Deliverance

by Véronique Launier

  I beg him with my eyes, but they remain cold. Distant. My heart tightens. I once thought I could get him to love me back, but the clench of his jaw finally confirms to me I would never have what I pine for. My hands tremble.

  I miss a note.

  I should look for disapproval from my lord, the King of Kings. Instead, I need to see if Ramtin noticed. The triumph in his eyes tells me he did. I should just give up now. But my King hasn't asked me to stop playing, so I continue. The reception room becomes more and more crowded.

  Jewels adorn the admirers. The reflection of the setting sun through the window and upon them blinds me temporarily. I blink a few times.

  I'm back at the party.

  The events of the day had caught up to me and completely depleted me of energy. Oddly enough, the rest of the crowd seemed to feel the same. After the girl finished playing, the party never resumed. People broke into small pockets and discussed the amazing sound of the band, but no one still had the energy to party. Some were texting, others spoke quietly on the telephone, arranging for rides home or to coffee shops or restaurants. Couples who had been making out in dark corners, just cuddled in silence. Not only had the party here died, but no one was inclined to resurrect it. No one even seemed to be under the influence of alcohol anymore. The mood was sober. Calm.

  Had she sapped essence from the crowd the way Ramtin got his witches to at concerts? Was she in league with him?

  I pulled myself upright, away from the wall I'd been leaning on, and strolled over to the stage. I didn't have to duck around throngs of people like I would have had to earlier. The path between us was virtually clear. I attempted to make myself look casual but inside I screamed for answers. Who was she? Was she a witch? Could she lead me to Nagissa? Could she be trusted?

  The closer I came to her, the wider her eyes appeared. They shimmered with essence and fear. Her face and lips were pale. Her brows furrowed when she noticed me. She tilted her head to one side. Another girl joined her and spotted me immediately.

  "Hi," she said in English with a small smile. "Davood told me you’re his Canadian friend. I love Canada. I'm Leyli." She extended her hand to me and I shook it. "And you know, you shouldn't take a girl's hand in public." Her eyes twinkled.

  Of course I knew. These were the types of warnings everyone had been piling on me since my first day here. Everyone has advice for the foreigner. Yet, handshaking was the least of the sins being committed here. "If you’re so worried about propriety, I don't think you should be extending your hand out to me." I kept my tone light. Flirtatious. But all my faculties concentrated on the other girl, Nakissa. I needed to read her. Judge her.

  "Probably not, but I'm not very good at doing what I'm supposed to." She winked.

  "I guess none of us are since we are all here."

  She giggled. "You know, Nakissa's boyfriend told us of a great place we could just hang out and chill. A private playground of sorts. Somewhere we can be left alone."

  By the way she emphasized the word boyfriend I mustn't have been very subtle while watching her friend. I focused my attention on Leyli. This girl seemed to be my in with Nakissa so it would be best if I fostered some sort of friendship.

  "Why don't you give me your phone number?" I said.

  She grinned widely and we exchanged numbers. A boy – most likely Nakissa's boyfriend – came around and told them the party had turned lame. He wanted to leave, so the two girls said their farewells. Nakissa gave me a long, loaded look before she disappeared and a lump formed in my throat.

  I went to find Davood and hoped he would decide to stay. It seemed unlikely that Ramtin would show up now, but I didn't want to miss my chance.

  "You're very good with the harp, azizam. Your technical skill is amazing, but didn't you notice people were bored with your performance? There was no energy in that crowd. I just don't know if this band stuff is really the right calling for you." Ehsan doesn't take his eyes off the road, which is a good thing. This way, he can't see the way my lips tremble and the tears threaten to overflow. I look back to Leyli in the backseat for support but she’s distracted by her phone.

  I felt so strange after the performance. High, even. Now my head has cleared and my mood has deflated, but I still feel energized. Like I could run a marathon. The only problem is the tension gripping my stomach. I'm so nervous about facing my mother now that the party is over that I mentally run through a list of excuses or lies I could use to get me out of trouble. Ehsan's criticism isn't helping my nerves either.

