The Inquisitor's Apprentice

Either way, he could see that his mother had put the loss behind her and didn’t intend to talk about it again. And he knew she’d only get angry with anyone who tried to offer sympathy — almost as angry as Mr. Kessler would get if Sacha ever dared to suggest that his cough was getting worse every winter and he might want to think about taking it a little easier now that Sacha was old enough to earn a paycheck.

The early morning symphony of ash bins and trash cans had just begun when the three of them left for work together. Uncle Mordechai had come in late again and was sleeping against the door on a pile of Mrs. Lehrer’s unfinished sewing. They clambered over him, Sacha’s father muttering all the while that any grown man who slept this late deserved to get stepped on. They crept through the back room, trying not to wake the Lehrers. Then they slipped out the door and felt their way down the unlit stairs into the pale gray light of a New York dawn.

They stood on the front stoop to say their goodbyes. From here Sacha’s father would go east to the docks while his mother went west to the Pentacle Shirtwaist Factory. and Sacha would head north to Astral Place to catch the subway.

But Sacha’s mother didn’t seem ready to leave quite yet. She glanced at him as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the right words. then she turned away to watch the garbage men, as if they were the most interesting thing she’d seen in weeks. Then she sniffled and dug through her purse to find a nickel for his subway fare.

She pushed the coin into his hand.

“Thanks,” Sacha mumbled.

“I don’t want them to think I sent you to work with dirty shoes your first day,” she said. then she pulled out a handkerchief, blew her nose — and surreptitiously dabbed at her eyes a few times.

Sacha gave her a hug. He tried to give her a kiss too, but she pushed him away. “Enough mooning around. Do you want to be late for your first day of work?”

“Go figure,” Sacha’s father said as they watched her hurry away. “The woman watches Cossacks burn her house down, walks halfway across Europe, and gets mugged on the Bowery without shedding a tear, but she can’t put her son on the subway without getting all verklempt.” He shrugged eloquently. “As the great Rabbi Salomon Ben Gabirol said, ‘When God created woman, he made a mystery beyond all mysteries.’ Hey, listen! We have a few minutes before I have to put you on the subway. What do you say we stop off at the Metropole for a cup of coffee?”

Sacha stared at his father in amazement. The Cafe Metropole was Uncle Mordechai’s territory. It was a place for fun and frivolity, where young men wasted time and money that they should be spending to support their families. If his father was willing to buy two whole coffees at the Metropole — and to stand at the bar for the precious minutes it took to drink them — then he must think Sacha’s first day of work was a truly momentous occasion.

Sacha nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and they set off for the Bowery.

The turn north from Hester Street onto the Bowery always amazed Sacha, no matter how many times he made it. It was like crossing an ocean in a single step. Hester Street was a piece of the Old Country, where laundry hung from every fire escape and familiar faces smiled at you from every doorway. But the Bowery … well, the way neighborhood women talked about the Bowery said it all. If they ran errands to the cluttered little shops on Hester Street, they’d say they’d been out to fetch bread or eggs or milk or buttons. But if they went to the Bowery they’d say, “I went to America today.”

And they were right. It was America. Plate-glass windows displayed everything from diamonds to cash registers. Horns blared as horse-drawn omnibuses battled with motorcars for control of the thronging avenue. Iron trestles marched overhead like monsters from a Jules Verne novel. And every twelve minutes — you could set your watch by it — the Elevated roared overhead, belching coal smoke and shaking the nearby buildings until their very foundations rattled.

People were different on the Bowery too. They moved differently: with the purpose and efficiency of workers who had stripped off all their old habits in order to survive in a new country and a new century. Polish tailors mingled with the children of freed slaves and Italian stonemasons and Irish ditchdiggers, shuttling back and forth every rush hour like cogs in a vast machine. Looking up the Bowery was like looking into the future. And at seven thirty on a Monday morning, the future looked like it was in a hurry.

Sacha and his father struggled through the tide of commuters until they reached the corner of Grand Street. Then they dove out of the current and staggered through the polished mahogany doors of the Cafe Metropole.

The Cafe Metropole was the spiritual home of every exiled European intellectual in the city. Your rude waiter (and the waiters at the Metropole proudly bore the title of rudest in New York) might have a master’s degree in Theoretical Magery from Budapest or a doctorate in necronomics from Heidelberg. The shabby fellow drinking coffee at the next table could be a distinguished Kabbalist, or a radical Wiccanist philosopher, or an exiled aristocrat from one of the great magical dynasties of Europe.

Of course, no one actually did magic at the Metropole; it was just about the most obvious place in New York for the Inquisitors to run one of their infamous undercover stings. Still, the Metropole’s regulars included witches and wizards educated in the top European universities. And — according to rumor — even a Mage or two. There was no doubt about it: when you drank at the Metropole, you weren’t just drinking coffee. You were drinking in a thousand-year-old tradition of Old World magic.

At this hour the Metropole was full of humble working men grabbing a morning cup of coffee on their way to the docks or factories. They all seemed to know it was the first day of Sacha’s apprenticeship. Mazel tovs rained down from every side. Even the pale and preoccupied theoretical Magicians huddled in the back corner looked up from their geomantical proofs and smiled vaguely in Sacha’s direction.

Mr. Kessler ordered two of the Metropole’s famous Viennese coffees, cocked an elbow against the counter, set one foot on the brass bar rail, and began talking. Seeing his father here, Sacha could imagine him as a student in Moscow. He could imagine how much he must have enjoyed debating politics and philosophy — and how good he must have been at it. After all, Mr. Kessler was just as smart as Uncle Mordechai. The only difference between the two brothers was that Sacha’s father had given up his own dreams to take care of his family.

Their coffees arrived, strong and sweet, in little glasses with filigreed silver handles. Sacha sipped his coffee and enjoyed the strange feeling of having his father talk to him like a grownup and equal. Finally he worked up the nerve to ask the question that had been preying on his mind all night.

“Who do you think stole Mama’s locket?”

“What do you mean? You think it could be someone we know?”

“No! I just meant … well … why would anyone want it?”

“Who knows? It was probably some hopped-up spell-fiend who wandered over from Chinatown. Those poor wretches will steal anything to get a fix.”

“You don’t think the thief could have been after the locks of hair?”

His father stared, openmouthed. “What are you talking about? You afraid someone’s going to set a dybbuk on you?”

At the word dybbuk, a man drinking next to them gasped and made the sign of the evil eye. Mr. Kessler gave him a disdainful look before turning back to his son. “You’ve been reading too many penny dreadfuls, Sacha. You’re getting an overactive imagination.”

“Well, but … couldn’t it have been a hexer or a conjure man?” Sacha didn’t know much about hex casters and con men, but he had heard that they sometimes used locks of hair to bind their victims.

“What could a con man possibly steal from us that would make it worth his while? And anyway, you and Bekah don’t need to worry. You have your grandfather looking out for you.”

“Grandpa?” Sacha asked incredulously.

“Sure. What do you think he and Mo are doing at shul every night, playing poker? I might not have gone into the family business, but you still come from seven generations of Kabbalists. It’d take more than some cheap conjure man to lay a hex on you or Bekah.”

“Oh.” Sacha felt bewildered. He’d always known his grandfather was a Kabbalist. But it had never occurred to him that Kabbalah had anything to do with practical magic — or that his grandfather could possibly have anything in common with the hexers and con men the Inquisitors arrested. “Um … do you think I should tell Inquisitor Wolf about Grandpa?”

Sacha’s father made a wry face. “I wouldn’t bring up the topic if you can manage to avoid it.”

They drank for a while in silence.