Nekropolis (5 page)

“Mistress,” I say, “I was afraid to-”

“You
should
be afraid!” she shouts. She slaps me, both sides of my face, and shouts at me, her face close to mine. On and on. I don’t listen, it’s just sound. Fadina walks me to the door. I’m holding my head up, trying to maintain some dignity. “Hariba,” Fadina whispers.

“What?” I say, thinking maybe she has realized that it’s the mistress, that it’s not my fault.

But she just shakes her head, “Try not to upset her, that’s all. Just don’t upset her.” Her face is pleading, she wants me to understand.

Understand what? That she’s jessed? As Akhmim says, “We are only what we are.”

But I understand what it’s going to be like, now. The mistress hates me, and there’s nothing I can do. The only way to escape is to ask Mbarek to sell me off, but then I’d have to leave Akhmim. And since he’s a
harni,
he can’t even ride the train without someone else providing credit. If I leave, I’ll never see him again.

* * *

The room is full of whispers. The window is open and the breeze rustles among the paper flowers. There are flowers everywhere, on the dresser, the chairs. Akhmim and I sit in the dark room, lit only by the light from the street. He comes in the evening to visit me, like my brother sneaking to see another man’s wife. He’s sitting with one leg underneath him. Like some animal, a panther, indolent.

“You’ll still be young when I’m old,” I say.

“No,” he says. That is all, just the one word.

“Do you get old?”

“If we live out our natural span. About sixty, sixty-five years.”

“Do you get wrinkles? White hair?”

“Some. Our joints get bad, swell, like arthritis. Things go wrong.” He’s quiet tonight. Usually he’s cheerful.

“You’re patient,” I say.

He makes a gesture with his hands. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Is it hard for you to be patient?”

“Sometimes,” he says. “I feel frustration, anger, fear. But we’re bred to be patient.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask. I sound like a little girl, my voice all breathy.

“I’m thinking. You should leave here.”

The mistress is always finding something. Nothing I do is right. She pulls my hair, confines me to my room. “I can’t,” I say, “I’m jessed.”

He’s still in the twilight.

“Akhmim,” I say, suddenly cruel, “do you want me to go?”

“
Harni
are not supposed to have ‘wants,’ “ he says, his voice flat. I have never heard him say the word
“harni.”
It sounds obscene. It makes me get up, his voice. It fills me with nervousness, with aimless energy. If he is despairing, what is there for me? I leave the window, brush my fingers across the desk, hearing the flowers rustle. I touch all the furniture, and take an armload of flowers, crisp and cool, and drop them in his lap. “What?” he says. I take more flowers and throw them over his shoulders. His face is turned up at me, lit by the light from the street, full of wonder. I gather flowers off the chair, drop them on him. There are flowers all over the bed, funeral flowers. He reaches up, flowers spilling off his sleeves, and takes my arms to make me stop, saying, “Hariba, what?” I lean forward and close my eyes.

I wait, hearing the breeze rustle the lilies, the poppies, the roses on the bed. I wait forever. Until he finally kisses me.

He won’t do any more than kiss me. Lying among all the crushed flowers, he will stroke my face, my hair, he will kiss me, but that’s all. “You have to leave,” he says desperately. “You have to tell Mbarek, tell him to sell you.”

I won’t leave. I have nothing to go to.

“Do you love me because you have to? Is it because you are a
harni
and I’m a human and you have to serve me?” I ask. He’s never said that he loves me, but I know.

He shakes his head.

“Do you love me because of us? Of what we are?” I press. There are no words for the questions I’m asking him.

“Hariba,” he says.

“Do you love the mistress?”

“No,” he says.

“You should love the mistress, shouldn’t you, but you love me.”

“Go home, go to the Nekropolis. Run away,” he urges, kissing my throat, gentle. Moth wing kisses, as if he has been thinking of my throat for a long time.

“Run away? From Mbarek? What would I do for the rest of my life? Make paper flowers?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Would you come with me?” I ask.

He sighs and raises up on his elbow. “You shouldn’t fall in love with me.”

This is funny. “This is a fine time to tell me.”

