The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories

by Mahvesh Murad

  “Kosaca Davud,” whispered Nizamuddin, a quivering fellow who resembled in his spirit the tiny octopus they say he loved to eat. “I am sent by the great men of this land – by vizier and pasha, by Aga of the Imperial Guard, by governor of far-away province and by the most mighty imams. What do you know of women who summon djinn?”

  Our handsome Davud considered this question at length – the Imperial court does not teach men to rush to judgment – and at last replied, “There are none I know of, for commanding djinn requires a great many tools that women do not have access to – not without the assistance of men.” These careful words Davud spoke as if to another place, for he had always been a scholar more interested in ideas than the audience that might hear them, and so it was with a start that he returned to the reality of that place, as Nizamuddin barked, “Ah – there you are mistaken! For there are witches who command djinn through gifts of their own flesh and blood, through offerings of their souls, and some, I fear, deep at the heart of our Empire! Many learned men, many – I cannot name them all – but many have looked into this matter and concluded that there is one, indeed, who even now works her magic upon the Sultan.”

  Davud glanced at his master, but the old man in his great red tunic and long brown gown said nothing, rather contemplated the high ceiling of the cavern as if seeking constellations in the stone. Within this quiet, Nizamuddin paced, ranting – some might say raving, I would not – as to the seriousness of the matter, the heathen women infecting the heart of the Empire, Istanbul falling to darkness, the Sultan, the Emperor, the Caliph the...

  Finally, Ahmed interrupted. “You have some request for our order, do you not?”

  This reasoned enquiry stopped Nizamuddin in his tracks, and he coughed and said, “We have some notion of the chief woman who practices this sorcery. We wish you to prove her betrayal, banish her creatures, strip her of her power.”

  At this, Davud brightened – this was to be an actual exercise of his talents, rather than a political discourse. “Surely if she is a witch, I can prove it!” he exclaimed. “Who do you suspect?”

  Nizamuddin hesitated, glancing uneasy towards Ahmed, and now even Davud sensed something of danger.

  “She is within the harem; a favourite of the Sultan. The favourite of the Sultan.”

  Davud pondered a moment, before realisation blazed and he exclaimed, “You mean Hurrem?!” He flinched at the words, and all three men looked about, suddenly fearful that their voices might travel through the stones to whisper in the walls of the palace above.

  Gentler now, quieter, barely above a whisper: “You believe that Hurrem, the most beloved of the Sultan, is commanding djinn?”

  “Of course she is,” hissed Nizamuddin. “The woman is a wolf who has bitten the necks of everyone in her path. She had Mahedeveran, the Sultan’s wife and mother of his son, banished; she crosses Ibrahim Pasha, the Sultan’s oldest, dearest advisor and friend, so that he fears his life is in danger. She commands armies like a general and viziers like a prince, and our noble Sultan is besotted with her! He has sworn off all other women – can you imagine? The scandal of it! Last night, Ibrahim Pasha dreamed of a serpent in his bed, and Prince Mustafa says he hears the laughing of ghosts. The Sultan’s sacred mother once saw Hurrem scratch at the eye that wards against evil, as if she could not stand its gaze, and when she sleeps, she whispers in strange languages.”

  “Sir,” Davud began, glancing to his mentor’s stony face for some comfort, “this is not proof. If she consorts with djinn, I must have some item of hers to test the theory.”

  “Here we are prepared! See...” Nizamuddin produced a ring, brilliant emerald set in gold, and holding it between his thumb and forefinger as if afraid of its touch, dropped it into Davud’s waiting palm. “Call on the djinn, bid them consume and devour the demons she has summoned – you will suffer no consequence if she has made a blood bargain, you will not be punished if in the course of your actions she... experiences ill-effect.”

  “There is that possibility, if she has offered blood, the tie between djinn and blood is...”

  “No consequence,” repeated Nizamuddin. “Foul women” – he stabbed the air with one drumstick finger on every word – “must be cast down.”

