The Golem and the Jinni
He was watching her with pity now. “A hard life, with so few choices.”
Pride rose in her breast. “But a good life, too. There’s always something to celebrate, a wedding or a birth, or a good calving in spring. I know no other way to be. Besides,” she said, “we can’t all live in glass palaces.”
He raised an eyebrow, smiling. “Would you wish to, if you could?”
Was he toying with her? His face gave no hint. She returned the smile. “Sir, your home is very beautiful. But I wouldn’t know what to do with myself in a place like this.”
“Perhaps you wouldn’t have to do anything.”
She laughed then, and it was a full laugh, a woman’s laugh. “That, I think, would frighten me more than any husband.”
The Jinni laughed too, and bowed his head to her, a gesture of defeat. “I hope that you’ll allow me to visit you, after you’re married.”
“Of course,” she said, surprised and touched. “And you could come to the wedding, if you’d like.” How funny, she thought: a jinni emissary at her wedding, as though she were a queen in a story!
“Your family wouldn’t object?”
“We won’t tell them,” she said, and giggled. It didn’t seem immodest, with him.
He laughed too, then leaned back, gave her an appraising look. “A wedding. Indeed, I’d like to see that. Fadwa, would you show me what a wedding is like?”
“Show you?” Had he meant tell? She frowned, unsure. But he reached out a hand—he was sitting next to her now; when had he moved?—and smoothed the creases from her brow. Again, the unexpected warmth of his skin; again that strange blossoming in her stomach. Show me, he whispered. She was so tired, all of a sudden. Certainly he wouldn’t mind if she curled up and went to sleep (and a part of her whispered silly girl, you’re already asleep, but that was a dream and she ignored it), and his hand on her brow felt so wonderful that she didn’t even resist, but gave herself to the fatigue as it pulled her under.
Fadwa opened her eyes.
She was in a tent, a man’s tent. She was alone. She looked down. Her hands and feet were painted with henna. She was dressed in her wedding gown.
She remembered her mother and aunts dressing her in the women’s tent, painting her hands. The negotiation of the bride price, the display of her possessions. Singing, dancing, a feast. Then the procession, with herself at its head. And now she waited, alone, in a stranger’s tent. From outside she could hear laughter, drumbeats, wedding songs. Before her was a bed, heaped with skins and blankets.
A man was standing behind her.
She turned to face him. He was dressed as a Bedouin now, in black wedding garments, slim and elegant. He held out his hands, cupped together, and in them was a necklace, the most amazing necklace she’d ever seen: an intricate chain of gold and silver links, and disks of flawless blue-white glass, all woven through with filigree. It was as though he’d taken his palace and turned it into a bauble to be worn around her neck. She reached out and touched it. The glass disks shifted and chimed against her fingers.
Is this for me? she whispered.
If you would have it.
His eyes danced in the lamplight. She saw desire in them, and it didn’t frighten her. Yes, she said.
He clasped the necklace around her throat, his arms almost embracing her. He smelled warm, like a stone baking in the sun. His fingers released the clasp, to trail down her shoulders, her arms. She wasn’t scared, she wasn’t shaking. His mouth lowered to hers, and she was kissing him as though she’d been waiting for years. His fingers buried themselves in her hair. Her dress was gone now, an embroidered heap at her feet, and his hands were on her breasts and she felt no fear. He lifted her effortlessly, and then she was on the bed and he was there too, and he was inside of her, and it didn’t hurt, not at all, not like her aunts had warned her. They moved together slowly, they had all the time in the world, and soon it was as if she had always known how. She kissed his mouth and twined herself around him and bit her lip in joy, and held on as the whirlwind that was her lover carried her far, far away—
Wake up!
Something was wrong.
Fadwa! Wake up!
The ground shook beneath them, a tremor first, then harder and harder. The tent began to collapse. He was trying to pull away, but she clung to him, she was terrified, she didn’t want to let go—
Fadwa!
She held on with all her strength, but he ripped himself away and was gone. The tent, the world, everything went dark.
Above the Bedouin encampment, the Jinni reeled on the winds. He’d never before been in such pain. He was torn, shredded, near dissolution. Dimly he realized he’d let himself go too deep, drawn in by her dreaming fantasies. It had taken everything he had to escape. A lesser jinni would’ve been destroyed.
He hung there for a while, recuperating as much as he could before the journey home—weak as he was, he’d be easy prey, and vulnerable until he reached his palace. And if the wind carried to him a commotion of terrified human voices, the wails of women and a father’s cries, then the Jinni tried not to hear them.
19.
The Jinni ran, the Golem in his arms.
He was taking her to the Bowery, thinking to hide her among the crowd, or in the warrens where the police didn’t dare to go. He found a fire escape and climbed, and began to run rooftop to rooftop, eyes tracking him from the shadows. She was a heavy weight, still in the fugue that had fallen over her. Had he injured her too deeply? If she needed help, where could he possibly find it? Perhaps he could hide her at Conroy’s . . .
