The weeks that Sophia spent at the ruins of Carchemish were some of the happiest of her life.
She’d planned to stay only three days, not wanting to be a nuisance: enough time for a tour of the ruins, and to dine once or twice with Mr. Hogarth, if he was at his leisure. And indeed, the man had been refreshingly welcoming, and had answered her questions with care and attention. But the true surprise had come in the form of Hogarth’s young assistant, a young Oxfordian named Thomas Lawrence, whom everyone called Ned. If Hogarth was the governing mind of the dig, then Ned Lawrence, it seemed, was its household spirit. He was a small, disheveled lad, with manners at once courtly and artless, who could talk for hours on subjects that roamed from Hittite fortifications to Spenserian verse. He’d lecture her like a professor, then turn boyish and brotherly, insisting that she come see the spot where a pack of wild boars had charged him. The excavation itself hadn’t begun yet, only the surveys, so she’d arrived too early for any spectacular finds—but it was more than worth it to stand with Lawrence and gaze out at the Euphrates running high with snow-melt, and be glad at the company of this strange young man who seemed not to notice her own strangenesses.
For two weeks Sophia stayed at Carchemish, sketching the river views and helping Lawrence improve his Arabic. And she would’ve stayed longer still, if it hadn’t been for the arrival of Miss Gertrude Bell.
For years Sophia had heard tales of the adventuress, and more than once had been mistaken for her. She’d even gone so far as to read Miss Bell’s travel memoirs, and thought them well written, if typically British in their droll condescension. When she learned that the woman planned to visit, Sophia grew excited at the thought of stories divulged, opinions compared. Perhaps Sophia wasn’t as experienced as Miss Bell—but surely, she thought, the woman would prove an ally.
Then the lady herself arrived, with her caravan of servants and tents and trunks—and at once Sophia realized that Miss Bell was the sort of woman who had little time or patience for her own sex. In Sophia, Miss Bell saw a cheap impersonator, a grasping dilettante. Yes, Miss Williams had purchased herself a life in Syria, but what were her credentials, her connections? What sort of company did she keep, besides her Homsi dragoman? The girl gave no good answers; and so a slender shoulder was turned to her, and there it remained.
Not once in her years of travel had Sophia so desperately longed to reveal her identity. Of course it would do her no good at all, American wealth being only a vulgar and inadequate substitute for British peerage—but in the face of Miss Bell’s judgment it was the only superlative to hand, and she found herself reaching for it again and again. The reflex went expressly against her idea of herself, and she resented Miss Bell for it at once. A chilly silence fell between the women—all while Lawrence kept on about verses and fortifications in his eager, oblivious way.
And so Sophia left Carchemish with lowered spirits. Abu Alim made no comment on the change in her mood, but she knew that he saw it; knew, too, that he was glad to be gone. There’d been little for him to do while she took her walks with Lawrence, and the idleness had made him ill at ease. He was a quiet man from a farming family, a devout Muslim who’d learned English in his youth from a Protestant missionary. The skill had proved lucrative enough that Abu Alim had purchased an orchard in Homs for his sons, so they wouldn’t have to squabble with their cousins over the family holdings.
Sophia had never told Abu Alim the true purpose behind her wanderings, and yet at times it seemed to be an open secret between them. After their first summer together, he’d stopped offering her a parasol in the sun; more than once she’d seen him glance at her trembling hands, before making some excuse to leave her for a few minutes so that she might take her medicine in private. Nor did he comment upon her “market trips,” when she’d go alone to a local souk and return hours later with nothing more than a new woolen scarf. At times the polite silence between them seemed absurd, and Sophia longed to rip the veil away—but again and again she refrained, not wanting to upset their equilibrium.
From Carchemish they reached Aleppo, and followed the River Queiq into the heart of the city; then took the railway south, bound for Damascus. But as often happened, the railway timetable proved untrustworthy, and they found themselves stranded in Homs, the next train not expected until the morning.
“Please, go home for the night,” Sophia told Abu Alim, not wanting to keep him from his family. “I’ll sit up at the station. I’ve seen other women do it, it’s perfectly safe.”
But as she’d feared, Abu Alim wouldn’t hear of it. He hired a donkey-cart and loaded her luggage upon it, and sent a message ahead to his wife to expect a guest; and at that point Sophia was obliged to quit her protests and accompany him through the winding streets.
