Alchemy, page 11
‘I can’t fault him for that, in the circumstances,’ I said. ‘But you disagree?’
‘I do.’ Benjamin darted a quick glance at me. ‘I think prejudice is broken down by opening up, not shutting ourselves away. I would like to see the walls torn down altogether. All manner of walls, visible and invisible. We must be part of the world we live in, else how will the Christians know that we are men and women like them, and not monsters who drink the blood of children? Rabbi Loew feels the same, I believe – at least, he is always willing to listen and converse with men of all religions. But this murder of Ziggi Bartos will be bad for us. You could feel it yesterday, as soon as news spread of what was done to the man. Some people boarded up their shop windows in anticipation of reprisals. Here we are.’
He stopped in front of a timber-framed house, broader and taller than its neighbours, the window frames freshly painted, silver candlesticks visible on the sill through the glass. He knocked and stepped back; I glanced at him, surprised to see that he seemed nervous, twisting his hands and shifting from foot to foot as we heard steps approach from inside.
The door opened and immediately I understood the cause of his disequilibrium. On the threshold stood an exceptionally beautiful young woman. She was tall and slender, with pale skin and long black hair tied back under a scarf; as her clear gaze alighted on me, it stirred a memory of a Jewish girl I had known in Naples, long ago.
‘Ben?’ She greeted him with a questioning smile, which faltered as she took in Besler and me. They exchanged a few words in Yiddish, in which I caught John Dee’s name. Eventually she nodded.
‘I’m Esther Loew,’ she said to me, in German. ‘My father is not at home, but I expect him back any moment. You can wait if you like?’ She opened the door wider and gestured inside.
I thanked her and introduced myself and Besler, hiding a smile at the way the boy was helplessly staring as if he’d had a divine visitation. I could hardly blame him; her beauty was so arresting, it was all I could do to keep my own face steady.
‘I’ll wait with you,’ Benjamin said, almost aggressively. Esther held up a hand to forestall him.
‘There’s no need, Ben – the rabbi will not be long and you must be needed at the hospital. I will be quite safe with these gentlemen, I’m sure.’
He said something else in Yiddish, low and impatient as if he were angry with her; she responded calmly with a shake of her head and nodded to me.
‘Please, come in.’
‘Close your mouth, Besler,’ I hissed as we followed her into the entrance hall. I turned back to thank Benjamin, but he was glaring at us with a stony expression and I could see that he was reluctant to leave Esther alone in our company. I wondered if this was a general wariness of strangers, or some more specific reason.
Esther showed us into a comfortably furnished parlour with a fire burning in the hearth and we took a seat on a wooden settle, its arms worn smooth and shiny with age.
‘Benjamin is protective of you,’ I observed, taking in my surroundings. The furniture was simple, but well-made; Rabbi Loew evidently had money. Esther gave me a sharp look.
‘He is devoted to my father,’ she said, ‘and so he worries unnecessarily about our family. He knows I can look after myself.’
‘I think it is more than that.’ I caught her eye. ‘I think his concern is all for you.’
She blushed at this, and for the briefest moment I saw a shadow cross her face, as if she had allowed herself to remember an old sorrow. In the next instant she shook it away and smiled briskly again.
‘So, you are looking for John Dee? We have not seen him here for some time. My father has been concerned.’
‘He seems to have vanished,’ I said. ‘I was hoping Rabbi Loew might have heard from him, or know where he has gone?’
‘What makes you think my father would know?’ she said, and I caught a note of defensiveness in her voice.
I hesitated, but decided not to mention the letter except to the rabbi himself; I did not want to worry her.
‘Only that I believe they were in touch. I wondered if John might have confided in him. I think he was afraid of something.’
She glanced at the door. ‘Everyone is afraid of something in this city. You saw what was written on the Old-New Synagogue today, I suppose? This murder was intended to stoke fear of us, with the result that we now live in terror of mobs burning our houses and looting our shops.’
‘Your father knew the dead man, I understand?’
Her face tightened. ‘Not well. My father has nothing to do with this.’
