The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories Read online

  A male figure stood at the bottom of the dune.

  I pulled out my phone, clicked it on, and – making sure that no one could see – positioned it in the sand, on its side, recording.

  He was tall – almost two meters, I guessed – and wore a gauzy white shroud around his body. I couldn’t see his face. He wore a mask over the top part of his face, with a long snout and big black holes for eyes. For a moment I thought he had no feet, but then he began climbing toward us, and I saw them rising and sinking in the sand. He had real feet. As he came toward us, he opened his arms and let the shroud fall on the dune behind him. Underneath, he wore a linen tunic around his waist, bands of gold around his arms, and leather straps that crossed over his sternum. He had a broad chest and round, muscled shoulders that glittered, as if rubbed with mica.

  He stopped in front of the rug where Nilou sat. He looked absolutely real.

  Nilou had drawn up her knees on her rug. She looked up at him, determined, but was breathing hard, which I hadn’t expected. I could see she hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t known what to expect, but she hadn’t expected this. He looked just like a real man, though bigger and smoother and with a strange sparkle to his skin. She had expected him to be incorporeal or invisible. Here he was, enfleshed. I saw his jawline beneath the mask. He looked like Abbas, but he was much bigger.

  The man dropped to all fours, crawled forward, and tapped one of her knees.

  It fell to the side, taking the suggestion.

  Then both of her legs fell open and she fell back, like her body was blooming, and the man crawled up over her, kissing her along the way, not taking any notice of me, or the director, or the camera, or my blinking phone. I was so near to them. I told myself to watch for the signs of authenticity. I told myself to watch for any signs of trickery. She pulled back her black robes, and even in the red light, I could see her public hair, no nylon, nothing flattened, nothing bound. He shifted his sparkling hips to the side, and there was pubic hair there, too; nothing flattened, nothing bound indeed. Nilou reached up with both hands. I could see skin-to-skin contact. I could see him push, and I could see her draw him in, and then he moved forward and disappeared inside her, just like his foot had sunk into the sand. They were joined. It was real. The both of them closed their eyes as if falling asleep for just a moment, turning their heads, one to the right and one to the left.

  But the stillness gave way to motion; human bodies can’t linger like that.

  I didn’t move. The director didn’t move.

  Time went slowly.

  I felt hungry again.

  I had never been so aware of time.

  What interesting constraints for a soul to choose: to have a body, made of muscle and bone and fat, discrete in time and space.

  They seemed to be taking forever. There was no wind at all. Now more of their clothes were off, and her dress was up around her waist, and her hips were up off the rug, reaching up and drawing him down as if tugging on a kite. His hands pressed into the rug on either side of her, his knuckles pale and sparkling. They were conjoined below the waist and I could no longer see what was happening. But it was intensifying. Neither of them made any sound, besides their breathing. Nilou had her hands on his hips, now, fingernails digging into his flesh, steering herself up, eyes wide open as if angry. He looked afraid. His mask slipped. I willed it not to come off and drop on her, not to ruin her rhythm. But I could see more of his face now – more ear, more jawline, more forehead. He was indeed Abbas. But he’d grown since I’d last seen him.

  Nilou threw her head back and screamed. But the scream went nowhere. It never even left her mouth. Then Abbas pushed his fist into the sand just beyond the rug, and it disappeared into it, wrist-deep.

  I watched for authenticity.

  I could see them pull apart. She pulled her black dress down. He pulled his white shroud back around him. Neither I nor the director moved, still, even as Nilou flopped onto her side, panting. As for Abbas, he trudged back down the dune, beyond the circle of light, until he was lost to sight in the darkness.

  I turned back to the set.

  Nilou and the director were facing me.

  It ended with the video screen going black.

  My fellow student handed me back my phone, careful not to drop it in her rose tea. Her face was just barely composed, but she was titillated, I could tell: her features oozed from human to dolphin to jackal and back again. Emotion, like memory, depends on the medium.

  “He brought you oranges?” she said.

  “Yes. He was a sweet one. What do you think?”

