The House of Djinn

by Suzanne Fisher Staples

  10

  Jameel had no sooner pressed his lips against Chloe’s than his cell phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He dropped his arms from around her and retrieved it, flipping open the cover, and the moment was totally gone.

  “Yes, Mommy,” he said softly into the phone, turning his back so Chloe couldn’t hear. He’d always called his mother Mommy, but it occurred to him just then that it might sound childish. At first there was silence on the other end of the line, and then he heard his mother draw in a long, shaky breath. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Where are you, Beta?” It sounded as if she’d been crying. “I’m sending Javed for you immediately.” Javed drove Jameel’s father to work, then came back to drive his mother to the market and on other errands around San Francisco. Javed had taken them that evening to the Indian Consul-General’s house.

  “Tell me what’s wrong!” He kept his voice low. His mother was usually calm and reserved. She was not like some other Pakistani-American mothers: overprotective, disapproving, and subject to panic at the most normal things.

  “We’re on our way home. It’s your grandfather,” she said. “We’re leaving for Lahore on the first flight we can catch. We have to—”

  “What’s happened?” Jameel asked. “Is he …”

  “It sounds as if he’s had a stroke, Beta,” she said. “He’s in and out of consciousness. It sounds very bad. I want to see him … well, as soon as possible. Before he went unconscious he was asking for you. Uncle Omar says we must come now. We’re on standby for a flight that leaves around noon tomorrow. I’ll pack your things and we must get some sleep.”

  “Tell Javed to meet me at the corner of Embarcadero and Broadway,” Jameel said quickly. “I’m going there right now.”

  Jameel folded his cell phone and dropped it back into his pocket. He flipped his skateboard with his toe, caught it, and held out his hand to Chloe.

  “I have to go,” he said, his face coloring. She held on to his hand.

  “I know, Jimmy,” said Chloe. “I heard.”

  “It’s my grandfather,” Jameel said quickly. His throat tightened and he was embarrassed to feel the pressure of tears behind his eyes. Chloe squeezed his hand. “He’s, he’s … It sounds bad. He’s in a hospital in Lahore. We’re leaving tomorrow.” Jameel felt a little faint. The edges of his vision darkened and telescoped inward. Chloe shook his arm.

  “Jameel—what’s wrong?” She led him by the hand to a concrete bench near a bus stop and guided him to sit on it. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost! You’re sweating.”

  Jameel’s vision cleared and he took deep breaths until his head stopped doing loops. Chloe was wiping his forehead and face with a red bandanna kerchief doused with cool water from her bottle.

  “My grandfather and I have always been very close. I’m named for him—Mahsood Jameel is my real name, just like his: Mahsood Jameel Muhammad Amirzai. They called him Mahsood, except for my grandmother, who called him Jameel. He’s always been so healthy, and I guess I thought he’d live forever.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” Her eyes were round and her face was uncharacteristically still. She really was sorry, Jameel thought. She handed him her water bottle. “Here—you probably should drink this.” He obeyed.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Chloe, I …” To Jameel’s horror his throat closed and he felt tears prickling again at the back of his eyes.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. He nodded and turned his head to swipe at the tears with her kerchief. She turned, so he could see her face fully lit in the streetlight.

  “I don’t pray very often,” she said, “but I’ll pray for him. And I’ll think about you and send you good thoughts. I’ll do it at eight every morning so you can be listening.” Her blue eyes clouded for a moment. “Will a Jew’s prayers work?”

  Jameel cleared his throat and managed to smile. “Muslims and Christians and Jews all pray to the same God, Chloe. Yes, they’ll work just fine. At eight every morning. That will be eight at night in Pakistan,” he said. “I’ll be there when you are. Chloe … I’m so glad …” He wasn’t sure what to say she was—his girlfriend? That seemed a little extreme.

  She smiled and leaned forward to plant a kiss softly on his mouth. “Me too,” she said. He was surprised and couldn’t speak for a moment. The kiss stayed right there on his lips, where she left it. He smiled back at her and they both stood. Chloe hooked her finger into his back jeans pocket again as they walked toward the corner where Javed would meet him.