  "That foreign guy was so cute. Did you see his eyes? Blue like the sea." Leyli sighs contently.

  "Who? That guy you were talking to when I came by? He was foreign? Where from?" Ehsan asks.

  "Canada," I say.

  "I have cousins in Canada. Vancouver, actually. I could move there whenever I want."

  "You’re crazy to still be here," Leyli says. "But I'm sure Nakissa is glad."

  “I have it good here. Why should I move?”

  "Yes, we do have it good. And I'm glad he decided to stay in Tehran." I emphasize my point by reaching for his hand. He grabs it and tightens his fingers around mine. I love how affectionate he is.

  Once we drop Leyli off, I become more nervous. The party finished so suddenly after my performance that my parents are sure to still be awake when I get home. I check the time on my phone. Not even nine yet! I’m sure they haven’t even finished dinner yet. I want to ask Ehsan to go somewhere else so I can put off the confrontation until later, but when he yawns. I notice the dark circles under his eyes. He’s exhausted and I should let him rest. It strikes me that Leyli had been tired too. She’d happily gone home so early.

  When I let myself in, not only are Maman and Bijan having dinner, but it appears Uncle Fereidoon and his family have come by for a visit. I pause at the door, trying to gauge if this will make things easier or harder on me. Maman doesn't even look in my direction while I remove my scarf and manteau, but my cousin Parvaneh motions to me.

  "I love your hair like this," she says.

  I'm not exactly sure what she means, but I thank her.

  Maman risks a look in my direction and her eyebrows furrow. I recognize the look in her eyes; she's trying to make a decision. Finally, she tells me to help her with something in the kitchen. My heart sinks. She's going to risk making a scene, and if my aunt and uncle get involved, I’ll never hear the end of it.

  I drag my feet into the kitchen and face her. She's dressed well enough, dress pants and a nice blouse, but not well enough to be entertaining. Her brother must have dropped by unexpected. And of course Maman would have insisted he stay for dinner. She looks tired. Stressed. I wonder if it's because of me.

  Though she’s been walking on her own since her last operation, part of her leg is still in a cast and she needs to support herself on the kitchen counter. Guilt tugs at me. I should have been here to help her with dinner, but I couldn't guess my uncle would be so rude as to show up then. A twinge of anger at him and his family wells up inside me. I open my mouth to say something about it, but Maman beats me to the punch. She has her own concerns.

  "Honestly Nakissa, I don't know what to say. Or even what to think! You ask to go to a party and I say no, then you take off and say you are going anyway. And now...” She shakes her head at me. “Now, you are home just a few hours later and it seems you have gone to a salon." She rubs her forehead the way she always does when she’s stressed. "I don't know how to react. I'm relieved you haven't gone to the party. I'm relieved that you’re back earlier than I expected and I won't be worrying about you all night. But you still walked out when I told you to stay."

  Maman reaches out to touch my hair. "I do like your hair straight, Nakissa." She sighs. "If this is how you are exerting your independence, I shouldn't complain, should I?" She searches my face. I don't know what she is looking for or what she sees, but she lets out her breath. "Please go join the family for dinner."

  That’s it? I’m relieved but also confus
ed.

  "I just need wash up first," I tell her.

  She steps forward, hesitates, and then gives me an awkward hug. I don't remember last time we hugged and I know it’s my fault.

  I trudge to the bathroom. What did Parvaneh and Maman mean about my hair? Maman said it was straight. Straight? I didn't do anything to tame down the heavy curls.

  I turn the light on in the bathroom, take a deep breath and look in the mirror.

  What I see doesn't shock me. It's as if my hair should have always been like this. Suddenly it's as if the curly-haired Nakissa I have seen in the mirror for the past sixteen years had been a fraud. This is the real me. Though weirdness still tickles the bottom of my stomach and sends tiny shivers up my arms, I'm feeling good. Alive.

