“You wore a hat,” the Golem said. “Thank you.”
They were walking north, away from her boardinghouse, in a thin sleet fine as frozen mist. It was the third trip they’d taken together since the night in Madison Square Park. Two weeks before, they’d visited the grounds at Battery Park—skipping the aquarium, as she’d insisted he not melt the lock again—and then curved north along West Street to the Barrow Street pier. In summer the pier was a bustling recreation center and promenade, but now it was barren, its guardrails dressed with icicles. Wary of the slick wood, the Jinni had stayed near the boarded-over refreshment windows at the landing and watched as the Golem went out to the end of the pier, her cloak fluttering in the harbor wind. “It’s quiet out there,” she’d said when she came back. They’d walked a bit farther along West Street, but the views of water and distant lights turned quickly to cargo warehouses and steamship offices. They were about to turn around when he saw a glow in the sky a few piers away and dragged her over to investigate. The crew of a freighter, desperate to make the morning tides, had rigged the deck with electric lights and was working through the night. Stevedores raced about, hauling cargo, their breath blowing in white gusts. The Jinni and the Golem watched until the crew boss yelled at them in Norwegian to clear out, they had no time for rubberneckers. The Golem, not thinking, apologized in the same language, and they hastily retreated before the boss could corner his presumed countrymen and ask what town they hailed from.
The week after that, they’d walked north through the Lower East Side into a melange of Jewish and Bohemian shops, interspersed here and there with faded German signs: the remnants of Kleindeutschland adrift in an Eastern European sea. The Golem had been in a poor mood that week, distracted and unhappy. She’d said little of why, only that she’d gone to a cemetery in Brooklyn with an acquaintance, a man named Michael. The Jinni got the impression that this Michael desired more from their relationship than she did.
“I pity whoever tries to court you,” he’d said. “You have them at a serious disadvantage.”
“I don’t want to be courted,” she’d muttered.
“By anyone? Or just him?”
She’d shaken her head, as if to dismiss the question itself.
She was hard to comprehend, this woman. She had a prudish streak that seemed of a piece with her caution and serious-mindedness. She was as curious as he, but hesitated to explore. She smiled occasionally, but rarely laughed. In all, her character was completely opposed to what he usually looked for in a woman of his company. She would make a terrible jinniyeh.
They’d cut north and west, heading deeper into the sleeping neighborhoods. “What’s it like?” he’d asked her. “To feel all those desires and fears.”
“Like many small hands, grabbing at me.”
He’d almost squirmed, imagining it. Perhaps he himself would make a terrible golem.
“I’m getting better at not responding to them,” she’d said. “But it’s still difficult. Especially when I’m the object of the fear. Or desire.”
“Like your friend Michael’s?”
She’d said nothing, her face a studied blank. Perhaps she worried that he would develop desires for her. But he hadn’t, not even mildly, which was surprising. He’d rarely been so long in a woman’s company for any other reason.
He liked her well enough, he supposed. It amused him to show her around, to see now-familiar places through her new eyes. She noticed different details than he did: he took in a landscape all at once before devoting his attention to its elements, while she examined each thing in its turn, building to the whole picture. She could walk faster than he, but she was usually the one lagging behind, enthralled by something in a shop window or a gaily painted sign.
And at least she no longer seemed frightened of him. When he’d arrived at her boardinghouse for their fourth journey, he’d had only seconds to wait before she joined him. And she’d stopped trying to hide conspicuously at his side, though she wore her hood up until they were a ways from her home.
They continued on a zigzagging northwest path, in their now customary near-silence. Already he regretted his promise about the hat. The sleet was no danger, barely an irritation; in fact the hat itself was worse than the sleet. He’d bought it from a pushcart without trying it on, a mistake he wouldn’t make again. The fabric was cheap and rough, and the brim made him feel like a horse with blinders on.
“Stop fidgeting,” muttered the Golem.
“I can’t stand this thing,” he said. “It feels like I’ve got something on my head.”
She snorted, almost a laugh. “Well, you do.”
“You’re the one who made me wear it. And it itches.”
Finally she pulled the hat from his head. From her sleeve she took a handkerchief, unfolded it, and placed it inside the hat. She put the hat back on top of his head and tucked the corners of the kerchief beneath the brim. “There,” she said. “Is that better?”
“Yes,” he said, startled.
“Good,” she said grimly. “Now perhaps I can concentrate on where I’m going.”
“I thought you couldn’t hear my mind.”
“I didn’t need to. You were fussing enough for the whole street to know it.”
They walked on. The temperature had dropped, turning the sleet to snow. The long-choked gutters made each street corner a dark pool. They were forced to step around these, until at one corner the Jinni, after checking that there was no one else on the street, took a running leap, bounding to the other side of the black water. It was a fair distance; few human men could have done it. He grinned, pleased with himself.
The Golem stood on the corner behind him, frowning. He waited, impatient, while she picked her way across.
“What if someone had seen?” she said.
