The Golem and the Jinni

  But the street remained silent. There was no knock at the door, no approaching wave of fearful anger.

  She crept back to the window’s edge and peered out. He was still there, alone, leaning against the lamppost. As she watched, he rolled himself a cigarette, and then, without benefit of a match, touched his finger to the end and inhaled. All this without glancing at her window. He was, she realized, certain of his audience. And he was enjoying himself.

  Her panic subsided, was replaced by ire. How dare he follow her home? What right did he have? And yet—how many times had she thought to go to Washington Street and seek him out? And now here he was, under her window, and she had no idea what to do about it.

  For almost an hour she watched as he stood there, for all the world as though he had nothing better to do than hold up the lamppost and smoke cigarettes. He nodded at the occasional passersby, who all stared at his uncovered head and thin coat.

  Then, as if struck by a sudden impulse, he pulled something from his pocket. It was roughly the size of an apple, though not as round, and it glinted in the thin pool of gaslight. He held it cupped in his hands, and for a few long moments his hands blazed so brightly it almost hurt to look at them. Then from another pocket he withdrew a long, thin stick, pointed at the end like a needle. He held the object up and peered at it, and began to poke at it gently with the stick.

  Curious despite her caution, she crept closer to the window and watched as he worked. Every so often he frowned and rubbed a thumb over whatever he had done, as if erasing a mistake. She realized that the light inside him didn’t shine beyond his own body; for although his hands were half as bright as the gas lamp, the thing he held remained in shadow.

  Finally he slowed his work and then stopped. He held up the object for inspection, turning it this way and that, before bending down and setting it next to the lamppost. Then, without so much as a backward glance, he walked away down the street again, the way he’d come.

  The Golem waited ten minutes. Then she waited five more. The day was about to begin. Already the traffic on the sidewalk was increasing. One, two, three people walked past the lamppost. Soon someone would notice whatever it was he’d left there, and claim it for themselves. Or it would be kicked into the gutter, and lost. And then she would never know what it was.

  She grabbed her cloak and rushed down the stairs. At the front door, she paused: had he doubled back to lie in wait for her, having baited his trap? She opened the door a crack and poked her head around, but saw no glowing faces, only ordinary men and women. She went to the lamppost and retrieved the object, examining it in the gaslight.

  It was a small silver bird, still warm to the touch. He’d formed it as though it were sitting on the ground, its feet tucked up underneath itself. Its round body tapered to a short spray of tail feathers. Small carvings and indentations created the suggestion of plumage. Its head was turned to one side, watching her intently with smooth half-globe eyes.

  He had made this with his bare hands, while standing beneath her window.

  Thoroughly perplexed, she brought the bird back to her room, placed it on her writing desk, and stared at it until it was time to leave for work.

  That morning the Golem burned a pan of cookies for the first time. At the register, she miscounted two customers’ change and gave a woman prune Danishes instead of cheese. The mistakes mortified her, though everyone else was amused—she was so celebrated for her exactness that catching her in error seemed a fortuitous event, like a shooting star.

  Anna, of course, enjoyed it to the hilt. “What’s his name?” she whispered as the Golem passed her worktable.

  “What?” Startled, the Golem stared at the girl. “Whose name?”

  “Oh, no one’s.” Anna smiled, satisfied as a cat. “Forget I said anything.”

  After that, the Golem went to the water closet to collect herself. She would not let the glowing man unnerve her. She would be calm and controlled, her best self. She would act the way the Rabbi would want her to act.

  She came home that night and positioned herself by the window, waiting. Finally, at nearly two in the morning, he appeared from around the corner. Again, he was alone. He returned to his spot next to the lamppost and again gave every indication of staying there for the night.

  Enough of this, she thought. She put on her cloak, then tiptoed down the staircase and quietly opened the front door.

  The street was nearly empty, and her shoes on the boardinghouse steps were loud in the cold night air. Surprise flickered across his face; it was replaced by a self-assured nonchalance as she approached. She stopped a few feet away from him. Silently they watched each other.

  “Go away,” she said.

  He smiled. “Why should I? I like it here.”

  “You’re a nuisance.”

  “How can that be? I do nothing but stand on a sidewalk.”

  She only stared at him, rigid and severe. Finally he said, “What else was I to do? You refused to stay and talk.”

