Rotfeld coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I told you,” he said, “it’s nothing.” He tried to stand, but staggered, and fell to his knees. A wave of panic hit him as he began to realize that something was truly wrong.
“Help me,” he whispered.
The command struck the Golem like an arrow. Swiftly she rose from her crate, bent over Rotfeld, and lifted him as though he weighed no more than a boy. With her master in her arms, she wove her way around the boxes, up the narrow staircase, and out of the hold.
A commotion broke out at the aft end of steerage. It spread down the deck, waking the sleepers, who grumbled and turned over in their bunks. A crowd began to grow around a cot near the hatch, where a man had collapsed, his face gray in the lantern-light. A call threaded its way from row to row: was there a doctor nearby?
One soon appeared, in pajamas and an overcoat. The crowd parted for him as he made his way to the cot. Hovering next to the sick man was a tall woman in a brown dress who watched, wide eyed, as the doctor undid the young man’s shirt and pulled it back. Carefully the doctor prodded Rotfeld’s abdomen, and was rewarded with a short scream.
The Golem lunged forward and snatched the man’s hand away. The doctor pulled back, shocked.
“It’s all right,” the man on the cot whispered. “He’s a doctor. He’s here to help.” He reached up, and clasped her hand.
Warily the doctor felt Rotfeld’s abdomen again, one eye on the woman. “It’s his appendix,” he announced. “We must get him to the ship’s surgeon, quickly.”
The doctor grabbed one of Rotfeld’s arms and pulled him to standing. Others rushed to help, and together the knot of men moved through the hatch, Rotfeld hanging half-delirious at its center. The woman followed close behind.
The ship’s surgeon was the sort of man who did not appreciate being roused in the middle of the night, especially to cut open some nameless peasant from steerage. One look at the man writhing weakly on his operating table, and he wondered if it was worth the trouble. Judging by the advanced state of the appendicitis and the high fever, the appendix had likely already burst, flooding the man’s belly with poisons. The surgery alone might finish him off. After delivering their burden, the foreigners who’d brought the man had hovered by the hatchway, unsure of themselves, and then left without a word of English.
Well, there was nothing for it. He’d have to operate. He called down for his assistant to be roused and began laying out his instruments. He was searching for the ether jar when suddenly the hatch was wrenched open behind him. It was a woman, tall and dark-haired, wearing only a thin brown shift against the cold Atlantic air. She rushed to the side of the man on the table, looking near panicked. His wife or sweetheart, he supposed.
“I suppose it’s too much to ask that you speak English,” he said; and of course she only stared, uncomprehending. “I’m sorry, but you can’t stay here. No women permitted in the surgery. You’ll have to leave.” He pointed at the door.
That, at least, got through: she shook her head vehemently and began to expostulate in Yiddish. “Look here,” the surgeon began, and took her elbow to steer her out. But it was as though he’d grabbed hold of a lamppost. The woman would not move, only loomed over him, solid and suddenly gigantic, a Valkyrie come to life.
He dropped her arm as though it had scalded him. “Have it your way,” he muttered, disconcerted. He busied himself with the ether jar, and tried to ignore the bizarre presence behind his shoulder.
The hatch opened again, and a young man fell in, looking roughly wakened. “Doctor, I’m—good lord!”
“Never mind her,” the surgeon said. “She refuses to leave. If she faints, so much the better. Quick now, or he’ll die before we can open him up.” And with that, they etherized their patient and set to work.
If the two men had known the powerful struggle taking place inside the woman behind them, they would’ve deserted the surgery and run for their lives. Any lesser creation would have throttled them both the moment their knives touched Rotfeld’s skin. But the Golem recalled the doctor in the hold, and her master’s assurance that he was there to help; and it had been that doctor who’d brought him here. Still, as they peeled back Rotfeld’s skin and hunted through his innards, her hands twisted and clenched uncontrollably at her sides. She reached for her master in her mind, and found no awareness, no needs or desires. She was losing him, bit by bit.
The surgeon removed something from Rotfeld’s body and dropped it in a tray. “Well, the damned thing’s out,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder. “Still on your feet? Good girl.”
“Maybe she’s simple,” muttered the assistant.
“Not necessarily. These peasants have iron stomachs. Simon, keep that clamped!”
“Sorry, sir.”
But the figure on the table was struggling for life. He inhaled once, and again; and then, with a long, rattling sigh, Otto Rotfeld’s final breath left his body.
The Golem staggered as the last remnants of their connection snapped and faded away.
The surgeon bent his head to Rotfeld’s chest. He took up the man’s wrist for a moment, then gently placed it back. “Time of death, please,” he said.
The assistant swallowed, and glanced at the chronometer. “Oh two hundred hours, forty-eight minutes.”
The surgeon made a note, true regret on his face. “Couldn’t be helped,” he said, his voice bitter. “He waited too long. He must have been in agony for days.”
The Golem could not look away from the unmoving shape on the table. A moment ago he’d been her master, her reason for being; now he seemed nothing at all. She felt dizzy, unmoored. She stepped forward and touched a hand to his face, his slack jaw, his drooping eyelids. Already the heat was fading from his skin.
Please stop that.
The Golem withdrew her hand and looked at the two men, who were watching in horrified distaste. Neither of them had spoken.
“I’m sorry,” said the surgeon finally, hoping she would understand his tone. “We tried our best.”
“I know,” said the Golem—and only then did she realize that she’d understood the man’s words, and replied in the same language.
The surgeon frowned, and shared a glance with his assistant. “Mrs. … I’m sorry, what was his name?”
“Rotfeld,” said the Golem. “Otto Rotfeld.”
“Mrs. Rotfeld, our condolences. Perhaps—”
“You want me to leave,” she said. It wasn’t a guess, nor was it a sudden understanding of the indelicacy of her presence. She simply knew it, as surely as she could see her master’s body on the table, and smell the ether’s sickly fumes. The surgeon’s desire, his wish for her to be elsewhere, had spoken inside her mind.
“Well, yes, perhaps it would be better,” he said. “Simon, please escort Mrs. Rotfeld back to steerage.”
She let the young man put his arm about her and guide her out of the surgery. She was shaking. Some part of her was still casting about, searching for Rotfeld. And meanwhile the young assistant’s embarrassed discomfort, his desire to be rid of his charge, was clouding her thoughts. What was happening to her?
At the door to the steerage deck, the young man squeezed her hand guiltily, and then was gone. What should she do? Go in there, and face all those people? She put her hand on the door latch, hesitated, opened it.
The