The Golem Page 22

  How much method there was in Charousek’s madness! Was he mad at all? I was ashamed that I had entertained that idea, even for a moment. Did not the hints he dropped tell me enough? He was a person like Hillel, like Miriam, like myself, a person over whom his own soul had taken control, guiding him upwards through the wild gorges and gulfs of this life to the snow-capped peaks of an untrodden land beyond. Was not he, who had spent his whole life plotting murder, much purer than any of those who look down their noses at the rest of humanity as they pretend to follow the skin-deep commandments of some unknown, mythical prophet?

  He kept the commandment dictated to him by an all-powerful urge, without thought of a ‘reward’, either here or in the world beyond. Was this nothing other than the most religious devotion to duty in the most profound, most arcane sense of the word?

  ‘Cowardly, cunning, bloodthirsty, sick, disturbed: a criminal personality’, I could hear what the judgment of the multitude would be, if they were to come and light their way through the passages of his soul with their dim stable lamps, that envious multitude that will never comprehend that the poisonous autumn crocus is a thousand times more beautiful and noble than the useful chive.

  Again the bolts were drawn back outside, and I heard someone being pushed into the cell, but I didn’t even turn round, so completely were my thoughts absorbed by the contents of the letter.

  Not a word about Angelina, nothing about Hillel.

  Of course, Charousek must have written it in great haste, I could tell by the writing. Would he send me another secret letter? My hopes were fixed on the morrow and the exercise with the other prisoners in the yard. That was when it would be easiest for one of the Regiment to pass something to me.

  I was startled out of my reflections by a quiet voice. “Would you permit me to introduce myself, sir? My name is Laponder, Amadeus Laponder.”

  I turned round. A short, slightly built and still fairly young man in elegant clothes, only without a hat like all remand prisoners, was giving me a polite bow.

  He was as closely shaved as an actor, and there was something strange about his large, shining, light-green, almond-shaped eyes: however directly they were looking at me, they did not seem to register me; there was something absent-minded about them.

  I muttered my name and returned his bow, intending to turn away again immediately, but for a long time I could not take my eyes off him, so alien he seemed with the permanent mandarin-like smile which the upturned corners of his curved mouth seemed to give his face. With his smooth, transparent skin, his narrow, girlish nose and delicate nostrils, he looked almost like a Chinese statue of the Buddha sculpted in rose quartz. ‘Amadeus Laponder, Amadeus Laponder’, I kept repeating to myself. ‘What crime can he have committed?’

  MOON

  “Have you already been interrogated?” I asked after a while.

  “That’s where I’ve just come from. I hope I won’t have to impose on you for too long”, Laponder replied politely.

  ‘The poor devil’, I thought to myself, ‘he’s no idea how they treat remand prisoners here.’ I decided to prepare him for it gradually.

  “You eventually get used to sitting doing nothing, once the first days are past; they’re the worst.”

  An expression of gratitude appeared on his face.

  Another pause.

  “Did the interrogation last long, Herr Laponder?”

  “No. They simply asked me if I confessed and then I had to sign my statement.”

  “You signed a confession!” I exclaimed.

  “Naturally.”

  He said it as if it were a matter of course.

  It can’t be a serious crime, I decided, he doesn’t show any sign of nerves at all. Probably challenging someone to a duel, or something of the kind.

  “Unfortunately I’ve been in here so long it seems like a whole lifetime”, I gave an involuntary sigh and his face immediately took on a sympathetic expression. “I sincerely hope you won’t have to go through that, Herr Laponder. By all appearances, you’ll soon be out of here.”

  “Depends how you look at it”, he said calmly, but it sounded as if there was a double meaning hidden in his words.

  “You don’t believe you will?” I asked with a smile. He shook his head.

  “What do you mean? What awful crime have you committed? Please excuse the question, Herr Laponder, but I am genuinely interested, I’m not asking simply out of curiosity.”

  He hesitated for a moment, then he said, without batting an eyelid, “Murder with rape.”

