The Devil's Heart

'Yeah, if you just have to connect it that way.'

Across town a phone rang. Wade Thomas quickly silenced the jangling. 'All right, Doris. Sure, I can come over. I know, I'll be careful. Miles wants to build a what? What the hell is a golem? Are you serious! Okay, I'll be right over.' He hung up, his face holding an odd look.

'What's wrong with Miles?' Anita asked.

'Doris says he's cracked. Says the old momzer s nuts.'

'What's a momzer?'

'I have no idea. But I'll bet you it isn't complimentary.'

'Well, what's a golem?'

'Ah … well, Doris says it's a kind of monster made out of clay, endowed with life. A protector, sort of.'

The man and wife exchanged glances. Anita shrugged.

Wade came to her, putting his arm around her shoulders. 'Honey …-?'

'No, Wade.' She was firm. 'I don't believe it's happening. Not again. I will not leave our home.'

'It is happening, Anita. And you know it.'

'You go see Miles. I'll be all right.'

Tony lit a cigarette, ignoring Jane Ann's shocked look. 'Tony, you haven't smoked in years!'

'Well, I started again. It's my business, not yours.'

'How is your practice, Tony?'

He shrugged. 'You've been seeing a lot of Wade and Anita lately, haven't you. And that damned ol' Jew.'

And with that remark about Miles, she knew all pretense had been ripped away. 'You want me to leave this house, Tony?'

'I don't give a damn what you do.'

'1 see.'

'Look, Janey …'

'Don't say another word, Tony,' The warning was softly spoken, but it held firm conviction.

'I may or may not return this evening.'

'Your choice, Tony. But I think you've already made the most important choice.'

He looked at her, his eyes hooded and evil. He nodded his head and walked out into the night.

Across the street, at the Cleveland home, eyes watched his movements, then lifted to the woman standing in the door. In her mid-forties, Jane Ann was still a very beautiful and shapely woman, with the ability to turn men's heads as she walked past.

Jane Ann lifted her eyes as the feeling of being watched touched her. The Cleveland family—father, mother, and three children—stood behind the huge picture window, all of them staring at her. She stepped quickly back into the house, picked up Balon's old Bible and returned to the porch. She held up the Bible, the dull gold cross on the leather shining in the glow of streetlights.

The Cleveland family pulled the drapes.

Jane Ann stood for a moment on the steps, the hot winds blowing around her. 'I won't run,' she whispered, clutching the Word of God to her breast. 'I won't run, and you can't make me run.'

The wind sighed around her. And had she looked closely at the invisible wind, she could have seen a light mist forming where the wind touched the corner of the house.

'Miles, this is foolish,' Wade pleaded with the man. 'It's … folklore; myths. Hell, man, you haven't been in a synagogue in fifty years! You sure haven't been kosher in all the years I've known you.'

'I'm a Jew,' Miles said stubbornly. 'My God will not forsake me.'

'Bubbemysah!' Doris said.

Wade looked up. 'What?'

'Old wives' tale,' Miles translated. 'It is not. Just ask the people of Prague.'

'Ask the people of Prague,' Doris said sarcastically. 'What ask? That happened—supposedly—in the sixteenth century. I'm sure there are thousands still around who witnessed it.'

'It happened,' Miles insisted, looking at her. 'I know, my grandfather was a cabalist. He told me it did.'

'Your grandfather was a meshuggener,' she replied. 'All this foolish stuff. I'll go make coffee.'

Miles shook his head and grinned. 'She just called my grandfather a crazy old man. Wade, my God won't let me down. I know it.'

'Seems like He did a pretty good job of it at Dachau, Buchenwald, and Auschwitz. To mention but a few.'.

'Don't blaspheme, Wade. Now is not the time. Ah … who am I trying to kid? Me! that's who. I'm talking in one breath about something I was taught not to believe in, and in the next breath talking about being a Jew. Then I talk about a golem. Used to listen to my grandfather talk about golems. Ah,' he sighed heavily, 'takes a rabbi to build one anyway. I think. I'm an old man, Wade. Sixty-eight next month. You wanna know what I think, Wade—I'll tell you: I think it's too late. That's what I think. For all of us. We should have left this place that summer … after we …