The Christmas season descended on Little Syria, with all its attendant decorations and feasts. Suddenly it seemed to the Jinni that Arbeely was always at church. For Novena, the man would say, or to celebrate the Immaculate Conception, or for the Revelation to Saint Joseph. “But what does any of that mean?” the Jinni asked. And so, with a feeling of dread, Arbeely found himself giving the Jinni a potted history of the life of Christ and the founding of His Church. This was followed by a long, convoluted, and at times quite bitter argument.
“Let me see if I understand correctly now,” the Jinni said at one point. “You and your relations believe that a ghost living in the sky can grant you wishes.”
“That is a gross oversimplification, and you know it.”
“And yet, according to men, we jinn are nothing but children’s tales?”
“This is different. This is about religion and faith.”
“And where exactly is the difference?”
“Are you honestly asking, or being deliberately insulting?”
“I’m honestly asking.”
Arbeely sank a finished skillet into a tub of water—by now both of them were heartily sick of skillets—and waited for the steam to clear. “Faith is believing in something even without proof, because you know it in your heart to be true.”
“I see. And before you released me from the flask, would you have said that you knew in your heart that jinn do not exist?”
Arbeely frowned. “I would have put it at a very low probability.”
“And yet, look at me. Here I stand, making skillets. Does that not call your faith into question?”
“Yes! Look at you! You yourself are proof that labeling something as superstition doesn’t necessarily make it so!”
“But I’ve always existed. Jinn may not choose to be seen, but that doesn’t mean we’re imaginary. And we certainly don’t ask to be worshiped. In any case,” he said with relish—he had been saving this salvo for its proper moment—“you told me yourself that sometimes you aren’t certain there is a God.”
“I never should have said that,” muttered Arbeely. “I was drunk.”
On a recent night, buoyed by their growing commercial success, Arbeely had decided to introduce his apprentice to araq. The anise-flavored alcohol had no effect on the Jinni, only a pleasant taste and a sudden warmth as it burned away inside him. He’d been fascinated by the araq’s transformation as Arbeely added water to the small glass, the liquor going from clear to cloudy white. He’d insisted on trying it over and over, diluting the araq drop by drop and watching the hazy, opaque tendrils extend themselves through the glass.
But how does it work? he’d asked Arbeely.
Don’t know. The man had grinned, tossing back another of the Jinni’s experiments. It just does.
“Because you were drunk, does that make it less true?” the Jinni asked.
“Yes. Liquor is an evil influence. And besides, even if I didn’t believe, what would that change? You existed without the benefit of my belief. So does God, without yours.”
But the truth was that Arbeely’s faith rested on uncertain ground. Worse, the argument was forcing him to scrutinize his own shaky beliefs when all he wanted was the comfort of the familiar. At night, alone in his bed, doubt and homesickness weighted his heart and made him feel like weeping.
Nevertheless, on Christmas eve he went to Mass. In the candle-lit hall he took Communion with his neighbors, the wine-soaked bread heavy on his tongue, and strove to feel something of the miracle of the Christ Child’s birth. Afterward, at a dinner organized by the ladies of the church, he sat at a long table among the other unmarried men, and ate tabouleh and flatbread and kibbeh that tasted nothing like his mother’s. A couple of the men produced an oud and a drum, and they all danced a dabke. Arbeely joined in, less from real enthusiasm than because it would hurt too much not to.
He left the dinner and walked back toward his tenement room. It was a bracing, frost-bitten night; the air knifed at his lungs. Perhaps, he thought, he would have a glass of araq—just one this time—and retire early. Then he saw that the lamp was still burning in the shop. Strange—usually at this hour the Jinni was out roaming the city, bedding young heiresses and doing whatever else it was he did.
Arbeely entered to find the shop empty. He frowned. Didn’t the Jinni know better than to leave the lamp burning? Irritated, he went to extinguish it.
On the worktable, inside the circle of lamplight, sat a small silver owl.
Arbeely picked up the figurine and turned it over in his hands. The owl was perched on the stump of a tree, staring at him with enormous, wide-set eyes. The Jinni had used a tiny blade to carve out a ruff of startled feathers and a thin, pointed beak. In all, he’d contrived to make it the most indignant-looking owl Arbeely had ever seen.