  I felt as if he had hit me over the head with a club. I could not utter a word for horror and disgust.

  He seemed to notice and discreetly looked to one side, but there was not the slightest slackening of his automaton smile to suggest he had been hurt by my sudden change in behaviour.

  Our conversation ended there, and we silently avoided each other’s gaze.

  When it became dark and I went to bed, he immediately followed my example, undressed, carefully hung his clothes on the nail in the wall, lay down and appeared, from his deep, regular breathing, to have fallen fast asleep straight away.

  I, on the other hand, could not get to sleep all night. The idea that I was sharing a tiny cell with such a monster, even breathing the same air as he, was so horribly disturbing that it drove all the other events of the day, even Charousek’s letter, completely from my mind. I had lain down in such a position that I had the murderer constantly in view; I could not have borne having him behind me. The cell was dimly lit by a shimmer of moonlight, and I could see Laponder lying there motionless, almost rigid. There was something corpselike about his features, and his half-open mouth only intensified the impression.

  For many hours he lay there, not changing his position once; not, that is, until a long time after midnight when a moonbeam fell on his face and he became slightly restless, moving his lips silently, like someone talking in his sleep. It seemed to be always the same words, perhaps a sentence of two syllables, something like, “Let me. Let me. Let me.”

  For the next few days I took no notice of him, nor did he break the silence at all. His manner remained as friendly as ever. He seemed to be able to tell if I wanted to walk up and down, and would immediately draw back his feet, if he was sitting on his bunk, so as not to be in my way. I began to reproach myself for my brusqueness, but with the best will in the world, I could not overcome my repugnance for him. However much I hoped I might become accustomed to his presence, it did not happen. It even kept me awake at night. I scarcely managed to get more than a quarter of an hour’s sleep at a time.

  Every evening the same ritual would be repeated, down to the very last detail: he would wait respectfully until I was lying down, then he would undress, fold his clothes meticulously, hang them up, and so on, and so on.

  One night, it must have been around two, I was standing on the shelf again, drowsy from lack of sleep, staring at the full moon, whose beams were reflected like a film of glittering oil on the copper dial of the clock, full of melancholy thoughts of Miriam.

  Suddenly I heard the soft sound of her voice behind me.

  At once I was awake, wide-awake. I turned round and listened. I could not understand the words exactly, but it sounded like, “Ask me. Ask me.”

  It was definitely Miriam’s voice.

  Trembling with excitement, I climbed down, as quietly as I could, and went over to Laponder’s bed. The moonlight was shining full on his face, and I could see clearly that his lids were open, but only the whites of his eyes were visible. From the rigidity of his cheek muscles I could tell he was in a deep sleep.

  Only his lips were moving, as they had a few days ago, and gradually the words coming through his clenched teeth became distinctly audible, “Ask me. Ask me.”

  The voice sounded just like Miriam’s.

  “Miriam? Miriam?” I cried out involuntarily, immediately lowering my voice so as not to wake the sleeping Laponder. I waited until his face had returned to its
former rigid state, then repeated softly, “Miriam? Miriam?”

  His lips formed one word, scarcely audible but yet distinct, “Yes.”

  I put my ear close to his mouth. After a while I could hear Miriam’s voice whispering to me; so unmistakable was the voice, that an icy shiver rippled over my skin. I drank in her words so greedily that I only took in the gist. She spoke of her love for me, of her unutterable happiness that we had finally found one another, would never part. She spoke without pausing for breath, like someone who is afraid of being interrupted and wants to make use of every second.

  Then the voice faltered, went completely silent for a while.

  “Miriam?” I asked, holding my breath and trembling with fear, “Miriam, are you dead?”

  For a long time there was no answer, then, almost inaudibly, “No – I am alive – I am sleeping.”

  That was all.

  I listened and listened.

  In vain. There was nothing more.

  Trembling with the nervous strain, I had to support myself on the edge of the bunk so as not to collapse on top of Laponder. The illusion was so complete, that for a brief moment I thought it was Miriam lying before me and it took all my power of self-control not to place a kiss on the murderer’s lips.

