The Hired Girl(34)

I was roused from my thoughts by the sound of the dumbwaiter. The dirty plates were coming down. I took them off the shelf and carried them to the sink. I thought it would be good if Malka came downstairs and found me up to my elbows in dishwater; she’d see I was willing and maybe realize how nice it would be to have an extra pair of hands. I washed the blackberry dishes first, since they were glass. Then I picked up the tureen. It was white with painted flowers and a little cupid sitting on the lid. It looked special to me, so I washed it very carefully, and I was drying it when Malka came into the room.

She saw the water in the sink and the dish in my hand, and her eyes did that shocked-accusing thing they do so well. And she shrieked. That sounds like an exaggeration but it really was a shriek, and Mrs. Rosenbach heard it, because she came running downstairs to see what was the matter. Malka bore down on me and tried to yank the dish away. She cried, “What have you done?” with such ferocity I really thought I’d broken the dish — except there it was in my hands, without so much as a chip, and clean as a pearl.

Then Mrs. Rosenbach said, “Oh, Malka! For heaven’s sake!” and Malka went into a torrent of what I thought was German, but what I now know is Yiddish, which is Jewish German. While Malka railed at me in Yiddish, Mrs. Rosenbach tried to explain to me in English what I’d done wrong. It seems that the Jews — well, some of them — are very serious about how they eat, and meat and milk dishes are supposed to be kept separate. That’s why there were two stoves and two sinks. And the dish I was holding was a milk dish, because the eggs had been made with butter, but I was washing it in the meat sink. And Malka was saying that the kashrut — which is what they call the food laws — had been broken and that I’d ruined a dish called Meissen, from Germany, which had been a wedding present. I’d ruined it by putting it in the wrong sink, and that meant the sink was spoiled, too.

I was very frightened to think I’d done all that without knowing it. But Mrs. Rosenbach wasn’t angry with me; she was exasperated with Malka. She lost her temper. She didn’t shout or bang on things, the way I do. When I lose my temper, I’m like a bear with a big club. But Mrs. Rosenbach was like an archer shooting arrows; it was kind of delicate and deadly at the same time. She told Malka to calm herself at once, and though she didn’t raise her voice, it was sharp enough to cut paper. And she said they were a Reform household now, which I’ve learned means they aren’t so strict about kashrut. She said Malka could put boiling water in the sink, if that made her feel better, but Malka said the Meissen dish would have to be buried. Mrs. Rosenbach said that was out of the question. She said Malka could put the dish outside the next time it rained, which made Malka shriek again. Then Mrs. Rosenbach said she wouldn’t listen to another word, which made Malka shut up. On her way out, Mrs. Rosenbach shot an arrow of a look at me that told me I was being a lot of trouble and that she wished she hadn’t taken me in.

After Mrs. Rosenbach swept out of the kitchen — she wasn’t wearing a train, but she’d have looked good in one — Malka went to the other sink and filled it with water and cried as she washed the dishes. It wasn’t the breaking-down kind of crying but the stop-and-start kind; I’d think she was done and then she’d mutter and sniff some more. I heard her moan that she was the only person in the house who . . . sniff, sniff, grumble . . . and that she wasn’t too old . . . sniff, sniff . . . she could manage perfectly if only she didn’t have to . . . moan and sniff . . . and she knew a fool when she saw one, and probably Irish as well . . . she could manage, she’d always managed, if strangers didn’t barge in and add to her burdens . . . sniff, sniff, gulp . . . she might be old, she might be tired, she might be half dead, but she knew how things ought to be done . . . sniff, clear throat, little sob. She went on like that for some time, covering all the ground between pitiful and insulting.

At last the dishes were done and everything put away. When she turned around, I said humbly, “I’m ever so sorry about the dish. I didn’t know any better.”

“No, you don’t,” she snapped, “and you never will.”

I tried again. “I can clean,” I said, and held out my hands so she could see them. “I’m used to hard work, heavy work. Isn’t there something I can do for you?”

She stared at me, and a witchlike gleam came into her eyes. Then she went and got a big bucket and started filling it with washing soda and hot water. “The floor needs washing,” she said. “You know how to scrub a floor?”