‘I didn’t mean to suggest – it’s only that John Dee knew Bartos too, I wondered if he might have discussed him with the rabbi?’
‘You would have to ask him. You don’t believe Dr Dee is connected with the murder, though?’ She frowned, as if she found it hard to credit.
‘I don’t, but there are rumours of a dispute between them that would make him a suspect, and his disappearance has only compounded that.’
‘I don’t understand.’ She shook her head. ‘I thought, from what they said was done to the body, that the killer wanted the world to think it was the work of the Golem. Which would be ironic.’
‘Ironic, how?’
She hesitated. She had remained standing, one hand resting on the high-backed chair next to the hearth that I guessed was her father’s. ‘Because Ziggi Bartos was obsessed with the legend of the Golem. He was constantly pestering my father, offering him money, demanding to know how one might go about generating such a creature. He believed it was another version of the alchemists’ quest to make a homunculus. You know what that is, I presume?’
‘Of course. The idea that a human-like being can be created in a laboratory, in a glass vessel,’ I added for Besler’s sake. John Dee had once experimented with making a homunculus, I recalled; it had involved burying quantities of his own semen in a bed of moist soil and heating it in an alembic for forty days, waiting for it to show signs of life. Needless to say, it had never worked and the smell was diabolical.
Esther gave a dry laugh. ‘It is a desire common to men of all religions, it seems. God has given them a perfectly efficient way to make new people’ – she patted her own stomach – ‘and yet they remain convinced that a better means must be possible, one that removes women from the equation altogether.’
‘It is my understanding that both the Golem and the homunculus have the advantage of unfailing obedience to their creator,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘Yes, the same certainly cannot be said of children. Do you have any?’
‘Children?’ I hesitated. ‘No. Do you?’
‘I am not married. Yet,’ she added more quietly. ‘But my sisters have plenty between them, so I can understand the attraction of making a being that would obey your every word – although in all the legends, the creature longs to escape its master’s control, so perhaps not so different from parenthood.’ She reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair into her scarf and I noticed the curve of her throat, her fine jaw and cheekbones, how she wore her beauty so unselfconsciously. ‘It began as a joke among friends, you know, or at least a hypothetical discussion,’ she continued, ‘this idea that my father had the knowledge to make a Golem, and somehow the story grew in the telling, until all over Prague it was the one thing everyone knew about him. Ziggi Bartos refused to believe that he didn’t possess the secret, and I’m afraid the Maharal can be mischievous – it amused him to tease Bartos with the idea that he was not ready to be inducted into such powerful mysteries.’
‘Why was Bartos so determined to make a creature?’ I asked.
She let an impatient huff of air escape her lips. ‘Why do any of them pursue their mad ideas? To please the Emperor. It is all anyone thinks of in this town.’ There was bitterness in her tone, but before I could ask another question, she said, ‘Are you an alchemist, then?’
I straightened. ‘I am a philosopher.’
‘How grand.’ She didn’t trouble to hide the twitch of amusement at the corners of her mouth, and I saw, too late, that I was no better than Besler or Benjamin, puffing myself up like a foolish youth to impress a beautiful girl. Though she was hardly a girl; I guessed her to be in her late twenties. I felt the colour rise in my face – not something I had experienced for some time – and glanced away in confusion.
‘Well, Master Philosopher,’ she said, moving towards the door, ‘and your silent friend, I should offer you some refreshment. Will you take wine?’
‘A little early for me. If you have any fresh water or small beer, I would be grateful.’
She nodded. As she was about to leave, we heard the sound of the front door opening.
‘Ah. There is the Maharal – wait here.’
She left, and I caught the cadences of a murmured conversation from the hall, before the parlour door opened again and a stately figure appeared in the doorway.
