“The Emperor, Yossele,” he said. “The Emperor! What can be done? The Emperor, I thought, knew the Rabbi and valued his wisdom. But he has turned out to be as treacherous as other gentiles. What will we do, Yossele? What will we do? What can you do for us?”
What can I do? I thought. I no longer had the strength to do anything extraordinary. It seemed to me that the only thing to do was to go find the Rabbi, wherever he was, and do what he told me. That was my one skill.
Although now it taxed my strength to do so, I carried him to his small, filthy doorway, so like a rathole that men and women customarily walked out into the street as they passed it by. But there were no people walking in the street that night.
I put the ratchatcher down carefully at his door. It was, so far as I could see, the poorest, ugliest, most beaten-down door in all of Praha. There was, of course, nothing I could tell him, nothing I could say. I don’t have an expressive face, I suppose because it is molded of clay. People do not generally have any idea what I am thinking, however much they offer suggestions.
The ratcatcher stumbled. I was uncertain whether he could even summon the strength to raise his own household, so I knocked at the door for him. It was answered quickly by his daughter. She saw me first, and was unafraid. I was impressed by that. Then she saw her father, and was much shocked. She gave me a fierce look. I bent down and picked her father up gently, and she allowed me to carry him into the house. I put him down on a pallet near the wood stove, from which a mild heat radiated.
I enjoy the cold and damp, and I do not ordinarily seek the presence of heat, which dries me out uncomfortably, and makes my skin crack. But this room, with its tiny fire, was perfectly tolerable to me. I wondered how comfortable it could have been for the ratcatcher’s daughter. Could it be that she also was a golem?
I looked at her, as she moved quickly about the tiny, dark, cold room. She brought a thin blanket for her father, and stuffed sticks into the stove. It heated up, but those sticks would not last long. Even if she was a golem, it was obvious that her father was not.
What would the Rabbi do? I wondered. Would he just give the ratcatcher fuel? If he did that for every poor Jew, I figured, then he would shortly have nothing. But the Rabbi did not have nothing.
So what did he do? I thought about this. I had seen what happened. The Rabbi would go to a rich man, either a Jew or a gentile, and he would ask him for charity for a poor Jew. The rich man would say yes, or he would say no. If he said yes, the poor man would benefit. If he said no, the Rabbi would simply go to the next person on his list.
I did not have a list. I am not the Rabbi. But I knew where there was wood that was not being used. The Rabbi was for my purpose a rich man. If he was imprisoned or dead, he would not mind that his wood was warming someone else. In case he was on his way home, I would leave enough for tonight, and tomorrow I would chop more.
I nodded at the ratcatcher’s daughter. Perhaps she understood me, perhaps not. I went quickly back to the Rabbi’s woodpile, and picked up as large a stack as I could carry. My strength was so limited now that I was ashamed that people might see me struggling with such a small load. But it was dark, and no one was watching. I shouldered on, and brought the small armload of wood to the door of the ratcatcher and his daughter. Then I went back for a second and a third load. I also brought her several buckets of water. Even without superhuman strength, I could perform these simple acts, as any human might.
She welcomed me in and told me to put the wood inside, as though it was a precious substance, something that might be stolen. Since I had, in fact, stolen the Rabbi’s wood, perhaps this was true.
“Yossele,” she said, “we can never thank you enough.”
That is right, I thought, no one can ever thank someone enough. There is always room for more thanks. I nodded and left.
Now that the ratcatcher was taken care of, I needed to find Rabbi Loew. How would I do that, I wondered, especially how would I do it in the dark of the night?
The first place to look, based on what the ratcatcher had said, would be the castle. It is not so far from the Jewish Town, and I walked easily through the dark streets to the Vltava, across the bridge, and up the hill to the castle. There were people in the streets, angry, drunken, violent people. But they did not attack me, and they were not at present attacking others. I let them be.
The castle was guarded, of course, and I could not think how I might approach the Emperor. But I would deal with that problem when it presented itself. First, I needed to find the way in.
I had never been to the castle: I was the defender of the Jewish Town, and there, for the most part, I stayed. I walked around its base, looking up at its forbidding walls. Even in the middle of the night, there would be a way in. Eventually, I found myself at a highly fortified gate. I walked forward and presented myself to the guard. They were startled by my appearing there, but they clearly recognized me. I was the only golem in Praha, after all.
I opened my arms, to indicate that I intended no harm. The guards jumped back, their weapons at ready. I stayed still, my arms held apart and slightly raised. The guards were puzzled, and I could not blame them. We might have stood there like that until dawn, had the commotion not caught the eye of an officer, who intervened.
“If it wanted to destroy us, it would done so already,” he said to the guards. “But do not let it advance.” As if, had I my strength, they could have stopped me, had I wanted to move forward.
I nodded to the guard and the officer, and I waited. I was, of course, aware that even a quiet golem was not inconspicuous, and I was hoping one of the Emperor’s retainers would notice me. It was in the dark of the night, however, and I was sure I would be standing there for some time.
As I stood awaiting the next thing that would happen to me, I noticed a small brown bird on a branch. What, I thought, was that bird doing there, in the cold and the dark?
Then it started singing. It sang a lovely, long, complex song that filled the air like perfume. The bird sang and sang.
The windows of the castle were not open, but as I watched, they opened. It was a cold night in the middle of winter, when the windows were usually kept sealed. But the song of that bird was never heard in winter, although it was common and beloved in the summer months.
The bird sang loudly and persistently. The time was late, but people in the castle not only opened their windows, they came out on their balconies, wrapped in fur, to hear this remarkably unseasonal bird.
Among these people was the Emperor, who looked out to see the bird, and saw the golem, myself, waiting there by the guard station.
The Emperor sent a page to order that I, the Praha golem, be brought to his offices in the middle of the night.
A contingent of officers led me through the dark, silent streets of the castle. It was like a little town there, like Jewish Town maybe, except there were no hovels, no hunger, no cold, even in the winter.
I have heard the Rabbi say that there is sadness in castles, just as joy is available to people at the extreme of poverty, but I saw neither sadness or joy that evening. I walked, led by the guards, down a quiet alley, to a rather plain building. It looked efficient, a place in which work was done.
I had never thought of the Emperor as someone who worked, but I confess I hadn’t given it much thought at all. The headman of the guard knocked at the door, and words were exchanged, from inside to out. The door opened, and I was led inside, down a dark corridor, and into a large room filled with retorts and alembics.
At the far end of the room was a small man, dressed warmly, but not overdressed. I noticed that he was attended by a team of people, and on looking closely, I saw that the Rabbi was among them, and his wife and family were off to the side.