The Golem and the Djinni. Helene Wecker
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