The Hired Girl(79)

That made Father Horst look very grim. He said that was just the kind of thing that worried him — that they would seduce me from my Catholic faith. I assured him that Mrs. Rosenbach knows I’m a Catholic and it’s all right with her. I started to tell him how she let me come to the church on the Feast of the Assumption, even though it wasn’t my afternoon off.

But Father Horst wasn’t listening. He asked me how I could be so loyal to a family of Jews when the Jews have turned their backs on Jesus. And for a minute, I didn’t know what to say, because I don’t think of the Rosenbachs in that way.

“They don’t worship Jesus,” I said, “but they worship God, and if Jesus and God are one in the Holy Trinity, doesn’t it come to the same thing?” Father Horst said that was sophistry, which is a word I never heard before. I looked it up in Mr. Rosenbach’s dictionary, but I’m still not sure what it means. Father Horst also called me intransigent, which was another word I looked up. It means you stick to your opinions. I think I might be a little bit intransigent, but not in a bad way.

I felt dreadful when Father Horst started calling me names. And I searched my conscience, because I love Our Lord and His Blessed Mother. I don’t want to do anything to hurt them. But then I remembered what Mr. Rosenbach said. “Jesus was a Jew.” I spoke the words aloud. “And so was Abraham and Moses and the Blessed Mother.”

Father Horst said that the Jews of the Old Testament were different. They were all right because they lived before Jesus shed His blood in the New and Eternal Testament. But Jesus instituted the New Testament, so He was more like a Christian than a Jew. Then Father Horst said that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, but I said I thought it was the Romans who crucified Him. (Because that’s what Mr. Rosenbach told me.) Father Horst looked vexed, but he said that it was the Romans, technically, but that the Jews had denied Him. He flipped open the Bible to find something bad about the Jews and read to me the part from the Acts of the Apostles where some of the Jews bound themselves under a curse, saying they would neither eat nor drink until they killed St. Paul. Surely, Father Horst said to me, I could see that St. Paul was on the right side of things and that the Jews were on the wrong side.

Well, I know that St. Paul is a very important saint. But I pointed out that the Bible said that only some of the Jews wanted to kill St. Paul, so that must mean that there were other Jews who were all right, and I thought the Rosenbachs must be like them. Father Horst shut the Bible in a way that was almost like slamming it. He said I was a disobedient and quarrelsome child.

I felt quelled when he said that, but some demon inside me made me answer back one more time. I said — in a small voice, but I said it — that I would rather be disobedient and quarrelsome than have anti-Semitism.

Then he was really angry. He said he had no doubt who taught me that word, and his manner was so forbidding that I said I was sorry and I hadn’t meant it. Though actually I had. I think he has anti-Semitism, but perhaps he doesn’t know it. But I didn’t want him to be mad with me. I explained to him that the Rosenbachs need me because nobody else can get along with Malka. And Malka needs me because of her age and her bunion. Then he said Mrs. Possit needs me because she has all those children. But I like the Rosenbachs, and I told Father Horst that I’d rather stay with them than go live with Mrs. Possit. I think (but I didn’t say it) that there is something nasty about the name Possit.

Father Horst said coldly that he would inform Mrs. Possit that I had declined to accept her kindness. Oh, but he was cross! I fear he will never like me again. I felt dreadful as I walked home, because if Father Horst doesn’t like me, he won’t instruct me, and I’ll never be able to take the Sacrament. I do so long to take the Sacrament. I imagine it will feel like receiving the kiss of a lover — only more ineffable — sweet and welcoming and restoring the soul.

When I got home, I didn’t know what to do I was so agitated. I hate it when something ruins my afternoon off, because I have only one a week. I set to mending my torn petticoat, but sewing was the wrong thing to do, because the quarrel kept running through my mind.

I wondered if I was doing wrong, staying with the Rosenbachs, and if this house is a house of fleshpots. It does seem to me that since I became a hired girl, my mind is very much set on worldly things. Lately I’ve been thinking of buying a new dress for Sundays. I like the dresses I have, but they’re both blue and I’m tired of wearing blue every single day.

When I finished the petticoat, I knelt down and asked the Blessed Mother what I should do. And she answered me in Ma’s old voice. She said there was no sin in being loyal to people who have been good to you. It’s disloyalty that’s a sin. And she reminded me that pink doesn’t wear too well, so if I buy a new dress, I should take into account how it will look once it’s faded.