The Golem and the Jinni
“I said most likely he wouldn’t, and he very nearly didn’t. That can’t happen again. I’ve worked too hard to see you gamble away my livelihood.”
The Jinni’s ire rose again. “So, our agreement is still broken? Or are you suffering me to come back, as long as I keep myself to mending pots and skillets?”
Improbably, Arbeely grinned. “No, don’t you see? That was my mistake from the beginning! Maloof saw what I didn’t—you’re no journeyman, but an artist! I’ve thought it over, and I have the solution. From now on, you’ll be a full and fair partner in the business.” He paused, waiting for some sign of reaction. “Well? Doesn’t it make sense? I can handle the day-to-day finances, the accounting and so forth. We’ll budget a certain amount of money for your materials, and you can take on the projects that interest you. The ceiling can be your advertisement, everyone will be talking about it. We’ll even put your name on the sign! ARBEELY AND AHMAD!”
Stunned, the Jinni tried to gather his thoughts. “But—what about the orders we already have?”
Arbeely waved a nonchalant hand. “You can help me during the odd moments, when you aren’t busy with your own commissions. As you see fit, of course.”
For the next hour Arbeely continued to spin plans from thin air—eventually they’d need a larger space, and then of course they’d have to consider advertising—and the Jinni found himself warming to the man’s enthusiasm. He began to imagine his own shop filled with jewelry and figurines, fanciful decorations of gold and silver and shining stone. Yet later that evening, after Arbeely had finally left, a slender current of unease darted through his thoughts. Was this really what he wanted? He’d apprenticed himself to Arbeely out of desperation, the need for shelter in a strange place. And now, to have a stake in the business—that implied responsibility, and permanence.
We’ll even put your name on the sign, Arbeely had said. But Ahmad was not his name! He’d chosen it on a whim, never guessing that it would come to define him. Was that it, then? Was he Ahmad now, and not his true self, the one who went by a name he could no longer speak? He tried to remember how long it had been since he’d unthinkingly attempted to change form. His reflexes now rested in muscle and sinew and strides across rooftops, in the steel tools of a metalsmith—tools that, once upon a time, he never could have touched.
In his mind he spoke his name to himself, and took some reassurance from its sound. He was still one of the jinn, after all, no matter how long the iron cuff remained on his wrist. He comforted himself with the thought that although he might be forced to live like a human, he’d never truly be one.
17.
On a cloudless night, ink dark, with only a rind of a moon above, the Golem and the Jinni went walking together along the Prince Street rooftops. The Golem had never been on a rooftop before. She’d protested briefly when the Jinni arrived at her boardinghouse and told her their destination. “But is it safe up there?”
“As safe as walking anywhere in this city at this hour.”
“That’s not very comforting.”
“For you and me, it’s perfectly safe. Come on.”
She could tell, from his posture and his voice, that he was in one of his restless, obstinate moods. Reluctantly she fell in next to him, deciding that if she found it dangerous, she’d make him turn around.
She followed him up a back staircase. Emerging onto the high, tar-papered expanse of a tenement rooftop, she realized he’d gotten the better of her: the scene was far too fascinating to leave. The rooftops were like a hidden thoroughfare, bustling with nighttime traffic. Men, women, and children came and went, running errands, passing information, or simply heading home. Workingmen in greased overalls held parliament around the rims of ash-barrels, their faces red and flickering. Boys idled in corners, eyes alert. The Golem caught the sense of borders being guarded, but the Jinni, it seemed, was a familiar face. Mostly their doubts were directed at herself: a strange woman, tall and clean and primly dressed. Some of the younger boys took her for a social worker, and hid in the shadows.
The Golem began to realize that if she knew which route to take, she could walk the entire Lower East Side without once touching the ground. Many rooftops stretched for an entire block, divided only by the low walls that marked where the tenements met each other. Where one building was taller than another, rope ladders hung between the roofs. In some places there were even plank bridges spanning the narrow gaps of the alleyways. The Jinni crossed the first of these with indifference, not even glancing at the four-story drop, and then turned around and waited for the Golem to follow. Thankfully, the bridge proved thick and sturdy enough for her to cross without fear. He raised his eyebrows, impressed, and she shook her head at him. She wasn’t sure which was more irritating: his thinking the feat might be beyond her, or her own folly at rising to his bait.
