Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [132]
It’s good that I now have time for these editorial tête-à-têtes, because in the spring I acquire Zaki, who replaces Hassan as the Business page editor. Charming to the point of obsequiousness, pudgy, bespectacled Zaki has a mere passing acquaintance with the English language. I spend hours coaching him and trying to break his habit of using meaningless business jargon sure to befuddle our readers. His stories are full of sentences like this: “Professor, Mohammed Muammar al-Shamiri, Supervisor of Group Insurance, said awareness on the importance of securing is very important either individuals or institutions on the all economic fields in Yemen.” Decipher if you dare.
Zaki is eager to learn and gets me his page before deadline, so I don’t complain. Besides, by now my standards for staff run something along the lines of “Must type with at least two fingers and sometimes show up.”
Zaki is also a source of intriguing cultural information. One afternoon, he bursts into my office, wildly excited.
“Jennifer,” he says, settling into the chair next to my desk and leaning toward me. “I met with the jinni yesterday!”
“Oh, great!” I say, thinking he has met my journalist friend Ginny. “I had dinner with her just last night!”
Zaki looks at me in horror. “You did?”
“Yeah,” I say. “At the Indian restaurant.”
“At the Indian restaurant?” Zaki looks very confused. I suddenly realize that Zaki means jinni as in jinn—the oft-evil spirits made of fire and capable of possessing people. It turns out that Zaki was recently called in to help with the exorcism of a possessed woman. And this may not surprise anyone, but it turns out that the bad jinni, in this case, spoke English, with an American accent. This is why the sheikh who was reading the Qur’an over the possessed woman needed Zaki to translate.
“Her face changed shape!” he says. “And she turned colors!”
“You saw this?” I say, eyebrow arched.
“Yes!”
“And you really believe in the jinn?”
He looks offended. “Every Muslim believes in the jinn!”
“Ah,” I say. This was all before I actually read about the jinn in the Qur’an some months later. Not only do all Muslims believe in the jinn, they find it inconceivable that there are countries without jinn. I tell my Yemeni friends that the closest thing I can think of are ghosts, but they are the leftover energy or spirits of dead people, whereas the jinn were never human. I suppose the evil spirits or demons that possess evangelicals in the South and make them speak in tongues are the best Western version of the jinn, but with a different backstory.
Zaki describes how the woman writhed and moaned in American English before he returns to the newsroom. I’ve told him that he can write about the jinn, but I would like to see if scientists and doctors have any possible alternative explanations for the physical changes in the woman. Perhaps this is too secular a demand, but I am curious to hear what they might say.
I sit mulling this all over and then walk to the newsroom. Something is bothering me.
“Zaki,” I say. “Did this woman know English?”
“No!” he says. “She is completely illiterate!”
“Hmmm.”
“I know a woman like that too,” says Bashir (who often stops in to help, despite having quit months ago). “She was completely illiterate, but when the jinni possessed her, she spoke perfect English with an American accent.”
It turns out that pretty much everyone in Yemen knows a woman like this. At a loss for words, I turn back toward my office.
“You had better watch out,” says Najma. “Since the jinni is American!”
“If the jinni is American,” I say, smiling, “then I don’t think I have to worry.”
I AM GROWING CLOSER to all of my reporters. It’s easy to spend time with my men outside of the