In the lobby of an otherwise nondescript tenement near the Hudson River docklands, Yehudah Schaalman craned back his grizzled head and stared, perplexed, at an undulating metal ceiling.
He was perhaps half a mile from Hester Street as the crow flies, but it had taken him nearly an hour to come this far. The path had twisted and turned, through back alleyways and up fire escapes to well-traveled rooftops, across plank bridges and down again. At last he’d reached Washington Street, where he faced a baffling profusion of choices. The paths overlaid one another so that every storefront, every alley hummed with interest. He’d walked up and down the street, getting his bearings, until finally the strongest path had pulled him into the tenement with the well-lit lobby. Inside, the spell and the lights had conspired to lift his eyes upward.
He could not have said how long he stood beneath the shining waves and peaks, one hand stretching to the wall for balance. At first he thought it some sort of interesting defect of the building—perhaps the ceiling tiles had melted and begun to drip—before he realized it was a deliberate piece of art.
All at once, as it had for so many other viewers, the ceiling snapped into focus. The world spun—
It was dusk, and he stood on a scorched plain, ringed by distant peaks. The western sun stretched his shadow narrow as a spear, turned his arms to long gnarled branches, his fingers to twigs. Before him lay the late-summer valley, its animal inhabitants beginning to wake. He blinked—and there in the empty valley appeared a beautiful palace made all of glass, its spires and ramparts shining in the last golden rays of the evening.
Something hard and flat struck Schaalman across the face. It was the lobby floor.
He lay there, trying to regain his composure, the tile cool beneath his stinging cheek. Carefully he levered himself up to his hands and knees; the room, thankfully, stayed put. He stood and, shielding his eyes from the ceiling, walked out of the lobby and sat on the front steps, one hand to his throbbing face. The fear he’d felt earlier, in the hallway with the pregnant woman, returned and grew. Yet another phenomenon he could not explain.
He fought down his alarm, and the urge to retreat to the Sheltering House. He felt vulnerable, exposed. Who was his quarry? Was it this mysterious Ahmad? Or the Angel of Death, playing with him?
The pain in his swollen cheek began to dim. He made himself rise from the stoop and continue down the street. The paths danced and wove before him, pulling him toward whatever encounter awaited him next.
Shortly after one in the morning, the Golem abandoned her attempts at sewing. Distraction had made her clumsy, and the shirtwaist she’d been mending now sported a new rip in the bodice. The few waking souls who passed beyond her window were all drunk or had to use the water closet; they only added to her restlessness and anxiety.
Michael’s note lay on the table, the paper deeply wrinkled from when she’d crumpled it in frustration. The wording was so unlike him, too formal by half. His usual endearments were conspicuous in their absence. Was there something he wasn’t telling her? She thought of their conversation about Joseph Schall. Had Michael run afoul of him somehow? Oh, how she hated bare words on paper! How was she supposed to know the truth, without him there in front of her?
There was no way to calm herself; she’d have to go to the Sheltering House. He might scold her for being out alone so late at night, but she’d explain she was too concerned about him to sleep. She fastened her cloak and left, walking quickly through streets dotted with anonymous, solitary pedestrians, all in search of various forms of release.
The House, from the outside, was dark and quiet. She stood on the sidewalk for a moment, listening. A few of the men were only half asleep. The rest were sunk in an ocean of dreams, distorted reflections of their longings and fears. She inched the front door open, lifting it on its heavy hinges to keep it from creaking.
The lamp was lit in Michael’s office. She crept down the hallway and peered inside the half-gaping door. He had fallen asleep at his desk, slumped forward in his chair. His head lay in the crook of his arm, an open prayer book next to his elbow. He might have been dead, save for the rise and fall of his shoulders. She came closer and crouched down next to him. Why did he smell so strongly of alcohol? “Michael,” she murmured. “Michael, wake up.”
One hand convulsed, grasping at air. He moaned and pulled himself up. “Chava,” he groaned, still half-asleep.
And then he stiffened. His eyes flew open, found her, and focused.
His terror, like that of a cornered animal, hit her square in the chest.
