The Golem and the Jinni (37 page)

So far, things were progressing better than Schaalman had dared hope. He’d thought the director’s return would be a hurdle, that he’d have to charm the man or addle his mind; but it seemed Levy was even more of a pushover than his staff. Schaalman had protested the offered stipend at first, but then accepted, as he must. No one was
that
altruistic, not even the man he was pretending to be.

He’d solidified his position and gained their trust. It was time to put the next part of his plan into action. His dream had promised him that New York held the secret to
life eternal
, but he needed a way to narrow his search, a dowsing rod to point him in the right direction. And what better way than to turn himself into that very dowsing rod?

He reached under his cot and found the tattered sheaf of burned papers. He sorted through them in the moonlight, setting aside the ones that held some bearing on his purpose. Taking up a fresh sheet of paper and pencil, he began to scribble notes. If he combined this incantation with this name of God . . . He wrote formulas and scratched them out, drew diagrams of branching trees whose leaves were the letters of the alphabet. He worked for hours until finally, near dawn, he experienced a rush of clarity as the diagrams and formulas and incantations all melted into one. His pencil danced ecstatic across the page. Finally his hand stilled, and he looked at what he had written, feeling in his bones that he’d succeeded. The old familiar pang passed through him—what he could have been, given the chance! Oh, what he might have accomplished!

He glanced around once more, but his neighbors all were asleep. Taking a deep breath, he began to quietly read aloud what he had written.

A long, unbroken string of syllables issued from Schaalman’s mouth. Some were soft and languid as a lazy stream. Others were harsh and jagged, and Schaalman spat these from between his teeth. If one of the old sages had been listening, one schooled not only in Hebrew and Aramaic but also in centuries of mystical lore, even he would have been hard-pressed to make sense of it. He might have recognized snatches here and there: portions of various prayers, names of God that had been woven together letter by letter. But the rest would have been a terrifying mystery.

He gathered momentum as he reached the apex of the formula, the letter in the very middle: an
aleph
, the silent sound that was the beginning of all Creation. And then, as if that
aleph
were a mirror, the formula reversed itself, and letter by letter Schaalman tumbled down the other side.

He was nearing the end, he was almost upon it. Bracing himself, he spoke the final sound and then—

—
suddenly all of Creation was pouring through him. He was infinite, he was the universe, there was nothing that he did not encompass.

But then he looked upward and beheld that he was nothing, a mite, an insignificant speck cowering beneath the unblinking gaze of the One.

It lasted forever; it was only a moment. Waking to himself, Schaalman blinked back tears and drew a clammy hand across his brow. It was always this way, when he tried something new and powerful.

The moon sank below the window, leaving only the yellow glow of the gaslights. Schaalman had hoped to test the efficacy of his formula immediately—to see if, indeed, he had turned himself into that dowsing rod—but exhaustion overcame him, and he fell into a dreamless sleep until morning, waking only when the noise of the dormitory grew too loud to ignore. Men were dressing themselves for the day, straightening their mussed blankets with the nervous courtesy of houseguests. Some prayed next to their beds, phylacteries strapped to their foreheads and wound about their arms. A line for the water closet stretched down the hallway, each man blearily clutching his soap and towel. Schaalman dressed and donned his coat. He was ravenously hungry. Downstairs he discovered the cook had left him a few slices of bread and marmalade for breakfast; he devoured them without pause. Resisting the urge to lick the marmalade from his fingers—the habits of a life spent alone were still with him—he walked past the parlor and out the front door of the Sheltering House. It was time to see what he’d accomplished.

Five hours later, he returned to the Sheltering House, dejected and angry. He’d walked the length and breadth of the Lower East Side, past all the rabbis, scholars, synagogues, and storefront yeshivas he could find—and yet there had been no sign from the dowsing spell. No pull down a particular street, no sense that perhaps he should go into
this
doorway, or talk to
that
man over there. But his formula had worked, he was certain of it!

Once again, he counseled himself to be patient. There were still private libraries, the giant yeshiva he’d learned about on the Upper West Side, not to mention the conclave of urbane German Jews to the north—not as schooled in esoteric wonders as their Russian and Polish cousins, but still, he might uncover something. He would not give up.

But he was nervous. He’d passed a funeral procession on Delancey: some distinguished personage, judging by the crowd of mourners and their weighty silence. Most likely a respected and prominent rabbi, dead after a long and peaceful dotage, certain of his place in the World to Come. Schaalman had stood to one side and looked away, repressing a childish urge to hide lest the Angel of Death spy him there, hidden away among the Jews of New York.

Back at the Sheltering House, he paused at the director’s door. Levy was sitting at his desk, pen uncharacteristically still. His eyes were vacant. Schaalman frowned. Had someone charmed or altered him? Was there another force at work here? He tapped once on the door. “Michael?”

The man gave a guilty start. “Joseph, hello. Sorry, have you been there long?”

“Not long, no,” Schaalman said. “Are you all right? Not sick again, I hope.”

“No, no. Well, not exactly.” He smiled faintly. “Matters of the heart.”

“Ah,” said Schaalman, his interest evaporating.

But now the director was looking at him speculatively. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

Schaalman sighed inwardly. “Certainly.”

“Were you ever married?”

“No, I never had that blessing.”

“Ever been in love?”

“Of course,” Schaalman lied. “What man hasn’t, by my age?”

“But it didn’t work out.” It wasn’t quite a question.

“It was a long time ago. I was a different man then.”

“What happened?”

“She left. She was there, and then she was gone. I never knew why.” The words had simply come to him; he’d said them without thinking.

Levy was nodding, in unwanted sympathy. “Did you wonder, afterward, what you might have done differently?”

Every day. Every day of my life since, I wonder.

He shrugged. “Perhaps I was too difficult a man to love.”

“Oh, I have a hard time believing that.”

Enough
, he thought. “Is there anything else you need? Otherwise I’ll see how the cook is getting on with dinner.”

Levy blinked. “Oh, of course. Thanks, Joseph. For letting me bend your ear.”

Schaalman smiled in reply, and removed himself from the doorway.

16.

“Y
ou 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.