  I take my place at the dinner table and am immediately absorbed into my family's world. The conversation spans international politics and personal freedom to film festivals and Geology. Everyone has heard Bijan's hypothesis on the world-wide earthquakes, but it doesn't stop us from debating and speculating the same points over and over again each time we get together. It's comfortable. It's familiar. And the voice deep inside myself – the one that’s attached to the weirdness – tells me I'm so lucky to have this sense of belonging for the first time after so many lifetimes of loneliness. The shiver returns.

  Bijan's perfect rice (Maman claims she always fails at making rice – but I think this is just her way of making Bijan do it!) and the herb stew are also familiar. They're attached to my roots. A culinary tradition grounded into our culture for millennia.

  Leyli scoffs at tradition. Give her a hamburger or pizza any day, she says. But I appreciate the history of things. I always have. Maybe this is why I’ve been getting these visions of the past lately. It’s either my subconscious building fantasies from all I've read, watched, and listened to, or maybe there really is some ancient magic in play and it attached itself to me because my soul is ancient too. Of course, you won't ever hear me admit to that out loud or even to myself on a normal day. But today is strange. There’s energy in the air. I smile to myself.

  "Nakissa?” There is something about the way Maman says my name that annoys me.

  “Sorry?”

  “I asked if you can pass me the butter, please?"

  I pass it to her but as I watch the crystal and silver dish pass from my hands to hers, a stray thought tugs at me.

  "Maman? Why did you name me Nakissa?"

  She smiles, but there is little joy in her eyes. "I chose your name before you were born. Before I had even met your father. It came to me out of nowhere at the strangest time and I just knew if I ever had a girl it would be her name."

  But it's not what I had meant. "But why Nakissa? Why not Nagissa?"

  Maman looks confused. "Because Nakissa is a real name."

  "But the real name is Nagissa,” I argue. “It was butchered just like so much of our language was after the Arabic conquest." My voice rises, along with my heart rate. "Just because they didn't have the “g” sound."

  I’m angry. Angry over a lost consonant and I don't know what's taken over me. I'm overreacting. Even I know this. But I can't stop it. Tears well up in my eyes. I push myself away from the table and storm to my room.

  For a moment, silence reigns in the dining room until little by little conversation resumes as if everyone at the table is trying to ignore the fact that I exist. That I have no control over my emotions. I want to throw something or scream, but all I do is bury my head in my pillow and cry. I wish I knew what I'm crying about.

  I paced the floor of my hotel room. I had some pieces of the puzzle in front of me, but just didn't know how they fit. Nakissa was key somehow, but I wasn't certain she was entirely sane. She reminded me so much of Nagissa, but she wasn't a Gargoyle. She was also more alive than Nagissa had been. She lived in the present; there was an energy about her that I couldn't quite understand. She was special but I didn’t think she was a witch or a shaman. It wasn’t like Aude or her friend Kateri. Maybe she was something supernatural, but nothing like what I was used to encountering. Yet, recent events had taught me that essence could be controlled by different people in different ways. Kateri, the shaman's daughter who had helped us defeat the stone monster in Montreal, had turned out to be much more powerful than we anticipated. Only her type of magic, her control of life energy was integrally tied to nature. It wasn't something I could really understand.

  But if Nakissa had power, it was something else entirely. I could recognize essence in her, which I had a difficult time doing with shamans. Their magic was too well balanced. Grounded. So what was it? Was she related to the Jinn? I was driving myself crazy trying to reason it out alone. I needed someone to talk it out with.

  I didn't worry about calculating the time difference. Gargoyles don't need sleep, so if I woke them up, it wasn't a big deal.

  Guillaume answered on the first ring.

  "Aude?"

  My heart sank. There was something wrong back home. "It's Garnier. What's happening?"

  "Why didn’t you text me back? Aude is missing."

  "What do you mean, missing?"

  "She didn't show up at band practice after school."

  "Did you go to the school? To her house? Did you look for her?" I was so far away. So helpless.

