The World That We Knew(71)

“May you be abundantly manifest as one who breaks enemies and humbles deliberate sinners,” Ettie recited.

“You’re Orthodox,” Victor said, surprised. He himself had not been bar mitzvah and had never learned Hebrew.

“Not anymore. By now, I’ve offended God in every way possible. I’m amazed I’m not dead already.”

Victor grinned. “What could a girl like you do that would be so terrible?”

She understood that he really didn’t know her at all. He regarded her as a slight girl that he was instructing in the art of rebellion and murder, and had no idea of what she might be capable of. She had brought inanimate matter to life, she had forsaken her faith and her family, she had lost her sister, she had changed her name, she was willing to give up everything to rid the earth of a monster. When she didn’t answer, Victor was wise enough to let it go. He, too, had committed acts he never wished to speak of. The bombings had taken lives, some by accident, and he could not put back together that which had been destroyed, nor would he have wanted to, for he had missions that must be completed for the greater good, for the good of all. He would not speak of such things, just as Ettie would not speak of the golem she had created, the affront to God that she had to bear. Had her father known what she’d done, he would have wept and torn out his hair. He would never have spoken to her again.

Now, riding through the dark, she wondered what had happened to the creature who had no choice but to do as she was commanded. She wondered if she should have kept the golem so that her duty was to watch over not one woman’s daughter but all children: the brothers who crouched down in the rosemary before they were arrested, the boy left weeping at the door while his mother was brought to the captain’s bedroom, the children separated from their parents who had been sent on the trains to the East. Perhaps she should have created a hundred golems, perhaps a thousand, an army to fight on their behalf, each one stronger than a hundred horsemen, all with the mission of saving their people. Perhaps her father regretted the very same thing, when it was already too late, when he was on the train and a sin such as the one she was responsible for no longer mattered.

Victor delivered Ettie to the doctor’s house, assuring her that he would be back as soon as he had the materials he needed. She was surprised to feel a wave of sadness about his departure; she had come to think of him as a brother.

“If anything happens, what would you miss most in this world?” she asked.

“Nothing will happen.” His expression was set. Doubt was something neither of them could afford.

“You must have it. The one thing you live for.”

He flushed and looked annoyed. “You want me to look like a fool,” he said.

“No, not at all. I don’t know the answer for myself. But you’re different than I am. Surely there must be something.”

She looked so vulnerable in the dark, her nervous, chalky face flecked with freckles, so unlike her usual fierce self. Because of this Victor was moved to tell her the truth, whether or not he seemed a fool.

“Marianne,” he answered. “Nothing else matters.”



People said love was the antidote to hate, that it could mend what was most broken, and give hope in the most hopeless of times. That time was now. They had watched the captain enough to know that on Friday nights he went to the café in town to look for women and girls. This was why fathers hid their daughters and wives, why women no longer walked through the streets. But Ettie would be waiting for him. She would be wearing the red shoes.

She thought over her situation, and by the following day she’d come to a decision. She had never been with a man, and if things went wrong, she didn’t wish the captain to be the first man who touched her. She went to Dr. Girard’s study, where he was reading a book and having a glass of wine, doing his best not to think about the past, the same routine he had every night, disrupted only by chess games with Ettie. When he saw Ettie, he assumed she had come for a game, but she was barefoot and her expression was troubled. He knew her mission with Victor was approaching, and he wondered if she was backing out.

“Have you come for chess?” he asked.

In her old life, Ettie would not have been allowed to be alone in the same room with a man who was not a member of her family, but now she went to him, and because it was so difficult to ask for what she wanted, she came to sit on his lap. He was startled and confused by her unexpected action.

“There, there,” he said as if she were a girl, perhaps one of his patients who feared being ill. “You’re not getting frightened, are you? You have to be sure, Ettie. If this isn’t for you, speak up now before you endanger yourself and the others.”

“That isn’t the problem. I want to be with you before I go,” she told the doctor.

The doctor drew her off his lap, depositing her on the chair across from him. He was flattered, but not interested. He had not been with a woman since Sarah’s death, and he didn’t intend to be with one again. “Let’s play chess instead,” he suggested patiently, as if speaking to a child.

Ettie stood up and unbuttoned her dress. It was an ill-fitting frock, unlike any of the clothes in his wife’s closet. Girard thought perhaps it had belonged to the housekeeper.

Ettie could only coax him by telling him the truth. “The first one can’t be him,” she explained.