The Golem and the Jinni (47 page)

“Stanley,” said a small man with a squashed-looking face.

“Ahmad, this is Stanley,” she finished triumphantly. She was speaking English—of course, for he wouldn’t be expected to know Yiddish.

Anna was the first to recover. “Pleased to meet you, Ahmad,” she said in accented English, and shook his hand firmly. She was a pretty girl, the most attractive at the table, but he couldn’t help feeling her hat was about to attack him. She asked, “How do you know our Chava?”

A touch of worry colored the Golem’s eyes. “By sheer accident,” he said. “We crossed paths one day at Castle Garden. She said she’d never been to the aquarium, and I insisted on taking her.” He glanced over at the Golem, who gave him a look of grateful relief.

“How nice,” said Anna.

“How romantic,” Phyllis murmured.

The taller man at the table—Jerry?—was scowling at him. “That’s a queer accent you got,” he said. “Where you from?”

“You’d know it as Syria.”

“Huh,” Jerry said. “That’s over by China, right?”

“Jerry, you dunce, Syria is nowhere near China,” Estelle said in Yiddish, and Stanley cackled. Reddening, Jerry busied himself with his beer.

They might have been the Golem’s friends, but the scrutiny of the table was beginning to bore him. “Chava, you promised to teach me to dance,” he said, and the group stared after them as they walked away.

She led him to a corner of the dance floor, and turned to face him. “You place your hands here and here,” she instructed, amusingly prim. “And I hold you here and here. Then it’s just a step, and a hop. We mirror each other.”

“Wait a moment,” he said. “Let me see the others do it first.” They stood out of the way and watched the crowd. How they managed to not all crash into each other he could only guess. He wasn’t certain he saw the point of spending so much energy only to end up in roughly the same place, but kept the thought to himself.

“Are you ready now?” she asked.

“I think so.”

He placed his hands where she’d instructed, and took his first careful steps. The pattern wasn’t difficult, and he learned it quickly. At first they bumped up against a few of their neighbors, but then he developed a feel for leading, his hand pressing at her waist in the direction he meant her to go. His height was an advantage; he could seek out openings in the crowd, and keep them from getting hemmed in.

The crown of the Golem’s head brushed his chin. “You’re doing very well,” she said.

He laughed. “How can you possibly judge? You just learned yourself.”

“Yes, but you aren’t stepping on my feet, or knocking me into the others. You’re a natural-born dancer,” she said with a certain relish.

“I’m afraid I surprised your friends,” he said.

“And you had to lie to them,” she said, sobering. “That was my fault. I should’ve realized.”

“I’m glad you didn’t. You might not have brought me, and I would’ve missed this.”

“So you’re enjoying yourself?”

“Very much,” he said, and realized it was the truth.

The dancers turned around them; their enthusiasm, and the band’s, seemed inexhaustible. “Anna isn’t at our table anymore,” the Golem said, craning to look over his shoulder. “Maybe she’s found Irving.”

“Ah, yes, the mysterious Irving.”

She smiled. “I’m sorry, I never explained.” And she told him the whole story: Anna’s pregnancy, the subsequent engagement, the imminent move to Boston. “I doubt I’ll ever see her again,” she said. “I know so few people, and they all leave eventually. I suppose that’s the way of things.”

She sounded so wistful that he said, “Well, I don’t seem to be going anywhere.”

He’d meant to make her laugh, but she was quiet for a moment. “And what if you do leave? What if, someday, you find a way to free yourself of this?” Her cool fingers brushed his cuff, beneath his sleeve. “Promise me something,” she said, with sudden urgency. “If that ever happens, I want you to come see me one last time. Don’t leave me wondering what happened. Please promise me this.”

Bewildered, he said, “I wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye, Chava. I promise.”

“Good,” she said. “Thank you.”

They were still dancing, though the jaunty music now clashed with the serious mood that had fallen between them. He tried to imagine it: freed through some miracle, rising above the dirt-clogged streets and suffocating tenements, flying on the wind to her familiar window. He’d bid her farewell—and here something seized inside him. He missed a step, moved to correct it.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he said, and tightened his grip on her waist. “I was only imagining it. Being freed.” He paused, not knowing what he would say next, only that he must say something. “I wish I could show you—”

The band ended their tune with a flourish, and the crowd’s applause startled him from his words. She was waiting for him to go on, concern on her face, but now the crowd around them was chanting at the bandleader:
A spiel! A spiel!
The Jinni gave the Golem a questioning look; she shook her head, apparently as baffled as he.