  "Of course I did all those things. Garnier, you have to come home."

  My first impulse was to agree. I was needed at home. I had to find Aude. If something happened to her after I walked away from the responsibility I shared wouldn't it make it my fault? I couldn't leave it to them to find her could I?

  "I’ll see how quickly I can get a flight back," I said.

  When I hung up the phone, my hands shook. I knew there were still answers to find here and I didn't know how I could abandon them now. I also couldn't abandon Aude, could I?

  If I planned to leave as soon as possible, then I had to get as many answers as I could before then. And if anyone could help (or harm) me, it would be the Jinn.

  I opened my laptop and researched as much as I could about Jinn in Tehran, but it seemed that they, like most supernatural creatures, didn't hold a very strong online presence. Still, I gathered what information I could. Ghost stories, descriptions, even historical accounts. After several hours of research, keeping in mind they were often deceitful, I realized the only way I could get what I needed was still to actually talk to them myself.

  I dressed conservatively, lest I incite their sensitivities or attract too much unwanted attention, and, as dawn was about to set in, I set off for the streets of South Tehran.

  My private taxi dropped me off in what he said was a safer neighborhood. This area didn't suffer from as much devastation as the one I’d previously visited and still exhibited signs of life. As the sun began to rise, many people had risen with it, preparing for a day of hard labor and struggle. The smell of bread wafted to me from a shabby bakery outside of which a lineup of mostly black-clad women had already formed.

  My stomach grumbled. Without Aude to supply me with essence, I was very much tied to human needs. My worry for Aude rose. It would be wise to go home for more than one reason.

  The people I passed looked worn, as if life had taken all it could from them. Many more women covered themselves in the tent-like chador here, and the men were dressed differently as well. More unshaven faces stared at me blankly as I passed them by. I kept my eyes to the ground, not as a sign of deferral, but to watch their feet. Several accounts indicated that the Jinn's feet could appear as hooves. I didn't know if I believed this, but I couldn't let any clue pass me by. My time was short. I planned to be at my hotel booking my plane ticket back home before the morning had ended.

  My hike took me out of this neighborhood to a quieter one. I felt a hint of unease and promised myself that this time I wouldn't run away. I kept my eyes open and scanned the ruins and empty buildings for signs of life. Now and again, I saw human movement, but nothing supernatural. I cut over to the next street, and cont
inued my search. When I encountered a pair of young dirty children, I asked them if they knew where I could find the Jinn. Their eyes widened. The younger one, a little girl with pale brown eyes and skin made dark by the sun and the dirt of her surroundings, spoke to me in the strongly accented dialect of Afghanistan.

  "We don't go looking for Jinn, mister. That way, we hope they leave us alone. They can't be trusted and we don't need more trouble." Though she looked to be too small to be older than eight or nine, her hair was covered. She glanced at the boy, only slightly bigger than she and lowered her voice. "My brother says he's seen them at night, but I think he just tries to scare me."

  "I do not!" The boy answered her, and then turned his attention to me. "Listen, the earthquakes here didn't just affect us. The Jinn are upset and angry. They're not the type you should disturb."

  "How do you know that? Have you talked with them?"

  The little boy nodded his head upward once in a negative. "Na, but the people I work for at the bazaar told me about them. Said we should be careful in these parts."

  The boy didn't wait for me to ask more questions. He grabbed his sister's hand and disappeared down a narrow alleyway.

  I watched them leave, feeling sad by their circumstances. Though I, myself, had had a difficult childhood, I hadn't known the suffering and pain that these two most likely had. I didn't know their story, but in my short time here, I had heard the stories of similar children. Orphans. Refugees from the war in Afghanistan, here illegally in the hope to find work and to feed a starving stomach.

  I wondered (not for the first time) if there was something better I could do with my life than chasing stone monsters and worrying about my own survival. Why was I chasing Ramtin? Trying to save the world? Or merely trying to save myself? I wasn't sure I could claim selfless reasons for my actions and that bothered me.