Wordlessly he pulled a telegram blank and a pencil from his satchel and handed them to her. She wrote her message, then folded it in half, and in half again—he’d never seen anyone fold a blank like that before; it seemed oddly deliberate—and handed it to him. He was puzzled at what to do with the small, tightly folded square of paper, but then stuck it in his shirt-pocket.
“I think we’d better stop here,” she said. “For the time being.”
He wanted to object, to say that he’d barely learned anything, that he had ten new questions for each of the grudging half-answers she’d given him—but the look on her face told him the effort would be wasted. He nodded, accepting his dismissal.
“Toby,” she said suddenly, “I know how difficult this must be. Just know that your mother has her reasons, and they’re very good ones.”
“I know,” he muttered. “It’s just hard to swallow, is all.”
She nodded—and then peered at his face. “Ought I to ask about that cut on your forehead? Or would that be too meddlesome?”
He grinned, suddenly self-conscious; he’d forgotten all about the scrape in the alley. “Oh, it’s nothing. Some idiots were making trouble for a bunch of girls from your Asylum, up by Colonial Park. I chased them off, and then I got to talking with one of the girls. That’s how I found you, actually. She’s in your cooking class.”
She’d been listening with a quizzical half smile; suddenly it faded. “Kreindel,” she said. “You met Kreindel.”
“Yeah—wait, how’d you know—”
But she shook her head, impatient. “Tell me exactly what happened,” she said. “Did somebody attack her?”
“Just some kids throwing rotten vegetables,” he said, confused by her intensity. “They didn’t really hurt her, it was the other one who got the worst of it. Rachel, I think.”
“And that was it?” she said, searching his face. “No one else came and . . . and fought the boys?”
“Only me,” he said, a little bewildered.
She nodded, looking relieved. Then she stood; after a moment he did likewise. “I’m afraid I have to go,” she said. “But I’m glad you found me, Toby.”
“Me too,” he said.
They shook hands; he was unsurprised, somehow, by her cool, firm grip. Then he swung a leg over his bike and rode south along the Drive, off to deliver her message.
21.
The Jinni sat on the uppermost of the Amherst’s platforms, his legs folded, gazing out over the edge.
He’d spent the hours since Maryam’s departure in unaccustomed stillness, all sense of urgency vanished. What had made the change? he wondered. Was it because, one way or another, his years of seclusion were about to end? Or was it the knowledge that Maryam herself had made that seclusion possible? Yes, he’d shut the doors and covered the windows, but it was Maryam who’d turned their eyes away. It shouldn’t make a difference, he told himself. And yet it did. It meant that everything he’d built was her gift to him, as well as his own creation.
What might she have said, he wondered, if he’d told her about the jinniyeh’s offer? What advice would she have given him? He tried to imagine himself at her coffee-house, unburdening his troubles among the backgammon players and narghile smokers. Ought he to stay and face whatever happened when his neighbors wrenched the doors open? Or should he go to the desert, and the Cursed City?
But the Maryam in his mind remained silent. Perhaps he didn’t know her well enough to imagine what she might say. Or perhaps she’d already given him all the advice that she could.
He looked up. A glow had appeared, beyond the arches.
He was waiting for her at the edge of the uppermost platform.
—Jinni, she greeted him, did you miss me?
“Yes,” he said.
She hovered near him, just over the edge.—I see why you like it here. The currents are exquisite. Well, lover, will you come back to the desert with me, as the story says?
He put out a hand; she curled herself around it. “You’ll tire of me,” he said, smiling slightly.
She took form beside him, drew him close. “Perhaps,” she murmured in his ear. “Or you’ll tire of me first, and lie with all the Bedu in turn.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t.”
Her fingers tugged at the leather apron-string. “You might change your mind when you see them. Some of the women are quite—”
He moved her hand away. “That’s not what I meant.”
Startled, she pulled back. He appeared to debate with himself, then said, “I took a human lover once, not long after I arrived here. I saw her in a park one day, and decided to seduce her. I didn’t think . . . I wasn’t careful enough. I made her ill, permanently. I’m not certain how it happened, I only know that I was the cause. She left the country, after that. I don’t even know if she’s still alive. But I swore to myself that it could never happen again.”
“Then—you’ve never had another human lover, after all this time?”
“No. And I never will.”
She watched him, schooling her expression to the mildest interest. “But surely this is too extreme a punishment. You felt no malice towards this woman, it was merely an unfortunate accident. And besides, if you don’t know what’s happened to her, then how can you be certain of the outcome? You might have changed her life for the better, in the end.”
He frowned. “How could I possibly?”
“The illness might’ve strengthened her will, even as it weakened her body.”
He seemed to consider this—but then shook his head. “She was barely more than a child, and I tore her life apart. Even if I somehow ‘strengthened her will,’ I can’t believe she’d thank me for it.” He was gazing past her, as though expecting to see Sophia floating beyond the platform, shivering in the updraft.
The jinniyeh stepped closer, drawing his attention back. “You’ve denied yourself so much pleasure, all because of a single unhappy experience. Have you always been so . . . severe?”
He smiled, and
