Page 11 of The Golem of Mala Lubovnya
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Jakob fetched Emet each morning for the next three days. They walked quietly out of town—Emet being careful not to bother Jakob with questions—and while Emet carried stones, Jakob shaped them and set them. The four walls of his house were soon evident, each rock nestled snuggly against its neighbors and kept in place with mortar. It wouldn’t be a large house. Only a single room, in fact, with the door facing the town. Jakob spoke infrequently, but he did mention that he planned to include a small porch adjacent to the front. “I want to plant a fig tree,” he said. “And some grapes.”
They rested each day while Jakob ate his lunch. Of course, Emet didn’t eat. But he liked sitting next to Jakob and listening to him chew and breathe. Emet was a little worried over how fast the project was going. While Jakob might be pleased to have his house finished soon, Emet dreaded the day when the work was over. Yes, perhaps someone else would find things he could carry for them, but that someone else wouldn’t be Jakob.
They finished work earlier than usual on the fourth day, although Emet didn’t dare to ask why. “It’s Shabbos,” Jakob explained. “No work after sundown.”
Emet’s response was hesitant. “Until when?”
“Sunday. Just the one day for rest.” Jakob set his chisel in the box before glancing at Emet. “What do you do when you’re not working?”
“I sleep. I look out the window. I listen to the prayers.”
Jakob had been about to lift the box, but now he paused to look at Emet. “You listen? Why?”
“Because the prayers are beautiful. I wish I could sing too. I wish God would listen to me.” He shut his mouth quickly. Surely Jakob didn’t want to hear him complain.
But Jakob didn’t seem angry. “Why wouldn’t God listen to you?”
“Because I’m only a golem.”
“Even if you were a man, even if you could sing… God still might not listen. He doesn’t answer everyone’s prayers.”
“Does he answer yours?”
Jakob shook his head.
That evening Emet listened to the voices in the chapel beneath him and wondered what Jakob prayed for. He seemed a kind man, a good man. He never raised his voice at Emet, never treated him poorly. He always thanked Emet for his labors and checked often to make sure that Emet wasn’t overburdened. Jakob worked hard. His capable hands made stone do his bidding. But he was sad. Emet would have done anything to bring him happiness, but he didn’t know how.
The next day seemed endless and empty. Where the attic had once been slightly confining, it now felt like a cramped cage. Emet longed to work outdoors, to have his brief chats with Jakob. He wondered what Jakob was doing all day, whether he spent the hours with his parents and brothers and, if so, whether he was happy in their company.
And that thought led to another: why wouldn’t Jakob marry? People’s habits and customs were still largely a mystery to Emet, but he’d gathered that they liked to be in pairs. He’d seen the way Jakob’s brothers and their wives exchanged fond looks, the way Jakob’s mother fussed over his father when she brought him lunch. Emet had seen pairings among the animals he spied from his window as well: birds that preened one another, cats that yowled as they mated. He thought he could almost understand why creatures did this, because when he looked at couples, he felt incomplete and unfinished. He yearned for a partner of his own, although he knew he’d never have one. But he didn’t know why Jakob insisted on being alone.
On Shabbos afternoon, footsteps sounded in the stairway, and Rabbi Eleazar flung open the attic door and entered. He stopped in the center of the room and stared at Emet, who was hunched against a wall. “I have heard that you are working very hard,” the rabbi said.
“Would you like me to work now, Master?”
“No. Nobody works today.” He crossed the room, picked a piece of broken crockery off the shelf, and turned it over in his hands. “I wonder… how much can a golem learn? God created you for a specific purpose. Do we offend him if we use you for other things as well?”
“I like to work,” Emet said quietly. “I think maybe it’s good if I can help.”
“Maybe. But maybe it is a great wickedness.” Rabbi Eleazar sighed. “How am I to know? I am only a man. Ach, it was so much easier for the men in the Torah, who spoke with angels and sometimes the Lord himself. But I have no burning bush. I can only guess what is required of me, and sometimes I am afraid… I am afraid I am doing the wrong thing.”
Emet’s master seemed so small and lost. It had never occurred to Emet that the rabbi could be uncertain. He seemed so wise. “You care for your people,” Emet said. “God must be pleased with that.”
Rabbi Eleazar gave him a sharp look. Then he returned the pottery to the shelf. “I wonder sometimes if it isn’t arrogant for any man to presume to know what God wants. And what are we to do when our hearts yearn for something we have been told we cannot have? Isn’t misery a sin as well? Jakob, for example… ah, such a waste. He struggles to be such a good person.” The rabbi glanced at Emet and seemed almost startled to see him there, as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t speaking only to himself. He smiled wryly, shook his head, and wandered out of the attic.
That night, Emet listened to the havdalah service. As he pressed his nose to the crack under the door, he imagined he could smell the braided candles he’d seen Rabbi Eleazer holding the previous afternoon. He imagined the people gathered around the warm, flickering flames as they welcomed the beginning of a new week. And he could certainly hear their voices raised in song, especially the slightly mournful pleas that concluded the ceremony. It seemed to him that his favorite singer was especially gifted tonight, and especially sorrowful.
Alone in the silent darkness, Emet tried to picture what Jakob’s house would be like once it was finished. Emet had never been in a home, so his imagination could go only so far. Still, he knew the little house would be cozy, the thick walls protecting Jakob from excessive cold and heat. Maybe Jakob would have lace curtains like those hanging in the windows of the houses opposite the shul. His tools would be placed on a shelf in the evenings, and at suppertime the place would smell of stew and fresh bread. On warm summer evenings, Jakob could sit on his porch and look up at the stars—or look down at Mala Lubovnya, where in the dark attic of the shul, a golem lay on a nest of old curtains and thought of him.
“Did you have a restful Shabbos?”Emet asked Jakob the next morning as they walked to work. The sky was gray, threatening rain, and the landscape had lost its color.
“I studied as always. While Papa and my brothers nap, I go to the shul and read the Talmud. I keep looking for answers there.”
“Have you found them?”
“Not the ones I hope for.”
