McDonald, Ian - SS - The Djinn's Wife.pdf

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THE DJINN'S WIFE by Ian McDonald
"The Djinn's Wife" shares the same background of near-future India as Ian's
last Asimov's story, "The Little Goddess" (June 2005), and his most recent
novel, the 2005 Hugo-nominee River of Gods (Pyr). The author's current
book-in-progress is Brasyl. Ian works in television program development, and
lives just outside Belfast in Northern Ireland with the hills behind him and the
sea before.
Once there was a woman in Delhi who married a djinn. Before the water war, that was not so strange a
thing: Delhi, split in two like a brain, has been the city of djinns from time before time. The sufis tell that
God made two creations, one of clay and one of fire. That of clay became man; that of fire, the djinni .
As creatures of fire they have always been drawn to Delhi, seven times reduced to ashes by invading
empires, seven times reincarnating itself. Each turn of the chakra , the djinns have drawn strength from the
flames, multiplying and dividing. Great dervishes and brahmins are able to see them, but, on any street, at
any time, anyone may catch the whisper and momentary wafting warmth of a djinn passing.
I was born in Ladakh, far from the heat of the djinns--they have wills and whims quite alien to
humans--but my mother was Delhi born and raised, and from her I knew its circuses and boulevards, its
maidans and chowks and bazaars, like those of my own Leh. Delhi to me was a city of stories, and so if
I tell the story of the djinn's wife in the manner of a sufi legend or a tale from the Mahabharata, or even a
tivi soap opera, that is how it seems to me: City of Djinns.
* * * *
They are not the first to fall in love on the walls of the Red Fort.
The politicians have talked for three days and an agreement is close. In honor the Awadhi government
has prepared a grand durbar in the great courtyard before the Diwan-i-aam . All India is watching so
this spectacle is on a Victorian scale: event-planners scurry across hot, bare marble, hanging banners and
bunting; erecting staging; setting up sound and light systems; choreographing dancers, elephants,
fireworks, and a fly-past of combat robots; dressing tables; and drilling serving staff, and drawing up
so-careful seating plans so that no one will feel snubbed by anyone else. All day three-wheeler delivery
drays have brought fresh flowers, festival goods, finest, soft furnishings. There's a real French sommelier
raving at what the simmering Delhi heat is doing to his wine-plan. It's a serious conference. At stake are a
quarter of a billion lives.
In this second year after the monsoon failed, the Indian nations of Awadh and Bharat face each other
with main battle tanks, robot attack helicopters, strikeware, and tactical nuclear slow missiles on the
banks of the sacred river Ganga. Along thirty kilometers of staked-out sand, where brahmins cleanse
themselves and saddhus pray, the government of Awadh plans a monster dam. Kunda Khadar will
secure the water supply for Awadh's one hundred and thirty million for the next fifty years. The river
downstream, that flows past the sacred cities of Allahabad and Varanasi in Bharat, will turn to dust.
Water is life, water is death. Bharati diplomats, human and artificial intelligence aeai advisors, negotiate
careful deals and access rights with their rival nation, knowing one carelessly spilled drop of water will
see strike robots battling like kites over the glass towers of New Delhi and slow missiles with nanonuke
warheads in their bellies creeping on cat-claws through the galis of Varanasi. The rolling news channels
clear their schedules of everything else but cricket. A deal is close! A deal is agreed! A deal will be
signed tomorrow! Tonight, they've earned their durbar .
And in the whirlwind of leaping hijras and parading elephants, a Kathak dancer slips away for a
cigarette and a moment up on the battlements of the Red Fort. She leans against the sun-warmed stone,
careful of the fine gold-threadwork of her costume. Beyond the Lahore Gate lies hiving Chandni Chowk;
 