When I was a young friar in Naples, one of my mentors, Giambattista della Porta, had believed firmly in the science of physionomonics: the idea that a person’s character can be read in their face. I had always disagreed with him on this point – even at twenty, I thought it self-evident that all of us dissemble in our different ways, and some are highly skilled at hiding their true natures – but now and again I encountered an exception that made me concede his point. I liked Rabbi Judah Loew immediately. He could not have been far off seventy, but there was a vigour about him that belied his years, from the thick mane of white hair swept back from a high forehead, to the bushy grey beard, and the bright, shrewd gaze that assessed me and Besler with friendly curiosity. He was not especially tall, but he was broad-chested and hearty, creating the impression of a big man, and I saw an essential goodness in his expression, as if he went through life determined to find the best in everyone he met until they proved otherwise. His face was lined with the creases that come from years of laughter, not the pinched expression that some old men acquire from disillusion, though he must have carried more than his share of care on his shoulders over the decades.
‘Well, well,’ he said, addressing us in German, extending his arms as Esther took his coat. ‘Dr Bruno – John Dee’s illustrious friend. We’ve been impatient to meet you, haven’t we, Esther? John spoke of you so often with admiration, he was so hoping you would find the time to visit. Come – welcome to Prague.’
I stood and he wrapped me in a bear-like embrace, then turned to Besler.
‘And you, my young friend. My home is your home for as long as you are here.’ He grasped Besler by the shoulders and planted a kiss on each of his cheeks; the boy looked too astonished to speak. ‘Daughter, fetch beer and cakes, if we have any.’ He shook out his jacket and settled himself in the chair by the fire.
‘I fear my arrival in Prague has come at a bad time,’ I said, when Esther had left the room.
His expression grew serious, and he made a gesture with his palms spread wide. ‘When is it not? But you’ve seen already how this murder ripples back to us. Ziggi Bartos will not be widely mourned for his own sake, poor man – the alchemists are not much liked by the townspeople – but you will be amazed at how hotly they defend his memory if they can be convinced that I sent my creature to kill a Christian.’ He shook his head at the folly of it. ‘I have just come from my Talmudic school, where two windows were smashed last night and human excrement left on the doorstep. The young scholars are understandably afraid.’
‘But that’s terrible,’ Besler burst out, his face a picture of outrage. ‘Who would do that to a school?’
The rabbi studied him from beneath his thick brows. ‘Stories are powerful, you must know this. And those we learn from the cradle and hear repeated often by the ones we most respect – our mothers and fathers, our teachers and religious leaders – those are the most potent of all. Sadly, there are many in Prague who have grown up being told that my people are a threat to them, that the Emperor gives us too much liberty, that we will never be satisfied until we have taken all business and coin and land away from good Christians. You know, perhaps, that there are near ten thousand of us here in the Jewish Town, and the Emperor has given us self-rule? That is too much for some, who fear we want to replace them altogether. And they repeat these falsehoods to their children, who pass them on, and so the stories become hardened, as if written in stone. It takes a strong intellect and a degree of humility to pause and question what we learned from our fathers, do you not agree?’
Besler gaped at him as if the rabbi was reading his mind. I bit down a smile; we are making progress, I thought.
‘Your daughter mentioned that Bartos visited you here,’ I said.
Loew nodded. ‘Regularly, for a while. My door is open to anyone who wishes to learn, if he is sincere. Although for every alchemist who ventures down from the castle with a genuine desire to understand, there are ten who treat the Cabala as a magic trick they want me to teach them, and others who come only to try and catch me out in some manner of heresy that will give them something to report.’
‘Was Bartos sincere?’
He considered for a moment. ‘Bartos was desperate,’ he said. ‘He was a gifted young man, that much was clear from our first meeting, intelligent and well-read, but he feared he was failing. He had been in Prague a year and had not succeeded in his experiments with the Philosopher’s Stone. He was deeply in debt – much of it to our moneylenders – running out of credit, and he feared the Emperor had lost patience with him. So he came to me, frantic for something that would capture His Majesty’s interest. He felt it was his last chance.’
‘He wanted you to share the secret of creating a Golem?’
He allowed a faint smile. ‘It is an old legend, and one that has somehow attached itself to me. But there are versions of it in many cultures, as I’m sure you know – man’s desire to create a being without the need for a womb, the way God formed Adam from clay.’