When they arrived, his wife, Dalal, was waiting outside. She clapped and sang out at the sight of them, then brought Sophia inside and sat her next to the fire, and served her strong tea from a brass pot. Their sons were both tending to their orchard with their wives, and soon it was proposed that they should journey out with supper for everyone, as a surprise.
They arrived in the last light at an orchard at the desert’s edge. The young men were reddened and dusty from the day’s work; they shouted in joy at seeing their father, and embraced him with nearly enough force to knock him over, before bowing to Sophia and complimenting her Arabic. The orchard boasted a stone farm-house with a cushioned patio behind it, and the men disappeared inside the house to wash and pray while the women showed Sophia to a cushion and laid skewers of seasoned chicken upon the fire.
The food was delicious, and the fire warmed Sophia enough that she could even enjoy the meal. She answered their polite questions, made the proper inquiries and congratulations—one of the daughters-in-law was visibly pregnant—and then listened while Abu Alim and his sons discussed the prospects for the harvest, and whether they thought Italy would truly start a war for control over Libya. Coffee was passed around, and dates and pistachios from the family’s own trees. Sophia drew a proffered blanket over her shoulders, and watched the family before her, and found herself thinking about the dig at Carchemish. For the first time, the entire undertaking struck her as misguided, even pointless. Hogarth’s men would piece together the fallen city from its stones and shards; they’d take their photographs and their measurements, and return home to write their papers and give their lectures—and they’d leave Carchemish exhumed behind them like Mrs. Shelley’s patchwork creature, a bloodless thing, neither alive nor dead. There’d be no one to build new homes from its ancient stones, to plant orchards and eat the fruits, to sit around the fires and talk of crops and rain and war. To turn the city’s bones to living flesh, and breathe a new future into its lungs.
The wind had strengthened, whipping the fire about. Sophia shivered once, and then realized with a jolt that she hadn’t taken her evening dose of medicine. She’d expected to be on the evening train to Damascus, not at the desert’s outskirts. Her powder-flask was at Abu Alim’s house, with the rest of her belongings.
She looked up, and saw that Abu Alim was watching her. “It’s growing late,” he said. “We ought to go back to the house.”
Protests, from the younger generation. It was only half past nine, the fire still burned, there were pastries to eat—
“Miss Williams and I must be at the station at sunrise,” he said, overriding them.
They’d forgotten their guest; they relented at once. The women began to pack the dishes away, while Sophia felt as though she’d inadvertently spoiled the party.
“Miss Williams,” said Rafik, the younger of Abu Alim’s sons, who seemed the more mischievous of the two, “has my father told you the true reason he doesn’t want to be out here late at night?”
“Rafik,” his father said, with a warning tone.
“Of course he hasn’t,” said Alim, the older son, with a grin. “He’s far too proper to tell such a story to a lady like Miss Williams.”
“I suppose the task falls to us,” said Rafik, clearly delighted at the opportunity to puncture his father’s dignity. “Years ago,” he said, “when my brother and I were only babies, Father was alone at our uncle’s farm one afternoon, threshing the winter wheat, and—”
“I wasn’t threshing it,” Abu Alim interjected in annoyance. “It was too early in the season. I was only measuring its growth.”
“Yes, measuring it,” said Rafik, waving a placating hand. “He had his scythe, that’s the important part. He put it down by the wheat, and went to the end of the row, for a drink of water—and when he came back—”
Sophia shivered.
“—there was a beautiful woman standing between the rows, with Father’s scythe in her hand. And what was she wearing, but—”
“Rafik,” Abu Alim said, brows lowering.
“Well,” Rafik said, “I shall leave out that part of the tale. But suffice to say that Father was shocked indeed—and the woman must’ve been as well, for she dropped the scythe and vanished into the air.”
Sophia raised her eyebrows. “A jinniyeh,” she said, keeping her voice steady.
“Exactly,” said Rafik proudly.
Abu Alim wouldn’t look at her. “It was a silly story,” he grumbled, “for a pair of silly boys.”
“Ah, but Miss Williams believes,” said Rafik. “I see it in her eyes.”
A pause as the men turned to look at her—and Sophia realized she’d pulled the blanket close about herself, and was shivering visibly in the firelight.
“Did I frighten you?” Rafik said, chagrined.
