The Hired Girl (20 page)

When I went downstairs, I saw that Mrs. Rosenbach had on a beautiful dress, black lace over mauve silk, and Mimi was in pink organdy with a green satin sash. I felt plain next to them, but I tried to be very careful with my
deportment.
I took short steps and didn’t move my arms.

Mrs. Rosenbach covered the table with a white cloth, and she set out two loaves of fresh-baked bread, which have an embroidered cover of their own — Mrs. Rosenbach stitched it herself, and her needlework is exquisite. Then she lit the candles. She shut her eyes and made passes through the air. Her face was still and reverent, and she whispered the blessings in Hebrew; I couldn’t understand them, but they sounded mysterious and poetical. After she lit two candles, Mimi went about the room lighting more. The candlelight made the whole room seem quieter and somehow expectant.

Malka and I set the table. It wasn’t yet sundown, but the candles have to be lit before sundown, because once Shabbos begins, you’re not supposed to light any more fires. While we were putting the finishing touches on the table, Mrs. R.’s oldest daughter, Anna, arrived, with her little boy, Oskar, and baby Irma. Baby Irma is a beautiful child with curly hair and her grandmother’s dark eyes. When Mrs. R. saw her, she held out her arms. She took Irma into her lap and dandled her and kissed her. I never saw her so affectionate before. I wouldn’t have known her for the same woman who criticized my
deportment.

But all that fuss over the baby made Oskar jealous. He is a changeling of a child, frail and clever looking, with a shock of coppery hair. He reminds me of Paul Dombey in
Dombey and Son.
I guess he liked the look of me, because he came to me and yanked my skirt. “Come sit down,” he commanded. He has a funny, hoarse little voice. “Then I can sit on your lap.”

I was flattered. Here I was, a stranger and a Gentile, but he wanted to be close to me. He didn’t care if I was only the hired girl. I let him lead me to a chair, and he climbed into my lap. When he nestled against me, he felt soft, and he smelled like Pears soap.

He took his thumb out of his mouth long enough to speak. “Tell me a story.”

I began, “Once upon a time —” but he shook his head.

“Not a fairy story,” he said. “No princesses, no kings.”

I’d planned to tell him “Thumbelina,” but I knew my feelings would be hurt if he didn’t like it. “What kind of story do you want? What about?”

“Snakes,” he answered. “Bad snakes.”

The truth is, I don’t know much about snakes, but I took a deep breath. “Once upon a time,” I began, “there was a very large, very bad, poisonous snake.”

He nodded gravely. I could see I was on the right track. “How big?” he prompted me.

“Enormous,” I answered. “He was so big he could wrap himself around this whole house. He had pointy teeth, and he was hungry all the time.”

“What did he eat?”

I hesitated, but only for a moment. Inspiration came to me in a blinding flash. “He ate little boys.”

“Ohhhh,” said Oskar rapturously, and snuggled closer. He stuck his thumb in his mouth and gazed at me with his heart in his eyes.

From that moment on, he was mine. I told him all about that terrible snake, and the little boys he ate, and about one special boy named Oskar, who was clever enough to escape from him. It was like seizing a thread and unraveling a piece of knitting; once I had the thread, the story moved right along. By and by, I realized that the others had stopped talking and were paying attention. Mrs. Rosenbach looked amused, but approving. Mimi sidled over to a nearby table and pretended to leaf through the photograph album.

I knew she was listening. The funny thing was, I think I was worth listening
to.
Oskar was spellbound. The snake was in its death throes when the men came back from Temple. Oskar slid off my lap and ran to hug his grandfather, who picked him up and spun him upside down.

When we went into the dining room, Mr. Rosenbach blessed his children in Hebrew, starting with Anna and ending with baby Irma. He caught his wife’s eyes, smiled at her, and began to sing. He has a fine voice — rich and resonant; Malka told me he was singing from the Proverbs of Solomon, all about the worth of a good woman. It’s a Jewish custom for a man to praise his wife for all the work she does for Shabbos. I thought it was splendid for a husband to praise his wife
every single week,
but I also thought it would be more to the point to praise Malka and me, because we were the ones who did the shopping and cooking and cleaning.

After the song, we sat around the table. There was a big cup of wine at Mr. Rosenbach’s place, and he blessed it and drank from it and passed it to the others; even Oskar had a sip. At first I was on edge, because the way he held it reminded me of a priest, and I was afraid the Jews copied the ritual from the Holy Mass, which would be blasphemy. But then I remembered that Mr. Rosenbach said that Our Lord was a Jew, so the
kiddush
— that’s what the wine blessing is called — probably came
before
the Holy Mass and not the other way around. Now that I’m writing this, I wonder if Jesus was saying
kiddush
at the Last Supper. I shall ask Mr. Rosenbach; I think it is quite an intelligent question, and perhaps he will be pleased with me.

After the
kiddush,
we washed our hands, and Mr. Rosenbach blessed the bread. But in the middle of the blessing, Irma spat up, just as Mimi says she does. She was like a little volcano; I wouldn’t have thought such a tiny creature could make such a mess. Mimi jumped out of her seat with her fingers pinching her nose. Mr. Rosenbach made Jewish noises of sympathy, and everyone started passing their napkins to Anna — whom I should really call Mrs. Friedhoff because she’s married to a Mr. Isaac Friedhoff, who travels all the time because he’s in railroads.

