The Alchemist's Door (28 page)

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Authors: Lisa Goldstein

BOOK: The Alchemist's Door
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She shook her head. “I'm stronger than you, old man,” she said.
Something screamed behind them, an obscene sound, like a parody of a man. They went another few torturous steps down the corridor. He wanted to cry out in impatience.
Don't be afraid, he told himself. No fear, there must be no fear. Suddenly he remembered the psalm against demons and began to recite it aloud.
The thing behind them howled again. How much longer did they have to go?
“Light,” Magdalena said abruptly.
It was true: something gleamed up ahead. “Could this be a trick?” he asked.
“I don't think so.”
The light grew brighter. There was a final cacophony behind them—it sounded like bells falling from a cathedral roof—but it was muted, distant.
He saw an open door leading out to the courtyard. Izak moved free of Magdalena and together the three of them achieved one final burst of speed. They ran out into the heat of the courtyard, laughing.
“We can't stay here,” Dee said. “Someone might see us.”
They hurried through an alleyway away from the house and came out onto an unfamiliar street. Izak was limping badly, but at least, Dee thought, he could walk on his own. They went down a few streets and sat on a stone bench bordering a square.
“Who are you?” Izak asked Dee. “You talk about ghosts and demons as though you know them personally, you can find your way through that house of dreadful magic—”
“I told you,” Dee said, still panting from his escape. “I'm a friend of Rabbi Loew's. My name is Doctor John Dee.”
“Loew has no friends like you,” Izak said. “And how do you know Magdalena?”
“Come,” Dee said. “Let's take you home.”
“I'll go with Magdalena,” Izak said. “Not you.” His rudeness
was back; he seemed every so often to remember that he hated everyone and made haste to hide his real nature, the friendliness and openness of youth.
“She might not be strong enough,” Dee said. “And what if Kelley comes after you?”
“Very well,” Izak said, trying without success to give the impression that he didn't care one way or another.
The three of them made their way through the streets of Prague. Loew was waiting at the gate to the Jewish Quarter. “You found him,” Loew said.
He attempted to clasp Izak to his chest but the boy twisted away and stalked off. Loew watched him go, an unreadable expression on his face. Magdalena hurried after him.
Loew turned toward Dee. He seemed to shake off his dark thoughts. “Thank you, my friend,” he said. “Can you—can you tell me what you saw in Kelley's house? Or would you prefer not to speak of it?”
“The house shows you what frightens you most,” Dee said. “I heard—I thought I heard my demon.”
Loew was silent a moment, perhaps thinking of his own fears. “What frightens a golem, I wonder?” he asked.
“Nothingness, maybe. Uncreation.”
“I doubt we'll ever know,” Loew said.
Dee yawned.
“You're tired,” Loew said. “And no wonder. Go home and rest. Do you have a place to stay? I'm sorry, I should have asked you before, but—”
“I'm at an inn—it's called At the Three Frogs. And tomorrow I suppose I'll go back to Trebona.”
“Will you?” Loew asked. His eyes searched Dee's face shrewdly.
Dee laughed. “You know me too well. I should go home, go back to my family. I will. And yet something's about to
happen here—everyone and everything says so. I don't want to miss it, whatever it is.”
“Well, good day,” Loew said. “Good day, and thank you. Our teachers tell us that when a person saves a life, it is as though he saved an entire world.”
“I'm glad everything turned out well,” Dee said.
He made his way to the inn and fell on the bed, still clothed. An hour later he woke to an urgent pounding at his door. He stumbled up and opened it. Rabbi Loew stood there, a stunned and hopeless expression on his face.
“What is it?” Dee said. “What's happened?”
“Yossel's gone,” Loew said.
“What do you mean?”
“He's gone. I went to his room and he wasn't there. I was so disturbed after we visited Kelley's house yesterday that I forgot to take the
shem
out of his mouth. He sat on his bed for hours, not moving, drawing no attention to himself, waiting until the night, and then he left. I've only just discovered he's missing. He's disobeyed me, disobeyed a direct order—”
“Do you have any idea where he might be?”
“None. I looked at Rivka's house but he wasn't there. She hadn't seen him, she says.”
“Who's Rivka?”
“A young woman in the Quarter. He says he's in love with her. I was sure that that's where he would go … . But I have no time for this—we must find him soon, before he does terrible harm. Will you help me?”
“Of course,” Dee said. He smiled wryly. “It looks as if God doesn't intend for me to leave Prague after all.”
For the second time that day he made his way to the Jewish Quarter. It was mid-afternoon, the day still hot and airless. He followed Loew to the town square and saw that the rabbi had gathered a group of men to help him. One after the other the
men gave their reports: no one had seen anything, the golem was still missing.
Loew gave orders and the men fanned out away from the square. “You,” he said to Dee. “I want you to go to the tavern we visited once, and the neighborhood around it. Yossel may have left the Quarter.”
Dee headed back to the gate. How, he wondered, could the golem still be missing? Where could he hide? Surely someone had seen him; with his great height and misshapen features he would cause comment wherever he went.
At the tavern Dee questioned the customers, giving as vague a description as possible; he did not want to start a panic or draw suspicion to the Jewish Quarter. No one had seen him. Dee left and wandered the streets, keeping his eyes open and stopping a few passers-by. When the sun set he headed back, feeling hot and dirty and tired.
FOR THE REST OF THE DAY MAGDALENA SHOWED IZAK A PART of Prague he had never imagined. They went to alleyways behind taverns and picked out food from among the garbage; to a wealthy part of town where a woman never failed to leave out some bread and a saucer of milk, “for the fairies,” Magdalena said; and finally to a dim alley with no exit, formed by the angles of several buildings.
