Kitabı oku: «The Golem and the Djinni», sayfa 3
The journey back had been long, and by the time he reached his palace a strange loneliness had settled over him. Perhaps it had to do with the caravan. He’d grown used to their conversation, their songs and stories; but he had no part in them, he merely overheard. Perhaps it had been too long since he’d sought out his own kind. He decided he would leave off chasing caravans, and go to the habitations of his clan, and dwell among them for a time. Perhaps he’d even seek out female companionship, a djinniyeh who might desire his attentions. He’d arrived at his palace at sunset, making plans to leave again in the morning—and there his memories ended.
After that, only two images penetrated the haze. In the first, a man’s brown, gnarled hands clamped the iron cuff across his wrist, and with this image came the impression of searing cold and bottomless fear, a djinn’s natural reaction to iron—but how, he wondered, did he not feel it now? And then, the second image: a man’s leathered face, lips cracked and grinning, the bulging yellow eyes glowing in triumph. Wizard, the memory told him. But that was all; and in the next instant he was sprawled, naked and bound, on the floor of Arbeely’s shop.
Except that it had not been only an instant. Apparently he’d been trapped in the flask for over a thousand years.
It was Arbeely who’d managed to calculate that figure, while searching for clothes for his naked guest. He’d pressed the Djinni for anything he could remember from the world of men, something that might narrow down the year of his capture. After a few false starts, the Djinni had recalled the caravan guards talking of the Grand Mosque, the new building in ash-Sham. “They’d said that inside the mosque was the head of a man, but not his body,” he said. “It made no sense to me. I might have misunderstood.”
But Arbeely assured the Djinni that he’d heard correctly. The head belonged to a man called John the Baptist, and the mosque was now known as the Umayyad Mosque—and it had stood in the city of ash-Sham for over a thousand years.
It didn’t seem possible. How could he have been trapped for that long? Rare was the djinn that lived more than eight hundred years, and he himself had been nearing two hundred when he began to chase the caravans. But not only was he still alive, he felt no older than before. It was as though the flask had not only contained his body, but also paused him in time. He supposed that this way, a wizard could extend the usefulness of his captive for as long as possible.
The flask now sat on a shelf in Arbeely’s shop. Like the iron cuff, it revealed nothing of its maker. Arbeely had shown him the partially erased pattern of scrollwork around its base—apparently a sort of magical stopper that had kept him sealed inside. But how did you fit in there with the olive oil? Arbeely had asked, a puzzle not nearly as interesting to the Djinni as how he’d allowed himself to be captured and bound to human form in the first place. Perhaps the wizard had followed him to the djinn habitations, or laid some sort of trap. He wondered if the wizard had treated him like one of Sulayman’s slaves, forcing him to build pleasure palaces and slaughter enemies at his command. Or had the wizard simply cast him aside, like an enticing trinket that, once acquired, loses its appeal?
Of course, the man would be dead by now. The wizards of legend had been powerful indeed, but still mortal. The yellow-eyed man had long since gone to dust. And whatever enchantment he’d placed upon the Djinni, his death had not lifted it. The thought came, crawling, hideous: he might be trapped like this forever.
No. He pushed the thought away. He would not accept defeat so easily.
He looked down at the iron railing, then gripped it with both hands, concentrating. He was near exhaustion; the confinement in the flask had apparently destroyed his strength—but even so, within a few moments the metal was glowing a dull red. He tightened his grip and then let go, leaving behind an outline of his fingers pressed into the railing. No, he wasn’t helpless. He was still a djinn, one of the most powerful of his kind. And there were always ways.
He was beginning to shiver, but he ignored it. Instead he turned and gazed up at the city that rose from the water’s edge, the enormous square buildings that reached far into the heavens, their windows set with perfect panes of glass. As fantastical as cities like ash-Sham and al-Quds had seemed from the caravan men’s tales, the Djinni doubted that they’d been half so wondrous or terrifying as this New York. If he must be marooned in an unknown land, surrounded by a deadly ocean, and constrained to one weak and imperfect form, at least he’d ended up somewhere worth exploring.
Arbeely stood a few feet away, watching the glow of the iron railing fade beneath the Djinni’s hands. It still seemed impossible that this could be happening while the rest of the city went about its business, unchanged and unknowing. He wanted to grab the nearest passerby and shout: Look at this man! He isn’t a man at all! See what he’s done to the railing! He supposed that if he wanted to be hauled off to the lunatic asylum, there were worse ways to go about it.