Sophia tried to laugh. “No, of course not—I’m only a bit cold—”
Abu Alim said, “Rafik, go and help the women. I’ll see Miss Williams to the cart.” It was a rebuke, and the young man took it meekly; he bowed and departed.
Abu Alim gave Sophia another blanket, which she placed over the first, and then led her back through the yard. “I apologize for my son, he has never learned proper manners,” Abu Alim muttered as they approached the wagon.
But the story was true, wasn’t it? Sophia wanted to ask. But instead she allowed him to help her into the wagon, and concentrated on staying as still and upright as possible, while the donkey plodded back to town.
* * *
At the Amherst, the spring went by in an unseen blur.
Doctors and experts were called to Arbeely’s bedside from every corner of the city. The conclusion they reached was unanimous. A fibrous carcinosis of the lungs, hopefully in its early stages. Their tones were serious, but not somber: there were new treatments, they told him, encouraging advances. He was lucky to live in modern times, and to have the means to afford their cures.
Arbeely took the news with his usual grumbling optimism. He wrote letters to each of the Amherst’s lease-holders, informing them of the situation and asking for their patience while he was indisposed. Soon his sick-room had been outfitted with paneled lace curtains and an endless torrent of biscuits. The cigars were confiscated by his doctors, to be smoked elsewhere.
With the Jinni, Arbeely was confident, even cheerful. Just keep working, Arbeely told him. Don’t worry about new customers, we’ve got plenty of orders to keep you busy. You could even close the showroom, if you prefer. Oh—but please, don’t forget the children on the roof. I wouldn’t want to disappoint them.
Then the treatments began.
All that spring and into the summer the doctors assaulted Arbeely with tinctures and syrups, injections, radium vapor baths. Before long the man was bedridden. Maryam Faddoul came each day to his apartment, coaxing him into eating bits of milk-soaked bread. The Jinni came, too, after Maryam left, to stand uncomfortably at the foot of Arbeely’s bed and tell him the mundane details of the day. I had to remake that fireplace screen, they weren’t satisfied with the design, even though it was exactly what they’d asked for. Arbeely, propped upon his pillows, would nod, and perhaps croak out an encouraging comment—and then he’d begin to cough, a horrible gagging sound, and the hired nurse would shoo the Jinni away.
Every afternoon, as promised, the Jinni stuffed his pockets with biscuits and climbed the Amherst stairwell to the roof. The children still congregated there in anticipation; but they, too, knew that Mr. Arbeely was ill, and they accepted the biscuits with a solemnity of duty that dimmed their pleasure somewhat. Then the Jinni would go back down the stairs, avoiding the sympathetic eyes along the way, and give himself over to the oblivion of his work, until it was time to leave for the Golem’s boardinghouse.
This, too, had a new and unwelcome sense of duty about it. They’d never resolved their fight, merely let it fall to the side in the face of this new crisis—yet it was rarely far from his thoughts. The phrase That’s more selfish than I would expect from you seemed to have taken up residence in his mind, and he heard its echo in her gently patronizing questions about Arbeely’s treatments and his diet, his doctors, their pedigrees. I don’t know, he’d reply. I didn’t ask. And she’d gaze at him, mournful and disappointed, until he was forced to turn away, lest he shout at her that he wasn’t her student, to be taught how to behave. He began to arrive later and leave earlier: a perfunctory walk to Central Park and back, his eyes barely seeing the summer blossoms. They still went to his apartment occasionally, according to his mood, and were mostly silent afterward. He made excuses to stay longer and longer at the shop, building fences, gates, fireplace screens, sets of andirons. He’d spend hours in a trance of movement, looking up only to find that there was some new object in front of him that he couldn’t recall making, and that it was now night instead of morning, or morning instead of night.
One afternoon, a boy walking down Washington Street happened to glance through the shop window just in time to see Mister Ahmad pull an iron bar from the forge with his bare hand and carry it halfway to the anvil before he seemed to realized what he was doing. Quickly the man returned the bar to the forge, put on his gloves, picked up the tongs and began again. Baffled, the boy thought of the old rumors, then decided he must have misunderstood what he’d seen. There’d been no glamour of magic about it, no incantations or flourishing gestures—only a dejected and ordinary man lost in his own concerns.
* * *
The Golem ought to have been celebrating her achievements.
