The Hired Girl(127)

It’s strange and wonderful to be a student again. On Thursday, Anna and Mrs. Rosenbach took Mimi and me to buy clothes — schoolgirl clothes, not maid uniforms. We began at Slesinger & Son’s, because the school letter says all pupils must wear comfortable shoes with a flexible sole, so we can exercise in the gymnasium. We are also required to have thick wool sweaters made to a particular pattern, because the fresh-air classrooms will be cold. Mine lacks half a sleeve. Malka’s helping me with it. Dear Malka! I am still her Shabbos goy, but a Russian girl comes in twice a week to help her with the heavy work. Malka says the Russian girl is a klotz, and she only loves me.

After Mimi and I bought our shoes, we went to Rosenbach’s Department Store. I bought a holly-green sailor suit, a waist with Gibson pleats, and half a dozen hair ribbons — I haven’t worn hair ribbons for a year and a half. Anna bought me a rose-plaid jumper suit and a primrose silk that will be good for school dances, if anyone asks me. She insisted on paying for them because she says looking after Oskar has been hard on my clothes. That’s true, but I’ve come to love Oskar. We have splendid games together. He’ll start kindergarten tomorrow, and I expect he’ll do well, because he’s very clever. Every Monday we visit the Pratt Library and read the snake books in the children’s section. I taught him to sound out the letters, and one day — it was astonishing, how fast it happened — he began to read! I was never so proud of anyone in my life.

I did a wicked thing on Saturday. While the Rosenbachs were at Temple, I went to the store and bought one of those watch lockets I’ve been hankering after. It’s dark-green enamel, with pansies on it. My heart beat fast when I put down the nine dollars, but I told myself I’ll be needing a watch, with work and school and Oskar to look after. I know I won’t look like a scholarship pupil with that locket around my neck.

After I came home, I put on my first-day-of-school clothes and peered at myself in the mirror. A schoolgirl smiled back at me: a wide-awake-looking girl, with a pink hair ribbon and a locket round her neck. She looked happy and prosperous, as if she’d never known passion (only I have) or worked like a drudge at Steeple Farm.

Father has written. Mr. Rosenbach made me write and tell him I was safe. At first I was terrified that Father would make me go back to the farm. But when Father wrote back — and it took him three months! — he wrote that Mark is married to Carrie Marsh, and she does the woman’s work now. He added that if I wanted to live with a pack of dirty Jews, it was all right with him, only I’d better not think I could come sashaying home when it suited me. Well, I have no notion of sashaying home. When I left Steeple Farm, I left forever. And I don’t think a man who never washes his neck has any right to cast aspersions on the Jews.

I didn’t want to show Father’s letter to Mr. Rosenbach, because of the anti-Semitism, but Mr. R. asked to see it. I think he was surprised that Father is so horrid. I wasn’t surprised. At first the nastiness hurt my feelings, but then I felt relieved. I’m glad Father doesn’t love me, because I don’t love him. Father Horst says I must find it in my heart to forgive him. I’m going to someday, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

The good thing about writing Father was that afterward I was free to write Miss Chandler. She was overjoyed to hear from me, but I think she is a little bit prejudiced, because she’s worried that the Rosenbachs are educating me so they can convert me to Judaism. I sent her a copy of Daniel Deronda. Dear Miss Chandler taught me so much! Maybe she’ll let me teach her about the goodness of the Jews.

Mr. Solomon married Ruth Kleman last April and moved to New York so he can attend yeshiva. I still think he’d be better off with Nora Himmelrich (except they don’t love each other), but he and Ruth seem to be happy so far. David is in Paris, studying at the Académie Colarossi.

Moonstone has become my cat. She wakes me every morning, purring and tickling my face with her whiskers. I think I would rather have a cat than a sweetheart, after all. They are less trouble, and even the handsomest sweetheart is sadly lacking in fur.

I still think about David. When I flipped through this diary, I came across the passage where I wrote that his kiss changed me from a girl into a woman. That seems like the sort of thing that should turn a girl into a woman, but now that I look back, it seems to me that I was awfully young at the time. I’m almost sixteen now, but I don’t feel grown up. All the same, it was passion that I felt for David, not a childish crush. It was thrilling and painful and beautiful. Being in love was one of the most interesting things that ever happened to me.