The Golem was struggling to comprehend.
For long minutes now, the Jinni had been talking in a low, tired voice, telling her a story of long ago: of a grasping desert wizard and a young girl named Fadwa al-Hadid. He’d described the pain of the binding and the feel of Fadwa’s throat beneath his hands, and how ibn Malik had died only to be reborn again and again.
“It seems you know the rest,” the Jinni said as she sat, stunned, at the side of Sophia’s bed. He was half sitting up now, buried beneath expensive linens, his shoulders against the carved headboard. “Ibn Malik became Yehudah Schaalman.”
“Joseph Schall,” she murmured. “And you saw his memories.” His hand was resting above the coverlet, and the Golem took it in her own, noting that it was beginning to feel weighty again. “So this is why you tried to kill yourself,” she said. “To end ibn Malik’s life, through your own death.”
He was watching her now, sorrow in every line of his face. He expected her to regret saving him, she realized, now that she knew the whole truth. “Listen to me,” she said. “This is ibn Malik’s doing. Not yours.”
“And Fadwa?” he said. “If I hadn’t injured her, then none of this would have happened.”
“You place too much of a burden on yourself. Yes, Fadwa’s injury can be laid at your feet. But ibn Malik was not acting on your orders. And Schaalman has a free will of his own.”
“I’m not so certain of that last one,” the Jinni said. “I saw his lives, and they all followed the same pattern. As though he could not break free of his own disposition.”
The Golem’s mouth twisted. “You believe he couldn’t choose not to do evil?”
“We all have our natures,” said the Jinni quietly.
She wanted to argue, but where would it lead her, except to point a finger back at herself? Frustrated, she rose, paced a few steps. “Yes, you were selfish and careless with Fadwa,” she said. “But you cannot accept the blame for the rest, disposition or no. If Schaalman had not existed, then neither would I. Are you responsible for all my actions, the good as well as the bad? You cannot pick and choose, and leave the rest behind.”
He gave her a shadow of his usual smile. “I suppose not,” he said. Then he sobered. “But do you see now, why I can’t keep living?”
“No,” she said shortly.
“Chava.”
“Didn’t you stop me from destroying myself, once? We’ll find another way.”
He winced but didn’t reply, only looked down at her hand still gripping his on the coverlet.
A knock came at the door. It was Sophia, carrying a pile of folded clothing. Servants were hovering in the hall behind her, trying to see in; she shut the door on them.
“Hello, Sophia,” the Jinni said quietly.
She smiled. “You’re looking better.” She placed the folded clothing on the bed. “My father’s not as tall as you, but hopefully something will fit.”
“Sophia,” he said, his voice heavy, and it was clear he was about to apologize—for drawing her into this misadventure, or for something earlier in their acquaintance, the Golem could only guess at the content—but Sophia crisply interrupted. “Dr. Saleh is freshening himself in the guest quarters,” she said. “We should join him there soon, if you’re feeling able.”
The Jinni nodded, abashed.
“I’m afraid we’ve caused you a good deal of trouble,” the Golem said.
“Perhaps,” Sophia said, though she seemed oddly unconcerned, even happy. “Even so, I’m glad you thought to come here.” She turned to the Jinni, sobering. “You should have told me.”
He sighed. “Would you have believed it?”
“No, probably not. Still, you might have tried.”
The Jinni hesitated, then said, “Are you well, Sophia?”
It was only then that the Golem noticed the young woman’s pale skin and too-warm clothing, the tremor in her hands. Sophia considered her reply, and the Golem sensed a knotted tangle of longings and regrets and, above all, a deep desire not to be pitied.
“I’ve been ill,” Sophia said. “But I believe I’m improving.” She smiled. “Now please, put on some clothes. I’ll be back to fetch you in a few minutes.”
She left, and the Jinni began to sort through the items she’d brought. The Golem sat on a corner of the bed, not sure where to look—watching him dress was somehow more intimate than seeing him naked. She went to the young woman’s dressing table, idly examining the objects scattered there: a gilded hairbrush, a beautiful necklace of silver and glass, an apothecary’s assortment of bottles and jars. Atop a jeweler’s box sat a golden bird in a cage, its provenance unmistakable. “You made her one too,” she said.
The Jinni buttoned his shirt collar. “Is that jealousy? At least she didn’t return hers.”
“I couldn’t keep it, I was about to marry,” the Golem muttered.
