The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick Page B

of the tub the imponderous damp relentless clay of a young girl—a lifeless forked creature in the semblance of a girl—and smelled the smell of mud, and put her down in her own bed to dry. The small jar to that small weight loosened crumbs of earth wherever a limb was joined to the trunk, and where the neck was joined, and where the ears had their fragile connecting stems. The crumbs sprinkled down. They crept under Puttermesser’s fingernails.
    And all this Puttermesser performed (aha, now it beat in hindbrain and in forebrain, she saw it, she knew it again!) because of agitation and fever: because of the wilderness inside Rappoport’s Times . Why should the despoiled misgoverned miscreant City not shine at dawn like washed stones? Tablets of civilization, engraved with ontological notations in an ancient tongue. Puttermesser craved. Her craving was to cleanse the wilderness; her craving was to excise every black instance of injustice; her craving was to erase outrage. In the middle of her craving—out of the blue—she formulated the PLAN .
    She was thumbing it now, it was in her hands:
    PLAN
    FOR THE
    RESUSCITATION ,
    REFORMATION ,
    REINVIGORATION
    & REDEMPTION
    OF THE
    CITY OF NEW YORK
    â€œWhere did you get this?” Puttermesser demanded.
    â€œI am your amanuensis,” the golem wrote. “I express you. I copy and record you. Now it is time for you to accomplish your thought.”
    â€œEveryone has funny thoughts,” Puttermesser croaked; an uneasiness heated her. She was afraid of the last page.
    â€œNo reality greater than thought,” the golem wrote.
    â€œLay off the Middle Finnish. I want to hear the truth about all this. Where’d this stuff come from? You couldn’t copy it, I never put any of it down.”
    The golem wrote: “Two urges seeded you. I am one, this is the other. A thought must claim an instrument. When you conceived your urge, simultaneously you conceived me.”
    â€œNot simultaneously,” Puttermesser objected; perhaps the golem could not be trusted with chronology. She breathed outside history. Puttermesser reimagined the electric moment exactly: the PLAN swimming like an inner cosmos into being, the mere solid golem an afterthought.
    â€œNo matter; I will serve your brain. I am your offspring, you are my mother. I am the execution of the grandeur of your principles. Grand design is my business. Leave visionary restoration to me.” After which the golem put the ballpoint pen in her mouth and patiently sucked.
    A fatigue seeped into Puttermesser; a tedium. It struck her that the golem was looking sly. She noticed that the seams along the armholes in the golem’s purple blouse had begun to open. Growth. Enlargement. Swelling. Despite distraction Puttermesser read on. The PLAN , though it had originated in her own mind, nevertheless smacked of Marmel’s lingo, Turtelman’s patois. It appeared to derive, in truth, from the Form-language of Polly the Destroyer. A starkness penetrated Puttermesser; the dead words themselves depressed her. Her wrists shook. Was it not possible to dream a dream of City without falling into the mouth of the Destroyer? Behold the conservation of residential property through the exclusion of depreciating factors. Compute twelve hundred and fifty zoning codes. Note physical aspects. Social aspects. Retail and wholesale business. Manufacturing. Shipping. Single and multiple residences. Cultural institutions. Parks, public buildings, amusements, schools, universities, community objectives, rapidity and feasibility of transportation via streets and transit lines. Health, traffic, safety, public assembly conveniences. Sanitation. Prevention of slums. Transformation of slums. Eradication of poverty. Morality and obedience to law. Ordinances. Trust and pension funds. Treasury, public works, water. Public library. Police. Inspection. Councils and commissions. Welfare.Trustees. Revenue forecasting.