The Djinn Read Online Free PDF Page A

middle of the night and found
that Max wasn’t there. That wasn’t unusual, especially in recent years. He
often wandered around the house at night. I lay there for a while and listened
to see if I could hear where he was. Then I felt thirsty, and I got up to have
a drink of water from the bathroom.”
    Marjorie’s
voice was so soft I could hardly hear what she was saying. Her head had sunk
down and her lips were barely moving as she told us what had happened.
    “I was just
filling my glass when I heard people talking in the kitchen downstairs. At
least I imagined I did. I wondered who it was. One of them sounded like Max,
but I don’t know who the other one was. I think now that it was just my
imagination. I had my drink, and I was going back to bed, when I heard terrible
screeching. I can’t tell you how awful it was. I was absolutely paralyzed with
fright I couldn’t move. It went on and on for about three or four minutes,
perhaps even longer. I went downstairs. I don’t know how I had the courage to
do it, but I did. It sounded so much like Max, and I was terrified that
something had happened to him.” Marjorie stopped for a moment.
    “Have a drink,”
I said. “It’ll make you feel better.”
    She shook her
head. “I mustn’t drink. I’m afraid to get drunk.”
    “Come on,
Marjorie. A couple of swallows won’t hurt you.”
    She shook her
head again. “It’s forbidden, you know. They don’t allow it.”
    “Who doesn’t
allow it?” asked Anna. “What do you mean?”
    I held
Marjorie’s wrist “Don’t worry. Just tell us what happened when you went
downstairs.”
    Her voice was
almost indistinguishable now. All I could see of her head was the gray-streaked
part in her hair as she mumbled her story.
    “I went into
the hall and he wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the drawing room, either. It was
silent by then, completely silent, and I was terrified. Then I saw the light
was on in the kitchen. It was shining from under the door. I opened the door
very slowly, and . . .” She stopped talking, and
stayed silent and still for almost a whole minute.
    “Marjorie,” I
said gently. “You don’t have to...”
    But she started
speaking again, in the same hushed, whispery voice.
    “I thought he
was all right at first. I don’t know what made me think that He was turned away
from me, I suppose, and the first thing I saw was the back of his head. Then I
realized what he had done.” Again, she stopped.
    “What?” Anna
asked. “What had he done?”
    Marjorie looked
up. For the first time that day, there were tears in her eyes, although her
voice was almost emotionless. I don’t know why, but that calmness made her
words even more nauseating.
    “I don’t quite
know how he did it,” she said. “He had taken the carving knife from the drawer
and cut his face off. His nose, his cheeks, even his
lips. He had done it himself.”
    Anna sat with
her mouth open in shock. “Excuse me,” she said, leaving the table as quickly as
she could. As for me, I just sat there holding Mar-jorie’s hand, feeling those
lobster tails swimming around and around, fighting like hell to keep them down.

Chapter 2
    B y the time we got back to Winter Sails, most of the funeral guests
had left. There was one old lady who was busy talking to Marjorie’s baby-pink
companion with the jutting teeth, and a florid-faced oil executive who was
sitting with his head between his knees (he had brought his own hip-flask), but
apart from those two, the old house was deserted. The guests had left nothing
but tire tracks, empty sherry glasses, and dirty ashtrays.
    “I think I’m
going to have a cup of tea,” said Marjorie, leading us to the drawing room.
“Will you join me?”
    I shook my
head. “I don’t drink tea. It’s bad for the stomach lining. You know, in China,
they used to make eunuchs drink hundreds of cups of tea every day, then they cut them open and would use their stomachs for
footballs.”
    Anna gave me a
sharp nudge