“The risk was worth it.”
“To gain what? A few moments’ time?”
“A reminder that I’m still alive.”
To this she did not reply, only shook her head.
In silence he took them to Washington Square Park. He’d looked forward to showing her the glowing arch, but the weather had forced the city to shut off the lights or risk them shorting. The arch loomed in shadow above them, its lines stark and precise against the clouds.
“It should be lit,” he said, disappointed.
“No, I like it this way.”
They walked beneath, and he marveled anew at its height, its sheer size. So many larger buildings in this city, and yet it was the arch that fascinated him. In the dark, the enormous marble carvings seemed to change and ripple like waves.
“It serves no purpose,” he said, trying to explain his fascination, to himself as much as her. “Buildings and bridges are useful. But why this? A gigantic arch from nowhere to nowhere.”
“What does it say, up there?” She was on the other side, peering up at the shadowed inscription.
He quoted from memory: “ ‘Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God.’ Said by someone named Washington.”
“I thought Washington was a place,” she said, dubious.
“Never mind that, what does it mean?”
She didn’t answer, only continued gazing at the letters she couldn’t see. Then she asked, “Do you believe in God?”
“No,” he said, unhesitating. “God is a human invention. My kind have no such belief. And nothing I’ve experienced suggests that there’s an all-powerful ghost in the sky, answering wishes.” He smiled, warming to the subject. “Long ago, during the reign of Sulayman, the most powerful of the jinn could grant wishes. There are stories from that time, of jinn captured by human wizards. A jinni would offer his captor three wishes, in exchange for his release. The wizard would spend his wishes on more wishes, and force the jinni into perpetual slavery. Until finally the wizard would wish for something poorly worded, which would allow his captive to trap him. And then the jinni would be freed.” She was still studying the arch; but she was listening. “So perhaps this God of the humans is just a jinni like myself, stuck in the heavens, forced to answer wishes. Or maybe he freed himself long ago, only no one told them.”
Silence. “What do you think?” he pressed. “Do you believe in their God?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “The Rabbi did. And he was the wisest person I’ve ever met. So yes, maybe I do.”
“A man tells you to believe, and you believe?”
“It depends on the man. Besides, you believe the stories that you were told. Have you met a jinni who could grant wishes?”
“No, but that ability has all but disappeared.”
“So, it’s just stories now. And perhaps the humans did create their God. But does that make him less real? Take this arch. They created it. Now it exists.”
“Yes, but it doesn’t grant wishes,” he said. “It doesn’t do anything.”
“True,” she said. “But I look at it, and I feel a certain way. Maybe that’s its purpose.”
He wanted to ask, what good was a God that only existed to make you feel a certain way? But he left off. Already they were treading the edge of an argument.
They left the arch and walked farther into the park. Sleigh tracks carved long arcs along the ground, around the islands of snow-covered lawn. The oval fountain, shut off for the season, was a shallow bowl of ice. Sleeping men dotted the benches here and there, barely visible under their layers of blankets. The Golem glanced at them and then quickly away, a sorrowful look on her face.
“They need so much,” she murmured. “And I just walk by.”
“Yes, but what would you do? Feed them all, take them home with you? You aren’t responsible for them.”
“Easy to say, when you can’t hear them.”
“It’s still true. You’re generous to a fault, Chava. I think you’d give your own self away, if only someone wished for it.”
She hugged herself, clearly unhappy. The wind had pushed the hood back from her face. Snowflakes clung unmelting to her cheeks and the sides of her nose. She looked like a living statue, her features white and glittering.
He reached out and brushed away the snow from her cheek. The crystals disappeared at once under his hand. She startled, surprised, then realized the problem. Ruefully she wiped a gloved hand across her face.
He said, “If you were to lie down on one of those benches, you’d be buried under snow and pigeons by morning.” She laughed at the image. It was gratifying, to hear that rare laugh. He felt as though he’d earned it.
As they neared the far end of the park, they heard a distant jingling behind them. A sleigh carriage was entering from beneath the arch, the hitched pair trotting handsomely. The reins were held not by a coachman but by one of the passengers, a man in evening dress and silk hat. A blond woman in a fashionable cloak sat next to him, laughing as he took the sleigh in a tight figure eight beside the fountain. The sleigh leaned threateningly to the side, and the woman buried her face in her muffler and shrieked, obviously enjoying herself.
The Golem smiled, watching them. The Jinni stepped back onto the grass as the sleigh neared, mindful of the horses. The couple in the sleigh saw them, and the man raised his hand in a jaunty salute. It was clear they were glad for the audience, glad that someone would see them as they wanted to be seen: young and daring, thrilled to be alive and playing at love.
The team, obviously well trained, joggled only once as they passed the Jinni. For a moment the two couples were gazing at each other as though in a mirror; and then the Jinni saw the beginning of something startled, even frightened, in the woman’s eyes. The same budding uncertainty rose in the man’s face—his hand tightened on the reins—and then they flew by, the horses drawing them away from their own eldritch reflection, the too-handsome man and the strangely glittering woman.
