The Golem of Paris Read online

  Wide steps lead from the pavement down to a cramped, cobbled terrace. The Russian kicks aside wet garbage, clearing room to stand. Daniel explores pocks in the synagogue’s exterior plaster, rising on his tiptoes in an attempt to grasp the column of iron rungs set into the wall, the lowest of which is still far too high for him. Her heart blossoms at this evidence that he remains a child, unaware of his own limitations.

  He points to a peaked door at the top of the rungs, ten meters up. “What’s that?”

  “Really?” the Russian says. “Nobody has told you?”

  Daniel shakes his head.

  The Russian smiles at her mildly. “You can see for yourself why your nation is doomed. You lack pride.” He says to Daniel, “This is an important part of Czech culture, little one. You have heard of the golem, surely.”

  The boy fidgets. “. . . yes.”

  “Are you telling the truth, or are you trying to avoid looking stupid?”

  “It’s not his fault,” she says. “They don’t teach useless fables in school anymore.”

  “Ah, but must everything have a practical application?”

  She hesitates. “Of course.”

  The Russian laughs. “Well said, soudružka. Spoken like a true Marxist-Leninist.” He smiles at Daniel. “I will tell you, little one: through that door is the synagogue garret. You know what a synagogue is? A church for the Jews. Their priest, he is called the rabbi. There was once a very famous rabbi of this synagogue. They say he made a giant from clay. A monster, made of mud, three meters high. Taller than I, and you can see for yourself how tall I am. Fantastic, eh?”

  Daniel smiles shyly.

  “Alas, the creature could not be controlled. It had to be stopped.”

  The Russian kneels, grasps Daniel by the shoulders with his huge hands, the fingertips and thumbs nearly touching. “But here’s the interesting part. The golem is not dead. It is asleep, right behind that door. And they say that on certain nights, when the moon is full, it wakes up.”

  Daniel tilts his head back, searching the woolly cloud cover.

  The Russian grins. “Yes. And if you are patient, and do what you must, you can draw it out. And if you say the right things, at the right moment, you can grab hold of it, and it becomes yours. It must do anything you command.”

  He gives Daniel’s shoulders a squeeze and stands. “So? What do you make of that, little one? Do you believe it?”

  Daniel’s tongue protrudes in concentration. “Jews are dirty.”

  The Russian bellows laughter.

  She says, “We don’t speak this way about anyone.”

  “Your mother is right, little one. Dirty or not, you are going to be traveling among them, so you had better mind your mouth. Are you still hungry?”

  The Russian looks at her. He wants his coat back.

  She hands it over, and he fishes out a chocolate. Daniel begins to tear it open before manners kick in and he glances to her for permission.

  “First say thank you.”

  “Thank you,” Daniel says, and he crams the chocolate in his mouth.

  The Russian says, “I hope you enjoy it very much.”

  “Are we to wait in the cold for three hours?” she asks.

  “I will fetch the dossier,” the Russian says. “Use the time to study it.”

  He bounds up the steps and out of sight.

  She rubs her arms to keep warm, resentful that he took the coat with him. How long has she been free? Not an hour, and already finding something to complain about! Perhaps the Russian is right about the Czechs. But if they have no pride, it’s because pride has been outlawed, per the dictates of men thousands of miles away.

  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.

  CHAPTER TWO

  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.

  Now the pain is real.

  On the bowl of her back, she rocks from side to side, managing to flop onto her belly. Flapping her wings slowly, she ascends cautiously in captive space until she touches a solid surface, the roof of her prison, river mud hardened to ceramic.

  Tucking her legs in, she braces herself.

  Pushes.

  It is like arguing with a cliff. She struggles and struggles and meanwhile the gray has begun to drain, taking her strength with it, time running down.

  No.

  Abandoning caution, she begins slamming herself upward, again and again and again, at last settling on her side, exhausted, gutted by pain, shell split clean open, bleeding, jaws bent, wings shredded, watching the air as it steadily quiets, her eyes closing a hundred at a time.

  Noting with satisfaction, before all goes black, a pale, slim fissure, a crack in the darkness of clay.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LAPD CHIEF AUGUST M. VOLLMER MEMORIAL ARCHIVE

  EL MONTE, CALIFORNIA

  PRESENT DAY

  Detective Jacob Lev tracked the insect as it descended from the darkness between the rafters. The closer it came, the faster it circled, the buzz of its wings rising above the ambient rumble until it ducked down a row of steel shelves, out of sight.

