The Hired Girl

by Laura Amy Schlitz

  Mrs. Rosenbach told me that from now on, she wants me to answer the front door. That’s to spare Malka’s legs. Mrs. Rosenbach says the steps that go from the kitchen to the first floor are awfully steep, and last winter Malka was rushing to answer the doorbell and fell. Luckily she fell up the stairs, not down them, but Mrs. Rosenbach worries. That’s why she comes downstairs to discuss meals. It just goes to show how fine Mrs. Rosenbach is, because in the normal course of things, a servant should come upstairs when her mistress summons her. But Mrs. Rosenbach puts her respect for age and infirmity above her status.

  She suggested that I should take on some of the cooking on Saturdays. I will be a Shabbos goy, which is a Christian who does the work that Jews aren’t supposed to do on Shabbos.

  Then Mrs. Rosenbach indicated a cardboard box on the sofa. It had an emblem on it — two wavy lines like a stream, and a prancing horse, and the words ROSENBACH’S DEPARTMENT STORE in beautiful copperplate. She said that it was customary for servants to pay for their own uniforms, but that seemed unduly harsh “in view of the fact that I had to leave home precipitously.” For a moment I didn’t understand, but then I saw she meant that I’d had to run away from home because Father was beating me, except that he wasn’t. She went on to say that as I would be greeting her guests, she wanted me to be more formally attired.

  Now, that shows how refined she is, because look at the things she didn’t say! She didn’t mention the fact that I’ve been wearing the same ugly dress for more than a week, or hint that I’m not presentable enough for her friends. And she didn’t insinuate that I was too poor to buy my own uniforms. Now that I think it over, I feel a little guilty, because I’m not as penniless as she thinks. I have my Belinda money. But while she was talking to me, so gravely and politely, I honestly forgot about the Belinda money. I felt penniless.

  All that time, I was aching to see what my new uniforms would look like. At last Mrs. Rosenbach waved her hand in a way that gave me permission to open the box, and she added that she had taken the liberty of putting in a packet of long hairpins, because long pins are more effective with thick hair. I guess she’s noticed that my hair keeps tumbling down.

  I thanked her and opened the box. Tissue paper, thin as rose petals, and two uniforms — well, really they are housedresses, but they are so pretty! They’re cotton but they feel satin-smooth and fresh and crisp; they’re better quality cotton than any I’ve ever worn. And they smell so new — that clean cotton smell, which is almost like milk. Both dresses are blue, because blue is economical and doesn’t fade quickly. One dress is a cool-morning-sky blue with a pattern of white ferns on it. The other is closer to a robin’s-egg blue, with tiny sprays of buttercups and pink rosebuds. Both uniforms have white Dutch collars and cuffs that unbutton, so the sleeves roll up.

  Then there were two darling white aprons, with ruffles over the shoulders, so starchy and pure looking, and two funny, frilly little caps — Mrs. Rosenbach gambled on the fact that I wouldn’t be too proud to wear them. Underneath the dress aprons was a big canvas apron, dark gray, which will be good for scrubbing. And the little packet of hairpins, none of them rusted.

  I could scarcely contain my excitement, seeing those dresses. I kept holding them up and exclaiming and pointing out each detail to Mrs. Rosenbach. I guess it was too much, because her mouth turned down at the corners the way Ma’s did when I was a little thing and carried on about something or other. It was a tenderhearted look, but more superior in Mrs. Rosenbach’s case. She said I’d need a black uniform for formal wear, but she’d provide that, too. She added that she was sure I’d want to shop for other things, and she hoped I would consider buying them at Rosenbach’s Department Store.

  That reminded her to tell me that her husband is coming home on Thursday, which I already knew, because Malka told me. Malka worships the ground Mr. Rosenbach walks on. His first name is Moritz, and Malka likes to call him her little Moritz. I hope he won’t be a domestic tyrant like Father. I don’t think anybody ever called Father little Josiah. Perhaps that’s what’s wrong with him.

  When Mrs. Rosenbach was explaining how to get to Rosenbach’s Department Store — I haven’t taken a streetcar yet, and I can’t wait — my tongue got the better of me and I blurted out a question. I asked her if there were books in Rosenbach’s Department Store.

  Mrs. Rosenbach said curtly, “You must not interrupt me, Janet.” I felt ever so sorry — interrupting when she’d been so kind — and I said so all in a rush. I explained that I was just starving for something to read. Then I realized I’d interrupted her twice in a row. I clapped my hands over my mouth.

  She said, “I’m sure you don’t mean to be rude, Janet, but I’m afraid you’re rather impetuous.” I nodded agreement and tried to look penitent — though I like the idea of being impetuous. It sounds like a heroine. I’d rather be impetuous than placid any day.