He laughed aloud, delighted. Not a Christmas present, surely! Was it meant for an apology, or merely a whim? A bit of both, perhaps? Smiling, he pocketed the figurine and took himself to bed.
The owl was indeed meant as an apology, but for more than Arbeely knew.
The bickering about religion had taken its toll on the Jinni as well. Never before had humans seemed so foreign to him. Distantly he understood that the subject was difficult for Arbeely to explain, tied as it was to the man’s feelings for home and family. But then Arbeely would say something ridiculous, like when he had tried to explain how this God of theirs was somehow three gods and one at the same time. It left the Jinni drowning in a sea of exasperation.
Certainly the man meant well, but the Jinni wanted to talk to someone else, someone who might understand his frustrations, even share them. Someone who, like him, was forced to hide away her strengths.
He had no idea if she would even consent to speak with him. But he needed to know who she was. And so, as Arbeely entered his shop and discovered the waiting figurine, the Jinni was already retracing the route he had memorized, in search of the woman made of clay.
Over the weeks the cold had deepened, and with it the Golem’s nighttime restlessness. At the end of each workday she’d contrive to spend one or two more minutes in front of the fading ovens, soaking up the last of their heat. The walk home had become an unhappy march to an endless-seeming incarceration. One night she tried getting into her bed, beneath the eiderdown, thinking it might warm her, but her restless limbs wouldn’t allow it. She nearly tore the bedclothes apart in her rush to get out again.
On Saturdays, her day off, she fought off the stiffness by walking the bounds of her neighborhood, up and down the overfamiliar streets. Rivington, Delancey, Broome, Grand, Hester. Forsyth, Allen, Eldridge, Orchard, Ludlow. Fir wreaths and red velvet bows had appeared in a few of the tenement windows; vaguely she was aware that it was for a holiday, but that it was a gentile affair, and she wasn’t supposed to take notice. She passed the innumerable synagogues, from humble storefront congregations to the soaring structures on Eldridge and Rivington. At each one she felt the same outpouring of prayer, like a deep river with powerful currents. Sometimes it was so strong that she had to cross the street, or risk being pulled under. She began to realize why the Rabbi had never taken her to a service. It would be like stepping into a hurricane.
On the western boundary of her walks, she would always pause and look down the block toward the Bowery. To her, the street was a sort of borderland, a gateway to the vast, dangerous expanse of the city. She’d only crossed it once, on the night she’d met the glowing man.
She wondered where he was. Did he feel the cold like she did? Or did he drive it away, by burning more brightly?
Back and forth she’d walk, willing the sun not to set. But the earth insisted on turning, and before long she was home again, steeling herself for the night. Bored with sewing her one dress, she’d begun to take in clothes that needed mending or alterations. Most of her clients were her fellow boarders in the house, the clerks and accountants who’d never learned to thread a needle. They thought her awkward and spinsterish, if they thought of her at all; but even they noticed the precision of her stitches, the almost invisible mends. They recommended her to their friends and colleagues, and soon the Golem had more than enough piecework to occupy her fingers, if not her mind.
One particularly cold night, she was repairing a rip in a pair of trousers when the needle fell from her stiff fingers. She tried to grab it, but fumbled, and the needle vanished. She searched the trousers, her own clothing, the floor, but couldn’t find it. At last a glint from the candlelight caught her eye: and there it was, sticking out of her right forearm. It had sunk in nearly half its length.
She peered closer, dumbfounded. How had it happened? She’d driven it in by accident, and not even noticed!
Carefully she plucked the needle from her arm and pulled back her sleeve. There was a tiny dark hole, its edge slightly raised where the needle had pushed the clay aside. She pressed the spot with her thumb, and felt a twinge of discomfort. But already the puncture was sealing itself over, the clay spreading back into place; and when she removed her thumb the mark was nearly gone.
The Golem was fascinated. She’d grown used to thinking of her body as never changing. She didn’t bruise when she bumped into the worktable, and never twisted her ankle on the ice, as Mrs. Radzin had done. Her hair didn’t even grow. This was something new, and unexplored.
Her gaze fell on her satin pincushion and its dozens of long, silver pins.
Within minutes she’d stuck them all in her arm to varying depths, a few nearly down to the head. It took a good deal of force. The clay that formed her was strong and thick, and didn’t give way easily. After denting her thumb on the pinheads, she took off her boot and used it as a hammer.
