by Nancy Madore
Her grandmother’s stories—though incredible at times—revealed genuine suffering that pulled at Nadia’s heart strings and sometimes haunted her dreams. Her mother often wept when she got to the saddest parts, but she never skipped over them, determined that Nadia know every detail. Nadia often thought about what she would do differently if she was the one it was happening to, and each time her mother told the stories she hoped for a different ending. And she, too, would weep when the stories always turned out the same.
But to have all this dredged up now, under such bizarre circumstances, was both baffling and disturbing. Nadia’s opinion about the djinn had not changed since childhood. She still didn’t believe in them. She wanted to—she’d tried to even—but she couldn’t. Ancient spirits wandering the earth in search of human bodies to inhabit—there wasn’t a single piece of scientific evidence to support it. Nadia knew this because she had looked for the evidence herself. But like the djinn themselves, it was not to be found. Nadia had reached the conclusion that all supernatural beings—whether djinn, ghosts, demons, or even angels—were simply the fodder of ancient fairy-tales. Nadia’s grandmother was well acquainted with Eastern mythology. Her love of reading was inspired by her father, and was probably what got her through the loneliness and isolation she felt living in Saudi Arabia all those years later. That later reading would have been limited to religion and history, and sorely lacking in the sciences. Confused by what happened to her, she naturally began forming theories and drawing conclusions in an attempt to make sense of it all. Nadia couldn’t help admiring her grandmother’s imaginative use of the limited knowledge she’d acquired. Perhaps her grandmother even believed her own theories. But that’s all they were—theories and stories. Nadia had satisfied her curiosity about that.
But how was it connected to what was happening now? What possible link could these men have to her grandmother’s djinn?
“You’re not even Arab,” Nadia couldn’t help observing out loud. She figured the concept of djinn was mostly limited to the Arab culture. She examined each of them, hesitating over the one she had previously supposed to be Indian. “…Are you?”
“No, but you are,” Blue Eyes shot back, putting the focus back on her, as usual.
“Yes, on my mother’s side,” Nadia admitted. “My grandfather was Arab, but I’ve never even met him.”
“This isn’t story time at the library,” interjected the African American. “We’re not asking you about Ali Baba and his flying carpet. We use the term ‘djinn’ because it’s the first name they were given in ancient Arabia, where all this started. You can use ‘daeva’ or ‘demon’ if you like, but this isn’t a game. You need to tell us what you know about it right now!”
“I only know of one djinn…” she said, pausing to collect her thoughts. She could use her grandmother’s stories to her advantage. If nothing else, they might buy her some time. She shuddered again, remembering Blue Eyes’ threat. If she could convince him that she had the information he was seeking, she might be able to stay alive until she found a way to escape.
This appeared to interest them. “Where is it?” asked Blue Eyes.
“I don’t know where it is right this minute,” she said. She was aware that she was playing a dangerous game and her heart began to beat a little faster. “All I know is what I heard, second hand, from my mother.”
This took some of the wind out of their sails. “What do you know, exactly?” Blue Eyes asked.
“I know that my grandmother spoke to the djinn,” she replied cautiously. “The djinn was called Lilith.” She stopped after each statement to gauge their responses, but their expressions gave nothing away. She decided to go for it. “And though I don’t know where Lilith is now, I know every detail of her life up to when she disappeared in nineteen forty-eight.”
She had their attention. “How could you know every detail of her life?” asked the African American.
She took a deep breath and tried to be her most convincing. “Because Lilith told my grandmother, my grandmother told my mother and my mother told me,” she said.
They appeared to consider this.
“When did your mother tell you about it?” Blue Eyes asked.
Nadia hesitated a moment and decided to tell the truth. “The last time was when I was about thirteen or fourteen years old, I think,” she said.
“She can’t even remember how old she was,” observed the African American. “How you gonna remember ‘every detail of its life,’ huh?” he asked her.
“I remember every detail,” she replied huffily—“Because my mother told me the stories over and over again. My grandmother did the same with her. For some reason it was very important to my grandmother that we know the stories, but she was afraid to write them down af…I mean, she didn’t want them to fall into the wrong hands. She made it a kind of a game for us to pass the stories down like in ancient times.”
“How do we know she’s telling the truth?” asked the African American.
Blue Eyes sighed. “We won’t until we hear what she has to say,” he replied.
That was exactly what Nadia was hoping for and she very nearly let out a sigh of relief. She was still reeling with shock. Of all the possible explanations for her kidnapping, this one hadn’t even occurred to her. She never imagined that her grandmother’s stories would have any significance to anyone besides her and her mother.
Nadia had not lied when she said she knew every detail of Lilith’s life. Her mother had not only repeated the stories again and again; she’d elaborated over every point. She cleverly unraveled one little piece of the puzzle at a time, stretching the stories out over a long period of time as she strung Nadia along, night after night, with little hints of what was to come. Now Nadia would have to do the same.