Silence hung between them.
“Michael,” the Jinni said at last. “He’s been caught up in this as well, hasn’t he?”
She sighed. “There’s something else I haven’t told you.” And he listened, shocked and grave by turns, as she described finding Michael at the Sheltering House with Schaalman’s spells, and her struggle with their contents.
“Where are they now?” he asked.
“Anna has them,” she said, and then, at the face he made, “I couldn’t leave them at the bakery! She’s hiding them somewhere. But I don’t know what to do with them.”
“Burn them,” he said shortly.
“Destroy all that knowledge?”
“Schaalman’s knowledge. Ibn Malik’s.”
“I thought,” she said quietly, “that I might use them to free you.”
That struck him a visible blow. She watched him turn away, struggling with himself. After a moment he looked down at his shirt and started tugging on the sleeves. “Sophia’s father has very short arms,” he muttered.
“Ahmad—”
“No. You mustn’t use this knowledge. Promise me this.”
“I promise,” she murmured.
“Good.” He gave a sigh. “Now tell me, am I presentable to the household?”
She looked him over, smiling slightly: Sophia’s father was wider than the Jinni, and the borrowed garments billowed like sails. “More so than before.”
He grimaced. “At least they aren’t the rags that Arbeely gave me when I came out of the flask.”
“You were naked then too? Do you make such a habit of it?”
But he was gazing past her, unseeing. “The flask,” he said.
“What about it?”
“Maryam Faddoul still has it. And it’s been repaired. Arbeely replaced the seal, he said he copied it exactly.” He paused, and then said, his voice strained, “You were right, Chava, there’s another way. But you won’t like it.”
Anna left the Radzins’ bakery with her strange package, wondering what exactly she’d been entrusted with. The flat, crackling lump at the bottom of the sack could only be a stack of papers. What was written on them? Someone’s secrets? An incriminating confession? Her promise notwithstanding, she almost opened the sack to peek inside—but then she remembered who had given it to her, and the horrors she’d already witnessed. This would be no clandestine love-diary. Best not to know. She would think of a hiding place quickly and be done.
In the end, she chose the dance hall on Broome Street. It was in her mind already, thanks to the Golem—she hadn’t been back there since that terrible night and, given its new associations, had doubted she ever would. But when she tried to think of somewhere else, her mind kept circling back. She even knew exactly where she’d hide the sack: atop the old armoire in the back room, where they kept the linens for the tables. All she had to do was to find Mendel the doorman and cajole him into giving her the key. As far as she knew, he still worked at a piecework shop on Delancey, pressing new trousers. Hopefully he’d be there.
Yehudah Schaalman sat scowling at a writing desk in the House parlor, covering a sheet of paper with scrawled and scratched-out lines. The formula to find a lost object should have been easy to remember; he’d used it hundreds of times. But his memories were no longer safe ground. To delve too deeply was to risk rousing his former selves, who might then chime in with their own solutions, deafening him in the cacophony. He had to tread lightly, sidling up to a recollection and examining it askance, capturing the formula a few syllables at a time. It was a slow and painstaking process, and he was in no mood to accommodate it.
A shriek sounded down the hall. He ignored it, ignored the pounding footsteps and the growing sounds of alarm, and tried to concentrate. At last, the formula to find his sheaf of spells was complete. He looked it over—it seemed correct—then braced himself, and spoke what he’d written.
And then he saw—
A flash of a woman’s dark workaday skirt, the waist let out to accommodate an eight-month belly. At her side she held a flour sack. The woman—and now Schaalman recognized her, from the tenement hallway—was standing in an open doorway, flirting with a large, sweating boy. She told him something in a teasing voice. The boy’s glance darted briefly to her stomach. He said something, a demand. The girl did not look pleased, but finally she nodded. The boy took a string from around his neck; on it hung a door key. He dangled it high, making the girl reach; and as she did he grabbed her and kissed her roughly on the mouth, then reached to grope at her breast. She allowed it for a few moments, then pushed him away firmly, her expression calm. A flash of guilt on the boy’s face; then he sniggered at her and went back in. The door closed. Her face crumpled for a moment, but then she composed herself. Clutching the key and the flour sack, she went down to the street. Schaalman took note of the shops, the street corners, saw that she was only a few blocks away. On Broome, she went to an unmarked door, fitted the key in the padlock, and disappeared inside.