The Golem’s smile was gone.
The new century was proving to be a prosperous one for Boutros Arbeely. Since the Jinni’s arrival, business had more than doubled. Word of Arbeely’s fine and speedy work had spread beyond the Syrian community, and in recent weeks the tinsmith had entertained a number of unusual visitors. The first was an Irish saloon-owner looking to replace his old growlers, which had the tendency to split from their handles—not helped by his patrons’ habit of using them as cudgels. An Italian owner of a stable had come as well, looking for horseshoes. Arbeely’s limited English would have made communication difficult—and the Jinni could not help, not without the neighbors wondering at his fluency—but all the customers had to do was find the nearest Syrian boy, drop a few pennies in his hand, and ask him to translate.
The strangest visit came late in February from a fellow Syrian, a landlord named Thomas Maloof. The son of wealthy Eastern Orthodox landowners, Maloof had come to America not in steerage but in a furnished cabin, and had brought along a sizeable bankroll and a line of credit. After landing in New York and watching wave after wave of immigrants spill onto the ferry, he’d decided that any man with an ounce of sense would do well to purchase property in Manhattan as soon as possible. Accordingly he had snatched up the deed for a tenement on Park Street. He himself rarely set foot in the building, preferring to live in a suite of rooms at a genteel boardinghouse to the north. When he did speak to his fellow countrymen, it was with a hearty condescension, which he directed at Orthodox as well as Maronite. Relations between the two communities were cool at best, but egalitarian Maloof held himself above both.
Maloof considered himself a connoisseur and a patron of the arts, and after a brief survey of his new building, he decided its most urgent defect was not the poor plumbing nor the dark closeness of the rooms, but the deplorable quality of the pressed-tin ceiling in the entryway. He decided to have a new ceiling installed, to commemorate the change in ownership. He’d traveled to the pressed-tin factories in Brooklyn and the Bronx, but to his disappointment they could only show him workaday flowers and medallions and fleurs-de-lis, all missing that spark of true artistic value. His tenants were good, hardworking people, he told Arbeely, and they deserved a true Work of Art in their downstairs hallway, one that a factory could not provide.
Arbeely listened to this proposal with dubious politeness. Unlike Maloof, he knew why the tinplate panels were only made by factories: they required expensive equipment to produce, and the profit was so small that one had to sell to a neighborhood’s worth of tenements to make it worthwhile. Moreover, when Arbeely asked Maloof what sort of Art he had in mind, he discovered that the landlord had no idea whatsoever. “You’re the artisan, not I!” Maloof exclaimed. “I ask only that you give me something that sets my mind aflame!” And he left, having sworn to return in a week to view whatever samples Arbeely could produce.
“My God,” groaned Arbeely to the Jinni, “the man is insane! We’re supposed to make an entryway’s worth of tin panels, just you and I, and they must be extraordinary. We can’t halt all business for a month while we turn out a ceiling! When he comes back—if he comes back—we’ll simply explain that it’s beyond our capabilities, and that’s that.”
The weather had turned to a near-constant deluge of sleet and snow, and when the Jinni left that night he reconciled himself to an evening indoors. Returning to his tenement, he paused for a moment in the downstairs hallway, and looked up. Sure enough, the ceiling was pressed tin, and the panels were as unremarkable as Maloof had described: roughly fifteen inches across and embossed with a plain medallion of concentric circles. Dust and soot grimed each square; rust cankered their edges. The longer the Jinni gazed, the more he wished he hadn’t bothered.
He shut himself in his room and worked on his figurines, but he was too distracted to make real progress. He glanced up from his work and checked the window. It was still sleeting, worse than before.
He needed something new, something different, more interesting than models of falcons and owls. Something he hadn’t attempted before.
He walked down to the lobby again and squinted at the medallions in the dim light. If he allowed his eyes to lose focus, he could almost pretend he was flying above them, looking down onto a series of circular hills, ominously regular . . .
A spark of an idea caught in his mind. What rule said that a pressed-tin ceiling must be constructed from square tiles? Why not simply create one enormous tile that covered the entire ceiling? And perhaps even the walls as well?
As though it had been sitting there all along, waiting for this moment, the image of the finished ceiling came to him in an exhilarating rush. He ran up to his room to fetch his coat, and then dashed across the street to Arbeely’s shop. He lit the fire in the forge, and threw himself into his work.
Arbeely did not go straight to the shop the next morning, for he had errands to run: an order to place with a supplier, and then to the tool shop to look at their new catalogs. He made time for a quick pastry and glass of tea at a café. On his way back, he paused before a haberdasher’s window to stare with longing at a smart-looking black derby with a feather in its band. He took off his own hat and examined its thin felt, the fraying ribbon and slumping dome. Business had been very good. Couldn’t he allow himself this one indulgence?
It was past noon when finally he arrived at the shop, cringing at the lateness of the hour. The door was unlocked, but the Jinni didn’t seem to be there. Perhaps he was in the back?
