Nekropolis by Maureen F. McHugh Read Free Book Online

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