  “Wipe it and shoot again,” she said. “Next time I want to see more cock.”

  Majnun

  Helene Wecker

  THE PHONE CALL comes just before dawn, from an imam in Sidi Ali. A boy there needs Zahid’s help. The imam has recited over him all night with no success, and his voice on the mobile is ragged and strained. Can you come, Mr. Zahid? They aren’t wealthy, but they can pay. And then, as an afterthought: It’s as though it’s waiting for something, but I have no idea what.

  What about the Sufis? Zahid knows it’s cowardice even as he blurts it out. But already he has his suspicions. He knows what day it is; he’s half-expected this call.

  They’re all busy with the festival. And the family would prefer someone more discreet. Less chanting and dancing. They don’t want the neighbors to know.

  So Zahid grabs his nylon backpack, leaves his Meknes apartment, and rides his motorbike to Sidi Ali, weaving around clogs of pilgrims and tourists. The dusty, out-of-the-way village has been awake for hours, and is now deep in preparations. Groups of musicians light braziers to warm their drumskins while street vendors hawk bottles of orange-flower water. Women sit together at sidewalk cafés, hennaing their hands.

  Zahid finds the house, an old-fashioned, two-story riad that has seen better days. The parents meet him at the door. He talks to them briefly, then asks them to wait in the sitting room. It’s an irregular request – these things are usually family affairs, with everyone crowded together, watching and praying – and they glance at each other, clearly uneasy. But they nod and leave, concern for their son visible in the way they lean into each other, the strained lines of their backs.

  Alone, Zahid performs wudu in the courtyard fountain, the ablutions rinsing away the dust of the road. He grits his teeth against the pain of the water, watches the telltale steam rise from his skin – one reason for his request for privacy – and then climbs the stairs to the living quarters.

  At the doorway to the boy’s bedroom, Zahid peers inside and watches as the boy writhes on the bed, moaning, his thin nightshirt drenched with sweat. He tries to remind himself that it might only be a coincidence. It’s been nearly a year without any contact. But Zahid watches the boy, and he knows.

  He pauses to make his du’a, his supplication. God grant me the strength to heal this boy, and to turn his tormentor toward Your wisdom. Then he picks up his backpack, and enters.

  As he nears the bed, the boy’s eyes open. The face lights with a smile.

  “Hello, majnun,” the boy says.

  Everything in Zahid clenches. He walks past the bed, past that smile, to the small en suite bathroom, and makes wudu again. It isn’t the smartest idea – water weakens him, and he’ll need strength – but it brings him back to his purpose. He needs to concentrate on the boy. Ignore the smile, ignore the endearment he never quite liked but still yearns to hear again. Majnun, crazy man, possessed one. Her little joke.

  He dries himself, waits for the last of the steam to disappear, and hangs the towel back on its bar. The silence from the bedroom has turned anticipatory. He takes a deep breath – he doesn’t need to, but it makes him feel better – and goes back in.

  The walls of the bedroom are plastered with football posters and photos of the boy’s friends. The air is uncomfortably humid. As the boy watches, Zahid crosses to a window and opens it. The cloudless sky tempts him for a moment, but he steps aw
ay, feeling the relief of a breeze on his neck.

  The boy grins again and makes a show of stretching, arching his back before settling into the bedclothes. “You made me wait,” he says. “How unprofessional of you.”

  Zahid ignores him. From his backpack, he extracts a plastic bag full of short lengths of string. He lifts the boy’s hands and ties a string around each finger, tight but not too tight, between the first and second joints. He finishes the hands and moves down to the feet, cinching strings around each toe. The boy complies with an indulgent smile, playing along.

  Next to the bed are a small table and a wooden chair. The boy’s well-thumbed copy of the Quran rests on the table, gold embossing on its blue cover. Zahid sits in the chair and picks up the Quran, trying to anchor himself in its familiarity. He recites the adhan, the call to worship, then turns to the Surah Al-Fatihah, the first surah, which the Prophet once called the cure for every poison. You alone we worship, he recites. You alone we ask for help. Guide us in the right path.

