The Hired Girl(33)

After Mrs. Rosenbach left, I asked Malka if I could help with breakfast, but she pointed to a chair and said the best way to help would be to keep out of her way. I said “Yes, ma’am,” and sat down, obedient as a dog. She wasn’t mollified, though; she said she didn’t want to be called ma’am — plain Malka was good enough for her. She looked very grim when she said it but also as if her humility were satisfying in some way. It’s as if she smacks her lips over things that are sullen or sorrowful. Yesterday she told me about a family she knew a long time ago and how they succumbed to scarlet fever, one by one. It seemed to please her that their dying was so hopeless and long-drawn-out. And she evidently felt that it was a rare treat for me to hear about it. Yet I don’t believe she’s a cruel woman, only cross-grained and old and like a little black fly.

While she fixed the breakfast, I had time to look around. The kitchen isn’t wholly underground, but it has windows looking out on the street, so it isn’t as dark as it might be. It seemed to me a queer kitchen because it had so much in it — so many cabinets and cupboards, and two gas ranges, and two sinks, and two refrigerators, North Stars, they are called. Since then I’ve learned that Jewish people need more dishes than ordinary people. Mrs. Rosenbach has two beautiful sets that she uses only on Passover, which is what the Jews celebrate a week before they celebrate Easter.

The kitchen was surprisingly clean, considering how old Malka was. The only dirty places were high up — shelves where Malka can’t see. I itched to prove myself by giving them a good scrubbing. At one end of the kitchen was a little cozy corner that I thought must be Malka’s. There was a small grate and a flowered carpet, and two wing chairs, one with a footstool. Between the chairs was a pretty worktable with a knitting basket. Another basket on the floor held an immense striped cat. He is not a mere humble Tom but is called Thomashefsky, after a great actor who is Jewish.

Looking around that kitchen only confirmed what I’d thought the night before: that this would be a good place to work. That cozy corner suggested that the Rosenbachs took good care of Malka, and from all the stoves and refrigerators and china, I felt pretty sure they had enough money to pay me six dollars a week (though I forgot to mention wages that first night. Now I don’t know how to bring it up).

I watched Malka cook. She fried fish on a gridiron and toasted bread in an electric machine called a toaster. She kept her eye on the eggs, so that they cooked slowly. Between turning the fish and the toast, and stirring the eggs, she made coffee and sprinkled sugar on three little glass dishes of blackberries. She darted back and forth between the stove and the table and a little closet across the room from me. There was a shelf inside, and she put plates and cups and silverware on the shelf. When the food was done — and she’d timed things so that everything was ready at once — she put the eggs in a china tureen, and the fish in a covered dish, and wrapped the toast in a towel. She laid them all on the closet shelf. Then she pulled on a rope pulley, and the shelf rose into the air — I could see it from where I was sitting. I’d never seen a dumbwaiter before, but I could tell it was a fine invention.

Malka turned back to the table. I hadn’t noticed it, but she’d prepared a plate for me, with a tiny scrap of fish and a spoonful of eggs and two thick slices of toast. She thumped the plate against the table, and snapped, “If you’re hungry.” Then she stripped off her apron and exchanged it for a starched linen one that hung over the back of a chair. She hurried out — I guessed she was going upstairs to wait at table.

Once she was gone, I went to the plate she’d prepared for me. I felt kind of mortified by the way she’d banged that plate at me, but I was too hungry to be proud, especially as no one was there to see.

We seldom had fish at Steeple Farm, and I’m not very good at cooking it. The thought of raw fish makes me shudder, so I tend to cook it dry. Malka’s fish was crisp and salty on the outside, and tender inside. The buttered eggs were even better. I’d have liked more of both, but I couldn’t blame the old lady for stinting me, because she hadn’t known there’d be an extra person for breakfast.

I cleaned my plate and went over to the sink and washed the dishes. It was wonderful, how you could get hot water just by turning on the tap. I sat back down and started worrying what I’d do if I couldn’t get Malka to like me. I told myself there would be other places in Baltimore that would need a hired girl. But I’d made up my mind that I wanted to stay with the Rosenbachs. The house was handsome, and I admired Mrs. Rosenbach, and Mr. Rosenbach’s kindness had touched my heart.