The Golem and the Jinni (49 page)

She found an unoccupied dead-end alley free of open windows and prying eyes. She listened with all her senses but heard only the usual sleeping thoughts, safe behind the alley’s walls. If the police were looking for her, they weren’t yet close enough to interfere. She felt no hesitation, no regret. She was only left astonished at how quickly it had all come to pieces.

She drew out the heavy golden locket, let it rest in her palm a moment. She wondered: would she fall over, unmoving? Or dissolve into a heap of dust? Would she sense it happening, or simply cease to be? She felt at once calm and giddy, as though she’d jumped from a great height and was now watching the ground rise up to meet her.

She placed her thumb against the catch of the locket, and pressed. It sprang open, revealing an empty golden hollow. The paper was gone. It had simply vanished.

She stared at the spot where the paper should have been. Had she lost it long ago and never noticed? Had it somehow been stolen away? In the unreal daze of the evening, it seemed entirely possible it had never existed at all, that she’d invented the whole thing: the Rabbi, his death, the envelope lying next to his hand.

She forced herself to think. She’d have to come up with another solution, but what? Clearly she couldn’t be trusted on her own anymore. She’d made terrible decisions, given in to too many temptations. Perhaps she could find someone to watch over her, as the Rabbi once had. Someone decent and responsible. They needn’t even know her nature—they could lead her by example, protect her without knowing the good they did.

The answer, when it came, carried the weight of inevitability. Maybe, she thought, this was what she’d been heading toward, all along.

Michael Levy left for the Sheltering House earlier than usual that morning. He’d slept poorly, dogged by sinister dreams, of which he remembered only fragments. In one, his uncle took him by the shoulders to tell him something he
must not
forget, but his words were drowned by the wind. In another, he was walking toward a filthy, falling-down shack, and from the window a man’s malevolent eyes peered out like something from a folktale. There was no sleeping again after that one, so he rolled away his pallet, got dressed, and left for work.

He was exhausted, down to his bones. Somehow he’d kept the Sheltering House from collapsing, but on mornings like this he wondered if he was only prolonging the agony. Worse, other Jewish charities were starting to send him their overflow cases, as though he were a magician who could conjure up cots and bread from thin air. He turned away as many as he could stomach, but even so, they were stretched far beyond their limits. Morale among House staff was suffering; even the indefatigable Joseph Schall seemed morose and distracted. And could anyone blame him? Something would have to change, and soon. They all needed a reason to hope.

He turned the corner and saw a dark figure sitting on the Sheltering House steps. For a moment he groaned at the thought of another referral, but then the figure saw him and stood: a woman, tall and straight. He realized who it was, and his heart leapt.

“Hello, Chava,” he said. He didn’t want to ask why she was there. No doubt it was for some mundane errand and she’d be gone far too quickly.

She said, “Michael, I’d like to be your wife. Will you marry me?”

Could this possibly be real? It must be; his dreams were never so generous. He reached out and touched the side of her cheek, daring to believe. She did not draw away. She did not move toward him. She only gazed back, and he saw himself reflected, hand outstretched, in her dark and steady eyes.

It was nearly three in the morning, and the Bowery was still crowded with men and women, shouting with drunken laughter. Music poured from the gambling parlors and bordello doorways, but the debauchery felt increasingly desperate. Con men in the alleys searched the crowd for their last marks of the evening; prostitutes leaned out of windows, posing idly, their eyes eager and shrewd.

Through this fraying bacchanal the Jinni came walking, down from the rooftops where the Golem had left him. He saw none of it, neither the crowd nor the hunters who noted the wounded anger in his eyes and looked for better prospects elsewhere. He only could see the Golem standing before him, her clothing burned and her hair wild. His mind echoed with the words she’d spoken, the things she’d blamed him for. The finality of her good-bye.

Well then, so be it. She could offer herself up to the police, become the tragic martyr she so longed to be. Or she could return to her boardinghouse cage, to bake and sew for all eternity. He cared not. He was done with her.