‘Paracelsus believed that the homunculus would be a perfect being, because it would be free of all taint and corruption by female elements,’ Besler piped up.
Loew laughed softly. ‘Exactly. Do not let my daughter Esther hear you say that; she has strong views on such matters. I’m afraid I entertained myself at Ziggi Bartos’s expense, but he was so persistent – he refused to accept that I could not teach him how to make a Golem. He offered me money I knew he did not have, so in the end the only way I could dissuade him was to tell him he was simply not ready, and to come back when he had studied further.’
‘What made him think that making a creature was the key to the Emperor’s favour?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘Well – it would be a novelty, and Rudolf does love wonders. But consider also that His Majesty has no heir. No legitimate one, anyway.’
‘You think Bartos wanted to make an heir for the Emperor in his laboratory? That’s insane.’
‘It is not the most outlandish idea to come out of that castle, by a long way,’ the rabbi said with equanimity. ‘But as I told you, he was grasping at straws.’
I pressed my fingers to my temples; the lack of sleep was beginning to catch up with me as I tried to process this new information. So Ziggi Bartos had been deeply in debt – and yet I had found Spanish gold in his bed chamber. A man with creditors is easily manipulated. What could Bartos have sold the Spanish faction, or promised them, in his desperation? The idea that he was attempting to create a homunculus for the Emperor was preposterous – but, as the rabbi said, no more preposterous than the pursuit of an elixir that would make men immortal, or turn base metal to gold.
‘Pardon me, Dr Bruno, but why do you concern yourself so with the death of a man you never met?’ Loew asked gently.
‘Because the Emperor is convinced that John Dee is involved, and told me that he will hang for it if he ever returns to Prague, unless I can prove his innocence.’ And Dee had found something to trouble him here, something he had written of in great haste to Sir Francis Walsingham in England; shortly afterwards he had been falsely accused of theft and disappeared. Now his accuser was the victim of a brutal murder, so it was not unreasonable to surmise that the two were connected. I didn’t think the rabbi needed to know this yet.
‘Hm.’ Loew sat back and pulled at his beard. ‘So. The murderer wishes to incriminate John, and also to show clearly to the good Christian citizens of Prague what comes of meddling with the Jews. It seems to me, therefore, that we must look for a common enemy.’
I thought of Dee’s letter; he had used the phrase ‘our enemies’ as if it were a shared persecution. ‘Yes – that is what I wanted to ask you—’
At that moment the door opened and Esther entered with a tray of glasses and a plate of honey cakes. The rabbi smiled at her.
‘My dear, I wonder – since the sun is almost showing its face, perhaps you would like to take our friend Herr Besler for a walk around the garden? I fear it is rather tedious for him to sit here listening to his elders.’
‘Father, I have things to do,’ Esther said, giving him a pointed look as she set the tray down on a small table beside his chair. ‘Besides, it’s freezing.’
‘I’m not bored,’ Besler said, glancing anxiously from me to the rabbi, though I could see he was torn; half-afraid of being excluded from an important conversation, the other half keen not to miss the opportunity of time with Esther. For myself, I was bristling at the implication that I was of an age with her father – that was not how I wished her to regard me – but I understood his intention.
‘It’s not a large garden,’ Loew said, ‘but it might be pleasant for you to take the air a while. Put a coat on if it’s cold.’ And he gave Esther a look that reminded me of my own father; one that said this was not up for discussion.
‘Very well,’ she agreed, with a trace of impatience. ‘Come and see our modest garden, Master Besler, though it is mostly mud this time of year. Bring your beer.’
‘Sometimes I wish I could make a Golem,’ Loew murmured, his eyes on the door as it swung shut behind them. ‘It would be a lot less trouble than a daughter. And I should know – I have six of them. For now we have a few minutes’ privacy to speak more plainly, Dr Bruno.’ He leaned forward and passed the plate of cakes. ‘You came to me with a specific question, I think?’
