Nekropolis (3 page)

Finally we are allowed to leave. I know I should give Fadina a piece of my mind, but I just want to escape. Out in the hall, Fadina grabs me so hard that her nails bite into the soft part under my arm. “I told you she was in an absolute frenzy about Saturday,” she whispers. “I can’t believe you did that! And now she’ll be in a terrible mood all evening and I’m the one who will suffer for it!”

“Fadina,” I protest.

“Don’t you ‘Fadina’ me, Hariba! If I don’t get a slap out of this, it will be the intervention of the Holy One!”

I have already gotten a slap, and it wasn’t even my fault. I pull my arm away from Fadina and try to walk down the hall without losing my dignity, the cleaning machine snuffling behind. My face is hot and I’m about to cry. Everything blurs in tears. I duck into the linens and sit down on the hamper. I want to leave this place, I don’t want to work for that old woman. I realize that my only friend in the world is Ayesha and now we are far apart and I feel hurt and lonely and I just sob.

The door to the linens opens and I turn my back, thinking, Go away, whoever you are.

“Oh, excuse me,” the
harni
says.

At least
it
will go away. But the thought that the only thing around is the
harni
makes me feel even lonelier. I cannot stop myself from sobbing.

“Hariba,” it says hesitantly, “are you all right?”

I can’t answer. I want it to go away, and I don’t.

After a moment, it says from right behind me, “Hariba, are you ill?”

I shake my head.

I can feel it standing there, perplexed, but I don’t know what to do and I can’t stop crying and I feel foolish. I want my mother. Not that she would do anything other than remind me that the world is not fair. My mother believes in facing reality. “Be strong,” she always says. And that makes me cry harder.

After a minute, I hear the
harni
leave and, awash in self-pity, I even cry over that. My feelings of foolishness are beginning to outweigh my feelings of unhappiness, but perversely enough I realize that I’m enjoying my cry. That it has been inside me, building stronger and stronger, and I didn’t even know it.

Then someone comes in again and I straighten my back again and pretend to be checking towels. The only person it could be is Fadina.

But it’s the
harni,
with a box of tissues. He crouches beside me, his face full of concern. “Here,” he says.

Embarrassed, I take one. If you didn’t know, you would think he was a regular human. He even smells of clean man-scent. Like my brothers. I don’t really have to dislike
him
. He didn’t pick what he is.

I blow my nose, wondering if
harni
ever cry. “Thank you,” I say. I can’t not say, “Thank you.”

“I was afraid you were ill,” he says.

I shake my head. “No, I’m just angry.”

“You cry when you are angry?” he asks.

“The mistress is upset at me and it’s Fadina’s fault, but I had to take the blame.” That makes me start to cry again, but the
harni
is patient and he just crouches next to me in among the linens, holding the box of tissues. By the time I collect myself, there is a little crumpled pile of tissues and some have tumbled to the floor. I take two tissues and start folding them into a flower, like my mother makes.

“Why are you nice to me when I’m mean to you?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Because you don’t want to be mean to me,” he says. “It makes you suffer. I’m sorry that I make you uncomfortable.”

“But you can’t help being what you are,” I say. My eyes are probably red.
Harni
never cry, I’m certain. They are too perfect. I keep my eyes on the flower.

“Neither can you,” he says. “When Mbarek-salah made you take me with you on your day off, you weren’t even free to be angry with him. I knew that was why you were angry with me.” He has eyes like my brother Fhassin (who had long eyelashes like a girl, just like the
harni
).

Thinking about Mbarek-salah makes my head ache a little and I think of something else. I remember and cover my mouth in horror. “Oh no.”

“What is it?” he asks.

“I think…I think Fadina did tell me that the mistress would be in, but I was…was thinking of something else and I didn’t pay attention.” I was standing at the access, wondering if the
harni
was around, since that was where I was most likely to run into him.

“It is natural enough,” he says, unnatural thing that he is. “If Fadina weren’t jessed, she would probably be more understanding.”

He’s prescripted to be kind, I remind myself. I should not ascribe human motives to an AI. But I’ve been mean to him and he is the only one in the whole household sitting here among the linens with a box of tissues. I fluff out the folds of the flower and put it among the linens. A white tissue flower, a funeral flower.

