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“I hope,” she said, watching her own mouth move, “that no one was harmed in my making.”
The Rabbi smiled sadly. “So do I. But what’s done is done, and you are not to be blamed for your own creation, whatever the circumstances. Now, I must go find you some clean clothes. Stay here, please—I’ll be back shortly.”
Alone, she watched her reflection for a little while longer, thinking. What if the Rabbi had not come when he had? What would have happened? She’d been standing inside the angry crowd’s circle, feeling the world fall away, as though she were about to cross a threshold into—what? She didn’t know. But in that moment, she’d felt calm. Peaceful. As though all worries and decisions were about to be lifted from her shoulders. Remembering, she shivered with a fear she didn’t understand.
It was growing late, and most of the shops were closed; but the Rabbi knew that a few would still be open near the Bowery, willing to sell him a woman’s dressing gown and a few pairs of underclothes. He could barely afford the expense: besides his small pension from his former congregation, his only income came from teaching Hebrew to young boys studying to become bar mitzvot. But it must be done. Warily he crossed the raucous thoroughfare, avoiding the paths of drunken men, and the eyes of the women who stood beneath the Elevated, waiting for custom. On Mulberry he found a clothing store still open, and bought a woman’s shirtwaist and skirt, a dressing gown, slips and drawers, and stockings with garters. After a moment’s hesitation, he added a nightgown to the pile. She wouldn’t need it for sleeping, of course, but the selection of women’s things had overwhelmed him; and besides, she couldn’t simply wear a dressing gown with nothing on beneath it. The clerk frowned at his coat and fringe, but took his money quickly enough.
He carried the string-wrapped package back across the Bowery, thinking. It would be difficult, living with someone who sensed one’s desires. If he wasn’t careful, he’d fall to chasing his own mind, trapped in the maddening game of don’t think about that. He’d have to be completely honest and unabashed, and hide nothing. It wouldn’t come easy. But any misplaced courtesy would do her a disservice. The larger world would not be so accommodating.
There would be consequences to his actions, to his sheltering of her: he had known this from the moment he’d recognized her nature and decided not to destroy her. Childless, retired, a widower for close to ten years, Rabbi Avram Meyer had planned for himself a quiet old age and an uneventful death. But the Almighty, it seemed, had planned otherwise.
In a nondescript tenement hallway, Boutros Arbeely opened a door and stepped back to allow his guest admittance. “Here it is. My palace. I know it’s not much, but you’re welcome to stay here until you find a place of your own.”
The Djinni gazed inside with alarm. Arbeely’s “palace” was a tiny, dim room barely large enough for a bed, a miniature armoire, and a half-moon table pushed up against a dingy sink. The wallpaper was pulling away from the wall in thick ripples. The floor, at least, was clean, though this was something of a novelty. In honor of his guest, Arbeely had kicked all his laundry into the armoire and leaned against the door until it shut.
Eyeing the room, the Djinni felt a claustrophobia so strong he could barely bring himself to enter. “Arbeely, this room isn’t fit for two inhabitants. It’s barely fit for one.”
They’d been acquainted for little more than a week, but already Arbeely had realized that if their arrangement was to work, he’d have to curb his irritation at the Djinni’s offhand slights. “What more do I need?” he said. “I spend all my time at the forge. When I’m here, I’m asleep.” Gesturing to the walls, he said, “We could string a sheet across, and bring in a cot. So you don’t have to sleep in the shop anymore.”
The Djinni looked at Arbeely as though he’d suggested something insulting. “But I don’t sleep in the shop.”
“Then where have you been sleeping?”
“Arbeely. I don’t sleep.”
Arbeely gaped; for he hadn’t realized. Every evening when he left the shop, the Djinni would still be there, learning to work the delicate tinplate. And each morning, on returning, he’d find the Djinni hard at work again. Arbeely kept a pallet in the back room, for the nights when he was too tired to drag himself to his bed; he’d simply assumed that the Djinni was using it. He said, “You don’t sleep? You mean, not at all?”
“No, and I’m glad of it. Sleep seems like an enormous waste of time.”