Schaalman came to, his head swimming. He sat as still as possible until his vision was restored and the pounding in his temples had lessened. The pregnant girl—she knew his golem, did she not? Perhaps he had found not only his missing spells, but the bait to snare his golem’s consent.
Outside the parlor, the hallway was in commotion. A crowd had formed around Michael’s office door. The housekeeper sat on the staircase, sobbing. The cook was talking to a policeman. She saw Schaalman, and her look implored him: Joseph, see what has happened. But he was already gone, down the hall and out the door.
The Winstons’ hansom, though elegant, was not quite roomy enough for three; but they squeezed in nonetheless, Saleh, the Jinni, and the Golem. The horse tramped smartly through the Winstons’ gate and onto Fifth Avenue, only to be stymied in the morning traffic with everyone else. Stuffed into the corner, Saleh started drifting into sleep. He fought it at first, but fatigue and his newly full stomach—the cook had given him a plate of cold meats and a brandied fruit compote, though it was clear she’d rather be shot—soon had him snoring. The Jinni was thankful; it afforded some privacy, without so obvious a tactic as switching languages.
But the Golem, it seemed, was in no mood to talk. Earlier she’d put up surprisingly little protest at his plan, only asking a few practical questions and translating into English for Sophia. Now she seemed conspicuously silent, even for her. She stared at the cabs and carts that idled around them, her face like a stone. In any case, it wasn’t as though he knew what to say to her. Everything that came to mind seemed either too trivial or too final. If all went well, if the plan worked, he would never see her again.
“Will it hurt?” she asked abruptly, startling him. “Being in the flask again. Will it hurt you?”
“No,” he said. “At least, I don’t remember any pain.”
“Perhaps it did hurt,” she said, her voice toneless. “For a thousand years. And you just don’t remember.”
“Chava—”
“No, say nothing. I’ll go along with this plan, because we must do something to prevent Schaalman from finding you, and using you. But don’t think for a moment that I do it gladly. You’re turning me into your jailer.”
“You’re the only one with the strength to put me in the flask. It certainly weakened ibn Malik. I think it might kill someone like Saleh.”
“No one is asking him to—”
“Of course not! I only meant . . .” He trailed off, frustrated. “I know how much this asks of you. Leaving New York, going to Syria. The voyage won’t be comfortable for you, on a crowded ship.”
“The voyage is the least of it,” she said. “What if your kin can’t protect you from him? What if there aren’t any jinn anymore?” He flinched, and she said, “I know, but we must consider it! Am I supposed to just bury you in the desert and hope for the best?”
“Yes, if you must. And then leave me. Go somewhere far away, as far as possible. I won’t have you defending me. He may not be your master, but he can destroy you just the same.”
“But where should I go? To start over, somewhere else . . . I can barely picture it. I’m not like you. New York is all I know.”
“It won’t be for long. He doesn’t have much time left. A few years at most.”
“And after that? Should I search the world for his reincarnations, and murder them in their cradles?”
“I think I know you better than that.”
“Oh, do you?”
“Then you could do it? Truly?”
A pause, and then: “No. Even knowing . . . no.”
They fell silent. The hansom crept along, finally reaching the southern edge of the park. They cut west, and the air grew heavy with the exhalations of the trees beyond the wall.
At last he asked, “Will Michael be all right without you?” He’d tried, and failed, not to tense at the name.
“Michael will be better off for my leaving. I hope he can forgive me someday.” She glanced across at him. “I haven’t told you why I married him.”
“Maybe I don’t want to know,” he muttered.
“I did it because you’d taken the paper from my locket. I couldn’t destroy myself. I had to live in the world, and I was terrified. So I hid behind Michael. I tried to turn him into my master. I honestly thought it would be better that way.”
The self-recrimination in her voice was painful to hear. “You were frightened,” he said.
“Yes, and in my fear I made the weakest, most selfish mistake of my existence. So how can you possibly trust me to carry your life in my hands?”
“I trust you above all others,” he told her. “Above myself.”
She shook her head, but then leaned into him, as though taking shelter. He drew her close, the crown of her head beneath his cheek. Beyond the hansom’s window, New York was an endless rhythm of walls and windows and doors, darkened alleys, flashes of sunlight. He thought, if he could pick a moment to be taken into the flask, a moment to live in endlessly, perhaps he would choose this one: the passing city, and the woman at his side.