  Absently he scratched at the scar on his upper lip, then groped in his backpack for a flashlight, a clear plastic cup, and a fuzz-edged index card.

  The Vollmer archive occupied one corner of a World War II–era hangar due east of Los Angeles, a vast sad wart on the back of crumbling El Monte Airport. For years the owner had been petitioning the county to rezone it for condos, a request never to be granted, because the place fit the bill exactly for local government agencies seeking to cheaply store their crap.

  Regional Planning, Public Health, law enforcement from Long Beach to Simi Valley: the layout screamed territoriality, cubic miles of yellowing paper providing refuge for squirrels, rodents, snakes, not to mention an impressively varied insect menagerie. Jacob had personally evicted three generations of raccoons.

  The vaulted, ribbed aluminum roof thwarted cell reception and created a microclimate prone to extremes, amplifying the summer heat and dripping in winter. Mushrooms fruited through the concrete. Bulbous metal halide lamps took half an hour to come to full strength, creating an unforgiving haze that reduced him to a specimen on a slide. He usually left them off and worked by the light of his computer screen.

  Restocking was on the honor system. You needed a keycard for access, but otherwise nothing prevented you from carting off crates of supposedly sensitive material.

  There was nobody to shoot the shit with. Nobody to make a coffee run. No roach coach outside trumpeting “La Cucaracha.” In eleven months, Jacob had encountered nine other human beings—data hounds, lost souls.

  His ideal work environment.

  • • •

  IT HADN’T always been this way.

  More than two years had passed since the events that derailed him—events that he still did not understand, because understanding them meant agreeing to take them at face value, which he refused to do, because they were manifestly batshit.

  More than two years since he woke up and found a naked woman in his apartment. She called herself Mai. She smiled at him and told him she had come down looking for a good time. Then she vanished into the morning.

  More than two years since his first visit from Special Projects, an LAPD division he’d never heard of.

  No one had heard of it. Officially, it didn’t exist.

  But it was real, or real enough, made up of strange, towering men and women who obeyed a code of their own; spoke their own, private truth; used Jacob for their own purposes. Real enough to reassign him. The division commander was a guy named Mike Mallick, an e
maciated pedant who sent Jacob to Prague and England and back in search of a serial killer named Richard Pernath.

  Jacob had caught him. Tracked down his accomplices, too. He’d done as well as you could ask of any cop, learning a lot of surprising things along the way.

  He learned that his father, Sam, was descended from a sixteenth-century Jewish mystic.

  He learned that his mother, Bina, wasn’t dead, as Sam had led him to believe, but alive—if not well—in an Alhambra nursing home.

  He learned that well enough for any cop was not good enough for Special Projects.

  What they wanted, more than any criminal of flesh and blood, was Mai.

  And Jacob learned that the naked woman from his apartment was no ordinary woman, but a creature of no fixed shape, capricious and alluring and terrifying, capable of breathtaking violence and breathtaking tenderness in the same gesture. No ordinary woman: she was drawn to him, over centuries, like a star spiraling toward a black hole.

  Making him, in the view of Special Projects, bait.

  It had come down to a bloody night in a greenhouse, Jacob gripping her by the hands amid a glittering lake of glass while the tall men drew near for the kill. Stay right where you are they warned Jacob.

  He didn’t.

  He released her, and she looked at him and said Forever and flew away, sending Mallick and company into an unearthly fit of rage.

  You have done a great wrong.

  In the aftermath, Special Projects seemed divided on how to deal with him. Their initial response was swift and brutal, a short punt to a desk job in Valley Traffic.

  But they still needed him, for the next time Mai turned up. They seemed convinced that she would, putting round-the-clock surveillance on his apartment.

  And outwardly, they made a show of appreciation. Jacob had nearly died at Pernath’s hands, and six months after his release from the hospital, he got a visit from Mallick’s mammoth, dyspeptic deputy, Paul Schott, come to deliver a citation for outstanding work, along with a check for ten grand.

  A “performance bonus.”

  LAPD didn’t give bonuses.

  It was hush money.

  Jacob tore it up.

  • • •