  The boy sighs. “But this is exactly what the other one did. You know it’s me, so talk to me, majnun. I didn’t come all this way to be prayed at.”

  Zahid snorts, incredulous, and lets go of the illusion that this will proceed as usual. “You came for the festival, Aisha, not me. Speaking of which, shouldn’t you be on your way? The procession will be starting soon.”

  The boy shrugs. “There’s plenty of time. And the festival will happen with or without me.”

  “As though you’d miss it.”

  “To be here with you, after so long apart?” The boy lifts a languid foot, angles it towards the inside of Zahid’s knee.

  Zahid shifts out of range. “Stop that.”

  “Spoilsport. By the way, I noticed that the boy’s parents aren’t here with us. Was that your doing? They must’ve found that odd. Who knows what you might be getting up to in here?”

  “Yes, I told them to stay downstairs,” he says. “I had a feeling it was you.”

  “You see? Admit it, you miss me.” The boy rolls onto his stomach, props his chin on his hands, gazes at him through string-ends and lashes and sweat-matted hair – and Zahid has to look away, because he can see her glowing deep in the boy’s eyes. Lalla Aisha, Lady Aisha Qandisha, the famous jinniyah of Morocco, who possesses human men and drives them mad with lust. No one knows how old she is, least of all Aisha herself. Her appearance suggests a beautiful young jinniyah of perhaps two or three hundred years, but her legends go back for millennia. Some believe she’s descended from Astarte, or that she is Astarte, in a smaller form for a modern age. She’s the closest the jinn of Morocco have to a queen, and for over a century Zahid was her consort, her special favorite, until the day he left without a word.

  “Of course I miss you,” he says. “But there were other ways to get my attention.”

  “Should I have rung you on your mobile? Arranged for a chaperoned date at a café, like some timid young muslimah?”

  “For instance.” She never would, of course; it would mean meeting him in his own territory, and in all things Aisha Qandisha prefers the upper hand. “But that’s not the point.”

  “Then what is?”

  “The boy, Aisha. The boy is the point. Please get out of him.”

  The smile shows teeth. “Or what?”

  He sighs. “Or I’ll do what I came to do.”

  “Do you really think you can?”

  “I’m good at my job.”

  “I’m sure the Quran has something to say about boastful speech.”

  “It’s not a boast. It’s the truth.”

  The boy’s eyes roll in open disgust. He drops the coy pose and sits upright on the bed, authority in every graceful movement. “Tell me, majnun, how many jinn have you exorcised since you deserted me?”

  “Roughly a dozen.” It’s nine, but he decides to round up.

  “And how many did you possess in your time as my consort? Was it hundreds, or thousands?”

  “I didn’t keep count. Thousands, probably. I’m not a hypocrite, Aisha, if that’s what you’re insinuating. I try to live by my beliefs, and I’ve come to believe that possession is a sin.”

  “Even when we bring pleasure instead of pain? Or is pleasure a sin as well?”

  “Only pleasures that harm.”

  “There are few truly innocent pleasures, majnun. And who determines which is which? God? You?” The boy shakes his head. “Do you know why I chose this young man? He’s sixteen, and he has a terrible stammer. He worries that he’ll never talk to a girl who doesn’t laugh at him, and his parents will have to find him a wife. I came to him in his sleep, and I offered myself. You’ve never seen such a willing soul. In one night I’ve given him more ecstasy than he might find in the next sixty years.”

  “And how much heartache will that night cost him? Will he ever be satisfied with anyone else, after you?”

  The boy shrugs. “Then I’ll come back. He’s very sweet.”

  This, Zahid thinks in frustration, is exactly what he’d warned himself against. Not once in a hundred years did he ever win an argument with Aisha Qandisha. She’ll evade, cajole, proclaim, pout. She’ll wear him down, and it will end as it always did, in a maelstrom of lust. Already it feels inevitable. “Why are you really here? And don’t tell me the boy, or the festival.”

  The boy’s eyes are steady and sure, and she burns in them like a candle at the bottom of a well. “I’ve come to bring you home.”

