IGMS Issue 8 (2 page)

"Perhaps the golem will listen to a Christian. Perhaps it will listen to a Ban."

Braslava rolled her eyes. "Even Christian Bans need to learn that God is not our slave to be running to and fro."

Nina, Mislav's wife, opened the door. She held a baby boy with dark curly hair like his father in her arm. She smiled her genuine smile. "Brasa," she said. "Come in for tea and tell us about this goat."

Such an admirable woman. It could have been Braslava there at the door. She felt an emptiness lurch inside her. She waved her hand in dismissal. "What is there to tell? I open the door to turn my pigs out into the oaks and there's the golem, silent as stone with the goat."

"Where does it sleep?"

Braslava did not want to answer that question. Of late it had been laying itself down on the floor next to her bed. She did not know what to make of that. She thought that perhaps the golem was like a cat, but when she'd looked down into its clay eyes that never blinked, never closed for rest, she knew it was not a cat. The proximity of that clay body at night was a bit unnerving.

"Since when does dirt sleep?" Braslava asked.

"She's got a point," said Mislav.

"Faw," said Nina. "Come in and have tea."

Braslava motioned at the nanny. "Look at these teats. If I were to milk them you know I'd never hear the end of it. I've got to be going."

"What about the bear?" asked Nina.

An old sow bear had been seen prowling the river bottoms, breaking up the fishing weirs. Everyone told Braslava that this is precisely why she needed a dog. But dogs only made her eyes burn and her nose weep. She patted Ephraim on his flank. "One old bull will have to be enough," she said.

Nina accepted this and blew her a kiss. Mislav gave her that look, the one he'd been giving her ever since she'd told him in tears that, yes, she wanted with all her heart to be his wife, yes, she wanted with all her heart to be Christian, but God had made her Jewish. And how could she honor the dead and at the same time abandon them?

Braslava kissed her hand and waved good-bye. With each step she told herself to forget Mislav and Nina. She told herself to forget that beautiful baby. There were immediate problems to consider. And, indeed, thoughts of the bear took her mind from Mislav. She crossed over the river bottoms, the Lord be blessed, without incident and made her way to the village.

The village men and children were busy in the apple orchards. The wives stood in the yards, maintaining the fires to boil and pickle the fruit. Most of the women ignored her. But there were some who waved, albeit with a grave smile.

When she stopped at the well to draw a drink, Anja, the widowed basket-weaver, came marching up. She took Braslava by the hand. "Sweetling, you leave that goat and you come with me."

"The Magyar --"

"Forget him," said Anja. "This cannot wait."

Anja, always organizing someone's life. Of course, she was also often the first to arrive and the last to leave when there was work, and such a person had to be listened to.

Anja told her to tie her bull at the post by the barn. Braslava did.

In the garden next to the barn there was a small boy collecting ripened gourds. He looked up and stared at Braslava.

Anja stood in the doorway to her stone hut. "Come," she commanded. "Quick, quick."

Braslava entered the house. From the ceiling beams hung dozens of drying bundles of lavender and rose. The smell enveloped her like a blanket. Some of the petals had fallen to the floor.

Anja pointed at an oak chair positioned next to a small table. "Sit," she said.

Braslava sat. Anja dragged a chair woven from willow withies from the hearth and set it close. She sat, smoothed her dress. "I was just about to hike up to your house."

"And at your advanced age," said Braslava.

Anja did not respond to the joke. She put a hand on Braslava's knee. She took a deep breath through her nose. Obviously this was important.

"This thing you found at the river," said Anja, "it should not be naked."

This was the great urgency?

"We have been talking, and this is what we have decided."

"Who decided?"

"People. Now surely you can make it a pair of pants."

"Who am I to tell God how he should dress his servants?" she asked. She was not so rich to have extra cloth lying about.

"Even God made a coat of skins for those in his keeping," said Anja. "We gathered a few old beet sacks." She stood, walked to the dining table, picked up a tidy pile of sacks lying folded there, and returned. "Take them."

It was ridiculous, but Braslava took them.

"Good," Anja said. "It must happen today. That's the first thing." She sat back down. "Now, the second." She leaned in close.

Braslava waited. Through the window, she could hear the boy working in the garden.

"This thing, it is important to know where it sleeps."

An urge to tell Anja it was none of her business flashed hot inside her, but Braslava resisted it. It would do no good because Anja would lay siege. She was an indomitable general when it came to such things.

"Tell me you haven't let it inside," said Anja.

Braslava sighed. "It's like a cat. Sometimes it curls up in a corner of the house, sometimes it goes to the barn and makes a nest. What do I care where it sleeps?"

"It is what we suspected." Anja sat back. "You must move or we must find you a chaperone."

"Two months this golem has been running around, and now suddenly somebody is worried about how it's dressed?"

"Sweetling," said Anja. She took both of Braslava's hands in hers. She looked her in the eyes. "Sometimes it takes two months for people to finally think. Sometimes it takes that long to remember the Nephilim."

There was a story written in the first book of Moses about the times before Noah, about the Grigori, the 200 angels who were set to watch over humanity, but fell in love with the daughters of men instead. They abandoned their duties and bore children to the women they took as wives. The children of those unions, the Nephilim, had grown up to be monstrous and hungry. So hungry they began to prey on the very people that raised them.

This was madness. "It's a golem," said Braslava.

"And what is this golem, eh? You said so yourself."

"It's not that kind of angel."

"How do you know?"

How
did
she know? -- that was a question.

"For one," said Braslava, "it did not fall. It was stuck in the dirt."

"Did the Lord not deprive those fallen angels of their flaming fire garments? Were they not clothed in ordinary dust? Did Noah's flood not bury and bind them in the valleys of the earth?"

