The Hired Girl (39 page)

“Great Jakes, you didn’t tell her!”

“I did not,” responded Mr. Rosenbach. He had his voice under control now. “For the girl’s sake, not yours. Why should Janet take the blame for your folly? It’s you I hold responsible.”

“Art is supposed to be for the people,” raged David. “All the people, even the servants. This is America, isn’t it? Haven’t you always said that? Wasn’t I brought up hearing about democracy and equality —”

“Democracy does not mean,” interjected Mr. Rosenbach, his voice rising, “that society doesn’t have laws and won’t punish those who break them. These laws are important to your mother, which you know very well; you wouldn’t have kept your outing a secret if you didn’t. You ought to be thanking God it was one of my friends who saw you, instead of one of the bridge ladies.”

There was an interval of silence. I imagined David on the other side of the door, clutching his curls with his hands. When he spoke again, I had to strain to catch the words. “All right, I suppose it was rash. But I’m sick of all these
shibboleths
— rules and rites and taboos. It’s a free country; but how is a man supposed to be free
in
it?”

Mr. Rosenbach’s reply was inaudible. David went on, gaining momentum: “The girl let me do some sketches of her head. I needed a model. Afterward, I wanted to give her a treat. She loved the opera. She
loved
it. She’s never been to a theater in her life, but she’s hungry for art and music and books. Doesn’t it ever strike you as a waste? The girl’s got brains and grit and imagination, and we’ve got her downstairs cleaning the oven!”

“Somebody has to clean the oven!” exploded Mr. Rosenbach. I realized David was right: he
does
aggravate his father. “Do you want Malka to get down on her knees and clean it, at her age? Janet’s young and strong and she gets a fair wage. About which she does not complain, because young as she is, she has more sense than you —”

“All the same, she’s better than that,” argued David. “She gets Sunday morning off for church, and one paltry afternoon. Has anyone even thought to tell her where the Pratt Library is? She could have a library card; she loves books —”

“I know she loves books,” Mr. Rosenbach broke in. “I lend her
my
books; she’s welcome to read anything in the house.”

“What if she wants to read a book by someone who isn’t dead?” demanded David. “The world is changing, Papa —”

“Since when has the world not been changing?” retorted Mr. Rosenbach. I never heard him sound so testy before. “Am I to assume you are now a Socialist? Because we have a
zaftig
hired girl cleaning the oven, you are unhappy with the rules of society? Last year, when the sales clerks wanted an increase in their wages, you refused to go over the books with me. You said it was tedious, and off you went with your tennis racket! Now you’re tearing your hair out because we hire someone to keep Malka out of the oven! Are you offering to clean it yourself ? And what, may I ask you, is wrong with a library of classic literature?
Du lieber Gott,
but you try my patience! First you flirt with the Gratz girl, and I have to go to New York and patch things up, and now you are full of half-hatched ideas about culture and the lower classes —”

“Janet,” said a voice behind me, “you are eavesdropping.”

It was Mrs. Rosenbach. I spun round to face her. I’d been so intent; I hadn’t heard the rustle of her petticoats.

My hands flew to my face. I know I was red as a brick, and I couldn’t defend myself. I fled. I felt so
common,
so much like an ordinary, vulgar servant girl. And that’s just what Mrs. Rosenbach thinks of me. How can I blame her? There I was, listening at doors. That’s what servants do.

No wonder she despises me. Now it will be worse, and she’ll never accept me as a wife for her son.

David defended me. That’s what I have to remember. He said I have brains and grit and imagination. He thinks I’m made for finer things than cleaning ovens; that I ought to have a library card, and go to the opera.

But he also said the opera was tatty, and that makes me feel ashamed, because I didn’t know it was tatty. I thought it was sublime.

I wish I weren’t so low-down and ignorant. I wish I were sophisticated and had poise like Mrs. Rosenbach, or even Mimi. I wish I had fine clothes and a slender waist and never lost my dignity. I wish I had some dignity to lose.

David likes me the way I am, I know. He says I’m a peach. But when he spoke to his father, he didn’t call me Janet; he never once used my name. He called me “the girl” as if I were any old hired girl, and not
his
girl.

Saturday, Rosh Hashanah, September the twenty-third, 1911

It’s quiet now. Everyone is at Temple. Even Malka went, though she doesn’t often go to services; she says they’re for the men. But she went today. The services for Rosh Hashanah are very long, and it’s a family tradition to take a walk around Druid Lake afterward. So I’m alone in the house, and I can write at the kitchen table.

