How It All Goes Down
- A man named Otto Rotfeld has smuggled a Golem aboard the Baltika, a ship bound for New York from Danzig, a city in Northern Poland.
- You see, Rotfeld is "gangly and unattractive" (1.4), as well as "arrogant, but also lonely" (1.5), so he had to go to a man named Yehudah Schaalman to make himself a wife. It's like a Polish version of Lars and the Read Girl.
- The Golem is tall, and although she is made of clay, she looks and feels like a real woman; she is "a slave to [Rotfeld's] will" (1.39) and will "protect [him] without thinking" (1.43).
- Aboard the Baltika, Rotfeld unpacks the crate and opens a little envelope labeled To Wake the Golem.
- He reads it, and she wakes up. Good morning, sunshine.
- Rotfeld barely gets the opportunity to acquaint himself with his newly made wife before he gets appendicitis and dies.
- Without a master, the Golem is suddenly able to hear the thoughts and desires of every person aboard the ship: "Each one was like a small hand plucking at her sleeve: please do something" (1.124). She basically feels like anyone working retail on Black Friday.
- As most retail employees yearn to do at some point, the Golem considers throwing herself overboard.
- Unlike most retail employees, the Golem can breathe indefinitely underwater. So when the ship's officials become suspicious at her sudden appearance, and her lack of a ticket, she jumps off the boat and merely walks ashore to New York City.
- She emerges, soaking wet, covered in mud.