He, She and It

When Shira sees Yod, the cyborg seems cold and distant. She goes home and eats with Malkah; Shira tells her grandmother about Yod’s romantic confession. Malkah discusses the changes she made to Yod’s programming. They work beside one another, each plugged into their personal base. Shira learns about Yod’s extreme sensory abilities, far beyond the capabilities of a human. Malkah’s scream arrests Shira’s attention; Malkah is on the floor, her pulse weak, a potential victim of mental warfare waged by those plugged into the base. Medics arrive, and Shira receives a message from Avram: Yod was in the base with Malkah and helped to fight off the attack. Hannah, one of the medics, rouses Malkah, who is taken to the hospital. She returns home the next day and says that Yod saved her life. Shira visits Gadi, who is working in his father’s home. Gadi is to be brought in on his father’s project, so Shira, Avram, and Yod gather to reveal the truth. Gadi is stunned and sworn to secrecy; Yod seems embarrassed but seizes Gadi and holds him in the air, demanding that he agree to keep quiet. Gadi croaks an agreement.

After four days patrolling Tikva Base, Yod confesses that he hopes to “die in the Base” (165). Following a sarcastic comment from Gadi, Yod has been researching Frankenstein and compares himself to Frankenstein’s monster. He believes that Shira is disgusted by him, that she fears his capacity for violence. Shira points out that this adolescent funk only makes Yod more human. After she comforts him, Yod returns to the Base and asks not to be disturbed. In the days while Yod is plugged in, Shira visits Gadi. His reconstruction work on the house has spread to their old hidden room. In his presence, she begins to feel almost like her carefree teenage self. They talk about why Avram created Yod, and Gadi suggests that Avram wanted a way to create a more obedient lifeform than his real son. Malkah’s injury and subsequent depression has caused worry among the townspeople; she confesses that the attack has made her afraid to return to the Base. Malkah is given kittens to help her recovery. Shira worries about the attacks on Tikva and tries to determine who ambushed Malkah.

Malkah struggles to tell the next part of the Golem’s story. After the ambush, she now fears her own creativity. Two people attacked her, a man and a woman, and she was sure she recognized one of them. For years, Malkah has worked for Tikva, selling security systems called chimeras to the multis. They have always kept the best for themselves but now the “magic is penetrated, undone” (176). She cannot abide the thought of getting old without plugging in and working. She reflects on why she seduced Yod: to annoy Avram; to satisfy her intellectual curiosity; and to see what would happen. While Yod delighted in sex, Malkah had to stop due to exhaustion. She relinquished that part of her life—which had been a part of her identity—and now wonders what is left for her to do.

Yod sends Shira a message, asking for her help in the Base. She finds him inside, his self projected as Frankenstein’s monster, holding a decapitated head. Yod transforms into Gadi, then Gimel, and then, when Shira threatens to leave, himself. Shira recognizes the head as Barry Joyce from Y-S. Yod has killed him, as well as Barry’s partner Zee Levine, a former Tikva resident who went to work for Y-S. Yod propositions Shira romantically so she leaves, unplugging herself. She tells the house to silently admit Yod and goes to bed. Yod arrives and enters the bed. They kiss, and Shira notes that Yod’s body is “smoother, more regular, more nearly perfect” (185). They have sex and then Yod must leave to return to work. 

Earlier that evening, Malkah sits with her kittens as Yod goes to Shira. Unable to sleep, she watched Yod pass downstairs and knows that he saw her. He paused to talk about the Base and reveals the identity of the attackers he killed. Zee was Malkah’s student, and she is distressed. She determines to begin work on new security features immediately. She forbids Yod from telling Shira about their intimate past. He agrees and notes that Malkah has stopped telling the story of the Golem, so she promises to continue. Malkah rediscovers her appetite and wonders how Shira will feel in the morning. She begins work the next morning, reigniting her zeal for life. Gadi visits and leaves before Shira arrives; she has spoken to Zee’s family and says that Y-S have left her a message, reconsidering her custody appeal. Malkah recognizes this as a new line of attack and suggests that she take Yod but insists that they first go before the Town Council.

