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duties. I don’t know what the mistress has told Mbarek, but I’m subjected to a vague lecture I’m sure Mbarek thinks of as fatherly. Fadina avoids meeting my eyes when she sees me. The girl who works with the cook watches the floor. I move like a ghost through the women’s quarters. Only the mistress sees me, fastens her eyes on me when I happen to pass her, and her look is cruel. If I hear her, I take to stepping out of the hall if I can.
    Friday afternoon the mistress is playing the Tiles, and I take the cleaning machine to her room. I have checked with Fadina to confirm that she’s not in, but I can’t convince myself that she’s left. Maybe Fadina has forgotten. Maybe the mistress hasn’t told her. I tiptoe in and stand, listening. The usual projection is on-not bismek, but the everyday clutter of silks and fragile tables with silver lace frames, antique lamps, paisley scarfs, and cobalt pottery. The cleaning machine won’t go in with a projection on. I stop and listen, no sound but the breeze through the window hangings. I creep through the quarters, shaking. The bed is unmade, a tumble of blue and silver brocade. That’s unusual, Fadina always makes it. I think about making it, but I decide I’d better not. Do what I always do or the mistress will be on me. Best do only what’s safe. I pick up the clothes off the floor and creep back and turn off the projection. The cleaning machine starts.
    If she comes back early, what will I do? I stand by the projection switch, unwilling to leave, even to put the clothing in the laundry. If she comes back, when I hear her, I’ll snap on the projection machine. The cleaning machine will stop and I’ll take it and leave. It’s the best I can do.
    The cleaning machine snuffles around, getting dust from the windowsills and tabletops, cleaning the floor. It’s slow. I keep thinking I hear her and snapping on the projection. The machine stops and I listen, but I don’t hear anything, so I snap the projection off and the cleaning machine starts again. Finally the rooms are done and the cleaning machine and I make our escape. I have used extra scent on the sheets in the linen closet, the way she likes them, and I have put extra oil in the rings on the lights and extra scent in the air freshener. It’s all a waste, all that money, but that’s what she likes.
    I have a terrible headache. I go to my room and wait and try to sleep until the headache is gone. I’m asleep when Fadina bangs on my door and I feel groggy and disheveled.
    “The mistress wants you,” she snaps, glaring at me.
    I can’t go.
    I can’t not go. I follow her without doing up my hair or putting on my sandals.
    The mistress is sitting in her bedroom, still dressed up in saffron and veils. I imagine she has just gotten back. “Hariba,” she says, “did you clean my rooms?”
    What did I disturb? I didn’t do anything to this room except pick up the laundry and run the cleaning machine, is something missing? “Yes, mistress,” I say. Oh my heart.
    “Look at this room,” she hisses.
    I look, not knowing what I’m looking for.
    “Look at the bed!”
    The bed looks just the same as it did when I came in, blankets and sheets tumbled, shining blue and silver, the scent of her perfume in the cool air.
    “Come here,” the mistress commands. “Kneel down.” I kneel down so I’m not taller than she is. She looks at me for a moment, furious and speechless. Then I see it coming, but I can’t do anything, up comes her hand and she slaps me. I topple sideways, mostly from surprise. “Are you too stupid to even know to make a bed?”
    “Fadina always makes your bed,” I say. I should have made it, I should have. Holy One, I’m such an idiot.
    “So the one time Fadina doesn’t do your work you are too lazy to do it yourself?”
    “Mistress,” I say, “I was afraid to-”
    “You should be afraid!” she shouts. She slaps me, both sides of my face, and shouts at me, her face close to mine. On