“There’s quite a lot,” Nadia told them. “It could take a while.”
Blue Eyes examined her face as if to read her intentions there. “If you’re delaying so that the attack can be executed, you will die,” he said. “I’ll personally see to that, just as I promised you earlier. Since you’re not one of them, you must realize that there’s no way to get back here when you die. Whatever they promised you, you won’t be able to collect it. You’re not Islamic so you can’t be expecting some reward in the afterlife. There’s nothing but suffering, disgrace and death for you if their plan succeeds.”
Nadia swallowed. “You were wrong about me being a djinn,” she reminded him. “Can you at least consider that you might be wrong about my involvement in this attack you’re accusing me of?”
The hardness in his expression seemed to soften the tiniest bit as Blue Eyes appeared to consider this. But it just as quickly returned to stone.
“We might have been wrong about where the djinn is,” he conceded. “But we’re not wrong about its being out there or the impending attack that it’s master-minded. We know that it’s working with several terrorist cells to bring about a disaster the likes of which we’ve never seen before. And you and BEACON…and your grandmother’s djinn are at the center of it.” He let this sink in before he continued. “So if you really are the little do-gooder that you make yourself out to be, you’ll want to help us prevent this disaster from happening.”
Nadia stared at him. In that moment she sincerely hoped that they were crazy, because she couldn’t even consider the alternative. BEACON at the center of an attack, ‘the likes of which we’ve never seen before?’ It was impossible.
“Where and when is this attack you’re talking about?” she asked.
The blue eyes flickered and Nadia caught the smallest glimpse of uncertainty there. “That’s what you’re going to help us figure out,” he said.
Nadia dropped her head in her hands and struggled to organize her thoughts. She was so tired. They’re crazy, she told herself. I’m going to have to milk these stories for all their worth. But even to think was becoming an effort. She could barely muster the energy to lift her head back up and face her interrogators again.
“I’m so hungry…” she murmured.
Blue Eyes turned to his comrades with a sigh. It was the first time she’d seen him relent in the smallest measure. “I could eat too,” he admitted. “Either of you feel like putting something together for the four of us?”
The two men looked at each other.
“Oh no,” said the African American. “I ain’t no Julia Child.” The Indian got up with a little sigh of disgust and went into the small area that acted as a makeshift kitchen. Nadia heard him rummaging around, mumbling under his breath.
“May I at least know your names so I won’t have to think of you as the ‘African American,’ the ‘Indian’ and…,’” Nadia stopped there.
“And…?” prompted Blue Eyes.
Nadia tried to suppress the blush that was rising up her neck. “And the white guy,” she lied. Something like curiosity flashed in his eyes, but he didn’t pursue it further.
“The ‘African American’ is called Clive,” he said.
“Tha’s right, boss,” reiterated Clive, vigorously nodding his head. “I be Clive an’ I sho nuff did musta come out of Africa too!” Nadia couldn’t tell if he was joking or if she’d actually offended him. She rifled through her addled wits in search of a newer, more acceptable term than ‘African American’ but came up empty-handed. In spite of his strange behavior, Clive had the look of an intelligent and rational guy. There was a kind of perceptiveness in his expression that implied that he ‘got’ it, or you, or whatever it was that needed figuring out, though his manner could be rather condescending, or so it seemed to Nadia. Of the three men, he seemed the best groomed. His brown hair was cut very close to his head, his clothing looked tailored (though he wore jeans and a t-shirt), and even his fingernails appeared to have been filed rather than cut.
“And the…ah…Indian is called Gordon,” Blue Eyes continued, ignoring Clive.
“In Indian that means, ‘boy with girl’s name,’” said Clive, but the joke—if there was one—was lost on Nadia. ‘Gordon’ seemed plenty masculine to her, but then again, maybe that wasn’t his real name.
“I wish I could say I was veddy pleased to meet you,” said Gordon, emerging from the kitchen with the Indian accent fully intact. It infused his words with a benign, almost jovial quality that didn’t quite fit the occasion. He had large, wide eyes, a straight nose and full lips. His thick, jet black hair was neatly trimmed around the neck and ears, while the top was much longer and combed to one side. It fell in waves into his eyes and he kept swinging his head to one side in order send it back where it belonged. He was the leanest of the three—though none of them were sporting any excess body fat—and he appeared to be the youngest as well (Nadia guessed late twenties). He dragged a small table between the couch and their chairs and slapped down a plate piled high with slices of cheese, crackers and olives. A few of the olives rolled off the plate and onto the table. His stiff smile faded as he turned to Clive.
“You better give that a rest,” he said in perfect English.
“You think it’s that important?” asked Clive. “You think with everything that’s going on in her life right now she’s thinking about this?”