  “Enoch! Enoch!” I suddenly heard him say, at first almost incoherently, then in clearer and more articulated tones, “Enoch! Enoch!”

  Immediately I recognised Hillel’s voice. “Is that you, Hillel?”

  No answer.

  I remembered having read somewhere that to get sleepers to talk one should not direct the questions at their ears, but at the network of nerves in the solar plexus.

  This I did.

  “Hillel?”

  “Yes. I hear you.”

  “Is Miriam well? You know everything?” I asked quickly.

  “Yes. I know everything. Have known for a long time. Do not worry, Enoch, and do not fear.”

  “Can you forgive me, Hillel?”

  “I told you, do not worry.”

  “Will we see each other soon?” I was afraid I would not be able to understand the answer; even the previous one had been little more than a faint breath.

  “I hope so. I will wait … for you … if I can … then I must … land …”

  “Where? To which land?” I almost grabbed Laponder. “To which land? To which land?”

  “Land … of Gad … southern … Palestine …”

  The voice faded away.

  In my confusion a hundred questions shot through my head. Why did he call me Enoch? What about Zwakh? Jaromir? The watch? Vrieslander? Angelina? Charousek?

  “Farewell, I hope you will sometimes think of me”, came, suddenly loud and clear, from the lips of the murderer. This time the words were in Charousek’s tone, but as if I had spoken them myself.

  Then I remembered: they were the very words with which he had ended his letter.

  Laponder’s face was in darkness now, the moonlight falling on the end of his mattress. In a quarter of an hour it would have disappeared from the cell.

  I put question after question, but received no more answers. Laponder lay there, motionless as a corpse, his lids closed. I reproached myself that all this time I had only seen Laponder as a murderer, not as a man. From what I had just heard, he was obviously a somnambulist, someone who was susceptible to the influence of the full moon. Perhaps he had committed the rape and murder in a kind of trance.

  It was certain even.

  Now, as morning began to break, the rigidity in his features gave way to a beatific smile. A man who has a murder on his conscience cannot sleep as peacefully as that, I told myself. I could hardly wait for the moment when he would wake up.

  Would he know what had happened?

  Finally he opened his eyes, met my gaze and looked aside. I immediately went over to him and took his hand. “You must excuse me, Herr Laponder, for my unfriendly behaviour, but I’m not accustomed –”

  “Oh please, my dear sir, you may rest assured that I understand completely”, he interrupted. “It must be an awful feeling to have to be shut up with a murderer and rapist.”

  “Say no more about it”, I begged him. “Last night I turned the whole matter over in my mind, and I can’t help thinking that perhaps you …”

  He spoke the thought that was in my mind, “You think I am ill.”

  I agreed. “There were certain signs that led me to that conclusion. I … I … may I ask you a rather direct question, Herr Laponder?”

  “Please do.”

  “It may sound rather strange, but … would you tell me what dreams you had last night?”

  With a smile he shook his head. “I never dream.”

  “But you were talking in your sleep.”

  He looked up in surprise, thought for a while and then said firmly, “That could only be if you had asked me a question.” I admitted I had. He paused, then repeated, “As I said, I never dream”, adding, almost under his breath, “I … I roam.”

  “You roam? What exactly does that mean?”

  He seemed somewhat unwilling to speak, so I decided it would be best to tell him what had led me to question him, and I gave him a summary of what had happened during the night.

  When I had finished, he said solemnly, “The one thing you can be sure of is that everything I said in my sleep is based on truth. When I said just now that I did not dream, but ‘roamed’, I meant that my dream-life was different from that of, shall we say, normal people. If you like, you can call it leaving the body behind. Last night, for example, I was in the strangest room which you entered from below, through a trapdoor.”

  “What did it look like?” I interpolated quickly. “Was there no one there? Was it empty?”

  “No, there was furniture in it, though not much. And a bed in which a young girl was asleep – or in some state of suspended animation – and a man was sitting beside her with his hand over her forehead.” Laponder described their faces. There was no doubt about it, it was Hillel and Miriam. I could hardly breathe with suspense.