“This is where I usually sleep,” she said, showing him several dirty blankets piled in a nest. “Of course if you want to go home …”
“I have no home,” he said. He felt dreadfully hungry despite all their scavenging, but he understood that this was the price he had to pay for his escape from the Quarter. He did not complain; it seemed a fair exchange.
She smiled at him, and he saw he had said the right thing.
She gave him half the blankets and they settled down to sleep.
The next day dawned hot and bright, and they rose and began their rounds again. Magdalena knocked on a door and a woman came out and handed them some cold meat.
Izak marveled at how she had made a life for herself in the forgotten parts of the city. “Won't Doctor Dee give you food?” he asked.
She laughed. “He does when he remembers. He worries about me, but he's very impractical.”
“But—but that's terrible. He has so much, and you have so little. Why aren't you angry with him?”
“I don't know. It's no good to be angry about things you can't change.”
Izak thought about that for a moment. He couldn't change his bastardy, yet he could not help but be furious at Loew's pronouncements, and at the casual way the peddler had used his mother. Perhaps when he was as old as Magdalena he would be more accepting. “How long have you lived on the streets?” he asked.
“Oh, a long time,” she said.
“Where are we going now?”
They went to an inn where merchants and aristocrats drove up in expensive coaches. He followed her around to the back. Piles of half-eaten food littered the alleyway; he was amazed at how much people threw out. They picked out what they wanted and Magdalena set off for their next destination.
The day had grown hotter; the heat seemed almost a tangible thing, someone walking along with them and screaming at the top of his lungs. “How long did it take you to find all this?” he asked.
“A long time,” she said.
It was the same answer she had given before. He wished she would be more open with him. “But where did—”
“Hush,” she said. “Listen.”
They stood still a moment. “I don't hear anything,” Izak said.
She shook her head and they continued along the street. A moment later she held up her hand and stopped again. “Someone's following us,” she said.
“I don't—
“You can only hear it when we're moving.” She turned, and to Izak's horror she headed back the way they had come. He hurried after her.
There was no one there; the heavy heat kept most people inside. But Magdalena continued down the street, peering into doorways as she passed. Finally she stopped and laughed. “Izak,” she said. “Come look at this.”
He went toward her, his heart pounding, wondering what this strange woman found amusing. Yossel stood in the doorway, hunched over, trying to hide his tremendous height.
“He thought we wouldn't notice if he followed us,” she said, still laughing.
“It's not funny,” Izak said. “He tried to destroy the Quarter once. You didn't see it—it was terrible. And look—he's gotten free of Loew. Who knows what he'll do now?”
“My master forgot to work his usual magic,” the golem said. “So I walked away. I deserve to be free too.”
“That's true, you do,” Magdalena said. “Don't you see, Izak—we're all outcasts, all at the mercy of people who think they have a right to control us. We should stick together.”
Suddenly Izak saw the golem from her point of view. It was true—both he and the golem had managed to escape Rabbi Loew and his harsh edicts. He felt a surge of sympathy
for the creature, as though they were brothers with Loew as their terrible father.
“What do you want?” Magdalena asked him. “Do you need some of our food?”
“No. I want to be safe from my master. He is searching for me.”
“Well, come on, then. We'll show you our hiding place.”
She led them back to the alleyway, and they settled down among Magdalena's blankets. “So you've run away from Rabbi Loew,” she said. “That was brave of you. He's a powerful man.”
“Yes.” Yossel paused; Izak sensed that he was working out a complex thought. “But I have to leave him. All children must leave their parents and find their own way eventually.”
“He's more than a father, though, isn't he?” Magdalena said, thoughtfully nibbling a rind of bread. “He's your creator. The only man I know of who ever created life. I think he envies women and the life that grows inside them—that's why he made you. He has to have mastery over everything, your Rabbi Loew, even birth.”
“He made me to protect the Quarter,” Yossel said. “And there was something about a thirty-sixth man … .”
“The thirty-sixth man, yes,” Magdalena said. “He and Doctor Dee were looking for him.”
“What man?” Izak said, looking from one to the other. “Why does everyone know about this but me?”
“You mean he never told you?” Magdalena said. “That's why Edward Kelley kidnapped you, to force them to share what information they had with him. You went through all of that, and no one explained to you what it was about?”
“No one tells me anything.”
Yossel and Magdalena repeated what they knew: the thirty-six men, Rudolf's interest in the search, the various lists. Izak sat amazed, forgetting even to eat. So that was what had happened. He had been a pawn, a piece to be moved back and forth on a board. “You're right,” he said to Magdalena. “They
don't care at all, these great men of the world. They're too busy with their plans to think about us.”
“Let's go away,” Yossel said. “I want to see the world, to learn more. We can make our own way, our own rules.”
It sounded wonderful, Izak thought. The three of them, traveling together, having adventures. Yossel would protect them, and Magdalena would find them food … . But he had to stay, at least for a while; there was something he had to do in the Quarter first.
“I can't leave just yet,” Izak said. “I have to revenge myself on the man who used my mother so badly. That peddler, Mordechai.”

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