It was midmorning, the coffeehouse’s busiest hour. At the sidewalk tables, backgammon pieces clicked on the boards. Inside, men discussed business in idle tones.
Arbeely sat alone, toying with his coffee-cup. The shop had been too quiet that morning, the silence pressing against his ears. His eye kept straying from his work to the Jinni’s unoccupied bench. Arbeely reminded himself that he’d done well before meeting his erstwhile partner, and would do so again. Yet the entire shop seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for the Jinni to come through the door.
Finally he could take no more and went to the Faddouls’, to distract himself with the buzz of other people’s conversations. He glanced around at the full tables. Maryam traveled about with her coffee and gossip, easily navigating the crowded room. From his vantage he could see how each table grew more lively at her arrival, how each of her smiles was a push to the flywheel that kept the coffeehouse humming. In the kitchen Sayeed ground the coffee and cardamom and boiled the water, in his own practiced dance. Watching them, Arbeely felt a swelling of loneliness.
As if drawn like a moth to his melancholy, Maryam soon angled toward him, concern on her face. “Boutros, are you all right?”
He wanted to ask her, Maryam, have I been a bachelor too long? Did I miss my chance? But a shadow fell across the doorway, and the conversations around them paused.
It was the Jinni. At his side was a tall, imposing woman whom Arbeely had never seen before. And behind them was a man dressed like a vagrant, but who held himself like a person of consequence. His features tugged at Arbeely’s memory. Ice Cream Saleh, someone whispered, and he was shocked to realize that it was true.
The Jinni’s gaze swept the coffeehouse until he found Maryam, and then Arbeely next to her. A moment of surprise; but then, undeterred, he cut across the coffeehouse toward them, his companions close behind.
Maryam was staring at Saleh, mouth agape. “Mahmoud?”
The dark eyes, newly sharp, threatened tears. “Maryam,” the man said, his voice thick. “It’s a pleasure to see you.”
She laughed, delighted, her own eyes filling in response. “Oh, Mahmoud, how wonderful! But how did this happen?” Her gaze went to the Jinni, and she turned wary. Her husband came to the kitchen door, ready to intervene.
“Perhaps we could speak with you in private,” the Jinni said quietly. And then, to Arbeely, “I think you should hear this as well.”
And so, after a few quick words with Sayeed, she took them to her home above the coffeehouse, and sat them at her parlor table. Then the Jinni began to talk. In low plain words he uncloaked himself, apologizing for the lies they’d told her, one by one. He explained who the tall woman sitting beside him was, and Arbeely, still reeling from the Jinni’s newfound frankness, struggled to comprehend her existence. Last night I met a woman made of clay, the Jinni had told him once—and now here she was, a solemn Hebrew giantess, answering Maryam’s questions in perfect Arabic while the Jinni listened, his concern for her plain and startling.
“Wait,” Arbeely interjected, confused and incredulous. “Are you saying you mean to go back into the flask?” Had this woman coerced him, had she woven some spell? The woman, eyes lowered, murmured something to the Jinni in another language; the Jinni said, “Arbeely, your fears are unfounded. This is my decision alone.” Somehow this did not make him feel any better.
Another question from Maryam, and this time Saleh answered, telling of a man who’d come knocking at the Jinni’s door. He described the wrenching pain of the exorcism, like a dentist extracting a rotten tooth. And then the Golem and the Jinni both, their comments in counterpoint: my creator, my master.
It all sounded like madness. But Maryam listened, and considered. At length she went to the kitchen and returned with the flask, and placed it in the center of the table. They all stared at it, save the Jinni, who looked away, his mouth tight. The sunlight picked out the intricate tracing, the curving lines and loops that wove through one another, chasing their own tails.
“It is yours,” Maryam said, “if you want it.”
“You believe them?” Arbeely blurted in surprise.
“Must I believe, to part with it? To me it’s merely my mother’s old copper flask. It’s clear that Ahmad values it much more highly.” She picked it up and handed it to the Jinni, who took it as though it were a powder keg. “I wish you luck, Ahmad.”
“Thank you,” said the Jinni. And then, looking around: “Is Matthew . . . ?”
“He’s at school,” said Maryam.
The Jinni nodded, his disappointment plain. Maryam hesitated; at last she said, “I’ll tell him you said good-bye.”