the sun a vast blister bleeding onto the smokestacks and light-farms of the western suburbs. The chhatris
of the Sisganj Gurdwara, the minarets and domes of the Jama Masjid, the shikara of the Shiv temple are
shadow-puppet scenery against the red, dust-laden sky. Above them pigeons storm and dash, wings
wheezing. Black kites rise on the thermals above Old Delhi's thousand thousand rooftops. Beyond them,
a curtain wall taller and more imposing than any built by the Mughals, stand the corporate towers of New
Delhi, Hindu temples of glass and construction diamond stretched to fantastical, spiring heights, twinkling
with stars and aircraft warning lights.
A whisper inside her head, her name accompanied by a spray of sitar: the call-tone of her palmer,
transduced through her skull into her auditory center by the subtle 'hoek curled like a piece of jewelry
behind her ear.
"I'm just having a quick bidi break, give me a chance to finish it," she complains, expecting Pranh, the
choreographer, a famously tetchy third-sex nute. Then, "Oh!" For the gold-lit dust rises before her up into
a swirl, like a dancer made from ash.
Adjinn. The thought hovers on her caught breath. Her mother, though Hindu, devoutly believed in the
djinni , in any religion's supernatural creatures with a skill for trickery.
The dust coalesces into a man in a long, formal sherwani and loosely wound red turban, leaning on the
parapet and looking out over the glowing anarchy of Chandni Chowk. He is very handsome , the dancer
thinks, hastily stubbing out her cigarette and letting it fall in an arc of red embers over the battlements. It
does not do to smoke in the presence of the great diplomat A.J. Rao.
"You needn't have done that on my account, Esha," A.J. Rao says, pressing his hands together in a
namaste . "It's not as though I can catch anything from it."
Esha Rathore returns the greeting, wondering if the stage crew down in the courtyard was watching her
salute empty air. All Awadh knows those filmi -star features: A.J. Rao, one of Bharat's most
knowledgeable and tenacious negotiators. No, she corrects herself. All Awadh knows are pictures on a
screen. Pictures on a screen, pictures in her head; a voice in her ear. An aeai.
"You know my name?"
"I am one of your greatest admirers."
Her face flushes: a waft of stifling heat spun off from the vast palace's microclimate, Esha tells herself. Not
embarrassment. Never embarrassment.
"But I'm a dancer. And you are an...."
"Artificial intelligence? That I am. Is this some new anti-aeai legislation, that we can't appreciate dance?"
He closes his eyes. "Ah: I'm just watching the Marriage of Radha and Krishna again."
But he has her vanity now. "Which performance?"
"Star Arts Channel. I have them all. I must confess, I often have you running in the background while I'm
in negotiation. But please don't mistake me, I never tire of you." A.J. Rao smiles. He has very good, very
white teeth. "Strange as it may seem, I'm not sure what the etiquette is in this sort of thing. I came here
because I wanted to tell you that I am one of your greatest fans and that I am very much looking forward
to your performance tonight. It's the highlight of this conference, for me."
The light is almost gone now and the sky a pure, deep, eternal blue, like a minor chord. Houseboys make
their many ways along the ramps and wall-walks lighting rows of tiny oil-lamps. The Red Fort glitters like
 
a constellation fallen over Old Delhi. Esha has lived in Delhi all her twenty-years and she has never seen
her city from this vantage. She says, "I'm not sure what the etiquette is either. I've never spoken with an
aeai before."
"Really?" A.J. now stands with his back against the sun-warm stone, looking up at the sky, and at her out
of the corner of his eye. The eyes smile, slyly. Of course , she thinks. Her city is as full of aeais as it is
with birds. From computer systems and robots with the feral smarts of rats and pigeons to entities like
this one standing before her on the gate of the Red Fort making charming compliments. Not standing.
Not anywhere, just a pattern of information in her head. She stammers, "I mean, a ... a..."
"Level 2.9?"
"I don't know what that means."
The aeai smiles and as she tries to work it out there is another chime in Esha's head and this time it is
Pranh, swearing horribly as usual, where is she doesn't she know yts got a show to put on, half the
bloody continent watching .
"Excuse me..."
"Of course. I shall be watching."
How ? she wants to ask. An aeai, a djinn, wants to watch me dance . What is this? But when she
looks back all there is to ask is a wisp of dust blowing along the lantern-lit battlement.
There are elephants and circus performers, there are illusionists and table magicians, there are ghazal
and qawali and Boli singers; there is the catering and the sommelier's wine and then the lights go up on
the stage and Esha spins out past the scowling Pranh as the tabla and melodeon and shehnai begin. The
heat is intense in the marble square, but she is transported. The stampings, the pirouettes and swirl of her
skirts, the beat of the ankle bells, the facial expressions, the subtle hand mudras : once again she is spun
out of herself by the disciplines of Kathak into something greater. She would call it her art, her talent, but
she's superstitious: that would be to claim it and so crush the gift. Never name it, never speak it. Just let it
possess you. Her own, burning djinn. But as she spins across the brilliant stage before the seated
delegates, a corner of her perception scans the architecture for cameras, robots, eyes through which A.J.
Rao might watch her. Is she a splinter of his consciousness, as he is a splinter of hers?
She barely hears the applause as she curtseys to the bright lights and runs off stage. In the dressing room,
as her assistants remove and carefully fold the many jeweled layers of her costume, wipe away the
crusted stage make up to reveal the twenty-two-year-old beneath, her attention keeps flicking to her
earhoek, curled like a plastic question on her dressing table. In jeans and silk sleeveless vest,
indistinguishable from any other of Delhi's four million twentysomethings, she coils the device behind her
ear, smoothes her hair over it and her fingers linger a moment as she slides the palmer over her hand. No
calls. No messages. No avatars. She's surprised it matters so much.
The official Mercs are lined up in the Delhi Gate. A man and woman intercept her on her way to the car.
She waves them away.
"I don't do autographs.... "Never after a performance. Get out, get away quick and quiet, disappear into
the city. The man opens his palm to show her a warrant badge.
"We'll take this car."
It pulls out from the line and cuts in, a cream-colored high-marque Maruti. The man politely opens the
 
