The Golem and the Jinni (33 page)

She wrenched away from him. “Don’t touch me!” she cried; and then turned and ran into the darkness of the next gallery.

He was left somewhat stunned. She’d pulled away from him with astonishing force. In this, at least, she was correct: if others saw her strength, she’d certainly be noticed.

He was beginning to wonder if he’d been wise to pursue her attention. When they’d met, her fear and reticence had piqued his curiosity; now they only seemed debilitating, a sign of deeper troubles. But still he followed her into the next gallery. She stood before one of the largest tanks in the aquarium, full of tiny, colorful fish. He approached, but kept his distance.

“There are almost a hundred fish in this tank,” she muttered. “I can’t count them properly, they keep moving.”

“I only meant to help,” he said.

“I know.”

“Arbeely—the tinsmith I told you about—he tells me I must be cautious. And I know he is right, to a degree. But if I hide away forever, I’ll go mad. And neither of us should have to give every night over to our fears.” The idea had been building in his mind as he spoke, and now he said, “Come walking with me instead.”

Her eyes widened in surprise—and instantly he wondered what had compelled him. She was so cautious, so afraid! She’d hold him back, surely. Yet the thought of her caged in her room filled him with such horror—as if it were his own fate, and not hers—that he’d spoken without truly considering.

Doubtfully she said, “You’re offering yourself as company?”

He resigned himself to his offer. “Let us say, one night a week. It makes sense, doesn’t it? A lone woman would draw attention, but this way you wouldn’t be alone.”

“And where exactly would you take me?”

He began to warm to the task of convincing her. “I could show you many things. Places like this.” He gestured to the water and glass around them. “The parks at night, the rivers. We could walk all night long, and only see a fraction of this city. If all you’ve seen is your own neighborhood, then you have no idea.” To his surprise, his enthusiasm was growing genuine.

She turned back to the fish, as if looking to them for her answer, or reassurance. “All right,” she said at last. “For now, we’ll say one night only. A week from today. But there’s something you need to know first. It wouldn’t be fair to you otherwise.” Visibly she gathered her courage, and said, “When you told me what had happened to you—with the wizard—it answered a question. There’s a
need
in you.” He gave her a quizzical look, but she went on. “Golems are meant to be ruled by a master. A golem senses its master’s thoughts, and responds to them, without thinking. My own master is dead. But that ability didn’t go away.”

It took him a moment to realize what she was saying. He felt himself start to recoil. “You can read minds?”

Quickly she shook her head. “Nothing as certain as that. Fears, desires. Needs. If I’m not careful, they can overwhelm me. But—you’re different.”

“Different how?”

“Harder to see clearly.” She was searching his face now; he repressed the urge to back away. “I see your face as lit from within, and shaded without. Your mind is the same. It’s as though part of you is constantly struggling to be free. It shadows everything else.”

This, he thought, was much more than he had bargained for. He now understood her uncanny presence, her sense of listening to something unheard; but the explanation was even more unsettling.

“I only wanted you to know,” she said. “I’ll understand if you withdraw your offer.”

He considered. Well, it was only one night. If she proved too eerie, they would part company.

“My offer still stands,” he said. “One night. One week from today.” And she smiled.

They left the aquarium and made their way back to her neighborhood. The streets were uncommonly quiet, the dark broken by a lamp-lit window here and there. As they walked, he found himself examining his own thoughts; he found no desires that he was ashamed of her sensing. And his fears? Captivity, boredom, discovery. Each of which she knew as well as he.

Perhaps
, he thought,
it will not be so terrible
. They would walk about, they would talk. It would be a novelty, if nothing else.

At her request they stopped in the alley next to the boardinghouse, away from her neighbors’ eyes. He asked, “Have I at least convinced you that I mean you no harm?”

She smiled slightly. “For the most part.”

“I suppose that will have to do. Until next week.” He turned to go.

“Wait.” She touched his arm. “Please, remember your promise. I must stay hidden. If not from you, then from everyone else.”

