“You never noticed?” said Anna Blumberg, incredulous. “Moe Radzin and his baking beauties?”
They were walking together at Seward Park, on the circular path around the playground, as they had every few months since the summer of the ice. Anna had chosen the meeting-place; she was still frightened of the Golem, and the public setting helped calm her nerves. It also gave Anna the rare chance to be seen in the company of a well-respected woman. Mothers pushing perambulators noticed them walking together, their voices low and serious, and wondered what such different women might have to say to each other. Some speculated that the widowed Mrs. Levy, denied a family to fuss over, had taken it upon herself to act as a social worker for the unfortunate Miss Blumberg. And indeed Anna had begun, if slowly, to reclaim a small amount of respectability. She’d found a job at a new laundry, which set her up well enough for a third-floor apartment, one with working windows and a fire escape. A few of her old acquaintances even acknowledged her on the street when they passed.
“I suppose I noticed the customers staring, but that just seemed to be the way of things,” the Golem said. “And I was the sole exception, wasn’t I? Moe didn’t choose me, he hired me as a favor to Rabbi Meyer. He would’ve passed me over, given the choice.”
Anna huffed. “More fool him, since you’re the reason for his success. Well, think about it,” she said at the Golem’s dubious frown. “That tiny store turning out all those pastries? How many trays go into the ovens on an average day?”
“Thirty-five,” the Golem said at once.
“It was two dozen at most before you came along. Same storefront, same lines out the door, only now they sell half again as much. You’re the difference.” She glanced sidelong at her companion. “Has he given you a raise for all this extra work you’re doing?”
“Fifty cents a day.”
Anna snorted her opinion of Moe’s generosity—and then they turned a corner on the path, and the woman’s attention was caught by a small figure on the boys’ playground: a dark-haired, cherub-faced boy who’d clambered up to the top of the swing-set and now perched there, legs dangling, a dozen feet above the half-frozen ground.
“Oh, that boy will be the death of me,” Anna muttered. And a worried image rose in her mind: Toby waking in panic in the early hours, unable to hold still, tearing himself from his mother’s arms in his fear.
“Oh, Anna,” said the Golem. “The nightmares?”
Anna nodded. “He won’t talk to me about it. Or he can’t, maybe. It’s not right, Chava. He’s too young for such unhappiness.”
“Perhaps he’ll grow out of them, in time,” the Golem said. “Or he’ll tell you about them, when he’s old enough.”
“You’re only saying what you know I want to hear.”
“But that doesn’t make it untrue.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Anna muttered, and the Golem could sense her resolving to change the subject. “And you? How are you handling the winter?”
“Better, now that the weather’s warming.” She glanced up at the trees, the first buds of green misting along their branches.
“And Ahmad?”
The Golem wanted to smile at the woman’s studied neutral tone; Anna and the Jinni’s brief interactions had been abrasive at best. “He has his moods. I think the winters are nearly as hard for him as they are for me, only he doesn’t want to admit it.” She wondered if she ought to tell Anna about the ice-skating incident. The phrase I know enough to hide from the rain had drifted through her mind at odd moments ever since, like a secret she wasn’t meant to overhear.
“He’s behaving himself, though?” Anna said. “No broken promises?”
The Golem cast her a quizzical glance. “None that I know of. What makes you ask?”
“That look on your face,” the woman said. “Like you’re trying to convince yourself of something.”
“Oh, it’s only that he seems unhappy lately. Not with me, or at least I don’t think so. I just worry that he misses his old life, and that he’s judging what he has by what he lost. I want him to be content, but I don’t know what he needs.”
“Well, of course he’s still judging by his old life—he’s centuries old, isn’t that so?” She said it lightly, as though speaking of anyone’s age, but the Golem could feel her struggle: Think of it, to live so long!
“Two centuries, I think.”
“Well, there it is. Five years must be like the blink of an eye to him. So let it lie, for a while, before you go trying to fix things.”
The Golem sighed. “You’re right, it’s just so hard to be patient. Oh, and that reminds me—I managed to avoid another of Thea’s attempts at matchmaking. It was the expansion that put it out of her head.”
Anna’s mouth twisted. “No cloud without a silver lining.”
“I wish I could send her bachelors your way instead,” the Golem said tentatively.
“If they’d have me, I wouldn’t want them.”
“Anna.”
“I’m only teasing, Chava.”
“No, you’re not.”
Anna sighed, acknowledging the lie. “It doesn’t matter anyway. They’re a risk I can’t afford.” The woman looked again to Toby at the top of the swing-set, who now hung from his knees, grinning as his face turned purple. Her boy, in constant motion. There was so much she wanted to give him: clothes that fit him properly, food enough to fill their icebox, the silver Schwinn bicycle he’d set his heart upon. It’s the one the Western Union boys ride, Ma. And yes, a father, she wanted that for him, too—but more than anything, she wanted to end his nightmares. She would never forgive herself if she added to them instead, if she made another mistake like Irving, out of loneliness or a need to be desired. She wouldn’t let it happen, even
