The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
“Did he? Do anything dangerous?”
“Of course not. But he died, the year before we left. A mule kicked him in the head.” She paused, and then said, “I always wondered if he provoked it. Deliberately.”
Radzin snorted. “Suicide by mule?”
“Everyone knew that animal had a temper.”
“There would be a dozen better ways to do it.”
His wife rolled away from him. “Oh, I don’t know why I talk to you. If I say it’s black, it must be white.”
“If I see Chava standing behind any mules, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“Awful man. Go boil your head like a turnip.” They were quiet a moment, and then she said, “I’d like to see a mule try to kick her. She’d braid its legs like a challah.”
Radzin laughed once, loud in the small room. Below them, the boy mumbled something. His sister shifted on her pallet. Their parents waited, tensed—but the children grew silent again.
“Go to sleep,” Thea whispered. “And leave me some covers, for once.”
Radzin lay awake for a long time, listening to the breathing of his children and his wife. The next morning, he took his newest employee aside and told her he was raising her pay by ten cents a day. “You deserve it,” he said, gruffly. “But one word to Anna, and you’ll be splitting it with her. I don’t want her clamoring for money she doesn’t deserve.” He’d expected her to thank him but instead she only stood, looking chagrined. “Well? I just gave you a raise, girl. Aren’t you happy?”
“Yes,” she said immediately. “Yes, of course. Thank you. And I won’t tell Anna.” But she seemed more thoughtful than usual that day; and once or twice he saw her glance at Anna, her face full of a poorly disguised guilt.
“But it isn’t fair that they should pay Anna less money than me,” the Golem protested to Rabbi Meyer. “She can’t work as hard as I can! It’s not her fault!”
The Golem was pacing the Rabbi’s living room. It was a Friday night and the dishes from the small supper were still on the table. The Golem looked forward to her Sabbath evenings with the Rabbi—it was the only time all week when she could ask questions and talk freely. But on this night, her dilemma eclipsed the rest of her thoughts. The Rabbi, concerned, sat watching her pace.
“It’s not as though I need the money,” she muttered. “I have nothing to spend it on.”
“Why not buy something nice for yourself, as a reward for your work? Perhaps a new hat?”
She frowned. “I already have a hat. Is there something wrong with it?”
“Not at all,” he said, reflecting that her creator had certainly not given her a young woman’s sense of frivolity. “Chava, I understand why you’re upset, and it speaks well of you. But from Radzin’s perspective, you’re worth more than Anna. To pay you both the same would be dishonest. Say I needed to buy a new kettle, and could choose between a large one and a small one. You’d expect the larger kettle to cost more, wouldn’t you?”
The Golem said, “But what if the man who made the smaller kettle was poorer, and had a larger family to look after? Wouldn’t that figure into your decision?”
The Rabbi sighed. “Yes, I suppose it would. But if these facts were hidden from me, as they so often are, then all I would know is that there are two kettles in front of me, one large and one small. That’s all Radzin knows, as well. And please, Chava, stop pacing. You’re making me dizzy.”
Instantly she stopped, and sat in one of the parlor chairs, watching her hands twist together in her lap. “Perhaps I should give away what I don’t need,” she said. “Or”—the Golem’s face lit with the thought—“I could give it to you!”
Instantly she saw the Rabbi recoil from the idea. “No, Chava. That’s your money, not mine.”
“But I don’t need it!”
“Perhaps not now. But one must always plan for the future. I’ve lived long enough to know that there will come a time when you’ll need it, and probably when you least expect. Money is a tool, and you can do great good with it, for others as well as yourself.”
It sounded like good advice, but the Golem was not completely mollified. All the Rabbi’s answers had been like this lately, pertaining to the matter at hand but also addressing something larger that was yet to come. It made her uneasy. She felt as though he were trying to teach her as much as he could in as little time as possible. His cough hadn’t worsened, but it was no better either, and she’d noticed that his clothing had begun to hang on him, as though he’d shrunk. The Rabbi insisted that all was as it should be. “I’m an old man, Chava,” he’d said. “The human body is like a piece of fabric. No matter how well one cares for it, it frays as it ages.”
