Free Nekropolis by Maureen F. McHugh Page A

canna lilies and the roses and the lemon leaves?”
    Hariba looks up at me and nods. I wipe at the tear stains with my thumb.
    “Her son was killed in a lorry accident, oh, a year ago, maybe. She bought your wreath for him. She’s going to help me find a job, maybe as a waiter. Do you think I’d be a good waiter?”
    “I don’t know,” Hariba says. She rests her head against my chest. “Maybe. You didn’t tell her, did you? You didn’t tell her about us?”
    “No, sweetheart. I told her my wife was ill.”
    Shyly, Hariba says, “You told her I was your wife?”
    I kiss her forehead. Ah, I’ve said the right thing. “Of course. Now you go to sleep so you can feel better.”
    “I’m not going to get better,” she says.
    “It always feels that way when we’re sick. When we’re sick, we can’t remember what it’s like to feel good. Now lie down.” She’s prickly and unhappy. My poor Hariba.
    “Do harni get sick?” she asks.
    “Of course we do,” I say. “We get sick, we fall down and hurt ourselves. Just like you.”
    That’s what she wants. Humans always want us to be human, but we aren’t. I sit and watch her go to sleep.
    I share 98 percent of my DNA with Hariba, but so does a chimpanzee, and I know Hariba wouldn’t like to think she had run away with a chimpanzee. I’m not, though, I’m a harni . 98 percent is a number, 2 percent is a number, these are numbers I’ve been taught, but they don’t explain differences.
    I was born in a crèche. I was the only male in a sibling group of five. More humans want female harni than male, so there are eight females to every male. I had four sisters just like myself. We were all one, in the way of harni, almost indistinguishable, until we were five years old and we had to start sleeping in separate beds and going to different classes so we would differentiate. We cried. We were cast out of paradise and after that we were never whole again. I learned that my sisters had names-Isna, Sardalas, Dakhla, and Kenitra-and the more they went each to her separate classroom, the more they changed in different directions. Our teachers had trouble telling us apart, but the other harni in the crèche didn’t. And because I was a boy, I changed most of all. I learned I had a name. I learned I was alone.
    Before we were separate, we didn’t play like humans. After we were separated, we would mimic each other a lot. And sometimes we’d play pretend. We’d play that my sisters had been sold to a human, and because I was the boy, I had to be the rich man who bought them. I’d sit in the chair and order them to do things for me: “Brush my hair,” or “Bring me my shoes.” Then they would go off to their room, which was usually Isna’s bed because it was closest to the wall and farthest from the door, and they would pile on top of each other like mice keeping warm and lie together, happy in the touch and smell of each other. Alone in the chair, I’d feel the air on my skin and the way the edge of the seat cut into my thighs, until I couldn’t stand it. I’d say that I was coming to inspect their quarters and when I pretended to find them, they would take me in and teach me harni ways, until I declared I’d never be human again. and then I’d curl up with them on the narrow bed and smell the milky smell of us all together.
    Of course, humans can’t be harni . They try when they have sex, even if they don’t know what they’re trying for, but they’re always apart and always alone. Once I grew up, I was always alone, too, but the difference is, I remember when it wasn’t that way.
     
    * * *
     
    Hariba says it’s silly to go to the Moussin with only one wreath. Her need tears at me, little hooks tugging while her demand that I be human, be the man, and take care of things pushes me away and out.
    “Myryam might be there,” I explain. “She’s going to help me find a job to support us.”
    “No, no, no, no, no,” Hariba murmurs.
    “Lie down,” I