Helene Wecker

Chava, a golem brought to life by a disgraced rabbi, and Ahmad, a jinni made of fire, form an unlikely friendship on the streets of New York until a fateful choice changes everything.

The Golem and the Jinni

Laura Mei

lianna

Reconciling herself to the night ahead, she sat before the mirror and began to brush out her hair. Her maid had already laid out her gown, a new wine-red silk. She had to admit that she was looking forward to wearing it; the season’s new fashions were quite flattering to her figure.

Something moved at the edge of her vision. She turned, startled. A man was standing on her balcony, just beyond the French doors, peering in through the glass.

She jumped up and nearly screamed, clutching her dressing gown to her neck. The man raised his hands and looked at her pleadingly, plainly asking her not to raise an alarm. She squinted at the glass, past her own thin reflection, and realized: it was him, the man from the park.

She goggled. How had he gotten onto the grounds? Her room was on the second floor—had he scaled the wall, and then climbed across the balconies? She hesitated a moment, then picked up the lamp and stepped toward the French door, the better to see him. He watched as she approached. Through the distortions of the glass he seemed almost impossibly still. She paused a few feet from the door, debating. She could still scream.

The man smiled, and extended an arm. An invitation—to talk?

Heart pounding, she fetched a shawl and stepped out onto the balcony. The night air was chill, and smelled of rain. She did not close the door behind her but drew the shawl tightly about herself. “What are you doing here?”

“You’re trespassing on our property and invading my privacy, in order to apologize?”

“I could scream. I could have you arrested.”

He acknowledged this with silence. They stared at each other, across the few feet that separated them.

Finally she relented. “All right. I suppose that if you risk so much to apologize, then it is only fair that I offer forgiveness. So, there. You are forgiven. You may go now.”

He nodded once, bowed to her, and then, in the most graceful movement that Sophia had ever seen, placed one hand on the balustrade and vaulted up onto it. He looked across to the next balcony, and she realized he was readying himself to jump.

He froze, wobbling slightly, and put a hand out to steady himself; and she shuddered to think she might have killed him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “it’s only—I just want to know—what is your name?”

There was a moment when he seemed to consider the question, and then he said, “Ahmad.”

“Ahmad,” she repeated. “Where are you from?”

“I would know it as Syria? What do you know it as?”

He stood nonchalantly above her on the wide balustrade, not seeming to notice the two-story drop beneath him. Again she felt that creeping sense of unreality, as though he’d merely stepped from a tale. As though none of this were truly happening.

“Ahmad. Will you tell me something? And for pity’s sake, come down from there before you fall.”

He smiled and jumped back down to the balcony. “What shall I tell you?”

“Tell me what it’s like where you’re from. Where did you live?”

She’d expected him to name a city, but instead he said, “In the desert.”

“The desert! Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Only if one isn’t careful. The desert is wild, but not impassable.”

“I’ve seen pictures,” she said, “in my father’s journals. But I’m sure they don’t do it justice.”

Both started at a sudden noise. Someone was knocking at her bedroom door. The man crouched, as though about to spring to the balustrade again.

Softly she crept back into the bedroom. She lay down on her bed, mussing the sheets so it would look as though she’d been asleep. “One moment,” she called, and then hung her head upside down and shook it vigorously, disheveling her hair and hopefully bringing a flush to her cheeks. She rose from the bed, adopted an air of listless ill health, and opened the door.

A maid stood in the doorway, with an armful of linens. She took in the sight of Sophia still in her dressing gown and shawl, and her eyes widened with alarm. “Miss Sophia, your mother says the guests will be here in a half hour.”

“Maria, I’m afraid that I’m not feeling well,” Sophia said. “I have a terrible headache. Will you please tell my mother that I must have a rest first, and then I promise I’ll come down to the party?”

“What?” cried a voice. Both women flinched as Julia Hamilton Winston, one of the most formidable doyennes of New York society, came charging down the hall in a billowing blue gown, her hair still tied in curling rags.

