The Golem and the Jinni (41 page)

He turned and lurched for the door, not daring to look back. Only once he was on the street did he remember how cold it was, and that he had no hope of making it back alone. But none of that mattered. He had to get as far as possible from that
thing
, that monstrosity—whatever it was—that had sat across the table from him, speaking like a man.

His injured shoulder slammed into a pole, and a field of stars broke out over his eyes. Dizziness reached up for him, familiar and awful.

He awoke sprawled across the sidewalk, a froth on his lips. Men were stepping around him; a few were bent over, speaking to him. Quickly he looked away from their faces, stared instead at the sidewalk. A pair of shoes came into view. Their owner crouched down; the glowing man’s beautiful, horrible face hovered inches above his.

“For the love of God,” Saleh panted, “just let me die.”

The Jinni paused, as if truly considering it. “I think not,” he said. “Not yet.”

Saleh would’ve fought the man off if he’d had the strength. But once more he was lifted and carried, like a child this time instead of a sack of grain, held tight against his captor’s chest. He closed his eyes against the shame of it. Exhaustion pulled him under.

He surfaced once, briefly, on the Elevated. He moaned and tried to stand, but was held down by a pair of glowing hands, and fell back into sleep. His fellow passengers glanced over their newspapers, and wondered what their story was. When he woke again, he was slumped in a doorway within sight of Maryam’s coffeehouse. Painfully he stood and hobbled down the steps. Down the street the glowing man’s head was like a second moon, dwindling into the distance.

As he deposited Saleh in the Washington Street doorway, the Jinni wondered if he too had gone mad. Why hadn’t he done what Saleh had requested, and left him to die? Even worse, why had he revealed his nature?

He passed Arbeely’s darkened shop, and only then remembered the cause of his long day’s misadventure. Anger blossomed, fresh and painful. By now Arbeely had certainly dismantled the ceiling. He couldn’t bear to go in and check; he’d put in too much effort to see it turned to scrap.

So intent was the Jinni on these thoughts that he didn’t notice the man lying in front of his hallway door until he nearly tripped over him. It was Arbeely. The tinsmith lay curled in a ball, head pillowed on a folded scarf. Quiet snores drifted from his half-open mouth.

The Jinni stared down at his sleeping visitor for a few moments. Then he kicked the man not very gently in his side.

Arbeely shot upright, blinking, his head knocking against the doorframe. “You’re back.”

“Yes,” the Jinni said, “and I’d like to go inside. Should I guess at the password, or do you mean to ask me a riddle?”

Arbeely scrambled to his feet. “I’ve been waiting.”

“I can see that.” He opened the door, and Arbeely followed him in. The Jinni made no move to turn on the lamp; he could see well enough and had no wish to make the man feel comfortable.

Arbeely peered around in the gloom. “You don’t have chairs?”

“No.”

Arbeely shrugged, sat down on a cushion, and grinned up at the Jinni. “Maloof bought the ceiling.”

He’d so resigned himself to its loss that the Jinni was caught speechless. “It didn’t take long to find him,” Arbeely continued brightly. “I had to pay a boy named Matthew ten cents. He runs errands for Maloof, the rents and such. You’ll meet him tomorrow.” He looked around. “Why do you keep it so dark in here?” Without waiting for a reply, he stood and went to the nearest lamp. “Where are your matches?”

The Jinni only stared at him.

Arbeely laughed. “Of course! How silly of me.” He gestured at the lamp. “Would you?”

The Jinni removed the glass, turned the valve, and snapped his fingers over the jet. The gas burst into blue flame. “There,” he said. “You have light. Now tell me your story straight, beginning to end, or I will summon a hundred demons from all six directions of the earth and make them torment you till the end of your days.”

Arbeely stared. “Goodness. You could really do that?”

“Arbeely!”

Eventually the entire tale came out. As the Jinni listened, the day’s anger and frustration turned to glowing pride. Vindication, from Arbeely’s own mouth!

“I don’t think your tale will be complete without an apology,” he said when Arbeely was done.

“Oh, really?” Arbeely crossed his arms. “Then, please. I’d love to hear it.”

“
I
, apologize? You were the one who wanted to destroy the ceiling! You said Maloof would never purchase it!”

“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.

O
n 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. But 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?”