  SO HE WAS given his task; so he set about his work. The ring was not his first choice of offering to any djinn, even one of lesser degree, but he enjoyed such challenges and taxed his mind now as to a most potent and complimentary binding. In the end, he chose a staff of gold to summon and command; a stick of charcoal to encircle the beast; a mask of iron dug from the grave of an ancient Celtic king to hide his face, and for the ring itself, which would be the offering – that, he folded in the leaves of the ashoka tree. This plant, said the sorcerers of India, contained the spirit of the yakshini, guardians of the treasures of the earth and creatures of amorous – sometimes wrathful – inclination. Such a djinn seemed to fit with the nature of his present task, and so it was that he now lit incense from the sacred groves of the east and, bending all his will to it, spoke in the voice of the forest.

  That which came from his throat was not a human language, but was rather the sound of swirling leaves, of insects running through his lungs, branches creaking in his bones, roots running from his feet. The smoke of the incense twisted into strange patterns, burned down to ash within a few seconds, the leaves of the ashoka tree which bound the ring opened like a flower, and for a moment the emerald within the jewel blazed brightly before it went out, and the ring dissolved into the earth. Yet from the rippling earth now rose a woman – shall we call her that? A creature with anatomy – face, breasts, hips, wide feet on thick legs – but her skin was all autumn leaf, and her hair was of brambles that twisted and twined about her skull, and her eyes were the colour of amber, and her tongue dripped white sap, and when she looked on Kosaca Davud, she hissed in the language of the stalk as it rots upon the wet soil.

  “Why have you brought me here, sorcerer?” she demanded.

  “To answer a question and break a spell,” he replied. “The ring whose light you now have within you belongs to a woman within this palace. I would know her nature, and what spirits she commands. Tell me that, and you are free, and I give you all these offerings in thanks.”

  The golden staff he held in his hand was warm, growing hot beneath his fingers as the djinn, her swaying body still in the circle, explored the cavern with her eyes and her thoughts, testing the limits of the binding he had put upon her – but it was good and strong, and if he felt any pain from the heat in his hands, he did not show it.

  Sensing this, the djinn turned her attention to Davud’s words, and hissed, “I will do as you ask. What is this woman?”

  “Her name is Hurrem, once Roxlana, the Sultan’s favourite.”

  “Ah – a queen!”

  “Even so.”

  “I sense her warmth in the meagre gift you gave me... she has slept with this ring beneath her pillow.”

  “Can you taste her, and the dreams she has dreamed, and the spirits she has commanded? What has she invoked to bind our Sultan, and with what offerings? Has she given her blood to do it?”

  For a long while, the yakshini was quiet, or as quiet as any creature can be whose breath is the mountain wind, whose spine continually sprouted fresh pink flowers from within its wooden bone, which bloomed and died, bloomed and died within a moment. Then at last it said, “Those creatures she commands are beyond my seeing. I cannot feel them, or hear their song. There is only human breath on my skin.”

  At this, Davud felt a sudden chill, and the staff burned hot between his fingers, the creature’s eyes lighting up as it sensed some waning in his concentration, for the djinn, even the fairest of them, always seek to escape a binding and have their mischief – but our Davud was quick, and quickly he brought the staff down hard upon the ground, bending the image of the flower carved into its top, and with a sacred word, he banished the yakshini back to its forests and sacred groves, its body dissolving into dust th
at fell upon the stones.

  THAT EVENING, HE reported his discoveries to Nizamuddin and Ahmed Danishmend. “The djinn,” he explained, “could not see if others of its kind served Hurrem.”

  Silence in the cavern; silence in the palace. The last call to prayers had been sung, the moon hung high above the heavy cypress trees, the flutes and drums were silent and the slumbering guards leant heavy on their muskets by the palace gates.

  “Could not see?” muttered Nizamuddin. “Could not see?” He turned paler than a dead squid, and grabbing onto Ahmed’s sleeve tugged like a drowning man. “How powerful must be the djinn she commands, if this forest spirit could not perceive them?”

  “Indeed,” he murmured. “The situation is worse than we first thought. Davud – what would you recommend as our next step?”

  The younger man hesitated, looking to his master for guidance, for he was never sure of what palace politics might require from him, but seeing nothing in the fixed features at last answered, “If the djinn of the forest could not see, then we must invoke a more powerful creature. A djinn of the sands, perhaps, or of the stone...”

  “Are they potent?” barked Nizamuddin. “Are they great? I heard that fire or the creatures of the first dawn...”

  “Summoning such djinn is extremely dangerous. They are difficult to command, and if they escape our binding, they will do great harm...”

  “Heavens protect us!” exclaimed the little man. “And you think Hurrem may control such things?”

  “I didn’t say so...”

  “If she did, can you imagine what she might achieve?”

  “To bewitch our Sultan, a lesser djinn might well serve...”

  “Perhaps,” Ahmed intruded gently, tugging at the curling grey hairs of his beard, “we might propose a middle ground? A lesser djinn of the sea might have some insight into this matter?”

  “Indeed, but we would need something more of hers, more than a ring...”

  “I will deal with that!” barked Nizamuddin. “I can get you anything you need!”

  Ahmed looked at Davud; Davud looked at Ahmed – Davud told Nizamuddin what they needed.

  A SHOCKING TRUTH, my friend, I think you will be quite scandalised – it turns out that the eunuchs and loyal men who guard the Imperial harem may not be entirely incorruptible. In fact, I have heard of many a man, whole or otherwise, who for a few coins or a lady’s favour, will tell a tale, steal a ring, carry a message, employ a servant about some dubious business, or even – the whispers go so far – put a drop of poison in some beauty’s cup, that her radiance might not outshine another who looks fair in the Sultan’s eye.

  Oh, the things that happen in that gilded cage, for these are mothers of Sultans yet to come – but of all their children, only one will be king. What mother would not protect her child? And so they play a game, these beautiful, graceful would-be-queens, with the savagery of the lioness protecting her cubs, and moonlight smiles.

  So with some ease, Nizamuddin bribed a eunuch, who whispered to a servant, who commanded a slave, who – as the lady Hurrem was about some business – took from her closet a veil of softest Indian silk, scented with jasmine, and dropped it from a high window into the garden below, where a soldier armed with shovel and sword collected it, and carried it fast to our magical men, who set to in the summoning of another, greater spirit to uncover Hurrem’s witchery.

  THE VEIL WAS laid upon a bed of silver, taken from the wreck of a Spanish galleon that had sailed from the New World. Ahmed stood by, to assist Davud in this dangerous task, and the circle they drew was laid with fresh petals from the cherry tree on a bed of salt, and Davud held a rod carved from a slab of ice, brought from the north in a casket of thick metal set with delicate ivory. Yet even with all these sacred items and careful plans, there was something of the fearful which shook Davud’s hands as he poured water from the sacred pool across the floor, and whispered his words in the voice of the waves breaking upon the shore, and the wind as it stirs white froth above the ocean, and the roaring of the ocean as it fills your ears beneath the surface of the raging storm.

  The veil on its bed of silver melted, as if thread were a liquid thing; then the silver, too, melted, without heat, flowing into a pool that ebbed and eddied within the confines of its salty ring, until at last, with a great slither and splash of bright liquid, the djinn of the sea rose up and hissed in a mouth of foam and shingle:

  “Why have you summoned me?”

  The rod of ice, which had burned with cold in Davud’s hand, began at once to melt, water flowing over his palm and into his sleeve, rippling away as the djinn shivered and spun within its cage.

  “The woman whose veil you hold is suspected of being a witch. We command you to...”

  “Command me?!” The djinn grew sudden and fast, its silver body snapping against the edge of the circle as it briefly became a rolling wave, a spilling flood, before returning again to a spinning pillar in the centre of the circle. “Be careful, mortal,” it hissed, as a lump of ice fell away from the bottom of Davud’s rod. “Be clear in your speech.”

  Davud’s lips trembled, but his voice was steady as he said, softer, “Great spirit, we ask you to look at the woman Hurrem. Tell us of the djinn she commands, and the services they perform for her. Is it within your power to consume their magic, snuff out their doings and end the enchantments she has performed?”

  For a moment, the djinn twisted in its spire, and still the ice melted in Davud’s grasp, slippery and cracked through. Then, “I cannot break the spells she has cast; I cannot destroy the djinn she has commanded,” it breathed, and at that moment the ice rod cracked within Davud’s hand, and the djinn gave a triumphant roar and broke towards the edge of the circle, and Ahmed raised his hands and cried out the sacred words of banishment even as Davud threw himself to the ground, cowering beneath the might of the raging seas which...

  ... broke, as a wave on the shore, just water now, no longer liquid silver and silk, but salty water that knocked both men from their feet and spilled to the edges of the room, washing softly in the night.

  WOULD YOU LIKE something to drink? Some sherbet, perhaps? A glass of wine – I know, I know, it is haram, forbidden, but our noble Sultan’s father built up quite a wonderful reserve in the cellars beneath the palace, and it does seem a shame to let it go to waste...

  ... No? You’re not in the mood, I can see.

  Did you think that it would be simple, this business of the djinn? Did you think, perhaps, that with a gesture of their hands, our heroes would expose the evil of Hurrem, beloved of the Sultan? You have not seen my lady, as she walks through the palace, listens from behind the shuttered door. You have not seen her eyes sparkle, as I have, you do not know the extent of her power – but no matter. You are listening, I appreciate that. You will see.

  So, then, this djinn was summoned, and so it was discharged, and so Davud went again to Nizamuddin, and reported what he had heard, and Nizamuddin indeed looked as if he might flee the palace there and then, rather than stay another minute within its cursed walls. But no, all these men were brave, most brave, so they took unto themselves their blessed charms and talismans, their sacred texts and hidden, potent words, and resolved one last try to end the woman’s spells.

  To the harem once again, Nizamuddin sent his spies, and this time they were to find a most foul and unclean thing, for I must tell you – please, do not be too offended by this – I must tell you that even in the palace, the women will bleed when their time is come, and our Hurrem, for all that she is majestic, is still a woman. From her bed Nizamuddin’s servants stole her bloodied sheets, and carried them with great distaste to their master; he, nearly dead from the mere sight of the woman’s blood, took them to Ahmed and Davud, who laid it in the centre of the circle with all the most potent of their offerings and artefacts, to entice and command one of the greatest djinn of all – a creature of the stormy sky.

  Both Ahmed and Davud held staffs of hollow glass, into which the dyin
g breaths of their makers were sealed; Nizamuddin cowered behind them, his face covered with the battle mask of a Visigoth king who fell by the waters of the Danube. Around the edge of the circle they sprinkled the seeds of the red lotus flower, and the blood of the golden eagle, and the ash of a mighty volcano. Into the centre of the circle they placed the sword of a crusading king, and the bones of a Chinese Emperor buried with seven hundred of his slaves, still-living, beneath a golden tomb. They laid down a perpetual ember from the fire of Zoroaster, and a single thread taken from the robe of the Prophet himself, that he wore on the night of his journey from Mecca to Jerusalem.

  This done, the two sorcerers stood either side of the circle and spoke in the voice of the storm, and their breath was the raging wind that runs before the cloud, and their skin was the cold that precedes the thrashing rain, and their eyes were the flood and their hair stood all on end with the coming of the lightning and they spoke and gave command, and in doing so...

  ... nothing happened.

  For many hours they struggled, incanted and implored, but no djinn came, their wishes were not fulfilled, until at last, sweating and exhausted, Davud said, “We need something more.”

  For the first time, the elder Ahmed showed some glimmer of fear, for he understood at once where this thought might lead. “It is not wise,” he muttered. “It is not the way I have taught you.”

  “But you did tell me of it, when you taught me the ways of witches, and those sorcerers who do not have our offerings and our gifts to command,” he replied. “And you know it is potent.”

  Ahmed opened his mouth to protest, but seeing Nizamuddin watching them still, he did not speak. Alas, what a poor teacher he proved then! But ambition, it is always ambition and the fear of failure that dogs our devshirme men, our servants who know that either glory or death hangs about their every deed. So he looked away, and in that looking there was perhaps an acknowledgment of what Davud was determined to do.