The bandleader smiled and bowed in acquiescence. A giant cheer went up. More couples rushed to the dance floor, filling it to overflowing. The bandleader mopped his brow with a handkerchief, and took up his baton again—and this time, the tune was faster, more raucous, with a high, crying melody. Each man grabbed his partner around the waist and clasped her close, much closer than before, and then whirled her in a tight circle, moving quickly from one foot to the other. Peals of laughter rose from the women. Those still at the tables clapped in delight.

The music surged through the Jinni. Whatever half-formed thing he’d meant to say had lost its shape, melted back into the larger pool of yearning. He closed his eyes, at once utterly weary and full of a hectic energy.

“I suppose this is a spiel,” the Golem said, leaning close to his ear. “I didn’t learn it.”

“But I already know it.” He pulled her close.

She started with surprise. “Ahmad—”

“Hold tight,” he said, and stepped off.

Around and around he spun her, one hand in the small of her back, the fingers of the other twined with hers. He kept his eyes closed, kept his balance by feel. At first he feared she would pull away; but then she relaxed into his arms, a gesture of trust that sent a surge of gladness through him. “Close your eyes,” he said.

“But we’ll fall!”

“We won’t.”

And indeed they didn’t, nor did they collide with their neighbors. For others were noticing them now, this tall and striking couple that spun together in a world of their own. The crowd began to pull away from them, giving them space, the better to watch. Faster and faster they went—with their eyes closed! How did they do it?—and now the Golem’s steps were small precise movements that fitted to his exactly, describing a circle with himself at its center. In the midst of all that movement a stillness rose inside him, and for a long and beautiful moment everything else fell away—

Someone touched his shoulder.

He opened his eyes, and nearly crashed into the girl called Phyllis. The Golem stumbled; he caught her up about the waist and held her steady. Phyllis cringed away until she was certain they wouldn’t collide with her; then, with an apologetic glance at the Jinni, she said in Yiddish, “Chava, I’m sorry, but it’s Anna. She found Irving with another girl, and now they’re fighting. He’s drunk, and saying terrible things. I’m scared something will happen. Could Ahmad step in? I hate to ask, but Jerry and Stanley left already.”

The Jinni listened, pretending not to understand. An irritating turn of events; but he’d do it, if only to restore peace to their evening. The Golem, though, had gone still. “He’s fighting with Anna?” she said—and the tone in her voice made Phyllis pull back in alarm. “Where are they?”

“Outside.”

She clamped her hand around his and pulled him nearly off his feet, cutting like an arrow through the crowd. “Chava, wait,” he said, but she was past hearing. He could feel the tension in her frame, her rising anxiety on her friend’s behalf.

They were through the hallway, and out the door. On Broome a few loiterers stood smoking cigarettes, but there was no sign of Anna or this Irving. Then he heard a man’s distant shouts, answered by a woman’s. The Golem’s head swiveled. “The alley,” she said.

They turned the corner, the Jinni still following in her wake. At the end of the alley, her friend Anna was struggling with a man. She was holding on to him, trying to pull herself up, sobbing. The man said something and slapped her across the face, then grabbed her hands away from his jacket and threw her to the ground. Her head hit the cobbles; she cried out.

“Anna!” the Golem cried.

The man stood unsteadily, clearly inebriated. He peered at them as they approached. “Who the hell are you?”

“Leave her alone!” She was advancing on him, almost running; the Jinni struggled to keep up. He wanted to put a hand on the Golem’s arm, to slow her down, but she was just out of reach.

Irving stepped forward so that Anna lay behind him. He fixed a bleary eye on the Golem, and then the Jinni. “Your lady needs to mind her own business.”

This had gone far enough. “Walk away,” he told the man. “Now.”

The man smirked and pulled back a fist, his aim weaving.

The Jinni felt the change that came over the Golem as much as saw it. Her movements became even quicker, more liquid as she reached for Irving; she seemed almost to grow—and then, she was upon him. A blur of motion, and Irving lay sprawled across the cobbles, blood pouring from his mouth. With terrible speed the Golem seized him, lifted him up and drove him into the wall. The man’s feet dangled above the refuse, kicking feebly.

