“The Haunting of Hajji Hotak”
by Jamil Jan Kochai
from the November 8, 2021 issue of The New Yorker
Jamil Jan Kochai first appeared in The New Yorker in December 2019, with “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.” Commenters liked it, but I’m afraid I never read it. I’m always behind!
That story was written in the second person, and it appears from the first paragraph of “The Haunting of Hajji Hotak” is the same.
You don’t know why, exactly, you’ve been assigned to this particular family, in this particular home, in West Sacramento, California. It’s not your job to wonder why. Nonetheless, after a few days, you begin to speculate that the suspect at the heart of your assignment is the father, code-named Hajji, even though you have no reason to believe that he has ever actually completed the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. In fact, Hajji hardly leaves home at all. He spends hours at a time wandering around his house or his yard, searching for things to repair—rotted planks of wood, missing shingles, burned-out bulbs, broken mowers, shattered windows, unhinged doors—until his old injuries act up, and he is forced to lie down wherever he is working, and if he happens to be in the attic or the basement, or in some other secluded area of the house, away from his wife and his mother and his four children, sometimes he will allow himself to quietly mutter verses from the Quran, invocations to Allah, until his ache seems to ebb and he returns to work.
I like this beginning. I’m intrigued. Please let me know your thoughts!
With it’s simple eloquent description of a father in some sort of trouble, Jamil Jan Kochai’s short story, “The Haunting of Hajji Hotak,” springs into incandescent life.
How did an Afghan father end up like this in Sacramento? What about the wife? Or the sons? Hajji’s family is depicted as tragic, yet wonderfully peculiar and interesting in a unique inimitable way.
Kochai’s handling of family, like in his novel, “99 Nights in Logar” is sterling. They are filled with energy, imagination and an unusual but winning sense of humor. They also demonstrate pluck and perseverance against horrible circumstances that would quickly defeat anyone any less strong-willed.
Spiritually, God watches over us. But temporally, the lesser angels of surveillance look over all the others. Kochai’s brilliant framing device of using a security operative to observe the family and tell us their story involves us with people that we might not otherwise notice.
The use of second person singular “you” invites us to consider that Hajji could be, in some sense, like our own father even if our father never spoke Pashto nor ever grew up or lived in Afghanistan.
A really nice touch is how the security operative admires the excellent cognitive abilities of one of Hajji’s family. There is the cultural contrast of Muslim religious practices with the very different paradigms of Western family existence.
And the “haunting” of the story title is very understandable and universal in similar situations. The precise and concise detail of this story gives a stark, yet very moving south Asian neorealistic snapshot of this particular fictional Afghan family.
On the New Yorker website, there is an interview with Kochai concerning American’s “Fear of Islam” which is both very interesting and informative. During the recent American withdrawal from Afghanistan (after reading “99 Days in Logar”), I was wondering what Kochai would say about what happened but I didn’t see any articles.
His new short story collection from which “Haunting” is taken is scheduled for publication in mid-July 2022. Sometimes we learn all about life in particular places and/or situations from fictional short stories. So I am looking forward to reading all of them.
Lots to like in this story. Compact, full of people interactions, all handled deftly.
My first response was to the title, which triggered an echo of “The Haunting of Hill House”. In that novel there may or may not be a supernatural being, or the most affected person (Eleanor) may be mental. Or unusually susceptible. Here, the father, Hajji, is a sensitive. In his case, there really is a malignant spirit haunting their house — the US government, via an unnamed agency.
Unlike the Jackson story, the invisible spirit turns benevolent. Perhaps not realistic, given the behavior of military and intelligence agency personnel, but it makes the story bearable.
In the Jackson story the presumed spirit drives the possible insane young woman to crash her car into a tree. In this story, the old man is on the way to losing touch with his family as he obsessively pursues a presence that none of them suspect, but that actually exists.
Another good point is how the author portrays so many family members and family interactions in such a short space. It gives a realistic sense of what an extended immigrant family may consist of and how they may interact, even internationally. Again, handled deftly.
As Larry noted, good use of second person narrative. A rare voice outside of creative writing classes.
Finally, by working through this anonymous observer commenting on an immigrant Afghani family, the author reveals the irrational prejudices of American security officials and the damage they can do.
To William’s mention of the irrational prejudices of American security officials I will add that these “irrational prejudices” though used in a fictional short story are based on a form of true event that actually occurred post 9/11.
Immigration attorney Sin Yen Ling writes that “In August 2002, the call-in registration portion of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (“NSEERS”) mandated that certain men (and boys over 16) from twenty-three predominantly Muslim countries and North Korea were required to report to local immigration offices between November 2002 and April 2003. At the conclusion of the special registration program 82,581 individuals nationwide had been questioned, fingerprinted and interrogated under oath.
These blanket policies were intended to racially profile members of these communities, indefinitely detain them pending terrorism investigations based solely on race and religion and then deport them back to their home countries without ever charging them with terrorism.
The use of the security operative in this short story is a deft way of presenting what happened on a human level without directly getting political. One of the best aspects of a good short story is let us look at the truth of what sometimes happens in real life in a nonjudgmental way.
thanks for that factual info, Larry. Combined with your comments, it underlines the power of the story.
William,
It’s weird how sometimes factual events can tie into a short story. This one suggests to me something that Jamil Jan Kochai could have written and their is even a quote from the guy in the story that is almost “exactly” what a Jamil Jan Kochai character would have said (I swear). This is from the New York Post:
“A Lebanese-born Muslim man was investigated by the FBI and Homeland Security after posing as a Hasidic Jew to marry a Brooklyn woman — while claiming to be a US spy to protect his wild ruse. . . His trickery meant the wedding was instantly annulled–and investigated by the FBI and Homeland Security over fears he was infiltrating the Jewish community for nefarious purposes. . .”
And what did the Jamil Jan Kochai character say?
“When the FBI agent came to my place, I said: “Sir, I give you permission to spy on all my phone calls. I am not affiliated with anybody.”
Larry —
Thanks for that further info. It is indeed pertinent. It emphasizes again the insight in the last graf of your prior comment.