The Golem and the Jinni (42 page)

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, which 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.

At last the Jinni drove the final nail home, to a spontaneous thunder of applause. For half an hour he shook hands with what felt like every Syrian in New York. Afterward they all milled about, gazing up at the ceiling. Many laughed and stretched their hands into the air, as if trying to touch the mountains. A few older residents grumbled of vertigo and went upstairs to supper. The children spun about with upturned faces, and crashed into their parents’ legs. Finally, one by one, they all drifted away until Arbeely and the Jinni were left alone.

All at once the Jinni felt drained to his depths. It was over, finished. He looked up at his masterpiece, trying to decide what he’d accomplished.

“Everyone adores it,” Arbeely said next to him. “It’s only a matter of time before you have your own shop.” Then he noticed the expression on the Jinni’s face. “What’s the matter?”

“My palace,” the Jinni said. “It isn’t there.”

Arbeely glanced around quickly, but they were alone. “You could still put it in,” he said quietly. “Call it a stroke of artistic whimsy, or what have you.”

“You don’t understand,” the Jinni said. “I did it deliberately. It’s only fitting that you can’t see it, that they can’t see it. But
I
should see it. It should be there.” He gestured to a spot near the center of the ceiling. “Just beyond that ridge. The valley looks empty, without it.”

Something came together in Arbeely’s mind. “You mean this is a
map
?”

“Of course it’s a map. What did you think it was?”

“I don’t know—a work of imagination, I suppose.” He looked up at it with new appreciation. “And it’s accurate?”

“I spent two hundred years traveling every inch of these lands. Yes, it’s accurate.” He pointed to a mountain in the corner near the stairwell. “I mined a vein of silver on that mountainside once. A group of
ifrits
tried to steal it from me. I fought them off, though it took a day and a night.” His finger moved to a narrow plain, deep in shadow. “That’s where I met up with a caravan bound for ash-Sham. I followed them invisible until they reached the Ghouta. It’s the last thing I can remember, from my life before.”

Arbeely listened with chagrin. He’d hoped that the Jinni would’ve found some solace by now: in his work, the life he’d built for himself, the nighttime excursions that still gave Arbeely palpitations. But how could that replace the life he’d led for centuries? He put a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “Come on, my friend,” Arbeely said. “Let’s go open a bottle of
araq
, and drink to your success.”

The Jinni consented to be led outside, into the falling night. And behind them, Matthew crept down the staircase and stared up at the ceiling again, his eyes wide with wonder at what he’d overheard.