mama sārah and me

facing my mother in her lavish living room, i blow a red balloon. my younger sister, mellow with hash, tosses a yellow one onto the carpet while my older sister fretfully adds cheese sambūsa, warag ʿanab, and sticky toffee pudding to the menu. a sign boasting the ages “three” and “five” leans against the coffee table, heralding the impending frenzy of schoolgirls and facepaint. though she does not help, my mother oversees the preparations, reveling in the gathering of her daughters under a december sun. the presence of her middle child tempers the abiding tension. i prod her for a whiff of memory, a mingled droplet of saffron and blood, and arabic eases into the air, spinning flashes of her girlhood into a moonstreaked skein. as she unspools the unsettling tales of her grandmother sārah, we gasp, shriek, and fall over: a satisfyingly melodramatic audience. i bring a blue balloon to my mouth, my eyes fixed on my mother’s nonchalant expression.

only babaʿod knew how to manage her when the jinn were inside her. no, he wasn’t afraid, he was her son. the specter of my grandfather, gentle as the pink petals fluttering from the trellis in the courtyard, flicks through the television channels from his seat at the dining table, settling on a scratchy recording of nāẓim al-ghazāli and humming along.

oh, it happened all the time. four or five times a week, at least, like an unannounced thump at the door. you could always tell when one of them entered her. she was a frail woman, but her back would suddenly straighten like the trunk of a palm tree. strong, like a man, and her voice. low. rough.

my older sister’s eyes widen, flicking a frightened glance in my direction. i grin and flick a tongue back. the television, accustomed to my mother’s unmitigated attention, sputters silently above a cabinet teeming with biscuits and crackers. her contentment envelops her daughters like bukhūr.

only babaʿod knew how to manage her when the jinn were inside her.

they loved sugar, those jinn. you can’t find them anymore, but in our day, every house had a bowl of hard little candies. the jinn popped them into her mouth one by one, cracking them between her teeth, staring at us through her eyes. i will never forget the sound. they took turns in her body, especially when she was agitated. sometimes, your uncle ʿali pestered her on purpose, poking and jabbing until they took over! babaʿod would smack him with the cane and send him to the neighbor’s house until dinnertime! and they would pace the house in a rage, demanding babaʿod bring them ʿali! he was very naughty, your uncle. babaʿod didn’t like to hit, but ʿali deserved it. my sisters and i hoot hysterically, well acquainted with our oldest uncle’s recalcitrant ways, his dimpled chin only slightly charming his scowling face.

“he’s soft now,” my older sister informs me. “the grandkids did it.”

i wave a limp yellow balloon at her face and command, “blow. i’m the only one blowing balloons for your daughters. i flew 22 hours for this?”

my younger sister looks up briefly from her phone, interjecting, “what? i got tired. where’s the pump?”

“does anyone else want green tea? is there any chocolate cake from yesterday?”

“are the girls in bed already?”

“this stupid pump isn’t working. it’s taking twice as long!”

“did you order the sambūsa? two dozen? that should be enough, i think.”

“give me that, let me try. no, you’re right. it’s broken.”

“here, blow.”

every now and then, a white envelope would be delivered to the door: an invitation. she demanded to be prepared for the festivities, draped in silk robes with chunky turquoise rings on her fingers. the jinn had a taste for turquoise. no, she always wore dishādīsh at home, didn’t you know? the striped ones. yes, obviously dishādīsh are for men. and she attended the ḥbūsh in qurayniyyah, a corner of the island where they gathered, chanting and dancing. yes, men too, all of the jinn-worn women and men! they played their drums and rode green and red sheep! yes, sheep, with paint smeared onto their wool. of course i haven’t, what would possess me to go? but your mama amīna was daring. she liked to sneak to the edges to watch from afar. oh no, they wouldn’t have minded, but it was better to leave them be. you never know what jinn will do, after all.

i gape at my mother. “how have you never mentioned any of this before?”

“what is there to tell?” i collapse sideways onto the plush carpet, her indifference robbing me of speech. my older sister hovers between curiosity and wariness, unnerved by this ancestral link to unseen worlds. my younger sister couples my indignation with her intrigue, tugging a glinting thread from my mother’s loom of tales.

“tell us about the time they took your baby.” my mother chuckles and pauses. i shake my head in disbelief, astonished by my belated appreciation of her enchanting craft. she buries her stories under smoked eggplant and ramaḍān soap operas, whittling daylight with airy conversations that zipped through the coiled landline to a soundtrack of qur’ānic verses.

“yes yes, what happened?” i echo eagerly, hungry for her moment in the limelight.