Her end-of-term exams had gone as well as she’d wished. She’d been careful not to score highest in her class, instead contenting herself with a spot in the top quarter: an undeniable success, but not a conspicuous one. And she’d performed admirably in her teaching practicums at Wadleigh High School, where she’d learned to judge by her students’ thoughts whether they found the lesson easy or complicated, dull or interesting. Before long, even the girls who’d silently scoffed at her clothing and her accent were, at the very least, paying attention.
But now the city was mired in summer’s doldrums. The girls of Wadleigh had all gone north to Westchester, or abroad with their families. Most of Teachers College, too, had vanished rather than brave the notorious summer session, with its stifling classrooms and shuttered cafeterias. Other than herself, the few who remained were mostly scholarship students, accustomed to making the most of their circumstances. Before long they’d organized their own roster of amusements: evening picnics in the quadrangle, excursions to the recreation piers. The Golem dearly wished to join them, and she knew they would’ve welcomed her. But every time she considered it, the Jinni’s caustic rebuke—You seem to forget, sometimes, that you are not one of them—buzzed inside her like a fly trapped in a glass.
So instead she kept her distance, and tried to busy herself with other things. She asked the Jinni about Arbeely’s treatments, thinking that she might help somehow, as she had with Anna—and yet every question seemed to anger him more. He’d grown unpredictable, his moods impenetrable. Sometimes, in his bed, he seemed his usual self, attentive to her desires as well as his own. At other times, she wondered if he truly knew she was there.
Walking alone was still a comfort. After class, she headed north along the well-heeled stretches of Broadway and Riverside, past apartment buildings with names like the Billmore and Saxonia Court. At Trinity Church Cemetery she wandered among the tombs and obelisks, more like a sculpture-garden than a graveyard to her eyes. But no matter her route, it always ended at the Asylum. The longer she spent watching the children through the fence, the more the orphanage seemed like a world unto itself, one whose rules she knew by instinct. Find your place. Don’t draw attention. If you’re sad, don’t let it show.
Then she’d return to Broadway, to mingle among the currents of pedestrians that dipped in and out of the subway stations: clerks and secretaries, businessmen and salesgirls. The women especially fascinated her. Ought I to buy myself a new coat? went their thoughts. I must remember the flowers for Mrs. Pearson tomorrow. Some anticipated an evening out, at the theater or the picture-house. One, imagining a plain supper and a cheap novel, might feel glum at the prospect; another, picturing the same, was filled with contentment. Taken together, they seemed like a secret regiment of the solitary, the self-sufficient. It satisfied the Golem to walk among these women, and pretend for a time that she was one of them—until she, too, boarded the subway for home.
* * *
At summer’s end, Arbeely began to improve.
His cough lessened, and his voice grew stronger. He started to eat again, a few bites here and there. He slept less, and sat up in bed, and saw visitors. One August day, the Jinni came to the man’s apartment to find him at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of broth and scrutinizing a newspaper. The Jinni stood in the kitchen doorway, not truly believing, and looked to Maryam Faddoul, who was heating more broth at the stove. Maryam said nothing, only tilted her head toward their mutual friend: Are you seeing this, too?
Arbeely looked up from his paper. He’d lost a good deal of weight, and wore a scarf wrapped around his neck despite the heat. “Ahmad! I’m glad you’re here. They won’t let me outside, but I’m about to tear my hair out from boredom. Can you bring me the ledgers from the Amherst? And the mail, if it isn’t too much trouble?”
“Of course,” the Jinni said. He nodded solemnly to Maryam—she nodded back, her eyes dancing—and then went downstairs, where he sat abruptly on the apartment stoop and took deep, shuddering breaths of the thick summer air.
“Mister Ahmad?” A young boy was standing at the bottom of the stoop. “You okay?”
The Jinni drew in a last breath, then looked at the boy. “I think I will be,” he said, and smiled for the first time in months.
* * *
Autumn arrived.
Uptown, the Teachers College students poured back onto campus, full of gossip about their summer travels. A number of the girls sported new engagement rings; the Golem admired them and offered her congratulations, her own thoughts elsewhere. Her walks with the Jinni had improved somewhat, now that Arbeely was better—yet still they said little beyond minutiae.
“It’s like we’ve forgotten how to be with each other,” she told Anna on a crisp October Sunday as they walked around Seward Park—more slowly than they used to, owing to Anna’s limp.