They were navigating a crowded passage when a shout turned all heads. A man was tearing toward them across the rooftops, pursued by a uniformed policeman. The policeman was quick, but his quarry was quicker, vaulting ledges and barrels like a horse at a steeplechase. All stepped aside as the man raced past. He jumped the bridge and ran to the stairwell door, wrenched it open, and disappeared.
The policeman huffed to a stop near them, clearly not relishing the thought of following the man down into a darkened tenement. Sourly he glanced about at the spectators, all of whom found their attention drawn elsewhere. Then he noticed the Jinni, and smiled, touching the brim of his cap in jest. “Well, it’s the Sultan. Good evening to ya.”
“Officer Farrelly,” the Jinni replied.
“Ye’re getting slow in yer old age, Farrelly,” said a grizzled, drunken-looking man who sat slumped against the wall nearby.
“I’m quick enough for the likes of you, Scotty.”
“Go on, bring me in then. I could do with a hot meal.”
The officer ignored this, nodded to the company, and began to trudge back the way he’d come.
“Hey, Sultan,” said the man called Scotty. “Who’s yer lady-friend?” His rheumy eyes went to the Golem, and without waiting for a reply, he said, “Now, missy, if yer friend here is the Sultan, I suppose that makes you a sultana!” And he wheezed with laughter as they continued on their way.
They walked until they found what the Jinni was looking for: a particular well-placed rooftop with a tall water tower at its corner. To discourage climbers, the tower’s ladder ended about six feet off the ground; the Jinni jumped, caught the bottom rung easily, and pulled himself up, hand over hand, landing on a broad ledge that ringed the tower at its middle. He leaned over the railing. “Are you coming?”
“If I don’t, you’ll say I haven’t the nerve, and if I do I’m only encouraging you.”
He laughed. “Come up anyway. You’ll like the view.”
Looking around to make sure no one was watching, the Golem jumped and caught the ladder. She felt ridiculous, with her skirt billowing out beneath her, but it was an easy climb, and soon she joined the Jinni on the ledge. He was right, the view was beautiful. The rooftops lapped each other into the distance, like an illuminated spread of playing cards. Beyond them, just visible, the Hudson was a black band dividing the harbor lights from the glow of the farther shore.
She pointed to the river. “That’s where I came ashore, I think. Or farther south. I can’t tell.”
He shook his head. “Walking across the bottom of the river. I can barely think it, much less do it.”
“No doubt you would’ve escaped some other way.”
At that, he grinned. “Oh, no doubt.”
A cold, steady breeze was whipping her hair about her face, carrying the smells of coal dust and river silt, the smoke of a thousand chimneys. She watched the Jinni roll a cigarette, touch its end, and inhale. “That policeman,” she said. “Do you know him?”
“Only by name. The police leave me alone, and I do likewise.”
“They call you the Sultan.”
“I can’t say I encouraged it. B
ut it’s no less my true name than Ahmad.” A bitter note had crept into his voice; the issue was newly painful, for some reason. “And now you have another name as well. Though I think the man meant it as a joke, and I’m not sure why.”
“A sultana is a queen, but also a kind of raisin,” she said.
The Jinni snorted. “A raisin?”
“We use them at the bakery.”
He laughed, and then leaned back and regarded her. “Can I ask you a question?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Certainly.”
“You have such amazing abilities. Doesn’t it gall you to spend your days baking loaves of bread?”
“Should it? Is baking bread less worthy than other work?”
“No, but I wouldn’t call it suited to your talents.”
“I’m very good at it,” she said.
“Chava, I’ve no doubt you’re the best baker in the city. But you can do so much more! Why spend all day making bread when you can lift more than a man’s weight, and walk along the bottom of a river?”