“Chava!” The Jinni grabbed her shoulders, tried to pull her away. She hurled Irving aside—he hit the ground moaning—and shoved the Jinni backward. Her face was drained of all expression, her eyes flat and dead. It was as though she’d disappeared from her own body.

The Jinni grabbed her waist and pulled her off her feet. They tumbled to the ground, and he felt his head ring against stone. She was on top of him, already struggling to break free. She twisted away and launched herself at Irving. The Jinni jumped up and ran straight at her, ramming her off her course. She fell against the wall and he pinned her there, hands on her shoulders, feet bracing against the ruts in the cobbles.
“Chava!”
he shouted.

She tried to push away from the wall, grimacing with the effort, her lips stretching back from her teeth like a jackal’s. Her strength was incredible. He had the advantage of height, but already his feet were slipping. If she got away from him, she’d tear the man to shreds. He had to do something.

He concentrated—and her shirtwaist began to smolder beneath his hands. There was the smell of burning cotton, and then scorched earth. Her eyes clouded, confused; and then she screamed, a shriek so high it was all but inaudible.

He slapped her hard across the face—once, twice—and knocked her to the ground, pinning her. Even if he’d only enraged her, at least she’d be fighting him now, and not Irving.

But she wasn’t struggling. She was blinking up at him, bewildered, like a human waking. “Ahmad? What’s happened?”

Was it a ruse? Slowly he released her. She sat up and put a hand to her face, and then to her chest. Her shirtwaist and underclothes hung in charred scraps. Above her breasts were long, dark marks: the outlines of his fingers. She touched them, then looked around, as if for some clue to her condition. Quickly he moved to block her view of Irving. She tried to stand—and then convulsed once, and fell. He caught her just before she hit the ground. Her eyes were half-lidded, unseeing.

A movement in the corner: it was Anna, rising shakily to her feet. He cursed quietly; he’d forgotten all about her. How much had she seen? An ugly bruise was forming on the side of her face, and one eye was swelling shut. Dull with shock, she looked from Irving to the Golem, and then to the Jinni.

In Yiddish he said, “Anna. Listen to me. A strange man attacked your lover and then ran away. You were hit on your head, and you didn’t see him clearly. If anyone else says otherwise, they’re drunk and mistaken. Now fetch a doctor.”

The girl only stared at him. “Anna!” he said; and she jumped, startled. “Do you understand me?”

A nod. She took a last look at Irving’s broken form and then picked her way unsteadily back down the alley. Did she believe him? Probably not—but it was no use, there was no time. Someone was already shouting for the police. He dragged the Golem into his arms and rose to his feet, staggering for a moment. And then, he ran.

“We were speaking of you taking a mate,” the Jinni said.

Fadwa opened her eyes. No—they were closed, weren’t they? She’d just closed them. She was asleep in her tent—no, of course not, she was awake, in the Jinni’s glass palace. She’d only been dreaming she was asleep.

A lingering unease pricked at her, but she pushed it aside. She was with the Jinni again; what else did she need to know? She was reclining on a cushion, facing him across the low table that once again bore a week’s bounty of food. She nibbled on a date, drank cold clear water. He smiled, watching her. They hadn’t seen each other in—days? Weeks? She wasn’t certain. Lately she couldn’t keep track of time. One morning she’d gone to milk the goats, only to find that their bags were empty. She ran to tell her mother, who told her she must have gone mad, that she’d milked them already, hours earlier. There were other odd happenings too. Shadows moved in the corners of her eyes, even in full daylight. Faces changed when she wasn’t looking. One afternoon she was at the pool fetching the last of the water, and the carving of the goddess began telling her stories, of the ridiculous men who’d tried to conquer the desert. They’d laughed together, like sisters, until someone called her name. It was one of her uncles. Her mother, concerned at the girl’s lateness, had sent him to find her. Fadwa turned back to the goddess, to say good-bye, but she’d gone silent again. Later Fadwa overheard her uncle whispering to her mother that he’d found her sitting in the shallow water, giggling to herself.
Tell none of this to her father
, her mother had said.
Not a word.