I seized the opportunity to prove myself. I commanded, “Don’t worry, I’ll fix everything!” I seized the dirty napkins and plates and silverware and rushed them downstairs to the kitchen. I ran a bowl of soapy water and put the water and towels and clean plates and a clean tablecloth in the dumbwaiter. Then I ran back upstairs and set the table — luckily, none of the food had been served. After the places were set, I took off Irma’s dress — she was just fine in her petticoat, it being so hot — and ran the dress downstairs to soak. I felt like kind of a heroine, because the Rosenbachs aren’t supposed to work on Shabbos, and if I hadn’t been there, they would have had to choose between having that mess and breaking Shabbos.

When I came back into the room, Mrs. Rosenbach raised her eyes to the ceiling and said, “What did we
do
before Janet came here?” At first I glowed with pride, but then I saw that it was an unlucky thing for her to say, because it put Malka in a bad humor.

It was a beautiful dinner. The food was delicious — soup with dumplings, and baked stuffed fish and roast chicken, and bread (but no butter), and red cabbage and cucumber salad and applesauce, and raspberry pudding and meringues for dessert. There was singing, too — some of the songs are kind of melancholy, but everyone seems happy when they sing them. I was happy, too: after I fixed up Irma, I felt that I belonged, even if I wasn’t a Jew.

After dinner I had the cleaning up to do: a five-course dinner for eight people — nine if you count baby Irma, who didn’t eat much but certainly made her share of the mess! I took off my shoes and stockings — oh, what a relief to get rid of that stocking! — and washed the dishes in my bare feet.

The sight of me dealing with a mountain of dirty dishes seemed to restore Malka’s good humor. Before I came, she could only rinse the dishes in cold water and set them aside to be washed after Shabbos. But I’m allowed to use hot water and a sponge because I’m a Gentile. Malka sat in the rocking chair and kept me company. She had the Thomashefsky cat on her lap, though you’re not supposed to stroke an animal on Shabbos. Malka swears that Thomashefsky is more set on being petted on Shabbos than at any other time, and he butts her hand until she renders his due portion of caresses.

Once the dishes were washed, Malka let me go upstairs to read — I’m reading a very thrilling book called
The Moonstone.
At one point, the heroine says, “I ache with indignation, and I burn with fatigue”— or maybe it’s the other way around.

I love that. I think I will start saying that.

Monday, July the thirty-first, 1911

I want to read tonight —
The Moonstone
is very exciting and funny, too — but first I want to write about two important things. One is that starting tomorrow I’m going to have religious instruction with Father Horst.

I asked him yesterday. It seemed brazen to go right up to a priest and ask to become a Catholic. Father Horst has a worn-out, irritable look to him when he isn’t smiling, and I was afraid he’d think I was presuming too much. But I told him how I long to take the Sacrament, and his face broke out in a smile of true benevolence. When I asked him where I might buy a missal, he
gave
me one. He said someone left it in the pew a year ago, and no one’s claimed it, and he’s been saving it for the right person, which is me.

It’s a dainty little book with black-and-white plates and thin pages edged in gold. It always opens to the Seven Penitential Psalms, so I guess whoever owned it before was either very wicked or very good. I don’t much like those psalms because they’re mournful. I turned to the Litany of the Virgin, because I’d forgotten parts of it. It’s so poetical:
Tower of Ivory, House of Gold, Morning Star, Mystical Rose.
I love that. I told Father Horst I have a great devotion to the Blessed Mother, and that made him smile again.

We agreed that I should see him for an hour on Tuesday afternoons. His face darkened when I explained to him that sometimes I might not be able to come because of Mrs. Rosenbach’s bridge ladies. He asked me if my employer was the Mr. Rosenbach who owned the department store, and I said yes, and he said he hoped that living in a household of worldly Jews wouldn’t keep me from holding fast to my faith. I don’t
think
that was anti-Semitism, because I guess there are some Jews who wouldn’t want me to have a good Catholic faith, but the Rosenbachs aren’t like that. I told Father Horst how good they’ve been to me and how Mr. Rosenbach lends me books. Father Horst looked worried and asked
which
books. I didn’t want to mention
The Moonstone,
because it’s a little sensational, so I said
Ivanhoe.
It wasn’t exactly a lie, because Mr. Rosenbach has a copy of
Ivanhoe
and I’m sure he would lend it to me if I asked him. Father Horst seemed relieved and said he was especially fond of the works of Sir Walter Scott.

The other important thing happened this morning, and I’m still thinking about it. I was polishing the brass fittings on Mr. Solomon’s desk, and one of the drawers wouldn’t go in all the way, so I took it out. There was an envelope wedged behind it.

I didn’t mean to read what was written on it. I don’t think I’d have read it if it had been a private letter, but the thing is, it was verse. It began,
Oh, Nora, when I see your radiant face —
and after that, I had to read on.

Only I guess he didn’t like that line, because he crossed it out and wrote instead:

But he didn’t like that any better, because he crossed that out, too. Then he changed it to: