Emet (Part Two)

The Desert

Though you freed us from the shackles of Egyptian masters, still you treat us as slaves, marching us through the wastes, praying to a god we have never known. Though you share our blood, you refuse us when we pray. Though you promise us we are destined to offer tribute to our Lord in a temple held up by golden pillars, we live in nothingness, our roof held up by twisted desert trees.

We do not protest without thought, Moses. We have seen your miracles. We have seen you and your–– no, our God triumph over those of our oppressors. We have seen you bring the waters in to sweep away those who wish us harm. We have eaten and drank in the wilderness because you have given us sustenance. We sing praise with you, turning together to the skies with joy in our hearts as we proclaim shemah y’israel ad-ni elohenu, ad-ni echand. Those words, so new to our ears, whispered only to us by our mothers as we lay curled to their breasts, mark the promise we still hold to, the one given to us by Abraham, the ones his son spoke as he spoke his final breaths.

And yet, our Lord, when we build you a statue, when we sing your praise, your prophet chastises us. We still can taste the dust of the bejeweled thing we made made for you. It is a bitter taste, oh Lord.

-----

Korach smiled as the other Cohanim gathered around him. Two-hundred-and-fifty-two men stood behind him, the brightness of their stares betraying the excitement they hid behind grim stares. Each offered up the precious bundle of sweet-smelling keturet they had brought with them. The spices were piled, and Korach set the mound ablaze, filling the clearing with honeyed smoke. Tears rolled down his face as he sang his praise, lifting his head to the sky as the incense filled his nostrils. The embers lept from the pit and flew upward, joining the dancing stars.

He knew the ceremony from watching Aaron. He knew the words because they came from his soul. Korach’s chant damned his enemies, wished fortune for his friends, and offered words of adoration for the deity whose name he had never spoken. But now was the time. As he stood on his altar, adorned in the finest cloth, weighed down with jewelry and stones, Korach let the feeling of priestliness wash through him. At last, all the eyes in the world were on him.

There it was, that little word that held the truth of all the world. Korach breathed in, holding the air within his lungs, savoring the scent of the incense. He opened his mouth and bellowed the name.

. . .

The Riverbed

It exists. It can tell because it can question how it tells. It has toes? It can tell because it can see the toes. It… it can move the toes. It can move its toes! They are its toes.

It can only see one way, and must sit up. It feels much better now. “It feels much better now,” it thinks.

“It thinks?” It thinks. “No,” it thinks. “I think. I feel much better now. They are my toes. I can move my toes. I can see my toes. I HAVE TOES! I- I EXIST!”

The clay thing looked around in delight, its newborn eyes taking in every detail of its new world, despite the darkness. Three things moved away from the creature as it twisted itself upright, one diminutive one with a long gray beard, and two with only the beginnings of hair on their chin, all wearing simple black clothing. They were looking back at it.

. . .

Finder frowned. There was no way to know what it was thinking, or even if it could think. If the scripture had been wrong, there was no telling what this thing was. Finder began to regret making it quite so large. Nevertheless, it existed, and he needed it. There was no time to reconsider. He pointed at the creature, his hand shaking.

“You know what you have to do.”

Finder wasn’t sure if the creature understood the words, but as the golem turned from the three and wandered into the woods, he hoped it had understood the meaning.

“Fight this libel. Save us, my blasphemous new Adam.”

…

Nikkita Rusev hadn’t been in the army for nearly twenty years, and had done nothing notable since. His name was known only to those who heard him when he shouted it, and odds were his grave would be left unnoticed until someone needed a hole to shit in. Yet as he strutted through the burning streets of the ghetto surrounded by his fellow fighters, his grandfather’s rifle in hand and his country’s colors on his chest, he fancied himself a grand commander.

In the few weeks since he and his comrades had come to Kiev, they had rallied their brothers, arming and enraging them. He had whispered rumors of how the semites would carry away Christian children for their twisted rituals. He had reminded them how long these gold-scrapers, these leeches, had clung to the belly of their city. And now these once-meek men marched with him to take it back.

Most of the street was already destroyed or looted, but a few homes still stood untouched, either unnoticed in the chaos or protected by the meager police presence that arrived when the riots began. A tall man in PPSO uniform stood before the door of a silversmith, stubbornly defending it without risking wading into the armed crowd beyond. A group of red-clad men approached him, one carrying a torch, one with a club, and a front man whose hands were stowed in his pockets. Nikkita couldn’t make out the words exchanged, but the three made their point clear when the man in front pulled a shattered bottle from his sleeve and drove it deep into the officer’s neck. The officer stiffened and his mouth dropped open. He dropped to the street, shivering as he bled onto the stones. The trio stepped over his limp body and into the shop.