As he moved south the crowd thinned and disappeared, leaving only the slums. He kept walking, avoiding the western turn toward Little Syria. Nothing waited for him there but the shop or else his rented room, and he couldn’t stand the thought of either.

At length he neared the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. He’d always admired the bridge, its elegant curving band, the incredible effort and artistry that had gone into its making. He found the entrance to the pedestrian walkway and walked out until he stood above the very edge of the land. Boats bobbed in the harbor below him, their hulls rasping against the pilings. If he wanted, he could simply walk across to Brooklyn and keep walking. The more he thought about it, the more appealing the idea became. Nothing was keeping him in Manhattan. He could cast off all pretensions to a human existence and go ever onward, never tiring, never stopping! The earth would glide away beneath him as it had once before!

He stood above the water, body tensed, waiting for himself to take the first step. The bridge cast itself out before him, a hanging net of cold steel and glowing gaslight, gathering to a distant pinprick.

All at once the tension drained from him, leaving a deep weariness. It was no use. What was there for him on the other side of that bridge? Endless people and buildings, built on land that was itself another island. He would walk until he reached its end, and then what? Cast himself into the ocean? He might as well jump from where he stood.

He could feel Washington Street pulling at him, as though he were a bird in a snare. Inch by inch it drew him back. There was nothing there he wanted, but there was nowhere else to go.

Arbeely was stoking the forge when the Jinni came in. “Good morning,” the man said. “Would you mind watching the shop? I have errands to run, and then I’m going to see Matthew’s mother. I’m not sure she knows how much time he’s spending here.” When the Jinni didn’t respond, Arbeely looked up at him, and blanched. “Are you all right?”

A pause. “Why do you ask?”

Arbeely wanted to say that the Jinni looked sick at heart, as though he’d lost something of immense value and spent all night searching for it. But he only said, “You look ill.”

“I don’t fall ill.”

“I know.”

The Jinni sat down at his bench. “Arbeely,” he said, “would you say you’re satisfied with your life?”

Oh God
, thought Arbeely,
something’s happened.
Nervously he considered his response. “It’s difficult to say. But yes, I think I’m satisfied. Business is good. I eat well, and I send money to my mother. I work hard, but I like my work. There are many who can’t say as much.”

“But you live far from your home. You have no lover that I’m aware of. You do the same thing every single day, with only myself for company. How can this possibly satisfy you?”

Arbeely winced. “It’s not as bad as that,” he said. “Of course I miss my family, but I’m more successful here than I ever could have been in Zahleh. Someday I’ll go back to Syria, and find a wife and start a family. But for now, what more do I need? I’ve never wished for riches, or adventure. I just want to make a good living, and have a comfortable life. But then, I’m not exactly a complicated man.”

The Jinni let out a hollow laugh. Then he leaned forward and put his head in his hands. It was a startlingly human gesture, full of weakness. Chagrined, Arbeely busied himself at the forge. Were the Jinni anyone else, Arbeely would have steered him toward a comforting talk with Maryam. But of course the Jinni couldn’t do this, not without leaving out everything that mattered. Was he himself the Jinni’s only confidant? The thought made him want to pray for them both.

Perhaps he could offer a distraction, at least. “I’ve been thinking,” Arbeely said. “Would you be interested in making women’s jewelry? Sam Hosseini gets a lot of business from wealthy women outside the neighborhood, looking for exotic things to wear. If we approach him with a sample, he might set aside a display for us.” He paused. “What do you say? A necklace, perhaps. Not as exciting as a ceiling, but more interesting than pots and pans.”

There was a long silence. Then the Jinni said, “I suppose I could make a necklace.”

“Good! That’s good. I’ll call on Sam after I speak with Matthew’s mother.” He left the shop with a concerned backward glance, hoping that whatever was bothering his partner would resolve itself soon.