He looked out across the bay, trying to see it through the Djinni’s eyes. He wondered how he himself would feel, to wake up and discover that over a thousand years had passed. It would be enough to drive anyone mad. But the Djinni only stood straight-backed and grim, staring at the water. He didn’t look like a man about to run amok. The dirty, too-small clothes he wore clashed ludicrously with his figure and features, hanging from him as though in apology. He turned his back to the water and gazed at the buildings massed at the park’s edge. It was only then that Arbeely noticed that the Djinni was shaking from head to toe.
The Djinni took a step from the railing. His knees buckled, and he fell.
Arbeely lunged and caught him before he hit the ground, and hoisted him to his feet. “Are you ill?”
“No,” the Djinni muttered. “Cold.”
They made their way back to the shop, Arbeely half-supporting, half-carrying his new acquaintance. Once inside, the Djinni stumbled to the banked forge and collapsed, leaning against its scorching side. The borrowed work shirt smoldered where it touched the metal, but he didn’t seem to notice. He closed his eyes. After a while his shaking stopped, and Arbeely decided he’d fallen asleep.
The man sighed and looked about. There was the copper flask, sitting on the shelf, but he didn’t want to think about it for the moment. He needed an easy task, something quiet and calming. He found a teakettle with a hole in the bottom, brought to him by a local restaurant owner. Perfect: he could patch a teakettle in his sleep. He cut a patch from a sheet of tin plate, heated both kettle and patch, and set to work.
Occasionally he glanced at his guest, and wondered what would happen when he woke. Even silent and unmoving, the Djinni carried a strange air about him—as though he were not quite real, or else the only real thing in the room. Arbeely supposed that others would sense it as well, but he doubted they’d ever guess at its meaning. The young mothers of Little Syria still tied iron beads around their babies’ wrists and made gestures to ward off the Evil Eye, but out of tradition and fond superstition more than true fear. This new world was far removed from the tales of their grandmothers—or at least so they’d thought.
Not for the first time he wished he had a confidant, someone with whom he could share even the most outrageous secret. But in the tightly knit community, Boutros Arbeely was something of an outsider, even a recluse, happiest at his forge. He was terrible at idle chitchat, and at wedding banquets could be found sitting alone at a table, examining the stamp-marks on the cutlery. His neighbors greeted him warmly on the street, but never lingered long to talk. He had many acquaintances, but few close friends.
It had been no different in Zahleh. In a family of women he’d been the silent, dreaming boy-child. He’d discovered smithing by lucky accident. Sent to run an errand, he’d stopped in front of the local forge and watched, fascinated, as a sweating man hammered a sheet of metal until it became a bucket. It was the transformation that enthralled him: useless to useful, nothing to something. He returned over and over to watch until the smith, exasperated with being spied upon, offered to take on the boy as an apprentice. And so smithing came to fill Arbeely’s life, to the near exclusion of all else; and though he supposed in a vague way that someday he’d find a wife and start a family, he was content with things as they were.
But now, glancing at his guest’s prone form, he felt a premonition of lasting change. It was the same as when he’d been seven years old and heard his mother’s rising wail through the open window as she learned of her husband’s death, killed by bandits on the road from Beirut. Now as then, he sensed the threads of his life scattering and rearranging before this new and overwhelming thing that had landed among them.
“What is that you’re doing?”
Arbeely jumped. The Djinni hadn’t moved, but his eyes were open; Arbeely wondered how long he’d been watching. “I’m patching a teakettle,” he said. “Its owner left it on the stove too long.”
The Djinni inclined his head toward the kettle. “And what metal is that?”
“It’s two metals,” said Arbeely. “Steel, dipped in tin.” He found a scrap on the table and held it out to the Djinni, pointing out the layers with his fingernail. “Tin, steel, tin. You see? The tin is too soft to use on its own, and with steel there’s the problem of rust. But together like this, they’re very strong, and versatile.”
“I see. Ingenious.” He sat up straighter, and held out his hand to the teakettle. “May I?” Arbeely handed him the kettle, and the Djinni peered at it, turning it over in his now-steady hands. “I assume the difficulty lies in thinning the edges of the patch without exposing the steel.”
“That’s it exactly,” said Arbeely, surprised.