“tell us about the time they took your baby.” my mother chuckles and pauses.

i had just given birth to your brother, as you know. my infās was at babaʿod’s house, of course, where mamaʿoda could take care of me. mama sārah lived with them. she was a difficult mother-in-law.

a shadow of a frown touches her brow. my chest pinches painfully as my grandmother’s gap-toothed smile floats between us, tender and meek as the chirruping mice that petrified her.

she slept in a chair in my bedroom that day. i cannot remember why i was alone with her in the house. just me, your brother, and my grandmother! one moment she was dozing in that chair, and the next moment, i find her awake, sitting upright, and watching me wordlessly. oh, i knew immediately. what do you mean how? i’d seen it a thousand times! what did i do? i ran out of the house, of course! what baby? i left him in the crib!

howling, my sisters and i throw balloons at each other, interrupting my mother with false protests. by allah was i supposed to stay? i ran straight into the ḥosh in my nightie and would have made it into the street if babaʿod hadn’t arrived at that moment. “where are you going half-dressed? what’s happening? is something wrong?” “your mother,” i yelled at him, “what else!”

at this point, her daughters, crying and snorting, plead for details. “wait, what were you wearing exactly?”

“was it scorching outside? when was this, july?”

“was babaʿod coming home from the mosque?”

he tried to soothe me before pushing me back into the house. as soon as she saw me, she asked for the baby. “give me the boy,” in the gruff man’s voice. i hesitated and looked at my father, waiting for his word. he sighed and nodded. i carried your brother to him, and he placed him in mama sārah’s arms. she began crooning and cooing, but when she sensed my discomfort, she snapped, “don’t be afraid!” “i’m not afraid,” i responded coolly. my sisters cackle at the transparency of the lie. my mother’s litany of fears, an index ranging from snakes, drugs, and burglars to cable cars, dusk, and “crazy people,” remains a source of familial renown and copious teasing.

then the jinn recited qur’ān over your brother and blew across his body a protective blessing, like this. she forms a cradle with her arms and blows hard from one elbow to the other. you see, one of them was a pious man, a sheikh. another was only a child. he wanted to play with the baby. afterward, my grandmother handed your brother back to me and fell asleep again.

then the jinn recited qur’ān over your brother and blew across his body a protective blessing

a wizened woman, hunched in dark robes, shouts at my cousin from the caverns of my memory. indisputably his father’s spawn, my uncle ʿali’s third son torments mama sārah. he charges into her bedroom, tugs at her ḥijāb, and hops out of her reach until his father barks a menacing warning. i retreat timidly to the garden tucked behind the house. it bustles with my uncle fahad’s menagerie of hens, roosters, pigeons, cats, rabbits, turtles, an occasional peacock, an ostrich once, and the seasonal sheep. my grandfather’s ḥadīqa bursts dirt brown and desert green, a smattering of unripe khalāl encircling the fat datepalm. babaʿod gazes fondly through a window at his lone grandchild, the runt of his daughter’s litter nuzzling a belligerent hen against her cheek. i wave a dirty hand at him, holding the squawking bird tightly to my chest. he smiles.

my mother, striding into the courtyard, spots my bedraggled pajamas from a distance and frowns, and i drop the hen instantly. “did you touch the animals? of course you did. go inside and wash your hands three times, your aunts will be here with your cousins soon. and change your clothes, you smell like outside!” as i squeeze through the aluminum doorway, i inhale the scent of her, a spellbinding blend of incense, ʿūd, and perfume.

babaʿod fought with the jinn constantly. my blood chills as my mother’s voice loses its mirth. “why?” i ask sharply. “why did he fight them?”

“enough,” he would tell them. “enough, she’s tired! you’re hurting her! leave her alone, go!” she could never remember what happened when they took her body, always asking us, “did they hurt you? did they hurt you? don’t be afraid of me. don’t be afraid.” sometimes, they tightened her ḥijāb around her throat. oh, he berated them, threatened and reasoned, but they never left her. she had carried jinn all her life. ever since she was a young girl.

i inhale an icy breath. my younger sister’s eyes catch mine, heavy with understanding, neither of us strangers to a homemade noose. in my sister’s shadow, i trace the cold hands of a nurse yanking the clothes from her body. i brush a thumb softly against the inside of my wrist.

she could never remember what happened when they took her body, always asking us, “did they hurt you? did they hurt you? don’t be afraid of me. don’t be afraid.”

when the evening expires, two hundred balloons bump against each other in the dark. i crawl under the covers in the room my mamaʿoda died in, clutching their floral folds at my chin. mama sārah drifts before me, her dishdāsha unbuttoned at her neck. my cropped curls glisten lavender against the pillowcase. she twirls in robes the color of pearls, her body swaying to the rhythm of a pounding drum. i throw my head back under a flashing strobe, a lover’s fingers pressing against my bare stomach. she wails as she pulls her ḥijāb around her neck, her only son desperately seizing her arms. i rinse blood from the gash on my thigh, pressing a band-aid over the slit flesh. she screams until the neighbors bang on the door. i scream until the police bang on the door.

this is the price, perhaps—of ripping starlight from ticking time, of spinning frenzied in wet mud, of sleeping sweetly among wild ghizlān. to my bewilderment, a giggle bubbles in my throat. mama sārah shimmers madly. flitting from her son to his three sisters to his wife to his eight children, dozens of grandchildren, and hundreds of great-grandchildren, my great-grandmother sārah lands on me.