He leapt up from the desk, scattering books and papers, and staggered backward. In his mind she saw a grotesque image: a gigantic woman with a lumbering body and a dark, rough face, her eyes cold in their sockets. Herself, seen in the mirror of his fear.
Oh God—what had happened? She reached for him and he jolted backward again, nearly losing his footing. “Stay away from me,” he hissed.
“Michael,” she said, but couldn’t go on. So many times she’d imagined this scenario, her secret’s discovery; and now she found that none of her careful explanations, her sincere apologies, were near to hand. There was only horror and sadness.
“Tell me I’m imagining it!” he yelled. “Tell me I’ve gone insane!”
No, she realized. She couldn’t. She owed him that much. But neither could she bring herself to say the truth out loud. She strained to find words that might suffice. “I never meant to hurt you,” she said. “Never.”
A bloom of anger pushed Michael’s fears aside. She saw his face harden, his hands turn to fists.
She was in no true danger, of course; he was inebriated and had no skill at violence. But her senses reacted nevertheless. Reality began to bleed away into that awful calm. There was time only for one word, forced between clenched teeth.
“Run,” she told him.
A fresh terror surged through him—and then he did as she’d ordered, his footsteps echoing down the hallway. The heavy front door slammed shut.
She stood alone in Michael’s office, trembling, as little by little her control returned. She’d always wondered if she’d be relieved when the truth finally came out; but she would have lived with the strain forever, rather than see Michael run from her. She supposed she should worry about whether he meant to tell anyone, but at the moment she cared little. Let the mob destroy her, if it wanted. At least it would spare her further agony.
She looked around at the chaos she’d created: chair knocked askew, papers spread across on the floor. Numbly she pushed his chair back in place and straightened the mess. She picked up the prayer book she’d glimpsed at his elbow, and it turned into a cascade of loose, half-burnt pages that spilled onto the desk.
In calling forth a demon, one must be certain to know its lineage . . .
The letter chet is one of the alphabet’s most powerful, and often misapplied . . .
She frowned. Whose book was this?
She began to turn the damaged pages, skimming the meticulous directions and many-limbed diagrams. It was, she supposed, a type of cookbook, offering lists of ingredients, precise instructions, warnings against mishaps, suggestions for alterations. Except that instead of baking a chicken or a spice cake, the reader could bring about the impossible, could alter Creation itself. Whatever had Michael been doing with this? Had the Rabbi given it to him?
One page, she noticed, was stained at the edges with mud. She read it over—and then again, and again. Stunned, trembling, she turned the page, and read what was written on the reverse.
Obedience. Curiosity. Intelligence. Virtuous and modest behavior.
She will make him an admirable wife, if she doesn’t destroy him first.
And in her memory Joseph Schall rose before her, clutching a box of dinner rolls and smiling his secretive smile. I never doubted you would make an admirable wife.
Mahmoud Saleh could not sleep, but not for the usual reasons.
He’d waited long past dark to sneak into the Jinni’s tenement, the key warm in his sweating hand. The Jinni had given him the key freely—he felt no guilt on that front—but neither did he wish to be labeled a squatter or a thief. He found the door, fumbled the key into the lock. Even in the near pitch-dark, the room had an abandoned, empty feeling. The only light shone from the naked window, a lurid orange glow that illuminated nothing. He walked with outstretched arms, waiting to bump into a chair, a table; but soon his hands touched the far wall. A few candles sat on the sill, and he felt in his overcoat’s many pockets for his matches. The light revealed the room as devoid of all furniture, save a writing desk, a wardrobe, and a number of cushions scattered across the floor.
He gathered the cushions together, forming a sort of mattress. When finally he laid himself down, he nearly cried at the comfort. In the morning he would bring up a bucket of water, and wash properly. For now he would merely sleep.
Or so he thought. Hours later, he had to admit that the room had defeated him. It was too quiet, too empty. But then what had he expected, a harem full of houris and a magic lamp for sleeping in? The truth was that in this neat and ordinary room he felt an interloper, a piece of refuse blown in through the window. Resentfully he turned over, sank farther into the cushions. Damn the Jinni, he would sleep.
A knock came at the door.