Coming around the workbench, he nearly tripped over his unseen apprentice. The Jinni was perched on his hands and knees before what looked, at first glance, to be an enormous carpet made of tin.
The Jinni glanced up. “Arbeely! I was wondering where you were.”
Arbeely stared at the strange shining carpet. It was at least eight feet long, and five wide. Much of it was dominated by an undulating wave that broke into smaller waves, swirling around one another as they spread across the tin. There were places where the Jinni had bent and buckled the plate into ragged peaks. Other sections were almost perfectly flat, but stippled here and there to create illusions of shadow.
“It’s only half finished,” the Jinni said. “Arbeely, did you order more tinplate? We’ve run out, and I still need to make the panels for the wall. I couldn’t remember if Maloof gave you the measurements, so I used my lobby as a model.”
Arbeely stared. “This is—you’re making this for Maloof?”
“Of course,” the Jinni replied, in a tone that suggested Arbeely was being rather slow. “It’ll take me at least two days to finish. I have ideas about how to connect the side panels to the ceiling, but they’ll need to be tested. I want it to be seamless. A seam would ruin the effect.” He peered at Arbeely more closely. “Is that a new hat?”
Arbeely barely heard the Jinni’s words; something else he’d said was tugging at him, trying to attract his attention. “You used all the tinplate?”
“Well, a ceiling is very large. And I’ll need more. This afternoon, if possible.”
“All the tinplate,” Arbeely said, numb. He found a stool and sat on it.
Finally the Jinni registered the man’s distress. “Is there a problem?”
“Do you have any idea,” Arbeely said with rising heat, “how much money you’ve cost me? You used up four months’ worth of plate! And we have no guarantee that Maloof will even return! Even if he does, surely he won’t want this—he asked for tiles, not one gigantic piece! How could—” Words failed him, and for a moment he simply stared at the tin carpet. “Four months of plate,” he mumbled. “This could ruin me.”
The Jinni frowned. “But it’ll work perfectly. Arbeely, you haven’t even looked at it properly.”
The numb shock was wearing away to despair. “I should have known,” Arbeely said. “You don’t understand the realities of running a business. I’m sorry, in the end it’s my fault. But I’ll have to rethink our agreement. I may no longer be able to pay you. The loss of the tin alone.”
Now the hurt on the Jinni’s face turned to indignant anger. He looked at the tin creation at his feet, and then back at Arbeely. Too furious for words, he grabbed his coat, stepped past Arbeely—who made no move to stop him—and strode from the shop, slamming the door behind him.
In the quiet that followed, Arbeely contemplated his options. He had some money saved; he could borrow more. He could restrict new business to repairs, but he’d have to cancel most of his current orders. His reputation might never recover.
He walked past the tin carpet—something about its waves and folds tugged at him, but he was beyond the reach of distraction—and went to the back room, where he made a quick inventory. It was true: the plate was all gone. Nothing stood on the shelves but scraps and unfinished orders.
He returned to the front room, to look again at the wasted tinplate—perhaps there were sections that were still usable, enough for a few days at least. As he did, the light from the high window filtered through the dusty air and struck the tin carpet, highlighting the peaks and crags, casting the narrow depressions into shadow. All at once it came into focus, and with a dizzy shock Arbeely saw exactly what the Jinni had created: the portrait of a vast desert landscape, as seen from above.
It was not a good day to be selling ice cream.
The wind and sleet had ceased for the moment, but the slush lay frozen on the sidewalks, refracting the feeble daylight into Mahmoud Saleh’s dazzled eyes. Carefully he dragged his little cart from restaurant to café, knocking on door after door, scooping his ice cream into whatever container they gave him and pocketing the coins he got in return. He had no doubt his ice cream was headed straight for their garbage pails, for who would want it on a day like this? He could hear the proprietors’ ill-concealed sighs and loud silences, the muttered God-be-with-yous that seemed more superstition than courtesy, as though Saleh were an ill-behaved spirit who needed appeasing.
He wrapped his ragged coat about himself more tightly and was almost to Maryam’s coffeehouse when the street was lit with a second dawn. Stunned, he shielded his eyes.
It was the man, the glowing man! He was striding from a basement shop, his face a mask of anger. His coat was bunched in one fist. Only a thin shirt and a pair of dungarees separated him from the icy air, but he didn’t seem to notice. Those on the sidewalk scurried out of his way. He was headed north, toward the vegetable market.
Saleh had never seen him in daylight before. And if he waited too long, he’d lose him.
He dragged his cart to Maryam’s as quickly as he could. She must have seen him coming, as she was outside before he even reached the door.
“Mahmoud! What’s the matter?”
“Maryam,” he panted, “I must ask you—please watch my cart for me. Will you do that?”
“Of course!”
“Thank you.” And with that he headed north, following the glowing man’s retreating form.
The Jinni had never been so furious in his life.