“Mother,” Sophia pleaded as the woman advanced on them, “I’m really not feeling well. I’m sorry.”

“This is nonsense. You were well enough at dinner.”

“It came on suddenly, my head is pounding.”

Then take an aspirin,” her mother snapped. “I’ve certainly suffered through enough parties with headaches and morning sickness and any number of illnesses. You are far too soft, Sophia. And too eager to shirk your responsibilities.”

“Please,” she said. “Just a half hour, that’s all I’m asking. If I can sleep a bit, I’ll feel better. And I’m afraid if I stand up much longer I’ll be sick.”

“Hmm.” Her mother placed a hand on Sophia’s forehead. “Well, you do feel a bit warm.” She took her hand away and sighed, her face still registering distrust. “Half an hour only. Do you understand? And then I’ll have Maria drag you from your bed.”

She closed the door and listened as the women’s steps retreated down the hall, then went out once more to the balcony. He was where she had left him, wearing an expression of amusement.

“Very skillful,” he said. “Do you do that often?”

She blushed in the dark. “My mother and I tend to disagree,” she said. “We’re very different people. We want different things from our lives.”

“And what is it,” he asked, “that you want from your life?”

She did not move but made herself meet his eyes. She would not blush again, she told herself; she would not look away. “Why did you come here? Truly, I mean. None of this nonsense about apologies.”

“Because you intrigue me, and you are beautiful,” he said.

She did blush at that, and turned, and placed more distance between them. “You are rather more direct than most men.”

“No. Not as such. But I’m not accustomed to it.” She sighed. “To tell the truth, I am very sick indeed of men who are not direct. And tonight this house will be full of them.” She glanced over at him again. “Your home, in the desert. Will you tell me more?”

“One can travel the desert for days, months, years, and never meet another soul,” he said quietly. “Or, if you wish, you can seek out the company of the desert peoples, or attempt to trace the ways of those creatures who don’t wish to be seen, such as the jinn—although that,” he said with a secret smile, “is rather more difficult. If somehow you gained the power of flight, you could travel with the birds, the hawks and kestrels. Like them, you could sleep as you flew.” He paused. “Now I will ask you a question. Why will your house be full of men who aren’t direct?”

She sighed. “Because I’m coming of age to marry. And because my father is very, very wealthy. They’ll all be looking to make an advantageous match. They’ll compliment my good looks and my opinions. They’ll ask my friends about my tastes, and then affect them as their own. I’m about to become the quarry in a hunt, and it isn’t even me they want. I’m simply a means to an end.”

“Are you so certain about that? If a man tells you that you’re beautiful, do you doubt his sincerity?”

She hesitated, then took a deep breath and said, “I suppose it depends on the man.”

They were drawing closer to each other. The cypress trees that edged the garden were tall enough to screen out much of their surroundings; if she was very still, and kept her head at a certain angle, it was as though she was not in New York at all, but in a garden on the Mediterranean coast. The faint noises of the street behind them were the wash of a distant surf. The man beside her was a complete stranger. He could be anyone.

“Besides,” the Rabbi went on, “from what you tell me about this Anna, she sounds like a less than serious-minded woman. Perhaps she can learn from your example, even if it doesn’t come naturally to her.”

“Perhaps,” the Golem agreed. “She doesn’t seem to wish me ill as much as before. But then, she’s been preoccupied with her new suitor. She thinks about him quite a lot, and hopes he will walk her home from the bakery, so they can—” Caught up in her description, she bit back the words just in time.

“Yes, well.” The Rabbi had colored slightly. “She’s a foolish girl, if she’s given herself to him before marriage. Or at the very least, before a promise of one.”

