you to say. I’m the one who has to keep them out of trouble, who has to make sure they maintain a good reputation until we marry them off. Tell me, who will be blamed if something goes wrong? Huh? Who will you point to when these books start putting ideas in their head?”
The atmosphere shifted. Khaled shook his head. “That’s the price of coming to this country,” he said. “Abandoning our land and running away. Not a moment goes by when I don’t think of what we’ve done. Maybe we should’ve stayed and fought for our home. So what if the soldiers had killed us? So what if we had starved? Better than coming here and losing ourselves, our culture . . .” His words faded out.
“Hush,” Fareeda said. “You know there’s no use in that kind of thinking. The past is the past, and no good will come from regret. All we can do now is move forward the best we can, and that means keeping our granddaughters safe.”
Khaled did not reply. He sighed and excused himself to shower.
Deya and her sisters were straightening the sala when Fareeda appeared at the doorway. “Come with me,” she said to Deya.
Deya followed her grandmother down the hall into her bedroom. Inside, Fareeda opened her closet and reached for something from the very back. She pulled out an old book and handed it to Deya. A wave of familiarity washed over Deya as she dusted off the hardcover spine. It was an Arabic edition of A Thousand and One Nights. She recognized it: it had been her mother’s.
“Open it,” Fareeda said.
Deya did as she was told, and an envelope slipped out. Slowly she lifted the top. Inside was a letter, in Arabic. In the darkness of the bedroom, she squinted to read:
August 12, 1997
Dear Mama,
I feel very depressed today. I don’t know what’s happening to me. Every morning I wake up with a strange sensation. I lie beneath the sheets and I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to see anyone. All I think of is dying. I know God doesn’t approve of taking a life, be it mine or someone else’s, but I can’t get the thought out of my mind. My brain is spinning on its own, out of my control. What’s happening to me, Mama? I’m so scared of what’s happening inside me.
Your daughter,
Isra
Deya read the letter again, then again, then one more time. She pictured her mother, with her dark, unsmiling face, and felt a flicker of fear. Was it possible? Could she have killed herself?
“Why didn’t you show me this before?” Deya said, springing from the bed and waving the letter in Fareeda’s face. “All these years you’ve refused to talk about her, and you’ve had this all along?”
“I didn’t want you to remember her this way,” Fareeda said, eyeing her granddaughter calmly.
“So why are you showing this to me now?”
“Because I want you to understand.” She looked into Deya’s eyes. “I know you’re afraid of repeating your mother’s life, but Isra, may Allah have mercy on her soul, was a troubled woman.”
“Troubled how?”
“Didn’t you just read the letter? Your mother was possessed by a jinn.”
“Possessed?” Deya said in disbelief. But deep down she wondered. “She was probably just depressed. Maybe she needed to see a doctor.” She met Fareeda’s eyes. “The jinn aren’t real, Teta.”
Fareeda frowned and shook her head. “Why do you think exorcisms have been performed all over the world for thousands of years, hmm?” She moved closer, snatching the letter from Deya’s fingers. “If you don’t believe me, go read one of your books. You’ll see.”
Deya said nothing. Could her mother have been possessed? One of the memories she’d tried to forget hurtled to the front of her mind. Deya had come home from school one day to find Isra hurling herself off the basement stairs onto the floor. And not just once, but over and over. She had jumped again and again, both hands curled against her chest, her mouth hanging open, until she had noticed Deya standing there.
“Deya,” Isra had said, startled to find her watching. Quickly she had stood, dragged herself across the basement. “Your sister is sick today. Go upstairs and get some medicine from the kitchen.”
The feeling that had come over Deya that day, the twist in her stomach, she would never forget. She had wanted to tell Isra that she felt sick, too. Not with a cold or fever but something worse, only she