“And how would I use these abilities without calling attention to myself? Would you have me at a construction pit, hauling blocks of stone? Or should I license myself as a tugboat?”
“All right, you have a point. But what about seeing others’ fears and desires? That’s a more subtle talent, and might be worth a lot of money.”
“Never,” she said flatly. “I would never take advantage like that.”
“Why not? You’d make an excellent fortune-teller, or even a confidence-woman. I know a dozen shops on the Bowery that would—”
“Absolutely not!” Only then did she see the smile hidden at the corner of his mouth. “You’re teasing me,” she said.
“Of course I’m teasing. You’d make a terrible confidence-woman. You’d warn off all the marks.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. Besides, I like my job. It suits me.”
He leaned on the railing, propped his chin in his hand; she wondered if he knew how human he looked. “And if you could do whatever you wanted, without worrying about staying hidden? Would you still work at a bakery?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps, I suppose. But I can’t do whatever I want, so why dwell on it? It’ll only make me angry.”
“And you’d rather blinker your own thoughts than be angry?”
“As usual you put it in the worst way possible, but yes.”
“Why not be angry? It’s a pure, honest reaction!”
She shook her head, trying to decide how best to explain. “Let me tell you a story,” she said. “I stole something once, on the day I came to New York.” And she laid out the tale: the starving boy, the man with the knish, the shouting crowd. “I didn’t know what to do. I only knew that they were furious, they wanted me to pay. I took it all in, and then . . . I wasn’t there anymore.” She frowned, remembering. “I was standing outside myself, watching. I was calm. I didn’t feel anything. But I knew that something awful was about to happen, and that I would be the one to do it. I was only a few days old, I didn’t know how to control myself.”
“And what happened?”
“In the end, nothing. The Rabbi rescued me, and paid for the man’s knish. I came back to myself. But if he hadn’t been there . . . I don’t like to think about it.”
“But nothing happened,” the Jinni said. “And you have more control now, you’ve said so yourself.”
“Yes, but is it enough? All I know is that I must never hurt another person. Never. I’ll destroy myself first, if I have to.”
She hadn’t meant to say it. But now that it was out, she was glad. Let him see how strongly she felt, how much this mattered.
“You can’t mean that.” He seemed horrified. “Chava, you can’t.”
“I mean it absolutely.”
“What, at the first sign of anger? A man bumps into you on the street, and you destroy yourself?”
She shook her head. “No, none of your what-ifs. I won’t argue about this.”
They stood in tense silence.
“I imagined you to be indestructible,” he said.
“I think I am, almost.”
His eyes went to her neck—and she realized that she had, without thinking, reached for her locket. Quickly she dropped her hand. Both glanced away in something like embarrassment. It was growing colder; the wind had picked up.
“I forget sometimes,” he said, “how different we are. I would never talk of destroying myself. It would feel too much like giving up.”
She wanted to ask, And there’s nothing you’d give yourself up for? But perhaps that was going too far, prying too deep. One of his hands was twisting idly at the cuff at his wrist. She could see its outline, through the fabric of his shirtsleeve. “Does it hurt?” she asked.
He looked down, surprised. “No,” he said. “Not physically.”
“May I see?”
He paused a moment—was he ashamed to show her? Then he shrugged and rolled up his sleeve. She peered at the cuff in the dim light. The wide metal band fit close to his skin, as though it had been made to measure. It was crafted in two half-circles held together by two hinges. One hinge was thick and solid; the other one was much thinner, and fastened with a slender, almost decorative pin. The pin’s head was flat and round, like a coin. She tried to pull it out, but it held tight.
“It doesn’t move,” he said. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”
“The pin should be the weakest point.” She looked up at him. “I can try to break it, if you’d like.”
His eyes widened. “By all means.”
Carefully she worked her fingers around the edges of the cuff. His skin was shockingly warm. He started at her touch and said, “Are your hands always so cold?”
“Compared to yours, they must be.” She gripped the metal with her fingertips. “Tell me if I hurt you.”