“I keep my promises,” he said. “As I trust you keep yours.”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“Then I will see you in seven nights.”

“Good-bye,” she said, and with no more ceremony disappeared around the corner.

He walked home unsure of what he had just let into his life. It was early yet, perhaps four in the morning. He thought he’d work on one of his figurines—there was an ibis only half completed. He couldn’t work the proportions correctly, the bill was all wrong and the legs too thick.

As he climbed the front steps of his building, a figure interposed itself between him and the door. It was a man, old and gaunt, in what looked like layers of rags and a smirched overcoat. A grubby scarf was wound about his head. The man’s stance, his dark accusatory stare, made the Jinni think he’d been lying in wait.

“
What are you
?” croaked the man.

The Jinni frowned. “I beg your pardon.”

“I can look at you,” the man said. “There’s no death in your face.” His tone was hysterical, his eyes so wide the whites shone. He grabbed at the front of the Jinni’s coat and shouted up at him. “I can see you! You’re made of fire!
Tell me what you are
!”

The Jinni froze, horrified. A pair of boys, up early and drawn by the shouts, crept around the doorframe to watch the commotion. The old man cried out and turned away from them, letting go of the Jinni. His throat worked for a moment; and then he backed down the stairs, one hand shielding his eyes, and trudged unsteadily down the street.

“You all right, mister?” one of the boys asked.

“Yes, of course.” It was a lie. He’d been terrified enough to consider pushing the man down the steps.

“That’s Ice Cream Saleh,” the other boy said. “He’s funny in the head.”

“I see,” the Jinni said. “A madman. And why is he allowed to live here?”

“He don’t break no laws, I guess. And he makes the best ice cream around. But he can’t look no one in the face. He gets sick.”

“Interesting,” said the Jinni. “Thank you.” He found a couple of pennies in his coat pocket, and gave one to each of them. Satisfied, they ran off down the stairs.

The Jinni was profoundly disturbed. If this man—whoever he was—could truly see him, should he be worried about his safety? He couldn’t tell Arbeely; the man would only panic and demand that the Jinni stay locked in his room with the window covered. Besides, he thought, growing calmer, if the man was considered a lunatic—and he certainly looked the part—then whatever he might say could be dismissed as meaningless. For now, the Jinni decided, he would merely be watchful.

Arbeely was in a good mood that morning—another large order had come through, of soup pots this time—and he greeted the Jinni cheerfully. “Good morning! Did you have an exciting night? Meet with any more clay women? Or women made of anything else?”

For a moment the Jinni considered telling him about the Golem. Arbeely already knew about her, after all; he’d only promised to tell no one else. But he liked the idea of having a secret from Arbeely, something that the man could not scold him about.

“No,” the Jinni said. “I saw no one special.” And he set out his tools and tied on his apron while Arbeely bustled about the shop, none the wiser.

14.

A
fter three days in the ward at Swinburne Island, Michael Levy’s fever finally broke. The doctors kept him there for another two weeks, feeding him broth and mashed vegetables, helping him walk up and down the drafty halls. He was malnourished, they told him, and dangerously anemic.
Get yourself married
, they said.
You need a wife to fatten you up
.

He ate, and slept, and his body healed. A letter came from the Sheltering House board wishing him a quick return, which he took to mean that the House was coming unglued without him. One night the nurses caught him walking around the ward, talking with the patients, encouraging them to petition the Ellis Island officials for reentry. They shooed him back to bed and threatened to tie him down again.

It was almost New Year’s when Michael was discharged. He stood at the ferry’s rail bundled against an icy wind that turned the water dark and choppy. He’d put on five pounds and felt better than he had in months. He’d begun to think of his illness as a strange parting gift from his uncle, an opportunity to rest and be cared for. Not quite taking the waters at Saratoga, but as close as he’d ever get.

