The Hired Girl (42 page)

“It isn’t. Not if we love each other,” I persisted. “You wouldn’t have to pay for me. I’ve saved money. I have more than sixty dollars. That might be enough if I go steerage —” My voice was rising. In the heat of the moment, we had forgotten to whisper, and that was our undoing. Because at that moment, the door opened and in came Malka.

She let out a shriek when she saw us together. She struck her hands together and wailed. I never saw anyone look so much like a witch, with her white hair thin and uncovered, and her wild eyes, and her bare bony feet with that terrible bunion. She ran to me and slapped my face. Then she flew at David, cuffing him around the shoulders and screaming in Yiddish. David caught hold of her wrists and tried to hold her still, but there was nothing he could do to keep her from waking the household.

Mimi was the first to arrive. I noticed that she’d put her glasses on; she stood there in her nightgown, her curls tousled, her face alight with interest. Then Mr. Solomon in his nightshirt, followed by Mr. Rosenbach, knotting his bathrobe around his waist. Mrs. Rosenbach was the last to arrive; she had covered her nightgown with her kimono. When she saw me, her face went white. I thought she was going to faint.

Mr. Rosenbach turned his back to me and waved his hands to shoo them all away. “Freyda, Mirele, leave the room! I will deal with this — it’s not for you to see.”

Malka was still shrieking. Mr. Solomon put his arms around her and drew her away from his brother. “In the name of heaven, David, what were you thinking? Under our father’s roof, just before Yom
Kippur
!”

David stammered, “I haven’t done anything!”

“You bring shame upon this house,” hissed Malka. “You destroy this family, you break your mother’s heart, you spit in the face of God —”

“Malka,” snapped Mrs. Rosenbach, “be quiet! This is none of your business. Mimi, go to your room!” She whirled to face her husband. “I’m staying right here. If my son is carrying on a”— she glared at me so fiercely that I shrank back —“a vulgar intrigue with a servant girl, it’s my business as much as yours.”

“I’m not!” protested David. “There’s no intrigue! I haven’t done anything wrong, and neither has she!” He nodded to me. “Tell them!”

“Tell them what?” I was bewildered. I hadn’t counted on everyone coming in at once, and I was slow to figure out what they were thinking. Their eyes kept looking past David and me to the rumpled bed. Then I caught on: they thought David and I
were in the middle of doing
what I’d said I might do
in Paris.
Oh, but I was mortified; I wanted to die of shame! I covered my face with my hands and turned my back on them all.

David yanked the counterpane away from my shoulders. “Look at her! She’s fully dressed. I wrapped her in the bedspread because she was soaking wet. That’s
all.
”

The silence that followed was oddly blank — I think because Malka had stopped screaming. Mrs. Rosenbach commanded, “Miriam, leave the room.”

Mimi darted a look from her mother to her father. They frowned at her like two gargoyles, so she had to obey. After she went out, Mr. Solomon seemed to recall that he was in his nightshirt. He turned beet red. “I’m sorry, David,” he said formally. “I guess you’d like some privacy.” With that, he left the room.

Mrs. Rosenbach said, “David, what is she doing here?”

I shivered. I thought of what she would say if David told her I’d come to offer myself to him, body and soul.

David said lamely, “She wanted to say good-bye. Anna told her I was going to Paris.”

Mr. Rosenbach spluttered
,
“Pah! Through the pouring rain she comes to say good-bye? Tell the truth! Has she come to your room before? Did you ask her to come here tonight?”

“He takes a
shiksa
to his bed!” wailed Malka. “A poor ignorant girl, he seduces her and lies about it! Now he’s ruined her! She was a decent girl when she came —”

“I haven’t seduced anyone!” David cast a frustrated look in my direction. “The
last
thing I expected was for her to come here tonight! I don’t mean it’s her fault,” he added hastily. “She’s quite innocent. All she wanted was to say good-bye.”

Mrs. Rosenbach’s voice was harsh. “An innocent girl doesn’t go to a man’s bedroom.”

I wanted to defend myself, but my mouth was too dry. A sound from the hall distracted Mrs. Rosenbach. “Mirele! I told you to go to your room!”

Mimi peered around her mother. “I guess I won’t. Seems to me I’m the only one who knows what’s going on here.” She pushed her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose and jerked her head at David. “
He’s
been kissing her, so she fell in love with him —”

Mr. Rosenbach confronted his son. “Is that true? Have you been making advances to this girl?”

