The gun was heavy and she held it with both hands. She pulled back the safety and remembered to aim low because of the recoil. Then everything stopped and she and Levy faced each other. He looked at her and asked silently, Can you do it, Rachel? Can you kill me? Adam waited for her answer, she thought, and Hawkins; even the clay man waited. She raised the gun slightly, aimed carefully at the man she loved so much, and before she could answer them, or decide anything, she pulled the trigger.

The blast threw Jacob against the wall. Then some trick of momentum pulled him back into the room and he went down on his knees. Luria screamed and rushed at her, but she turned her gun on him, praying he’d move. He knew it and stopped. The golem stopped, too. She waited, watching Levy. He coughed and looked at her. She couldn’t see his face, but his head was silhouetted against the light from the door and for the rest of her life she told herself that she saw him nod. The rage left her and she sobbed. Tears and cordite smoke blinded her, but she raised the gun, pulled the safety, and fired again.

His body fell back and lay still. Blood spread on the linoleum and Luria ran to him and knelt in the blood. He lifted him up against his chest and Levy’s head hung.

“He’s dead!” Luria screamed.

The smell of mud filled the basement. The thing didn’t move again and she knew that it was nothing there now but a mass of clay without any form. She shoved the gun back in the holster and helped Hawkins stand. He hung on her and she thought she’d fall. Then he pulled himself up against the post. She looked for Garfield. He was trying to stand, too, but he kept falling back. One side of his face was covered with blood and one of his arms hung uselessly. Dworkin helped him up and led him to the door. Garfield leaned against it and Dworkin stayed with him until he was sure he wouldn’t fall. Then the little man went to Jacob’s body and stood at the edge of the pool of blood and looked at his rabbi. He covered his eyes with his hand and said something in Hebrew, and then in Yiddish he said, “Good-­bye.”

He stood up and took off his cap, which none of them had ever done before in her presence. He held it in his hands and pulled the rim of it through his fingers as he faced Rachel and Hawkins. There were tears on his face and he wiped them away before he talked. Then he said, “We’ll bury him at night somewhere, alone, and tell the others that was what he wanted. There won’t be no trouble.”