Finally she examined her work, touching each pin in turn. She’d laid them out in a neat grid along her left forearm, from the wrist to the elbow. All were held fast. She flexed and opened her hand, feeling the clay gather and pull around the pins near her wrist. There seemed to be no underlying structure, no bone or muscle or nerve: she was clay through and through.
She removed a pin, prising it out with her fingernails. Soon the hole had closed of its own accord. She pulled out another one, and checked the clock: only three minutes until there was nothing left but a dark spot. What if the hole was bigger? She took the pin and inserted it directly next to another one, making the hole twice as wide. The discomfort grew, but she ignored it. Then she removed both pins, and watched. Eight minutes passed before the hole had closed over completely.
How interesting! But what if she stuck three pins together, or four? Or she could use something other than pins, something wider—the embroidery scissors! She snatched them from the sewing basket, closed her fist around the handles, and held them like a dagger above her wrist, ready to strike.
Then, slowly, as though not to startle herself, she put the scissors down. What in the world was she doing? She had no idea how much her body could endure, how far it could be pushed. What if she’d permanently maimed herself? And if the hole had indeed closed, then what next? Would she slice off her own arm out of boredom? No need to worry herself with thoughts of others discovering and destroying her. She would destroy herself soon enough, piece by piece.
She pulled each pin from her arm and replaced them in the pincushion. Soon the only damage was a faint grid of blemishes. She checked the clock. Only two in the morning. There were still hours left to fill. And already her fingers were beginning to twitch.
How long could she keep on like this? Years, months, weeks? Days? You will go mad before long, said a voice in her mind, and put all in danger.
Her hand came up to touch the locket, and then faltered. She shook her head distractedly. Then she wrapped her cloak tighter about herself, and glanced out at the street below.
The glowing man was strolling up the sidewalk toward her boardinghouse.
She stared, shocked. What was he doing on her street? Had he followed her home that night? No; perhaps it was a coincidence. He might be headed anywhere.
Warily she watched his approach. He wore a dark coat, but no hat, even though it was freezing cold. Near the boardinghouse, he slowed, and then stopped. He glanced about, as if checking for onlookers. And then he raised his head and looked directly at her window.
Their eyes met.
She flew back from the window, nearly stumbling against her bed. She’d been discovered, hunted down! She clutched at the locket, waiting for the pounding on the door, the angry mob.
But the street remained silent. There was no knock at the door, no approaching wave of fearful anger.
She crept back to the window’s edge and peered out. He was still there, alone, leaning against the lamppost. As she watched, he rolled himself a cigarette, and then, without benefit of a match, touched his finger to the end and inhaled. All this without glancing at her window. He was, she realized, certain of his audience. And he was enjoying himself.
Her panic subsided, was replaced by ire. How dare he follow her home? What right did he have? And yet—how many times had she thought to go to Washington Street and seek him out? And now here he was, under her window, and she had no idea what to do about it.
For almost an hour she watched as he stood there, for all the world as though he had nothing better to do than hold up the lamppost and smoke cigarettes. He nodded at the occasional passersby, who all stared at his uncovered head and thin coat.
Then, as if struck by a sudden impulse, he pulled something from his pocket. It was roughly the size of an apple, though not as round, and it glinted in the thin pool of gaslight. He held it cupped in his hands, and for a few long moments his hands blazed so brightly it almost hurt to look at them. Then from another pocket he withdrew a long, thin stick, pointed at the end like a needle. He held the object up and peered at it, and began to poke at it gently with the stick.
Curious despite her caution, she crept closer to the window and watched as he worked. Every so often he frowned and rubbed a thumb over whatever he had done, as if erasing a mistake. She realized that the light inside him didn’t shine beyond his own body; for although his hands were half as bright as the gas lamp, the thing he held remained in shadow.
Finally he slowed his work and then stopped. He held up the object for inspection, turning it this way and that, before bending down and setting it next to the lamppost. Then, without so much as a backward glance, he walked away down the street again, the way he’d come.
The Golem waited ten minutes. Then she waited five more. The day was about to begin. Already the traffic on the sidewalk was increasing. One, two, three people walked past the lamppost. Soon someone would notice whatever it was he’d left there, and claim it for themselves. Or it would be kicked into the gutter, and lost. And then she would never know what it was.
