Kitabı oku: «The Golem and the Djinni», sayfa 8

7.

On a warm Saturday in September, the Djinni stood at the back of a crowded rental hall and watched as a man and woman were united in the Maronite Catholic sacrament of marriage. Despite the palpable joy of the other onlookers, he was not in the best of moods.

“Why should I go, when I don’t even know them?” he’d asked Arbeely that morning.

“You’re part of the community now. You’ll be expected at these things.”

“I thought you said I should maintain some distance, while I’m still learning.”

“Distance is one thing. Rudeness is another.”

“Why is it rudeness if I don’t know them? And I still don’t understand the purpose of a wedding. What could possibly induce two free beings to partner only with each other for the rest of their existence?”

Here, the conversation had deteriorated. Arbeely, flustered and aghast, tried to defend the institution, bringing forth every argument he could think of: paternity and legitimacy, marriage’s civilizing influence, the need for chastity in women and fidelity in men. The Djinni scoffed at each of these, insisting that the djinn had no such preoccupations, and he saw no need why men and women should either. To which Arbeely said that it was just the way it was, regardless of what the Djinni thought, and he must attend the wedding and try to keep his opinions to himself. And the Djinni replied that of all the creatures he’d ever encountered, be they made of flesh or fire, none was quite as exasperating as a human.

At the front of the hall, the bride and groom knelt as the priest swung a censer back and forth above them. The bride, eighteen years old, was named Leila but called Lulu, a name that suggested a sauciness not at all evident in the small and shyly smiling girl. Her bridegroom, Sam Hosseini, was a round and friendly man, well known in the community. He had been one of the first Syrian merchants to settle on Washington Street, and his imported-goods store was a neighborhood mainstay, attracting clients from far beyond its borders. Over the years he’d become quite prosperous, and was generous in helping his neighbors, so few begrudged him his success. As the priest intoned the service, Sam beamed with happiness and cast occasional glances down at Lulu, as if to confirm his great luck.

The ceremony ended, and everyone walked to the Faddouls’ coffeehouse for the wedding banquet. The café tables were covered with platters of kebabs and rice and spinach-and-meat pies, and ribbon-tied bags of sugared almonds. Women crowded one side of the coffeehouse, eating and chatting. On the other side, men poured araq into each other’s glasses and traded news. Sam and Lulu sat at their own small table in the middle, receiving congratulations, looking dazed and happy. A gift table near the door held a growing collection of boxes and envelopes.

But the Djinni was not among the crowd. He was in the alley behind the coffeehouse, sitting cross-legged on an abandoned wooden crate. The atmosphere in the wedding hall had been oppressive, humid with sweat and incense and perfume, and he was still irritated by what he saw as a pointless ceremony. He had no wish to be cooped up in the coffeehouse with dozens of strangers. Besides, the day had turned beautiful; the sky between the buildings was a pure blue, and a meandering breeze cleared the smell of refuse from the alley.

From his pocket he pulled a handful of gold necklaces, purchased from a shabby storefront on the Bowery. Arbeely had taken him there, saying it was the only place he knew of to purchase gold inexpensively; but he had seemed uncomfortable and frowned at the low prices, later remarking that he was certain they’d been stolen. They were of middling workmanship—the links were not entirely uniform, and the chains hung in an uneven sort of way—but the gold was of good quality. The Djinni gathered them into one palm and cupped his hands around them to melt them, and then began idly to shape the metal. When his hands stilled, he was holding a miniature golden pigeon. With a thin, pointed wire he added a few details—the suggestion of feathers, pinprick eyes—and then surrounded the bird with a filigree cage. It felt good to work with his hands, instead of the crude tools that Arbeely insisted he use when someone might be watching.

The alleyway door of the coffeehouse opened. It was Arbeely. “There you are,” the man said. A small plate and a fork were in his hands.

Irritated, the Djinni said, “Yes, here I am, enjoying a moment of solitude.”

A flash of hurt passed over the man’s face. “I brought you a piece of the kinafeh,” he said. “It’s about to run out. I was worried you wouldn’t get any.”