  “Yes, because I don’t want to talk with you.”

  “I don’t believe that,” he said.

  She crossed her arms. “You followed me home, and now you call me a liar?”

  “You’re being cautious. I understand. I live with the same considerations.”

  “Did you tell anyone about me?”

  “No one.” Then he winced, remembering something. “Ah. One man.”

  She turned and started back up the sidewalk.

  “No, wait!” he called, coming after her. “He’s the one I told you about, the tinsmith. He knows my secret, and has told no one. He can keep yours as well.”

  “Lower your voice!” she hissed. She glanced up at the boardinghouse, but there was no light at any of the windows.

  He sighed, clearly making an effort to be patient. “Please. You’re the only one I’ve met here who isn’t . . . as they are. I only wish to talk with you. Nothing more.”

  Was he telling the truth? She frowned, trying to see. Distantly she could feel his curiosity, but it was eclipsed by something else that lay deep inside him, like a vast, dark shadow.

  She reached out to it—and was nearly pulled under by a longing like nothing she’d ever experienced. It was as though a part of his soul had been trapped and held fast in an endless moment. It couldn’t move, or speak, or do anything except cry out silently against its bonds.

  She shuddered, and backed away. He watched her, puzzled. “What is it?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t talk with you.”

  “Do you think I mean to harm you? I’d like to meet the man who would try. I can see the strength in you, Chava.”

  She started—but of course, she’d told him her name that night. Rash, far too rash!

  “All right,” he said. “Let us say this. One question. Answer me one question honestly, and I will answer one of yours. And then, if you want, I’ll leave you alone.”

  She considered. He already knew too much. But if it would make him go away . . . “All right,” she said. “One question. Ask it.”

  “Did you like the bird?”

  This was his question? She looked for a hidden catch or meaning, but it seemed plain enough. “Yes,” she said. “It’s beautiful.” And then, belatedly, “Thank you.”

  He nodded, pleased. “Not my best work,” he said. “The light here is too poor. But you put me in mind of it. It’s a desert bird, and quick to startle.” He smiled. “Now. Your turn.”

  There was a question, actually, something she’d been wondering all day. “How did you know that I don’t sleep?”

  Now it was his turn to look startled. “What do you mean?”

  “You came here last night and stood beneath my window, and you knew I wouldn’t be asleep in bed. How?”

  That brought him up short. He laughed in genuine surprise. “I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t even consider it.” He thought for a long moment, and finally said, “That night, when we met, you didn’t move l
ike someone who should be home in bed. Perhaps that’s how I knew. Everyone else walks differently at night than during the day. Have you noticed?”

  “Yes!” she exclaimed. “As though they’re fighting off sleep, or running away from it, even if they’re wide awake.”

  “But not you,” he said. “You were lost, but you were walking as though the sun was high overhead.”

  Little else could have weakened her defenses so thoroughly. It was the sort of observation that she couldn’t have shared with anyone else, not even the Rabbi. He would have appreciated the insight, but he wouldn’t have felt its truth with the same estrangement, the same sense of watching from a distance.

  He was searching her face, judging her reaction. “Please,” he said. “I only want to talk. No harm will come to you. You have my word.”

  Caution commanded her to turn her back on him, to return to the boardinghouse. But she felt the cool, bracing air on her face, and the stiff ache in her limbs. She looked up at her own window; and suddenly the thought of spending the rest of the night in her room, silently sewing, seemed unbearable.

  “Do you promise,” she said, “to never tell anyone else about me, ever again?”

  “I promise.” He raised an eyebrow. “Will you do the same?”

  What could she do? He’d shown no duplicity; she’d have to match him. “Yes. I promise. But we must go somewhere else. Somewhere private, where we can’t be overheard.”

  He smiled, pleased at his success. “All right. Somewhere private.” He considered, and then said, “Have you ever been to the aquarium?”

  “Amazing,” the Golem murmured, half an hour later.

  They were standing in the main gallery of the aquarium, in front of a tank of small sharks. The long, elegant shapes moved slowly in the dark water, their wide-open eyes tracking their visitors’ every movement.

