Page 20 of The Golem of Mala Lubovnya
“And she never lets me forget it!”
“I understand how she feels. If you were to become ill—”
“I won’t.” Jakob gave Emet’s arm a light punch. “Don’t you start smothering me too. It was a scratchy throat and nothing more. I probably howled too loud when we were in bed together yesterday.”
Emet smiled at the memory. Jakobhadbeen pretty loud. Emet hadn’t been all that quiet either.
“Do you really have work for us today?” he asked. Rabbi Eleazar didn’t even ask for an excuse anymore—he just ushered Emet out the door.
“Mm, not exactly. I had an idea, though.”
If Emet had eyebrows, he would have waggled them. “Oh?”
“Notthatsort of idea. Well, that too. But I thought maybe you might like to learn to read.”
“Read?” Emet nearly stumbled with astonishment. “But I’m—”
“Only a golem. I know. Emet, you’re as smart as any man I know. Much smarter than my brother Haskel, and even he eventually learned his letters.”
They’d reached the top of the hill. Jakob opened the little wooden gate he’d attached to his stone fence, and Emet followed. They stopped just inside the yard, and Jakob reached up to caress Emet’s cheek. He said, “You don’t have to learn, but I thought you might like to.”
“I’d… I’d like to try.”
“Good.”
Jakob turned to close the gate—then gasped. “What….”
Emet spun around, and what he saw made his belly clench. Mala Lubovnya was on fire. Not all of it, to be sure, but thick smoke rose from many of the houses.
“The duke!” Jakob cried.
Emet didn’t bother with the gate. Instead he vaulted the stone wall with very little effort. He sped so quickly downhill that it was as if his feet barely touched the ground. At first he was dimly aware of Jakob running behind him, but Emet was much faster. He glanced quickly over his shoulder when he reached the town gate, but there was no sign of Jakob behind him. He could hear voices coming from the center of town—shouts and screams and people crying.
As he ran, he passed a few burning buildings and some shops with smashed windows. People were busily nursing the wounded. Since there was no sign of anyone with weapons, Emet continued toward the shul, which was just a block from the main square. He hoped Rabbi Eleazar would be there to give him orders.
But before he got to the shul, he came to the covered market and discovered an uneven battle. Old people and children huddled among the stalls, wailing, while men and a few women tried to fend off a crowd of strangers. The strangers were outnumbered, but they wielded swords, clubs, and spears, while the townspeople defended themselves with whatever they could grab. Bodies lay unmoving on the ground, and blood puddled on the cobbles.
Emet couldn’t wait for someone to tell him what to do. He roared and charged into the melee. While the townspeople ran back toward the stalls, Emet grabbed the nearest man with a sword and tore off his head. It was an easy thing to do, killing a man. Plastering a ceiling was much more challenging. He lifted another man into the air and broke him over his knee like kindling. The others attacked him, and although steel bit into his body and heavy pieces of wood thudded against his back and head, he didn’t slow. He didn’t stop until every stranger lay unmoving.
Blood was everywhere, and the reek was indescribable. The townspeople continued to cluster among the market stalls. They stared at Emet with round eyes and snow-white faces.
Emet came back to himself enough to notice that there was no sign of his beloved. “Jakob!” he shouted. “Jakob!”
No answer came. But smoke from burning buildings still rose into the sky, and somewhere nearby more shouts resounded. Emet ran. He made several wrong turns—the sounds echoed and bounced confusingly off the stone buildings. But where a narrow street dead-ended against a wall, he found more people. They ran around and screamed, and the thick smoke made visibility poor. Emet nearly tripped over a man who knelt on the cobblestones, sobbing over the broken corpse of a woman in a gray scarf. The man looked up at Emet, his eyes wide with grief, and it was Emet’s turn to cry out, because he recognized the man: Jakob’s father.
“Jakob? Where’s Jakob?” Emet asked.
There was no lucidity in Mr. Abramov’s eyes. “They’ve killed my Rivka. My Rivka’s gone.”
Emet had no time for sorrow, not even for the woman who’d made him a cloak and a quilt. “Where’s Jakob?” he repeated, shouting.
Mr. Abramov didn’t answer.
A beardless young man lunged at them out of the chaos. His face and collar were splattered with scarlet, and he held a hatchet high over his head. But Emet plucked the hatchet easily from his hands and buried the blade deeply in the man’s face. Emet viewed the world through a haze of red. Even his thoughts were red, his mind no more rational than Mr. Abramov’s.
Several men charged Emet at once. As he broke one attacker’s neck, he was pierced by sword and spear. He yelped at each fresh spot of pain—it seemed his body was nothing but pain now—but he killed them all. And then he cast around, desperate for Jakob. He would simply murder everyone until he found his lover.
Two figures lurched out of a burning house. Emet reached for them, intending to bash their heads together. As his hand touched one man’s shoulder, however, his sensibility returned just enough for the familiar face to register. “Jakob!” he sobbed.