“Because she has everything to lose. Marriage has many benefits, and one of them is the protection of a child, the likely result of their . . . current behavior. An unmarried man is free to leave a woman, whatever condition she may be in, without consequence to himself. And what of the woman? She’s now burdened, and may not be able to support the child, or even herself. Women in these situations have turned to the ugliest of crimes out of desperation, and then lose whatever virtue they have left. From there, it’s a short journey to disease, poverty, and death. It’s no exaggeration to say that a night of pleasure can cost a young woman her life. I saw it far too often as a rabbi, even among the best families.”

But she seems so happy, the Golem thought.

The Rabbi stood and began to clear the dishes from the table, coughing once or twice. Quickly the Golem went to help him, and they did the dishes together in silence. “Rabbi, may I ask you something?” she said after a while. “It might embarrass you.”

The Rabbi smiled. “I’ll do my best, but don’t expect miracles.”

“If the act of love is so dangerous, why do people risk so much for it?”

The Rabbi was quiet for a while. Then he said, “If you had to guess, what would you say?”

The Golem recalled what she knew of such longings, the nocturnal lusts of passersby on the street. “It excites them to be dangerous, and to have a secret from the rest of the world.”

“That’s one aspect of it, but not the whole,” said the Rabbi. “What you’re missing is loneliness. All of us are lonely at some point or another, no matter how many people surround us. And then, we meet someone who seems to understand. She smiles, and for a moment the loneliness disappears. Add to that the effects of physical desire—and the excitement you spoke of—and all good sense and judgment fall away.” The Rabbi paused, then said, “But love founded only on loneliness and desire will die out before long. A shared history, tradition, and values will link two people more thoroughly than any physical act.”

They were silent for a while, and the Golem thought about this. “Then this is what is meant by true love?” she asked. “Tradition, and values?”

The Rabbi chuckled. “Perhaps that’s too simplistic. I’m an old man, Chava, and a widower. I left this all behind years ago. But I do remember what it was to be young, and to feel that there was no one else in the world but the beloved. It’s only with the benefit of hindsight that I can see what truly lasts between a man and a woman.”

He trailed away, lost in memory, staring at the dish towel in his hand. In the light of the kitchen lamp, his skin looked sallow and spotted, and as thin as eggshell. Had he always seemed so fragile? Rotfeld had looked like this, she thought, pale and sweating in the kerosene light. She’d always known that she would outlive the Rabbi, but now the cold truth hit her as if for the first time. A pulse of grief ran through her. [...]

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For a moment, he thought he saw something in the girl’s eye leaping toward him—

And then the thing was inside his head, scrabbling to get out—

Unbearable pain seared through his mind. All went dark.

He opened his eyes—and saw kneeling above him a woman whose face was thin and insubstantial as onionskin, with gaping holes where her eyes should have been. He screamed, turned his head, and vomited.

From then on, it was as though Saleh had stepped away from the world. An unreality permeated all his senses. His eye could no longer measure distances: he would reach for something and it would be nowhere near his grasp. His hands shook, and he couldn’t properly hold his instruments. Occasionally a fit would overtake him, and he would fall down and froth at the mouth. Worst of all, he could no longer look at a human face, be it man’s or woman’s, stranger or beloved, without succumbing to nauseated terror.

In a way it was exasperating: he hadn’t come to America to succeed, but it seemed that America would not let him fail.

He had not been honest with his daughter. The tales of the caravan and his father’s misadventure were true enough—but earlier that day, driving the sheep along the ridge, he had, for the briefest of moments, been blinded by a shining vision of a palace in the valley below. A blink, and it had disappeared. He’d stared at the empty valley for a long time, telling himself that the sunlight must strike the eye in a particular way at this spot, creating the illusion. Nevertheless, he was shaken. As his daughter had said, it had been no vague, wavering mirage—he’d seen impossible details, spires and battlements and glittering courtyards. And standing a little ways from the open gate, the figure of a man, staring up at him.

The air was a malodorous broth, and all labored to inhale it.

General opinion held that Radzin’s bread was good enough for the price, but that their pastries were the best in the neighborhood.

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