  After a moment she relented. “My husband’s store has an excellent selection of books,” she said. Then her brows came together. “Though you may find them costly. They’re hardcover books, not dime novels.”

  I saw in a flash what she meant. She thought because I was a servant, I’d want to read trash. It made me hot under the collar — I guess I am impetuous. “I’m not in the market for dime novels,” I said haughtily. “I don’t think I would find them edifying or ennobling.”

  I think maybe I shouldn’t have said the ennobling part. Mrs. Rosenbach’s mouth twitched as if she wanted to laugh. Only for a minute, though. Then she said, “I beg your pardon, Janet. I had forgotten your fondness for Ivanhoe. If you’re interested in reading the classics, you might borrow from our library.”

  “Might I?” I exclaimed. I think Mrs. Rosenbach might have regretted her kindness then, because she went on to say that reading mustn’t interfere with my duties, and that the books mustn’t be taken down to the kitchen, where they might get soiled, and that I should borrow only one at a time.

  I assured her that I would treat her books with the greatest possible care. I promised that I’d make sure my hands were extra clean, and that I would never, never stretch the bindings or dog-ear the pages.

  She rose and went into the library. When she came back, she had a book in her hand. It was bound in black leather, with the title in gold: DANIEL DERONDA. It was the kind of book that has a silk ribbon inside, to serve as a bookmark. I love those silk ribbons.

  “Perhaps this will edify you,” she said, and she handed it to me with a smile that was both sphinx-like and motherly kind.

  Wednesday, July the twelfth, 1911

  Today I spoke to Mr. Solomon. It wasn’t one bit the way I’d imagined it would be. In the sacred privacy of these pages, I’ve written how I hoped to see him again. Ever since he rescued me, he’s seemed like a hero to me, and I’ve been waiting to thank him. Also — oh, accursed vanity, I should blush to write these words, but they are true! — I’ve wanted him to see me. The bruise on my forehead has faded, and my new clothes make me look ever so much prettier.

  I thought I was looking my best this morning. I had on the blue print with the rosebuds, and my apron was starched and pressed. I was going up the stairs and Mr. Solomon was coming down. (I shouldn’t have been on the front staircase, but I forgot.)

  It reminded me of the night of the party in Jane Eyre, when Mr. Rochester spoke to Jane on the stairs, except that Mr. Solomon scarcely glanced at me. I ventured, “Good morning, sir.”

  He looked a little startled. Then he smiled. “Good morning”— he paused —“Jane. It is Jane, isn’t it?”

  “No, sir,” I said, “it’s Janet.” And I guess I seemed crestfallen, because he looked contrite.

  “Janet,” he corrected himself. “Of course. I understand you’re doing well.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, and I launched into the speech I’d planned for him. It was all about how he’d rescued me, like one of King Arthur’s knights, and how grateful I was, and how I’d vowed to mention his name in my prayers every n
ight. I tried to express my thanks in elegant phrases, so that he’d understand that even though I’m a hired girl, I’m not just a hired girl.

  But I forgot the beginning of my speech. I plunged into the middle, and had to go back and stick the beginning back in. I could feel my face getting red. The awful thing was that I could tell that Mr. Solomon wanted me to stop talking. He looked as awkward as I felt. “I’m glad everything’s worked out so well,” he said when I paused for breath. “For your sake, and for Malka’s.” And with that, he brushed past me and went down the stairs.

  For my sake, and for Malka’s. That’s when the truth sank in: to Mr. Solomon, I’m just a servant like Malka. In fact, I’m much less to him than Malka is, because he’s known Malka all his life. He’s her pet among the Rosenbach children, and she calls him Shlomo; Malka’s almost like his grandmother. But I’m just a servant. The dress that made me feel so pretty is a servant’s dress.

  I felt like thirty cents. I guess I’d had some fool idea in my head that the way we met, with him rescuing me, would forge a link between us. I’d started to think that Mr. Solomon was a little bit like Mr. Rochester. Well, he isn’t, and that’s all there is to it. Mr. Rochester knew that Jane Eyre was his equal, even though she was a governess. But when Mr. Solomon looks at me, all he sees is a hired girl. He even forgot my name!

  I watched him descend the stairs, and I noticed something. The hair on top of Mr. Solomon’s head is getting a little bit thin. He’s going to have a bald spot there. I didn’t know that a man so young could be losing his hair. I wonder if he knows. The idea that he might not suspect makes me feel a little bit sorry for him. It seems very melancholy. Of course, a bald spot wouldn’t matter if he were more like Mr. Rochester, but —

  Altogether it was very unsettling.