“No,” he says, “it is true.” He counts on his fine fingers, “One, I’m a
harni,
not a human being, and I belong to someone else. Two, I have caused all of your problems; if I hadn’t been here, you wouldn’t have had all your troubles. Three, the reason it is wrong for a human to love a
harni
is because
harni
-human relationships are bad paradigms for human behavior, they lead to difficulty in dealing with human-to-human relationships-”

“I don’t have any human-to-human relationships,” I interrupt.

“You will, you’re still young.”

I laugh at him. “Akhmim, you’re younger than I am. Prescripted wisdom.”

“But wisdom nonetheless,” he says solemnly.

“Then why did you kiss me?” I ask.

He sighs. It is such a human thing, that sigh, full of frustration. “Because you’re sad.”

“I’m not sad right now,” I say. “I’m happy because you are here.” I’m also nervous. Afraid. Because this is all strange and even though I keep telling myself that he’s human, I’m afraid that underneath he is really alien, more unknowable than my brother. But I want him to stay with me. And I’m happy. Afraid but happy.

My lover. “I want you to be my lover,” I say.

“No.” He sits up. He’s beautiful, even disheveled. I can imagine what I look like. Maybe he doesn’t even like me, maybe he has to act this way because I want it. He runs his fingers through his hair and his earring gleams in the light from the street.

“Do
harni
fall in love?” I ask.

“I have to go,” he says. “We’ve crushed your flowers.” He picks up a lily, whose long petals have become twisted and crumpled, and tries to straighten it out.

“I can make more. Do you have to do this because I want you to?”

“No,” he says very quietly. Then more clearly, like a recitation, “
Harni
don’t have feelings, not in the sense that humans do. We are loyal, flexible, and affectionate.”

“That makes you sound like a smart dog,” I say, irritated.

“Yes,” he says, “that is what I am, a smart dog, a very smart dog. Good night, Hariba.”

When he opens the door, the breeze draws and the flowers rustle and some tumble off the bed, trying to follow him.

* * *

“Daughter,” Mbarek says, “I’m not sure that this is the best situation for you.” He looks at me kindly. I wish Mbarek did not think that he had to be my father.

“Mbarek-salah?” I say. “I don’t understand, has my work been unsatisfactory?” Of course my work has been unsatisfactory-the mistress hates me. But I’m afraid they have somehow realized what is between Akhmim and me-although I don’t know how they could. Akhmim is avoiding me again.

“No, no” -he waves his hand airily-“your accounts are in order, you have been a good frugal girl. It’s not your fault.”

“I…I’m aware that I have been clumsy, that perhaps I have not always understood what the mistress wished, but, Mbarek-salah, I’m improving!” I’m getting better at ignoring her, I mean. I don’t want him to feel inadequate. Sitting here, I realize the trouble I’ve caused him. He hates having to deal with the household in any but the most perfunctory way. I’m jessed to this man, his feelings matter to me. Rejection of my services is painful. This has been a good job. I’ve been able to save some of my side money so that when I’m old I won’t be like my mother, forced to struggle and hope that her children will be able to support her when she can’t work anymore.

Mbarek is uncomfortable. The part of me that is not jessed can see this is not the kind of duty that Mbarek likes. This is not how he sees himself; he prefers to be the benevolent patriarch. “Daughter,” he says, “you have been exemplary, but wives…” He sighs. “Sometimes, child, they get whims, and it’s better for me, and for you, if we find you some good position with another household.”

At least he hasn’t said anything about Akhmim. I bow my head because I’m afraid I will cry. I study my toes. I try not to think of Akhmim. Alone again. O Holy One, I’m tired of being alone. I’ll be alone my whole life, jessed women do not marry. I can’t help it, I start to cry. Mbarek takes it as a sign of my loyalty and pats me gently on the shoulder. “There, there, child, it’ll be all right.”

I don’t want Mbarek to comfort me. The part of me that watches, that isn’t jessed, doesn’t even really like Mbarek, and at the same time I want to make him happy. I gamely sniff and try to smile. “I…I know you know what is best,” I manage. But my distress makes him uncomfortable. He says when arrangements are made he’ll tell me.

I look for Akhmim, to tell him, but he stays in the men’s side of the house, away from the middle where we eat, and far away from the women’s side.