She twitched once in his arms, and then again, making him stumble as he ran. Slowing, he found a dark and deserted corner behind a chimney. He lowered himself to the tar paper, cradling her, wincing at the sight of her ruined shirtwaist and underclothes. Her hair lay tangled across her face, the rose-carved combs having fallen out somewhere along the way. With her cool skin, and neither pulse nor breath, anyone would think he was holding a corpse. The burns above her breasts had already faded, the outlines of his fingers smoothing away as he watched. Was that why she’d collapsed, so her body could heal?
He moved to gather her up again, and something sparkled from beneath the scraps of cotton: a golden chain, a necklace. At its end was a large, square locket with a simple latch. A memory rose to his mind, of standing with her on a water-tower platform, and the words that had so disturbed him: I must never hurt another. Never. I’ll destroy myself first, if I have to. She had raised one hand toward her throat, and then dropped it, embarrassed. As though he’d seen too much.
He touched the latch, and the locket sprang open. A square of paper, thick and folded, fell into his hand. As though it had been the key to waking her, the Golem began to stir. Quickly he closed the locket and slipped the paper into a pocket.
Her eyes blinked open, and she struggled to look around, her movements stuttering and birdlike. “Ahmad,” she said. “Where are we?” Her words were oddly slurred. “What happened, why can’t I remember?”
Had she truly lost all memory? If Anna had been unconscious, and any other witnesses were too far away to see clearly . . . “There was an accident,” he said, improvising desperately. “A fire. You were burned, and you collapsed. I brought you away, you’ve been healing.”
“Oh God! Is anyone hurt?” She tried to stand, wobbling on her feet. “We have to go back!”
“It’s not safe yet.” His mind raced ahead, trying to smooth away any objections. “But everyone is accounted for. No one else was injured.”
“Is Anna—”
But then she paused. And he could see, in the focusing of her eyes, the return of her memory, the images of Irving’s pummeling at her own hands.
From her mouth came a wordless wail. She sank to her knees, her hands rising to clutch at her hair. Instantly he regretted the story he’d told. Grimacing, he tried to put his arms around her, to help her stand again.
“Let go of me!” She ripped herself from his r
each, got to her feet, and backed away. With her knotted hair and torn clothing, she looked like a wraith-woman he might once have encountered, one he’d have tried hard to avoid. “Do you see now?” she cried. “Do you see? I killed a man!”
“He was alive when we left. They’ll find a doctor, he’ll recover, I’m sure of it.” He tried to evince a confidence he didn’t feel.
“I wasn’t careful enough, I let myself forget—Oh God, what have I done? And you—why did you carry me away, why did you lie?”
“It was to protect you! They were calling for the police, they would have arrested you.”
“They should have! I should be punished!”
“Chava, listen to what you’re saying. You’d go to jail, and explain to the police what you’ve done?” She hesitated, imagining it, and he pressed the advantage. “No one needs to know,” he said. “No one saw, not even Anna.”
She was staring at him, aghast. “This is your advice? You’d have me pretend it never happened?”
Of course she never would; it would be beyond her. But he’d backed himself into a corner. “If it were me, and I had attacked a man by accident, with no witnesses, and if there were no way to confess without revealing my nature—then yes, perhaps I would. The harm has been done, why compound it?”
She shook her head. “No. This is what comes of listening to you. Tonight I forgot my caution, and this is the result.”
“You blame me?”
“I blame no one but myself, I should have had better judgment.”
“But it was my evil influence that led you down this path.” His concern for her was turning to resentment. “Will you also blame Anna, for tempting you to the dance hall?”
“Anna doesn’t know what I am! She acted in innocence!”
“Whereas I tricked you knowingly, I suppose.”
“No, but you confuse me! You make me forget that some things aren’t possible for me!”
But tonight you were happy, he thought; and heard himself say, “If this is how you feel, you needn’t ever see me again.”
She reeled back, shocked and hurt—and for the second time that night he wanted to undo his words. “Yes,” she said, voice shaking. “I think that would be best. Good-bye, Ahmad.”
She turned and walked away. Unbelieving, he watched her go. Halfway across the rooftop she paused: and he pictured her glancing back, the barest hint of regret in her eyes. He’d call after her then, apologize, plead with her not to go.
Instead she bent down and picked up a discarded blanket, wrapped it about her shoulders, and kept walking. He watched her figure dwindle until he could no longer distinguish it from the others that moved about the rooftops, and not once did she look back.
A little while later, the Golem came down from the rooftops and looked for a quiet alley where she could destroy herself.
It was a simple decision, quickly made. She couldn’t be allowed to hurt anyone again. And in this, at least, the Jinni was right: no one would be any safer if she sat in prison. Even if she managed to stay hidden, how long before captivity overwhelmed her and she went mad? Which would be worse, waiting endlessly for the breaking point, or the horror when it finally happened?
She clutched more tightly at the stinking blanket; it scratched at the remnants of the burns on her chest. She had never felt pain of her own before. Until the Jinni injured her she’d been somewhere far away, watching calmly through her own eyes as she grabbed Irving and shattered his bones. She’d felt no anger, no rage. Her body had simply taken over, as though she’d been built for no other purpose. The Jinni had appeared, horror in his face, and she’d only thought, why, there’s Ahmad. His hands on her then, and the pain—and then waking on the rooftop, in the Jinni’s arms.
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 fi
nality 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.