  “Aisha, for heaven’s sake.”

  “I’ll forgive everything. Just renounce this zealotry and come back to me.”

  “I can’t. This is my life now.”

  “But what sort of life do you call this? Living like a hermit, injuring your fellow jinn. Are you happier, like this?”

  I’m lonely. I hate hurting my own kind. I miss you terribly. “It’s a different sort of happiness. It’s hard to explain. But I feel more whole now. I have a sense of purpose.”

  The boy sniffs. “I’d have thought that being my consort would be purpose enough. Or did you secretly resent me, for a hundred years?”

  “Of course not. When you chose me, I thought I’d never know a greater honor. I wanted nothing more than to please you.”

  “Which is why you slunk away in the night, like a criminal. I thought you’d been trapped! Or killed!” Anguish fills the boy’s voice, bathing Zahid in guilt. “I sent out my spies, and they came back to me saying he lives as a human, he’s converted to Islam, he took another name. I don’t like it, by the way. ‘Zahid.’It doesn’t suit you.”

  “It’s my name now. It suits me well enough.”

  The boy waves this away like an errant thought. “When the rumors began that you’d become an exorcist, I didn’t want to believe them. But then your victims came to me, and showed me their wounds. Saying it was him, he did this to me. And all I could think was, all those years I called him majnun, and now it’s finally come true.”

  He tries not to cringe visibly. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I could barely make sense of it myself.” You wouldn’t have listened anyway, he thinks. You would have shredded my resolve with a fond look and a laugh, and opened your arms and taken me to bed. And that would’ve been the end of it.

  “Then tell me now! Don’t I deserve to know what happened, why you changed?”

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “You said that already. So try. Make me understand.”

  She wants to draw him out, to keep him talking, so she can twist his words into a leash and lead him back to her side. And at any moment the family might creep up the stairs, and hear them. But she’s right about this, at least: in leaving her, he traded one type of faithlessness for another. She deserves an explanation.

  He starts slowly, searching for the words. “It started a few years ago, during an exorcism. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a man in Tangier, I can’t even remember why he’d angered me. A few Sufis came. They started chanting, I fought them as usual. But then, for some r
eason – and I honestly don’t know why – I started listening. Really paying attention, not just trying to gauge their attack. And as I listened to the verses, I started to feel better. Which was strange, because I’d felt fine to begin with – or at least, I’d thought I felt fine.”

  The boy’s eyebrows rise at this, but he says nothing. Zahid goes on, afraid now to stop. “I was so surprised, I forgot myself and let go. The Sufis were delighted with themselves, of course. I flew home to you, and tried to tell myself that it had been some new kind of trick. But deep down I knew.

  “I looked forward to exorcisms, so I could feel that peace again. I started reciting the verses to myself, for comfort. And after a while, I decided I wanted to become a Muslim. But how could I possess others and live as your lover, and still accept the truth of the Quran? I tried to make it right with myself, but couldn’t. I didn’t want to possess anyone anymore, even when I thought they deserved it. And being your consort started to feel...” Shameful. “Uncomfortable. I tried not to let it show, but then when you didn’t notice, I felt like shouting it at you. You’d call me majnun, and I’d want to laugh, because it really did feel like madness.

  “Then, one night, we were traveling through Fez and we saw a drunken man stumbling down the sidewalk. He passed an old woman, a hunchback, walking with a cane –”

  “I remember.” The boy has been so quiet that Zahid startles at the voice. “He bumped into her, and nearly knocked her over. She yelled at him to be more careful, and he laughed and said, Ya Lalla Aisha, it’s your own fault, you bewitched me with your beauty. You hesitated, but then you flew after him. I’d never seen you balk at your duty before. That’s why I remember.”

  He nods. “I told myself, if anyone deserves it, it’s this guy. That God must have put me there to witness his transgressions, against the old woman and against you. I would deliver his punishment, and remind him that Lalla Aisha Qandisha walks in the world unseen, and will not be insulted or ridiculed. So I followed him home, and knocked his head against the floorboards for a night and a day, and tried to be happy about it.