You were supposed to destroy him, the voice within her chided. You barely even tried.
But was he truly such a risk? After all, he’d been in that room for years with no one the wiser. And now that she knew, she could watch over him like a guardian, perhaps even visit him regularly. She smiled, picturing it: days spent with her classes and students, and nights in the alcove, in the bliss of that union . . .
And what about Kreindel? Will you invade her dreams every night, perhaps even destroy her sanity, just to satisfy your desires? After all the times you accused Ahmad of arrogance, heedlessness?
That was Chava Levy’s life. Not mine.
And this is who you would be instead?
She stared down at the muslin, the girl, the flames. Her hand went to the chain around her neck; she took a deep and shuddering breath. Why couldn’t she think clearly? Why didn’t her own arguments seem to matter anymore? She needed help, needed—
She froze. Someone was approaching in the hallway, the words Chava Levy fluttering from their mind like a flag.
A small piece of paper slid itself beneath her door.
She waited, tense, until the footsteps had receded again, before retrieving it. It was a Western Union telegram blank, with a message written in pencil:
JUST WANT TO TALK. WILL BE AT 136TH & RIVERSIDE UNTIL 1PM. WON’T TELL MA.
—TB
* * *
This far north, Riverside Park was little more than a steep green hillside that separated the genteel brownstones above from the train-tracks and coal-yards far below. Toby sat on a bench at the park’s edge, watching the river, the shimmering wakes left by the barges. He wouldn’t look around for her, he decided. He’d wait, cool and patient, as if he did this sort of thing all the time. The bench was cold, and he resisted the urge to jiggle his leg. How, he wondered, would he know when it was one o’clock? He didn’t have a pocket-watch. Maybe he ought to buy one, with his rolled-up hoard. No, his ma would wonder how he’d gotten it. He supposed he could ask a passerby for the time. They’d all have pocket-watches, a neighborhood like this. Had he ever sat still for this long in his life?
“Hello, Toby.”
She sat down on the other end of the bench, not quite beside him, and stared out at the river, something like nervousness in her eyes. She looked different now. A navy wool coat instead of the cloak, kid leather gloves, a nicer hat. She looked like she belonged here, uptown.
She glanced down at her skirt, picked away a bit of lint, folded her hands in her lap. “How is your mother?”
Toby swallowed past a dry throat. “She’s okay. Still at the laundry, still goes to her suffrage meetings. Still limps, a little.”
She nodded, as though this was what she’d expected. “And you?”
“I’m all right. I finished school, last year.”
She raised an eyebrow at that. “You didn’t want to keep going?”
“Didn’t see the point of it, at the time.” He paused, and then said, “What should I call you, anyway?”
She smiled, sad and a little wry. “To be honest, I’m not entirely sure.” She looked down at her hands, then up at him. “How did you find me?”
“Luck, mostly.”
“But not entirely. You were looking for me.” She said it as though to confirm what she already knew. “Why?”
He considered telling her that his curiosity had gotten the better of him, or that he’d done it just to see if he could. But she was regarding him with that seriousness he remembered, the sort that adults rarely ever showed him. “Because for my whole life,” he said, “there’s been this . . . this thing I’m not supposed to know. I thought it was about my father, but it isn’t—it’s more like a secret about the world itself. I can see pieces of it now and then, but I have no idea what I’m looking at.” He glanced at her. “I came to find you because I’m pretty sure you know what I’m talking about.”
Her sharp eyes turned back toward the river; she seemed to be wrestling with his answer. “And does your mother know you’ve been looking for me?”
He thought of their conversation that morning, the worry in Anna’s face. “I haven’t told her—but she might know anyway.”
The woman looked troubled. Eventually she said, “Toby, I can’t tell you everything that you want to know. I need to respect your mother’s wishes, and some secrets aren’t mine to reveal. But if you ask me your questions, I’ll give you what answers I can. Is that fair enough?”
He considered this, then nodded. It was a start, if nothing else.
“Good.” The woman sat straighter on the bench, waiting.
The sun was high above them, lifting the mist from the New Jersey hills and warming Toby’s neck. He sat forward, elbows on his knees, frowning in thought. “First question,” he said. “Who is Ahmad al-Hadid, exactly?”
She sighed as though she’d been holding her breath. “He was my friend, and more than my friend, for a long time.”
He waited for more, but she’d gone silent. Was that all? Was everything else about him not hers to reveal? All right, he’d move on. “The night you came to our apartment and my ma slammed the door in your face—was that the same night that Mr. Arbeely died?” He was pretty sure he’d said it correctly.
She glanced at him, frowning. “How did—” She stopped herself, sighed again. “Yes.”
“So why did my ma slam the door?”
She picked another imaginary bit of lint from her skirt. “She thought that I’d . . . lost control of myself. And that I would hurt you, or both of you, by accident.”
“Why would she think that?”
“It’s happened before.” And then, before he could ask: “I won’t give you the details, Toby. Just know that your mother acted sensibly.”
That made him pause, but only for a moment. “Would you have hurt us?”
“No. I
