Chapter 40
40
Sasha hurries past me, eyes locked on her target. She slows as she approaches the golem, stopping a few yards away. She begins speaking in a calm but firm tone. Her back is to me, so I can’t see her expression, but I can hear the fear behind her strong words. Everyone in the ruined wedding scene has gone quiet, watching her.
“Put him down.”
The golem continues to impassively choke the ponytailed assailant, whose legs are kicking feebly. He’s no longer able to choke out words, only sickening gurgles. Sasha takes another stride toward them, raising her voice.
“You stopped the threat. Let us take it from here. Please.”
Something on the ground catches her eye. She picks it up, and I see her spine stiffen. Sasha turns from the golem to me, eyes wild.
“Tell him.”
I stare at her in utter confusion. Why should I tell him to release the gunman?
But Sasha’s face is hard and certain.
She’s not asking.
“Paul,” I say, but my voice is caught in my throat and no sound escapes. I feel trapped in one of those dreams where you’re screaming but no sound comes out of your mouth. I try again, and this time the word comes out a scream: “Paul!”
The golem slowly turns his head toward me.
“Put him down,” I say.
The golem blinks, and drops the gunman, who doesn’t move.
There’s a moment of shocked silence.
Then all hell breaks loose.
Everyone is screaming, exclaiming, making calls, fumbling for keys, trying to get out of there. Sasha drags me away from my mother and sister, away from my golem. I stare at him over my shoulder, but he’s just standing there for the moment. Watching. Waiting.
“This isn’t over,” Sasha says, dragging me toward the golem.
“Wait...wait,” I say. I have a thousand questions for her, and don’t know which one to ask first and then one just tumbles from my mouth of its own accord. “How did you get here? You don’t have a car!”
“ That’s your first question?” Sasha exclaims, and almost looks amused. “Jesus Christ. Bryan and Carlos drove me.”
She locks eyes with me, and for the first time in a long time, I look at her. Really look at her. And then the next question I should ask becomes irrelevant, because when I see the sorrow and regret and worry in her eyes, I already know the answer to why she’s here. Even if I hadn’t read all of her texts, even if I hadn’t noticed her apprehension earlier, even if I didn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle that are finally sliding into place, the look in her eyes tells me everything I need to know.
“Holy shit,” I say. “You made a golem, too.”
“Yeah,” she says.
“Is this one of those things every middle-aged Jewish woman does, and they just never talk about it?”
“I don’t think so,” Sasha says. “It’s just that you and I share the same brain, remember? And hey, fuck you for calling us middle-aged.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I think I’m in shock.”
“You are.”
“Emmet was a golem?”
“Yes.”
“The whole time—”
“Yes.”
“Wait,” I say, shaking my head in disbelief. “You literally just called him the name on his forehead. Alef-mem-tav—‘Emmet.’”
“What can I say,” Sasha says. “I’m not the creative type, remember? I’m the account executive.”
“Sasha, how the hell—”
“Eve, I love you, but you’ve got to shut up,” Sasha says. “This is not a where’s-the-pod moment, okay? Save the questions. We’ve gotta end this thing.”
“What do you mean ‘end this thing’?” I ask, nervous. “I know this looks bad, but I need him.”
“You don’t,” Sasha says.
“I do—”
“No,” she says firmly. “Babe, I get it—trust me, I get it. But this is not the sort of thing we should be messing around with. It’s dangerous. And the longer you have him...the more you’ll feel like you need him. And like you don’t need the rest of us. Your family. Your friends. It changes you, Eve. It...it changed me. You start to lose yourself. You start to think you only need the golem.”
“No,” I protest, but some part of me knows she’s right.
Ever since I created the golem, I’ve been even more of a monster. But if I’m being truly honest, it didn’t start with the golem. He was only the culmination of my fear, my misery...my grief. My sorrow blinded me to so much, shoved me into a corner, kept me from connecting with my friends or engaging with the world. My grief led me to make a monster. But worse, my grief made me a monster.
My God, I’ve been awful. I’ve justified things that defy justification. I’ve retreated from the ones whose pain was as deep and raw as mine.
My mother.
My sister.
But I can’t get rid of my golem.
“No,” I say to Sasha again, shaking my head, not wanting to admit how wrong I’ve been. “I can’t get rid of him. I need him, and he’s good. Can’t you see that? He just did a good thing. He saved my sister. He saved all of us. Paul is fundamentally good—”
“He’s fundamentally a golem ,” Sasha says. “They’re not good or bad. They’re only protective. And they’re not big on nuance.”
“But he just saved us,” I insist. “If it weren’t for him, someone could’ve been killed.”
“Not this time, actually,” Sasha says, and presses something into my hand.
I feel the plastic object in my palm before I see it. When I look down, I can’t help but gasp. It’s the thing she picked up from the ground—the stalker’s gun.
Only it isn’t actually a gun, it’s a toy gun.