The Djinni laid his hand over the patch. After a few moments, he began to carefully rub the patch around its edges. Arbeely watched, dumbfounded, as the outline of the patch disappeared.
The Djinni handed the teakettle back to Arbeely. It was as though the hole had never been.
“I have a proposition for you,” said the Djinni.
Spring rains can come on suddenly in the desert. On the morning after the Djinni returned from following the caravan to the Ghouta, the skies clouded over, releasing first a thin patter of raindrops, and then a respectable downpour. The dry riverbeds and gullies began to run with water. The Djinni watched the rain sluice down the walls and crenellations of his palace, irritated at the inconvenience. He had planned to depart for the djinn habitations at first light, but now he would have to wait.
And so he roamed his glass halls, examining the metalwork and making idle changes here and there to pass the time. His thoughts returned to the men of the caravan, their conversations and jests. He remembered the old man’s songs about the Bedouin, and wondered if the men in them had truly been so brave, the women so beautiful. Or were they only invented legends, the details altered and exaggerated over time?
For three days the rains came and went, three days of infuriating confinement. If the Djinni had been able to go outside, and chase himself to the ends of the earth, then his growing obsession with the world of men might have dissipated, and he might have gone to visit the djinn habitations of his youth, as planned. But when the clouds exhausted themselves and the Djinni at last emerged to a newly washed landscape, he found that all thoughts of returning to his own people had vanished with the rains.
3.
The Golem was not even a few hours in New York before she began to long for the relative calm of the ship. The din of the streets was incredible; the noise in her head was worse. At first it nearly paralyzed her, and she hid under an awning as the desperate thoughts of the pushcart vendors and paperboys rode ahead of their shouting voices: the rent is due, my father will beat me, please somebody buy the cabbages before they spoil. It made her want to slap her hands over her ears. If she’d had any money, she would’ve given it all away, just to quiet the noise.
Passersby glanced her up and down, taking in her staring eyes, the dirty and disheveled dress, the ludicrous men’s coat. The women frowned; some of the men smirked. One man, weaving drunk, grinned at her and approached, his thoughts bleary with lust. To her surprise she realized this was one desire she had no wish to fulfill. Repulsed, she dashed to the other side of the street. A streetcar came rattling around the corner and missed her by a hair. The conductor’s curses trailed her as she hurried away.
She wandered for hours, through streets and alleys, turning corners at random. It was a humid July day, and the city began to stink, a pungent mix of rotting garbage and manure. Her dress had dried, though the river silt still clung to it in flaking sheets. The woolen coat made her even more conspicuous as the rest of the city sweltered. She too was hot, but not uncomfortable—rather, it made her feel loose-limbed and slow, as though she were wading through the river again.
Everything she saw was new and unknown, and there seemed to be no end to it. She was frightened and overwhelmed, but an intense curiosity lay beneath the fear, leading her on. She peered inside a butcher’s shop, trying to make sense of the plucked birds and strings of sausages, the red oblong carcasses that hung from hooks. The butcher saw her and started to come around the counter; she gave him a quick, placating smile, and walked on. The thoughts of passersby flew through her mind, but they led to no answers, only more questions. For one thing, why did everyone need money? And what exactly was money? She’d thought it merely the coins she saw exchanging hands; but it was so ubiquitous in both fear and desire that she decided there was a larger mystery to it, one she had yet to decipher.
She skirted the edge of a fashionable district, and the shop windows began to fill with dresses and shoes, hats and jewelry. In front of a milliner’s she stopped to gaze at an enormous, fantastical hat on a pedestal, its wide band bedecked with netting and fabric rosettes and a gigantic, sweeping ostrich plume. Fascinated, the Golem leaned forward and put one hand on the glass—and the thin pane shattered beneath her touch.
She jumped back as a rain of shards tumbled from the window and scattered onto the sidewalk. In the shop, two well-dressed women stared out at her, hands over their mouths.
“I’m sorry,” the Golem whispered, and ran away.
Afraid now, she hurried through alleys and across busy thoroughfares, trying not to blunder into pedestrians. The neighborhoods shifted around her, changing block to block. Grubby-looking men and indignant shopkeepers shouted at one another, airing grievances in a dozen languages. Children dashed home from shoeshine stands and games of stickball, thinking eagerly of supper.