“I like sleeping,” Arbeely protested.
“Only because you tire.”
“And you don’t?”
“Not in the way you do.”
“If I didn’t sleep,” Arbeely mused, “I think I’d miss the dreams.” He frowned. “You do know what dreams are, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know what dreams are,” the Djinni said. “I can enter them.”
Arbeely paled. “You can?”
“It’s a rare ability. Only a few clans of the highest djinn possess it.” Again Arbeely noted that casual, matter-of-fact arrogance. “But I can only do so in my true form. So there’s no need to worry, your dreams are safe from me.”
“Well, even so, you’re more than welcome—”
Irritated, the Djinni cut him off. “Arbeely, I don’t want to live here, awake or asleep. For now, I’ll stay in the shop.”
“But you said—” Arbeely paused, not wanting to go on. I’ll go mad if you keep me caged here for much longer, the Djinni had said, and it had stung. Their plan required that the Djinni be kept out of sight until Arbeely had taught him enough to pass as a new apprentice; but this meant that the Djinni was forced to stay hidden in the back of the shop during the day—a space nearly as small as Arbeely’s bedroom. Arbeely understood that the Djinni chafed at the restriction, but he’d been hurt by the implication that he was the Djinni’s jailor.
“I suppose I would feel odd if I had to stay in a room all night and watch a man sleep,” Arbeely conceded.
“Exactly.” The Djinni sat down on the edge of the bed, and looked around once more. “And really, Arbeely, this place is terrible!”
His tone was so plaintive that Arbeely started laughing. “I don’t mind it, really,” he said. “But it isn’t what you’re used to.”
The Djinni shook his head. “None of this is.” Absentmindedly he rubbed the cuff on his wrist. “Imagine,” he said to Arbeely, “that you are asleep, dreaming your human dreams. And then, when you wake, you find yourself in an unknown place. Your hands are bound, and your feet hobbled, and you’re leashed to a stake in the ground. You have no idea who has done this to you, or how. You don’t know if you’ll ever escape. You are an unimaginable distance from home. And then, a strange creature finds you and says, ‘An Arbeely! But I thought Arbeelys were only tales told to children! Quick, you must hide, and pretend to be one of us, for the people here would be frightened of you if they knew.’”
Arbeely frowned. “You think I’m a strange creature?”
“You miss my point entirely.” He lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “But yes. I find humans strange creatures.”
“You pity us. In your eyes, we’re bound and hobbled.”
The Djinni thought for a moment. “You move so slowly,” he said.
Silence hung between them; and then the Djinni sighed. “Arbeely, I promised I wouldn’t leave the shop until you felt the time was right, and I’ve kept that promise. But I meant what I said before. If I don’t find some way to regain my freedom, even a degree of it, I believe I’ll go mad.”
“Please,” Arbeely said. “Just a few more days. If this is going to work—”
“Yes,” the Djinni said, “yes, I know.” He stood and walked to the window. “But in all of this, my one consolation is that I’ve landed in a city the likes of which I never could have imagined. And I intend to make the most of it.”
Warnings flooded Arbeely’s mind: the inadvisability of wandering strange streets at night, the gangs and cutthroats, the bawdy houses and stews and opium dens. But the Djinni was looking out the window with an air of hungry longing, across the rooftops to the north. He thought again of the Djinni’s image of himself, bound and hobbled.
“Please,” he only said. “Be careful.”
After the stifling confines of Arbeely’s bedroom, the tinsmith’s shop seemed almost cavernous in comparison. Alone, the Djinni sat at the workbench, measuring out solder and flux. He had to be careful with the solder; his hands were warm enough that it tended to melt if he held it too long. Arbeely had patiently demonstrated how to spread the solder along a joint, but when it came time for the Djinni to try, the solder had run from the plate in a river of droplets. After a few more tries he’d begun to improve, but it strained every ounce of his patience. He longed to simply meld the seams with his fingers, but that would ruin the point of the exercise.