She grabbed her cloak and rushed down the stairs. At the front door, she paused: had he doubled back to lie in wait for her, having baited his trap? She opened the door a crack and poked her head around, but saw no glowing faces, only ordinary men and women. She went to the lamppost and retrieved the object, examining it in the gaslight.
It was a small silver bird, still warm to the touch. He’d formed it as though it were sitting on the ground, its feet tucked up underneath itself. Its round body tapered to a short spray of tail feathers. Small carvings and indentations created the suggestion of plumage. Its head was turned to one side, watching her intently with smooth half-globe eyes.
He had made this with his bare hands, while standing beneath her window.
Thoroughly perplexed, she brought the bird back to her room, placed it on her writing desk, and stared at it until it was time to leave for work.
That morning the Golem burned a pan of cookies for the first time. At the register, she miscounted two customers’ change and gave a woman prune Danishes instead of cheese. The mistakes mortified her, though everyone else was amused—she was so celebrated for her exactness that catching her in error seemed a fortuitous event, like a shooting star.
Anna, of course, enjoyed it to the hilt. “What’s his name?” she whispered as the Golem passed her worktable.
“What?” Startled, the Golem stared at the girl. “Whose name?”
“Oh, no one’s.” Anna smiled, satisfied as a cat. “Forget I said anything.”
After that, the Golem went to the water closet to collect herself. She would not let the glowing man unnerve her. She would be calm and controlled, her best self. She would act the way the Rabbi would want her to act.
She came home that night and positioned herself by the window, waiting. Finally, at nearly two in the morning, he appeared from around the corner. Again, he was alone. He returned to his spot next to the lamppost and again gave every indication of staying there for the night.
Enough of this, she thought. She put on her cloak, then tiptoed down the staircase and quietly opened the front door.
The street was nearly empty, and her shoes on the boardinghouse steps were loud in the cold night air. Surprise flickered across his face; it was replaced by a self-assured nonchalance as she approached. She stopped a few feet away from him. Silently they watched each other.
“Go away,” she said.
He smiled. “Why should I? I like it here.”
“You’re a nuisance.”
“How can that be? I do nothing but stand on a sidewalk.”
She only stared at him, rigid and severe. Finally he said, “What else was I to do? You refused to stay and talk.”
“Yes, because I don’t want to talk with you.”
“I don’t believe that,” he said.
She crossed her arms. “You followed me home, and now you call me a liar?”
“You’re being cautious. I understand. I live with the same considerations.”
“Did you tell anyone about me?”
“No one.” Then he winced, remembering something. “Ah. One man.”
She turned and started back up the sidewalk.
“No, wait!” he called, coming after her. “He’s the one I told you about, the tinsmith. He knows my secret, and has told no one. He can keep yours as well.”
“Lower your voice!” she hissed. She glanced up at the boardinghouse, but there was no light at any of the windows.
He sighed, clearly making an effort to be patient. “Please. You’re the only one I’ve met here who isn’t . . . as they are. I only wish to talk with you. Nothing more.”
Was he telling the truth? She frowned, trying to see. Distantly she could feel his curiosity, but it was eclipsed by something else that lay deep inside him, like a vast, dark shadow.
She reached out to it—and was nearly pulled under by a longing like nothing she’d ever experienced. It was as though a part of his soul had been trapped and held fast in an endless moment. It couldn’t move, or speak, or do anything except cry out silently against its bonds.
She shuddered, and backed away. He watched her, puzzled. “What is it?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t talk with you.”
“Do you think I mean to harm you? I’d like to meet the man who would try. I can see the strength in you, Chava.”
She started—but of course, she’d told him her name that night. Rash, far too rash!
“All right,” he said. “Let us say this. One question. Answer me one question honestly, and I will answer one of yours. And then, if you want, I’ll leave you alone.”
She considered. He already knew too much. But if it would make him go away . . . “All right,” she said. “One question. Ask it.”
“Did you like the bird?”
This was his question? She looked for a hidden catch or meaning, but it seemed plain enough. “Yes,” she said. “It’s beautiful.” And then, belatedly, “Thank you.”
He nodded, pleased. “Not my best work,” he said. “The light here is too poor. But you put me in mind of it. It’s a desert bird, and quick to startle.” He smiled. “Now. Your turn.”
There was a question, actually, something she’d been wondering all day. “How did you know that I don’t sleep?”
