The Quintland Sisters(62)
I simply didn’t know how to respond. They are toddlers, for goodness’ sake. Not even four years old. When on earth did indecency become a part of their lesson plans?
I managed to slip away to Dr. Dafoe’s office, and George tactfully left his desk to allow us to speak in private. I told the doctor about the bath-time incident and all this talk of dirty and naughty. He didn’t say anything, but he nodded his head and made a note on a piece of paper. He said: “It is the religious influence, I fear. Miss Tremblay is particularly pious, which is why the Dionnes recommended her for the position.”
This was news to me, which must have registered on my face. “Oh yes,” he said, nodding. “M. Dionne is now privy to the staffing decisions, although he does not have final say.”
He put his pen down carefully, interlaced his fingers, and looked for a moment like he was going to say more. Then he said, “I appreciate you telling me,” and left it at that.
February 8, 1938
DR. BLAH-BLAH HAS fired Miss Tremblay. On the spot! I must say, I’m relieved, but it wasn’t a pleasant scene. Worse, the girls never got a chance to say goodbye to her. I think they were rather terrified of Miss Tremblay, but that doesn’t make anything less confusing for them. They were peeking around the door of the playroom when she was marshaled from the premises, still hissing in French at anyone who would listen. Now the girls have decamped to the reading corner with their dolls, blankies, and pillows, and are conferring softly among themselves, their little foreheads furrowed. So here we are, another one of us gone. I can already imagine what Lewis will say.
It was Miss Beaulieu who figured it out: Miss Tremblay has been putting diapers on the girls after their second toilet visit, underneath their bloomers! I don’t know how long she’s been doing it, and it must have been only in the mornings, after Nourishment, when she is the sole nurse watching over them during Constructive Play and they tend to stay seated. It was quite by chance that I popped into the quiet playroom today at precisely the moment Annette unwittingly exposed the secret. Miss Beaulieu was in the room, too, writing the alphabet on the blackboard at the front of the room—I think now that this was likely intentional on her part. In any case, Annette stood up and, pinching her nose in her fingers, marched over to Miss Tremblay and announced in French: “Marie is very, very naughty in her diaper.”
I scarcely paid attention, assuming Annette had misspoken, that she’d meant underwear. They often use a word that is not quite the right one.
Miss Tremblay quickly rose to take Marie to get changed. But Miss Beaulieu turned and said in French, “No, stay, Miss Tremblay. Nurse Trimpany, can you please see to Marie?”
“Nonsense,” Miss Tremblay said, “Nurse Trimpany is busy.” She beckoned for Marie to accompany her. I was already crossing the room, my hand outstretched to take Marie’s, smiling to show her that she wasn’t naughty, not at all. I hesitated.
“Merci, Nurse Trimpany,” Miss Beaulieu repeated, and her voice was icy. “Miss Tremblay, please be seated.”
I should have guessed, I suppose, from that miniature battle of wills and from the belligerence crimped into Miss Tremblay’s face. But I didn’t put two and two together until I’d walked little Marie to the bathroom and crouched down to help her to step out of her bloomers. She stood rigid as a pole, her face stricken, the way they look when they’re being subjected to every new measurement and test dreamed up by Dr. Blatz. I gave her a kiss on her temple and tried to make light of it.
“It’s perfectly fine, my little cabbage. No tears. No ba-ba-bah. Weren’t you just concentrating so nicely on your alphabet! Accidents happen. They happen to the best of us.”
Then, of course, I found the diaper. The girls haven’t worn daytime diapers in months—or so I’d thought—and indeed, we are supposed to stop diapering them at night before the end of March. So says Dr. Blatz’s schedule.
Marie started sobbing then, burying her face in my breast as I pulled her legs, one by one, out of the soiled diaper. “Marie dirty,” she kept saying, despite all my shushing. “Naughty-naughty Marie.”
I got Marie all cleaned up with fresh panties, and then took her to the toilet to spend a few minutes seated on the potty, just in case, all the while reassuring her that she’d done nothing wrong.
I expect Miss Beaulieu already had an inkling of the outcome. She took Marie’s hand from mine and asked me to head to the office, where she’d already sent Miss Tremblay. “Dr. Dafoe has asked for you to be there to translate,” she murmured.
When I arrived, Dr. Blatz was summoning his best French, but Miss Tremblay was speaking so fast and with such anger, spittle flying from her lips, he clearly couldn’t make out a word. Dr. Dafoe, of course, understood not a thing, his head quivering in frustration. She spun around when I arrived and turned her fury on me, saying that Dr. Blatz knew nothing about child rearing, that he was raising the children to be like English children or, worse, like American children, that they were godless and vain. It was poisonous. I turned to Dr. Dafoe, mortified, and he said quietly: “Tell her plainly that she is dismissed. She must pack her things and go.”
Miss Tremblay paused, glaring at me, waiting for me to translate. To his credit, Dr. Blatz used this pause to say, in French, that he was sorry Miss Tremblay disagreed so strongly with his methods and that her dismissal was effective immediately.