The Jinni looked across at her. “You’ve been quiet,” he said. “Is something wrong?”
Ought she to say what was truly on her mind? No, he’d only reply with one of his vague flippancies, or begin an argument to distract her, and she had no wish for either at the moment. “I was only thinking of poor, lonely Eugene,” she said instead. “I ought to tell Thea that I’ve sworn off all romance, but she’d only take it as a challenge.”
“Have you considered,” he said, “that poor, lonely Eugene might have a clandestine lover of his own?”
She smiled at the thought. “I hadn’t! What a relief that would be. But really, we ought to find a better phrase than clandestine lovers.”
“You don’t think it suits us?”
“Do you?”
She’d expected an arch or teasing comment—but instead he slowed to a halt, gazing at her as though truly considering it. She held herself beneath his appraising eye, refusing to shrink or simper, wishing she’d stayed silent.
“You’re right,” he said at last. “It doesn’t fit.” And then, to her surprise, he cupped a hand to her cheek and kissed her, there on the open path. It wasn’t a lengthy kiss—her lips must have been uncomfortably cold—but when he pulled back, a touch of his warmth remained for a moment, before the winter air stole it away.
Pleased, a bit puzzled, she said, “You’re in an odd mood. Did something happen at the shop?”
He made a show of thinking. “Yes. Our new shipment of wrought iron came in.”
She rolled her eyes at that, but couldn’t help smiling.
They walked on together, up the path to the Ladies’ Cottage by the skating pond. The door was always locked at night, but she tried the knob anyway. She was stiffer than usual, and her legs ached. She would’ve liked to get out of the cold, for a few minutes at least.
“Look,” the Jinni said. A pair of ice skates lay next to the door, abandoned in the snow. He picked them up by their leather straps and inspected them, held one to his shoe, then peered out at the frozen pond, considering.
“You wouldn’t,” she said.
“Why not?” He walked to a nearby bench, sat down, and began strapping them to his feet.
“You know exactly why not,” she said, irritated. “What if you fell through?”
“Chava, the pond’s been frozen for months. It’s not even particularly deep. Besides, you’d rescue me.”
“Oh, really? If the ice doesn’t hold you, it won’t hold me, either. I’ll sink to the bottom and freeze solid. And you don’t even know how to skate.” She paused. “Do you?”
“Not as far as I know.” He stood from the bench, wobbling on the blades. “It might be like the languages, though. Perhaps I can skate perfectly well, only I don’t know it yet. I ought to try, at least.” And he began a precarious, stiff-legged walk to the pond’s edge.
She followed after him, resigning herself to the spectacle. At times like this she felt he was taking advantage of her instinct to caution, needlessly racking her nerves so he might feel he’d done something daring. If she could tell him, Yes, go ahead and skate, I think it’s a lovely idea, perhaps he’d lose interest. But he knew her better than that, and she had no talent at all for bluffing.
She stood on the shore, hugging herself as he stepped out onto the ice, his arms outstretched, tilting this way and that. If she weren’t so annoyed, she might’ve laughed: instead of his usual graceful self, he looked like a drunken stork, all limbs and joints, none of them quite behaving. “I don’t think it’s like the languages,” she called.
“Apparently not. How does one move forward on these things without—” A foot slipped out from under him, and he came crashing down on the ice.
She flinched, though she’d tried not to.
Out on the ice, the Jinni ignored his embarrassment and stood again, feeling for his balance on the thin blades. It ought to be easy; he’d seen children do it . . . He scowled, shifting his weight, trying to ignore a small, uneasy prickle of guilt.
Did something happen at the shop?
He wondered, as he often did, if his thoughts were as hidden from her as she believed. Yes, something had indeed happened at the shop. He hadn’t mentioned it because it was a minor thing, insignificant really; it was only his own mind that insisted on magnifying it out of proportion. He’d been at his workbench, examining one of the newly arrived bars of wrought iron—he had ideas for a line of decorative goods in wrought iron, andirons and fireplace screens and the like—when Arbeely, perusing a catalog at his desk, had said, Any idea how much solder we have left in the back?
Not off the top of my head, the Jinni had replied—and then had stood there in shock, utterly aghast at himself.
Don’t bite my head off. She’s coming unhinged. A fine kettle of fish. Oh, go threaten the geese. To trade these phrases with the Golem was one thing; it was knowing and deliberate, a shared amusement. But his reply to Arbeely had been so absentminded, so natural-sounding, that one might’ve thought he’d spent his entire life talking about the tops of heads. And in that moment it had struck him—for what felt, absurdly, like the very first time—that he’d never speak his own language again.
The sense of monstrous loss confused him. After all, he rarely even thought in his own language anymore. He’d resolved to do so for the rest of the day, to reassure himself that he still could fill his mind with words that mimicked wind and fire, the sounds of the natural world—and only then had he realized how much of his life refused to be translated. Newspaper, ledger-book, automobile. Money, cigarette, customer, bank, catalog. In vain he’d hunted for equivalents, metaphors, but they were all wrong, either too vague or too poetic. Even