Saleh froze in the darkness. A visitor, this late? What sort of life did that creature lead? He held his breath, willing the room to utter silence. But the knock came again, and with it quiet words in a man’s voice, first in a language he didn’t understand, and then an inexpert English: “Hello? Please?” A pause. “Ahmad?”
Saleh cursed. He fetched a candle and opened the door. “No Ahmad,” he said, staring down at the man’s dim and faraway shoes.
A question, in that other language, something that sounded near to German. He shook his head, said no again, and decided he’d done enough. Let the man work out his dilemma for himself, whatever it was. He started to close the door again.
One of the man’s shoes shot forward, blocking the doorframe.
Saleh jumped back in alarm. The man was pushing his way into the room. Saleh shut his eyes tight and pushed back, opened his mouth to shout for help—but a cool and papery hand grabbed at his wrist, and suddenly he could make no noise at all.
Schaalman peered at the unkempt vagrant who stood rigid in front of him, candle tilted in his frozen grip. Curious, he thought. The man had brought a light to the door but would not look at him; his first act of defense had been to close his eyes. Was he blind? Addled in some way?
Schaalman asked, Who are you?
The man opened his mouth, moved his lips to speak: but whatever he meant to say was obscured by a thin, high, otherworldly screaming, just on the edge of perception.
Schaalman ground his teeth in frustration. He knew what this meant. He’d seen cases of possession before, half a lifetime ago, in remote Prussian villages and the backwoods of Bavaria. This must be a minor instance, if the man could still speak and function; but even the most paltry demonic fragment would be an unbearable nuisance. The being would take every opportunity to get Schaalman’s attention, to beg freedom from its imprisonment. Schaalman had even seen spirits choke their hosts with their tongues, just to gain release. Unless the offender was dealt with, he’d learn nothing but nonsense.
Schaalman weighed his options. It would be quickest to exorcise the thing and be done with it, but the process was not a gentle one. The man would certainly remember it. Any chance of an unobtrusive questioning would be lost.
But he was so close, so very close! And this was no venerated rabbi, but an unwashed vagrant, likely half-mad from his possession. Who would believe the truth, if he tried to tell it? And how could Schaalman afford not to take the risk?
He placed a hand to either side of the man’s face, and braced himself.
Mahmoud Saleh only knew that someone, somewhere, was screaming.
A hand was pushing itself into his mind, searching by feel, its fingers sliding between layers of sense and memory. Saleh could only stand rigid and dumb as it burrowed deeper, inch by inch. It paused, and then closed itself about something small and unseen, grasping it in an iron-tight fist; and then slowly, patiently, ripped it out shrieking like a mandrake from the soil.
Saleh tried to collapse, but the paper-skinned hands held him upright. The grip shifted. Long, dry fingers opened his unresisting eyes.
Mahmoud Saleh looked into the man’s face.
He was old and thin, his pale skin mottled with age, but his deep-pouched eyes burned with intelligence. A large bruise was blossoming across one cheek. He was frowning in concentration and distaste, like a surgeon elbow deep inside a man’s guts. Saleh trembled in his grip.
Who are you? asked the man.
Doctor Mahmoud, part of Saleh replied; another part said, Ice Cream Saleh.
Then where is Ahmad?
And before Saleh could think to reply, a memory burst out of him: the Jinni passing him on the sidewalk, tossing him the key. I’ll be in the Bowery, if anyone finds that they need me.
Abruptly the man let go of Saleh, and he crumpled boneless to the floor. He heard the door close as the man left. The candle rolled from his hand, its wick guttering; and the last thing Saleh thought, before the flame went out and he fell unconscious, was that it had been years since he’d seen a candle burn so brightly.
The Jinni stood on a Bowery rooftop, watching the tattered crowd below. The skies had refused to deliver on their promise of rain; the thick clouds hung low and unmoving over the city like the pale underbelly of some gigantic worm. The rooftop was a patchwork of dirty mattresses, the prostitutes having moved business outdoors, hoping for a breeze.
In the back of his mind sat the nagging sense that he should develop a plan that extended beyond the next quarter-hour. Irritated, he pushed it away. Plans, timetables, contracts—these were all human conceits. He would do what he wished, when he wished. Was that not what he’d told Arbeely? He’d passed Conroy’s earlier, had considered going inside. Perhaps he could barter his services, perform odd jobs for silver. No; was that not still servitude of a sort? Besides, why barter at all? In the desert, the silver had simply been there for the taking.
