Nekropolis Read Free Page B

the difference between reality and the projection, but she has ordered it never to enter the projection because she says the sight of the thing snuffling through walls damages her sense of the alternate reality. I reach behind the screen and turn the projection off so I can clean. The scene disappears and all that’s left is the mistress’s rooms and their bare white walls-something no one ever sees except me. “Go ahead,” I tell the machine and start for the mistress’s room to pick up things for the laundry.
    To my horror, the mistress steps out of her bedroom. Her hair is loose and long and disheveled and she is dressed in a day robe, obviously not intending to go out. She sees me in the hall and her face darkens, her beautiful, heavy eyebrows folding toward her nose, and I instinctively start to back up. “Oh, mistress,” I say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were in, I’m sorry, let me get the cleaning machine and leave, I’ll just be out of here in a moment, I thought you had gone out to play the Tiles, I should have checked with Fadina, it is my fault, mistress-”
    “Did you turn them off?” she demands. “You stupid girl. Did you turn Zarin and Nisea off? “
    I nod mutely.
    “O Holy One,” she says. “Ugly, incompetent girl! Are you completely lacking in sense? Did you think they would be there and I wouldn’t be here? It’s difficult enough to prepare without interference!”
    “I’ll turn it back on,” I say.
    “Don’t touch anything!” she shrieks. “FADINA!” Fadina is always explaining to me how difficult it is for the mistress to think up new scenarios for her friends’ participation.
    I keep backing up, hissing at the cleaning machine, while the mistress follows me down the hall, shrieking, “FADINA!” and because I’m watching the mistress, I back into Fadina coming in the door.
    “Didn’t you tell Hariba that I’d be in this afternoon?” the mistress says.
    “Of course,” Fadina says.
    I’m aghast. “You did not!” I say.
    “I did, too,” Fadina says. “You were at the access. I distinctly told you and you said you would clean later.”
    I start to defend myself and the mistress slaps me in the face. “Enough of you, girl,” she says. And then the mistress makes me stand there and berates me, reaching out now and then to grab my hair and yank it painfully because of course she believes Fadina when the girl is clearly lying to avoid punishment. I cannot believe that Fadina has done this to me; she is in terror of offending the mistress, but she has always been a good girl, and I’m innocent. My cheek stings, and my head aches from having my hair yanked, but, worse, I’m angry and very, very humiliated.
    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