The World That We Knew(10)

“As a woman you can form the creature in your image.” If such an undertaking was blasphemy, then wasn’t every act they were committing on this night directly opposed to the expected conduct for women, who themselves were made of a man’s rib? Hanni was not about to trust a male monster with her daughter. It must be a woman. A mother figure who would feel not a forced duty, but real, tangible love. To make sure of this she had saved a vial of her tears, which she now poured over the creature’s eyes. See as I see. Do as I would have. Be who I might have become.

Ettie’s face had a somber expression. Perhaps it was wrong to create a woman, but the creature belonged to Hanni and this was her choice. Ettie did as she was asked, fashioning clay breasts and an indentation to serve as the being’s sex. When she observed what had been wrought, she was disappointed to see the clay being looked neither male nor female.

“Do you have your monthly bleeding?” Hanni asked. “If we add blood perhaps that will let the creature know what she is and God will not be offended by what we do.”

“We?” Ettie said with a frown, for she knew full well where the Almighty’s fury would be placed should an unforgivable error be made. She would be the one to burn for all eternity. Still, what she had begun, she must finish. She turned to her sister. “You have yours.”

Marta had been half-asleep, exhausted from digging at the river, but she instantly was wide awake, shocked when she was instructed to reach inside her underthings and bring forth her monthly blood. She was modest and this aspect of being a woman brought her shame, even when it was private.

“I won’t!” she cried. Bleary-eyed, she appeared younger than her age, but her discomfort didn’t deter her older sister. Getting out of Berlin was the only thing on Ettie’s mind, and no shame would stop her.

“You’ll do it right now,” she said, intent on their success. “Or I’ll do it for you!”

Marta wept, not that it mattered. What they needed was blood, and although she seemed like a young girl, she was a woman. At last Marta turned from them and did as she was told, reaching into her undergarments.

“Place the blood inside the creature,” Ettie urged, bossy at the best of times, insistent now. When Marta balked again, Ettie tugged on her arm. “Do you want to live? We have no time to be ashamed.”

The younger girl did as she was instructed, whimpering as she smeared the blood into the indentation her sister had made in the clay figure.

Now they must circle the body they were creating. The circle would protect and complete the ritual. As they did so, Ettie recited the secret names of God she had heard her father and his students utter. She had spoken these words along with the men from her hiding place outside her father’s chambers, and she knew how intense such a recitation was. The name had seventy-two parts and was so holy that each section of the name scalded the speaker’s lips. Ettie had coated her lips with cooking oil to ease the burning. Everything she was doing was a sin and she knew it, but even angels, who had no inclination to evil, were imperfect, and she was nothing compared to them, only a girl who wanted to live.

“Forgive me,” she said to the Almighty, in the hope that He would hear her one small voice.

If she were a boy, perhaps her father would have heeded her words, and they might have created a golem to protect their family and his students and their neighbors and all of the Jews in the city. But of course her father would never have listened to her. Had he known of the existence of a golem, he would have destroyed it immediately. His own experience had made him distrust such creatures, whom he considered to be little more than demons. But perhaps a demon was needed to fight demons. Perhaps some sins were prayers sent up to the Almighty.

With a final effort that left her panting, Ettie opened the gates with her prayers. To her amazement she saw the letters of the illuminated Hebrew alphabet hanging in midair. Before there were numbers, there had been letters, so ancient and intricate they were used for both counting and speech. Ettie’s awe of the Almighty and His wonders intensified. She felt a web of power in the room. Beads of sweat formed on her burning lips as she continued her recitation. The incantation felt hot and sweet in her mouth. She seemed no longer attached to the ground; everything was equal, earth, fire, water, sky. The other women opened their minds as well. Marta, who was so chaste, imagined a corridor filled with doors. Behind every one there was one of the seraphim, the angels that did God’s bidding and were so close to men it was sometimes possible to see them brush by in the shadows. It was happening now. An angel had appeared in the corner of the dim cellar. He was crouched down, his eyes aflame as he watched, but of course they could not see him, for he was the beautiful and fearsome Azriel, called from his slumbers when the door to the World to Come was flung open, as it was now, ready to take whoever might be chosen to go with him.

It was then the clay figure began to glow, as if burning with human emotion. Its veins turned densely black, before becoming the color of ink. The sisters and Hanni continued to keep their minds open, their thoughts so deep it was as if they had fallen into the center of the earth. The air in the room grew stifling, as it does before a birth. And then it was so. In that instant there was only Olam HaZeh, the world that they lived in, and one more creature entering that world. All three gasped in disbelief at what was before them. The figure had cooled into the shape of a woman. She was tall, with long legs and a well-proportioned body. Her hair was flowing and dark, the color of damp soil. The form had been given ruach, the breath of bones, the life force that animates every creature on earth. Its lack of a soul would allow it to perceive the spiritual aspects of the world that no human could ever know or see. Good and evil appeared in their truest forms to a golem, death was easy to perceive and the spirits of the dead could be summoned. It was possible for a golem to see the angel in the corner, its bare feet dusted with soil, as it took in this miracle.