The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years

Finished March 18

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan

This novel takes place in a ruined mansion on the coast in Durban, South Africa. The main character is a teenage girl, Sana Malek. In 2014, she and her father Bilal move from an inland farm to live in a small apartment in this large house, Akbar Manzil. Akbar Manzil was built over a hundred years earlier, and was abandoned a few years later. The house was used for apartments once before, but abandoned again. Now a strange set of misfits live there. The owner is an old man they call Doctor. He has lived other places, but eventually found himself back in the town he was born in. His secrets are kept close until events and Sana's actions bring him to reveal them. A older thin woman named Razia Bibi seems at odds with her upstairs neighbour and complains a lot. Her neighbour, Fancy, a small woman has a bird named Mr. Patel that she sometimes brings into the hall so he can get more sunshine from the window there. Pinky was hired to clean the house, but eventually became overwhelmed at the task and stopped. She lives in a small room off the main kitchen, where she watches Bollywood movies. Zuleikha is more reclusive, leaving her former fame behind as she ages. As Sana learns about them she records their stories in her notebook, particularly when they talk of love. 

Sana is a quiet girl. Her mother died four years ago, and her twin sister died when they were babies. But her sister has haunted and tormented her for years, Sana is obsessed with the idea of love after seeing a couple kiss at a wedding, and she has searched since to discover how love affects the shape of things. She is curious about her new home and explores the house, venturing into distant hallways, and finding a floor in one wing where the hallway is filled with discarded items, from furniture to boxes of odds and ends. As she looks through these things, venturing further in, she finds a locked door, and begins to wonder what is beyond it. She also explores the garden behind the house, which is filled with cages, many of them broken and odd assortments of bones. . The garden has mostly gone wild, but Fancy gardens in the evenings, and Sana begins to spend time bringing it back to order as well. When Sana finds the room behind the locked door, she becomes obsessed with the woman who lived there, Meena, and reads her words, wanting to know her story. 

We are introduced to the djinn of the title in the first chapter. It is 1932 and the djinn is weeping, hiding away deep in the house. When he hears things happening beyond his retreat, he wanders out, but sees only a mess of abandoned items, trunks and clothes. Outside the house, he looks up at it and wails. We gradually discover what he is grieving and this also leads us to the story of the house and its sad fate. 

The writing here is lovely, drawing you into the story, as it uses the foreign words of its characters to add to the atmosphere. The djinn is interesting, a creature that moves about, obsessed with a past tragedy. The story as it gradually reveals itself is one of love and pain, one of moments of happiness and of great sadness. The setting of the house and its garden come to life for the reader, even in its abandoned rooms.