I ought to bring Chava here, he thought, as he always did. The station had been open for months now, and still they hadn’t seen it together. It wasn’t his fault, not really; it had been a long winter and a wet spring, and his mind had been elsewhere. Business was still pouring in. The shop had been featured in a few of the city’s fashionable magazines; one had even sent an illustrator, who’d captured the Jinni at the anvil in mid-swing. A few of Little Syria’s children had taken to scouting the train stations for tourists and charging them a nickel each to escort them to the showroom. Everyone marveled that the business still comprised only the two partners—and yet in truth all the ironwork was the Jinni’s, for Arbeely was kept busy by his other duties. At one point Arbeely had suggested bringing on an apprentice smith to lighten the load—but the Jinni had turned him down. The truth was that he worked better alone. Tools stayed where he put them; supplies failed to vanish when his back was turned. He could imagine an entire commission from start to finish without having to draw tedious diagrams, and improvise if necessary without explanation or argument. The workshop was his own domain, and he was glad of it.
And yet sometimes he missed the early days of their partnership, the subterranean shop full of pots and pans, the trivial repairs—even the endless circular arguments, as Arbeely attempted to explain yet another bizarre facet of human nature. Nowadays they might go hours on end without exchanging a single word. Other Syrian businessmen would drop by, and their chuckling voices would carry from Arbeely’s desk to the Jinni’s ears—and something like loneliness would creep inside him. But loneliness for what? He had no true desire to hear the neighborhood gossip, or to listen as they reminisced about villages he’d never seen; nor did he wish to tell lies of a Bedouin childhood he’d never lived. So instead he would step closer to the forge, and allow its comforting murmur to shade out the human voices so he might concentrate.
Sometimes he felt like telling all of this to the Golem. But lately, during their nights together, he could hardly get a word in edgewise. Yes, of course he was glad that she enjoyed her studies—but must she tell him everything she’d learned about the human digestive system, and in such unfortunate detail? Now that she’d been enlightened upon these matters, she’d apparently decided that he, too, was in need of improvement. And for all her newfound volubility, her life seemed more opaque than before, not less. What did she do all day, on that campus? She appeared to him the same as ever—yet he had the sense of small, disorienting changes occurring out of sight. Then again, it had been a long winter, and a damp spring. Perhaps things would improve now that the rain had stopped.
He finished his cigarette, took a final, strengthening glance upward at the soaring trusses, and left the station for the long walk south.
* * *
In the library reading room, the Golem plumbed the depths of her Food Chemistry texts while, above her, the university regents peered down from their portraits as though reading over her shoulder. She greatly preferred the main library, with its anonymous crowd, to the more intimate Teachers College library, where she felt conspicuous among her classmates. There goes Chava, by herself as usual . . . Should I invite her for tea? But what would we talk about? No, I won’t bother her, she must want to study, otherwise she wouldn’t have come all the way uptown . . . Far better to remain here, where she might study in peace.
She’d thought to stay longer, and loiter among the back issues of McCall’s—but it was past four o’clock, and the library’s chill was making her legs ache. So instead she returned her borrowed books to the shelving desk, and went down the library steps, past the marble-fronted buildings and carefully tended lawns, and out onto the wide expanse of Broadway.
After so many years of working behind a counter from morning until nightfall, to walk alone in the daytime like this was a surprising new luxury. Her classes and lectures were scattered through the week, among various mornings and afternoons, which left entire handfuls of hours in which she was meant to be nowhere in particular. She couldn’t fill them all with study, so she walked instead. The increase in exercise had done wonders for her winter stiffness, and now she could spend even a string of nights alone in her room without discomfort. It made her less reliant on the Jinni—which was probably for the best, as he was consumed lately by his work and tended to be in a difficult mood. For once, she’d seemed to have an easier winter than he had.
She went north on Broadway, past Teachers College itself, a long quadrangle of tall buildings that faced inward around a narrow lawn. On a Saturday afternoon like this, there’d be earnest discussions in the cafeterias, and giggling and gossip in Whittier Hall. She’d considered moving to Whittier only briefly, before discarding the idea. She’d have no privacy there at all, and at far greater expense than her boardinghouse.
She detoured west at 122nd, to walk along Riverside Park: a half-neglected wild this far north, its terraced lawns tangled