My stomach is growling. I can smell roast chicken and brisket and potato
kugel
(no raisins!). I can smell the vinegar dressing for the cucumber salad and the honey from the cakes. That’s one thing the books have wrong about love. I haven’t lost my appetite. I’m hungry all the time. Last night Malka fussed at me because I ate all the almond cookies in the green tin. We don’t need them; we have honey cakes and pomegranates for dessert, and dough balls called
tayglach.

The table’s set and the kitchen’s tidy. When I hear the front door, I’ll heat up the soup we made Friday morning, put the rolls in the oven to warm, carve the chicken and the brisket, and slice the apples.

It seems so strange to be sitting here, almost idle. I worked for a while learning my catechism, but it made me want to go to sleep. I wish I could sleep, but I have to baste the chicken from time to time, and I ought to
think;
these past two days have been so busy I haven’t had time.

Last night I dreamed about Ma again. I don’t remember much — only that she was displeased with me and wouldn’t look me in the face. Oh, Ma, I can’t help it! I can’t help being in love! I never knew that love was so irresistible, so desperate. It’s just like that song from
La Traviata
— rapture, rapture and torment. The torment’s worse than I expected, but I don’t want it to stop.

I think about David all day long. There’s nothing more absorbing than thinking about him. I count and recount the proofs that he cares for me. From the beginning he said he liked me. He says I’m a magnificent creature and a peach and the limit. He gave me a sketchbook. He took me to the opera, and bought me a red umbrella, and kissed me. He said I’m darling, and that’s a real love word. (I wish he’d said
my darling;
that would be better.)

I run my mind over these things, and I am dizzy with joy, but then I’m afraid. I’m afraid because Ma warned me against men — though she never knew David. I tremble, because I’ve given away my heart. I’ve given it to a Jew, which is all right on the one hand, because I no longer believe that Jews are so different from other people, or that they’re not as good. But on the other hand, the Rosenbachs won’t want David to marry a
shiksa.
If David marries me, our children won’t be Jewish, because a Jew is the child of a Jewish
woman.

I don’t know how much David will care about that. He isn’t religious like Solly. But Mr. Rosenbach will mind. He’ll want all his grandchildren to be Jews. That makes me feel terrible, because I love Mr. Rosenbach. He’s never been anything but good and kind to me.

So then I wonder if I could convert to Judaism. If I converted, would my children be Jewish, or would I have to be born a Jew in order to pass it on? I can’t find out about this because there’s no one I can ask without exciting suspicion. And I don’t want to convert, because I’m a Catholic. Even though I’ve never taken the Blessed Sacrament, in my very bones I’m a Catholic. I don’t want to be an apostate. I pray about it, but even when I’m at my prayers, my mind wanders off to David and I can’t pray properly. Father Horst says that God loves to grant mercy and forgiveness, but it seems to me that God must be getting awfully tired of me and my problems.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what will happen. I love David and I believe he loves me. I know I could be a good wife to him, though I don’t know if our marriage would be legal because of my only being fourteen. David needs someone to believe in him, and I do, with all my heart. If his father disinherited him, I’d work for him. I’d go on being a hired girl so he could paint. We’d be poor, but I’m not afraid of poverty, not if I had David.

In books, lovers have happy endings. Mr. Rochester had to go blind, but Jane came to find him, and they were married. And Walter Gay came back from shipwreck to marry Florence. In
The Woman in White,
Walter Hartright had to rescue Laura Fairlie from an insane asylum
,
but then they got married. The only person who didn’t get married was Rebecca in
Ivanhoe.
Ivanhoe couldn’t marry her, because she was a Jew. But that was long ago, and Daniel Deronda —

There’s the front door. The others are back.

Sunday, September the twenty-fourth, 1911

I am writing from the eighth floor of the Marlborough apartment building. I’ve never been so high up in my life. It’s dark as I write, and the windows are open; I can look out and see the streetlamps below. The view makes my stomach feel queer. I know I won’t fall out the window, but I’m afraid I might be tempted to jump.

I feel like a princess in a tower. I don’t mean the aristocratic part of being a princess, because I’m still a hired girl. What I mean is that I’m high above the earth, and I’m here against my will. The Marlborough apartments are luxurious; even the servants’ rooms have electric lights. But I don’t want to be here. I want to be back at the Rosenbachs’, close to David.