It galled him, though, to curtail the one ability he had left. Never before had he truly appreciated how many of his powers were lost to him outside his native form. If he’d known, he might’ve spent more time exploring them, instead of simply chasing after caravans. The ability to enter dreams, for example, was something he’d barely ever used.
Like all their other attributes, this ability varied wildly among different types of djinn. In the lesser ghuls and the ifrits, it manifested as a crude possession, performed mostly for amusement, trickery, or petty revenge. The possessed human would become little more than a poorly handled puppet until the Djinni grew tired and abandoned the game. Many of the possessed were permanently damaged; some even perished from the shock. In the worst cases, the Djinni would become trapped in the human’s mind. When this happened, it was almost a certainty that both human and Djinni would go insane. If the human was very lucky, a shaman or minor magician might be on hand to drive the possessor from its prey. Once, the Djinni had encountered one of his lesser brethren soon after it had been forced from a human in this way. The burning, twisted thing had been perched on a stunted tree, babbling and howling as the branches smoldered around it. The Djinni had observed it with a mixture of pity and distaste, and avoided the tree by a wide distance.
The Djinni’s own abilities were nothing so blunt as wholesale possession. In his native form he could insinuate himself into a mind painlessly, and observe it without being noticed. But he could only do so when the subject lay in the realm of sleep, its mind open and unguarded. He’d tested this ability only a few times, and only on lesser animals. Snakes, he learned, dreamed in smells and vibrations, their tongues darting to sample the air, their long bodies pressed close to the dirt. Jackals dreamed in yellows and ochers and fragrant reds, reliving their kills as they slept, their limbs and paws churning at the air. After a few such experiments, he’d mostly left off the practice: it was mildly amusing, but it tended to leave him confused and disoriented as he readjusted to his own formless form and regained his sense of self.
He’d never tried to enter a human’s mind. The dreams of men were said to be slippery and dangerous, full of shifting landscapes that could trap a djinni and hold him fast. A wizard, the elders warned, could snare a djinni in his mind, trick it into a dream-labyrinth and force it into servitude. They’d made it seem like a reckless folly even to consider it. Likely they’d overstated the danger, but still he’d refrained, even when the caravan men had collapsed in sleep at the end of a day’s journey.
Would he have risked it, if he’d known the ability would be taken from him? Perhaps; but he doubted he would’ve gained much from the experience. And in a sense, he reflected as he measured out yet more solder, the loss mattered little. He was now spending more than enough time with humans to account for the difference.
In the Syrian Desert, the last of the spring rains soaked into the hillsides. Delicate blossoms unfurled among the rocks and thistles, dotting the valleys with yellow and white.
The Djinni floated above the valley, enjoying the view. The rain had rinsed the dust from his palace, and now every inch sparkled. Had he thought to leave this behind, to go back to the djinn habitations? Whatever for? This was where he belonged: with his palace and his valley, the warm spring sun and the fleeting wildflowers.
But already his mind was racing ahead to his next encounter with humans. There was, he knew, a small encampment of Bedouin nearby. He’d spied their sheep-flocks and their fires from a distance, their men traveling on horseback, but until now he’d avoided them. He wondered, how did their lives differ from those of the caravan-men? Perhaps, instead of finding another caravan to follow, he would turn his wanderings toward their encampment. But should he remain content with observing them from a distance, when a much more intimate option lay available to him?
Movement below him caught his eye. As though drawn by his musings, a young Bedouin girl had appeared on the ridge at the valley’s edge. Alone save for her small flock of goats, she walked the ridge with a sprightly energy to match the freshness of the day.
An impulse struck him. Descending to the parapets of his palace, he reached out and touched the blue-white glass.
The girl on the ridge froze in amazement as, for a moment, the Djinni’s palace appeared sparkling before her eyes.
The Djinni watched the girl sprint excitedly back the way she’d come, driving her goats before her. He smiled, and wondered what a girl such as she might dream about.
4.
Slowly, over days and weeks, the Golem and Rabbi Meyer learned how to live with each other.