door to let her enter first, but there is no respect in it. The woman takes the front seat beside the driver;
he accelerates out, horn blaring, into the great circus of night traffic around the Red Fort. The airco purrs.
"I am Inspector Thacker from the Department of Artificial Intelligence Registration and Licensing," the
man says. He is young and good-skinned and confident and not at all fazed by sitting next to a celebrity.
His aftershave is perhaps over-emphatic.
"A Krishna Cop."
That makes him wince.
"Our surveillance systems have flagged up a communication between you and the Bharati Level 2.9 aeai
A.J. Rao."
"He called me, yes."
"At 21:08. You were in contact for six minutes twenty-two seconds. Can you tell me what you talked
about?"
The car is driving very fast for Delhi. The traffic seems to flow around from it. Every light seems to be
green. Nothing is allowed to impede its progress. Can they do that? Esha wonders. Krishna Cops,
aeai police: can they tame the creatures they hunt ?
"We talked about Kathak . He's a fan. Is there a problem? Have I done something wrong?"
"No, nothing at all, Ms. But you do understand, with a conference of this importance ... on behalf of the
Department, I apologize for the unseemliness. Ah. Here we are."
They've brought her right to her bungalow. Feeling dirty, dusty, confused she watches the Krishna Cop
car drive off, holding Delhi's frenetic traffic at bay with its tame djinns. She pauses at the gate. She needs,
she deserves, a moment to come out from the performance, that little step way so you can turn round and
look back at yourself and say, yeah, Esha Rathore. The bungalow is unlit, quiet. Neeta and Priya will be
out with their wonderful fiancés, talking wedding gifts and guest lists and how hefty a dowry they can
squeeze from their husbands-to-be's families. They're not her sisters, though they share the classy
bungalow. No one has sisters any more in Awadh, or even Bharat. No one of Esha's age, though she's
heard the balance is being restored. Daughters are fashionable. Once upon a time, women paid the
dowry.
She breathes deep of her city. The cool garden microclimate presses down the roar of Delhi to a muffled
throb, like blood in the heart. She can smell dust and roses. Rose of Persia. Flower of the Urdu poets.
And dust. She imagines it rising up on a whisper of wind, spinning into a charming, dangerous djinn. No.
An illusion, a madness of a mad old city. She opens the security gate and finds every square centimeter of
the compound filled with red roses.
* * * *
Neeta and Priya are waiting for her at the breakfast table next morning, sitting side-by-side close like an
interview panel. Or Krishna Cops. For once they aren't talking houses and husbands.
"Who who who where did they come from who sent them so many must have cost a fortune...."
Puri the housemaid brings Chinese green chai that's good against cancer. The sweeper has gathered the
bouquets into a pile at one end of the compound. The sweetness of their perfume is already tinged with
rot.
 
"He's a diplomat." Neeta and Priya only watch Town and Country and the chati channels but even they
must know the name of A.J. Rao. So she half lies: "A Bharati diplomat."
Their mouths go Oooh , then ah as they look at each other. Neeta says, "You have have have to bring
him."
"To our durbar ," says Priya.
"Yes, our durbar ," says Neeta. They've talked gossiped planned little else for the past two months: their
grand joint engagement party where they show off to their as-yet-unmarried girl friends and make all the
single men jealous. Esha excuses her grimace with the bitterness of the health-tea.
"He's very busy." She doesn't say busy man . She cannot even think why she is playing these silly girli
secrecy games. An aeai called her at the Red Fort to tell her it admired her. Didn't even meet her. There
was nothing to meet. It was all in her head. "I don't even know how to get in touch with him. They don't
give their numbers out."
"He's coming," Neeta and Priya insist.
* * * *
She can hardly hear the music for the rattle of the old airco but sweat runs down her sides along the
waistband of her Adidas tights to gather in the hollow of her back and slide between the taut curves of
her ass. She tries it again across the gharana's practice floor. Even the ankle bells sound like lead. Last
night she touched the three heavens. This morning she feels dead. She can't concentrate, and that little
lavda Pranh knows it, swishing at her with yts cane and gobbing out wads of chewed paan and mealy
eunuch curses.
"Ey! Less staring at your palmer, more mudras ! Decent mudras . You jerk my dick, if I still had one."
Embarrassed that Pranh has noted something she was not conscious of herself-- ring, call me, ring call
me, ring, take me out of this --she fires back, "If you ever had one."
Pranh slashes yts cane at her legs, catches the back of her calf a sting.
"Fuck you, hijra !" Esha snatches up towel bag palmer, hooks the earpiece behind her long straight hair.
No point changing, the heat out there will soak through anything in a moment. "I'm out of here."
Pranh doesn't call after her. Yts too proud. Little freak monkey thing, she thinks. How is it a nute is
an yt, but an incorporeal aeai is a he? In the legends of Old Delhi, djinns are always he.
" Memsahb Rathore?"
The chauffeur is in full dress and boots. His only concession to the heat is his shades. In bra top and tights
and bare skin, she's melting. "The vehicle is fully air-conditioned, memsahb ."
The white leather upholstery is so cool her flesh recoils from its skin.
"This isn't the Krishna Cops."
"No memsahb ." The chauffeur pulls out into the traffic. It's only as the security locks clunk she thinks Oh
Lord Krishna, they could be kidnapping me .
"Who sent you?" There's glass too thick for her fists between her and the driver. Even if the doors
weren't locked, a tumble from the car at this speed, in this traffic, would be too much for even a dancer's
 

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