Black Milk - Elif Shafak [92]
There is a creature in the corner—not human, not animal, not like anything I have seen before. He is as dark gray as storm clouds, as tall as a tower, as elusive as a will-o’-the-wisp. He has a long, black ponytail, though he has dyed a clump of it white and let it hang across his face. A diamond the size of a hazelnut glitters on one ear. His face is small, his goatee is tiny, but his fiery eyes appear enormous behind his metal-rimmed spectacles. One second he stretches up, his head reaching the ceiling; the next he widens, spreading from one end of the room to the other. Like thick cigar smoke he drifts in the air. In his hand he carries a beautiful cane and on his head is a silk top hat.
I immediately recognize him as one of the djinn my maternal grandmother warned me against in my childhood. I don’t know anything about their sexual orientation, but this one seems gay to me.
“Who are you?” I ask fretfully.
“Ah, but don’t you recognize me?” he says, chivalrous and poised, as if he were a brave knight and I, a damsel in distress.
“No, what do you want?”
“Please, cheri,” he says snippily. “Have you never heard of the djinni who haunts new mothers?”
I give a sobbing breath and my face gets hot. “My grandma says there is a djinni named Alkar1s1, known to molest women who have recently given birth.”
He cracks a laugh. “The times are changing fast, cheri. Alkar1s1 is so old-school. She retired long ago, that minx. Today nobody knows about her anymore. She wouldn’t make it to the top ten.”
I am surprised to hear the djinn have a top ten list, but instead of asking about this, I remark, “I didn’t know you guys could age.”
Taking a napkin from his pocket, he begins to wipe his glasses. “Of course we do age, though we haven’t lost our minds over Botox creams, like your kind. At least not yet—”
I look at him more closely, only now suspecting that he might not be as young as he looks.
Putting his glasses back on, he continues: “Of course, we don’t age as quickly as you poor sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. Your ten years are approximately”—he makes some calculations in his head—“equal to 112 years in djinn time. So a hundred-year-old djinni is just a kid where we come from. As for Alkar1s1, how should I put it? Her name is synonymous with nostalgia.”
“Do djinn have nostalgia?”
“Not us, you guys do! Don’t you ever watch Disney movies? They use us as decor. I mean, what is that thing about the djinni in a lamp? We are living in the twenty-first century, hello! No one hangs out in lamps anymore!”
“Do djinn find Disney movies politically incorrect?” I ask, mesmerized.
“You, too, would feel the same way if your kind were portrayed as pudgy-bellied, five-chinned, blue ogres with baggy trousers and fezzes on their heads,” he flares. “Don’t you see we’ve all adjusted to the times? I go to the gym four days a week and I don’t have an extra ounce of fat on my body.”
“Who are you, for God’s sake?!”
Like a good gentleman he tips his hat and bows to me with a roguish smile. “My sincere apologies if I forgot to introduce myself. I am your obedient servant, the Djinni of Postpartum Depression. Otherwise known as Lord Poton.”
I feel a chill go down my spine. “What do you want?” I ask, although I am not sure I want to hear the answer.
“What do I want?” he prompts. “It is a good question because, as it happens, my wish is your command.”
“Hmm, shouldn’t it be the other way round?”
“As I said, forget those clichés. Let’s get to know each other better.”
Lord Poton is such a shifty being that I don’t immediately realize how creepy he can be. For the first couple of days I watch him more out of curiosity than worry. Little do I realize that he is settling in during that time, making himself at home. Then one day, he produces a lockbox.
“What is that?”
“It’s my gift to you,” he says, grinning. “Don’t you always complain about how your finger-women tire you out with their endless quarrels?”
“Yes, but—” I say tentatively.
“Good, I will