Guilt pricked vaguely at the Djinni. He knew Arbeely was doing much to help him, but it made him feel oppressed and beholden, and it was hard to keep from lashing out. He slipped the caged bird into his pocket and accepted the proffered plate, which held a square of something heavy-looking, with brown and cream-colored layers. He frowned. “What exactly is this?”

Arbeely grinned. “The closest thing to heaven on earth.”

The Djinni took a cautious bite. The act of eating was still difficult. Not the mechanism itself—chewing and swallowing were simple enough actions, and the food burned to nothingness inside him. But he’d never tasted anything before, and had been taken completely by surprise at his first experiences of flavor. The sensations of sweet and savory, salt and spice, were arresting, even overwhelming. He’d learned to take the food in small bites and chew slowly. Even so, the kinafeh was a shock. Sweetness burst across his tongue, and thin strands of dough crunched between his teeth, the sound echoing deep in his ears. A creamy tartness made his jaw tighten.

“Do you like it?” asked Arbeely.

“I don’t know. It’s … startling.” He took another tentative bite. “I think I like it.”

Arbeely looked around the alley. “What are you doing out here, anyway?”

“I needed a moment of quiet.”

“Ahmad,” Arbeely said—and the Djinni cringed at the name, his but not his—“I understand, really. God knows, I’m the same way at these things. But we don’t want people to think you’re a recluse. Please, come in and say hello. Smile once or twice. For me, if not yourself.”

Reluctantly, the Djinni followed Arbeely back to the party.

Inside, the tables had been pushed to the edges of the room, and a group of men was dancing in a fast-moving ring, their arms about each other’s shoulders. The women crowded around them, cheering and clapping. The Djinni stood out of their way, in the back of the room, and observed the bride through breaks in the crowd. Of all the people at the wedding, she was the one who’d caught his interest. She was young and pretty, and clearly very nervous. She barely touched the food in front of her but smiled and spoke with the well-wishers who approached their table. Next to her, Sam Hosseini ate like a starving man, and stood to greet everyone with hugs and handshakes. She listened to her new husband talk, and looked up at him with obvious fondness; but occasionally she would glance about, as if looking for reassurance. The Djinni remembered what Arbeely had told him, that she was only a few weeks in America, that Hosseini had proposed to her on a visit home. And now, the Djinni reflected, she was in a new place, on unsure footing, surrounded by strangers. Like himself, in a way. A shame, that according to Arbeely she now belonged to this man only.

The bride was still scanning the room. The dancing men spun to one side, and she saw the Djinni regarding her. He held her in his gaze for a long moment. Then she looked away; and when she greeted the next guest there was color high in her cheeks.

“Ahmad, would you like coffee?”

He turned, startled. It was Maryam. She carried a tray of tiny cups, each full of thick, cardamom-scented coffee. She wore her customary hostess’s smile, but her eyes carried an edge of warning. Clearly she’d seen his interest. “So you can drink to their happiness,” she said.

He lifted a cup from her tray. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” she replied, and moved on.

He eyed the diminutive cup of coffee. Liquid in such a small amount would not hurt him, and it smelled interesting enough. He downed it all at once, as he’d seen the others do, and nearly choked. It was incredibly bitter; drinking it felt like an assault.

He winced and set the cup on a table. He’d had enough of human revelry for one day. He searched out Arbeely in the crowd, caught the man’s eye, and pointed at the door. Arbeely held up one hand, as if to say, wait a moment, and indicated the newlyweds’ table.

But the Djinni did not want to congratulate the happy couple. He was in no mood to speak words he didn’t feel. As Arbeely tried to wave him over, the Djinni moved through the crowd, left the stifling coffeehouse, and went out into the city.

The Djinni walked north along Washington Street, wondering if he’d ever be truly alone again. At times the desert had felt too empty for him, but this opposite extreme was harder to bear. The street was no less crowded than the coffeehouse had been. Families thronged the sidewalks, all taking advantage of the warm weekend afternoon. And where there were not humans there were horses, a standstill parade of them, each attached to a cart, each cart carrying a man, each man yelling at the others to clear out of his way—all in a myriad of languages that the Djinni had never before heard but nonetheless comprehended, and now he was coming to resent his own seemingly inexhaustible resources of understanding.

