The Hired Girl(121)

I rushed the last words. I can’t believe, now, that I said them. But at the time, I had a vision of David and me in Paris, with David in an artist’s smock and me being a grisette, like Trilby, though I’m not quite sure what a grisette is. I knew what I was offering was mortal sin, but it didn’t feel wicked. Just as Violetta didn’t seem depraved in the opera, it didn’t feel depraved to promise myself to David. My love for him was so pure that I wanted to give him everything, even if I lost myself.

But I couldn’t look at him when I spoke those last words. It wasn’t shyness so much as a kind of awe. I was offering him everything.

There was a silence so long and hollow that I was afraid to raise my eyes. When I did, I saw he was shocked. “Janet, I couldn’t use you like that. It would be wrong.”

“I don’t believe it would be wrong if we loved each other,” I said, but my voice faltered, because the look on his face was so much the wrong look.

“You’re a darling girl,” David said, but he didn’t say it lovingly; he sounded worried. “You’re a darling girl, but I don’t — I’m not ready to be married, and when I do marry, I want to marry a girl of my own faith. For now, I want to be free. I want to paint, I want to see the world.”

“But so do I!” I exclaimed. “We could see the world together!” And as I spoke those words, I realized how much I wanted just that: David and freedom; love and the world. Being together in love, in Paris. Paris. “Oh, David, don’t you see? You’d still be free, because we wouldn’t be married. And nobody would blame you. They’d blame me, because they always blame the girl. I’d be the one taking the risk, and I don’t care about being depraved, because it doesn’t feel depraved, not when we’re in love —”

“But you ought to mind! You’re giving me permission to ruin you, don’t you understand? What about your reputation?”

“I don’t have any reputation,” I said recklessly. “I’m a hired girl. I don’t have any family to cast me off, and I don’t know anyone in Paris. And there’s no one in the world I love better than you.”

“It’s impossible.”

“It isn’t. Not if we love each other,” I persisted. “You wouldn’t have to pay for me. I’ve saved money. I have more than sixty dollars. That might be enough if I go steerage —” My voice was rising. In the heat of the moment, we had forgotten to whisper, and that was our undoing. Because at that moment, the door opened and in came Malka.

She let out a shriek when she saw us together. She struck her hands together and wailed. I never saw anyone look so much like a witch, with her white hair thin and uncovered, and her wild eyes, and her bare bony feet with that terrible bunion. She ran to me and slapped my face. Then she flew at David, cuffing him around the shoulders and screaming in Yiddish. David caught hold of her wrists and tried to hold her still, but there was nothing he could do to keep her from waking the household.

Mimi was the first to arrive. I noticed that she’d put her glasses on; she stood there in her nightgown, her curls tousled, her face alight with interest. Then Mr. Solomon in his nightshirt, followed by Mr. Rosenbach, knotting his bathrobe around his waist. Mrs. Rosenbach was the last to arrive; she had covered her nightgown with her kimono. When she saw me, her face went white. I thought she was going to faint.

Mr. Rosenbach turned his back to me and waved his hands to shoo them all away. “Freyda, Mirele, leave the room! I will deal with this — it’s not for you to see.”

Malka was still shrieking. Mr. Solomon put his arms around her and drew her away from his brother. “In the name of heaven, David, what were you thinking? Under our father’s roof, just before Yom Kippur!”

David stammered, “I haven’t done anything!”

“You bring shame upon this house,” hissed Malka. “You destroy this family, you break your mother’s heart, you spit in the face of God —”

“Malka,” snapped Mrs. Rosenbach, “be quiet! This is none of your business. Mimi, go to your room!” She whirled to face her husband. “I’m staying right here. If my son is carrying on a”— she glared at me so fiercely that I shrank back —“a vulgar intrigue with a servant girl, it’s my business as much as yours.”

“I’m not!” protested David. “There’s no intrigue! I haven’t done anything wrong, and neither has she!” He nodded to me. “Tell them!”