“But if the Blanks are dangerous for us, are they dangerous for everyone else?”
Saul appeared to think for a little bit. “You would think so. But it always turns out to be no. For those who are called, the Blanks show a possible future that is within reach, and a past that leads to it. That's the amazing thing!” He shouted. “I mean, take for instance a person’s life, like your life or mine. So many things happen along the way. You're what, how old again?”
“Sixteen.”
“Sixteen, times three-hundred-and-sixty-five days, and all of those days, stuff happens. But the Blanks take all that mess and serve up a… a story. A thread that might begin when you didn't even know what it was. A narrative. And if you get to see your story and know it, you can do it right.” He waggled his head. “At least that’s the way I figure it. All these books but none of them is an instruction manual.”
Something struck Frannie then. “But… does that mean nothing great will happen to me?”
“Oh, honey, why would you assume that?” Saul smiled with kindness, shaking his head. “First of all, being a keeper is a profoundly great thing. But second, no, geez, just because the Blanks tell some people’s stories don't mean you ain't got a story to tell. Nah. Get that out of your head.”
“I gotta admit,” Newp said. “I’ve been here as long as you’ve been open and I’ve never been… as you say, called by them.”
“And it doesn’t mean anything except that you don’t need a book to pull you in some direction you’re missing,” Saul said. “Which all told is a good thing. At least for now. You’re a kid, you have plenty of time to get off track.”
“So are there others, others like you?” Frannie restated it. “Like us?”
“There are others,” Saul said. “Scattered around. Not so many. We never had a reunion or anything. But yeah, there's others.” He drifted for a second and Frannie could tell he was trying to decide whether to launch into another story or to wrap it up. “Anyways, one of them sent me on the path to take the books and learn to protect them.”
“Are all of these guards Jews?”
“No. We got all kinds.”
“Okay. So what are you thinking?”
“We need to get into Book Man. We need to find out how to send him away.”
“Send him away?” Frannie asked. “Is that what you do with someone like this?”
“As opposed to what, kill them? You don't kill the Book Man. No, we saw him. He's not a live person.”
Frannie thought about the Book Man's torn arm. “He's got a human body. Human skin.”
“Yeah, he does.”
“But he's full of paper. That's what it seemed like, right? Like he's full of paper birds. So do you think that skin is his?”
“I think the skin is probably stolen. And the birds are probably… I don't know. Self-generating, probably.” Saul shrugged. “They come in and take over a body. Destroy the body in the process. I don't think the guy who owned the original skin the Book Man wears is going to be able to use it again.”
Frannie tapped her lip. “And if we tear this guy up, what's to keep him from jumping into another body?”
“Listen to you, talking like an abba.”
“What’s an abba?”
Saw smiled. “A learned user of the powers. I don’t know. I know general demons but each one is different. Even if we destroy the body, we will need to know how to make sure he stays destroyed. That's a lot of stuff we need to know.”
“So what's next?”
“To stop a swartz-yor, first you need the most important thing. We need to know what he’s really called. We need to know his name.”
Frannie nodded. “So: the question isn’t what is the Book Man. It’s who is he?”
Saul and Newp hit the books, but the answer came to Frannie at home, in a sepia-toned black and white memory that had been whispering to her for weeks.
Chapter 32
The next day, Frannie burst into the back of the Cafe and said the word, “golem.”
Saul and Newp looked up from their study—papers strewn everywhere, while Saul had to peer up from behind a tower of books. “What?”
“It’s so obvious,” Frannie said. “If you want to learn something spiritual you have to use something spiritual, right?”
“golem.” Saul repeated the word as though the blood had drained from it.
“Yes. Let’s haul out all this bitchin’ Hebrew knowledge and make ourselves a golem.”
“Like the Golem of Prague?” Saul scoffed.
Newp looked up. “What’s the Golem of Prague?”
“It’s a movie,” Frannie said. “Actually a fable, but yeah, I thought of it because of the movie.”
“Where did you see this?” Saul asked.
“My pop showed it to his grad students last year and I saw it with them.”
Saul cleared his throat. He made a teepee with his fingers and addressed his story to Newp. “In The Golem, the honorable and learned Rebbe Loew of Prague realizes that a great misfortune will befall the Bohemian Jews. What the misfortune was, who can recall? But what he does is fashion a living man of clay to do his bidding.”
Newp frowned. “How does making a man of clay stop a great misfortune?”
“It’s a movie.”
“A fable.” Frannie smiled.
“Right, because that’s so much better.” Saul waved. “So the rebbe makes the man of clay and then goes to the court of the Emperor to put on a show, basically, to do tricks and impress the Emperor, in hopes that the Emperor will aid the Jews. And do you remember what… I can’t believe I’m even discussing this, but Frannie, do you remember what happened?
“Well, he made some mistakes.”
“The golem ran wild! He created even more problems! Now there was an eight-foot-tall clay man knocking down walls; he threw the Emperor’s messenger from a tower, for heaven’s sake.”
“Now, that guy deserved it,” Frannie said. The messenger was a jerk in the movie she saw.
“Even so.”
Newp said, “So he’s like Frankenstein?”
Frannie waved her arms with excitement. “A golem is a messenger of God, a walking piece of the power of God. You have oodles of research in front of you, but I’ll go ahead and use the word, the golem is magic. He would have the answers you seek. You see? We could ask him to tell us the name of the demon we call the Book Man. That’s why a golem. Forget the messenger and the emperor and all that. We should do it because we need answers and a golem is a direct line to God.”
“And how do you know that?” Saul demanded.
“I…” She caught herself. Oh, what the Hell. “I saw the golem. He came to me during the accident.”
“So, a concussion told you.” Saul ran his fingers over his bald head. “He’s—it’s too risky.”
“So don’t make him so big.” Frannie shrugged, putting her hand at about the level of the top of Saul’s stack of books. “Make him, you know, manageable.”