The Hired Girl(51)

He paused for me to speak, but I was lost in the thicket of his questions. He leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. “Janet. I can call you that, because I’m old enough to be your father. How old are you?”

Quick as a flash I answered, “Eighteen.” And oh, I hated having to lie to him! But what was I to do? Once you start lying, you have to go on. Lying to him seemed worse than lying to the others, because he looked at me so kindly. I wrote before that he wasn’t handsome. He is moonfaced and hawk-nosed and middle-aged. But he has fine eyes: dark and piercing.

“Freyda thinks you’re younger.”

It took me a minute to see that Freyda must be Mrs. Rosenbach. “No, sir,” I said stoutly. “I’m eighteen, all right. I guess I seem younger because —” I hesitated. “Because I’m so ignorant. I left school when I was fourteen.”

“But you want to go on learning.”

“Yes, sir. That’s what I want more than anything.”

“If that’s what you want, who am I to stop you?” He swept his hands apart. “Here are books — novels, histories, poetry. You may read them all. But not too late, not past midnight. You have to get up early to help Malka with breakfast. Many nights, we have retired by ten, and after that, my library is open to you. Do you agree?”

Agree? I thought of myself, reading through those books — Dickens and Scott and The Picturesque World. I could scarcely speak. “Of course I agree! I can’t thank you enough — oh, I can never thank you —”

He cut me off. “There is no need to thank me. For a Jew, it is a sin not to educate his children. You are not my child. But you live under my roof; you sweep my floors, you overcook my fish, you burn your hand ironing my shirts —”

“No, sir,” I corrected him. “Malka irons your shirts. But I iron your sheets.” Then I felt myself get red, because I was afraid it was indelicate to talk about sheets.

He didn’t notice. “It’s the same thing,” he said, which shows his masculine ignorance. If you scorch a sheet, you can bleach it with sunshine and vinegar until the scorch marks fade. But shirts have to be perfect. Malka’s awful fussy about the master’s shirts, and she’s right to be.

He went on. “What I am telling you is that so long as you live under my roof, I am responsible for your well-being. I have no intention of standing between you and the books you love. At the same time, I can’t allow you to set the house on fire or ruin your health reading all night. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. I was so happy I burst out laughing.

“That’s good, very good. But now there’s something else we must discuss, and that is Malka. She is very much upset. Will you make it up with her?”

I had forgotten about Malka. “Did Malka tell you why she’s mad at me? It wasn’t just the fire.”

“What, then?”

I linked my fingers together. “I’m Catholic.” I’m not a complete Catholic yet, because I haven’t taken the Sacrament, but I like saying the words. “So I hung my mother’s crucifix over my bed. When Malka saw it, she screamed and told me to take it down.”

“And you refused. This she told me.”

“I wasn’t very tactful,” I admitted, “and I guess I raised my voice. But that crucifix belonged to my mother, and I’ve as much right to be Catholic as Malka has to be a Jew. And I don’t think I should be persecuted because of my religion.”

He nodded rapidly, but he didn’t answer at first. He bounced out of his seat, walked a few steps, spun round, and eyed me as if he were taking my measure. “Malka said you called her a liar.”

“I didn’t,” I said indignantly.

“Did you tell her that what she said wasn’t true?”

I felt myself turn red. “I might have,” I admitted. “She was saying such horrible things. About Christians and even priests slaughtering Jews — things I knew can’t be true. But I never called her a liar. I wouldn’t be so disrespectful to an old lady.”

He threw up his hands. “Yes, but to Malka —”

“Yes, sir,” I agreed, because I understood what he meant. To say that someone isn’t speaking the truth isn’t the same as calling her a liar. But to Malka, touchy old Malka, it might seem like the same thing.

“So you will be a good, kind girl and ask her to forgive you.”