I begin to understand. He didn’t love me, it was just that he was a
harni
and it was me…I led him to myself. Maybe I’m no better than Nouzha, with her white hair and pointed ears. I work, what else is there to do? And I avoid the mistress. Evidently Mbarek has told her he is getting rid of me, because the attacks cease. Fadina even smiles at me, if distantly. I would like to make friends with Fadina again, but she doesn’t give me a chance. I’ll never see him again. He isn’t even that far from me and I’ll never see him again.

* * *

There’s nothing to be done about it. Akhmim avoids me. I look across the courtyard or the dining room at the men’s side, but I almost never see him. Once in a while he’s there, with his long curly hair and his black gazelle eyes, but he doesn’t look at me.

I pack my things. My new mistress comes. She is a tall gray-haired woman, slightly pop-eyed. She has a breathy voice and a way of hunching her shoulders, as if she wished she were actually very small. I’m supposed to give
her
my life? It’s monstrous.

We’re in Mbarek’s office. I’m upset. I want desperately to leave, I’m afraid of coming into a room and finding the mistress. I’m trying not to think of Akhmim. But what is most upsetting is the thought of leaving Mbarek. Will the next girl understand that he wants to pretend he is frugal, but that he really is not? I’m nearly overwhelmed by shame because I have caused this. I’m only leaving because of my own foolishness and I have failed Mbarek, who only wanted peace.

I will not cry. These are impressed emotions. Soon I’ll feel them for this strange woman. O Holy, what rotten luck to have gotten this woman for a mistress. She wears bronze and white-bronze was all the fashion when I first came and the mistress wore it often-but this is years later and these are second-rate clothes, a younger woman’s clothing and not suited for a middle-aged woman at all. She’s nervous, wanting me to like her, and all I want to do is throw myself at Mbarek’s feet and embarrass him into saying that I can stay.

Mbarek says, “Hariba, she has paid the fee.” He shows me the credit transaction and I see that the fee is lower than it was when I came to Mbarek’s household. “I order you to accept this woman as your new mistress.”

That’s it. That’s the trigger. I feel a little disoriented. I never really noticed how the skin under Mbarek’s jaw was soft and lax. He’s actually rather nondescript. I wonder what it must be like for the mistress to have married him. She’s tall and vivid, if a bit heavy, and was a beauty in her day. She must find him disappointing. No wonder she’s bitter.

My new mistress smiles tentatively. Well, she may not be fashionable, the way my old mistress was, but she looks kind, praise God. I hope so, I would like to live in a kind household. I smile back at her.

That’s it. I’m impressed.

* * *

My new household is much smaller than the old one. I must be frugal; there’s a lot less money in this house. It’s surprising how accustomed I’ve gotten to money at Mbarek’s house; this is much more like the way I grew up.

I inventory the linens and clean all the rooms from top to bottom. My mistress sits at the table and watches me scrub the counters and clean the grime that has collected in the cracks.

“Things are different in a big house, I assume,” she says. Her name is Zoubida. That’s what she wants me to call her, but it feels too informal, so I don’t call her anything at all.

“Yes, ma’am,” I say. “A lot more people.”

I open the cold box. “Do you want to keep any of this?” I’ll be cooking.

She waves her hand. “Oh no, keep what you need.”

It is full of half-eaten things that I am afraid to keep. Some of them are really old. I empty it out and scrub it, the cold wafting out as I do. Then I put back the handful of things I’m certain aren’t spoiled. I wash out the sink.

I make a salad of chicken and greens and oranges for lunch. It’s something that the old mistress used to like. The new master shuffles in, the backs of his slippers flattened by tromping on them. “What’s this?” he says.

“It’s a recipe from her old house,” my mistress says.

He looks at it doubtfully. He’s not a salad eater, I suspect.

“For dinner, I can make couscous,” I say.

He nods and tastes the salad gingerly.

“Did you eat this a lot at your last place?” my mistress asks.

“Oh, not me,” I say. “But my mistress liked it.”

I’ll eat chickpeas later, after I clean up after lunch.

The master seems pleased by the salad and eats every bit. “Hariba,” he says while I’m picking up the plates, “how do you stop a lawyer from drowning?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Take your foot off his neck,” he says, and laughs, watching me with watering eyes.

I laugh, too. He is always telling me dreadful jokes, but the mistress wants us to get along. I always laugh.