The World That We Knew(7)

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.”

All at once Ettie noticed the blood under Hanni’s fingernails, which she could not wash away. “I don’t care what you’ve done. In this situation, we both have to share the burden.”

Ettie was prettier than she’d first appeared, or perhaps it was the strength of her inner spirit that was reflected outward. Many young men had fallen in love with her and discussed marriage with her father, but he always told them, You would be happier with someone else, and after a while no one asked anymore. They saw that she wanted things no woman should want.

“If we go forward,” Ettie went on, “I would be putting myself at great personal risk. If I recite anything incorrectly I will immediately die. And if I make my father’s mistake, the thing could be strong enough to kill me. I will be its maker, responsible for what it does in the world. You must wonder what would make me take this chance?” The girl met Hanni’s gaze. “There is something I must have as surely as you must have your golem. I don’t plan to stay here because my father is too filled with pride to run away. I will do what anyone with any sense is doing and leave Berlin. And I’ll take my sister.” Her plan was forming as she spoke. They would go first to France, then to New York, where they had cousins. “Identity papers are expensive, and so is the passage.”