And just like that, the idea took form. He smiled, watching it grow. Why not? It would be a challenging and worthy diversion; it would require all his skill, far more than his siege of Sophia’s balcony. And if there was little honor in thieving from a thief, he imagined he would feel little shame in it, either.
Reckless, the Golem said inside him. Immoral, inexcusable.
This is how I lived before you, he said. It’s how I’ll live again.
I suppose it will entertain you sufficiently, and that’s what matters?
Exactly. Now go and haunt someone else.
The blind and unsettled energy he’d felt earlier in the day was returning. Gladly he gave himself over to it. If he waited, and let himself examine the idea, he might find some reason to hold off. Better, far better, to hurl himself into it headlong.
Saleh came to his senses on the floor of the Jinni’s room. His head felt as though someone had scraped it out and used it for a mixing-bowl. He lay there for a moment, trying to remember what had happened. Had he succumbed to one of his fits? No, this felt different, more akin to waking from a nightmare that had already faded, leaving him with only the body’s memory of fear. Wait, no: there’d been a knock at the door—he’d answered it—
In the space of a breath, the entire encounter with the stranger came crashing back. He clambered to his feet, then grabbed at the doorknob as his balance wavered. He could see again! The room was dimly lit by candles; but oh, still! When had mere shadows ever appeared so rich and full of color? The burning flames were saturated in bright oranges and yellows and thin flickering blues, far too bright to look at for long. The cushions he’d slept on, covered with cheap slubbed cotton, were now masterpieces of shape and texture. He stretched out one hand, touched it with the other: it was exactly where he thought it to be. His face was warm and wet: had he injured himself in the fall? No, he was only crying.
And what of his own face, could he see it now? A mirror, he had to find a mirror! He grabbed the largest of the candles and dashed about the room. In the wardrobe he found only a few articles of clothing, a woolen hat, and, bizarrely, a rich man’s silken umbrella, its handle chased in slender silver vines. He admired it for a moment before tossing it back into the wardrobe and resuming his search. What, the creature owned no mirror at all? Didn’t he need to shave?
Something sparkled at him from the writing desk.
He brought the candle closer. Arranged on the corner of the desk was a collection of small metal figurines, perhaps a dozen all told. Before, his vision had been too poor to notice them; but now he saw birds, insects, even a tiny cobra, coiled and rearing. Next to the figurines lay a leather-wrapped set of instruments, thin awls and delicate, curved needles, such as a surgeon or dentist might use. Or, he realized, a metalsmith.
He fetched the rest of the candles and set them around the figurines. Some were finished, and polished to a high sheen; others seemed to be works in progress. The snake was wonderfully done, the patterned scales a miracle of steady patience. He marveled at the intricate tin-scrap insects, which suggested rather than described their likenesses: the long limbs and proboscis of a mantis, a beetle’s round and glossy carapace. An ibis, on the other hand, looked awkward and off balance—something about the beak, perhaps? He picked it up and examined it. One entire side had been smoothed over, like a mistake erased in frustration.
Tears pricked his eyes again. The figurines were beautiful, would’ve been so even if they’d not been among the first images to grace his restored sight. They were works of longing, of lonely diligence. They were nothing he’d thought their arrogant, sarcastic, terrifying maker capable of.
And the old man? What business had he with the figurines’ maker? Saleh had been so taken with his restored senses that he’d nearly forgotten about him, but now he recalled the crushing pain, the man’s obvious distaste at his task. He’d cured Saleh somehow—but not out of kindness or compassion, or even the barest sense of a healer’s duty. Saleh had been little more than a tool to him, the flaw in his mind merely an impediment to his goal. And that goal, apparently, was to find the Jinni. Saleh doubted that the man meant the encounter to be a peaceful one.
He held up the unfinished ibis and watched it glint in the candlelight. A day before, an hour even, he would have gladly told the old man where to find his prey, and wished him godspeed.