“You won’t,” he said, but she could feel him tense.
She began to pull, steadily, and with growing force, up past the point where ordinary metal would’ve given way. But both pin and cuff held fast, without bending even a fraction of an inch. The Jinni was bracing against her, his free hand around the railing; and she began to realize that the railing or else the Jinni would break long before the cuff did.
She slackened and stopped, looked up into his face, saw the hope there fade away. “I’m sorry,” she said.
His dark eyes stared unseeing and unguarded—but then he pulled his hand from hers and turned away. “I doubt any amount of strength would do it,” he said. “But thank you, for trying.” He busied himself with rolling another cigarette. “It’s getting late,” he said. “I expect you’ll be wanting to go back soon.”
“Yes,” she murmured.
Together they walked back across the rooftops, past men eating early breakfasts of bread and beer, past young boys curled together under blankets, past Scotty asleep against his wall. Near her boardinghouse they found a fire escape and descended, navigating splintered and missing steps. In the alley they said their usual good-byes. She glanced back as she rounded the corner and was surprised to find him still there, gazing after her, as though deeply perplexed: a tall man with a shining face, the strangest and most familiar of the city’s sights.
Arbeely had been right about the interest that the tin ceiling would generate. Word had spread through the neighborhood that Arbeely’s Bedouin apprentice was creating a bizarre metal sculpture and meant to hang it in Maloof’s new lobby. The little shop grew crowded with visitors. The Jinni was less than thrilled with the constant interruptions, and soon abandoned all attempts at politeness. Eventually Arbeely closed the shop to all but their paying customers.
The one person granted an exception was young Matthew Mounsef. The boy had begun spending his after-school hours in the shop, watching the Jinni as he worked. Against all expectations, the Jinni seemed to genuinely take to Matthew, perhaps helped by the boy’s habitual silence. Occasionally the Jinni assigned him minor tasks and errands, whi
ch freed him up to use his hands while Matthew wasn’t watching. For these services the Jinni paid the boy in pennies, the occasional nickel, and, when he was feeling indulgent, small tin animals rendered out of scrap.
In that first frenzy of the ceiling’s construction, the Jinni had thought to be done in four days, five at the most, but reality proved far different. Never before had he worked to such demanding specifications. It wasn’t enough to measure the ceiling roughly; it must be exact to within a fraction of an inch, or else it simply wouldn’t fit. One entire day was spent perched on a ladder in the lobby, measuring and double-checking and shouting numbers to Matthew, who wrote them down carefully in a little notebook. After that, he pulled down the old tiles, a grimy job that coated him in cobwebs and plaster dust. Then the ceiling was replastered and carefully smoothed. It was all painstaking, arduous work. More than once the Jinni thought about abandoning the project entirely, even melting it down, but something always stopped him. The ceiling seemed to belong to everyone now—Maloof, Matthew, Arbeely, the tenants, the well-wishers who stopped him on the street and asked how it was coming. In an odd sense, it was no longer his to destroy.
At last, the preparations were complete. As Arbeely watched, his nerves fraying, the Jinni carved the finished ceiling into large irregular pieces, following the lines of the valleys and steep cliffs, turning it into a gigantic puzzle made of tin. They loaded the pieces into a straw-packed cart, and pulled it to Maloof’s building. Matthew was waiting for them, excitement on his face, and Arbeely hadn’t the heart to ask if he shouldn’t be at school. Soon Maloof arrived as well. The Jinni was surprised to see the landlord roll up his sleeves and prepare to lend a hand.
It took almost the whole day to install the ceiling. The difficult part came in holding the pieces steady enough to nail in place. In the end it required the Jinni, Arbeely, and Maloof each on their own ladders, with much repositioning and arguing and displays of temper. Every time someone wanted to pass through the lobby, two of the ladders would have to come down, leaving the Jinni to hold up the half-attached piece. As the day wore on, more and more people gathered to watch them work. Even Matthew’s mother came down, taking the stairs slowly, one hand on the banister. Apparently her health was no better.