“What a good story!” said Michio Kanai. “I also heard that karakuri craftsmen were looked down on in Japan. Is that true?”
“I think it is. Japanese automata were considered to be nothing more than toys, purely for amusement. Unlike in the West, where they were developed further into clocks and mechanical objects, and eventually computers.”
For a while the guests wandered around the room, each taking in the collection at their own speed. Kumi was drawn back to the letter-writing boy and the noblewoman at her dulcimer; Michio Kanai and Kozaburo strolled together, while Hatsue Kanai headed off by herself at a much faster pace and soon found herself in the far corner of the room in front of a single doll. She was suddenly overcome with paralysing terror. The secret fear that she had felt as she entered the room was instantly revived. Or rather the unearthly feelings that had been slowly growing on her since she set foot in this room now all seemed to be embodied in this one antique figure.
Hatsue had always believed she had some kind of psychic powers. Even her husband admitted that she had some sort of special ability. And now, looking at this doll, she felt it giving off some sort of unusual presence.
It was Golem, the life-sized doll. She’d seen it before as a body lying in the snow, and again when it had been put back together in the salon, but this was the first time she had seen its face. It had huge eyes, a moustache and beard, and sat on the floor, just to the right of the Tengu-covered south wall, leaning against the west wall, under the window onto the corridor, both of its legs splayed out in front.
Its body was made of wood; also its hands and feet. Its head was probably wooden too, but although its face was carved in fine detail, and its hands and feet painted, the torso was made of rough, unfinished timber.
Hatsue guessed that the doll had once worn clothes. This seemed to be borne out by the way the arms from the wrists down were realistically depicted, and the feet were made to look as if they were wearing shoes; in other words, the parts of the doll that would not have been covered by clothing. On closer inspection, both hands were curled as if they had been holding a thin stick or pole at some point in the past. Right now, though, they were empty.
The whole of the doll gave off a ghostly aura, but the strongest sensation came from its head, that face. Its expression revealed a more extreme madness than that of the other Western dolls in the room, and the smile on its lips was closer to a sneer. Hatsue could understand a craftsman wanting to make cute dolls, but why would anyone think of making this giant of a man with its creepy smile?
She realized that her husband and Kozaburo were standing behind her. Bolstered by their presence, she leant towards Golem to examine his face more closely.
His skin was a little dark, like an Arab’s maybe, she thought. But the tip of his nose gleamed whitish. The paint on his cheeks had started to peel away like the shell of a hard-boiled egg. He looked as if he had suffered severe burns or frostbite. But his smile seemed to say that he wasn’t bothered at all by any of this. Apparently, the damage was painless.
“Ah, yes, this is the first time you’ve met this one,” said Kozaburo.
“Yes, er… Go—something wasn’t it?”
“Golem.”
“Yes, that’s it. Why does he have that name?”
“Everyone in the shop where I bought him used to call him that. So I just kept calling him by the same name.”
“He has such a hideous face. I was just wondering what he was staring at with that sneer. It’s kind of frightening.”
“Do you think so?”
“There’s nothing cute about him at all. Not like that doll that could sign its name. Why on earth did they make something with a grinning face like this?”
“Maybe the craftsmen those days believed that all dolls had to have a smile on their face?”
Hatsue said nothing.
“When I come here alone at night and see him sitting there in the darkness, grinning to himself, sometimes even I get the creeps.”
“He’s horrible.”
“He has feelings, you know.”
“He really does seem to,” said Sasaki as he joined the others. “He’s always staring at something that human beings can’t see. And he has that smile of satisfaction on his face. It makes me want to follow his stare, find what it is he’s watching.”
“Is that how you feel? It’s what I thought one time, right after this room was constructed but was still empty. He was the first thing I brought in, and I sat him down. He was staring at the wall behind me and I was sure there must be a fly or a wasp or something that had landed there. He has such a strong presence. He’s a peculiar looking doll, isn’t he? As if he’s got some secret plot he’s hatching, but his expression gives nothing away. I think that’s the brilliance of whoever made him.”
“Why did they make him so huge?”
“Well, he’s human-sized. He was probably attached to a kind of horizontal bar like a gymnast, and part of a circus act originally. Or a kind of amusement park. If you look closely at his hands there are small holes in the palms. I think that’s where he was attached to the bar. All of the joints in his legs and arms have the same range of movements as a human body’s. I’m guessing he used to do a giant swing on the horizontal bar. His body is just a chunk of wood, though, with no kind of special features.”
“It must have been quite a sight—a life-sized doll performing like that.”
“Yes, quite a draw, I’m guessing.”
“And why is he called Golem? Does it have any meaning?” asked Hatsue.
“Wasn’t ‘golem’ a word for a kind of automaton that appeared in a story or something?” said Sasaki. “He was forced to carry a jar filled with water for eternity. I’ve got this image that he used to move like a robot… Or maybe that was something else.”
“A golem is a man-made creature in Jewish folklore that looks like a human being. Seems the original concept of a golem was mentioned in Psalm 139:16. For generations it was believed that leading figures of the Jewish faith possessed the ability to create golems. There’s supposed to be a passage that describes how Abraham, together with Noah’s son Shem created a great number of them, and led them into Palestine.”
“So golems have been around for thousands of years? Since the Old Testament?”
“That was their origin. But they aren’t widely known. I’ve done a little research into their history. The golem stories came back to life around 1600 in Prague.”
“Prague?”
“That’s right. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Prague was a bright centre of learning and culture. It has been referred to as the City of a Thousand Wonders and Countless Terrors. The main areas of study that it was known for were astrology, alchemy and magic; in other words, it became a flourishing centre for mysticism and the occult. The mystics and thinkers and magicians who had proclaimed that they could perform all kinds of miracles were drawn to the city in droves. And that was the environment in which golems were reincarnated. This was because Prague also had the largest Jewish population in Europe—a large ghetto community. A golem was as much part of the Jewish teachings as Yahweh. For their persecuted community, he was a ferocious protector. With superhuman strength he was considered to be invincible. There was no figure of authority, no weapon with the power to defeat him. The Jewish people had been nomadic, had suffered, and been persecuted since ancient times. Yahweh and golems were created out of imagination and hope. Well, that’s the way I’m going to explain it. Yahweh is God, but a golem is a kind of man-made being or automaton that only an ascetic holy man or wise man has the power to create. Kabbalah is a branch of the Jewish religion that believes in mysticism and magic, and its practitioners studied how to become great enough to create a golem.