He was not walking aimlessly; he had a destination in mind. A few days earlier, Arbeely had shown him a map of Manhattan and offhandedly pointed out a long, green hole in the island’s middle. “Central Park,” Arbeely had said. “It’s immense, nothing but trees and grass and water. You’ll have to see it someday.” Then the tinsmith had moved on to other topics, such as where to catch the Elevated, and which neighborhoods to avoid. But that long, open expanse of green had caught the Djinni’s attention. He had only to find an Elevated platform on Sixth Avenue; and the Elevated, it seemed, would take him there.

At Fourteenth he turned east, and the crowd began to change character. There were fewer children, and more men in suits and hats. In the streets, elegant carriages mixed with dray-carts and delivery wagons. The buildings were changing as well, growing taller and wider. At Sixth Avenue a narrow ribbon of metal ran high above the street. He watched as a string of metal boxes ran along the ribbon, sending sparks into the street below. Through the train’s tiny windows he caught glimpses of men and women, their faces placid as they rushed by.

He climbed a stairway to a platform, gave the ticket seller a few coins. A train soon arrived, squealing horribly as it halted. He boarded it and found a seat. More and more passengers entered the car, until the seats were all taken and the stragglers were forced to press together in the aisles. The Djinni shuddered as the car filled past what seemed possible.

The doors closed and the Elevated strained forward. He’d thought it might feel like flying, but he was soon disabused of that notion. The train vibrated as though to shake the teeth from his head. Buildings flashed past so close to the window that he recoiled. He debated getting off at the next stop and walking the rest of the way, but the other passengers seemed to chide him with their nonchalance. He clenched his jaw and watched the streets grimly as they sped past.

Fifty-ninth Street was the end of the line. He descended the staircase, feeling a bit sick. It was late in the afternoon, and the sky was clouding over, turning to a gray-white sheet.

Across from the station rose a wall of greenery. A high iron fence ran along it, as though to hold back something wild. There was a wide gap in the middle of the fence, and Sixth Avenue disappeared inside, curving around and out of sight. A steady stream of pedestrians and carriages came and went. He crossed the street and passed inside.

Almost immediately the sounds of traffic faded away, were replaced by a descending hush. A grove of trees edged the path on both sides, turning the air cool and heavy. Gravel crunched under his shoes. Open carriages ambled past, the horses’ hooves beating a pleasant rhythm. Smaller paths broke away from either side of the carriage road, some wide and paved, others little more than dirt tracks overhung with lush vegetation.

Soon the shading grove came to an end, and the land opened into a vast swath of rolling lawn. The Djinni stopped, stunned by the vivid sea of green. Trees bordered its far edges, shielding the city from view. In the middle of the lawn, a herd of plump, dusky-white sheep stood peacefully together, eating lazy mouthfuls of grass. Benches lined the road, and here and there people sat, in pairs or threes or the occasional solitary gentleman—though women were never alone in public, he had noticed this—and watched the carriages go by.

He stepped off the path and walked about in the grass for a few moments, feeling the earth give and spring back. He bounced on the balls of his feet, unaware of the smile that rose to his lips. Briefly he considered abandoning the path altogether, and walking the length of the lawn, perhaps without his shoes; but then he spied a small sign staked into the ground that read PLEASE STAY TO THE PATH. And indeed, a few passersby were frowning at him in admonishment. He thought the rule absurd but had no wish to be noticed. So he stepped back onto the path, vowing to return at night, when hopefully he could do as he liked.

The carriage road branched away east, and the Djinni followed its curve over a pretty wooden bridge. Through a copse of tall trees he spied a long, straight path of shining gray-white. He left the road to investigate, and the gray-white path revealed itself as a broad promenade of flagstone, lined with high, arching trees. There were more people here than on the carriage path, but the scale of the space was so grand that he took little notice of the crowd. Children ran past, and one boy’s hoop went rolling away from him, tilting across the Djinni’s path. Startled, he plucked it from the stones and gave it back to the boy, who ran to catch up with his fellows. The Djinni continued on, wondering about the function of the hoop.

Eventually the broad walk descended into a tunnel that cut beneath a carriage road. On the other side of the tunnel, a broad plaza of red brick curved along the shore of a pond. In the middle of the plaza he saw what he took at first for an enormous winged woman, floating above a foaming cascade of water. No, not a woman—a sculpture of a woman, perched atop a pedestal. The water flowed into a wide, shallow basin at her feet, and then into a pool that stretched almost the width of the plaza.