Anna said, “Are you still . . . ?”
The Golem saw her meaning. “Yes, sometimes,” she said, self-consciously. “Though . . .”
“Not like before,” Anna finished.
“Not like before,” the Golem agreed.
“You don’t think he’s . . .” The woman’s mind finished the sentence: an image of the Jinni, his arms around someone else.
“No,” the Golem said quickly. “It’s not that. And yes, I know—”
“Every woman thinks it won’t happen to her,” Anna said darkly.
“I know, but . . . I’ve been thinking about it, lately.” She paused. “May I tell you something in confidence?”
Anna rolled her eyes. “You have to ask?”
“Have you ever heard the name Sophia Winston?”
“I don’t think so. Is she one of the Winstons?”
“Yes, the daughter of the family. I met her, briefly.”
That earned her an incredulous stare. “Chava Levy, you’ve known a Winston all this time and you never told me?”
“I don’t know her, Anna, not really,” the Golem muttered, mindful of the others strolling around them. “I only met her once, years ago. She and Ahmad had been lovers, briefly.”
Anna’s eyes widened with images of gilded boudoirs, mussed satin sheets.
“Yes,” the Golem said wryly, “something like that. But . . . I think Ahmad hurt her, without meaning to. I don’t know how, exactly.” She described the young woman’s pallor, her shaking. “He could barely look at her,” she said. “And she refused to discuss it.”
“The poor girl,” Anna murmured. “What happened to her?”
“I don’t know. She left the country, and I never asked Ahmad for the details. But now I wonder if . . .” She paused, then said in a miserable voice, “Maybe I’m just a woman he can’t hurt.”
Anna gaped at her. “Chava! What a thing to say!”
“Yes, but what if it’s true?”
“Well, ask him!”
“But how will I know if he’s lying?”
“You won’t,” Anna said, “any more than the rest of us ever do. You’ll just have to decide whether to believe him.”
* * *
The Amherst’s tenants didn’t need to ask for news of Arbeely’s health; they saw it in the lightness of his partner’s step as he climbed the stairwell, his new willingness to nod hello on the landings. The showroom was still closed, the plate-glass windows hung with thick curtains—but now, anticipating Arbeely’s return, the Jinni pulled them back and saw the layers of dust on the balustrades and bedposts, the cobwebs between their bars. He fetched a rag and began to clean the first piece, a headboard he’d been especially proud of. Except—here was an ugly weld, and this twist ought to be finer, and . . .
It wasn’t long before he tossed the rag aside and began to pull apart the showroom in dissatisfaction. Each of his pieces seemed hobbled by flaws and compromises, spots where he’d altered the design to fit the limitations of his materials. Perhaps wrought iron was a dead end after all. Or—no, wait. Perhaps he’d been going about it wrong from the beginning.
He went to the supply room, scanned its contents. Wrought iron, pig iron, graded steel: all of it refined to standard ratios, this much pure iron to that much carbon, and then smelted without variation. All of it made to someone else’s specifications, not his own. But what if he could control the entire process himself? Without human tools or methods, human notions of what was possible?
He searched through the shelves, and found the cardboard box labeled Hibbing Ironworks. He tossed box and excelsior aside, hefted the lump of iron ore. Would it be it enough for a definitive test? He’d need immense heat, and a good amount of pressure. Luckily, he could provide both.
He found a ceramic crucible, placed the ore inside, and carried it to the forge. Then he rolled up his sleeves, and—after a quick glance out the windows—placed his hands upon the burning coals.
* * *
The Golem stood at the Asylum fence, lost in her thoughts.
You’ll just have to decide whether to believe him. And that was the crux of the problem, wasn’t it? Even if she dared to ask, even if she managed to pull some reply out of him, she’d never know, not truly. She thought of all his silences large and small, all the times he’d refused to explain himself, and wondered how to weigh them against everything they’d shared. How could she possibly decide? And how on earth had they ended up in such a state?
I haven’t enough apples for class tomorrow, and no time to shop, either . . . Perhaps I’ll have them make a raisin tart instead . . .
