The Golem of Paris

Chapter fifty-four

Sam opened the door and drew a sharp breath. “Thank God.”

“I asked Mallick to send you a message,” Jacob said.

“He said you’d been held up but that you were all right.”

Sam’s dark glasses shifted in the direction of Jacob’s bandaged ear.

“It’s nothing,” Jacob said. “I went to the doctor yesterday. I’ll be fine.”

“But you’re back,” Sam said, as though to cement it.

Jacob nodded. “Can I steal a little time?”

“What am I doing.” Sam stood aside. “Yes. Of course. Come in.”

“I was hoping you’d come with me, actually. I’m going to see Ima.”

Sam swallowed drily. “Let me get my coat.”

Jacob took a roundabout route.

They’ll be hunting for me, too.

I think that’s a fair assumption.

And Bina: was she a target now, too?

Could he visit her after today?

He would need to talk about it with Sam. They would need to talk about Jacob’s conversation with Peter Wichs; they would need to talk about Prague, and about Paris.

If Vallot sent the notebook, they might need to talk about that, too. Although Jacob wasn’t sure he’d do anything but burn it.

So much to talk about. They were scions of a tradition of words, and they hadn’t spoken, really spoken, in more than two years.

“I was thinking,” Jacob said, “that we could start studying together again. Not the usual stuff. Golem literature. Maharal. Family history. What do you think?”

He glanced over.

Sam said, “I think that fortune favors the prepared.”

“It’s a deal, then.”

“It’s a deal.”

They arrived at the care facility. Before getting out of the car, Jacob said, “Do you have a cousin in Calgary? François Louis?”

“I don’t think so,” Sam said. “Why do you ask?”

Jacob grabbed the door handle. “Never mind.”

Bina sat under her fig tree. Her fidgeting hitched as she saw Jacob and Sam step from the dayroom and walk across the patio.

“Hi, Ima.”

Sam tucked the blanket around her waist. “Hello, Bean.”

They each kissed her on the cheek and sat flanking her.

It was midafternoon, the light desultory, the day ready to be over. Through a window Jacob could see residents wheeled into a semicircle around the TV. Rosario was making the rounds, dispensing medication. She looked up and noticed Jacob, reacting with surprise, and pleasure, when she saw it was three of them on the bench, not two.

She gave a little wave.

Jacob waved back.

She smiled and returned to her duties.

Wind rattled the branches, throwing a flourish of dry leaves.

Jacob said, “I have something I want to show you, Ima.”

He reached in his pocket and took out a plastic baggie from which he removed the iron ring. Placing the ring in the center of his palm, he held it out to her.

“I got them,” he said. “Both of them.”

Bina’s head moved slowly. She stared at the ring. Her expression remained inscrutable, and for a moment, Jacob feared he’d assumed too much. Or worse, that he would cause her to fly apart, irreparably.

Her hands stopped moving.

She said, “Majka.”

Sam began to breathe rapidly. He said, “Jacob?”

Bina tilted her head back.

She was smiling.

Jacob followed her gaze to a large jointed branch of the fig tree. It was bobbing gently, as though something had been sitting there, just a moment ago.