He walked to the pool’s edge and watched the fountain, entranced. He’d never thought to see water sculpted this way, in sheets and streams that changed constantly. It wasn’t as frightening as the giant expanse of New York Harbor, but still he felt a not quite pleasant thrill. A fine spray struck his face, a smattering of tiny needles.

Serenely the woman hung above him. In one hand she carried a slender stem of flowers; with the other she reached out, gesturing to he knew not what. Her wings stretched behind her, wide and curved. A human woman, with the inhuman power of flight—but if Arbeely was to be believed, wouldn’t they be frightened by such a woman? And yet the artist had sculpted her with reverence, not fear.

There was movement next to him: a young woman, standing nearby, watching him. He glanced at her, and she quickly turned her head, pretending to study the fountain as well. She wore a dress of dark blue that cinched tightly at the waist, and a large hat with a rolled brim, adorned with a peacock feather. Her brown hair was gathered in ringlets at the nape of her neck. By now the Djinni had seen enough of human costumes to know that everything about her spoke of wealth. Strangely, she seemed to be alone.

She glanced back at him, as if unable to help herself, and their eyes met. Hers darted away again. But then she smiled, as though conceding defeat, and turned to face him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You seemed so entranced by the fountain. But it was rude of me to stare.”

“Not at all,” he replied. “I’m indeed entranced. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Can you tell me, who is the woman with the wings?”

“She’s called the Angel of the Waters. She blesses the water, and all who drink it are healed.”

“Healed? Of what?”

She shrugged her shoulders, a gesture that made her seem even younger than he’d thought. “Of whatever ails them, I suppose.”

“And what,” the Djinni asked, “is an angel?”

This question made her pause. She glanced him over again, as if reassessing him. Likely she’d already noticed the inferior cut of his clothing, and the accent in his English—but this question must have implied a strangeness not evident in his appearance.

She said, “Well, sir, an angel is a messenger of God. A heavenly being, higher than Man, but still a servant.”

“I see.” In fact, her words made little sense to him, but he sensed that pressing her further would be a mistake. He’d have to ask Arbeely. “And this is what angels look like?”

“I suppose,” she said. “Or perhaps, this is one way of picturing them. It all depends on what you believe.”

They stood, not quite together, gazing at the fountain.

“I’ve never seen anything like her,” he said. He felt he must speak again, or risk the girl drifting from him.

“You must be from very far away, if your country has no angels,” she said.

He smiled. “Oh, but there are angels in my land. I only didn’t know what was meant by the word.”

“But your angels aren’t like her?” She nodded at the woman who hovered above them.

“No, not like her. In my land, the angels are made of an everlasting fire. They can change form to whatever suits their mood, and appear to men’s eyes in that form, as the whirlwind appears in the dust that it carries.”

She was listening, her eyes on him. He went on. “The angels in my land serve no one, neither higher than themselves nor lower. They roam where they wish, led only by their whims. When they encounter one another, they will sometimes react with violence, or else passion; and when they encounter humans”—he smiled down into her staring eyes—“the results are often the same.”

She glanced away hotly. For a few moments there was only the sound of the water and others’ conversations. “Your land,” she said finally, “sounds like a savage place.”

“It can be, at times.”

“And in your land, is it considered proper to talk this way to a woman in a public park?”

“I suppose not,” he said.

“Or perhaps the women of your land are different, that you would be so free with them.”

“No, they are not so very different,” he said, amused. “Though until now I would have said that they surpass those here in both beauty and pride. And now, I find my assumptions are shaken.”

Her eyes went wide. She drew breath to answer him—and he wanted dearly to hear whatever she would say—but suddenly she glanced to her left, and took a step away from him. An elderly woman in a stiff black dress and a veiled hat was approaching. The young woman, with effort, restored her features to neutrality.

“Thank you for waiting, dearest,” said the old woman. “There was a terrible line. You must have thought I’d deserted you.”

“Not at all. I’ve been enjoying the fountain.”

The old woman looked darkly over the girl’s head at the Djinni, and then whispered something to her companion.

