Tulane Review Digital

hour to eat a snack and finish the homework
I should have done earlier in the
week. If I’m remembering right, Amma
was busy dealing with Bhai and Uppi so I
was sent to Chachu’s house because it was
the closest to ours.
I would walk outside the door, jump the
two steps where Amma kept her pudina
plant and there would be his door only
three steps away.
When I was finishing the homework I realized
my cousin was peering over my shoulder.
I’d written that Rama and Muhammad
had gone to the forest with Hajr. I’d
written that Shurpanakha was a Jinn. I’d
tossed the words I’d learned in both schools
into a pot, mixed them up, and slopped
them onto a plate that I’d created.
Basma, my cousin, felt the need to make
fun of me. “You idiot.”
“That’s a bad word,” I mumbled.
She shook her head in a pitying way.
“You’ve got all the questions wrong.”
“How could you know that?” I asked,
keeping my head down.
“Because the Jinn aren’t yours, they’re
ours. The Prophet isn’t yours, he’s ours. Hajr isn’t yours,
she’s ours.”
I didn’t disagree with her, choosing instead to erase my
answers and fill in names that I thought might be right.
My teacher, the mean uncle, was disappointed and
made me stand outside the classroom. I was left there,
forgotten. I was never the sort of student to cause a
scene or to be remembered even with my botched answers
and my pathetic pronunciations. When the other
kids were being sent out, my teacher remembered me.
He gave me a gold star for the day if I promised not to
tell Amma about being left outside.
I wouldn’t have told even if he didn’t give me a gold
star. But I didn’t tell him that, I stuck it on my frock and
watched the light catch the sheer gold of it.
Uppi came to get me. She dragged me off to toward the
closet where Bhai was waiting and hid me, then herself.
When I asked why we were hiding I was shushed. When
I asked if Amma was here yet, I was shushed. When I
kept asking Bhai finally answered, his voice clipped and
annoyed.
“We’re here to see the Jinn,” he hissed.
Uppi elbowed him in the stomach, “Don’t talk to her
like that. But, yes,” she agreed. “We’re here to see the
Jinn.”
“There’s a Jinn?” I asked, starting to pick at the golden
star I was given.
“Yes,” they both said together.
“Why is the Jinn here? Basma said that Jinns
are theirs.” A bit of the gold came off on my
thumb, making it shiny.
“What does that even mean?” said Bhai.
“Don’t listen to Basma,” Uppi said. She
pulled me into her lap and began to fix my
ruined braids. “Basma doesn’t know anything.
Jinn can be whatever they want.”
I’d frowned and thought that over for a moment.
“The Jinn here is a Hindu,” explained Bhai in
a low and serious voice.
“There are Hindu Jinns?” I’d asked.
“Of course,” he said, no longer angry and irritable
now that we were talking about something
he liked. “They’re Christians and Jews
and Muslims. They choose what they are, like
us.”
“We didn’t really choose,” Uppi whispered in
my ear. “Not yet.”
Bhai didn’t hear. He continued on his tirade,
“Did you know you can also marry a Jinn?”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“I did,” said Uppi.