The Golem and the Jinni (67 page)

Saleh shrugged. “Perhaps I simply recovered from my illness.”

“I told you, that was no illness.”

“Then call it an injury.”

“Saleh, why are you following me?”

“There’s a man looking for you,” the man said. “I don’t think he means you well.”

“I know,” the Jinni said. “He already found me.”

“At the tobacconist’s?”

“You were there?”

“I was in the mood for a walk.”

The Jinni snorted. “And will you go home again, now that you’ve delivered your belated news? Or would you prefer to shadow me throughout the city?”

“That depends. Are you going somewhere interesting?”

The Jinni had meant to make the trip alone. But now he thought that perhaps this man’s company would not be so onerous.

“Do you remember when I took you on the Elevated?” he asked.

“Not well. I wasn’t at my best that night.”

“Then you should ride it again.”

The creaking train drew to a halt and Saleh stepped into the near-empty car, gazing around with nervous excitement. The Jinni couldn’t help but smile, watching him. No doubt the wizard had something to do with the man’s recovery, the removal of the spark from his mind; but the Jinni didn’t intend to press him for details. It hardly mattered, as long as the man didn’t try to stop him.

They sat near the back. Saleh jumped as the train took off with its customary jolt. The Jinni watched the familiar terrain as it rushed by, catching glimpses of the city’s morning tableau: children dashing across the rooftops, couples drinking tea at their windows. His face spasmed once in sorrow; he closed his eyes, leaned back his head.

“May I ask where we’re going?” Saleh said.

“Central Park,” replied the Jinni. “I’m meeting a woman there.”

Radzin’s Bakery was an eerie place at four in the morning. The Golem let herself in with the key Mrs. Radzin had given her for emergencies and bolted the door behind her. She knew every pace of the floor, could have made the morning’s breads with her eyes closed; yet in the darkness the bakery felt ominous. The familiar worktables stood aloof and tomblike. Streetlight shone through the empty display case, illuminating ghostly handprints.

There’d been nowhere else for her to go. Her home was no longer hers—and she couldn’t risk meeting Michael again, not in his current state. Perhaps she’d never see him again. The Rabbi, the Jinni, Anna, and now Michael, all gone from her life.

From her cloak she took the burnt sheaf of pages she’d stolen from Michael’s desk. She placed it on her worktable and stared at it. She wanted to run, as far away from it as she could. She wanted to thrust it into the oven and forget she’d ever found it.

Joseph Schall was her creator.
Again she saw the sleek, almost preening smile, felt the sinister void in his mind.

Even if she burned the pages to cinders, she wouldn’t soon forget the grocery list of Rotfeld’s desires in a wife. It was edifying, in a sense, to see her own origins, but at the same time she felt humiliated, reduced to nothing more than words. The request for modest behavior, for example: it rankled her to think of her arguments with the Jinni on the subject, how fervently she’d defended an opinion she’d had no choice but to believe. And if she was meant to be curious, did that mean she could take no credit for her own discoveries, her accomplishments? Had she nothing of her own, only what Joseph Schall decreed she should have? And yet, if Rotfeld had lived, she would have been more than content!

She will make him an admirable wife, if she doesn’t destroy him first.
So he’d known the danger, and built her anyway. All else she might be able to understand someday, but this? What sort of man created a murderous creature, and called it fine? The Rabbi had said it himself, the day they met:
Whoever made you was brilliant, and reckless, and quite amoral
.

He’d hidden himself in the Sheltering House, in plain sight. He’d walked her down her boardinghouse staircase, led her like a parent to her groom. Had he known Rotfeld was dead, and followed her to America simply to toy with her, to lurk sadistic and grinning at the edges of her life? Why else would Michael have Schall’s spells, if Schall had not given him them, so that Michael might discover the truth?

And now the spells were hers. She wondered what form Joseph Schall’s anger would take when he found them missing. But then, perhaps she could wield his own weapon against him. The spells were Schall’s, yes, and he had done terrible things with them—but they could not be evil on their own, no more than, say, a knife that might be used to slice bread as well as injure a man. All must depend on the wielder, and the intent.

Hesitantly she began to turn the pages. She found a diagram Schall had drawn, describing how to hide one’s thoughts: so that question, at least, was answered. Another formula described a process for erasing oneself from another’s memory, and this one raised possibilities. With it, she could make Schall forget she existed. She imagined him wandering the city bewildered, wondering what had possessed him to leave Europe. As a solution, it held a certain elegance; it even avoided violence. Likely it was more than he deserved.

A thought struck her, and she hesitated over the formula, considering. Could she remove herself from Michael’s mind as well? Maybe it would be a kindness to make him forget he’d ever had a wife, to soothe away his fearful vision of her, the dark and hulking monster. Without her, Michael could go back to being the man she’d once met, weary but optimistic, bent on improving his small corner of the world. What better use for Joseph Schall’s knowledge than to undo the damage that his creation had caused?

A bud of hope, so long absent, began to grow inside her, fed by the prospect of correcting her mistakes. On the next page, she found a charm for healing the injured, with nothing but an herb and a touch. She could find Irving Wasserman, repair the harm she’d done to him. The thought made her feel almost physically lighter. She could find Anna as well, and remove her memory of that night. But then, might Anna reunite with Irving, without the memory to warn her away? Already she could see the risk of unintended consequences. On another page she found instructions labeled
To Influence Another’s Thoughts
. Well, here was the solution! She would convince Anna that the man was not right for her—certainly this was the truth!—and perhaps steer her toward more sensible conduct in the future.

