“It’s all right, Toby,” Missus Chava said gently, from the doorway. “I’ve found it.”
He nodded, relieved. Missus Chava had been a bustle of activity ever since their return. The icebox, so recently bare, was now packed with eggs and vegetables. A fresh-baked challah cooled on the counter; the aroma of chicken soup floated through the apartment.
“Are you hungry at all? Would you like some soup?” Her tone was neither prodding nor expectant, as though any answer he gave would be the right one.
He shook his head, and then, conscious of his manners, forced himself to say, “No, thank you.”
“Will you try to eat something later, after I’ve gone?”
He nodded, eyeing his bicycle in the corner, wishing he could go out and ride. She must have followed his gaze, for she said, “Your mother told me that you’re a Western Union messenger now.” She smiled. “She also said that you’re very good at it.”
“She did?” That surprised him. Within his earshot, his mother only voiced worries and complaints. You ride too fast on that bicycle, it terrifies me. Why do you have to be gone so early in the morning, can’t you ask for better hours? If those gears and things aren’t off my table by supper-time . . .
“Does riding in traffic ever frighten you?” Missus Chava asked.
“Not really,” he said. “It’s easy, as long as you pay attention. And if I get lucky, and there’s a clear street for a block or two, maybe a bit of a slope, and I can get going really fast . . . there’s this point where everything just lifts off me. Like I’m flying.”
He brought a hand up in demonstration—and then realized that, for a moment, he’d forgotten about his mother. He reddened, dropped his hand.
She came to sit next to him on the sofa. “Toby, can I tell you something?”
He nodded, not looking up.
“I’ve been spending time uptown, lately,” she said. “Sometimes, if I don’t have anything else to do, I walk around and explore the neighborhoods. If I’m feeling unhappy, or unsettled, walking always makes me feel better. I suppose it’s like you and your bicycle.” She smiled, briefly. “Yesterday, I found an orphanage I’d never seen before. I stood there for a long time, watching the children on the playground. It felt like a lonely place, but it made me feel better to be there, because I felt lonely, too. Does that make sense?”
Yes, Toby thought: this made sense.
“That’s where I was,” she said, “when the fire started. When I came back, and heard what had happened, I was angry with myself. I told myself that I should’ve stayed home, that I could’ve helped, somehow. I know,” she said to his puzzled frown, “but it’s so tempting to imagine. Like punishing oneself, but with wishes.”
He saw now that she was talking about him, and his mother’s leg. He nodded.
“And besides,” she said with a smile, “it turned out that I was needed here after all. How did you know where to find me?”
“Mama told me,” he said, “that if I was ever in trouble, I should find Missus Chava at her boardinghouse on Eldridge.”
“Good,” she said firmly. “I’m glad. It makes me feel better to know that someone needed my help. But please, don’t tell your mother I said so. She’ll say I’m ‘going funny in the head.’”
This last she said with such an accurate imitation of his mother’s voice that he laughed once, breathily—and then the sobs were upon him, and he cried into her shoulder while she held him, her touch cool and soothing.
He calmed after a while, and fell asleep. When he woke, he was alone, still on the sofa. The counterpane from his mother’s bed had been placed over him. The clock told him it was nearly one in the morning. His head ached, and his stomach growled. He went to the kitchen, and found three slices of challah waiting on a plate, next to a bottle of seltzer. He ate, and drank, and felt better.
It felt strange, to be alone in the apartment. He thought of his mother in her bed uptown, wondered if she, too, was awake, and fretting about the cost. He wished he could tell her about Missus Chava at the front desk, telling them to send the bills to her Eldridge Street address, as cool as you please—
A puzzle-piece suddenly fell into place. My bicycle, he thought. That had been Missus Chava’s doing, too. He imagined them planning the gift together, on one of their walks around Seward Park. How many secrets had they discussed together, over the years? What else did Missus Chava know?
* * *
The wet weather returned a month later, on the morning of the memorial parade.
The entire city came to a halt, thousands huddling beneath awnings and umbrellas as the squadrons of women marched from Seward Park to Washington Square and then up Fifth Avenue, their fringed banners aloft and defiant in the rain. Ladies Waist & Dressmakers Union, Local 25. United Hebrew Trades of New York. We Mourn Our Loss.
The Golem, though, was not among the onlookers. For her, the past month had been excruciating. Uptown, her classmates had turned newly solicitous, approaching her in the courtyard to press her hand and ask how she was faring, if she’d known anyone who’d died. No, I didn’t, she told them truthfully—and yet, after so long among others’ grief, it felt like a falsehood. And there was a grasping undercurrent to their questions, a desire to