Now it was his turn to look startled. “What do you mean?”
“You came here last night and stood beneath my window, and you knew I wouldn’t be asleep in bed. How?”
That brought him up short. He laughed in genuine surprise. “I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t even consider it.” He thought for a long moment, and finally said, “That night, when we met, you didn’t move like someone who should be home in bed. Perhaps that’s how I knew. Everyone else walks differently at night than during the day. Have you noticed?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “As though they’re fighting off sleep, or running away from it, even if they’re wide awake.”
“But not you,” he said. “You were lost, but you were walking as though the sun was high overhead.”
Little else could have weakened her defenses so thoroughly. It was the sort of observation that she couldn’t have shared with anyone else, not even the Rabbi. He would have appreciated the insight, but he wouldn’t have felt its truth with the same estrangement, the same sense of watching from a distance.
He was searching her face, judging her reaction. “Please,” he said. “I only want to talk. No harm will come to you. You have my word.”
Caution commanded her to turn her back on him, to return to the boardinghouse. But she felt the cool, bracing air on her face, and the stiff ache in her limbs. She looked up at her own window; and suddenly the thought of spending the rest of the night in her room, silently sewing, seemed unbearable.
“Do you promise,” she said, “to never tell anyone else about me, ever again?”
“I promise.” He raised an eyebrow. “Will you do the same?”
What could she do? He’d shown no duplicity; she’d have to match him. “Yes. I promise. But we must go somewhere else. Somewhere private, where we can’t be overheard.”
He smiled, pleased at his success. “All right. Somewhere private.” He considered, and then said, “Have you ever been to the aquarium?”
“Amazing,” the Golem murmured, half an hour later.
They were standing in the main gallery of the aquarium, in front of a tank of small sharks. The long, elegant shapes moved slowly in the dark water, their wide-open eyes tracking their visitors’ every movement.
The Jinni studied her as she wandered from tank to tank. She’d been an alert presence at his side on the walk to Battery Park, and then a disapproving pair of eyes boring into his back as he melted through the padlock on the door. (The guard must have tired of his post, or else the weather had grown too cold, for he was nowhere to be seen.) Her looks were pleasing enough, but not tempting, by any stretch. Had she been human, he would’ve passed her on the street without a second thought.
“I crossed the ocean once,” the Golem said. “I never knew there were creatures like this below me.”
“I’ve never seen the ocean, only the bay,” the Jinni replied. “What was it like?”
“Enormous. Cold. It stretched on forever, in every direction. If I hadn’t known otherwise, I would’ve thought that the whole world was ocean.”
He shivered at the image. “It sounds terrible.”
“No, it was beautiful,” she said. “The water was always changing.”
They stood together, silent and tense. It was strange, he thought—now that she’d consented to talk with him, he had little idea how to go about it.
“I was brought to life on the ocean,” she said. Then she paused, as if listening to the echo of her words, not quite believing she’d said them aloud.
“Brought to life,” he said.
“In a ship’s hold. By a man. He was my master, for a brief time. A very brief time.” Each phrase seemed dragged from deep within her, as though she was fighting herself to say it. “He died, soon afterward.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No!” She turned, shocked. “He’d been sick! I would never have done such a thing!”
“I meant no offense,” he said. “You called him your master. I assumed he forced you to be his servant.”
“It wasn’t like that,” she muttered.
The wary silence fell again. They watched the sharks for a while, and were themselves watched.
“I had a master as well,” the Jinni said. “A wizard. I gladly would have killed him.” He frowned. “I hope I did kill him. But I can’t remember.” And he laid bare the tale: his life in the desert, the loss of his memory, his capture and incomplete release, the iron cuff that still bound him to human form.
Her face softened somewhat while he talked. “How terrible,” she said when he was finished.
“I don’t mean to gain your pity,” he said, irritated. “I only want to explain myself, so that you don’t run from me like a scared child.”
“If I’m overcautious, it’s for good reason,” she retorted. “I must be careful.”
“And the night we met? If you must be careful, how did you come to be so lost?”
“I wasn’t myself then,” she muttered. “That was the night the Rabbi died.”
“I see.” He had the grace to feel slightly embarrassed. “Who was he?”
“A good man. My guardian. He took me in, after my master died.”
“You’ve had poor luck with masters and guardians.”
