Nekropolis by Maureen F. McHugh Page B

miss me.”
    “I could steal you away.”
    “No,” he says. “You said you will get sick. You might die.” But he would go with me. I can see it in his face. What is there for him at Mbarek’s? The mistress ignores him. It is me he has bonded to. It is me he loves.
    No one has ever loved me like he does. I am already dead if I stay with my mistress. I realize that I’ve been thinking about death. I really want to die.
    “Maybe we are already dead, living this way,” I say.
    He doesn’t understand me, not at all.
    “We have to talk more,” I say.
    “We have to go,” he insists. Then he smiles at me and all the unhappiness disappears from his face. He doesn’t seem human anymore, he seems pleasant; harni . I get a chill. He’s alien. I understand him less than I understand people like my old mistress. We get up and he looks away as I pay.
    Outside Mbarek’s house I tell him, “I’ll come back next Tuesday.” On Tuesday I get my spending money.
     
    * * *
     
    It’s good I got so much cleaning done before I saw Ahkmim because I sleepwalk through the next few days. I leave the cleaning machine in the doorway, where the mistress almost trips over it. I forget to set the clothes in order. I don’t know what to think.
    I hear the mistress say to the neighbor, “She’s a godsend, but moody. One day she’s doing everything, the next day she can’t be counted on to remember to set the table.”
    What right does she have to talk about me that way? Her house was a pigsty when I came.
    What am I thinking? What is wrong with me that I blame my mistress? Where is my head? I feel ill, my eyes water, and my head fills. I can’t breathe, I feel heavy. I must be dutiful. I used to have this feeling once in a while when I was first jessed, it’s part of the adjustment. It must be the change from Mbarek. I have to adjust all over again.
    I find the mistress, tell her I’m not feeling well, and go lie down.
    The next afternoon, just before dinner, it happens again. The day after that is fine, but then it happens at midmorning of the third day. It is Tuesday and I have the day off. My voice is hoarse, my head aches. What is wrong with me?
    I know what is wrong with me. I’m trying not to think about what I’m planning because if I let myself think, the jessing will fight with me. I’m trying to be two people, one a good girl and the other a secret, hidden even from my own self.
    I’m afraid. I don’t want to die. Although I don’t mind the idea of being dead, just dying. Inside me is a tiny part that would like it all to stop, to end.
    I wonder if I am trying to commit suicide. I’m crazy. But if I think about it, then the sickness comes on me, worse and worse. I can’t stand it here and I can’t go away.
    I go to the Moussin in the afternoon, lugging my bag, which is heavy with paper, and sit in the cool dusty darkness, nursing my poor head. I feel as if I should pray. I should ask for help, for guidance. The Moussin is so old that the stone is irregularly worn and through my slippers I can feel the little ridges and valleys in the marble. Up around the main worship hall there are galleries hidden by arabesques of scrollwork. Ayesha and I used to sit up there when we were children. Above that, sunlight flashes through clerestory windows. Where the light hits the marble floor, it shines hard, hurting my eyes and my head. I rest my forehead on my arm, turned sideways on the bench so I can lean against the back. With my eyes closed I smell incense and my own scent of perfume and perspiration.
    There are people there for service, but no one bothers me. Isn’t that amazing?
    Or maybe it is only because anyone can see that I’m impure.
    I’m tired of my own melodrama. I keep thinking that people are looking at me, that someone is going to say something to me. I don’t know where to go.
    I don’t even pretend to think of going back to my room. I get on the train and go to Mbarek’s house. I climb the stairs from