She turned more pages.
To Erase Love’s Infatuation
, she read, and thought of all those dejected souls who’d passed under her window, trapped in unrequited longings.
To Create Abundant Sustenance
: no need to steal knishes, when she could feed the hungry from thin air!
To Locate a Person’s Whereabouts
,
To Attract Good Fortune
—the list went on, deluging her in possibilities. She marveled at how much pain she could remove from the world. And Joseph Schall had thought only to create golems!

What of the Jinni? Could she remove his pain as well? She flipped the pages, searching. Perhaps she could unlock the cuff on his wrist, and release him from his bonds. But then, if he were freed, would he be content to stay? No, of course not: she would regain him for only the briefest of moments, and then he would leave her, abandoning the city and returning home. The thought wrenched her. She imagined him wandering the desert, searching always for the next distraction. Even released from his bonds, he would be no more at peace. He would carry his longings and dissatisfactions with him; in this he was no different from anyone else.

But now she could change him! She could make him content to stay in New York, content even with the life of a human. Would it not be a kindness, an act of love, to remove the haunted look from his eye, the bitterness from his voice? She would give him happiness, true happiness—such as she herself had once felt—

No
.

With an effort she flung the stack of papers away. They fluttered apart and scattered to the floor, stirring up tiny whirlwinds of flour.

The tide of her exhilaration drained from her, leaving her exhausted and heartsick. She would have bound the entire city, made them all into her golems, to satisfy her own need to be useful. She would’ve robbed the Jinni of himself, more thoroughly than the cuff on his wrist—he, who valued his freedom above all else.

She swept the pages into a pile, then rummaged in the back room for a flour sack to hide them in. Their contents were far too dangerous to contemplate using. If she must confront Joseph Schall, she would need to find another way.

There was a tap at the front door. She ignored it—customers often tried to get in early—and considered what to do next. She wanted to burn the sack and its contents to cinders, but did she have the right to destroy such knowledge, regardless of where it came from?

The tap came again, more urgent now. Irritated, she went to the door and lifted the shade—and saw a familiar woman, deeply pregnant, in a cheap and garish cloak.

“Anna?” the Golem said, astonished.

By the time Saleh and the Jinni disembarked at Fifty-seventh Street, the New York morning had well and truly begun. Each avenue was an obstacle course of grocers’ wagons and ice trucks, out on the day’s first deliveries. The oppressive heat had cleared somewhat; the horses pranced with energy, and the men at the reins whistled in piercing notes.

“I remember this neighborhood,” Saleh said as they crossed Fifth Avenue. “At least, I think I do.” He was doing his best to keep up with the Jinni, who had begun to walk with increased urgency. He’d spoken no more of his appointment, and Saleh had decided not to ask, for the morning splendor had rendered all else irrelevant. Had the sky in Homs ever been this deep, this rich a blue? It was as though the city were giving him its finest dawn, to make up for all the years of skies as gray as a chipped nickel. He remembered his patients telling him they appreciated the world anew once they were healed, a sentiment that had struck him as unbearably mawkish. But now a young girl passed by with a basket of flowers for sale, and the delicate beauty of her figure nearly made him break into tears.

They turned into the park, along the carriage drive. Already Saleh could hear the trees whispering, feel the cool breath of water in the air. It had been a day since he’d truly slept or eaten, but for the moment his fatigue was a minor matter, easy to ignore. The odd carriage passed them once or twice, but it was too early for the usual park-goers: the working classes were readying for the day, and the more genteel pedestrians were still abed. For the most part, it seemed, they had the place to themselves.

The Jinni glanced across at his companion as they walked. “You’ve said little,” he remarked.

“I’ve been appreciating the morning.”

The Jinni glanced upward, as though noticing the fine weather for the first time. He did not smile, but seemed pleased nonetheless.

Saleh gazed at the buildings that rimmed the park, rising above the trees. “I like this view better than last time,” he said.

The Jinni smiled thinly. “As you said, you weren’t at your best.”

Saleh thought of the mansion on Fifth Avenue, the frost-rimed garden. “I believe you were visiting a woman that night, as well.”

“A different woman,” the Jinni said. Something seemed to occur to him, then. He paused, shook his head as though ashamed, and then said, “Should you ever find yourself there again, I’d appreciate it if you called on Sophia Winston and conveyed my apologies. For my behavior.”

“Me?”
The image of himself knocking at the mansion’s gigantic front door made him want to laugh. Did the Jinni realize he didn’t even speak English? “Is there anyone else to whom I should make your apologies?”

“Oh, many others. But I’ll burden you only with Sophia.”

From the carriage drive, they turned onto a broad path overarched by rows of gigantic, sheltering trees. They passed statuary of serious-faced men—poets or philosophers, judging by the books and quills they held, their plaintive eyes cast heavenward. Their sculpted faces jogged Saleh’s memory, and he pulled the small silver figurine from his pocket. “I found this in your room,” he said. “It intrigued me.” He held it out, but the Jinni said, “Keep it. The silver has value, at least.”