Stung, she flinched. “My master was sick, and my guardian was old.”
“And you’re so helpless, that you have need of either?”
“You don’t understand,” she said, hugging her arms close to her body.
“Tell me, then.”
She eyed him. “Not yet,” she said. “No, I’m not certain of you.”
He was growing impatient. “Then what else should I tell you?”
“Tell me what you do at night while the people are sleeping.”
He gestured around himself. “This is what I do. I walk the city. I go where I will.”
Longing darkened her eyes. “It sounds wonderful.”
“You say that as though something keeps you from doing the same.”
“Of course it does! How could I go out alone, after dark? I would be noticed, an unaccompanied woman on the street. The night our paths crossed was the only time I’ve ever gone out at night on my own.”
“You mean you stay in your room, every night? But what do you do?”
She shrugged, uncomfortable. “I sew clothing. I watch the people go by.”
“But surely you, of all people, would be in no danger!”
“Say someone approaches me, a man looking to attack or rob me. What if I pull away from him, and he notices my strength? Or, worse, what if I injure him? Word will spread—and then what? I’d be hunted until I was found. Innocent people would be hurt.”
Her fears echoed the scenario that Arbeely had painted for him—and yet she had submitted so meekly, accepting the very imprisonment he fought against. He pitied her; he wanted to push her away. “But how can you stand it?”
“It’s difficult,” she said quietly. “Especially now that the nights are so long.”
“And this is how you’ll live out your life?”
She turned away. “I don’t like to think about it,” she said. Her fingers were twisting around one another, and she looked about, as if searching for escape.
“But why can’t you—”
“I just can’t!” she cried. “Whatever you’ll suggest, I’ve considered it! Anything else would endanger myself and others, and how could I be so selfish? But there are nights when all I want to do is run and run! I don’t know how much longer—” She stopped suddenly, one hand over her mouth.
“Chava . . .” Pity won out, and he placed a hand on her arm.
She wrenched away from him. “Don’t touch me!” she cried; and then turned and ran into the darkness of the next gallery.
He was left somewhat stunned. She’d pulled away from him with astonishing force. In this, at least, she was correct: if others saw her strength, she’d certainly be noticed.
He was beginning to wonder if he’d been wise to pursue her attention. When they’d met, her fear and reticence had piqued his curiosity; now they only seemed debilitating, a sign of deeper troubles. But still he followed her into the next gallery. She stood before one of the largest tanks in the aquarium, full of tiny, colorful fish. He approached, but kept his distance.
“There are almost a hundred fish in this tank,” she muttered. “I can’t count them properly, they keep moving.”
“I only meant to help,” he said.
“I know.”
“Arbeely—the tinsmith I told you about—he tells me I must be cautious. And I know he is right, to a degree. But if I hide away forever, I’ll go mad. And neither of us should have to give every night over to our fears.” The idea had been building in his mind as he spoke, and now he said, “Come walking with me instead.”
Her eyes widened in surprise—and instantly he wondered what had compelled him. She was so cautious, so afraid! She’d hold him back, surely. Yet the thought of her caged in her room filled him with such horror—as if it were his own fate, and not hers—that he’d spoken without truly considering.
Doubtfully she said, “You’re offering yourself as company?”
He resigned himself to his offer. “Let us say, one night a week. It makes sense, doesn’t it? A lone woman would draw attention, but this way you wouldn’t be alone.”
“And where exactly would you take me?”
He began to warm to the task of convincing her. “I could show you many things. Places like this.” He gestured to the water and glass around them. “The parks at night, the rivers. We could walk all night long, and only see a fraction of this city. If all you’ve seen is your own neighborhood, then you have no idea.” To his surprise, his enthusiasm was growing genuine.
She turned back to the fish, as if looking to them for her answer, or reassurance. “All right,” she said at last. “For now, we’ll say one night only. A week from today. But there’s something you need to know first. It wouldn’t be fair to you otherwise.” Visibly she gathered her courage, and said, “When you told me what had happened to you—with the wizard—it answered a question. There’s a need in you.” He gave her a quizzical look, but she went on. “Golems are meant to be ruled by a master. A golem senses its master’s thoughts, and responds to them, without thinking. My own master is dead. But that ability didn’t go away.”
It took him a moment to realize what she was saying. He felt himself start to recoil. “You can read minds?”
