THE EVIL JINN

a tale by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

   

My friend and I walked for months across rugged, ruined terrain. We had stretched the contents of our lunch bag to last that whole time, for there were only impure resources along the way. At last we were down to our last two pieces of cheese.

A man came up behind me. He must have known I had the cheese in my pocket. He said, "Please, could you spare some food!" He had a nice West Indies accent, but otherwise was as disgusting as any other beggar. He was black as coal and not much cleaner.

"We have barely enough for ourselves," I said. "Please leave us be."

"Did not the poor Samaritan feed Jesus?" he asked. I noticed something odd about his mouth. His white teeth were widely spaced. His tongue was bright red. "And didn't she live forever in the kingdom of paradise?"

I gave him the cheese, though I knew my friend and I would starve. "Take it," I said. "Only, leave us alone."

He took the two slices of cheese, looked them over, then threw them on the ground. "I really wanted something else," he confessed.

Exasperated, I hurried to rejoin my friend, who was not speaking. We walked up a hill to a cemetery and started across it toward an airfield in the distance. We had seen an airplane in the sky before our quest began. That was the reason we had set out in the beginning. Our quest was nearing its end %#150; though, if the airport was as lifeless as the rest of the world we had passed through, we would have to make the long trek back home without so much as a slice of provision.

The blackfellow followed us. We ignored him. After a while, we cased to be afraid and forgot him utterly. My friend was still not speaking to me, although I could perceive no reason for her to be angry. I began to pout and dawdle and thereby fell behind. It was then that the blackfellow came up to me again.

"What I really wanted," he explained, "was for your friend to bear my children. Her skin is almost as dark as mine and therefore our blood should be compatible."

"Why take this up with me?" I asked. "I do not speak for my friend who, until this moment, you have not seemed to notice."

"It is true I was attracted to your golden hair," he said. "I would trade my freedom for a white woman! A brother told me so. But I would not dilute my race more than the plantation rapists have already done. I am more of a patriot than that! Therefore I choose your partner."

"My friend is Italian," I pointed out. "Unlike myself, she has deigned not to walk beneath our umbrella. Thereby the sun has turned her black. Still, she does not look of your race, so I doubt the sincerity of your statements."

"You are right," he said. "I am not sincere in my prejudices. I am not even truly black. I am actually an evil jinn. I chose to appear to you as a blackfellow because I knew that in your profound liberalism, you would not be able to turn me away. Whereas, were I white, you would have had nothing to do with someone as obnoxious as me."

"Why," I asked, disbelieving his story, "would an evil jinn discuss with me his fondness for my friend?"

"When an evil jinn mates," he explained, "no copulation is involved. The method is quite simple: He finds two women together and distracts one by monopolizing the other. Were I to talk to your friend, she would see through my ruses as you have seen through them. In that case, it would be you and not she that I impregnated."

To my friend's left there grew a small tree. On one of its branches two babies appeared, sitting side by side. They had appeared from nowhere, one after the other, with little "popping" sounds like that of a linen cloth pulled taut. They were a dazzling orange. My friend was instantly maternal toward them, and cooed love at them in their tree. They visibly grew on her attention.

"Ah," said the evil jinn with a note of price. "My children!"

I ran to my friend's side, who had shrunk as much as the babies had grown. They were now fat cherubs and had turned a pallorous blue. "My friend!" I addressed. "Can you not see this is no natural birth? You were not pregnant five minutes ago. Now you are the mother of twins! Pray, let us destroy the infant evil and be on our way!"

But my friend was convinced of the normality of her good fortune. Indeed, she informed me in specialized medical terminology that she remembered every month of her healthy gestation with crystal clarity %#150; although she confessed there was no memory of having slept with a man in her entire life.

"You shall not convince her," the evil jinn whispered in my ear. "I placed into her mind all she need ever know of pregnancy, and then some. She is, in fact, a walking medical encyclopedia. I never read it myself, you understand, lazy jinn that I am, but I transferred its content direct to her subconscious, and directed her consciousness to select whatever knowledge would convince her of a natural pregnancy and childbirth."

I saw that my friend was truly smitten. The baby jinns absorbed her tenderness and good will until she was frightfully gaunt. Whereas they had grown large and were as healthily pink as dogs' tongues.

"Please see the truth!" I pleaded. "The supernatural offspring are killing you! Think of our love! Overcome this hypnotism!"

"A virgin birth," she said dreamily. "Parthenoäparthenoä" I could almost see her subconsciousness thumbing through its medical encyclopedia.

"Think of our love!" I reiterated desperately.

My friend reached into her backpack and calmly withdrew the knife we had brought for protection. She held it above her head and proclaimed, "I was not fooled for an instant!" She stabbed the first baby in its belly and it popped out of existence. My friend was at once more healthy. The evil jinn, however, doubled over as though the knife had struck his belly. My friend then stuck the other baby through the brain. It, too, vanished with a brief sound of an implosion. The evil jinn fell to the ground, rolling about and clutching at his head, and finally died.

Later, at the airport, we purchased tickets to fly home. We could never have survived the walk back, having been deprived of provisions. It was a quick flight. It had been a disappointing quest.

copyright © 1983 by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, all rights reserved

"The Evil Jinn" is excerpted from my short story collection John Collier and Fredric Brown Went Quarreling Through My Head (Buffalo, New York: Weirdbook Press, 1989), illustrated by Arkham House illustrator Tony Patrick. The story appeared earlier in the late Milea Kenin's Owlflight 2, 1982, which very issue received the Small Press Writers and Artists Award for best magazine of that year.

When W. Paul Ganley retired after more than three decades as a one-man publisher at Weirdbook Press, I purchased all the remaining stock of Quarrelling to keep this title out of the remainder market; thus booksellers may enquire to me about full discount to obtain multiple copies. All others may purchase single autographed copies of this collection from Violet Books; check the Catalog link in the navigation bar below.

   

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