And what about a golem’s body? she wanted to ask. You say I won’t age—but will I fray? But she held her tongue. She’d begun to worry that questions such as these were too large a burden for both of them.
“Besides,” the Rabbi went on, “from what you tell me about this Anna, she sounds like a less than serious-minded woman. Perhaps she can learn from your example, even if it doesn’t come naturally to her.”
“Perhaps,” the Golem agreed. “She doesn’t seem to wish me ill as much as before. But then, she’s been preoccupied with her new suitor. She thinks about him quite a lot, and hopes he will walk her home from the bakery, so they can—” Caught up in her description, she bit back the words just in time.
“Yes, well.” The Rabbi had colored slightly. “She’s a foolish girl, if she’s given herself to him before marriage. Or at the very least, before a promise of one.”
“Why so?” the Golem asked.
“Because she has everything to lose. Marriage has many benefits, and one of them is the protection of a child, the likely result of their . . . current behavior. An unmarried man is free to leave a woman, whatever condition she may be in, without consequence to himself. And what of the woman? She’s now burdened, and may not be able to support the child, or even herself. Women in these situations have turned to the ugliest of crimes out of desperation, and then lose whatever virtue they have left. From there, it’s a short journey to disease, poverty, and death. It’s no exaggeration to say that a night of pleasure can cost a young woman her life. I saw it far too often as a rabbi, even among the best families.”
But she seems so happy, the Golem thought.
The Rabbi stood and began to clear the dishes from the table, coughing once or twice. Quickly the Golem went to help him, and they did the dishes together in silence. “Rabbi, may I ask you something?” she said after a while. “It might embarrass you.”
The Rabbi smiled. “I’ll do my best, but don’t expect miracles.”
“If the act of love is so dangerous, why do people risk so much for it?”
The Rabbi was quiet for a while. Then he said, “If you had to guess, what would you say?”
The Golem recalled what she knew of such longings, the nocturnal lusts of passersby on the street. “It excites them to be dangerous, and to have a secret from the rest of the world.”
“That’s one aspect of it, but not the whole,” said the Rabbi. “What you’re missing is loneliness. All of us are lonely at some point or another, no matter how many people surround us. And then, we meet someone who seems to understand. She smiles, and for a moment the loneliness disappears. Add to that the effects of physical desire—and the excitement you spoke of—and all good sense and judgment fall away.” The Rabbi paused, then said, “But love founded only on loneliness and desire will die out before long. A shared history, tradition, and values will link two people more thoroughly than any physical act.”
They were silent for a while, and the Golem thought about this. “Then this is what is meant by true love?” she asked. “Tradition, and values?”
The Rabbi chuckled. “Perhaps that’s too simplistic. I’m an old man, Chava, and a widower. I left this all behind years ago. But I do remember what it was to be young, and to feel that there was no one else in the world but the beloved. It’s only
He trailed away, lost in memory, staring at the dish towel in his hand. In the light of the kitchen lamp, his skin looked sallow and spotted, and as thin as eggshell. Had he always seemed so fragile? Rotfeld had looked like this, she thought, pale and sweating in the kerosene light. She’d always known that she would outlive the Rabbi, but now the cold truth hit her as if for the first time. A pulse of grief ran through her—and the drinking glass that she’d been drying shattered in her hand.
Both jumped at the noise. Clear shards fell glittering to the floor.
“Oh, no,” the Golem said.
“It’s all right,” said the Rabbi. He bent to gather up the pieces with the dishrag, but the Golem took it from him, saying, “I’m the one who broke it. And you might cut yourself.”
The Rabbi watched as she swept up the glass and rinsed the nearby dishes. “Did something upset you?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head. “I was only careless. It was a long day.”