  “Please go on. Was there anyone else in the room?”

  “Anyone else? Just a moment … no, there was no one else in the room. There was a seven-branched candelabra on the table … Then I went down a spiral staircase.”

  “It was broken?” I broke in.

  “Broken? No, no, it was in good repair. There was a room leading off on one side, and in it there was a man sitting with silver buckles on his shoes. He looked very foreign, a type that I have never seen before, with a yellow complexion and slanting eyes. He was leaning forward and seemed to be waiting for something. For instructions, perhaps.”

  “A book, a big, old book? You didn’t see anything like that anywhere?” I asked.

  He rubbed his forehead. “A book, you say? Yes, that’s right. There was a book on the floor. It was made of parchment. It was open and the page began with a large letter ‘A’ painted in gold.”

  “Don’t you mean with an ‘I’?”

  “No, with an ‘A’.”

  “Are you sure of that? Wasn’t it an ‘I’?”

  “No, it was definitely an ‘A’.”

  I shook my head and began to have my doubts. It was clear that in his trance Laponder had read what was in my mind, but had confused everything: Hillel, Miriam, the Golem, the Book of Ibbur and the subterranean passage.

  “Have you had this gift of being able to ‘roam’, as you call it, for long?” I asked.

  “Since I was twenty-one –” he broke off and seemed unwilling to talk about it. Then an expression of utter astonishment spread across his face and he stared at my chest as if he could see something there. Ignoring my puzzlement, he hastily grasped my hand and begged me, almost pleading, “For heaven’s sake, tell me everything. Today is the last day I can spend with you. They’ll be coming to fetch me soon, within the hour perhaps, to hear the death sentence read –”

  Appalled, I interrupted him. “Then you must take me with you as a witnes
s! I will testify that you are ill. You are a somnambulist, a sleep-walker. They mustn’t be allowed to execute you without a psychiatrist’s report. You must see that?!”

  In some agitation he waved away my objections. “That’s all so irrelevant. Please, tell me everything.”

  “But what is there to tell you? Let’s talk about you instead and –”

  “I realise now that you must have had certain strange experiences that concern me closely, more closely than you can ever imagine; please, I beg you, tell me everything!” he pleaded.

  I could not understand why my life should interest him more than his own affairs which, at the moment were, in all truth, urgent enough, but to calm him down I told him all the incomprehensible things that had happened to me. After each incident, he nodded with a satisfied air, like a person who has seen to the bottom of some matter.

  When I came to the part where the headless apparition had stood, holding out the red beans with black spots towards me, he could hardly wait for me to finish.

  “So you knocked them out of his hand”, he muttered reflectively. “I never thought there could be a third ‘path’.”

  “That wasn’t a third path”, I said. “It was the same as if I had rejected the seeds.”

  He smiled.

  “You don’t think so, Herr Laponder?”

  “If you had rejected them, you would presumably also have followed the ‘Path of Life’, but the seeds, which represent magic powers, would not have remained behind. As it is, they rolled onto the ground, you said. That means that they have remained here and will be guarded by your ancestors until the time of germination comes. Then the powers, which at the moment slumber within them, will come to life.”

  I didn’t follow. “The seeds will be guarded by my ancestors?”

  “To a certain extent you have to understand your experiences symbolically”, explained Laponder. “The circle of blue luminous beings around you was the chain of inherited ‘selves’ which all those born of woman carry with them. The soul is not a single unity; that is what it is destined to become, and that is what we call ‘immortality’. Your soul is still composed of many ‘selves’, just as a colony of ants is composed of many single ants. You bear within you the spiritual remains of many thousand ancestors, the heads of your line. It is the same with all creatures. How could a chicken that is artificially hatched in an incubator immediately look for the right food, if the experience of millions of years were not stored inside it? The existence of ‘instinct’ indicates the presence of our ancestors in our bodies and in our souls. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”