It wasn’t easy. The Rabbi’s rooms were small and cramped, and the Rabbi had grown used to his solitude. Not that living cheek by jowl with a stranger was a new experience—when he’d first come to America he’d boarded with a family of five. But he’d been younger then, more adaptable. In recent years, solitude had become his one indulgence.
As he’d predicted, the Golem quickly sensed his discomfort. Soon she developed the habit of positioning herself as far from him as possible, as though trying to leave without leaving. Finally he sat her down and explained that she shouldn’t go elsewhere simply because he was in the room.
“But you want me to,” she said.
“Yes, but against my own will. My better self knows that you may sit or stand wherever you wish. You must learn how to act according to what people say and do, not what they wish or fear. You have an extraordinary window into people’s souls, and you’ll see many ugly and uncomfortable things, much worse than my wishing you to stand somewhere else. You must be prepared for them, and learn when to discount them.”
She listened, and nodded, but it was more difficult for her than he realized. To be in the same room with him, knowing he wanted her elsewhere, was a small torture. Her instinct to be of use tugged at her to leave, to get out of his way. To ignore it was akin to standing in the path of an oncoming streetcar, trying not to move. She would start to fidget, or would break things by accident—the handle of a drawer ripping away as she grasped it, the hem of her skirt tearing as she pulled at the fabric. She’d apologize profusely, and he would tell her it meant little; but his dismay was hard to suppress, and it only made matters worse.
“It would be better if I had something to do,” she said finally.
At once the Rabbi saw his mistake. Without thinking, he’d given the Golem the worst life possible: that of idleness. And so he relented and allowed her to take over the cleaning of the rooms, which until then he’d insisted on doing himself.
The change—both in the Golem, and in the Rabbi’s abode—was instantaneous. With a task to perform, the Golem could lose herself inside it and begin to ignore the distractions. Each morning she would scrub the dishes from breakfast and tea, and then take up the rag and attack the stove, removing a few more layers of the persistent grime that had built up in the years since the Rabbi’s wife had died. Then she’d make the Rabbi’s bed, folding the corners of the sheet tight against the sagging frame. Any dirty clothes in the hamper—save for his undergarments, which he steadfastly refused to let her clean—were carried to the kitchen sink and washed, then hung to dry. The clothes from the day before were taken down and ironed, folded, and put away.
“I can’t help but feel I’m taking advantage of you,” said the chagrined Rabbi, watching her stack his dishes in the cupboard. “And my students will think I’ve hired a maid.”
“But I like doing the work. It makes me feel better. And this way I can repay you for your generosity.”
“I wasn’t looking for payment when I offered to take you in.”
“But I want to give it,” she said, and went on stacking dishes. Eventually the Rabbi decided to reconcile himself to the situation, defeated by necessity and the lure of freshly ironed trousers.
When they spoke to each other, they spoke quietly. The tenement was noisy, even at night, but the walls were thin, and the Rabbi’s neighbors would be all too intrigued by the sound of a young woman’s voice. Fortunately, she had no need to visit the shared water closet in the hall. Once a day she washed herself in the kitchen while the Rabbi sat in his bedroom or at the table in the front room, occupying his mind with study and prayer.
It was hardest when one of the Rabbi’s students would come over for his lesson. A few minutes beforehand, the Golem would go to the bedroom and crawl underneath the Rabbi’s bed. Soon would come the knock at the door, the scrape of the parlor chairs against the floorboards, and the Rabbi’s voice: so, have you studied your portion?
There was barely enough room under the bed for the Golem. It was narrow and hung so low that the brass springs almost brushed her nose. To lie still and silent in such an enclosed space was no easy task. Her fingers and legs would begin to twitch, regardless of how much she tried to relax. Meanwhile, a small army of wants and needs would make their way to her mind: from the boy and the Rabbi, both of whom would give anything for the clock to go faster; from the woman in the room below, who lived in a constant torment of pain from her hip; from the three young children next door, who were forced to share their few toys, and always coveted whatever they didn’t have—and, at a more distant remove, from the rest of the tenement, a small city of strivings and lusts and heartaches. And at its center lay the Golem, listening to it all.
