, also an orphan, and said further that he had seen this boy in the company of a certain Jewish man, named Schemayah Hillel, who was in plain fact the aforementioned maid’s uncle.
Accompanied by the royal guard, the priest arrived at Schemayah Hillel’s house and demanded admittance on the grounds that a crime had taken place therein. And Schemayah Hillel, knowing himself to be innocent of any crime, permitted the priest to enter. This proved a grave error, for the tanner had some days earlier stolen into the courtyard behind Schemayah Hillel’s home and placed the murdered body of the boy, killed at his own hand, beneath a pile of burlap sacks.
Upon discovery of the corpse, the priest charged Schemayah Hillel with having taken the boy’s life for the purpose of extracting blood for the Passover ritual.
Now, it was clear to all that Schemayah Hillel was a respected elder, not to mention feeble-bodied and therefore incapable of committing such a foul deed. Nevertheless, he was hanged in the street, and as ever men hate and fear what is different from them, many innocent souls, women and children alike, perished at the hands of the mob. And the distraught maid, seeing the misfortune that had come about, stood on the edge of the Charles Bridge and, filling her apron with stones, cast herself down into the waters of the Vltava to be drowned.
In those days, the holy and revered Rabbi Judah son of Bezalel, sometimes called MaHaRaL by his initials, presided over the community. After meditating upon these matters for thirty days, he summoned two of his most trustworthy disciples to the banks of the river. There they gathered mud and clay and, moving quickly in the dead of night, they ascended to the garret of the Old-New Synagogue.
In accordance with his Heavenly vision, Rabbi Judah instructed his disciples to fashion the clay into the shape of a man of towering height. Then, placing a piece of parchment containing sacred names of God in the creature’s mouth, he inscribed a mark in its forehead, letters to form the word EMETH (truth), from which the world is built.
Seventy times seven they circled the creature, reciting incantations that caused the creature’s body to glow red-hot with life. At the third hour of morning, when the Holy One roars like a lion, Rabbi Judah spoke and said, “Arise!” And at once the creature sprang up, landing on his feet with a mighty crash. The disciples swooned with fear, but Rabbi Judah came forward and spoke to the giant in a powerful voice.
“You shall be called Joseph. You shall do as I command, just as I command it, and you will never disobey me, for I have created you to serve.”
The disciples saw that Joseph had comprehended the Rabbi’s words, for he nodded. However, he did not answer, lacking the power of speech, which is not man’s to give.
They dressed him in simple peasant’s clothes, and Rabbi Judah set him to work in the synagogue as a sexton, explaining to anyone who questioned the giant’s sudden appearance that the man was a mute, found wandering in the streets, unable to pronounce his own name.
To discourage inquiries, the Rabbi established for him a bed in the corner of his very own home. This bed was never used, though, for every night, Joseph would leave the Rabbi’s home and walk the ghetto, protecting its inhabitants and driving out evil.
Chapter thirty-two
Loud pounding dissolved the gold-green of Jacob’s dream, bringing his cheap room to the fore.
He sat up, the splayed paperback sliding from his stomach as he knuckled the crust from his eye. His phone, charging on the bureau, said 6:08 a.m.
“Come back later, please,” he yelled.
But the knocker kept knocking, and Jacob angrily pulled on jeans and a shirt. He put on the chain and squinted out at a man with a shaved head and a lean but soft body. Early twenties, at most. Red-eyed, wheezy, he wore shin-length denim shorts and a brown DKNY shirt. His thin goatee looked like mascara, and as he twiddled it, Jacob half expected it to smear.
“Can I help you?”
“Jacob,” the man said.
“Yeah?”
“I am Jan.”
The mismatch between Jacob’s mental image and the man-boy before him spurred rapid revisions. Screaming kids became kid brothers. Smoker’s hack became asthma.
“Can I come in, please?”
“ID first.”
Jan grimaced. “You also, please.”
They traded cards through the gap, each of them pretending to verify the other.
“All right.” Jacob undid the chain, and Jan sidled inside, taking stock of the room before settling on the edge of the chair.
“I waited for you for two hours,” Jacob said.
“I apologize.”
“What happened?”
“I wanted to see you.”
Jacob held out his arms. “Happy?”
“Yes, okay.”
“Look, forget it. Let me buy you a cup of coffee.”
But Jan had fixed on the manila envelope nosing from Jacob’s bag. “Your photos?”
Jacob nodded.
“Can I see, please?”
“Knock yourself out.”
Jacob watched Jan’s fingers struggle with the clasp, watched the evolution of understanding in his face: horror to disbelief to resignation.
“Look familiar?”
Jan nodded.
“The neck.”
“The neck, and the vomit.”
“The arrangement? The Hebrew?”
“It’s the same.”
“You never found a body.”
Jan said, “I am not supposed to discuss this with anyone.”
“Why not?”
Jan did not answer.
“Who said you couldn’t discuss it?”
Jan said, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
Jan shook his head.
“What’s that mean, you don’t know.”
“I never saw them before.”
“Who’s they? Your boss?”
“Him also.”
“Did he say why?”
“This was like a very unusual occurrence.”
“I’m sure.”
“No,” Jan said, regaining some spine, “you don’t understand what I’m saying to you. In Czech Republic we don’t have murders. We have, okay, people get drunk, they fight, sometimes there can be like a bad accident. But this? Never. My boss, he said, ‘Jan, this could cause very big problems. People will feel scared.’”
“He told you to bury it? A homicide?”
“Not to bury. To be quiet.”
“But some other guys came to talk to you, too.”
Jan hesitated, then nodded.
“Before your boss spoke to you, or after?”
“After. I went to United States, and when I came back men were at the airport.”
“They were tall,” Jacob said.
Jan started.
“Like, really tall.”
Jan stared, egg-eyed.
“They claimed to be from some department you’d never heard of. Friendly enough, but there was something weird about them, and they made you promise you’d never discuss what you’d seen, or else you’d be transferred out, or some other bullshit.”
Jan said, “I can lose my job.”
“That’s what they told you?”
Jan nodded.
“The same guys came to see me,” Jacob said. “They didn’t threaten me. The opposite: they claimed to be helping me. But actually, they’ve been cockblocking me left and right. Then when I said I wanted to come here, they approved, so I don’t know what the hell’s going on. Maybe they’re happy to get me out of town. The whole thing’s weirder than shit.”