  The Jinni studied her as she wandered from tank to tank. She’d been an alert presence at his side on the walk to Battery Park, and then a disapproving pair of eyes boring into his back as he melted through the padlock on the door. (The guard must have tired of his post, or else the weather had grown too cold, for he was nowhere to be seen.) Her looks were pleasing enough, but not tempting, by any stretch. Had she been human, he would’ve passed her on the street without a second thought.

  “I crossed the ocean once,” the Golem said. “I never knew there were creatures like this below me.”

  “I’ve never seen the ocean, only the bay,” the Jinni replied. “What was it like?”

  “Enormous. Cold. It stretched on forever, in every direction. If I hadn’t known otherwise, I would’ve thought that the whole world was ocean.”

  He shivered at the image. “It sounds terrible.”

  “No, it was beautiful,” she said. “The water was always changing.”

  They stood together, silent and tense. It was strange, he thought—now that she’d consented to talk with him, he had little idea how to go about it.

  “I was brought to life on the ocean,” she said. Then she paused, as if listening to the echo of her words, not quite believing she’d said them aloud.

  “Brought to life,” he said.

  “In a ship’s hold. By a man. He was my master, for a brief time. A very brief time.” Each phrase seemed dragged from deep within her, as though she was fighting herself to say it. “He died, soon afterward.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “No!” She turned, shocked. “He’d been sick! I would never have done such a thing!”

  “I meant no offense,” he said. “You called him your master. I assumed he forced you to be his servant.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” she muttered.

  The wary silence fell again. They watched the sharks for a while, and were themselves watched.

  “I had a master as well,” the Jinni said. “A wizard. I gladly would have killed him.” He frowned. “I hope I did kill him. But I can’t remember.” And he laid bare the tale: his life in the desert, the loss of his memory, his capture and incomplete release, the iron cuff that still bound him to human form.

  Her face softened somewhat while he talked. “How terrible,” she said when he was finished.

  “I don’t mean to gain your pity,” he said, irritated. “I only want to explain myself, so that you don’t run from me like a scared child.”

  “If I’m overcautious, it’s for good reason,” she retorted. “I must be careful.”

  “And the night we met? If you must be careful, how did you come to be so lost?”

  “I wasn’t myself then,” she muttered. “That was the night the Rabbi died.”

  “I see.” He had the grace to feel slightly embarrassed. “Who was he?”

  “A good man. My guardian. He took me in, after my master died.”

  “You’ve had poor luck with masters and guardians.”

  Stung, she flinched. “My master was sick, and my guardian was old.”

  “And you’re so helpless, that you have need of either?”

  “You don’t understand,” she said, hugging her arms close to her body.

  “Tell me, then.”

  She eyed him. “Not yet,” she said. “No, I’m not certain of you.”

  He was growing impatient. “Then what else should I tell you?”

  “Tell me what you do at night while the people are sleeping.”

  He gestured around himself. “This is what I do. I walk the city. I go where I will.”

  Longing darkened her eyes. “It sounds wonderful.”

  “You say that as though something keeps you from doing the same.”

  “Of course it does! How could I go out alone, after dark? I would be noticed, an unaccompanied woman on the street. The night our paths crossed was the only time I’ve ever gone out at night on my own.”

  “You mean you stay in your room, every night? But what do you do?”

  She shrugged, uncomfortable. “I sew clothing. I watch the people go by.”

  “But surely you, of all people, would be in no danger!”

  “Say someone approaches me, a man looking to attack or rob me. What if I pull away from him, and he notices my strength? Or, worse, what if I injure him? Word will spread—and then what? I’d be hunted until I was found. Innocent people would be hurt.”

  Her fears echoed the scenario that Arbeely had painted for him—and yet she had submitted so meekly, accepting the very imprisonment he fought against. He pitied her; he wanted to push her away. “But how can you stand it?”

  “It’s difficult,” she said quietly. “Especially now that the nights are so long.”

  “And this is how you’ll live out your life?”

  She turned away. “I don’t like to think about it,” she said. Her fingers were twisting around one another, and she looked about, as if searching for escape.

  “But why can’t you—”

  “I just can’t!” she cried. “Whatever you’ll suggest, I’ve considered it! Anything else would endanger myself and others, and how could I be so selfish? But there are nights when all I want to do is run and run! I don’t know how much longer—” She stopped suddenly, one hand over her mouth.

  “Chava . . .” Pity won out, and he placed a hand on her arm.

  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 prop
erly, 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?”