The Rabbi had advised her to concentrate on her other senses to drown out the noise; and so the Golem would press her ear to the floor and listen to water gurgling through the pipes, mothers scolding their children in blistering Yiddish, the banging of pots and pans, arguments, prayers, the whirr of sewing machines. Above it all, she heard the Rabbi teaching the boy to chant his portion, his hoarse voice alternating with the boy’s young, piping one. Sometimes she would chant silently along, mouthing the words, until the boy left and she could come out again.
The nights were almost as difficult. The Rabbi went to bed at ten and did not wake until six, and so for eight hours the Golem was alone with the vague, dreaming thoughts of others. The Rabbi suggested reading to pass the time; and so, one night, she pulled a volume from the Rabbi’s shelves, opened it at random, and read:
… Cooked victuals may be put on a stove that was heated with straw or stubble. If the stove was heated with the pulp of poppyseed or with wood, cooked victuals may not be put upon it, unless the coals were taken out or covered with ashes. The students of Shammai say: victuals may be taken off the stove, but not put back upon it. The students of Hillel permit it.
The schoolmen propounded a question: “As for the expression ‘shall not be put,’ does it mean ‘one shall not put it back,’ but if it has not been taken off, it may be left there?”
There are two parts to our answer.
She closed the book and stared at the leather cover. Were all books like this? Daunted and a bit irritated, she spent the rest of the night looking out the window, watching the men and women walk by.
In the morning she told the Rabbi of her attempt at reading. Later that day he went out to run errands, and brought her back a flat, thin package. Inside was a slender book, with a gaily illustrated cover. A large ship, populated with animals, floated at the crest of a gigantic wave. Behind the ship, a band of colors curved a half circle, its apex brushing the clouds above.
“This is a better start for you, I think,” the Rabbi said.
That night, the Golem was introduced to Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel. She learned about Noah and his Ark, and the rainbow that was the sign of God’s covenant. She read of Abraham and Isaac on the mountain, the near sacrifice and its aftermath. She thought it all very strange. The stories themselves were easy to follow; but she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to think of these people. Had they actually existed, or had they been invented? The tales of Adam and Noah said they lived to be many hundreds of years old—but wasn’t this impossible? The Rabbi was the oldest person she’d met in her brief life, and he was far short of a century. Did this mean that the book told lies? But the Rabbi was always so careful to say only the truth! If these were lies, then why had the Rabbi asked her to read them?
She read the book three times through, trying to understand these long-ago people. Their motives, needs, and fears were always at the surface, as easy for her to grasp as those of a man passing by. And Adam and Eve were ashamed, and hid to cover their nakedness. And Cain grew jealous of his brother, and rose up and slew him. How different from the lives of the people around her, who hid their desires away. She recalled what the Rabbi had said: to judge a man by his actions, not his thoughts. And judging by the actions of the people in this book, to act on one’s wishes and desires led, more often than not, to misdeed and misfortune.
But were all desires wrong? What about the hungry boy for whom she’d stolen the knish? Could a desire for food be wrong if one were starving? A woman down the hall had a son who was a peddler, in a place called Wyoming. She lived in wait of a letter from him, some sign to let her know that he was alive and safe. This too seemed right and natural. But then, how was she to know?
In the morning, when the Rabbi asked her what she’d thought of the book, she hesitated, searching for the right words. “Were these real people?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Would my answer change your understanding of them?”
“I’m not sure. It’s just that they seem too simple to be real. As soon as a desire arose, they acted on it. And not small things, like ‘I need a new hat’ or ‘I want to buy a loaf of bread.’ Large things, like Adam and Eve and the apple. Or Cain killing Abel.” She frowned. “I know I haven’t lived very long, but this seems unusual.”
“You’ve watched children playing in the street, haven’t you? Do they often ignore their desires?”
“I see what you mean,” she said, “but these aren’t stories about children.”
“I believe they are, in a way,” said the Rabbi. “These were the world’s first people. Everything they did, every action and decision, was entirely new, without precedent. They had no larger society to turn to, no examples of how to behave. They only had the Almighty to tell them right from wrong. And like all children, if His commands ran counter to their desires, sometimes they chose not to listen. And then they learned that there are consequences to one’s actions. But tell me, now—I don’t think you found reading an enjoyable way to pass the time.”
