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 biggestparty 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 werekept 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,