Nadia wasn’t sure what to make of them. She wondered for the umpteenth time if they were crazy. Crazy might not be bad, provided they weren’t psychotic. She put a piece of cheese on one of the crackers and turned back to Blue Eyes as she popped it in her mouth.
“And I’m Will,” he said, abruptly bringing the introductions to a close. He was disheveled from the day’s activities, but remained as composed and determined as ever. He had fluffed his hair back into place with his fingers, but Nadia noticed that it was beginning to curl up rebelliously at the ends. He seemed comfortable in his chair, casually crossing one leg over the other as his blue eyes settled on her with interest. He looked more like a doctor than a kidnapper. “Now that we’ve all been formerly introduced, you can tell us about your grandmother and her djinn,” he said.
Nadia stuffed another cracker with cheese in her mouth and wondered where to begin.
Chapter 6
“It was nineteen forty-eight,” said Nadia—“When my great-grandfather, Robert Trevelyan, and two of his colleagues, took his daughter—my grandmother, Helene Trevelyan—to Qumran to investigate scrolls that were discovered there.”
“How well did you know your grandmother?” asked Will.
“I never met her, but I knew a lot about her…through my mother.”
“Why didn’t your mother ever take you to Saudi Arabia to meet her?” asked Clive. “A woman like Gisele Adeire would’ve had the means to get in and out of the country, no problem.” Nadia bristled at his tone when he spoke of her mother. His manner of speaking was more expressive than his words. It was clear he disapproved of Gisele. Nadia wondered why.
Nadia kept her own tone in check when she replied. “She wanted to, but my grandfather wouldn’t authorize it. My mother was shunned by my grandfather for leaving the Muslim faith. Actually, I think he did it more to punish my grandmother. At any rate, even if we had managed to get into the country on some other pretext, my grandfather would never have permitted Helene to see us.”
“Did you exchange letters?” asked Gordon.
“My mother never stopped sending letters, even though she believed they were being intercepted by my grandfather. She never got a letter back.”
“Why would your grandfather do that?” asked Gordon. “What happened to upset him so much?”
Nadia shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I thought you wanted to know about the djinn.”
“Yes, let’s get back to that,” Will agreed. “How much do you know about Helene’s family background?”
“I know everything my mother knew, and she and my grandmother were very close.” Nadia was surprised by the tiny pang of resentment this statement triggered. Nadia’s grandmother had been as open and accessible as Nadia’s mother had been secretive and unavailable. If not for Helene’s stories—which her mother was strangely determined that Nadia know—Nadia and her mother might never have discussed anything more significant than what Nadia was going to wear to the next event. Nadia felt she knew Helene better than she knew her own mother. “My grandmother was only sixteen when they took that fateful trip into the Middle East,” Nadia continued. “Up to that point she’d lived in London with her father and a housekeeper called Mrs. Barnes. Her own mother died when she was very young, so she had no memory of her.
“Mrs. Barnes had a kind of on and off guardianship of her nephew, Edward, who she began bringing with her to work when Helene was about twelve. Edward’s mother was sickly, and his father had been killed in the war.”
“Is this the same Edward who is now your father?” Will interjected.
“Yes,” replied Nadia.
“One thing that’s always puzzled me is why your great-grandfather would take his daughter on such a venture,” remarked Gordon. “Surely he realized the risks—not to mention what was happening in the Middle East at the time. It wasn’t the ideal situation for a sixteen year old girl.”
“My grandmother wasn’t an ordinary sixteen year old,” explained Nadia. “All she knew of life was war. Even when the war finally ended they were still knee deep in the depression. Until Edward came along, Helene had lived a very solitary life. All the other children in her London neighborhood had been evacuated and her father was rarely home. Though I know my grandmother was fond of Mrs. Barnes, the woman wasn’t much of a companion. And she wasn’t exactly what you would call ‘good’ with children either. In those days people thought children were ‘better seen than heard.’ Helene’s only companion before Edward was the radio.”
Nadia sighed, resting her head on the back of the couch. The dim lighting of the room had a peculiar effect on her memories, making them seem more vivid.
“There was one program in particular…called It’s That Man Again. I dug up some old archives of it online and listened to them a few years ago. I’m sure Helene
didn’t understand half the jokes, but I can see why it appealed to her. There are a handful of silly, one dimensional characters that carry on riotously over the air while poking fun at the Nazis and the war. It was very British. Loads of innuendo. Benny Hill meets Hyacinth Bucket…that kind of thing. My mother said that Helene used to act out some of the sketches for her. Saudi Arabia didn’t have this kind of entertainment—they still don’t—and I think that particular show, with its bold, free-thinking ideas, must have come to represent all Helene had lost. She even incorporated some of the show’s catch phrases into their daily life (she taught most of the family how to speak English), and it was a private joke between Helene and my mother whenever someone unwittingly repeated one of the phrases from the show, like ‘cheesed off' or ‘ever so’.”