He shook his head. “It’s not the same at all, Chava.”
She was growing annoyed. “You’re right. I’m far more fortunate. I won’t get ill, or starve to death. I don’t live in fear of a man’s fists. I’m spared all of that.”
“And in return, you only need to hide.” His voice was bitter.
“Many of them are hiding, too, Ahmad.”
“I am not talking about them!”
He’d shouted it loud enough that a nearby night-watchman, asleep on his stool behind a window, woke with a start and peered out at the street. Chagrined, the Golem put out a hand: Lower your voice.
“I’m talking about you.” He’d quieted, but he was still more angry than she’d seen him in some time. “You and me. We are different, Chava. We cannot be their drudges, or allow them to . . . to wipe their feet upon us, all in the name of ‘hiding.’ You let them rule you far too easily.”
She’d stiffened at the word drudges. “That’s all well and good, coming from you.”
His eyes narrowed. “And what does that mean?”
“Only that you have freedoms that I don’t. You can choose to lock yourself away in your shop, and take no note of others’ opinions, and speak as little to your neighbors as you wish, and all they will think is, There goes Ahmad al-Hadid, that unsociable fellow. What do you think would happen if I were to do the same?”
“They’d say, There goes Chava Levy, that unsociable woman.”
She snorted. “That is the least of what they’d call me. It’s different for women, Ahmad—no, don’t argue, just listen. If a man smiles at me, I must smile back, or else I am a shrew. If a woman mentions she’s having a terrible day, I’m obligated to ask what the matter is, otherwise I’m arrogant and uncaring. Then I become the target of their anger, and it affects me whether I deserve it or not. If I were to act as you do, and alienate half the people I meet—how long do you think it would be before the noise grew unbearable?”
He frowned and looked away, as though trying to imagine what it would be like to hear the unspoken opinions of his neighbors as he passed them on the street. Not for the first time, the Golem wondered if it would change him in the least.
“I can’t afford their anger,” she said quietly. “You know that better than anyone.”
He blew out an explosive breath, and scrubbed his face with his hands. Then he took a step toward her, reached out, and pulled her close. She put her arms around him; and for long and wordless minutes, they held each other.
* * *
“Have you seen the embossing hammer?” the Jinni asked the next morning.
Arbeely looked up from his workbench, already scowling. “No, I haven’t,” he said. “And our good rawhide mallet is missing, too. I assume they’re both in the back, inside that tangled mess of wrought iron you’re building.”
“It isn’t my fault if there isn’t enough space—”
“If you want to go on with these experiments,” the man spoke over him, “then please find another place to do it. It’s interfering with our paid work.”
The Jinni snorted. “Yes, our endlessly interesting paid work. Necklaces and earrings and reading-lamps, cover plates for electrical switches, the same old trinkets for Sam Hosseini to sell. I could make them in my—with my eyes shut,” he said, seeming to catch himself.
Arbeely sighed, and put down his tracing pencil. “So you’re bored,” he said dryly.
“Yes,” the Jinni said, crossing his arms. “I am bored.”
“And this isn’t to do with the weather, or a fight with Chava.”
The Jinni shot him a contemptuous look.
“I was merely asking,” Arbeely insisted, hurt. “It’s been the case before.”
“I know, I know.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, then dropped into Arbeely’s desk-chair—the man winced as its springs let out a squawk—and rolled a cigarette, touched it, inhaled. “We went to Chelsea last night, to the construction pit for the new station,” he said, through the smoke. “You should see it. They’ve built an entire narrow-gauge railroad just to haul the dirt up to the street. They’re starting to lay the foundation, there are piles of girders everywhere, I’ve never seen so much steel . . . The river tunnels will connect straight to the concourse, all of it beneath the subway. It’ll be a feat in itself.”
“And then you came back here,” Arbeely said, “to the reading-lamps and cover plates.”
His partner nodded, his eyes elsewhere.
“People need such things,” the man said gently. “Besides, we’re tinsmiths. Not an engineering firm.”
The Jinni was silent a moment. Then he got up from Arbeely’s chair and disappeared into the back room, and returned a moment later with a short length of wrought iron. He sat down across from Arbeely and gripped the rod in one hand. A long pause, the familiar smell of heated metal—and the iron began to glow. He shifted his grip, the length of iron now between his palms, fingers laced above, like a gambler shuffling his deck. A quick push: and now his hands were cupped together, the iron vanished inside. A twist and a pull, and the rod stretched between his hands like glowing taffy. He brought the ends together, folded the iron and spun it, stretched it again: and now there were many strands, far thinner and finer, and for a moment Arbeely was a child in his mother’s kitchen, watching her make the noodles for supper. Another dizzying series of folds, a spin—something flared