  “Thanks, Chloe,” he said a few minutes later when the black Mercedes rolled up to the stoplight on Broadway, a block away. “I’ll see you soon.” Jameel felt a stab of embarrassed alarm as they approached the car, but Chloe didn’t even seem to notice. She took his hand and squeezed it quickly before letting go.

  “Bye, Jimmy,” she said, her voice a soft whisper. He felt her eyes on his back all the way to the car, until he opened the rear door and climbed inside. He waved at her through the dark-tinted rear window. She probably couldn’t see him, he thought, but she smiled and waved, then waved with her red kerchief so he could see her under the streetlight until the car turned the corner.

  Jameel felt as if a giant fist had him by the heart, it thrashed and hammered so hard inside his chest. He wondered what it felt like, this sleep after a stroke—was it dark? Or just like sleeping? Or death, for that matter—would his grandfather be aware as he died that he was leaving all of those who loved him? He wondered if Grandfather was trying desperately to awaken. Jameel hadn’t thought of these things when Grandmother had died the year before. He rested his head against the white linen cover on the backseat of his father’s car as Javed drove along Embarcadero, passing warehouses with metal roofs that glinted dimly behind the streetlights.

  Jameel closed his eyes, and an image popped into his head of himself and his grandfather riding the bright red-and-silver BMW motorcycle one July day through the streets of Gulberg near Number 5 Anwar Road. His grandfather whooped like a small boy, his white beard flying over his shoulder, just as it had on the Jet Ski this summer. Jameel held on for dear life, but he laughed the whole time as the wind snatched away his breath.

  When Jameel got home it seemed every light in the house was lit. Upstairs his mother rushed back and forth from the laundry to his room. A large leather suitcase lay open on his bed, and a metal trunk sat on its end near the bedroom door.

  “How long are we staying?” Jameel asked as she brushed past him with another armload of neatly folded shirts. When she didn’t answer, Jameel followed her back to the laundry. She stopped beside the dryer and he ran into her.

  “I don’t know,” she said, turning and stepping around him.

  “But you don’t have to pack all of my clothes—school starts in two weeks …”

  “Jameel,” she said, “I’m sorry—I don’t know how long I should be packing for. I’m just trying to do it. Javed’s getting gas in the car—he’ll be back in a few minutes. Daddy’s packing some papers in the office. Your grandfather is very ill. We don’t know if he will live until we get to Lahore, or if he does, how long he’ll be alive. Uncle Omar said the doctors don’t know exactly what’s wrong yet. They don’t know whether he’ll awaken again, so we can talk to him.” She laid her hand against Jameel’s cheek and then resumed bustling and looking worried.

  11

  When Muti and Omar arrived at Jinnah Hospital, they rushed to the second floor, where they found several relatives standing in a knot and talking quietly near the foot of Baba’s bed in a large, dimly lit room. Nazir was there, and Auntie Selma, as well as various cousins. Only Selma stood near Baba, who lay under a sheet that was neatly tucked around him. Selma’s hand rested on her brother’s shoulder, and she talked gently to him as if he were awake. Nazir and two cousins stood apart from the others, their backs to the bed. A glucose drip was fastened to Baba’s arm and his face was peaceful. Dr. Ghafoor came in and spread his arms as if to embrace them all. />
  “Please,” said the doctor, “please take seats in the visitors’ lounge. It’s just across the hall. We don’t know whether he will awaken, but if he does, the room shouldn’t be so chaotic.” One by one they moved quietly out into the hall, where they stood near the doorway as if reluctant to miss the old man’s awakening. A fan clicked overhead, and a strong scent of antiseptic barely disguised the underlying smell of body fluids.

  Dr. Ghafoor stopped Muti and Omar at the door and motioned for them to stay. Selma stayed behind, too.

  “Is your nephew coming?” Dr. Ghafoor asked Omar. “You said he asked for his grandson and his niece.”

  “This is Mumtaz,” said Omar. “It’s the middle of the night in California, where Jameel and his family live. They were trying to get a seat on a flight that leaves around noon their time, I think. How much time does he have?” Mumtaz looked anxiously from Omar’s face to the doctor’s.

