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Study Guide

The Golem and the Jinni Chapter 18

By Helene Wecker

Chapter 18

  • Joseph Schall is sent to Radzin's to get some last-minute bread for the Sheltering House.
  • And—holy hot buns—who works at the bakery, but the very golem he created.
  • The Golem senses that someone has seen her, the true her, but she doesn't know who.
  • Anna reveals that she and Irving, her baby daddy, are getting married and moving to Boston.
  • Chava congratulates her, and Anna invites her out dancing.
  • The Golem goes shopping for appropriate dancewear and meets Anna at her apartment.
  • She meets Anna's friends, Phyllis and Estelle, and it's time to par-tay like it's 1899—they go to a dance club and cut a rug.
  • All of a sudden, the Golem remembers it's walk night with the Jinni, so she runs away like she's Cinderella about to turn into a pumpkin.
  • He's miffed that she's late, but she runs up and drags him to the dance hall.
  • Everyone at the dance club is like who is this tall dark and handsome hunk? But the Golem insists he's just a friend.
  • They dance like they're Derek Hough and Peta Murgatroyd, wowing everyone.
  • "In the midst of all that movement a stillness rose in him, and for a long beautiful moment everything else fell away—" (18.205).
  • This lovely moment is interrupted when Phyllis steps in, not to cut in, but to tell them that Anna is fighting with Irving in the alleyway; she found him drunk with another girl.
  • The Golem and the Jinni get there just as Irving slaps Anna. The Golem steps in, and beats the living Shmoop out of Irving.
  • The Jinni restrains the Golem before she can kill Irving, and to smooth things over, he tells Anna that a strange man hit her lover and ran away. He's all, Not a crazy golem with the strength of ten men, mmmkay?
  • And he takes the Golem away.
  • In the Syrian Desert, the Jinni and Fadwa talk about their vastly different lifestyles.
  • He thinks her life is boring, but she corrects him, saying, "We can't all live in glass palaces" (18.245).
  • The Jinni asks Fadwa to show him what a wedding is like, and he enters her dreams.
  • He gets carried away watching the wedding ceremony, which involves an ornate necklace.
  • When someone screams for Fadwa to wake up, he "rip[s] himself away" (18.270) from her dreams and flees into the dark, a feat which almost destroys him.
 
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