He had no destination in mind, no purpose but to get away from his small-minded employer. After everything the Jinni had done for him, spending day after day mending pots until he thought he might expire from boredom—and all the man could do was complain about how much tin he’d used? The business he’d brought in, the money he’d made for the man, and now this flat-out dismissal?
The traffic thickened as he neared the market, forcing him to slow down and consider his direction. His anger was now demanding a purpose, a destination. It had been weeks since he’d even thought of Sophia Winston, but now her face rose before him, her proud and beautiful features. And why not? Perhaps she’d be angry with him for presuming; but then again, maybe her door would be open and waiting as it had been before.
He considered taking the Elevated but couldn’t stand the thought of sitting packed among a crowd of strangers, batting their newspapers away from his face. A voice inside whispered that running to Sophia’s was no good, that he’d still have to consider what to do with himself afterward—but he ignored it, and picked up his pace.
Half a block behind, Mahmoud Saleh struggled to keep the glowing man in his sights. It was difficult: the man was long-legged, and propelled by anger. To keep pace, Saleh half-ran, bumping into people and pushcarts and walls, muttering apologies to everyone and everything. He waded through mazes of horses and carts and pedestrians, into puddles of half-frozen mud. At each intersection he waited to feel the fatal blow of a cart, the trampling of horses’ hooves, but somehow it never happened. At one corner he took a misstep and fell, landing on his shoulder. A spasm of pain ripped through his arm, but he righted himself and went on, holding the arm close to his side.
Slowly he began to realize that he’d never find his way home without help. He couldn’t even read the signs. The only words in English he knew besides sorry were hello, thank you, and ice cream.
With something like relief he resigned himself to his fate. Either the glowing man would lead him home or he’d spend his last mortal day on an unknown street, surrounded by strangers. In the morning he’d be merely a frozen beggar, nameless and unmourned. He felt no sadness at this, only wondered what Maryam would do with his churn.
In the end, tracking down Thomas Maloof was a relatively simple task. Arbeely merely went to the landlord’s tenement—noting in passing that the ceiling in question was, indeed, rather awful—and began knocking on doors. He begged the pardon of the women who answered, but did they know where Thomas Maloof lived? They replied that they didn’t know, as he rarely came to the building, and sent a boy around to collect the rent. After a while Arbeely thought to ask after the boy.
It transpired that the boy was one Matthew Mounsef, who lived on the fourth floor. His mother, a tired-looking woman whose sunken eyes and pale skin hinted at some illness, said that Matthew was at school but would be home at three o’clock. Arbeely passed the intervening time at his shop in a state of nervous frustration. Now that he knew what the tin ceiling was, he couldn’t stop looking at it. As the day wore on, the winter sunlight cast it in different moods—now draped in shadows, now illuminated with brilliant white pinpoints as the sun struck a miniature peak.
Finally it was three o’clock, and he returned to the tenement. A boy of seven or eight opened the door. He had his mother’s features, though with a healthier cast, below a large and tangled crown of curly black hair. The boy gazed patiently up at Arbeely, his hand twisting back and forth on the knob.
“Hello,” Arbeely said hesitantly. “My name’s Boutros. Your mother told me that you run errands sometimes for Thomas Maloof.”
A nod of assent.
“Do you know where he lives?”
Another nod.
“Can you take me there?” In his palm he held out a dime.
With disconcerting speed the boy plucked the dime from Arbeely’s hand and disappeared back inside. There was a murmur of exchanged words and the soft smack of a kiss; and then the boy was slipping past Arbeely down the stairs, a cap jammed atop his curls, his thin arms lost in the sleeves of a large gray coat.
Arbeely followed behind as the boy walked purposefully toward Irish-town. He felt silly, trailing in the wake of this tiny woolen scarecrow, but when he caught up Matthew only went faster. They passed a group of older boys who sat loitering on a stoop, smoking cigarettes. One of them called out in English, his tone derisive. Matthew didn’t reply, and the others snickered as he passed.
“What did he say?” asked Arbeely, but the boy didn’t answer.
The building Matthew led him to seemed cleaner and brighter than its neighbors. The door opened to a well-appointed hall with a parlor beyond. A round, dough-faced woman stared out at them. The boy whispered a question in English, almost inaudible; the woman nodded once, cast a dark glance at Arbeely, and then closed the door. Arbeely and the boy were left together on the stoop, avoiding each other’s eyes.
Maloof emerged a few minutes later. “The tinsmith!” he exclaimed. “And little Matthew! Is something the matter?”
“No, nothing is wrong,” said Arbeely—though of course this was not quite the truth. “There’s something at the shop I need to show you.” Maloof frowned, and Arbeely added quickly, “I wouldn’t trouble you if I didn’t think it was important. My assistant conceived of an idea for your ceiling, and frankly, it’s incredible. But you must see it yourself to understand.”
Something of the tinsmith’s excitement must have impressed itself upon Maloof, for he fetched his coat and followed them back to the shop. Matthew waited patiently for Arbeely to unlock the door before filing in behind, as though he too held a stake in the proceedings.
