The Golem and the Jinni (68 page)

“You’d have me melt it down?”

“It’s a failure,” the Jinni said. “There’s no likeness.”

“There’s some,” Saleh said. “And why must there be a likeness? Perhaps it’s a portrait of an entirely new animal.”

The Jinni snorted at this.

The rows of trees seemed to be ending; before them the path dipped to a set of stairs that ran below a bridge. And beyond the bridge, Saleh could now see a figure rising, coming clearer with each step: a statue of a woman, her head bowed in shadow between an outstretched pair of wings.

“I saw her that night,” he said, more to himself than his companion. “I thought she was the Angel of Death, coming for me.”

He felt the Jinni flinch beside him. He turned, a question forming on his lips—and glimpsed the Jinni’s rising fist, and beyond it his faintly glowing face, his eyes full of a grim apology.

Anna was breathing hard, as though she’d been hurrying. She looked angry, stubborn, and terrified all at once. “I told myself I’d never go near you again,” she said. A pause. “Are you going to let me in?”

The Golem ushered her in and closed the door, trying to keep her distance; Anna’s fear of her was palpable.

The girl was watching her carefully. “I didn’t expect you to be here already,” she said. “I was going to wait.”

“Anna,” the Golem said, “I am so very sorry. I know it changes nothing, but—”

“Not now,” said Anna, impatient. “There’s something wrong with Ahmad.”

The Golem gaped at her. “You’ve seen him?”

“He was just at my building, with a message for you.”

“But—he came to
you
? How did he know where—”

“That’s not important,” Anna said quickly. She fished in her pocket and drew out a piece of paper. “I wrote down what he told me, as close as I could remember.” She held it out.

Tell Chava that she is in danger, from a man who calls himself Joseph Schall. He is her creator, and my master. It will sound impossible, but it’s true. She must get as far away from him as she can. Leave the city, if possible.

Tell her she was right. There were consequences to my actions, and I never saw them. I stole something from her once, because I wanted no harm to come to her, but I had no right to do so. Please give it back, and tell her I said good-bye.

“Here,” the girl said, and handed her another square of folded paper, one whose dimensions the Golem knew by heart. He’d stolen it from her? And he’d crossed paths with Joseph Schall, as well? She had the disorienting sense of important events happening elsewhere while her back was turned.

She replaced the square of folded paper in her locket, and then read the Jinni’s message again, trying to make sense of it. This time she saw what she’d missed in her confusion: the underlying notes of desperation and resolve. He was not simply leaving town. “Oh God,” she said, aghast. “Anna, did he say what he was planning?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. But, Chava, he looked
terrible
. Like he was going to do something awful.”

To himself?
she wanted to ask, but didn’t need to; Anna’s mind had provided the answer, in fearful visions of ropes and guns and bottles of laudanum. No, she couldn’t believe he would do such a thing—but was that why he’d returned the paper, because he’d chosen an action he’d once denied her? A breath of panic touched her. The Jinni’s veiled mind would’ve told her no more than the note—but could she not guess? It would not be poison, or a rope or a gun. It would be water.

“Which direction did he go? Was it east, toward the river?” But Anna just shook her head, baffled. It might already be too late—

The burnt pages were calling to her from inside their flour sack. Hadn’t there been a formula titled
To Locate a Person’s Whereabouts
? Surely she could risk using Schall’s magic, just this once! She grabbed the flour sack, was about to spill its contents onto the floor—and then stopped.
Wait
, she told herself.
Think
. The Jinni would never choose the East River docks, or the oil-stained waters of the bay, or anywhere else so inelegant. She didn’t need forbidden diagrams or formulae to tell her his destination. She knew; she knew
him
.

But what about the pages? She couldn’t leave them at the bakery; she needed to hide them from Schall, somewhere he’d never go. Pressing the sack into Anna’s arms, she said, “Take this, and hide it somewhere no one would think to look. A place only you know about. No, don’t tell me where, don’t even think it.”

“What? Chava, do you know how hard it is
not
to think about something—”

“Just don’t! Don’t look at it, and don’t tell a soul, do you understand?”

“I don’t understand
any
of this,” the girl said, plaintive.

“Promise me!”

“All right, I promise, if it’s that important.”

“It is,” the Golem said, relieved. “Thank you, Anna.” And then she ran: out the back door and up the fire escape to the roof, chasing after the Jinni as fast as she could.

The Jinni caught Saleh as he fell and carried him to a nearby bench: merely another vagrant, sleeping away the morning. He made certain the man was still breathing and then walked on, descending the stairway to the arched and columned darkness of the arcade. His steps echoed off the tiled walls, and then he was out in the sunlight again, crossing the terrace’s broad expanse of red brick, coming to the fountain’s rim.

The Angel of the Waters gazed down at him, patient, waiting.