When I came back from Mass this morning, Malka said Mrs. Rosenbach wanted to see me in the parlor. I went upstairs in a state of clammy trepidation. I haven’t spoken to her since Thursday, unless you count things like “Shall I clear, ma’am?”

Mrs. Friedhoff was in the parlor with Mrs. Rosenbach, and Mr. Rosenbach was there, too, reading his newspaper. He lowered his paper to smile at me. Then he went back to reading.

Mrs. Rosenbach addressed me courteously. She said she had a favor to ask. It seems that Mrs. Friedhoff’s mother-in-law and aunt-by-marriage are coming to stay tomorrow and won’t leave until Friday morning. That puts Anna in a fix, because she still has no housemaid. Mrs. Rosenbach asked if I would be willing to stay at the Friedhoffs’ apartment for a week, partly to tidy up, but mostly to look after Oskar.

“You’re so good with him,” Mrs. Friedhoff said pleadingly, “and he’s fond of you. My mother-in-law is very strict, and so is her sister. Oskar is so boisterous, and they think he’s spoiled.” (I think Oskar is spoiled, too, but I didn’t say so.) “If you could take him to the park, and let him run”— she fumbled with her purse strap, as if she was ready to bribe me then and there —“or out for an ice cream, or to the zoo; he loves the zoo. I’m willing to pay you for the extra trouble, of course.”

Mrs. Rosenbach concurred. She said if I would move to Anna’s apartment for the week, they would give me eight dollars instead of six. Mrs. Friedhoff said apprehensively that the older two Mrs. Friedhoffs are awful fussy — she said
particular,
but I know she meant fussy — and her last housemaid left the house a mess.

I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t say so. “What about Malka?” I said, thinking,
What about David?

“Malka has agreed,” said Mrs. Rosenbach. “The house is beautifully clean, and she’ll be able to manage without you for a few days.”

My heart sank. I could see that though they seemed to be asking me, I had no choice. Everything had been decided.

“You’ll have your own room,” Anna assured me, “and I have an Irish girl to do the cooking, so you won’t be bothered with that.” She brightened. “And you’ll see your little cat.”

I did want to see Moonstone. And I pitied Mrs. Friedhoff, but I couldn’t help worrying whether Mrs. Rosenbach found out that David took me to the opera. I wondered if I was being banished. But there was no way I could ask, so I said, “I’ll get my things.”

Mrs. Rosenbach said, “Moritz,” urgently, as if she were reminding Mr. Rosenbach of something.

Mr. Rosenbach folded his newspaper and looked up at me. He indicated the sofa across from his chair. “Sit, sit.” He stroked his mustache, darted a mischievous glance at the ceiling, and said unexpectedly: “There is a passage in Boccaccio . . .”

I didn’t know what Boccaccio was, and I guess it showed in my face. Mr. Rosenbach answered my unspoken question. “An Italian writer of the fourteenth century. I have him only in German, so I can’t lend you the book.” He spread his hands palms up, as if in apology. “It’s a very interesting passage. Boccaccio narrates the story of a Jew in the court of Saladin the Great.”

I nodded as if I knew about Saladin the Great, but I didn’t, and again Mr. Rosenbach helped me out. “Saladin was a great sultan and a follower of the prophet Mahomet. He wanted to borrow a large sum of money from the Jew, so he questioned him before a court full of powerful Christians and Mahometans. He asked him which was the true faith: the Jewish faith, the Christian faith, or the faith of Mahomet.

“The Jew was confounded. I’m sure you can imagine why. If he said that the Jewish faith was the true one, the Christians and the Mahometans would join forces against him, and he would lose his worldly goods, if not his life. If he praised the Christian or the Mahometan faith, he denied his God.”

I was curious now. “So what did he do?”

“He told them a story.” Mr. Rosenbach leaned forward. The newspaper slid off his lap and fell to the floor, but he paid it no heed. “There was once a rich man with three virtuous sons. The father owned a beautiful and precious ring. All of his sons longed to possess it; each son came to the father in secret and begged for this inheritance. The father, loving all his sons alike, could not bear to disappoint any of them. He paid a skillful jeweler to make two perfect replicas of the ring. When at last he died, each son came into his inheritance. Each son believed that
he
was his father’s heir and favorite; each son believed that
he
had the true ring and that his brothers’ rings were merely imitations.”