The afternoon light was thinner but, Arbeely hoped, still strong enough. He didn’t say anything, merely stood back and let Maloof walk warily around the tin sculpture.
“It’s certainly large,” the landlord said. “But I’m confused. What am I looking at?”
A moment later he stopped walking. He blinked, and perceptibly rocked back on his heels. Arbeely smiled—he’d felt the same way at the change of perspective, as if the floor had dropped away from him. Maloof began to laugh.
“Amazing!” He crouched down and looked at it up close, then stood up and laughed again. He strolled the perimeter of the sculpture, examining it from different angles. “Amazing,” he repeated. The boy only sat on his heels, arms wrapped around his knees, and stared at the tin with wide eyes.
Maloof chuckled to himself some more, then saw Arbeely watching him. Instantly his face became a neutral mask of business. “But I have to say, this isn’t what I had in mind,” he said. “I requested repeating tiles, not one large piece, and I was expecting a more classical style. In fact I’m surprised and, yes, unhappy, that you would go so far without consulting me.”
“I must beg your pardon. It wasn’t I who made this, but my assistant. And to be honest, I’m as surprised as you. I didn’t know about this until a few hours ago.”
“The tall man? He made this, by himself? But it’s only been a little more than a day!”
“He tells me that he was . . . inspired.”
“Unbelievable,” said Maloof. “But why isn’t he here himself, to tell me this?”
“I’m afraid that’s my fault. When I saw what he’d done, I was angry. As you said, this isn’t what you asked for. He went too far without your consent, or mine. This is no way to do business. But he’s an artist, and the concerns of business sometimes pass him by. I’m afraid that we quarreled, and he left.”
Maloof looked alarmed. “Permanently?”
“No, no,” Arbeely said quickly. “I think he’s nursing his wounded pride, and will return once he decides I’ve suffered enough.” Please, let it be so, he thought.
“I see,” said Maloof. “Well, he sounds like a difficult man to work with. But that’s the way of the artistic temperament, is it not? And we can’t have art without artists.”
Together the men regarded the sculpture. The detail was such that Arbeely could picture tiny jackals and hyenas emerging from behind the hillsides, or a minuscule boar, stout and barrel-chested, the last of the sun glinting off tin-plated tusks.
“It isn’t what I asked for,” said Maloof.
“No,” Arbeely agreed sadly.
“And if I say no? What happens to it then?”
“Since it’s too large to keep in the shop, and there are no other prospective buyers, I’d have to salvage it for scrap and throw away the rest. A shame, but there it is.”
Maloof winced, as if pained. He ran a hand through his hair, and then turned to the child near his feet. “Well, Matthew, what do you think? Shall I buy this gigantic piece of tin, and hang it in your building?”
The boy nodded.
“Even though it isn’t what I asked for?”
“This is better,” said the boy. It was the first time Arbeely had heard him speak.
Maloof laughed once. He stuck his hands in his pockets and turned his back on the tinplate ceiling. “This is preposterous,” he said. “If I say yes, I’m buying something I didn’t ask for. And if I refuse, I’m like a man who complains that someone stole the eggs from his henhouse and replaced them with rubies.” He turned back to Arbeely. “I’ll buy it, under one condition. Your assistant must return and explain to me, in detail, the rest of what he means to do. Any more surprises, and I withdraw my offer. Agreed?”
Relief rushed through Arbeely. “Agreed.”
The men clasped hands. Maloof took one last melancholy look at his new ceiling, and left.
Matthew was still sitting on the floor next to the tin desert, which now lay almost entirely in shadow. The boy raised a hand and traced the peaks of a nearby mountain range, hovering above the tin’s surface, as if afraid to touch—or, Arbeely thought, as though he were imagining his fingers to be hawks or falcons, skimming the mountain crests, traversing the backbone of the world.
“Thank you, Matthew,” Arbeely said. “You were a great help to me today.”
Matthew gave no reply. An impulse struck Arbeely: he must somehow make this strange, solemn boy smile! He said, “Would you like to meet my assistant Ahmad? The one who made this ceiling?”
That earned him the boy’s full attention.
“Then come back tomorrow, after school, if it is all right with your mother. Will you do that?”
A vigorous nod, and then Matthew clambered to his feet and up the stairs. He did not actually smile, but there was a lightness and energy to his small frame that hadn’t been there before. Then he was gone; the door slipped shut behind him.
“Well,” Arbeely said, alone in the empty shop. “Well, well, well.”
Night was falling, and still Saleh followed the glowing man. It seemed inconceivable that they were still in New York. The frigid wind sliced through his clothing. His wrenched arm had gone numb, and his legs trembled with fatigue. A memory rose: a carved wooden lamb attached to a string, with wheels for hooves. His daughter’s favorite toy. She would pull it around the courtyard for hours, calling “baaa, baaa,” the lamb trailing behind her. He grinned, rictuslike, fixed his broken vision on the glowing man, and kept walking. Baaa.
On and on they went, until the buildings to either side of them turned from glass-fronted shops to gigantic brick houses behind tall black fences. Even with his shadowed vision he could see the gleam of marble columns and rows of lighted windows. What business could the man possibly have here?
At perhaps the most magnificent house of all, his quarry slowed, then continued past it and turned a corner. Saleh caught up and poked his head around the corner in time to see the glowing man step through a metal fence. There was a rustling of branches.
He stumbled over to where the man had vanished. Two of the fence’s bars were gone. Beyond was nothing but a dense and forbidding wall of shrubbery.
The glowing man had gone through, hadn’t he? Then so could Saleh.
He stepped over the bottom rail, nearly tripping into the hedge. There was a narrow space between the hedge and the fence, and he wormed his way along it, crabbing sideways, until he was free. He stood at the edge of an enormous garden that ran the length of the mansion, and was bordered by a high brick wall. Even in the dead of winter, the garden had a stately, formal grace. Dark evergreen borders marked out empty flowerbeds. Along the wall, austere, leafless trees stood pinioned, their branches trained into candelabras. Next to the house sat a patio with a marble fountain, its basin full of rotting leaves.
The glowing man, it seemed, had disappeared—but then Saleh looked up, and saw him climbing the face of the mansion, snaking from drainpipe to railing. Saleh goggled. Even in his youth, he could never have accomplished such a feat. The man reached one of the larger balconies on the top floor, vaulted over, and disappeared from view.
The Jinni stood on Sophia’s balcony, the door handle unmoving beneath his hand. Locked. He cupped a hand to the glass and peered inside.
The room was dark and uninhabited. Large white drop cloths shrouded her writing desk and dressing table. The bed had been stripped of its linens. Sophia Winston, it seemed, was no longer at home.
He’d never even considered she might not be there. He’d pictured her as a princess trapped in a brick-and-marble palace, waiting for her release. But of course that wasn’t so. She was a wealthy young woman. Likely she could go wherever she wished.
His anger and anticipation began to drain away. Had he been in a better mood he might have laughed at himself. What to do now? Go back to Washington Street, tail between his legs?
As he stood pondering, the door on the other side of Sophia’s bedroom opened. A woman in a plain black dress and apron entered, carrying a large feather duster.
She saw the Jinni and froze. The duster fell from her hand.
The maid’s piercing scream rattled the windowpanes as the Jinni cursed, vaulted onto the railing, and grabbed for the drainpipe.
Saleh stood, wavering, in the middle of the garden.
Perhaps, he thought, I should sit down to wait.
In the next moment his legs crumpled beneath him like straws. The frozen ground cradled him, bleeding his heat away. The windows and darkened balconies stared down at him. His eyes drifted to the roof, where four chimneys stood in a line above the gables. Smoke wafted gray-white from one of them. So many chimneys, for only one house.
His eyes drifted closed, and the noise of the world receded. Waves of fatigue washed over him, almost like the contractions of a woman in labor. As though his musings had come to life, he thought he heard a woman scream. At last a slow, dreamy warmth rose in his core and began to spread throughout his body.
Someone tried to peel back one of his eyelids.
Irritated, he tried to bat the hand away, but his arms could barely move. He cracked open his other eye, then squinted against a glare.
The glowing man was crouching in front of Saleh. “What are you doing here?”
Leave me alone, Saleh said, I’m trying to die. All that came out was a croak.
There was a shout, and distant sounds of a commotion. The glowing man hissed something unintelligible. “Can you stand? No—you’ll be too slow—”
With almost no effort the glowing man bent down and hoisted Saleh over his shoulder. Then he turned and ran.
All hope of a peaceful death fled as Saleh hung over the glowing man’s back, his head lolling and banging. The mansion disappeared as the glowing man dragged Saleh through the hole in the fence. Saleh couldn’t see the men following them, but he could hear the slaps of their shoes, their angry English shouts.
The glowing man ran faster, ducking down alleys, turning right and then left. Saleh jostled on the man’s shoulder and cried out against a wave of agony. For a long moment the world went away. When his eyes opened again, cobbles and pavement had turned to a forest floor. The air smelt of cold water. The trees gave way to open sky, and the pavement of a carriage path sounded under the glowing man’s feet—and then they were plunged into forest again.
Time slowed, turned elastic; and then the glowing man was lowering him carefully from his shoulder, leaning him against what felt like a wooden wall.
“Stay here,” the glowing man said. “Don’t move.” And then he was gone, soft footsteps running away.
Saleh hitched himself up on the wall and peered around. There was a dusty window inches from his nose. It looked into a large storeroom, where neat lines of wooden rowboats lay on their sides, their oarlocks threaded with thick chains. He turned his head in the other direction, and decided that his senses had indeed left him—or he’d died after all and simply not noticed—for spread before him was a vista of incredible beauty. He was at the edge of a frozen lake that stretched away to either side, its shore curving sinuously, closely edged with bare-limbed trees. At the far side of the lake—he blinked, and tried to wipe at his eyes, but it was still there—a tall, winged figure floated above the frozen water. It was an angel.
He laughed once, raw in his throat. At last.
But the angel did not move. It only hovered, as if waiting. Considering.
Footsteps, and then the glowing man’s voice: “They’re still looking for us—can you walk?” But he could make no answer, and darkness overtook him.
He woke again when the Jinni set him on his feet. Lake and forest had disappeared; they were on a city street. “You must walk,” the glowing man said, impatient. “We’ll be too conspicuous if I carry you.”
“Where are we?” Saleh croaked.
“West of Central Park.”
Saleh took a few steps, leaning on the man’s arm. The pain in his legs was unbelievable. He retched once, but nothing came up. He saw the glowing man grimace with distaste.
“I was nearly caught because of you,” the man said. “I should have left you there.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“You might have led them back to me.”
Saleh took one more step, and his legs buckled. The glowing man caught him before he hit the pavement.
“This is intolerable,” the man muttered.
“Then leave me here.”
“No. You accosted me once, and now you’ve followed me. I want you to tell me why.”
Saleh swallowed. “Because I can see you.”
“Yes, you said that before. What does it mean?”
“There’s something wrong with my eyes,” Saleh said. “I can’t look at anyone’s face. Except for yours.” He looked up at the man, into the flickering light behind his features. “You look as though you’re on fire, but no one else seems to notice.”
The glowing man regarded him in wary silence. Finally he said, “And you look half-dead. I suspect you need food.”
“I don’t have any money,” muttered Saleh.
The glowing man sighed. “I’ll pay.”
They found a plain, clean-looking cafeteria, full of men coming off their evening shifts. The glowing man bought two bowls of soup. Saleh ate slowly, afraid to overtax his stomach, holding his injured arm carefully at his side. The soup warmed him, an honest heat. The glowing man didn’t touch his own bowl, only watched Saleh. Finally he asked, “Have you always been like this?”
“No. It started ten years ago.”
“And you can’t see faces at all?”
Saleh shook his head. “No, that’s not it. I can’t see faces . . . as they are. They have holes in them.” His throat tightened. “Like skulls. If I look at them, I develop nausea and seizures. And it’s not just faces—the whole world is distorted. I suspect it’s a type of epilepsy, affecting my sight.”
“How did this happen?”
“No,” Saleh said. “I’ve told you enough. Now tell me why I can see you.”
“Perhaps I don’t know.”
Saleh laughed, harshly. “Oh, you know. That much, I can see.” He ate another spoonful of soup. “Is it some sort of illness?”
The man’s face hardened. “What makes you think I’m ill?”
“It seems logical. If healthy people look dead to me, then perhaps a sick man would appear whole and glowing.”
The man gave an insulted snort. “What use is logic, when it takes you so far in the wrong direction?”
“Then tell me,” said Saleh, growing irritated.
A long pause, while the glowing man regarded him. Then he leaned forward, peering deep into Saleh’s eyes, as if searching for something. Saleh froze, feeling giddy as the glowing face filled his vision. He could feel his pupils dilating against the light.
The man nodded, leaned back. “I can see it,” he said. “Barely, but it’s there. Ten years ago, you were still in Syria, weren’t you?”
“Yes. In Homs. What can you see?”
“The thing that possessed you.”
Saleh froze. “That’s absurd. A girl had a fever. I treated her, and I caught it. The fever caused the epilepsy.”
The glowing man snorted. “You caught more than a fever.”
“Bedouin such as yourself might believe in these superstitions, but it’s simply not possible.”
The glowing man laughed, as though he had a secret hidden in his pocket, and was waiting for the right moment to bring it out.
“All right, then,” Saleh said. “You say that something possessed me. An imp, I suppose, or a jinni.”
“Yes. Probably one of the lower ifrits.”
“Oh, I see. And what evidence do you have?”
“There’s a spark deep in your mind. I can see it.”
“A spark?”
“The smallest ember, left behind. The mark of something passing.”
“And I suppose,” Saleh said sarcastically, “it wouldn’t have been visible to any of the half-dozen doctors who examined me.”
“Not likely, no.”
“But you can see it.” Saleh laughed once. “And who are you, that you have this ability?”
The man smiled, as though he’d been waiting for Saleh to ask. He picked up his soup spoon, a twin to Saleh’s: thick and ugly metal, built to withstand years of customers. He glanced around, as if to ensure their neighbors weren’t watching. Then all at once, he crumpled it like paper into his fist. His hand began to glow more brightly—and then molten metal spilled into the man’s untouched bowl. The soup exploded with steam.
Saleh pushed back from the table so quickly his chair overturned. The other diners turned to look as he stumbled to his feet. The glowing man was wiping his hand nonchalantly on a napkin.
The scaffolding of rationality and reason that held Saleh together began to tremble at its base.
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.