The Golem and the Jinni (44 page)

She chuckled. “Lead on.”

They left the terrace and walked up the steps to the Mall. The thickening fog had wiped the world away, leaving only the broad, elm-lined path and a misty horizon. Next to him, the Golem seemed like a manifestation of the landscape. “This place makes me feel strange,” she murmured.

“Strange, how?”

“I’m not sure.” Her hands came up, as if feeling for the words in the air. “Like I want to run and run, and never stop.”

He smiled. “Is that so strange?”

“It is to me. I’ve never run before.”

“What,
never
?”

“Never.”

“Then you should give it a try.”

She paused, as if considering—and then she leapt from his side. Her legs stretched behind her, her cloak flowed outward like a wing; and for a long moment her body was a dark shape flying away from him at incredible speed.

He stood, stunned, watching; and then he grinned and took off after her, shoes pounding the slate, the trees blurring to either side. Was he gaining on her? He couldn’t tell, she’d disappeared; she’d run from him so quickly!

A copse of trees loomed up out of the fog: it was the end of the Mall. He slowed, came to a stop, looked around. Where was she? “Chava?”

“Come see!”

She was in the middle of the copse, crouching low over something. He stepped across the low fence, and sank up to his ankles in cold mud. Cringing, he picked his way over to her. “Look,” she said.

A thick shoot had poked its way through the mud. At its crown was a knot of petals, tightly furled. He looked around, and saw smaller shoots scattered here and there: the first flowers of spring. “You could see this from the path?”

She shook her head. “I knew it was here. The ground is waking.” He watched as she pressed her hand into the mud. Her hand vanished, then her wrist. For a wild moment he thought she might sink in entirely. He wanted to pull her away, to keep her from disappearing. But then she sat back, and gazed down at the mess of her skirt and shoes, her mud-spattered cloak. “Oh, look what I’ve done,” she murmured. She stood up, becoming again her brisk and businesslike self. “What time is it?”

Together they made their way back to solid ground. His shoes were ruined; he took them off and thumped them on a tree. Next to him, the Golem tried to brush the mud from her cloak. They glanced at each other, smiled quickly and looked away, like children who’d been caught at something.

They took the carriage road south again, and soon they were through the gates and back in the world of granite and concrete. The farther they got from the park, the more the Golem seemed to lose her strange energy. She frowned at her muddy boots, and muttered that she’d have to wash out her cloak. By the time they reached Broadway, she seemed as likely to run for sheer pleasure as to sprout wings and fly. In fact, it was he who was still held by an unreal daze. The familiar streets seemed full of new details: the scrollwork on the lampposts, the carved ornaments above the doorways. He felt as though something inside him was about to break open, or fall apart.

In what seemed no time at all they were in the alley beside her boardinghouse. “We’ll go back again, when it’s warmer,” he said.

She smiled. “I’d like that. Thank you.” She took his hand and squeezed it tightly, her cool fingers around his. And then as always she was gone, and he was left to walk home alone, through streets still hung with morning mist.

18.

P
assover stretched on, and the Lower East Side turned into one giant craving: for a pastry, a bagel, anything really, as long as it wasn’t matzo. Finally, mercifully, the holiday ended, and the neighborhood streamed to the local bakeries in relief. Knowing that her morning shopping trip would be akin to a mob scene, the Sheltering House cook deputized Joseph Schall to go with her to Shimmel’s, their new supplier, and help carry back as much bread as possible. Michael had justified the switch from Radzin’s with talk of better labor practices and the need to support younger businesses; but the cook remembered the gift of almond macaroons, noticed Michael’s recent glum mood, and didn’t ask too many questions.

On this day, though, Shimmel’s was a madhouse. The line stretched far out the door; inside, the employees were running around in a panic, searching for ingredients and frantically rolling out dough, or else apologizing to disgruntled customers whose favorites had already disappeared from the cases. The cook stuck her head in, frowned, came back out. “We’re going to Radzin’s,” she told Schall. “Michael won’t know the difference.”

Yehudah Schaalman could not have cared less which bakery they bought their bread at. The strain of passing himself as kindly old Joseph Schall was taking its toll. He’d been to every synagogue, every yeshiva, every place of Jewish learning he could find, and he felt no closer to his goal, to the secret to life eternal. Never once had he felt a pull from his dowsing spell, even though he knew without doubt that it had worked. Was this why he’d come to New York, to run errands and settle dormitory squabbles? For a month now he’d gritted his teeth and continued, having no other choice. This was his only hand; he’d play it out until he won, or it killed him.

With as much enthusiasm as he could counterfeit he followed the cook back through the sodden, overcrowded streets. The line at Radzin’s was no shorter, but at least it moved. Inside, he hovered near the door, distrusting the crowd. The bakery was packed with people, their steamy exhalations fogging the glass and turning the air thick and humid. Schaalman began to sweat in his wool coat. At least the workers were diverting to look at. They moved quick as machines, especially the tall girl at the near table, who was rolling out dough as if she’d been born to it. He found himself fascinated by her hands. They moved without pause, without a single wasted gesture. He looked up at her face—a plain girl, yet familiar-looking—

There was a sharp, insistent
tug
as the dowsing spell came to bear. And in that moment, he recognized her.

The girl looked up, startled. Her eyes confusedly roved the crowd, as though not sure what she was looking for.

But Schaalman had already slipped out the door. He forced himself to keep calm, his mind clear, until he reached the end of the block, and then leaned against a wall, trembling with shock.

His golem!
The golem he’d built for Rotfeld! She was here, in New York! He’d imagined her rotting away in some rubbish dump—but did that mean that Rotfeld had brought her to life on the ship, before he died? He must have; he’d been more than fool enough to do it. And now she was roaming masterless in New York, a hunk of clay with teeth and hair, a dangerous creature who looked like a woman. And Schaalman had no idea what it could possibly mean.

It lasted only the briefest of moments: a sense that someone had
seen
her, seen to the heart of her, and been afraid. But in the next instant there were only the customers, their desires for rye bread and rugelach. Still, she stood listening with all her senses until Mrs. Radzin shot her a strange look. “Chava? Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I thought I heard someone call my name.” She smiled quickly, and then bent back over her work, wondering. Occasionally someone would wander in off the street with an unquiet mind, from drink or illness or misfortune; perhaps it was one of these, someone who’d arrived at the right answer for the wrong reasons. Or else she’d been working too quickly, and had been noticed. In any case, there was nothing she could do about it, not with a line out the door and six sheets of cookies in the oven. For the rest of the day she listened, but heard nothing; and other, more insistent worries rose to eclipse it.

Anna’s situation was growing worse. The girl was now retreating at least twice a day into the water closet to vomit, and the Radzins had, inevitably, taken notice. At each of Anna’s hurried departures, Mrs. Radzin’s mouth would pinch in distaste, and Mr. Radzin’s expression would turn sour. It was clear to all that the jig was up, but still, maddeningly, no one said a word. They said plenty to themselves, though; and by midweek the Golem thought she might go deaf from the noise.

At night, over her sewing, she reviewed the silently gleaned details of Anna’s situation. The girl was at least two months along. Her young man still didn’t know. She’d told two girlfriends, sworn them to secrecy, though who knew how long that would last. She thought about having it taken care of, but she couldn’t afford to go uptown, and the places on the Bowery frightened her more than telling Irving. She liked to tease and quarrel with him, liked making up after an argument even more, but who was he at heart? Who would he be, when she told him?

The Golem turned it over and over, trying to decide what Anna should do, but she could find no advice to give. The Rabbi would say that her friend had acted rashly, made poor choices, and this was undoubtedly true. But when placed next to Anna’s her own life seemed a pale shadow, without even the opportunity to make Anna’s mistakes. She wasn’t human. She would never have children. Love itself might be beyond her. How could she say she wouldn’t have done the same as Anna, if she’d been born instead of made?

At dawn she was still hunched over these thoughts, irritably stabbing her needle into someone’s trouser-leg. Not even a week had passed since her heedless run in Central Park, and the easy joy of it seemed like someone else’s memory. Then again, it had been a strange experience. She remembered the insistent pull of the earth, and the way her senses had stretched out in every direction, taking in the whole of the park. And the Jinni: he’d looked so oddly lost in the alleyway, so unlike his usual confident self, and she couldn’t even guess the reason. She’d grabbed his hand out of an impulse to reassure herself that he was still there.

She tied off the thread, snipped it close to the knot. There. Trousers mended. She only wished these men would stop
ripping
them.

She put on her cloak and walked to the bakery, braced for another day of fears and silences. And then Anna came through the back door and ripped the ground from beneath her feet.

“Chava!” She grabbed the Golem’s hands, every inch of her radiating happiness. “Congratulate me, I’m getting married!”

“What?”

“Irving proposed last night! He proposed and I said
yes
!”

“Oh, my dear!” cried Mrs. Radzin. She swooped down on the girl, all offenses instantly forgiven. “How wonderful! Come here, tell me everything!”

“Well, we’re just terribly in love, so we’re getting married as soon as we can—”

Mr. Radzin fell to coughing.

“—and then, you’ll never guess, we’re moving to Boston!”

Mrs. Radzin gasped, as she was meant to, and Anna went on to explain about Irving’s friend who’d left New York to help out at his uncle’s textile mill. “And now there’s a job waiting there for Irving if he wants it. He’ll be an assistant manager, with men under him and everything. Imagine me, a boss’s wife!”

The two women went on chatting happily while the Golem stood there dazed. A wedding? Boston? Was this possible? She’d seen Anna’s dilemma as a harrowing choice from among deeply flawed options. Now, listening to the women debate the merits of a lace wedding dress versus embroidered satin, she realized that she’d never once imagined a happy outcome.

Soon Mr. Radzin began to complain that they were running behind, and that they should plan Anna’s trousseau on their own time. All went back to work, and the mood in the bakery returned to something like normal, though little Abie still snuck occasional peeks at Anna, as though expecting her to turn into a fairy princess. At the end of the day, watching Anna retrieve her cloak in the back room, the Golem realized she hadn’t even properly congratulated her. She crossed the room and caught Anna in a hug. Startled, the girl gasped a laugh. “Chava, you’re squeezing the life from me!”

She let go immediately; Anna’s face was red and smiling, there was no real damage done. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I just wanted to say congratulations! But I’ll miss you terribly, is Boston very far away? Can you get there by streetcar? Oh, no, I suppose not.”

Anna was laughing now. “Chava, you goose! You’re a mystery, I swear.”

The words were pouring out, all her week’s worry relieved in a single torrent. “I’m just so happy for you! What did he say when you told him—” She stopped, clapped a hand over her mouth. Thankfully the Radzins were in the alley outside, waiting to lock up for the night.

Anna stifled a nervous giggle. “Hush, for heaven’s sake! I’ve done a poor job of hiding it, I know, but everything’s all right now. He was surprised, of course, who wouldn’t be, but then he got so sweet and solemn, it nearly made my heart break. He started talking about Boston, and how this was a sign he should grow up and settle down. And then he just swooped down on his knees and asked me! Of course I burst into tears, I couldn’t even say yes properly!”

“Are you two staying the night?” called Mr. Radzin from the alley. “If not, some of us would like to get home.”