“Not really,” she admitted.
“Don’t worry, my ma will take you in. Once I’ve explained. Except, um—” He glanced back at the door. “I have to find Missus—Miss Levy first. It’s kind of important.” The sickly smile had returned.
With careful nonchalance Kreindel said, “Would you say that Miss Levy is made of stronger stuff than most women?”
The smile faded; he stared at her. “Yeah. Yeah, I would. Feet of clay, though, don’t you think?”
Kreindel laughed in relief. “Oh, absolutely.”
“Holy cats. How did you find out—”
“Toby,” she cut over him, “is your mother really her friend?” Was such a thing possible? Could someone like Miss Levy have a friend—a regular, ordinary friend?
He eyed her, uncertain. “She used to be. Though I don’t know if she’d say so in those words, exactly. Why?”
“Because I know where Miss Levy is.” She took a quick, nervous breath. “And she isn’t alone. There’s another golem with her. His name is Yossele.”
* * *
At the House of Relief, the damage to Sophia’s body was repaired.
By luck or Providence, the bullet had missed the nearby artery, the surgeon explained to Julia. The loss of blood had been minimal. However, sepsis was still possible, and even if she recovered fully, she’d be weak with anemia for some time . . .
Julia, half listening at Sophia’s bedside, wiped away her tears. She felt a sickening déjà vu, as though she’d never left the Paris hospital where they’d begun this terrible chapter in their lives. She watched as Sophia lay asleep—then peered down at the woman’s twitching eyelids, her furrowed brow. “Is she in pain?” she asked.
The doctor, too, squinted at Sophia’s face, then lifted her wrist and felt her pulse. “No, she’s still anesthetized,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll increase the dosage.” He replaced her wrist at her side and withdrew.
Sophia watched through the jinniyeh’s eyes as she flew above the city, past newsstands, tailors, dray-carts, cobblestones, milk-wagons, factory lofts—
What did you do to me? the jinniyeh cried.
I did nothing, Sophia said. You’re the one who broke our bargain.
I wish I’d never seen you, said the jinniyeh—and Sophia realized the language they spoke was the jinniyeh’s, and that she understood every word. Seen: the female form, used for an adversary.
You thought of me as an enemy from the beginning, Sophia said. Perhaps that was your mistake.
Oh, so condescending, both you and the iron-bound one.
Then you found him? Sophia said—and at once she saw it all, their whole encounter from beginning to end, the jinniyeh’s memories as clear to her as her own.
Get out! snarled the jinniyeh. Those are mine!
Oh, Dima, what have you done, Sophia whispered.
I didn’t mean to! I swear to God—oh, what is happening to me, what are these words—
The doctor returned with the chloroform mask, and Sophia sank back into the depths.
23.
Kreindel held onto Toby’s belt with both hands, and prayed that they wouldn’t be killed.
She was perched upon the seat of his bicycle, her feet held awkwardly to either side of the rear tire. Toby stood on the pedals in front of her, steering them south along Riverside. She was terrified of losing her balance, but he kept them going fast enough that they didn’t wobble, and before long she was leaning into the turns a little, like he did. Automobiles and wagons streamed by on one side, dusky trees and the river on the other—and in the middle was Toby, hunched over the handlebars, the brim of his cap angling to left and right as he watched the cross-streets. Her damp hair fluttered behind her; the breeze cut through her thin coat and stockings. She shivered, and tightened her grip upon his belt.
“You doing okay?” he called over his shoulder.
“I think so,” she called back. She was, in fact, utterly exhilarated. The Asylum was behind her, she’d never go back—and oh, what a way to leave!
The river was dark now, all glimmers of sunlight gone.
The Golem held Yossele’s hand, guiding him onward as he watched Kreindel. He felt her happiness at having left the Asylum at last, her joy at the bicycle ride. The pair on the street was gaining on the pair in the river; soon, Toby and Kreindel would overtake them, and pull ahead. To the Golem’s relief, Yossele felt no rage at Toby’s presence—only a bittersweet regret that the boy could be with his master in the open air while he, Yossele, could not.
They walked south along the shipping channel, the current at their backs, steamboats and barges cutting through the water above. The land held steady to either side of them, guiding them past ferry docks and freight depots, the oblique bend at Chelsea Piers. This is where I first came ashore, she told Yossele, and then showed him the memory: a shining summer day, the steamship coming into dock, her leap from the rail. How she’d pulled herself out of the water, and wandered the incomprehensible city.
And in return, he showed her the weeks he’d spent hiding in the shallows beneath the unfinished bridge, waiting for Kreindel’s call. The thick scents of algae and engine grease, the whistle of the breeze through the cattails. The keening cries of migrating birds, the bite in the air as summer turned to autumn.
I wish I had known, she told him sadly. She pictured it, and he saw it, too: how she would’ve come to his hiding-place in the clay at the river’s edge, how she would’ve sat beside him, sharing in his vigil while he waited—
And suddenly it was all too much for Yossele to bear.
He turned away, struggling against his inner vision. He didn’t want this longing for something that hadn’t happened and never would! What was the point of if only, when there was only the endless now of his watching, his servitude? What was the point of this new mind that she’d given him, if everything it showed him was beyond his reach?
Yossele, she said, don’t—
He pulled his hand away, and the connection broke.
Yossele!
He was