The ferry pushed away from the thin pilings, chugging against the current. Night had fallen. Staten Island and Brooklyn slumbered to either side, their clapboard villages battened down for the winter. The tip of Manhattan appeared at the north end of the bay, and Michael’s equanimity wavered. What chaos would be waiting for him at the House? The wind picked up, but he stayed on deck and watched the Statue of Liberty go by, and tried to draw strength from her calm and compassionate gaze.

In the Sheltering House, it was just past lights-out. A hundred and fifty men lay on their cots, covered with thin blankets. Some were awake with fears for their new life; others soon gave in to the exhaustion of the voyage, or a day spent looking for work.

On a cot near the window on the third floor, the man now known as Joseph Schall slept as deeply and peacefully as a child.

It was chance pure and simple that had brought Schaalman to the Sheltering House. After that bureaucrat at Ellis Island had changed his name—any number of revenges had risen to his lips, but he’d pushed them all down again—he’d descended the wide staircase and come face-to-face with the Manhattan skyline, framed in tall windows at the end of the hall. It was a forbidding and majestic view, and it stopped him in his tracks. Ever since his dream of the city he’d known the task before him to be difficult; but now, facing the real thing across the bay, it struck him as flat-out impossible. He spoke no English, was unused to people and crowds, didn’t even have a place to sleep. Were there inns in New York? Or stables? Surely at least there were stables?

A hand touched his arm, and he turned, startled. It was a young woman with a round-cheeked face. She asked, “Sir, do you speak Yiddish?”

“Yes,” he said warily.

She explained that she was a volunteer with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Was there anything he needed? Could they offer him any assistance?

Were it any other time or place, he would have searched her for weaknesses to exploit, or simply fuddled her mind and then robbed her. But now, tired, depressed, and defeated, he resorted to his most hated gambit: the truth. “I have nowhere to stay,” he muttered.

She told him of a place called the Hebrew Sheltering House and said there was a boat that could take him there. Meekly he followed her out to the dock, clutching his suitcase like a frightened child.

But within a day of arriving at the Sheltering House, he was returned to his old self-confidence. In a way, life at the House was like being incarcerated again. The cots, the dormitories, the foul water closets and the communal meals, the ever-changing roster of faces: here was a place he understood, with overseers to manipulate, and rules to be bent or broken. All in all, the perfect bolt-hole.

There were only two hard and fast rules at the Hebrew Sheltering House: meals had to be eaten in the dining hall at the appointed times, and no man could stay more than five days. Breaking the second rule proved even easier than the first. By luck, the director of the Sheltering House had fallen ill. The cook and the housekeeper had divided his duties between them and spent all day running frantically this way and that, trying to maintain order. On Schaalman’s third day, forty newcomers stepped off the ferry and came through the door, to find only eighteen unoccupied cots. The new arrivals milled uneasily on the landing, while the cook and housekeeper searched for the misplaced roster that would have set everything to rights. Failing to find it and both near tears, they went to each dormitory and asked if the men who’d overstayed would please own up to it. They were met with nothing but blank stares. With so many men coming and going, and so much time spent searching for work or a place to live, even the ones who might have reported the rule breakers had little idea where to point.

But Schaalman had been observing them all for days. He looked about, and found a number of men who’d been there when he arrived. He watched their faces as the women pleaded, and saw the telltale signs of guilt and defiance. He took the women aside for a brief conversation. With his help, they recruited two large men from among the new arrivals. Then they went from dormitory to dormitory and tossed out the wrongdoers while Schaalman looked on, a stern yet mild judge.

The cook and the housekeeper couldn’t thank him enough. He replied that he was glad to help—of course order had to be kept, everyone must follow the rules—and if they needed him for anything else, he was at their disposal. They kissed his cheek like grateful daughters. Later that night Schaalman retrieved the missing roster from under his cot and replaced it in the office, between the pages of a newspaper.

The next day, he volunteered to help with the new arrivals. While the women checked off names and bustled about, he directed men to their bunks and explained the rules of the house. Afterward, with all settled, the women invited him into the office and gave him a glass of schnapps.

“What Mr. Levy doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” the housekeeper whispered, and struck Joseph Schall from the next day’s departure list.