The Golem looked up. There was a woman on the other side of the fence, coming toward her, deep in thought. The Golem watched as the woman unlocked the gate and went through, closed it behind herself, and turned toward Broadway, despairing that the new semester had barely begun and already her students were running roughshod over her. But it wasn’t her fault that the girls stole ingredients out of the cabinets when she wasn’t watching—and besides, who could blame them? If she had to eat the Asylum food for years on end, she’d pilfer as many sugar-cubes as she could! Though what they intended to do with the missing baking powder, she had no idea . . .
Intrigued, the Golem followed after her.
The woman was in a hurry, but the Golem kept pace with her as first she stopped at a butcher’s—a chicken cutlet for supper, and a weisswurst for breakfast—and then went down into the subway. After a moment of hesitation, the Golem paid for a ticket and followed her to the southbound platform. From a discreet distance she watched as the woman pulled a compact mirror from her bag, fussed briefly with her hair, cast a critical eye at herself, and then snapped the mirror shut as the train arrived.
The carriage was nearly empty. The woman took a spot on a bench, and pulled a novel from her bag. The Golem found a seat nearby. The train pulled away and made its slow progress south, accumulating passengers here and there. The woman’s thoughts became nervous, anticipatory.
At 72nd Street the doors opened to admit a dark-haired man in a brown suit, carrying a leather briefcase. He took a seat across from the woman, his briefcase upon his lap.
The woman glanced up at him and smiled shyly.
He smiled shyly back.
Stop after stop went by, he pretending to read a newspaper, she pretending to read her novel. In their months of riding the subway together, they’d never spoken a word. He was a clerk, she’d decided, judging by his briefcase and the ink on his fingers. She, he was certain, was a teacher of some sort. He’d once spied a copy of The Settlement Cook Book in her bag; she, an issue of The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger in his. By these favorable signs their hopes had been raised. But decency demanded they have a good reason to speak to each other, and neither could ever find the proper entrée, both being rather timid in these matters. And so they rode on silently beneath the river to Brooklyn, where he departed at Borough Hall, and she at Atlantic Avenue.
The Golem took the subway back to the Spring Street station, berating herself for her voyeurism. That was going too far, she told herself as she walked along Lafayette with the crowd. You all but followed that poor woman home, just to distract yourself from thinking about Ahmad—
And suddenly, as though she’d conjured him, she spied him across the street.
He was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, staring up at an ordinary loft building, a strange look upon his face. He must have come from the shop, for he still wore his leather apron, and hadn’t bothered to put on a jacket.
She crossed Lafayette as quickly as she could without drawing attention. The passersby were giving him a wide and startled berth, and when she neared, she saw why. He was radiating heat, as though he’d bathed in fire. His collar was singed, and his sleeves, too, though he’d rolled them nearly to his elbows.
“Ahmad?” she said, alarmed. “What’s happened?”
“Chava, look at this,” he said, gesturing to the building. He hadn’t so much as glanced at her yet. From his tone it was as though he’d fully expected her to find him there.
“Look at . . . the building?”
“The iron.”
She remembered, then: the cast-iron facades, the ones he’d scoffed at. “I thought you didn’t like them,” she said cautiously.
“I don’t. They’re ridiculous. Why make an iron building and give it columns, and capitals, and pediments? Why not let the iron be itself? And for that matter”—he turned to her now, and she nearly recoiled from the heat—“Why must a building be square?” He gestured all around. “Square plots, square buildings, boxes upon boxes. Why?”
“Ahmad,” she said, “are you all right? Why are you so warm?”
He reached into the pocket of his apron and pulled out a fist-sized object. “Look,” he said, and handed it to her.
Whatever it was, it was nearly too hot to touch. She joggled it a moment, then peered at it: a rounded lump of steel like a river rock, its bottom flattened as though he’d poured it on a table to cool. Along one raised side was a thick band of opaque blue-green glass. The glass, she saw, had come first; the metal had then draped itself over and around it—as though to form a low, curved house, and the glass a long and tapered bank of windows, set beneath smooth steel eaves.
He nodded, watching her. “You see it, too, don’t you? Arbeely told me once, ‘We’re tinsmiths, not an engineering firm.’ But Chava, what if we were?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but grabbed the steel-and-glass lump from her—she flinched, but he didn’t notice—and started south at such a pace that she had to run a few steps to keep up. “Slow down,” she urged as others stared. But he was lost inside his inspiration, talking to the air, switching languages too quickly for sense. She heard the word or half a dozen times before she realized it was ore, that he was speaking of rocks; and what, in her bewilderment, she’d taken for schlag, whipped cream, was—“Ahmad, what is ‘slag’?”
