room. Big Klaus stood frozen with fear as the Golem slowly straightened up and approached him, step by plodding step, inching ever closer.
My adversary jerked his elbow back and jabbed me in the gut again and again until I was forced to let go of him and pull away, but this also freed me up to get out the knife. He spun around and aimed at me, but I was already lunging at him with my knife. The pistol’s mainspring must have been pretty heavy because he jerked the trigger a little too hard, raising the barrel just enough to save my life as the spark was struck and the powder exploded and blew a hole in the wall about two inches above my head. Hot powder residue flew into my face as I got in close and thrust the blade in under his arm.
Yosele didn’t like the loud noise. He lifted Big Klaus off his feet and hurled him screaming through the window.
I released the mercenary, who staggered sideways a bit and slumped over the table, his fingers reaching for the leather sack.
“I wonder what’s—”
The floor gave way in a shower of splinters and sparks.
We collapsed toward the center, then wood and earth slammed into me from below.
The next thing I knew, I was lying on some half-charred crossbeams, watching the flames slowly crawl up the front of my tunic. Actually, the fire was warm and kind of pleasant.
And it looked like the roof was getting closer. You might even say it was caving in. That was the term. Caving in.
Someone grabbed my shirt and hauled me to my knees and told me to get moving. It was Rabbi Gans, and somehow I snapped out of the daze I was in and followed him while swatting out the flames on my tunic.
Then a huge crossbeam came crashing down through the blackened timbers, and suddenly Yosele Golem was under it, stopping it at a sharp angle with his tremendously powerful arms.
As soon as Rabbi Gans pulled me through the narrow archway to safety, I turned around to help Yosele, but it was too late. Yosele had given us a few more seconds of life by holding the ceiling up, but now he was trapped, surrounded by flames. I tried to run back into the fire to save him, but Rabbi Gans held me back with all his strength.
I wanted to tell Yosele to let go and run, but he just stood there suspended between two worlds, since any move he made would lead to disaster.
Our eyes met. He was looking at me the way a startled deer stares at the hunter’s bow, not fully understanding his predicament, and showing such wide-eyed childlike incomprehension of the forces beyond his control that a piece of my soul departed from me forever when the heat and weight became too much for him and he let it all come tumbling down on him.
I stood there like a dreamer amazed, unable to feel anything but the power of my vital soul draining out of me. For it is written that the Lord gave us a soul that was pure, and that if we do not return it to Him in the same state of purity, He will destroy it before our eyes.
I was vaguely aware of the body of Big Klaus lying facedown in the middle of the street, and somehow my hands found the will to grab hold of my collar and tear my shirt open. Then my legs buckled and I kneeled in the sandy soil and let the ashes swirl around me. The smoke was stinging my eyes, then the wind shifted and I caught a glimpse of Yosele’s scarred, lifeless face amid the dying flames. The muddy aleph had been scraped off his forehead, leaving only the letters . Mes. Dead.
You’re supposed to stay with the dying to hear their confession and say one last Sh’ma with them. Yosele had no sins on his head, so I said the Sh’ma for him. Perhaps his soul would transmigrate as Rabbi Loew teaches, and be born to a barren couple in the future.
From dust you came, and to dust you shall return, I prayed. Goodbye, Yosele. May your memory be a blessing.
I stood up and dusted off my knees, and felt a thousand eyes on me. The mass of Christians were standing strangely still about half a block away. Then Sheriff Zizka came trotting toward me, whether to arrest me or slay me