  “There’s no way to tell,” Dr. Ghafoor said. “His vital signs are relatively weak. That could change. Right now the trend is toward further weakening. There’s no way to know—it could be days, or a matter of hours. While it’s possible that he’ll awaken, you shouldn’t have false hope. But it would be very good to have everyone he asked for here.”

  Muti had never seen Omar so shaken. His face was pale and droplets of sweat stood out on his forehead. “Please, Doctor, tell me the truth. Is there any chance my father will live?”

  “I have told you the truth,” said Dr. Ghafoor. “It appears he has had a cerebrovascular accident, most likely a thrombosis, a blood clot that has lodged in his brain. While he has weakened since he came in, it’s possible that if he regains consciousness in the next twenty-four hours, he could survive. I suggest those of you who are closest to him take turns staying here with him. We don’t know what role the will plays in surviving an event like this—if it’s so important to him that he should talk with your niece and nephew, he may fight hard until Jameel arrives, and perhaps he’ll regain consciousness.”

  “Can he hear if we talk to him?” asked Muti.

  “Of course, we’re not certain what a stroke patient can hear when he’s in a coma. But nothing will be lost if you try, and a great deal might be gained.”

  Omar pulled a chair up to the bedside and beckoned Muti to sit. Muti reached under the cover for Baba’s hand. It was warm and soft and very much alive. Muti squeezed her fingers around the huge palm, but his fingers did not return the pressure. She stroked his arm and looked into his face. His winged black eyebrows, which had always wriggled with pleasure when he smiled, were still.

  “I’ll check back in a while,” said Dr. Ghafoor. “Send someone for me at once if he awakens.”

  Omar and Muti took turns talking to Baba, telling him that Jameel would soon be on his way, that the others were waiting outside, and how everyone was praying for his recovery. Selma stroked her brother’s arm and talked softly near his ear. Omar and Selma began to reminisce, with Selma sitting in the chair next to the bed and Omar standing on the other side. Muti stood beside Omar and listened.

  Across the hallway, Muti saw Uncle Nazir staring straight ahead into Baba’s room. A memory of something so painful that Muti hadn’t thought of the event since it happened flew into her mind with such unexpected ferocity she felt as if she’d been hit in the stomach.

  It was on the farm at Okurabad, at a time when she felt happy and secure. She and her mother lived in a small mud brick building of one room across the stable yard from the kitchen. Her mother had declined to live in the big house, where her father lived with Amina and his other two wives and their children. Shabanu shielded Muti from the other women in Rahim’s household.

  One day when Muti was five, she was playing in the courtyard with her fawn, which she and her mother had named Choti because the deer remained little even as she matured. The fawn was a gift from her father. Shabanu and Muti had tied a red cord around Choti’s neck with a little bell on it so Mumtaz could keep track of her pet. The ayah called Muti in for her lunch and a nap. Mumtaz had fallen asleep, as she always did, with Choti curled up beside her bed, her velvety nose buried between her delicate fawn legs.

  When Mumtaz awoke, the fawn was not there. She and her mother searched all through the heat and dust of the afternoon. They looked in the kitchen, where the khansama sometimes slipped treats from the oven to Mumtaz when no one was watching; they walked along the canal, calling into the woods and underbrush; they searched the stables, where Choti was forbidden to go. By the end of the afternoon they still had not found the fawn.

  The next morning Mumtaz awoke before her mother and slipped away to help the mali water the flowers and feed the birds in cages on the veranda of the big house. She hoped the mali might have seen Choti. On her way to the front garden, Mumtaz passed the courtyard in front of the garage, and there, hanging from a thick tree branch by their hind legs, were four deer, blood dripping in dark red ribbons from their noses. An indentation in the smallest doe’s fur around the neck where the bell cord had hung identified Choti.

  Mumtaz had run crying to her mother. Shabanu’s lovely face turned pale and her eyes were like stones. She took Muti away to Lahore. And shortly afterward Rahim was killed in a dispute with Nazir over land. And not long after that, Shabanu was gone, too.

  12

  At Number 5 Anwar Road the silver tea service gleamed on the marble kitchen tabletop beside a butter cake under a blue-screened dome to keep away the flies. Leyla had spoken to Omar, and his father was settled at Jinnah Hospital. She was able to stay at home to get things ready for her luncheon. This time the occasion was her mother’s birthday. She called her Aunt Tahira to tell her about Baba’s illness.