From across the room, it had us all fooled, but up close, it doesn’t even look real. The whole time, Rosie’s TikTok troll was pointing a toy weapon at us all. It doesn’t make what we went through any less traumatic, but it does change the story. The intention. The potential for harm.
“But that’s...” I say, shaking my head, shocked but sill certain that taking the kid down was the right thing to do. “I mean, okay, so it’s fake, but we had no way of knowing, and neither did Paul...”
“Right, which is why the golem might’ve just killed him,” Sasha says. “Like I said, no nuance. A golem’s not a judge or jury, Eve, he’s only an executioner. An executioner you summoned—”
“Because there are real dangers,” I say. “We’re constantly under attack—”
“Eve,” Sasha says, gently but firmly. Her eyes won’t let mine go. “Does that mean we should be constantly attacking?”
“I don’t... I don’t know,” I say, throat thickening.
Because I don’t know how to answer her question. I don’t want to be a monster, but I also don’t want to be a victim. It’s not just my grief that drove me to this. It’s the man who spit at me on the train. It’s the memories of my grandmother who survived the horrors of actual genocide. It’s actual genocides still happening today. It’s the news, the bomb threats, the inherited trauma, the ongoing conflicts. My fears aren’t based on nothing. They’re real.
“We can’t let our pain convince us to cause more pain,” Sasha says softly. “I’m not saying there’s not bad shit out there, and I’m not saying we shouldn’t fight it. I’m just saying if we become the ones who always run in, guns blazing, no questions asked—we become the bad guys.”
Something twinges in me. I remember sitting across the table from my mother at the Walnut Room, just a few days ago. She was telling me about the bomb threat, but that wasn’t the only important part. I suddenly remember what she said about the security decision. Why they weren’t going to default to always having armed protection on-site.
We wouldn’t want someone getting hurt, just because someone else felt nervous.
I look down at the plastic gun still sitting in my palm. Rosie’s internet stalker deserves to get in trouble for storming her wedding reception, threatening her with this fake weapon, doing truly horrible things.
But did he deserve to die for it?
Do I want that on my conscience?
I look at Sasha, and nod slowly.
She exhales and puts her hand over the fake gun, squeezing my fingers in hers.
“Now look,” she says. “We have to move fast. A golem has only one purpose: protect his people. Not just you. It starts out that way—you’re his first priority, for a while. But he evolves toward his true purpose, which is guarding us. All of us. We’re his people, and he’s perceiving a big-ass attack right now—right or wrong. And that means—”
A blur of motion catches our attention, and both of us snap our heads toward the golem. He’s no longer standing beside the crumpled gunman. Instead, he’s collecting the massive pile of scrap metal he dropped earlier. He selects one of the longest metal bars in his arm. Carefully setting down the rest of the pile, he twists the metal around the door handles of the cafetorium’s rear exit, locking it securely.
“What is he doing?” I ask, utterly bewildered.
“Keeping us safe,” says Sasha grimly.
As confused partygoers approach the door with keys in hand, the golem snarls, warning them back. He picks up another hunk of metal and lumbers to the other exit, the side door, swiftly disabling that one, too. When he sees someone making a break for the kitchen, he roars, stopping them in their tracks, then positions himself in front of the kitchen door, blocking the last of the exits from the cafetorium.
“I don’t understand,” I say.
“Like I said,” Sasha explains, eyes narrowing as she stares at the monster. “He only has one purpose. One job: keep his people safe. The golem was always a desperate-times, desperate-measures creation. And I’m not saying our times aren’t desperate. They are. Of course they are. But golems aren’t built for this world. All the social media, the nonstop news cycle, the constant threats, all the time...they can’t handle it. Did you ever let him watch any television?”
I flash back to him tackling me, when he heard the wail of a siren in the distance.
After he was watching cop shows on television.
Oh, no.
Someone tries to dart past the golem, and he blocks them with ease. He doesn’t hurt the person trying to flee—Layla, I realize; it’s Layla, sobbing and terrified—instead catching her in his arms and gently returning her to the middle of the room, then shaking his head firmly and returning to his guard post.
“He’s been taking it all in the last few days,” Sasha continues. “Little threat here, little threat there. Stuff specific to you, then more broad communal threats. Always taking it all in. I saw him doing it on the boat. It took a lot longer with Emmet, because I almost never took him out into the world. He didn’t kick into overdrive until we went to a march downtown, and...that’s a story for later. But you had some shit luck tonight with Rosie’s stalker showing up, Eve. A golem only gets more vigilant, the more danger he sees approaching us. He feeds off our fears. The more scared we are, the more protective he gets. He’ll do whatever he thinks he needs to do.”
“But I still don’t understand,” I say. “What’s he doing—”
“He’s blocking the doors,” Sasha says. “He wants us to stay here. At this camp. In this room. The outside world is too dangerous. He wants this little corner—this little shtetl—to be under his protection. If we all just stay here, he can keep us safe. And that’s all he wants to do. It’s all he’ll ever want to do.”
“For how long?” I ask.
Sasha looks from the golem to me.
“Forever,” she says.