David reddened. “No! I mean, yes! I mean, they weren’t advances, but I did kiss her. It was an accident. Afterward I told her it didn’t mean anything —”

“That’s not true!” Indignation restored my power of speech. “You said you were sorry, but you never said it didn’t mean anything!”

David winced. “I don’t mean it meant
nothing.
What I meant was —” All at once his face softened with a dreadful pity. I braced myself. “You’re a peach of a girl, Janet. I like you an awful lot. But I wasn’t serious when I kissed you. I kissed you because I like kissing girls. I
always
want to kiss a pretty girl. Some more than others. . . .” He appealed to his father. “The cat scratched her. I was putting peroxide on her face, and I lost my head. It was stupid, I admit it, but I kissed her. Then for some reason she thought —”

He stopped. I felt my cheeks get red, because I knew he was going to say,
She thought I was in love with her.
I waited for this final humiliation, but he didn’t say the words. He looked anguished, but I didn’t pity him. His agony was nothing compared to mine. “Janet,” he said wretchedly, “I’ve done you an injury. I beg your pardon.”

I didn’t want him begging my pardon. I stared down at the carpet. There was a loose thread that the electric carpet sweeper had left behind. I bent down and picked it up.

Mrs. Rosenbach cleared her throat. “You will leave this house tomorrow, Janet.”

“Mama —” protested David.

“Freyda —” Mr. Rosenbach began.

“It’s impossible that she should stay here,” said Mrs. Rosenbach. “I won’t have this kind of thing going on under my roof.” She silenced her son’s objection with a sharp movement of her hand. “Enough. I’m sorry, Janet. You’ve been a good worker, and I don’t doubt David is to blame, but you’re old enough to know you shouldn’t kiss young men, or go to their rooms at night.”

The words stung. I did know. Ma always told me that it was the girl’s job to guard her virtue. And Father Horst always said the same: he called it purity, but he meant the same thing.

“She’s not as old as you think,” Mimi interjected. “She’s fourteen.”

It was as if the whole room caught its breath. Mr. Rosenbach’s mouth dropped open, and Mrs. Rosenbach’s hand flew to her throat. Malka’s eyes widened to such an extent her face looked like a skull. I gasped. “You read my diary!”

“Yes,” said Mimi, “and it’s a good thing I did, because you need someone to take up for you.” She raised her hands as if to ward off a blow, which was smart of her, because at that moment she was very close to being slapped. “I started reading it because you told Papa I needed glasses. I wanted to get back at you. But then I got interested, because you wrote about me. You said some mean things about me, but you said nice things, too, so I got
more
interested, and I read the whole thing. It’s the only book I ever liked, because it’s about real people, and I think,” she added, backing up hastily, “that you ought to be an authoress.” She glowered at David. “Then
you
kissed her and gave her presents and things —”

“You gave her presents?” echoed Mrs. Rosenbach, and Mr. Rosenbach yelled, “David!”

David looked baffled, as if he honestly couldn’t remember. Then he threw out his hands. “She wanted to draw! I gave her a stick of charcoal and a pad of paper! For the love of Mike, it wasn’t a diamond necklace!”

“Yes, but you flirted.” With a flourish, Mimi removed her glasses and pointed one earpiece at him. I was wild with mortification and grief, but I knew she’d perfected the flick of her wrist before a mirror. “You always flirt, and you don’t see that girls have
feelings.
You treated Janet to the opera, and you bought her a red umbrella”— there was a restless movement from Mrs. Rosenbach —“and you said
things
to her. Of course she liked it. And of course she fell for it, because Janet — only her real name’s Joan — is very romantic. It all comes of reading books. She used to have three books, and she read them over and over, but her father wouldn’t let her have any education and he burned them. So then poor Janet had to run away from home, and she never meant to lie about her age, but the lie slipped out, because she was afraid of sleeping in the streets. And David believed she was eighteen and started flirting and kissing her, and Janet thought she was as good as engaged. Maybe she ought to have known better —
I’d
have known better — but she’s only fourteen, and if you ask me, if anybody ought to be sent away, it’s David.”