“I tried to enjoy it!” she protested. “But it’s hard to sit still for so long!”
The Rabbi sighed inwardly. He’d hoped that reading would be a good solution, even a permanent one. But he saw now it was too much to ask of her. Her nature wouldn’t allow it.
“If only I could walk outside at night.” Her voice was a quiet plea.
He shook his head. “That isn’t possible, I’m afraid. Women out alone at night are assumed to be of poor moral character. You’d find yourself prey to unwanted advances, even violent behavior. I wish it were otherwise. But perhaps it is time,” he said, “for us to venture outside during the day. We could take a walk together, after I’ve seen my students. Would that help?”
The Golem’s face lit with anticipation, and she spent the morning cleaning the already spotless kitchen with renewed focus and zeal.
After the last student had come and gone, the Rabbi outlined his plan for their walk. He would leave the tenement alone, and she would follow five minutes later. They’d meet a few blocks away, on a particular corner. He gave her an old shawl of his wife’s, and a straw hat, and a parcel to carry, a few books he’d wrapped in paper and tied with string. “Walk as though you have an errand and a purpose,” he said. “But not too quickly. Look to the women around you for example, if need be. I’ll be waiting.” He smiled encouragingly, and left.
The Golem waited, watching the clock on the mantel. Three minutes passed. Four. Five. Books in hand, she stepped into the hall, closed the door, and walked out onto the noon-bright street. It was the first she’d left the Rabbi’s rooms since coming to live with him.
This time she was more prepared for the assault of wants and wishes, but their intensity still took her aback. For a wild moment she wanted to flee back into the building. But no—the Rabbi was waiting for her. She eyed the incessant traffic, the streams of pedestrians and hawkers and horses all moving past one another. Gripping the parcel as if it were a talisman, she took a last quick glance up and down the street, and set off.
Meanwhile the Rabbi stood on his corner, waiting nervously. He too was having difficulty mastering his thoughts. He’d considered tailing the Golem, to make certain she didn’t fall into trouble—but it would be far too easy for her to discover his mind, focused on her as it was, and he couldn’t risk, or bear, to lose her trust. And so he’d done what he’d said he would, and went to the corner and waited. It was a test for himself as well, he decided—to see if he could let her go, and live with the knowledge that she was out there in the world, beyond his control.
Fervently he hoped they both would pass the test, for their current arrangement was growing hard to bear. His guest was undemanding, but nevertheless she was a constant and uncanny presence. He longed for the unabashed luxury of sitting alone at his table in his undershirt and shorts, drinking tea and reading the newspaper.
And there were other, more urgent considerations. In the bottom drawer of his dresser, hidden beneath his winter clothing, lay a drawstring bag that he’d found in the pocket of her coat. Inside the bag was a man’s billfold with a few notes, an elegant silver pocket watch—its works now hopelessly corroded—and a small oilskin envelope. The words COMMANDS FOR THE GOLEM were written on the envelope in spindly and uneven Hebrew. It held a roughly folded square of paper that, happily or not, had survived the journey to shore. He’d read the paper; he knew what it contained.
In the tumult of her arrival in New York, the bag’s existence had evidently fallen from her mind. But it was her property, and all that was left of her erstwhile master; he felt obscurely wrong in keeping it hidden. But then, if a child had landed at Ellis Island carrying a pistol in his pocket, would it not be right to confiscate it? For now, at least, he was resolved to keep the envelope safely out of her sight.
In the meantime, though, it had set his mind working. He’d assumed that there were only two solutions to the predicament of the Golem: either destroy her, or do his best to educate her and protect her. But what if there was a third way? What if he could, in essence, discover how to bind a living golem to a new master?
As far as he knew, this had never been done before. And most of the books—and the minds—that might once have helped him were long gone. But he was loath to discount the possibility. For now, he would see to the Golem’s education as best he could until she could live on her own. And then, he would set to work.