Braslava was speechless.

Anja nodded. "These are things to think about. But even if it is nothing more than a forgotten golem, how do we know it's not a Jonah? Surely the Lord has greater purposes for it than pilfering goats."

Was this why the creature was sleeping on the floor next to her bed and bringing her gifts? To woo her? Even if it wasn't one of the ancient angels that fell, the idea of this holy thing desiring her, of it taking her to its bed -- she was horrified.

"Do you see?" asked Anja. "We are not thinking of chaperones. We are thinking of the Nephilim. We are thinking of giants."

Yes, they were thinking. Thinking horrible things. Probably thinking as well that it was all her fault. "I did not make the golem," said Braslava. "I did not invite it to my door. And we are most certainly not courting!"

Anja patted Braslava's hand. "Of course, not. Nobody here is accusing you. Not yet. Nevertheless, you must remember: God can do what he likes, but you and I must keep ourselves beyond reproach."

When Braslava exited Anja's house, the boy in the garden was waiting, leaning up against his little wooden wheelbarrow. He pointed a crookneck at her. "You're the one with husband of clay, aren't you?"

"No," said Braslava. "I am not married."

The boy narrowed his dark eyes and shook the gourd at her. "If you get pregnant, you will only give birth to goblins and trolls."

Anja waved him back to his work. "Oleg, you lazy slug. I am not feeding you to sit or to speak."

The boy scowled and turned to his gardening.

Anja gave Braslava a look that said: Do you see?

"I have done nothing," said Braslava. "You know that."

"You and I must be practical, dear. We must start with pants."

Braslava returned the Magyar's goat and then moved in with Anja. She made the golem pants. Up to this point she had not touched the creature. But it did not know how to pull the pants on. So Anja held the pants while Braslava lifted one of the golem's legs, and then the other. Braslava felt first-hand the suppleness of the clay skin and the surprising fact that the legs and the spot on the golem's back where she'd braced herself were warm.

For two days the thing ran about in sackcloth. But it did not improve the situation. The golem ceased its visits to Braslava's house and now appeared at Anja's. On the third day it came home from its thieving with nothing but shreds of cloth hanging about its loins.

Braslava made it another pair, and then another. They abandoned sackcloth then and tried leather, which was not inexpensive. They dressed it together and fastened the pants with a sturdy belt. They stepped back to examine their work, the clay dusting their hands. The golem stood before them, handsome in its way, looking like a red barbarian.

A slip of pride flittered through Braslava's mind: perhaps men did not have eyes for her, but it was possible this holy thing did. She wondered how she might determine the truth of it.

Such a thought, she realized, and immediately squashed it.

The next day the creature returned with a teacup that had tiny red flowers painted on the side. The leather pants and belt were gone.

Anja threw up her hands. "This one is like Adam before he ate the fruit." She sighed and looked up. "You could help," she said, apparently addressing the Lord himself.

This could not continue. Braslava was not made of gold. Anja had even less.

Braslava took the teacup and shooed the golem away. A part of her felt sorry for the creature. But then holy things were probably made to withstand continual rejection.

Anja clapped her hands. "Of course, it
is
like Adam. And that is precisely what we shall tell them: this thing was created to be naked and unashamed."

"That does not help me," said Braslava. "We must fetch the Rabbi from Zagreb."

"What will he do that the Priest from Draga cannot?"

"Since when has a priest known how to deal with a golem?"

"Who is going to go with the mountains between here and Zagreb full of bears and Turks?" asked Anja.

"We must do something."

"You don't have to do anything," a man said.

Both women turned.

Mislav stood in the yard, his beard tucked into his tunic. "The Ban's men are in the vale; I saw them cross the ridge only minutes ago."

"The Lord be blessed," said Anja.

But Braslava felt a small pang of loss. Of course, it was ridiculous. It was wrong. It was an evil thought. And she would not be an unstable woman.

The Ban's men rode in on horses slick with exertion, their sides lathered in sweat. A four-horse team drew a sturdy wagon with a cage bolted to its bed. The wagon clattered and rumbled down the rutted road and rolled to a stop by the well. A number of the villagers had gathered.

The soldiers wore padded, surcoats of blue and carried shields with the gold fleur-de-lys and blue field of the Croatian Ban. The captain of this crew addressed the villagers. "Where is the Byzantine priest?"

Mislav stepped forward. "I am here, Captain."

"Bring us the golem and the witch."

Mislav bowed. "There is no witch, sir. But I can lead you to the golem."

"My orders, you heretic, are for a golem and a witch."

Mislav bowed even lower. "I cannot deliver what does not exist."

The captain's eyebrows rose in annoyance. He picked up his riding crop and urged his horse forward.

Mislav was going to get whipped by that crop in the face.

Nobody moved.

Braslava wondered, what were they doing? Protecting her? She opened her mouth to speak. But Anja grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her back.

"You want a witch?" Anja asked. "I'll be your witch."

"No," Braslava said.

Anja strode up to the captain boldly. "My family has been Christian since Koloman was king. I pray seven rosaries every day. And every Sabbath I travel over the mountain to go to church in Draga. So this thing comes to my doorstep. If that makes me a witch, then I'm a witch."

The captain turned to another man sitting astride a huge, shining black stallion. He carried no shield, but his arms were stitched on the chest of his purple, sable-trimmed surcoat -- a yellow field with a black checkerboard slash. Braslava had not seen them before. She looked at his face. His eyes were like those of a dead fish, flat and lifeless.

The man urged his horse forward until he was close to Anja. He slid his foot out of the stirrup and with the point of his boot, lifted Anja's chin and turned her face. He took a good long look at her.