“Thank you…Akhmim.” It is hard to say his name.

He smiles. “Don’t be sad, Hariba.”

* * *

I’m careful and avoid the eye of the mistress as much as I can. Fadina is civil to me, but not friendly. She says hello to me, politely, and goes on with whatever she is doing.

It is Akhmim, the
harni,
who stops me one evening and says, “The mistress wants us for
bismek
tomorrow.” It’s not the first time I’ve been asked to stand in, but usually it’s Fadina who lets me know and tells me what I’m supposed to do.

Anymore I try to be kind to Akhmim. He’s easy to talk to, and, like me, he’s alone in the household.

“What are we supposed to be?” I ask.

The
harni
flicks his long fingers dismissively, “Servants, of course. What’s it like?” He hasn’t been here that long, so this is the first time he’s been asked to participate.

“Bismek?”
I shrug. “Playacting.”

“Like children’s games?” he asks, looking doubtful.

“Well, yes and no. The mistress’s
bismek
been going on a couple of years now and there are hundreds of characters,” I say. “The ladies all have roles, and you have to remember to call them by their character names and not their real names, and you have to pretend it’s all real. All sorts of things happen; people get in trouble, and they all figure out elaborate plots to get out of trouble and people get strange illnesses and everybody professes their undying affection. The mistress threw her best friend in prison for a while. Fadina said that was very popular.”

He looks at me for a moment, blinking his long eyelashes. “You’re making fun of me, Hariba,” he says, doubtful.

“No,” I say, laughing, “it’s true.” It is, too. “Akhmim, no one is ever really hurt or uncomfortable.”

I think he can’t decide whether to believe me or not.

Saturday afternoon I’m dressed in a pagan-looking robe that leaves one shoulder bare. And makes me look ridiculous, I might add. I’m probably a server. Projections are prettier than real people, but they can’t very well hand out real food.

I arrive early at the mistress’s quarters. The scent of some heavy, almost bitter incense is overwhelming. The cook is laying out real food, using our own service, but the table is too tall to sit at on the floor-more like a European table-and there are candles and brass bowls of dates to make it look antique. Without the projection the elaborate table looks odd, since the room is empty of furniture. Akhmim is helping, bringing in lounging chairs so the guests can recline at the table. He’s dressed in a white robe that comes to his knees and brown sandals that have elaborate crisscross ties, and, like me, his shoulder is bare. Unlike me, the
harni
looks graceful. He glances up at me and smiles and I’m embarrassed to be seen by a man with my shoulder and neck bare. Remember, I think, Akhmim is what he is; he’s not really a man or he wouldn’t be here.

“Hariba,” Akhmim says, “Fadina says that the mistress is in a terrible mood.”

“She’s always in a terrible mood when she’s nervous,” I say.

“I’m nervous.”

“Akhmim,” I say, laughing, “don’t worry!”

“I don’t understand any of this playing pretend,” he wails softly.

I take his hand and squeeze it. If he were a man, I wouldn’t touch him. I’ve never touched him before. His hand is warm and human. “You’ll do fine. We don’t have to do much anyway, just serve dinner. You can manage that, probably better than I can.”

He bites his lower lip, and I’m suddenly reminded of my brother Fhassin-I could almost cry. But I just squeeze his hand again. I’m nervous, too, but not about serving dinner. I have avoided the mistress since the incident with the cleaning machine.

Fadina comes in and turns on the projection, and suddenly the white marble room glows around us, full of servants and musicians tuning up. I feel better, able to hide in the crowd. Akhmim glances around. “It
is
exciting,” he says thoughtfully.

There are five guests. Fadina greets them at the door and takes them back to the wardrobe to change. Five middle-aged women, all come to pretend. I tell Akhmim their character names as they come in so he knows what to call them.