The next day, the entire town comes to terms with the idea that one of the largest multis has decided to target them. The Council agree that Shira should attend the meeting with Y-S. Malkah, meanwhile, will work on restoring the defenses alongside Yod and Avram. Shira feels some embarrassment and confusion regarding her night with Yod; the myth she has told herself—that her broken relationship with Gadi ruined her capacity to love—has been proven false. While she cannot see Yod, she looks after the kittens while scanning the notes about the previous cyborg iterations. Each one malfunctioned on some level and was gradually improved, many looking almost exactly like Yod. One version, Chet, malfunctions and kills David, Avram’s previous assistant. On the fourth night, Yod comes to her again. This time, Shira initiates the contact and they have sex again. When they finish, Yod confesses that he was “almost afraid” (201) to visit Shira, unsure whether she would want him. Before meeting her, his strongest feeling had been fear. Now, it is desire, desire to be with Shira.

Before he leaves, Shira makes Yod feed the kittens, so that they no longer fear him and remind him of his own strangeness. The next morning, Shira is told that her Great-Aunt Dalia has arrived in the town with her nurse. Feeling tense, unable to contact Malkah, Shira goes to meet her mother. She meets a heavily disguised older woman who has an abnormal amount of luggage. Riva maintains the disguise as Dalia until they are safely indoors, at which point the house computer announces that both the new guests are extremely augmented with considerable internal circuitry. The assistant, Shira notices, has a slight Israeli accent and blood red hair. Riva refers to her as Nili as they remove their disguises. Shira and Riva talk awkwardly; the two barely know one another. Nili admits to being an assassin and says that she is in Tikva to serve Malkah.

After spending an awkward day with the visitors, Shira is joined by an exhausted Malkah. They drink coffee and discuss Nili, whose physical abilities seem superhuman. Riva reveals that the father Shira never knew is Yosef Golinken, a famous physicist and also Nili’s grandfather. Riva visited a sperm bank to conceive Shira and seems uninterested in the company of men. They discuss Ari and Shira’s lack of loyalty to Y-S, as well as the tension that existed between Riva and Malkah when they were younger. Riva announces that she and Nili will accompany Shira to the meeting with Y-S. Shira is reticent. Riva talks about information and her belief that it should not be a commodity. Two nights later, Yod comes to Shira.

Nili stops him in the hallway; she accuses him of being a machine and he accuses her of being “part machine and part human” (214). The whole house wakes and Yod is introduced to Riva and Nili. Shira is too angry to explain while Malkah fetches wine for everyone. As they sit and drink, Shira is determined to find out more about Nili: She is from a supposedly irradiated part of Israel, a community of joint Israelis and Palestinian women who clone and engineer genes and undergo extension body alteration, to the point where they can endure the lethal conditions. She has come to find out if the world is ready to learn about her people, with Riva’s assistance. Riva says that Y-S is targeting the town as part of their campaign for world domination, uniting everything under one multi. Feeling exhausted and as though the house is too crowded, Shira seeks to get away with Yod. She still views Riva and Nili with suspicion.

Chava teaches Joseph to read though he struggles. Announcing her suspicions, she asks him whether he is a man. Joseph dodges the question. David Gans attempts to scientifically measure Joseph’s strength and a crowd gathers as the Golem lifts various barrels. Worried, Joseph feigns a limit to his strength but people are still impressed, naming him the strongest man in Bohemia. He is given a new shirt for Passover and—with Chava’s encouragement—he reads from the Haggadah during the meal time prayer. Judah does not begrudge Joseph learning to read. With Easter approaching, Joseph is sent out of the ghetto to find out if there are pogroms being planned. He returns to the tavern and hears how the maidservant was actually saved by Thaddeus. He is told about a different tavern where Thaddeus’s helpers drink, so goes there. While being judged and scrutinized, he overhears a man named Karel announce his plan to “put it to them Friday” (224). The men in the bar are planning an attack on the ghetto, taking what they please. Joseph reports this to Judah, who prays a while and then sends Joseph to collect David Gans. Judah has devised a plan.