They went down to the street, the flask tightly held in the Jinni’s hand. Maryam took her leave and returned to her customers, squeezing her husband’s shoulder in passing. The rest of them stood uncomfortably in the noonday light, the sense of urgency straining against a sorrowful reluctance. The Jinni had explained that there was little time; their only defense now was speed and distance, fleeing across the ocean before Schaalman knew to follow. The ship to Marseille would leave in a few hours—Sophia was arranging a single steerage ticket—and before that, the Golem must retrieve Schaalman’s spells from Anna so that they, too, could be buried in the desert.
“And you, Saleh?” the Jinni asked. “What will you do now?”
The question had been lurking in Saleh’s mind ever since he’d woken clear-eyed on the Jinni’s bare floor. Should he go on as Ice Cream Saleh, measuring his life in pennies and turns of the churn handle? Or become Doctor Mahmoud once again? In truth neither name seemed to fit anymore; he suspected he was now something else, something new, but he had no idea what. He’d lived so long in anticipation of his own death that to contemplate his future was like standing at the edge of a cliff, staring into a vertiginous rush of open sky. “I’ll have to consider,” he said. “For now, I’ll content myself with finding my churn.” And he too said good-bye, his gaze lingering on the Jinni’s face before he turned away.
“Well,” Arbeely said, growing awkward. “I’ll miss you, Ahmad.”
The Jinni raised an eyebrow. “Really? Yesterday you implied otherwise.”
Arbeely waved a hand. “Forget all that. Besides,” he said, attempting humor, “who will I argue with now? Matthew?”
I’ll miss you as well, the Jinni wanted to say; but it was not the truth. The flask would not allow him to miss any of them. Grief squeezed him again, and the beginnings of panic. He clasped Arbeely’s hand, then broke away, half-turning his back. “We must do this soon,” he muttered to the Golem, “or I’ll lose my nerve.”
“Chava,” Arbeely said, “I’m glad we met. Please, take good care of him.” She nodded—and then Arbeely too was gone. They stood alone on the busy sidewalk.
“Then this is it?” the Golem murmured. “It must happen now?”
The Jinni nodded; but then he paused. Something strange was happening. A creeping dimness crossed his vision, and his hearing began to fade. With no warning, the sidewalk vanished and he was wrenched away—
Anna stood before him, holding a stack of crumbling pages. Her face was empty, her features slack. His own hands, veined and spotted, reached out to her shoulders. Slowly he turned her around, stepped behind her, and considered the image they made in the mirrored column, as though posed for a family portrait. Behind them the dance hall was flooded with light. He reached up his hands, and placed them around the girl’s throat.
“Bring the creature here,” he told his reflection. “And the flask as well. Or I will make you a murderer again.”
He felt the Golem’s cool skin beneath his fingers. His hands had moved on their own, had grabbed her wrists as though to drag her to Schaalman’s side. The binding, the Jinni realized. It had never been broken—and now Schaalman could control him, just as ibn Malik had.
Aghast, she said, “Ahmad? What is it, what’s wrong?”
What a fool Schaalman was, the Jinni thought bitterly; how little he knew his own creation. Why bother to threaten him, when the Golem would never knowingly abandon Anna, not even to secure a greater good? She would go to him of her own free will—and he would not let her go alone.
His hands were his to move again. He dropped them to his sides and turned away.
“It’s too late,” he said, toneless. “We’ve lost.”
Saleh’s churn was right where he’d left it, in the corner of his basement hovel. He grimaced to see the place clearly for the first time. He nudged his sewn-together blanket with a toe, shuddering to think of the vermin it might be harboring. The churn was the only thing worth salvaging, and even that only barely—the wood was badly splintered, the handle hanging on by a single screw. He had the notion that if he tried to use it now it would come apart in his hands.
Still, he could not abandon it when it had served him so well, and so he lugged it up the stairwell to the street. He was about to take it to the Jinni’s room, where he would contemplate his options, when on the other side of the street he spied the Golem and the Jinni hurrying past. The Golem was nearly running, her face set in anguished determination. The Jinni followed behind, looking as though he would give the world to stop her if he could. And Saleh thought, something has gone very wrong.
He reminded himself that this was not his fight. For a time he’d been caught up in their troubles, but now that was over. Hadn’t he followed them into enough calamity? It was time to decide where he belonged.
Gritting his teeth, Saleh left the churn behind.