The terrace was all but deserted; only a few men could be seen hurrying home after their dubious nighttime activities, using the Park as a shortcut. Hat brims low over their faces, they walked with that hunched defiance against sleep that the Golem had once remarked on. They would not pose a problem.

The fountain stood quiet, its dancing jets silenced. There was little noise at all save for the lapping of the water. He had the strange impulse to take off his shoes, and so he did, lining them up next to the fountain’s edge. For a moment he thought to run back to Saleh and wake him, to tell him that yes, there were many people who deserved apologies—Arbeely for one, and young Matthew, and Sam Hosseini for not finishing his necklaces. But time was passing, and it would be one indulgence too many. Besides, he’d taken care of the most important apology when he’d knocked on Anna’s door.

He looked up at the Angel again, at her face full of compassionate concern. There was a resemblance, he decided: the plain yet pleasing features, the set of her lips, the wave of her hair. It gave some comfort, at least.

He stepped over the rim’s edge into the low pool, shivering at the water’s touch, at the numb languor that crept up his legs. Then, without further thought or gesture, he bent and slipped himself beneath the surface, to lie in the shallows of the fountain, his body cradled in its bowl.

The Golem ran.

More than sixty city blocks lay between her and her destination, and already the sun was crowning over the East River. A few hours earlier, she could’ve raced in the dark, silent and anonymous. In daylight she would be noticed, remarked upon.

The Golem found she did not care.

She ran, rooftop to rooftop, through the old Germantown tenements, the East River hard on her right. Waking men squinted at her approach; she heard their cries of surprise as she ignored the narrow plank bridges and vaulted over the alleyways below. She dodged chimneys, clotheslines, and water towers, and counted the blocks.
Nine, ten, eleven, twelve
.

Time slowed as she pushed herself.
Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two.
Union Square fell behind her, then Madison Square Park. Where would he be by now? Fifty-ninth Street? On the carriage path? Was it already too late? She ran faster, trying to keep focus: one misstep at this speed would spell ruin. The wind was a high thin cry in her ears. Children stared from upper windows, and would later tell their friends they’d seen a lady outrun the Elevated.
Thirty-eight blocks. Thirty-nine. Forty.

At last she could see the park, a distant square of green flashing between the buildings. She clattered down a fire escape, startling sleepers on the landings. And then she was running across the avenues, a plain-dressed woman who dodged the morning traffic like a fish navigating a shoal. A trolley rushed around a corner, and at the last moment she darted past it, ignoring the incredulous fears of the riders who’d seen her coming at them like a cannonball.

She was across Fifty-ninth; she was inside the park. She raced up the carriage drive and then the broad, tree-lined path, feeling the growing things all around her, adding their energy to her speed. Ahead of her, a man in threadbare clothes staggered upright from one of the benches, pressing a careful hand to his head. He straightened, blinking a newly bruised eye, and gaped as she ran past.

Down the stairs, through the arcade, and across the terrace: and even before she was at the fountain she could see him there, curled like a sleeping child beneath the water.

“Ahmad!”
She jumped the edge of the fountain and plunged in, hooked her arms about him and dragged him back over the side. Water sluiced from his clothing as she laid him on the brick. He was cold, and pale as smoke, and so horribly light in her arms, as though his substance had evaporated. Frantically she tried to dry him, but there was nothing to hand—only her own clothes, already sopping wet.

“Ahmad! You have to wake up!”

There was a man at her side, gripping her arm.

“
Leave me alone!
” she cried, shrugging him away.

“I’m trying to help you!” came the shouted reply, in Arabic.

Saleh’s head was pounding.

He winced, scolding himself for not realizing the Jinni would try something like this. Had he thought to simply talk him out of whatever plan he’d concocted? And why, for heaven’s sake, was he helping a strange woman save the creature, instead of simply turning around and going home?

Surprisingly, the woman seemed to understand Arabic. She’d moved aside and was now watching with obvious panic as Saleh cupped the Jinni’s chin in his hand, turning his head this way and that. He wondered who she was, how she’d known where to find them.
Leave it
, his mind whispered as he examined the too-pale face, felt the chest for a hint of warmth.
Just let the troublesome creature die
.

“Who are you?” asked the woman.

“Doctor Mahmoud Saleh,” he muttered and pried open one of the Jinni’s eyes. There: a spark. Bare and faltering, but undeniable. “He’s still alive,” he said. The woman cried out in relief. “Not just yet,” he told her. “He’s nearly gone.”

“He needs warmth,” the woman said. “A fire.” She began a frenzied search of the horizon, as though she might find a handy blaze nearby.

Warmth, fire. A memory came to Saleh, tinged with ghostly colors. He saw a frost-covered garden, a gigantic mansion of stone set with innumerable gables—and, resting above them, four chimneys that puffed gray-white smoke into the winter sky.

I’d appreciate it if you called on Sophia Winston and conveyed my apologies.