He sighed. “It is late. Let’s finish the dishes, and then I’ll take you home.”
It was nearing eleven o’clock by the time they reached her boardinghouse. The air had turned crisp, with a cutting wind. The Golem walked headfirst into it as though it were little more than a breeze. The Rabbi walked hunched at her side, coughing occasionally into his muffler.
“Come inside the parlor and get warm, at least,” she said at the boardinghouse steps.
He shook his head, smiling. “I must be getting back. Good night, Chava.”
“Good night, Rabbi.” And she watched him walk away, a small old man on a windy street.
The Rabbi’s walk home from the Golem’s boardinghouse was torturous. The wind battered his face and cut through his overcoat and thin trousers. He shook like a half-frozen animal. But at least he had succeeded. Not once during the evening had he thought of the satchel of books and papers hidden under his bed. What would have happened, had she caught the edge of a fear, a desire? I hope she will leave soon, so that I can go back to my texts, and find a way to control her! Might she have attacked him, out of an instinct toward self-preservation? Or would she have agreed willingly, even encouraged his research? He’d never asked her whether she would prefer to have a master again, and now the thought of such a conversation made his throat tighten. In a sense it would be like asking someone whether they’d like to escape their present difficulties by killing themselves.
Constantly he had to remind himself that she wasn’t human. She was a golem, and masterless. He forced himself to remember his own little golem at yeshiva, its indifferent destruction of the spider. They were not the same creature; but at heart they had the same nature. That cold remorselessness existed somewhere in her as well.
But did she also have a soul?
On its surface, the answer was a simple no. Only the Almighty could bestow a soul, as He had ensouled Adam with His divine breath. And the Golem was a creature of man, not God. Any soul she could have would be at most partial, a fragment. If he turned her to dust, it might be an unwarranted act of destruction; it would not, however, count as murder.
But these scriptural reassurances paled when faced with the Golem herself: her disappointments and triumphs, her clear concern for his ill health. She would talk in energetic tones about her work at the bakery, and her growing confidence with the customers; and he saw not an animated lump of clay but a young woman, learning to live in the world. If he succeeded, and bound her to a new master, he would be robbing her of all she’d accomplished. Her free will would disappear, to be replaced by her master’s commands. Was that not murder, of a sort? And if it came to it, would he have the strength to do it?
By the time he reached his tenement, his footsteps had been reduced to a shuffle. Inside, the staircase stretched up into the dark. He took the steps one at a time, his hand clammy on the wood banister. He began coughing halfway up. By the time he reached his door, he couldn’t stop.
The key fumbled in the lock; shaking hands lit the lamp. He went to the kitchen for water, but the cough deepened, gripping his entire body. He bent double, nearly knocking his head on the washbasin. Finally the spasms slowed, then stopped. He lowered himself to the floor and breathed shallowly, the taste of blood in his mouth.
He’d asked his doctor to come see him, not a week ago. A bit of a cough, the Rabbi said. I only wanted to check. The doctor had spent long minutes with his cold stethoscope on the Rabbi’s chest and back, his expression growing more and more unreadable. At last he’d packed the equipment away in a battered leather case, saying nothing. How long, the Rabbi asked. Six months at most, the doctor said, and then turned away, tears on his cheeks. Yet another fear to keep from the Golem.
He drank a finger of schnapps to steady himself, and put the kettle on for tea. His hands were not shaking so badly now. Good. There was work to be done.
11.
The long stretch of rainy nights had grown nearly unbearable, and so the Jinni broke down and did something he’d vowed he wouldn’t: he bought an umbrella.
It was Arbeely who’d first suggested it, more to preserve his own sanity than anything else. After three weeks of damp weather, the Jinni was a terrible workmate, sullen and distracted, and liable to leave smoldering irons lying about. “You look like you’re about to crawl out of your skin,” Arbeely said. “Why not just buy an umbrella, instead of sitting every night in your room?”