“Of course not,” the young woman replied, barely audible. “Auntie, you know I would never. He only tried to ask me a question, but I couldn’t understand. I don’t think he speaks English.”

She darted a quick, pleading glance at him: please don’t betray me. Amused, he dipped his head a fraction, the ghost of a nod.

“The impertinence,” the older lady muttered, narrowing her eyes at the Djinni. She spoke more loudly now, assuming he wouldn’t understand, though of course her tone was plain. “I’m sorry, Sophia, I never should have left you alone.”

“Really, Auntie, it’s of no concern,” the young woman said, embarrassment in her voice.

“Promise not to speak a word of this to your parents, or I won’t hear the end of it.”

“I promise.”

“Good. Now let’s take you home. Your mother will be beside herself if you aren’t ready in time.”

“I can’t stand these parties, they’re so wearisome.”

“Don’t say that, my dear, the season’s just starting.”

The older woman took her companion’s arm—Sophia, she had called her. Sophia glanced up at the Djinni. It was clear she wanted to say something, but couldn’t. Instead she allowed the older woman to escort her from the fountain, across the expanse of red brick. They ascended the staircase to the carriage drive, and then they were gone from sight.

Quickly he dashed across the terrace, startling those in his path. He took the stairs two and three at a time. Near the top he paused. Keeping out of sight, he watched from below as the two women approached a gleaming, open-topped carriage that waited on the drive. A man in livery opened the passenger door for them. “M’lady. Miss Winston.”

“Thank you, Lucas,” said the young woman as he helped her into the carriage.

The man climbed onto his high perch and flicked the reins, and the carriage rolled smoothly away down the drive. The Djinni watched the carriage until it curved past a grove of trees and disappeared.

He considered. It was late in the day, and growing cold. The sky was still overcast, and edging on threatening. Now would be the time to turn south and retrace his steps. No doubt Arbeely was wondering where he was.

But the young lady had intrigued him. Moreover, the dark, aimless longings that had surfaced at the wedding party had returned, and he was not in the habit of denying his own impulses. Arbeely, he decided, could wait for him a few minutes longer.

He had little to go on, only her name, but in the end it was almost absurdly easy to discover where Sophia Winston lived. He accomplished it by traveling eastward to the edge of the park, alongside the path her carriage had taken; and then, once he was through the gate and again on the city streets, asking the first man who passed by.

“Winston? You mean Francis Winston? You must be joking.” The man he’d stopped was large and jowly, and dressed like a laborer. “He’s in that new mansion at Sixty-second. Big heap of white bricks, as big as Astor’s. Can’t miss it.” He pointed north with a meaty finger.

“Thank you.” The Djinni strode off.

“Hey!” the man yelled after him. “What you want with the Winstons, anyhow?”

“I’m going to seduce their daughter,” the Djinni called back, and the man’s roar of laughter followed him up Fifth Avenue.

He found the Winston residence easily, just as the man had said. It was an enormous three-story limestone palace, topped by dark gables that rose to high peaks. The house was set back from the street, behind a swath of neatly trimmed grass and a spike-topped iron fence that ran the length of the sidewalk. It hadn’t yet acquired the thick patina of grime that clung to its neighbors, and it wore this newness with a quiet self-satisfaction.

At the front of the house was an enormous lamp-lit portico. The Djinni walked past it, and turned the corner, following the iron fence. Lights blazed in the tall windows beyond. He could see figures moving about inside, silhouetted behind drapery. At the back corner of the house, a thick hedge stretched out to meet the sidewalk, and the iron fence became an imposing brick wall, shielding the grounds behind the mansion from passing eyes.

The Djinni eyed the fence. The bars were strong, but not especially thick. He eyed the distance between them. Two, he decided, would be enough. He wrapped a hand around each of the bars, and concentrated.

Sophia Winston sat disconsolate in her bedroom, still in her dressing gown, hair damp from the bath. The guests would be arriving in less than an hour. As her aunt had predicted, Sophia’s mother was in one of her states, careening about the house like a loose parakeet, issuing orders to every servant within earshot. Her father had retreated to the library, his usual foxhole. Sophia wished she could join him, or else help put her brother George to bed. But George’s governess disliked Sophia’s “interference,” saying it undermined her authority. And if Sophia’s mother found her mooning over travel journals in the library, there would be a row.