The group emerged a moment later, their arms full of goblets, necklaces, and watches. The man in back no longer carried his torch. They had barely made it a block before the building went up in flame. The man with the bottle waved to Nikkita, his head now sporting a bloodied PPSO hat.

Nikita nodded to the piles they carried and smiled. “Alekseyeva. What do you have for me?”

Alekseyevka laughed. “Fuck you, Rusev. You drag my boys down to the lowlands just to knock around a couple of Jews, and now you want me to pay you for it? If you want something go take it from the fire.”

Nikita's response was drowned out by gunshots. He frowned. None of the ghetto-dwellers were armed. His rifle was more of a show of force than a weapon. What exactly was some idiot shooting at through this much smoke? Commanders never run, so Rusev walked quickly.

Once, when Nikkita was in the service, a bear had made its way into one of the outlying tents where someone had thoughtlessly left food. A very frightened recruit had awoken and come face-to-face with the very startled animal, who swatted the young man with a forepaw before bounding back into the woods. Nikkita had been assigned the job of salvaging what he could from the tent. The poor man’s face had been cut to strips and his ripped throat had left a soupy pool of gore soaking into his pillow. He’d long assumed it would be the worst thing he’d see in his lifetime. What he saw before him trumped it easily.

One man was flattened against the street, recognizable as human only by the clothes that rested in the bloody pulp. Another man was impaled through the chest, hanging limp on top of a lamp post. Smoke clogged the back of the alley, but Rusev could see flashes of gunpowder. Another red-clad man emerged from the smoke, blood running down the side of his head, bolted Nikkita without so much as a nod. Nikkita clenched his rifle and pushed into the murk ahead. He would not run from kikes.

The glow of lamp posts pierced the smoke in places, but Nikkita mostly navigated by scraping his bayonet against the walls and doors of the alley. Only thirty seconds in the smoke and his lungs already burned. His shirt over his face offered little protection. He stepped around a broken cart wheel and stumbled, catching himself by thrusting the bayonet forward against a wall. The point dug much further than it should have. Nikkita looked up as the wall turned to face him.

Nikkita stepped back, making out the creature’s head, nearly a meter above his own. It turned and looked at him, expressionless. He steadied his weapon and shot, the barrel lined up so as to strike the thing between the eyes, if it had any. The shot rang, the sound bouncing between the walls. The thing didn’t so much as flinch as the lead carved a hole through its head, splattering clay across the scorched buildings behind.

An earthen hand grabbed Nikkita and lifted him into the air by his coat. The thing’s face was expressionless, its eyes little more than dark pits in its face. Yet those eyes ran over the Rusev’s body with grim intelligence. Never to be outdone, Nikkita stared back.

Somehow It knew, this was the man it was looking for. It lifted the troublesome creature closer to Its face.

Somehow he knew he was going to die. He beat his fist against the creature’s arm, his teeth glistening through his scowl.

It reached out Its other hand, grabbing the little man by either arm.

He stretched out his fingertips as his arms were pulled to the side. Perhaps he could still reach his pistol and-

It pulled harder and watched in interest as the bearded man in the red coat ripped down the middle. Quite a bit was spilling out of him, but his face was blank. Inside the creature’s mouth, the parchment burned to ash, leaving behind no trace of the name Nikkita Rusev.

The golem dropped the halves and spat the ash from its mouth. It could feel the holes where the others had shot It. It ran a hand over the wounds and was relieved to find that the supple clay could be moved back into place. The heat in this place made It feel stiff. Perhaps it was time to leave.

Perhaps “It” was too harsh a word for itself, it thought. It ought to call itself “he,” like the three from the woods, but the word didn’t fit. It recalled a hundred books it had never read to find one of a thousand words It had never spoken. “She,” It decided. “I am a she. Any description beyond that, I must earn.” She repeated the word in her head, narrating her movements, her steps, her thoughts. “Self is a strange thing,” she thought. She. She smiled, the heat-dried clay at the edge of her mouth crumbling to the ground.

A massive shape made its way through the streets of ghetto, her head bent, arms dragging. Pushing through a gate, the golem found a tree to rest against, wishing for the first time that she could sleep.

. . .

(End of Part Two)

(Click Here for Part One)