The musicians start playing; projected characters, women and men, recline on projected couches. I know some of their names. Of course, they have projected servers and projected food. I wish I knew what the scenario was. Usually Fadina tells me ahead of time, but she doesn’t talk much to me these days. Pretty soon the mistress comes in and the real guests all find the real couches where they can talk to each other. First is bread and cheese, already on the table, and Akhmim has to pour wine-not real wine, of course-but I can just stand there, next to a projected servant, thank God. Even this close, she seems real, exotic with her pale hair. I ask her what her name is and she whispers, “Miri.” Fadina is standing next to the mistress’s couch, she glares at me. I’m not supposed to make the household AI do extra work.

The first part of the meal is boring. The mistress’s friends get up once in a while to whisper to each other or a projection, and projections do the same thing. There’s some sort of intrigue going on, people look very tense and excited. Akhmim and I glance at each other and he smiles. While I’m serving, I whisper to him, “Not so bad, is it?”

The two lovers I turned off are at this dinner; I guess they are important characters right now. The girl is apparently supposed to be the daughter of one of the mistress’s friends.

Almost two hours into the dinner-after a course of clear soup, then a luncheon of lamb in pastry with pistachios that smells so good my stomach rumbles, and finally an orange sorbet-the girl says loudly to her lover, “I can’t stand this anymore! You have to choose!” All the projections look over-of course the
bismek
ladies have been watching the two lovers all through the meal.

“What are you talking about?” the boy says, although he looks guilty-it’s obvious he knows.

“Don’t you pretend!” the girl says.

“Nisea,” he says, “you are making a scene.”

“No, I’m not,” she says, and stands up. “I’m going home.” But she sways, beautiful in her long gown, and then her eyes roll back in her head and she falls to the marble floor, thrashing, her heels beating against it. The projected characters rush to the girl. The one of the mistress’s friends who is the “mother” of the girl behaves with theatrical dignity in the circle of real women-since she can’t really touch the girl. The male lover is hysterical, kneeling and sobbing. It makes me uncomfortable, both the seizures and the reactions. I look for Akhmim. He is standing against the wall, holding a pitcher of wine, observing. He looks delighted. The girl’s lover reaches the table and picks up her wineglass while everybody else watches him. Only an idiot would fail to realize that it’s supposed to be important. The “mother” shrieks suddenly, “Stop him! It’s poison!” and there is more agitated activity but they are too late. The lover drinks down the wine. The “mother” is “held back” by her friends.

I’m embarrassed by the way these women play with feelings. I look over at Akhmim, but he is just watching. I wonder, what does he think?

There’s a call for a physician, projections rush around. There is a long, drawn-out death scene for the girl, followed by an equally long death for the lover. The women are openly sobbing, even Fadina. I clasp my hands together, squeeze them, look at the floor. I glance up and everyone is clustered around the lovers’ bodies, both unnaturally beautiful in death. Finally everything is played out and the projected characters shut off. They sit around the “dining room” and discuss the scenario and how masterful it was. The mistress looks drained but pleased. One by one the women pad back to the wardrobe and change, then let themselves out until only the mistress and the “mother” are left.

“It was wonderful,” she keeps telling the mistress.

“As good as when Hekmet was ill?” the mistress asks.

“Oh yes. It was wonderful!” Finally they go back to change, Fadina following to help, and Akhmim and I can clear the dishes off the table.

“So what did you think?” I ask. “Was it what you expected?”

Akhmim shrugs. “I didn’t know what to expect.”

I stack plates and dump them on a tray. Akhmim boosts the tray, balancing it at his shoulder like a waiter. He’s really much stronger than he looks. “You don’t like it,” he says finally.

I shake my head.

“Why not? Because it’s not real?”

“All this violence,” I say. Nobody would want to live this way. Nobody would want these things to happen to them.” I’m collecting wineglasses, colored transparent blue and rose like soap bubbles.

He stands looking at me, observing me the way he did the women, I think. What do we look like to
harni
? He’s beautiful, the tray balanced effortlessly, the muscles of his bare arm and shoulder visible. He looks enough like an infidel in his white robe, with his perfect, timeless face. Even his long curly hair seems right.

I try to explain. “They entertain themselves with suffering.”

“They’re only projections,” he says.

“But they seem real. The whole point is to forget they’re projections, isn’t it?” The glasses ring against each other as I collect them.

Softly he says, “They are bored women. What else do they have in their lives?”