Джонатан Келлерман - The Golem of Paris

He left her the hat and the gloves, at least.

She stamps and shivers, watching Daniel lick his fingertips. “Where did you learn to talk such rubbish?”

“Berta says so.”

She starts to ask who is Berta before realizing he means Mrs. Kadlecová, the neighbor who has been caring for him in her absence.

What can she possibly say to that?

And what moral authority does she have to correct him? Not so long ago, she too might have said the same, without a second thought. Špinavý žid : dirty Jew.

Look at her now, enlightened, putrid, in tattered clothes.

“What else does Berta say?”

“That you are a collaborator.”

Bitch. I entrusted my child to you.

“Do you believe her?”

He shrugs. “Collaborators should be hung from the lampposts.”

“Did Berta tell you that?”

“Everyone says so.”

“Who is everyone?”

He toes the ground, shrugs again.

My sweet boy, my cynical boy. Is that what you’d like to see? Your mother at the end of a rope?

She says, “I’m sorry I was gone so long. I didn’t know it would turn out this way. It will be different from now on. I swear to you.”

Silence.

He says, “It’s my name day.”

Of course it is. She had forgotten, wrapped up in her own shock. Of course it is this that makes a boy of six refuse to look at his mother — a simple error. With a simple correction. She could weep with joy.

“There are no calendars in prison, my love. You’re right, though. You’re absolutely right, and I apologize with my whole heart. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. As soon as we’re settled, we’ll throw the biggest party you’ve ever seen. Do you hear me, Danek? You won’t know where to begin opening presents, there will be so many. We’ll have a cake. What kind would you like?”

He looks at her uncomprehendingly.

“Over there, cakes come in many different flavors,” she says. “Vienna is famous for its bakeries. Raspberry, lemon, marzipan, chocolate—”

“Chocolate,” he says.

“Very well then, chocolate it is. And lemonade, too — no, hot chocolate, it’s too cold for lemonade. Chocolate cake and hot chocolate, a chocolate feast, doesn’t that sound marvelous?”

“How do you know?” he says.

“What?”

“How do you know they come in different flavors?”

“Because I’ve been there, my love. I’ve tasted them for myself.”

His eyes widen. “You have?”

“Many times.”

“When?”

When I was young. When I was beautiful. When I didn’t know any better.

“Before you were born, darling.”

She takes a tentative step toward him, emboldened when he does not retreat. She slips her filthy hand into his clean one, and for a moment feels clean herself.

“Well?”

The Russian clomps down the steps, greatcoat billowing, a leather satchel under one arm. He sets it on the ground and stands akimbo, puffing steam.

“Any sign of it?”

It occurs to her that although she has seen him many times, she has never really appreciated his entirety. In the hospital, lights were kept low, and it was inadvisable to look staff in the eye — a sure way to draw unwanted attention.

Now diffuse moonlight touches a long, pale, waxy face, a candle incised with the features of a man, at once handsome and ghastly and difficult to comprehend, as though his flesh is reshaping itself every second. His hair is the uncertain white of morning frost, his proportions an affront to common sense.

Stunted teeth, snaggled and blackly rimed, are the sole evidence of his humanity.

“Any sign of what?” she says.

“The golem,” he says. “What do you say, little one?”

Daniel says, “I didn’t see.”

“Nothing?” The Russian squats, begins undoing buckles. “That is disappointing.”

He opens the satchel and produces a fist-sized object wrapped in newspaper.

“Can I see the dossier?” she asks.

He begins peeling away layers of newspaper. “I must tell you: I lied.”

The last layer comes away to reveal a small earthenware jar. The Russian gingerly sets it on the cobblestones and reaches into the satchel for another wrapped item, a flat disc. “A full moon does not have the first thing to do with it.”

He unwraps a matching earthenware lid and places it on the ground.

“The artists left weeks ago, little bird.” He cups the jar in the broad belly of his palm, then carefully slots the lid between thumb and forefinger, so that he is holding both, leaving one hand free. “They are home by now, in their comfortable American beds, fucking their comfortable American girlfriends and boyfriends.”

For a third time, he reaches into the satchel, withdrawing a black-and-brown Makarov pistol. He flicks off the safety and stands up.

“Not the boy,” she says.

“Of course the boy,” he says, and he shoots Daniel.

Daniel collapses, shins bent under thighs, a black hole oozing in his forehead.

“Of course the boy,” the Russian says. “That is the whole point.”

She cannot find the air to cry out or the energy to move, and she knows without a doubt that he is right, she is doomed, they all are, because at least she ought to be able to summon a sense of outrage, but there is nothing, she feels nothing.

Gun in one hand, jar and lid in the other, the Russian stands with his eyes raised to the garret door, his lips moving like a housewife making a shopping list, murmuring.

After a while, he frowns at her. “My hat.”

She stares at him.

“Take it off, please.”

She does not move.

“I do not want to soil it,” the Russian says.

She does not move.

“Never mind,” he says.

He shoots her in the chest.

Flattened against the frozen stones, she tastes the warm salty gush rising from her ruined heart. The clouds briefly part, and then the Russian’s winged shape looms forth to eclipse the moon.

HE WAITS FOR HER EYES TO DULL, then turns and watches the door, chanting softly.

Nothing.

He studies the whore’s body. Still alive? To be absolutely certain, he shoots her a second time, slightly to the left. Her blouse shreds.

He looks up. Nothing.

Well, one can only try.

Try, and try, and try again.

Mindful of an irritating throb, he loosens his scarf to give his skin some air, probes the rising cairn of flesh. He tucks his gun in his waistband, sighs wearily, and kneels to rewrap the jar.

Freezing in horror.

The lid is cracked — a thin black line from edge to edge.

When did that happen?

He must have set it down too hard.

He was trying to do too many things at once. He only has two hands.

It’s typical. He was sloppy, overeager, careless, an idiot.

He falls down onto his tailbone, rocking, shaking with rage.

Idiot, idiot, clumsy idiot, see what you’ve done, the mess you’ve made; stop crying, insolent little shit, don’t stare at the ground, be a man and look at me, look me in the eye, look at me, look .

High in the garret above, through brick, and wood, and clay, seeps the gray.

She feels it before she sees it: an icy press, foul and consuming, rushing in like poisoned floodwaters to pry open her many thousand eyes, rousing her to fury, limbs stirring, writhing, wriggling.

She opens her armor, spreads her wings, takes flight.

It lasts one glorious moment and then she crashes into the clay ceiling.

She lands awkwardly, legs bent in six incompatible directions. Even with no one around to see it, it’s more humiliating than painful.

Hissing, she rights herself for another try and once more bounces back as though swatted by a giant hand.