Free Nekropolis by Maureen F. McHugh Page B

say, soft. “I’ll sit here until you go to sleep.”
    But Hariba can’t sleep. “Am I going to die?” she asks.
    “No,” I say, “you’re going to get better.”
    Her head aches. She’s miserable.
    “Do you want me to get a doctor?” I ask.
    “No,” she says fiercely, “no doctor. A doctor would know that I’m jessed and that I ran away.”
    “Okay,” I promise. “I won’t call a doctor.”
    She’s soothed and she pushes the pillow away and lays her cheek against the sheet. She doesn’t close her eyes. They are vacant and bruised. I rub her back. She’s wearing a cotton shift and it’s damp and transparent-two white chalky tablets have broken her fever for a bit of time, making her perspire. The vertebrae are like the bones of a snake, a ridge under her sand-colored skin. They curl down into the small of her back and curve up over her shoulders to twist where her head is turned and disappear into her hair.
    “You go on,” she says absently, far away.
    She can’t be made happy. I sit for a while, hopeless and hopeful until she dozes. Finally freed, I pull the sheet over her and kiss her on the temple, and leave her lying there.
    Outside on the street the hot dry wind curls the dust into a devil, turning and turning, and I follow it to the souk to buy rice. Maybe Hariba can keep it down. She was worried that I was leaving. I’ll surprise her by coming back early and feed her sweet milky chai, spoonful by spoonful.
    A woman without a veil is bargaining with a man about oranges and there is something familiar about her that makes me stop. Then I realize, it isn’t that she’s familiar because I know her, it’s because she’s a harni .
    I haven’t seen another harni since I left the crèche.
    She cocks her head and flirts with the stallman while he fills her bag with oranges. He puts an extra in for her.
    She turns around and sees me. She’s enough like me to be my sister-although she isn’t my crèche-mate.
    “Why are you here?” she asks.
    “I’m with someone, but she’s sick,” I say. “I want to get her some rice and chai.”
    “I know where to buy it,” she says.
    I want to touch her and she wants to touch me, to collapse together skin to skin and feel someone else, but we’re here in this human souk, so I follow her between the marketmen. She reaches back with one slim hand and catches my wrist, her skin dry and warm, and takes me behind a stall into a space just wide enough for us and we wrap ourselves around each other. I smell her skin and her hair and her dry, slightly cinnamon smell. She nuzzles the base of my neck, smelling me. Relax. Relax, her scent says to me. We are one.
    We stay there only a few moments, and then I follow her out to buy chai and rice.
    “I’m in trouble,” I say. “Hariba has run away-she’s jessed-and we don’t have any money.”
    “I’ll come back here tomorrow,” the harni says in answer. She gives me an orange. I want to embrace her again, to feel safe. I want to take her with me back to Hariba.
    She takes me to a stallman who sells fragrant basmati rice, and then we leave the souk and find a tea shop where I can buy chai.
    “Do you live near here?” I ask her.
    “My owner does,” she says.
    “In the Nekropolis?”
    She shrugs. “I come shopping at this time most days.”
    “Tomorrow?” I ask.
    “Tomorrow,” she promises.
    She doesn’t wear a veil because she’s a harni and therefore not a decent woman. Her hair runs down her back like a hot black tongue, shining in the sun. I remember the touch of her dry hand. The inside of the tea shop is cool and smells of mint and cinnamon. Hariba has to eat.
    I have to buy a cup since I didn’t bring one, but they have green tea chai, which Hariba likes better than black tea chai. It’s milky, spiced, and sweet.
    “Hariba,” I whisper when I get home.
    “Akhmim?” she asks.
    “I brought you some chai.”
    “Ohhh, Akhmim,” she says, grateful I’ve come back. “I can’t, I