* * *
“Pass the salt, Ma.”
Anna Blumberg raised her eyebrows at her son. “I didn’t put in enough salt for you?”
“I’m just asking for the salt, is all.”
Anna huffed and handed Toby the salt-shaker, watched him douse his potatoes and shovel them into his mouth. Still a growing boy, her Toby. Almost fifteen, and already taller than her—though he still had his childhood habit of never sitting still, except for supper.
Toby chewed beneath her scrutiny. She was sore at him, like always; he told himself that he didn’t much care. “You got a meeting tomorrow?” he asked.
“No, Friday.” Her face soured, and his, too. Anna’s suffrage meetings always left her in a terrible mood. She’d come home fuming about the fancy-hatted ladies who liked to stand up and make speeches: What have we gained that we might show our sisters who died at Triangle, and so on. It made her want to scream, she said. Not a one of those peacocks would’ve worked a day at Triangle, not for all the tea in China. But she went anyway, and spoke her mind. Toby knew she believed in the cause, and he supposed he was proud of her for going—but he couldn’t help resenting it all the same. She never smiled anymore. Neither of them did.
She eyed his shirt. “You’ve got a spot, boychik.”
He rolled his eyes, dabbed at the spot with his napkin.
“You need to take better care of your things, or the next uniform’s out of your own pay.”
“All right, Ma.” He could afford it, easy, but didn’t say so. He didn’t want her to know he’d defied her orders about taking deliveries to the Tenderloin, to the addresses where young women lounged about in parlors and winked at him, and tipped in quarters instead of nickels. But how could he turn down the extra money? He’d need it if he wanted to take a girl out someday. Girls, lately, had become a point of definite and consuming interest. The city seemed to have filled up with them when he wasn’t looking. They made him bashful and his body unruly; they perplexed with their mere presence. What on earth was he supposed to do about them? His father would’ve told him, he was sure of it. Or he might’ve asked Missus Chava, if his mother hadn’t chased her out of their lives. She’d never explained that to him, either, not even an I’ll tell you when you’re older. Which would’ve been a lie, anyway. Maybe it was good he didn’t have a girl yet. His ma would’ve chased her away, too.
He finished the potatoes, took his plate to the sink, fetched his jacket from the sofa.
“You’re going out again?” his mother asked, alarm in her voice.
“Yeah, just to ride. Don’t wait up.” The door slammed behind him.
Anna sighed. Don’t wait up. The man of the house now, and he certainly acted the part, with his silences and glowers, his making her worry every night. Oh, and she knew about the extra money from the Tenderloin brothels; she’d found the loose floorboard under the sofa, his cigar of rolled-up bills—or did he think he’d invented that trick? She’d resolved not to confront him about it, only checked the roll every so often to make sure it neither grew nor shrank too quickly. Either, she knew, would spell trouble. And what would happen if the war came, if America decided at last to pick a side and fight? Europe was a maze of trenches; the headlines talked of thousands of men sacrificed for gains measured in yards. Maybe he was too young to be drafted now, but it wasn’t hard to imagine such a war raging on for years, and her Toby sent into one of those trenches—or even volunteering to go, just to get away from her.
She supposed it would be punishment for her sins, for refusing to tell him everything he wanted to know. And maybe she deserved it—but not for the sin of slamming the door in the Golem’s face. That, she’d do a hundred times over, if she had to. She’d thought it was her own death at the door that night, and Toby’s, too, the bill for their lives come due at last.
Three years, now, and not a sign of her. Had she left the city altogether? Anna had thought about making inquiries in Little Syria—but that was only curiosity, and she ignored its temptations. On the nights when her worries kept her awake, she’d stare up at the ceiling and think to herself, Enough of the fairy tales. Chava Levy was no more a golem than I am. Or, sometimes: It could’ve been anyone in the alley that night. It was dark, and the mind plays tricks.
But she could never make herself believe it.
Toby rode west on Canal, aiming for Death Avenue.
This was his favorite time to ride, these hours when the worst of the traffic had cleared but there was still enough light to see by. He dodged a pedestrian and then a wagon, scanning the blocks ahead for obstacles. The bike Missus Chava had given him was like a part of him now. He kept it in good repair, replaced the spokes and tubes when they needed it, never stinted on the grease. He could teach the Western Union mechanics a thing or two, if he said so himself.
The air changed as he approached West Street, thickening to a mist that smelled of brine and coal-smoke. He turned north, the pier sheds flashing by. Ferry stacks poked above their roofs, gray wisps drifting from their insides. Railroad ties rumbled beneath his tires—and he