“I thought you didn’t like my going about at night,” the Jinni said.
“I don’t. But it’s better than you burning the shop down, or one of us murdering the other. Get an umbrella.”
“I don’t need one,” the Jinni said.
Arbeely laughed. “I think it’s clear you do.”
Still, he was rather shocked a few days later when the Jinni strolled out of the morning drizzle, shaking out a large midnight-silk umbrella more suited to a West Side dandy than a Syrian immigrant.
“Where,” Arbeely said, “did you get that?”
“A pawnshop in the Bowery,” said the Jinni.
Arbeely sighed. “I might have guessed. Did they wash the blood off it?”
The Jinni ignored this and reversed the umbrella, holding it out. “Look,” he said. “What do you think?”
The handle was made of a dark, fine-grained hardwood. The last six inches were wrapped with filigreed silver, in a spiraling lattice of leaves and vines.
“It’s beautiful,” said Arbeely, holding it to the light. “You did this? How long did it take you?”
The Jinni smiled. “Two nights. I saw one like it in a shop window. Simpler than this, but it gave me the idea.”
Arbeely shook his head. “It’s far too fine. People will think you’re taking on airs.”
The Jinni stiffened. “Let them,” he said. He took the umbrella back from Arbeely, and leaned it in a corner—careful, Arbeely saw, not to muss the silk.
That night, the Jinni went back to the Bowery. It was a fascinating place, both intriguing and repellent: a vast, cacophonous labyrinth that snaked up the south end of the city. He had a feeling he’d tire of it soon; but meanwhile, it was good for a few evenings’ entertainment.
He was still getting used to the umbrella. Walking under it, he felt hemmed in, surrounded. The rain pattered against the taut silk, making it buzz like a swarm of flies.
The rain subsided to a light drizzle. Carefully he closed the umbrella—the mechanism tended to stick—and furled it, to protect the silk against stray embers from the Elevated. He had an errand to run.
The shop where he bought his gold and silver was halfway up the Bowery, near Bond Street. To all casual appearances it was an undistinguished storefront tobacconist’s, set above a saloon and below a brothel. The distant overhead rhythm of thumping furniture punctuated most of the transactions. It was run by a fence named Conroy, a small, neat Irishman. Conroy’s eyes were sharp and intelligent behind his round spectacles
Two drunken men were buying tobacco and papers when the Jinni entered the shop. Conroy smiled to see him. The two men left, and Conroy drew the shop door closed, and flipped the sign in the window. Then he reached below the counter and began pulling out an assortment of fine silver objects: cutlery, pendants, necklaces, even a small candlestick.
The Jinni picked up the candlestick, examined it. “Solid silver?”
“All the way through.”
There were no nicks or scratches to indicate that Conroy had checked, but the man hadn’t been wrong yet. “How much?”
Conroy named a price. The Jinni halved it, and they went back and forth in this way, ending at a number that the Jinni guessed was only slightly extortionate. He paid, and Conroy wrapped the candlestick in paper and tied it with string, like a cut of meat. “If you’d like to go upstairs,” he said neutrally, “it’d be at no cost.”
“Thank you, but no,” said the Jinni. He nodded farewell, and left.
Outside, the candlestick tucked into his coat pocket, the Jinni rolled a cigarette and glanced up at the windows of the brothel. That, he’d decided, was one thing he wouldn’t pay for. The only pleasure in the encounter would be purely physical, and what would be the point?
His errand over, he decided to walk the Bowery’s length. He passed tattoo parlors, mortuaries, shuttered theaters, filthy cafés. A gaming house threw harsh and tinny music onto the street. Rats scurried at the edges of the gutters and darted off below the Elevated, into the murk. Women with overpainted faces scanned the streets for marks and saw him, a solitary, handsome, clean-looking man. They beckoned to him from their doorways, and scowled when he walked past without stopping.