The Jinni sat alone in the shop and watched the fire burn in the forge. At the mention of a necklace, an image had come to mind: an intricate chain of gold and silver, with hanging disks of blue-white glass, all woven with filigree. He’d never seen such a necklace before; it had simply appeared before him, like the tin ceiling. He was grateful, he supposed. It gave him something to do.

He got up to gather supplies and felt something shift in his pocket. The Golem’s square of paper. He’d forgotten all about it.

He took it out and held it warily, half-daring himself to open it. Her most secret possession, and he’d stolen it from her. The thought was satisfying, in a small and petty way, but as he held it, he felt a growing dread. It crossed his mind to destroy it, but at that he faltered too. He’d taken it almost without thinking, and now it was a weight he didn’t want.

What to do with it, then? The shop was unsafe; his own tenement room was little better. After a moment’s deliberation, he pulled back his shirtsleeve and maneuvered the paper beneath his iron cuff, fitting it between the warm metal and his skin, as though sliding a note through a crack under a door. There was just enough room. He flexed his wrist, trying to dislodge it, but the paper stayed where it was. He could almost forget it was there.

When Matthew opened the shop door a few minutes later, he spied the Jinni sitting with his back to him, bent over his work. With his noiseless footsteps he came to the edge of the workbench, just beyond the Jinni’s sight.

In one hand the Jinni held a short silver wire, clamped in a pair of round jeweler’s pliers. With the other hand he was slowly, carefully stroking the wire. Matthew watched as the wire began to take on the shimmer of heat. Then, in a smooth quick movement, the Jinni grasped the free end of the wire and bent it around the pliers so that it formed a perfect circle. He released the wire from the pliers and pinched the two ends together, fusing them. Now Matthew saw that a chain of these links dangled from the one just formed. The Jinni turned to pick up another small piece of wire, and saw Matthew.

Boy and jinni stared at each other for a few long moments. Then the Jinni said, “You already knew?”

The boy nodded.

“How?”

The boy whispered, “The ceiling. I heard you and Mr. Arbeely. You used to live there.”

The Jinni recalled the private conversation in the lobby. “Did anyone else hear?” The boy shook his head,
no
. “Did you tell anyone?”
No
. “Not even your mother?”
No.

The Jinni sighed inwardly. It was bad, but it could have been much worse. “Don’t tell Arbeely you know. He’d be angry with me if he found out. Will you promise?”

A firm, wide-eyed nod. Then the boy reached over and lifted one of the Jinni’s hands. He began a careful examination, poking at the palm with his fingertips, as though expecting it to burst into flame. The Jinni watched for a while, amused, and then sent a small pulse of heat into his hand. The boy gasped and let go, sticking his fingers in his mouth.

“Are you hurt?”

Matthew shook his head. The Jinni took the boy’s hands and examined them: no red spots or rising blisters. He’d only been startled.

“There’s a price for knowing my secret,” the Jinni said. “You must help me make this necklace.” The boy, who’d started to look alarmed, broke into a wide smile. “I need many short pieces of silver wire, about the length of your thumbnail.” He cut a piece from the roll to demonstrate, then handed the boy the wire-snips. “Can you do this?”

In answer, the boy began to measure wire and cut it with great care. “Good,” the Jinni said. “Be careful not to bend them.” He’d have to tell Arbeely that the boy knew; it couldn’t be kept a secret for long. Arbeely would be furious. First Saleh, then Matthew: who’d be next? Perhaps his luck would hold, and he’d only be unmasked by half-insane men and silent children.

He rubbed absently at his cuff, wondering if she’d noticed yet that the paper was gone. Then he wrenched his thoughts away. He had work to do.

A few days later, a delivery boy pedaled his way to Washington Street and found the sign that read
A
RBEELY
& A
HMAD
—T
IN
, I
RON
, S
ILVER
, A
LL
M
ETALS
. Arbeely answered the knock at the door to see the boy standing there, holding a small parcel. “Afternoon,” the boy said in English, touching his hat.