  “He has fallen ill before, Auntie,” Leyla said. “These spells have landed him in the hospital three times. He stays up till all hours of the night gossiping with Khoda Baksh and Asrar—what do they think? That they’re still boys? The hospital probably will phone at noon, just when everyone has arrived for a nice afternoon, and tell us to come and get him. Mark my words. Oh well. Khoda Baksh can bring him home.”

  “Shouldn’t we go to the hospital and see him?” asked Auntie Tahira. “Perhaps we should postpone the party …”

  “There is no need to put off the party,” said Leyla. “He’s tired, and he’ll be fine once he’s rested up. Everything is ready. I’m just waiting for Mumtaz to come and help. Just come at eleven-thirty, as planned.”

  Leyla tried Muti’s mobile phone to check and see the girl hadn’t forgotten to come home early to help with lunch. Where was she? She was so irresponsible. Leyla would have to talk to Omar again about marrying Mumtaz off. She was an embarrassment, and Leyla was certain she’d bring disaster down on the entire family if they continued to spoil and indulge her. The old man even encouraged her to think she was as good as Leyla and her sisters and cousins. That in itself could not have any good result.

  The call from the hospital came earlier than Leyla had predicted. At 11:38, as she and Amina greeted Tahira and her daughters and grandchildren in the front hall, Omar telephoned. But what he had to say was not what Leyla expected.

  “Dr. Ghafoor says he cannot predict whether or when Father will awaken,” said Omar. “He believes his chances of regaining consciousness are better sooner, rather than later. He also thinks that if we stand beside him and talk to him he might hear us on some level. Mumtaz is here with me. Father also has asked for Jameel. I’ve spoken to Nargis and they’re trying to get a flight. Will you please keep trying Nargis?”

  “I have company coming for my mother’s birthday. Auntie Tahira is already here.” There was no answer from Omar’s end of the line. “Omar, do you hear me? I can’t be on the telephone all day. And Mumtaz is supposed to be here helping.”

  “I can’t have my mobile on in intensive care,” Omar said, exasperation in his voice. “Just please try San Francisco. They must get here before …” He stopped and Leyla sighed.

  “Oh, all right. I’ll try. Hold
on.” With her other hand she picked up her mobile phone and punched in the number for Nargis in San Francisco. He was trying her patience.

  “It’s busy,” she said. It didn’t occur to her to try Nargis’s cell phone.

  “You should send Tahira and your mother to the hospital,” Omar said. “Father asked for Jameel and Mumtaz. And now he’s in a coma. This is serious. He may not recover.”

  “But it’ll ruin my mother’s party!” Leyla said. “I have a houseful of people coming!” As they talked, Leyla tried Nargis’s number again on the mobile phone. Still busy. “They’re on the phone.”

  “Keep trying her mobile phone, please. It’s almost midnight there—they’re probably trying to get on a flight,” said Omar. “And, Leyla, I insist that you stay by the telephone until you reach Nargis. You should send the others to the hospital.”

  “As you wish,” she said, and hung up. Leyla tried once more to reach Nargis, but this time there was no answer. In San Francisco, Jameel and his parents had left a message on Omar’s cell phone and finally had switched off their phones to get some sleep.

  “Nargis is as unreliable as Mumtaz,” Leyla muttered under her breath. “Unreliable in every way.” Leyla sent Spin Gul, the second driver, to find her son, Jaffar, who was playing cricket in the maidan next to the canal. Since Omar insisted, she had no choice but to postpone her mother’s birthday luncheon after all. When Jaffar arrived with his trousers grass-stained and dusty, sweat on his face and arms, Leyla clicked her tongue.

  “Go!” she shrilled, her tension mounting by the minute. “Wash your face and hands. Change your shirt. You’re as disreputable as your cousin.” Jaffar cocked his head.

  “She’s not my cousin,” Jaffar said, heading off obediently to the bathroom. “She’s my aunt.” Jaffar could tell by the petulant set of his mother’s mouth that he’d best do as she asked without argument.