Mr. Rosenbach lunged forward. I thought he was going to seize David by the shoulders and shake him. “Fourteen!” he bellowed. “First the Gratz girl, and now this poor little
shiksa
of fourteen! Why should I send you to Paris when I can’t trust you for one minute in Baltimore! Give me one good reason! You don’t
think,
you make a mess wherever you go, you are a disgrace to me in New York, in Baltimore, why should I send you —”

“No, no,” I cried, “he has to go to Paris!” I flew to Mr. Rosenbach and caught the sleeve of his dressing gown. “He has to! He’s an artist, maybe a genius! And you promised, Mr. Rosenbach. It wasn’t all his fault what happened, and it was good and kind of him to take me to the opera: I loved the opera, just because I’m a hired girl doesn’t mean I shouldn’t see the opera! And it was my idea to come here tonight, he didn’t know I was coming, and he
did
say that if he ever married, he wanted to marry a Jewess.” I ransacked my mind for some other plea and found it: the Jewish prayer that I first heard from Mr. Solomon’s lips. “Let no one be punished on my behalf!”

My voice rang in the silence. That moment, when I was taking up for David, was one of the moments when I was strong. When I look back on that terrible night, there is much that shames me, but it was true love that impelled me to plead for David, and I’m not ashamed of that. It’s a strange and piteous thing, because when I dreamed of true love, I dreamed of David loving
me.
But I was the one who loved truly. Knowing that, I can hold up my head, even though I made a fool of myself and my heart is broken.

Mr. Rosenbach opened his hands and said, “Freyda.” That was all he said: just his wife’s name, but he said it urgently, and I knew he was pleading for me.

David came forward and took my hands. As soon as he touched me, I went still. It was always like that between us. The lightest touch of his hand bewitched me, exciting every nerve in my body. “Janet, I’m sorry. I never once suspected you were so young.”

“I suspected.” It was Mrs. Rosenbach who spoke, breaking the spell. “I sensed she was a child; I felt her wanting a mother.” She raked her hands through her hair. I recognized the gesture; David had inherited it from her. “I ought to have —” Her voice hardened. “No. Why should I blame myself ? The girl looks eighteen and she lied. I wanted to believe her. I wanted a hired girl, not another child to raise.”

She reached behind her neck and gathered up her loose hair, twisting it pointlessly into a knot. The knot wasn’t becoming to her; it made her look respectable, but haggard and ruthless. “David must go to Paris. It’s all arranged, and he needs something to do. As for you, Janet — what’s your real name?”

“Joan,” I said. She went on waiting until I finished it. “Skraggs.”

Mimi breathed, “No wonder!”

Mrs. Rosenbach ignored her. “Miss Skraggs, if my son has been kissing you, and buying you gifts, you had every reason to believe you were engaged. But there will be no engagement. If there is any tie between you and my son, it must be broken off. Do you understand me, David? Your father will not send you to Paris if you consider yourself attached to this girl.”

David released my hands. He mumbled, “I understand.” His cheeks were red with embarrassment.

“Miss Skraggs, you will catch cold, standing in that wet dress. Go upstairs and take a hot bath. You may sleep here tonight. After Yom Kippur, we’ll decide what must be done with you. If you’re fourteen years old, you ought to be with your family. I can’t believe your father isn’t worried about you.”

Your family.
There was a second when I couldn’t think what she meant. Then Father’s face swam before my eyes, and I remembered the life I left: the isolation of the farm, the drudgery, the empty future. “No! I won’t go back!”

Mimi added her voice to mine. “She can’t go back to the farm, Mama! It’s too cruel! Her father’s mean to her. He burned her books and he
shoots cats
!”

“We’ll discuss this after Yom Kippur.” Mr. Rosenbach came and patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Janet. We’ll find a new place for you, a good home; never fear.”

That’s when I began to cry in earnest. I realized I’d lost everything: David, my heart, my pride, even my job. I covered my face with my hands and wept. Malka took me by the elbow and led me from the room.

I did what Malka told me. When she ran me a hot bath, I got into it. She brought me one of her nightgowns and a pair of heavy wool socks. The socks were too big and the nightgown pulled across my chest. But the things were warm and dry, so I put them on and crawled into bed. I dragged the bedclothes over my wet head. I wanted to sleep, to be out of pain.

But I lay awake a long time, sobbing. I hated myself and I hated David. I thought of how I’d offered myself to him, and I writhed with shame. How shocked Miss Chandler would be! And Father Horst; he would think me the most wretched and depraved of sinners. And Ma, oh, poor Ma! She tried to warn me about men, but I didn’t pay attention. She saved all that Belinda money, so I could escape from the farm, but here I was, about to be sent back, all because of my own folly.