Sophia was eighteen years old, and she was lonely. As the daughter of one of the richest and most prominent families in New York—indeed, in the country—it had been made clear to her, in ways both subtle and overt, that she was expected to do little more than simply exist, biding her time and minding her manners until she made a suitable match and continued the family line. Her future unrolled before her like a dreadful tapestry, its pattern set and immutable. There would be a wedding, and then a house somewhere nearby on the avenue, with a nursery for the children that were, of course, mandatory. She’d spend interminable summers in the country, traveling from estate to estate, playing endless games of tennis, chafing under the strain of being constantly a guest in someone else’s home. Then would come middle age, and the expected taking-up of a cause, Temperance or Poverty or Education—it did not matter so long as it was virtuous and uncontroversial, and furnished opportunities for luncheons with dowdy speakers in severe dress. Then old age and decrepitude, the slow transformation into a heap of black taffeta in a bath chair, to be displayed briefly at parties and then put out of sight; to spend her last days sitting bewildered by the fire, wondering where her life had gone.

She knew she would not fight this fate. She didn’t have the stomach for prolonged family strife, nor the fortitude to make her own way in the world. And so, to escape, she turned to fantasies of rebellion and adventure, fueled by the volumes in her father’s library, journals that ignited her mind with tales of exotic lands and ancient civilizations. She dreamed of riding on horseback with a Mongol tribe, or floating down the Amazon to the heart of the jungle; or strolling, in linen tunic and trousers, through the colorful street-markets of Bombay. The necessary privations of such travels, such as lack of proper beds or running water, were no matter, for in these dreams they were conveniently forgotten.

Recently she’d glimpsed an article on the late Heinrich Schliemann, and his discovery of the lost city of Troy. All of Schliemann’s colleagues had insisted that the city was only a Homeric myth, that Schliemann was chasing a fantasy. But Schliemann had triumphed. The article was accompanied by a photograph of a beautiful dark-eyed woman, arrayed like a warrior-queen in ancient jewelry found at the site. She was Schliemann’s Greek-born wife, who had assisted him at the excavation; and when Sophia read that this woman’s name was also Sophia, she felt a bitter pang, as though her own best destiny had passed her over. If only it had been Sophia Winston draped in ancient jewelry, Sophia Winston standing at the dig with her intrepid husband, gazing down upon the golden face of Agamemnon!

She could lose herself in these fantasies for hours. She’d been drifting in and out of one that very afternoon, during the walk in the park, to distract herself from her aunt’s acid-tongued gossip, and her dread of the impending party. At the time, the strange man at the fountain had seemed to materialize from out of the daydream: a tall and handsome foreigner who spoke to her in perfect English. Now, in the familiar light of her bedroom, she cringed to remember their conversation. He’d made her feel flustered and young, and far out of her depth.

Reconciling herself to the night ahead, she sat before the mirror and began to brush out her hair. Her maid had already laid out her gown, a new wine-red silk. She had to admit that she was looking forward to wearing it; the season’s new fashions were quite flattering to her figure.

Something moved at the edge of her vision. She turned, startled. A man was standing on her balcony, just beyond the French doors, peering in through the glass.

She jumped up and nearly screamed, clutching her dressing gown to her neck. The man raised his hands and looked at her pleadingly, plainly asking her not to raise an alarm. She squinted at the glass, past her own thin reflection, and realized: it was him, the man from the park.

She goggled. How had he gotten onto the grounds? Her room was on the second floor—had he scaled the wall, and then climbed across the balconies? She hesitated a moment, then picked up the lamp and stepped toward the French door, the better to see him. He watched as she approached. Through the distortions of the glass he seemed almost impossibly still. She paused a few feet from the door, debating. She could still scream.

The man smiled, and extended an arm. An invitation—to talk?

Heart pounding, she fetched a shawl and stepped out onto the balcony. The night air was chill, and smelled of rain. She did not close the door behind her but drew the shawl tightly about herself. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to apologize,” he said.

“To apologize?”

“I fear I offended you earlier.”

“You’re trespassing on our property and invading my privacy, in order to apologize?”