One afternoon, a boy walking down Washington Street happened to glance through the shop window just in time to see Mister Ahmad pull an iron bar from the forge with his bare hand and carry it halfway to the anvil before he seemed to realized what he was doing. Quickly the man returned the bar to the forge, put on his gloves, picked up the tongs and began again. Baffled, the boy thought of the old rumors, then decided he must have misunderstood what he’d seen. There’d been no glamour of magic about it, no incantations or flourishing gestures—only a dejected and ordinary man lost in his own concerns.
* * *
The Golem ought to have been celebrating her achievements.
Her end-of-term exams had gone as well as she’d wished. She’d been careful not to score highest in her class, instead contenting herself with a spot in the top quarter: an undeniable success, but not a conspicuous one. And she’d performed admirably in her teaching practicums at Wadleigh High School, where she’d learned to judge by her students’ thoughts whether they found the lesson easy or complicated, dull or interesting. Before long, even the girls who’d silently scoffed at her clothing and her accent were, at the very least, paying attention.
But now the city was mired in summer’s doldrums. The girls of Wadleigh had all gone north to Westchester, or abroad with their families. Most of Teachers College, too, had vanished rather than brave the notorious summer session, with its stifling classrooms and shuttered cafeterias. Other than herself, the few who remained were mostly scholarship students, accustomed to making the most of their circumstances. Before long they’d organized their own roster of amusements: evening picnics in the quadrangle, excursions to the recreation piers. The Golem dearly wished to join them, and she knew they would’ve welcomed her. But every time she considered it, the Jinni’s caustic rebuke—You seem to forget, sometimes, that you are not one of them—buzzed inside her like a fly trapped in a glass.
So instead she kept her distance, and tried to busy herself with other things. She asked the Jinni about Arbeely’s treatments, thinking that she might help somehow, as she had with Anna—and yet every question seemed to anger him more. He’d grown unpredictable, his moods impenetrable. Sometimes, in his bed, he seemed his usual self, attentive to her desires as well as his own. At other times, she wondered if he truly knew she was there.
Walking alone was still a comfort. After class, she headed north along the well-heeled stretches of Broadway and Riverside, past apartment buildings with names like the Billmore and Saxonia Court. At Trinity Church Cemetery she wandered among the tombs and obelisks, more like a sculpture-garden than a graveyard to her eyes. But no matter her route, it always ended at the Asylum. The longer she spent watching the children through the fence, the more the orphanage seemed like a world unto itself, one whose rules she knew by instinct. Find your place. Don’t draw attention. If you’re sad, don’t let it show.
Then she’d return to Broadway, to mingle among the currents of pedestrians that dipped in and out of the subway stations: clerks and secretaries, businessmen and salesgirls. The women especially fascinated her. Ought I to buy myself a new coat? went their thoughts. I must remember the flowers for Mrs. Pearson tomorrow. Some anticipated an evening out, at the theater or the picture-house. One, imagining a plain supper and a cheap novel, might feel glum at the prospect; another, picturing the same, was filled with contentment. Taken together, they seemed like a secret regiment of the solitary, the self-sufficient. It satisfied the Golem to walk among these women, and pretend for a time that she was one of them—until she, too, boarded the subway for home.
* * *
At summer’s end, Arbeely began to improve.
His cough lessened, and his voice grew stronger. He started to eat again, a few bites here and there. He slept less, and sat up in bed, and saw visitors. One August day, the Jinni came to the man’s apartment to find him at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of broth and scrutinizing a newspaper. The Jinni stood in the kitchen doorway, not truly believing, and looked to Maryam Faddoul, who was heating more broth at the stove. Maryam said nothing, only tilted her head toward their mutual friend: Are you seeing this, too?
Arbeely looked up from his paper. He’d lost a good deal of weight, and wore a scarf wrapped around his neck despite the heat. “Ahmad! I’m glad you’re here. They won’t let me outside, but I’m about to tear my hair out from boredom. Can you bring me the ledgers from the Amherst? And the mail, if it isn’t too much trouble?”
“Of course,” the Jinni said. He nodded solemnly to Maryam—she nodded back, her eyes dancing—and then went downstairs, where he sat abruptly on the apartment stoop and took deep, shuddering breaths of the thick summer air.
“Mister Ahmad?” A young boy was standing at the bottom of the stoop. “You okay?”
The Jinni drew in a last breath, then looked at the boy. “I think I will be,” he said, and smiled for the first time in months.
* * *
Autumn arrived.
Uptown, the Teachers College students poured back onto campus, full of gossip about their summer travels. A number of the girls sported new engagement rings; the Golem admired them and offered her congratulations, her own thoughts elsewhere. Her walks with the Jinni had improved somewhat, now that Arbeely was better—yet still they said little beyond minutiae.
“It’s like we’ve forgotten how to be
