The Hired Girl(32)
It was her turn to look surprised. “You’ve read Ivanhoe?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. I saw that she’d been thinking I was an ignorant girl. That piqued me, but I didn’t waste time worrying over it, because I was racking my brain, trying to remember everything I knew about Jews. Most of the characters in Ivanhoe were horrid to Rebecca and Isaac, because they were Jews. But Ivanhoe was good to them, and Ivanhoe’s the hero. And Rebecca — why, Rebecca’s the heroine, and a hundred times more interesting than Rowena, who’s mostly just beautiful. I added, “Ivanhoe’s a really good book, Mrs. Rosenbach.”
She surprised me by laughing. “Rebecca is my favorite, too.” She exchanged glances with her son. “At any rate, she doesn’t seem to have learned much in the way of —” Then she used a word I haven’t heard before. It began with “aunty” and ended with “ism,” and from her tone of voice, I didn’t know whether I was supposed to have learned it or not.
I took a stab in the dark. I wasn’t going to let this job slip through my fingers. “I could learn,” I offered. “If it would make me a better hired girl, I could learn it.”
Mrs. Rosenbach shook her head. Her smile was rueful. I was pretty sure I’d said the wrong thing, but she didn’t like me any the worse for it. “You’re right, Solly. She is utterly without guile. And as you say, she’s a stranger in a strange land. I wouldn’t want Anna or Mimi wandering the streets at night.” She stood up. “I’ll show you to a room where you can sleep.”
When I began this entry, I thought I’d write the whole story of that night. I meant to describe the house and relate how Mrs. Rosenbach helped me put clean sheets on the bed, almost as if I was a guest. I wanted to write how my heart swelled with gratitude when I realized I’d found a safe harbor, and how I knelt by my bed and thanked Our Lord for guiding my footsteps.
I meant to write all that. But my candle is burning low and my hand is just about falling off. And I’m sleepy. I daren’t risk oversleeping, because Malka is fussy about getting up early — though I am learning to like Malka. In fact, I like everyone here, and Mr. Rosenbach best of all.
I don’t mean that I’ve fallen in love with Mr. Rosenbach, because that would be silly. He’s too old for me — though of course Mr. Rochester was older than Jane Eyre. But I revere Mr. Rosenbach, and I’ve made up my mind to be grateful to him as long as I live, and always to mention him in my prayers.
Thursday, July the sixth, 1911
Malka was tired from shopping for the Sabbath, so she let me do the dishes tonight. Of course she watched me like a hawk, so I couldn’t have made a mistake if I’d wanted to. But I was very careful, keeping my mind on kashrut all the time. I never went near the wrong sink.
That’s how I began here — using the wrong sink — and it was nearly fatal. When I awoke that first morning, I thought how important it would be to please Mrs. Rosenbach and her Malka. I vowed I would leave no stone unturned. But I was afraid to go down to the kitchen first thing, because Malka wouldn’t know who I was. I got dressed and held myself in readiness. When Mrs. Rosenbach knocked on my door, she seemed pleased that I was up and about.
She led me down the front stairs, but she pointed out the back stairs and said I’d be using them most of the time. I said, “Yes, ma’am, thank you,” though I couldn’t help regretting the main staircase. Floating down those wide, shallow stairs made me feel like a swan, or maybe a sylph. The back stairs are steep and narrow and mean looking. This house seems to have hundreds of stairs — I guess because the ceilings are so high. When I come from the basement to my third-floor room, it’s four double flights, and by the time I reach the top, I’m out of breath. I’m grateful I don’t have to carry bathwater up those stairs. There are two beautiful bathrooms, one on the first floor and one on the second. I’m allowed to use the one on the second floor.
When Mrs. Rosenbach introduced me, Malka was at the stove. She had a dish of buttered eggs that she was cooking slowly, holding the pot off the heat. She looked at me without approval and didn’t say anything. I tried a little curtsy. Malka is very short, and I felt like a fool, curtsying to such a little black fly of a woman.
I don’t mean to be cruel, calling her a little black fly. That’s just what came into my head when I saw her. She wore a black dress, and a print apron, mustard colored with red and pink roses on it, and her head was wrapped in an old black shawl. She wore another shawl around her shoulders, an embroidered one with gray silk fringe. I couldn’t imagine wearing all those shawls in July, but Malka is always cold.
Laura Amy Schlitz's Books
- Where Shadows Meet
- Destiny Mine (Tormentor Mine #3)
- A Covert Affair (Deadly Ops #5)
- Save the Date
- Part-Time Lover (Part-Time Lover #1)
- My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)
- Getting Schooled (Getting Some #1)
- Midnight Wolf (Shifters Unbound #11)
- Speakeasy (True North #5)
- The Good Luck Sister (Wildstone #1.5)