Page 21 of The Golem of Mala Lubovnya
Jakob’s face was sooty, streaked with tears and blood. His left arm hung at an unnatural angle; a gaping tear near the shoulder of his coat revealed a terrible wound. But with his right arm, he supported a nearly unconscious young woman. “Emet! Please! Inside.”
So Emet plunged into the house and found more people—a crying baby, a man and a woman nearly overcome with smoke—and shepherded them to the door. He also found bodies, which he carried out without pausing to identify them.
The roof of the house collapsed, and the flames were too fierce even for Emet. He saw Jakob moving slowly around the street, trying to tend to his injured family. Emet was going to help, but more men came rushing into the street, each holding a weapon. Maybe they were coming for Jakob. Maybe not. Emet didn’t wait to find out.
He raged through them as ferociously as the fire raged through the houses. He picked them up and dashed them against the ground, stomping the life from them. He snapped their backs. He tore their limbs from their bodies. He brought his fists down on their skulls, crushing them like stones.
He stopped only when his weapon-ravaged legs gave out, and he collapsed heavily onto his back.
“Jakob,” he whispered when he saw who crouched over him a moment later. “You’re hurt….”
“I’ll live.” Jakob settled his rough hand against Emet’s cheek. “Oh, Emet. You’re—”
“Golem.”
Emet blinked to clear his vision. Rabbi Eleazer had somehow appeared beside Jakob. His hat and clothes were askew, his face and hands were covered in as much blood and soot as Jakob’s. And his eyes were deep pools of sorrow. “So many dead,” the rabbi said.
Jakob shook his head. “He was doing his job! He was saving us.”
“I know. Ach, I am such a great fool! I should never have done this.”
Emet didn’t understand. Oh, he was so weary and he hurt so much. “Jakob?” he said. His voice was like pebbles shifting under a foot.
Jakob was looking at the rabbi. “Oh, no, please, Rabbi! You can’t! He loves—”
“I know,” the rabbi interrupted. “I know, my son.” He shook his head slightly and reached forward to unbutton Emet’s vest. Those buttons had been the first belongings Emet treasured. He always kept them well shined. The rabbi’s fingers were very thin and soft compared to Jakob’s. Emet remembered the feel of them at his first awakening.
Jakob was crying. Emet wanted to cry as well, but he wasn’t able. There was no moisture left in a body of dried clay.
“Emet means truth,” Rabbi Eleazer said. “But if we remove the aleph, the word becomesmet. Dead. I should have known from the beginning.”
Emet hadn’t known either. He’d never had the chance to learn to read. “Would you sing to me, Jakob?” he rasped.
As tears continued to course down his face, Jakob nodded. “Is there a blessing for this, Rabbi?”
After a brief pause, the rabbi sang. His voice was reedy, slightly off-key. But Jakob immediately joined him, and the prayer soared so high that even a broken creature made of clay could feel momentarily buoyant.
As Jakob continued to sing in Hebrew, the rabbi whispered the words so that Emet could understand them:
My flesh and my heart may fail,
But the rock of my heart and my portion is God forever.
When the dust returns to the earth that it was,
The spirit shall return to God who gave it.
Emet smiled at his beloved.
Rabbi Eleazar smoothed his palm over the aleph on Emet’s chest, rubbing the inscription away.
The world crumbled to dust.