A sort of mental exhaustion began to set in, dulling her thoughts. She headed eastward, following the tips of the shadows, and found herself in a neighborhood that bustled with less chaos and more purpose. Shopkeepers were rolling up their awnings and locking their doors. Bearded men walked slowly next to each other, talking with intensity. Women stood chatting on corners, string-tied packages in their arms, children pulling at their skirts. The language they spoke was the same one she’d used with Rotfeld, the language she’d known upon waking. After the day’s riot of words, hearing it again was a small, familiar comfort.
She slowed now, and looked around. Next to her a tenement stoop beckoned; she’d seen men and women, young and old, sitting on such stoops all day. She tucked her skirts beneath herself and sat down. The stone was warm through her dress. She watched people’s faces as they came and went. Most were tired and distracted, occupied with their own thoughts. Men began to arrive home from their shifts, exhaustion on their faces and hunger in their bellies. She saw in their minds the meals they were about to tuck into, the thick dark bread spread with schmaltz, the herring and pickles, the mugs of thin beer. She saw their hopes for a cooling breeze, a good night’s sleep.
A loneliness like fatigue pulled at her. She couldn’t sit on the stoop forever, she must move on; but for the moment, it felt easier to stay where she was. She rested her head against the brick of the balustrade. A pair of small brown birds was pecking in the dust at the bottom of the stoop, unconcerned by the tramping feet of passersby. One of the birds fluttered up the steps and landed next to the Golem. It prodded at the stone with its sharp beak, then turned sideways and hopped onto the Golem’s thigh.
She was surprised but managed to hold perfectly still as the bird perched in her lap, bobbing and pecking at the remains of the riverbed silt that still dusted her skirt. Thin, hard feet scratched at her through the fabric. Slowly, very slowly, she extended a hand. The bird hopped onto her palm and stood there, balanced. With her other hand she stroked its back. It sat patiently as she felt its soft sleek feathers, the tiny fluttering heartbeat. She smiled, fascinated. It tilted its head and looked at her with a round unblinking eye, then pecked once at her fingers, as though she were simply another patch of earth. For a moment they regarded each other; and then it gathered itself and flew away.
Startled, she turned to track its path—and saw an elderly man watching her from the shadow of a grocer’s cart. Like her, the man was dressed in a black wool coat despite the heat. A white fringe peeked out from underneath the hem. He wore a white beard, neatly trimmed, and his face beneath his hat was a net of deep lines. He watched her calmly, but the thought she heard was tinged with fear: could she be what I think she is?
Hurriedly the Golem stood and walked away, not looking back. Ahead of her was a crowd of men and women, passengers from the Second Avenue Elevated. She tried to lose herself among them, following the main part of the crowd as small groups splintered away at corners and doorways. At last she ducked into an alleyway, then dared to look out. The man in the black coat was nowhere to be seen.
Relieved, she emerged from the alley and continued east. Now the air smelled of the sea again, of salt and coal smoke and engine grease. The shops were mostly closed, and the pushcart vendors were packing up their suspenders and cheap trousers, their pots and pans. What would she do once night fell? Find a place to hide, she supposed, and wait for morning.
A stab of reflected hunger struck her. A scrawny, dirt-stained boy was loitering on the sidewalk ahead, eyeing a nearby vendor who stood sweating over his cart. As she watched, a man in shirtsleeves approached the vendor and gave him a coin. The vendor plucked up a sheet of waxed paper, dipped into his cart, and emerged with a doughy disk the size of his fist. The man bit into it as he walked toward the Golem, fanning the steam from his mouth. The boy’s hunger rose, desperate and all-consuming.
If the boy were not starving, if the man had not passed so near—if, most of all, her experiences that day had not drained her so—she might have controlled herself, and walked away. But she was not so lucky. The boy’s visceral plight had transfixed her. Didn’t he need the meal more than the man did?
No sooner had she formed this thought than her hand reached out, plucked the man’s meal from his grasp, and handed it to the boy. In the next moment he was running away down the street, as fast as his legs could carry him.
The man grabbed her arm. “What did you mean by that?” he snarled.
“I’m sorry,” she began, about to explain; but the man was red-faced and furious. “You thief!” he shouted. “You’ll pay for that!”
Others were beginning to notice. An older woman stepped to the man’s side. “I saw the whole thing,” she said, glaring at the Golem. “She stole your knish and gave it to the boy. Well, girl? What do you have to say for yourself?”
