Next to the door, upon a low stool, sat one of the oldest women Sophia had ever seen. She was tiny, and deeply hunched, with a face as crinkled as a walnut shell and eyes that were nearly obscured by drooping lids. She saw Sophia, and her empty mouth pulled back in a smile. She waved Sophia closer, gesturing to a pallet that lay at her feet.
Nervously Sophia obeyed. She’d gone to exorcists before, had paid sizable fees to be prayed over by imams and Sufis, but none of them had helped. This woman, though, seemed different from the others. She leaned forward, her fingers at Sophia’s jaw, angling Sophia’s face into the sunlight from the open door. Sophia’s vision swam as the woman held her eyelids open, searching. At last she drew back with a grunt. She gestured for her patient to lie back on the pallet, then placed a hand low on Sophia’s stomach, pressing here and there until she found a spot that seemed to interest her. The old woman looked up at Umm Sahir and spoke briefly in an unknown dialect, her words slurred with age and toothlessness.
“She asks how long ago,” Umm Sahir told Sophia.
Sophia swallowed reflexively. “Eleven years,” she said.
The old woman spoke again. “A long time, for such an injury,” Umm Sahir said. “It might not be possible.”
“I understand,” Sophia said, struggling not to hope.
A few more muttered words—and now Umm Sahir went to the dried herbs that hung on the wall, selecting sprigs here and there and tying them together with thread. She handed the bundle to Umm Ishaq, who lit a small brazier next to the pallet and placed the herbs upon it. At once the air was thick with pungent smoke. Umm Sahir filled a bowl with water from a jug, washed her hands and arms up to the elbows—Sophia was reminded uncomfortably of a surgeon—and then brought the bowl to Umm Ishaq, who did the same.
The exorcist then gestured to Sophia’s head, mimed removing the pins and undoing the braid.
Sophia stiffened. “No—thank you, but—”
The old woman held out a hand to stop her, then pointed above the half door. Sophia squinted, and saw a profusion of iron amulets, dozens of them, mounted around the threshold.
“You’re safe here,” Umm Sahir said.
A last hesitation—and then Sophia undid the pins and loosed her hair. It fell around her shoulders, deeply crimped after so long in the braid. Without the weight her head felt too light, as though it might float away; or perhaps that was just the smoke from the brazier.
The old woman made her lie back on the pallet, then brushed thin, dry fingers over Sophia’s eyes to close them. Sophia lay motionless as a warm oil was rubbed onto her forehead and then her abdomen. Umm Sahir squatted by Sophia’s head, and placed her hands on their patient’s shoulders, as though to hold her in place.
The old woman began to chant in a high, thin voice. There was Arabic in the words, and other languages, too—Aramaic? Phoenician? Sophia wanted to listen, to remember, so she might write it down later; but the exorcist’s warm palms rested heavily on her oiled forehead and stomach, and as though in response, the chill inside her strengthened. Her body began to shake despite the medicine she’d taken, her ever-meager warmth draining away completely. The woman was chanting more loudly now, but Sophia could barely hear her. Stop, she wanted to say, but her teeth were clenched so tightly she feared they might shatter. Her spine had gone rigid, her breath was locked in her throat, she was going to freeze to death—
Whiteness swept across her vision.
When she opened her eyes, the light through the door had changed from late morning to midday. A sheepskin-lined coat, smelling of hay and lanolin, had been placed over her like a blanket. Umm Sahir was no longer there; Sophia could hear her outside, instructing a customer in which herbs to steam for a sore throat.
Umm Ishaq sat asleep on the stool beside the door, her chin sunk to her chest. As Sophia sat up, she woke, and shook her head with regret.
But Sophia already knew. She nodded, and reached for her coin-purse. Umm Ishaq waved her away with a half-offended look, but Sophia said, “Please. For your grandchild.” At last the woman nodded and accepted the small stack of lira. Then Umm Ishaq settled back and fell asleep again, leaving Sophia to braid her hair with cold and trembling fingers.
* * *
It was a Saturday morning in March, and the Golem was at the subway station on Spring Street, waiting for her train uptown.
“Chava Levy,” cried a woman nearby, “is that you?”
The Golem turned, spirits flagging. Gittel Epstein, Thea Radzin’s closest friend, was hurrying across the platform in a flurry of false warmth.
“Our very own college girl!” said Mrs. Epstein as she embraced the Golem. “I miss seeing you at the bakery! How are your studies, have you met anyone nice?”
The Golem kept a smile in her voice as she replied. Yes, her classes were going well; yes, she was heading up to campus now, to visit the library. In a year, if all went as planned, she’d have her teaching degree in Domestic Sciences.
“Domestic Sciences, my goodness!” the woman said with a fluttering laugh.
In my day, the Golem thought wearily, we just called it cooking.
“In my day,” the woman said, “we just called it cooking!”
The train arrived then, pushing a damp gust of air into the station. “Take care of yourself, Chava dear,” the woman called, thinking, Never would’ve marked that one for a striver. And after everything Thea did for her, too.
The Golem found a seat in the subway carriage among the clerks and secretaries, feeling as though she’d been