He put on his coat, slipped the figurine into his pocket, and blew out the candles. He would take a stroll to the Bowery, he decided, and see the world anew. And if he happened to find the Jinni along the way, then perhaps he might find it in his heart to warn him.
Led by Saleh’s memory, Yehudah Schaalman walked east along the path of the dowsing spell. Now there were no turnings, no rooftop ascents or time-wasting detours: his quarry, it seemed, had set out for the Bowery with an arrow’s unswerving aim.
And what a quarry! A man called Ahmad, with a face that shone bright as a gas lamp. What was he? Some sort of demon? A victim of the same possession that had afflicted Saleh—or perhaps its perpetrator?
Fatigue was warring with Schaalman’s excitement, reminding him that on any other night he would be back at the Sheltering House by now, claiming his much-needed hours of rest. But how could he stop now, and let the trail go cold? Ignoring his tired and burning feet, he quickened his pace.
He turned onto the Bowery proper and found it cluttered with men, despite the late hour. The path was so strong now it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. He scanned the crowd, feeling a sudden panic: what if they should pass each other, without Schaalman noticing?
A familiar sign peered down at him from the storefronts. He read the name CONROY, saw the repeated motif of sun and moon. He paused in the doorway, peered inside. No, his quarry hadn’t been here; there were only a few men buying tobacco, and the prim, bespectacled dealer in stolen goods.
He turned from the doorway, to continue his search before Conroy could notice him, and nearly ran straight into a tall, handsome man with a brightly glowing face.
“I beg your pardon,” the Jinni said, stepping around the slack-mouthed old man who stood rooted to the pavement. He opened Conroy’s door, ringing the small bell above the doorway. Behind the register, Conroy gave him a bland smile and looked meaningfully at the other customers before returning to his well-thumbed newspaper. The Jinni busied himself pretending to scan the shelves of tobacco. It would be no challenge, he’d decided, to wait until Conroy locked up, and then break the lock; far more of an accomplishment to rob the man from under his very nose. He planned to purchase some small piece of silver, and then accept the fence’s customary offer of a room upstairs. He’d seen enough of the shop’s comings and goings to know that there were numerous passageways from the bordello to the storefront to the alley where Conroy’s men liked to congregate. He would linger in the upstairs room—and if he must take advantage of his company in the meantime, well then, he would bear it—and wait until Conroy had retired for the night. If he was careful, the toughs would be easy enough to evade. Perhaps he could create some sort of disturbance. . . .
The bell rang again above the door. It was the old man from the street, the one who’d nearly collided with him. The man was staring at him fixedly, with an almost unhinged intensity.
The Jinni frowned at him. “Yes?”
“Ahmad?” the man asked.
The Jinni cursed silently. The other customers had paid and were leaving the tiny shop; since this man, whoever he was, somehow knew his name, the Jinni would have to wait for him to leave as well. “Do I know you?” he asked in English, but the man shook his head—less an answer than an injunction against speaking, as though the Jinni would ruin the moment.
Conroy traded a glance with the Jinni, folded his paper away. “Can I help you?” Conroy asked.
The old man waved Conroy away, as one would an irritating fly. Then he smiled at the Jinni; and it was a smile both sly and triumphant, the smile of an imp with a secret to tell. He raised a hand, and with two fingers beckoned him closer.
Growing intrigued despite himself, the Jinni took a step toward the man. It was then that he began to feel it: a stirring along the backs of his arms and the nape of his neck. A strange buzzing began inside his mind. One of his hands began to shake. It was the cuff. It was vibrating.
He paused. Something here was very, very wrong.
With a clawlike hand, the old man reached out and grabbed the Jinni around the wrist.
What William Conroy saw, in the moment before every pane of glass in the shop shattered, including his own spectacles, was something that he would never tell anyone—not the police, nor the men in his employ, nor even the priest to whom he made his confession every Thursday. In that bare instant, he saw the two figures transformed. Where the thin old man had been, there stood another, naked, with a sun-blasted face beneath filthy wisps of hair. And where the man he knew as Ahmad had been, there stood something that was no man, nor earthly creature at all, but a kind of shimmering vision—like the air above the pavement on a scorching summer day, or a candle flame whipped by the wind.