The Assistant

by James C. Clar

For years I had been unable to find an assistant capable of maintaining order in my shop. Applicants came and went, leaving behind only more misplaced volumes and unfilled orders. Admittedly, my bookstore—Aleph Books – was a labyrinth of paper and dust. I reconciled myself to the idea that chaos was forever to be my natural element. One fog-shrouded morning, however, I opened a crate of rare Hebrew manuscripts acquired from the estate of a rabbi in the Czech Republic. Among them was a slim volume bound in calfskin: Sefer Yetzirah. The text bore the unmistakable annotations of Rabbi Eleazar of Worms.

One marginal note, penned in almost indecipherable Aramaic, seemed to describe a formula for forming life from inanimate matter. I copied down what I could make of it, more out of curiosity than actual belief. One dark autumn evening, under a dim bulb in my storeroom, I followed the text’s obscure instructions as closely as I could. My materials consisted of freshly dug soil plus the resin and clay used to restore old bindings and book covers.

To say that the results exceeded my wildest expectations would be an understatement.

The following morning, my new assistant, Lem, got to work. Within hours, my shop possessed a new coherence. Long lost books were stacked neatly on the tables. My inventory had been alphabetized, cataloged and cross-referenced by subject and author.

When customers asked for obscure works such as The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim by Bahadur, for example, Lem’s pale hand reached unerringly to the exact shelf. My clientele, a mix of mystics, dilettantes, and eccentrics, took to him at once. One elderly collector whispered that the boy’s eyes reflected letters when the light struck them a certain way.

His appearance did not phase them. I had fitted him out in some of my old clothes. They hung on him in a rather shapeless and somewhat disturbing way. Nor did the fact that he spoke only in inarticulate grunts precipitate complaints. I explained his sudden arrival as a favor to a cousin in the “old country” who wanted their boy to see a bit of the world.

Business flourished. Orders arrived from London, Buenos Aires, Paris. Lem stood silently behind the counter, committing each transaction to infallible memory. It was inevitable that others would covet him. A bookseller visiting from Helsinki offered to “borrow” him for six months. Another collector hinted at a buy-out. I refused both. But envy moves in far more insidious ways. I began finding notes for Lem tucked in volumes throughout the store. The idea of allowing him to work for someone else was, as you can imagine, out of the question.

I knew then what I must regrettably do. The formula’s reversal was mercifully brief: a mystical letter erased from his forehead; a mere breath released. Lem dissolved into dust finer than that which had at one time coated my bookshelves.

Predictably, in time, the order of the shop decayed. Customers grew impatient; I could no longer locate the most mundane texts. I tried to reconstruct my catalog, but the handwriting blurred, the pages defied sequence. I had promised to set aside a first edition of Runeberg’s Kristus och Judas for a collector from Trieste. When he arrived, I couldn’t find it.

That very evening, I reopened the Sefer Yetzirah. I gathered my materials and began again, this time telling myself it was for the sake of scholarship, not profit. Still, if I worked quickly, perhaps my new assistant – who would henceforth remain behind the scenes – could locate the Runeberg before the buyer left the country!

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Author's note: Apart from the Sefer Yetzirah, the names of the other texts in this story are the invention of the incomparable Argentinean fabulist, Jorge Luis Borges.

James C. Clar is a writer and retired teacher who divides his time between Upstate New York and Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to his contributions to Sudden Flash, his short fiction, essays, book reviews and author interviews have appeared in print and online.