He sat on a cushion, drew a bar of iron from the pile, and set to work.
At Radzin’s Bakery, the day was coming to a close. Moe Radzin raked the ashes in the ovens while Thea assured the line of customers that of course there were enough challahs left; her girls always made plenty for everybody. The Golem was wiping down a worktable when there came a knock at the locked front door. A young woman stood there, waving through the glass.
“Selma!” Thea cried, and rushed to unlatch the door.
The Golem smiled. She, too, was glad to see Selma Radzin; the girl’s presence relieved the anxiety that had become Thea’s constant companion ever since Selma’s contentious move to Astoria. She can’t stay at home, like other girls? Thea had wailed—knowing, if only dimly, that it was her own overbearing habits that had set the girl on her path. In the end, Selma had won the battle, but she still returned home for Sabbath supper every week, at her mother’s demand.
The girl took off her hat, and suffered Thea’s usual rain of kisses, Moe’s gruff peck on her cheek. She turned to greet the Golem—and paused, a puzzled line upon her forehead. Why, the girl thought, does Chava never seem to age?
A moment later, Selma had pushed the thought away and was telling her parents the news of the week, the doings of her friends and room-mates. But her brief and startled thought still echoed in the Golem’s mind, the tolling of a bell that signaled disaster.
She didn’t linger over good-byes, but hurried to her boardinghouse, where she fetched her small hand mirror, sat on the bed, and gazed for a long while at herself. The wide-set eyes, the nose that curved under at the tip. The waved hair, cut to brush her shoulders. All of it exactly the same as the day she was made. And now someone had glimpsed the truth, if only the barest corner of it.
At once she wondered how she could’ve been so foolish. Why hadn’t she planned for this? Had she expected to stay at the bakery forever, without anyone noticing? Perhaps she could use cosmetics to imitate wrinkles and gray hair, as actors did for the stage—but no, that would never pass scrutiny. And now others besides Selma would notice, they were bound to. A customer might remark to a friend, You know, that Chava never seems to get older; and their friend would reply, I was just thinking that myself. Curiosity would turn into suspicion—and the longer she stayed, the worse it would grow. Would she have to leave Radzin’s? But where else could she possibly go? The bakery and its rhythms were the underpinnings of her life; she’d have to uproot herself and begin again from nothing—
There was a crunch as the mirror’s wooden handle splintered in her grip.
Quickly she set the mirror down. She couldn’t stay in her tiny room a moment longer, she needed to be out and walking—but the Jinni wouldn’t come until midnight at the earliest. Outside, the evening light slanted across the rooftops. These were the last acceptable minutes for a woman to be out alone. If she was going to leave, it must be now.
She fastened her cloak around her shoulders and walked to Little Syria, trying to hurry as inconspicuously as possible. Even so, a few of his neighbors glanced at her curiously as she entered his building—That’s the Bedouin’s lady, isn’t it? Adding to her dismay, there was no reply to her knock, no light beneath his door. Most likely he was at the shop; he and Arbeely had spent the months since the Amherst’s purchase drowning in new work. But if she marched down the street to the Amherst she’d only draw more attention to herself. She’d simply have to wait.
She let herself in with her spare key, took off her cloak, and frowned. As usual, he’d left his apartment in a shambles. His wardrobe stood open, a pair of trousers dangling from the hamper inside. Unpaired cuff-links lay scattered across a small dresser; on the bed, the pillows were heaped together, the bedclothes mussed. Sometimes she thought he did it deliberately, to set himself against her own exactitude. She would not tidy up, she told herself; it was his apartment, and his mess. But the disorder grated at her agitated mind, and soon enough she was pairing the cuff-links and hanging away the trousers, lifting the heavy mattress one-handed to fold the sheets tightly around the corners. He’d be angry with her, but for now that seemed the lesser of two evils, if it allowed her to keep calm. Besides, what else was she to do with herself while she waited?
“Staying late tonight?”
The Jinni looked up from his work. Arbeely had stuck his head around the curtain, and now stood squinting into the darkness.
“I think I must,” the Jinni said. “But I’ve made good progress. I’ll have the rest by tomorrow.” He handed one of the