She looked around, bewildered. Men and women were forming a crowd around her, eager to see what would happen. “Pay up,” someone called.
“I don’t have any money,” she said.
A hard laugh ran through the crowd. They wanted her to be punished; they wanted her to pay. They were flinging their angry desires at her like stones.
Panic filled her—and then, strangely, it ebbed away. She felt as though time was slowing, stretching. Colors grew sharper, more focused. The low sun seemed bright as noon. Fetch a policeman, someone called, and the words were slurred, elongated. She closed her eyes, feeling as though she were on the edge of an abyss, teetering, about to fall.
“That won’t be necessary,” said a voice.
Instantly the crowd’s attention shifted—and the Golem felt the abyss recede. Relieved, she opened her eyes.
It was the old man in the black coat, the one who’d been watching her. He was coming quickly through the onlookers, concern on his face. “Will this pay for your knish?” he asked, and handed the man a coin. Then, slowly, as though not to startle her, he placed a hand on the Golem’s arm. “Come with me, my dear,” he said. His voice was quiet, but firm.
Did she have a choice? It was either he, or the crowd. Slowly she stepped toward the old man, away from her accuser, who stood frowning at the coin.
“But this is too much,” her accuser said.
“Then do something good with the rest,” replied the old man.
The crowd began to disperse, some clearly feeling they’d been robbed of entertainment. Soon it was just the two of them, together on the sidewalk.
He regarded her again as he had in the cart’s shadow. Then he leaned forward, and seemed to sniff the air around her. “As I thought,” he said, a touch regretful. “You’re a golem.”
Shocked, she took a step back, ready to run. “No, please,” he said. “You must come with me, you can’t be wandering the streets like this. You’ll be discovered.”
Should she try to lose him again? But then, he had just saved her; and he seemed neither angry nor accusatory, only concerned. “Where will you take me?” she asked.
“My home. It’s not far from here.”
She didn’t know if she could trust him—but he was right, she couldn’t keep wandering forever. She decided she must trust him. She must trust someone.
“All right,” she said.
They began to walk back the way she had come. “Now tell me,” the old man said, “where is your master?”
“He died at sea, two days ago. We were crossing from Danzig.”
The man shook his head. “How unfortunate,” he said. Whether he referred to Rotfeld’s death, or the larger situation, she wasn’t certain. “Is that where you lived, before this?”
“No, I wasn’t alive,” she said. “My master didn’t wake me until the crossing, just before he died.”
That surprised him. “You mean to say you’re only two days old? Extraordinary.” He rounded a corner, and the Golem followed. “And how did you make it through Ellis Island, on your own?”
“I was never there. An officer on the ship tried to question me, because I had no ticket. So I jumped into the river instead.”
“That showed quick thinking on your part.”
“I didn’t want to be discovered,” she said.
“Just so.”
They walked on, back the way the Golem had come. The sun had long since ducked behind the buildings, but the sky still shone, brassy and thick with the day’s heat. Children began to emerge from the tenements again, looking for one last adventure before bedtime.
The man was quiet as they walked. She realized she didn’t even know his name, but she hesitated to ask—he was lost in his thoughts. She could feel the questions circling in his mind, all with herself at their heart: what should I do with her? And in one brief flash, she saw an image of herself struck down, turned to a formless heap of dirt and clay in the middle of the street.
She halted, stock-still. But instead of panic, she only felt a deep weariness. Perhaps it would be for the best. She had no place here, no purpose.
He’d noticed she was no longer at his side and doubled back, concerned. “Is something wrong?”
“You know how to destroy me,” she said.
A pause. “Yes,” he said, guarded. “I have that knowledge. Few do, these days. How did you know this?”
“I saw it in your mind,” she said. “You considered it. For a moment, you wanted it.”
Confusion furrowed his brow—and then he laughed, without mirth. “Who made you?” he asked. “Was it your master?”
“No,” she replied. “I don’t know my maker.”
“Whoever it was,” he said, “was brilliant, and reckless, and quite amoral.” He sighed. “You can feel others’ desires?”
“And fears,” she said. “Since my master died.”
“Is that why you stole that knish, for the boy?”
“I didn’t mean to steal,” she said. “He was just … so very hungry.”
“It overwhelmed you,” he said, and she nodded. “We’ll have to address that. Perhaps with training … Well, that can wait, for now. We must deal with more practical matters first, such as finding you clothing.”