“The glass,” he said, impatient. “It forms during the smelting, it’s the oxides, the impurities. I’ll have to experiment with it, but I’ll need a hoard’s worth, more than a—”
The word that emerged next was an unformed sound, a breath of air. He startled; his step faltered. A cloud of confused anger passed across his face—and the Golem realized that, for the first time in her presence, he’d tried to speak his own language.
He glanced at her, then away again. “But that won’t be a problem,” he muttered, walking on. “Hibbing sells it by the train-car.”
They were nearing Little Syria now, and she realized she had a choice: abandon him to his mania, or be seen walking with him in broad daylight, perhaps even up to his apartment. She gritted her teeth and stayed with him. They’d have words about this later. “Where are we going?”
“To Arbeely’s,” he said, as though it were perfectly obvious. “I have to tell him, it’s his, too.”
“What’s his?”
“Our new business.”
“Your—Wait. Ahmad, wait.” She hurried ahead, turned and placed herself before him, as though to stop a moving train. For a moment she thought he’d walk around her, or cross the street—but at last he halted, and folded his arms with annoyance.
“Please, calm yourself,” she said, “and think of Arbeely. He’s in delicate health, you can’t go turning his world upside down for a—a piece of metal and glass—”
“You don’t think I can build it,” he said.
She gaped at him. “I know you can! That’s the problem! You can make such beautiful, astonishing things, but—”
“But only at night,” he said, cutting her off. “Behind curtains, in the dark. When and where I’m allowed.”
She sighed. “I understand how frustrating it is. You must know that.”
“No, Chava, I think you’re perfectly glad to hold yourself to their limitations.”
Now she, too, was growing angry. “Ahmad, don’t do this. Be sensible.”
He snorted at the word, and walked on.
Washington Street was crowded with men and women leaving work, running their errands, walking to and from the Elevated. He cleared a path through them all with his heat and his stride, a flaming arrow aimed at Arbeely’s building. The Golem hurried fearfully behind. They passed the Faddouls’ coffee-house, and she cast a desperate glance through the window and caught Maryam’s eye. At once the woman put down her coffee-pot and hurried to the door. “Chava, what’s happened?”
“I don’t know,” she said in a low voice, “but he’s in a state and I’ve made it worse. He insists on talking to Arbeely, and I’m afraid—” She broke off, not knowing what, exactly, she was afraid of.
“I’ll come with you,” Maryam said.
Together they followed the Jinni to Arbeely’s building, where he took the stairs two and three at a time, the women in his wake.
“Why is he so warm?” Maryam whispered.
“I wish I knew,” the Golem murmured back.
Arbeely’s door was shut. “Arbeely,” the Jinni called, “it’s me. Let me in, I’ve had an idea.” The women came up the stairs behind him. His eyes narrowed when he saw Maryam, but he said nothing.
“Ahmad,” they heard, faintly, “it’s not the best—”
But he’d already opened the door and was through it.
Arbeely sat at the kitchen table in his dressing-gown and scarf, a letter in his hand. He looked up, startled, as the Jinni entered, followed by the two women. The Jinni placed his model upon the table, and without preamble launched into his story: the steel, the slag, his sudden revelation that buildings didn’t have to be square, they were only square because everyone had decided they must be, but what if they could change that, what if . . .
But Arbeely seemed hardly to be listening. His gaze slid from his partner to the Golem. I could’ve hidden it from him, he was thinking. Maybe even from Maryam. But not you. And she knew, then, that the letter in his hand was from his doctors, and that it began with the words We regret we must inform you. She felt the flush of fever upon the man’s skin, and the growing pain inside his bones. Saw exhaustion, and resignation, in his eyes.
The Jinni had stopped talking. He looked blankly from Arbeely to the Golem. “What is it?” he asked.
Behind her, Maryam had covered her mouth with a hand.
Silently Arbeely proffered the letter. The Jinni took it, read its first line—and the paper burst into flames.
Everyone jumped. Maryam rushed to Arbeely’s side. The Golem grabbed the letter and carried it to the sink, smothered the flames beneath the tap.
By the time she’d turned around, the Jinni had vanished.