Quickly she shook her head. “Nothing as certain as that. Fears, desires. Needs. If I’m not careful, they can overwhelm me. But—you’re different.”
“Different how?”
“Harder to see clearly.” She was searching his face now; he repressed the urge to back away. “I see your face as lit from within, and shaded without. Your mind is the same. It’s as though part of you is constantly struggling to be free. It shadows everything else.”
This, he thought, was much more than he had bargained for. He now understood her uncanny presence, her sense of listening to something unheard; but the explanation was even more unsettling.
“I only wanted you to know,” she said. “I’ll understand if you withdraw your offer.”
He considered. Well, it was only one night. If she proved too eerie, they would part company.
“My offer still stands,” he said. “One night. One week from today.” And she smiled.
They left the aquarium and made their way back to her neighborhood. The streets were uncommonly quiet, the dark broken by a lamp-lit window here and there. As they walked, he found himself examining his own thoughts; he found no desires that he was ashamed of her sensing. And his fears? Captivity, boredom, discovery. Each of which she knew as well as he.
Perhaps, he thought, it will not be so terrible. They would walk about, they would talk. It would be a novelty, if nothing else.
At her request they stopped in the alley next to the boardinghouse, away from her neighbors’ eyes. He asked, “Have I at least convinced you that I mean you no harm?”
She smiled slightly. “For the most part.”
“I suppose that will have to do. Until next week.” He turned to go.
“Wait.” She touched his arm. “Please, remember your promise. I must stay hidden. If not from you, then from everyone else.”
“I keep my promises,” he said. “As I trust you keep yours.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“Then I will see you in seven nights.”
“Good-bye,” she said, and with no more ceremony disappeared around the corner.
He walked home unsure of what he had just let into his life. It was early yet, perhaps four in the morning. He thought he’d work on one of his figurines—there was an ibis only half completed. He couldn’t work the proportions correctly, the bill was all wrong and the legs too thick.
As he climbed the front steps of his building, a figure interposed itself between him and the door. It was a man, old and gaunt, in what looked like layers of rags and a smirched overcoat. A grubby scarf was wound about his head. The man’s stance, his dark accusatory stare, made the Jinni think he’d been lying in wait.
“What are you?” croaked the man.
The Jinni frowned. “I beg your pardon.”
“I can look at you,” the man said. “There’s no death in your face.” His tone was hysterical, his eyes so wide the whites shone. He grabbed at the front of the Jinni’s coat and shouted up at him. “I can see you! You’re made of fire! Tell me what you are!”
The Jinni froze, horrified. A pair of boys, up early and drawn by the shouts, crept around the doorframe to watch the commotion. The old man cried out and turned away from them, letting go of the Jinni. His throat worked for a moment; and then he backed down the stairs, one hand shielding his eyes, and trudged unsteadily down the street.
“You all right, mister?” one of the boys asked.
“Yes, of course.” It was a lie. He’d been terrified enough to consider pushing the man down the steps.
“That’s Ice Cream Saleh,” the other boy said. “He’s funny in the head.”
“I see,” the Jinni said. “A madman. And why is he allowed to live here?”
“He don’t break no laws, I guess. And he makes the best ice cream around. But he can’t look no one in the face. He gets sick.”
“Interesting,” said the Jinni. “Thank you.” He found a couple of pennies in his coat pocket, and gave one to each of them. Satisfied, they ran off down the stairs.
The Jinni was profoundly disturbed. If this man—whoever he was—could truly see him, should he be worried about his safety? He couldn’t tell Arbeely; the man would only panic and demand that the Jinni stay locked in his room with the window covered. Besides, he thought, growing calmer, if the man was considered a lunatic—and he certainly looked the part—then whatever he might say could be dismissed as meaningless. For now, the Jinni decided, he would merely be watchful.
Arbeely was in a good mood that morning—another large order had come through, of soup pots this time—and he greeted the Jinni cheerfully. “Good morning! Did you have an exciting night? Meet with any more clay women? Or women made of anything else?”
For a moment the Jinni considered telling him about the Golem. Arbeely already knew about her, after all; he’d only promised to tell no one else. But he liked the idea of having a secret from Arbeely, something that the man could not scold him about.
“No,” the Jinni said. “I saw no one special.” And he set out his tools and tied on his apron while Arbeely bustled about the shop, none the wiser.