“Then—you won’t destroy me?”
He shook his head. “A man might desire something for a moment, while a larger part of him rejects it. You’ll need to learn to judge people by their actions, not their thoughts.”
A moment’s hesitation; and then she said, “You’re the only one to speak kindly to me since my master died. If you think it best to destroy me, I’ll abide by that decision.”
Now he looked shocked. “Have your few days been so difficult? Yes, I see they must have been.” He put a comforting hand on her shoulder; his eyes were dark but kind. “I’m Rabbi Avram Meyer,” he said. “If you’ll allow it, I will take you under my protection, and be your guardian. I’ll give you a home, and whatever guidance I can, and together we’ll decide what course is best. Do you agree?”
“Yes,” she said, relieved.
“Good.” He smiled. “Now, come with me. We’re almost there.”
Rabbi Meyer’s building was a tenement like all the others, its hard facade stained with dirt and smoke. The lobby was dark and close, but well kept; the stairs creaked with protest beneath their feet. The Golem noticed that her companion’s breathing grew labored as they ascended.
The Rabbi’s rooms were on the fourth floor. A narrow entryway led to a cramped kitchen with a deep sink, a stove, and an icebox. Socks and underclothes hung above the sink, drying. More laundry sat in piles on the floor. Dirty dishes lay jumbled together on top of the stove.
“I wasn’t expecting company,” said the Rabbi, embarrassed.
The bedroom was large enough only for its bed and a wardrobe. Beyond the kitchen was a small parlor, with a deep, worn sofa of green velvet set beneath a large window. Next to it was a small wooden table, with two chairs. A large collection of books lined one side of the room, their spines cracked and faded. More books were stacked in haphazard piles about the room.
The Rabbi said, “I don’t have much, but it’s enough. Consider this your home, for the time being.”
The Golem stood in the middle of the parlor, not wishing to dirty his sofa with her dress. “Thank you,” she said.
And then, she caught sight of the window. The sky was darkening, and the gas lamps in the parlor were bright enough to create a reflection. She saw the image of a woman, superimposed against the neighboring building. One hand fluttered up slightly from her side, then lowered; the woman in the window did the same. She stepped closer, fascinated.
“Ah,” said the Rabbi quietly. “You haven’t seen yourself yet.”
She studied her own face, then ran a hand through her hair, felt the thin strands stiff with river water. She gave it an experimental tug. Would it grow, or remain forever the same length? She ran her tongue over her teeth, then held out her hands. Her nails were short and square. The nail on the left index finger had been set a bit off center. She wondered if anyone beside herself would ever notice.
The Rabbi watched her examine herself. “Your creator was quite gifted,” he said. But he couldn’t keep a hint of disapproval from his tone. She looked back down to her fingertips. Nails, teeth, hair: none of these features were made of clay.
“I hope,” she said, watching her own mouth move, “that no one was harmed in my making.”
The Rabbi smiled sadly. “So do I. But what’s done is done, and you are not to be blamed for your own creation, whatever the circumstances. Now, I must go find you some clean clothes. Stay here, please—I’ll be back shortly.”
Alone, she watched her reflection for a little while longer, thinking. What if the Rabbi had not come when he had? What would have happened? She’d been standing inside the angry crowd’s circle, feeling the world fall away, as though she were about to cross a threshold into—what? She didn’t know. But in that moment, she’d felt calm. Peaceful. As though all worries and decisions were about to be lifted from her shoulders. Remembering, she shivered with a fear she didn’t understand.
It was growing late, and most of the shops were closed; but the Rabbi knew that a few would still be open near the Bowery, willing to sell him a woman’s dressing gown and a few pairs of underclothes. He could barely afford the expense: besides his small pension from his former congregation, his only income came from teaching Hebrew to young boys studying to become bar mitzvot. But it must be done. Warily he crossed the raucous thoroughfare, avoiding the paths of drunken men, and the eyes of the women who stood beneath the Elevated, waiting for custom. On Mulberry he found a clothing store still open, and bought a woman’s shirtwaist and skirt, a dressing gown, slips and drawers, and stockings with garters. After a moment’s hesitation, he added a nightgown to the pile. She wouldn’t need it for sleeping, of course, but the selection of women’s things had overwhelmed him; and besides, she couldn’t simply wear a dressing gown with nothing on beneath it. The clerk frowned at his coat and fringe, but took his money quickly enough.