  Thursday, July the thirteenth, 1911

  Today was busy with shopping and getting ready for the return of Mr. Rosenbach — Mrs. Rosenbach’s husband, that is, not Mr. Solomon. Malka was determined that the master should have all his favorite foods. She sent me to the market three times to get things she’d forgotten — allspice for red cabbage, Jamaica ginger for the beef, and peaches for dessert. In the midst of all this, the child Mirele complained of a sore throat and asked for a tray of cinnamon toast. It seems that cinnamon toast is invalid’s fare in the Rosenbach household. Malka was exasperated because she said Mirele was no more sick than she was, but she had me make the toast and carry up the tray.

  I wasn’t sorry to be sent upstairs, because I’m curious about Mirele, who seems to do nothing but change her clothes and play with her friends in Druid Hill Park. I iron her dresses and tidy her room, and the one thing I know for sure about her is that she’s a slob. Of course slob isn’t a very refined word, but slatternly is too harsh. And in fact, the child isn’t slatternly; she is dainty in her person, but her room is the room of a slob. It’s nothing to find her hairbrush in her unmade bed and orange peels all over the dresser.

  I found little Miss Rosenbach in bed. She wore a summer nightdress decorated with pale-green ribbons, and she was playing solitaire.

  “Oh, good,” said Mirele, reaching for the tray. “I’m famished. You can put the tray on the bed.”

  I didn’t want to. Those sheets were changed on Tuesday, and I didn’t want them full of crumbs and sugar grit. I coaxed, “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable at your desk, Miss?”

  “No,” answered Mirele promptly. “I like eating in bed. When you’re sick, you get to have cinnamon toast in bed. That’s part of the fun.”

  I sighed and put down the tray, but Mirele had no intention of letting me leave. “Sit down and talk to me,” she commanded.

  “I can’t,” said I. “Malka needs me in the kitchen.”

  “If you leave, you’ll have to climb the stairs to take the tray back,” Mirele pointed out. “It’s easier if you stay. It won’t take me long to eat two slices of toast. Stingy old Malka, I wanted three. I’m glad you’re here, because I want someone to talk to. Are you really eighteen? Mama says if you’re a day over sixteen, she’ll eat her hat. Are you sixteen?”

  “No,” I said, with perfect truth. “Your mother’s mistaken.”

  “I’m twelve,” she said, and took a gulp of milk.

  I stared because she didn’t look twelve. She might have been ten or even nine, she was so tiny. It was funny to think she was only two years younger. “I guess you’re small for your age,” I said.

  “Yes. It’s good in a way,” Mirele explained. “People treat me like a baby, but I get away with more. I don’t believe you’re eighteen years old. You played with my dollhouse, didn’t you?”

  I had, actually. It was more cleaning than playing, but I’ll admit it: I’ve never seen anything like that dollhouse. It’s four feet tall, with three floors full of perfect miniature furniture: needlepoint carpets, and cunning little chairs upholstered in striped silk, and a kitchen full of tiny willowware plates stuck with cardboard food. I could never have imagined such an elaborate and expensive toy. If it had been mine — when I was little, I mean — I’d have kept it in apple-pie order.

  But Mirele is a slob, and her dollhouse is a mess. That’s a problem for me, because the house has only three walls and you can see inside. The first time I cleaned Mirele’s room, I stood in the doorway and checked to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. My gaze fell on that dollhouse: a pigsty and an eyesore. The dolls were lying on the floor like drunkards, and the chairs were tipped over, and the dolly beds weren’t made — the little quilts and pillows were all over the floor.

  I couldn’t stand it, so I put it to rights. It didn’t take five minutes, and that was the fun of it — you could clean a whole mansion in five minutes. I made the little beds and rearranged the furniture and set the dolls in chairs so that they looked comfortable. And the next day — well, I guess it was silly — I cut up a tiny section of Malka’s Yiddish newspaper so the papa doll could have something to read. He did look comical, sitting with that newspaper. After that — well, I allow myself one little change every day. Once I put the baby doll in the bathtub, with the mother kneeling next to him — I rolled up her sleeves to the elbows. Another time I made the china cat sleep on top of the piano. The Thomashefsky cat does that, and I think it’s cute.

  I guess I do play with the dollhouse, just a little. It makes cleaning that sloppy room more interesting.

  “It looked awful the way it was,” I defended myself. Then I remembered that I was a hired girl and added, “Miss.”

  “Don’t call me Miss,” said Mirele. “We’re not very formal here, in case you haven’t noticed. I want you to call me Mimi. That’s what my friends call me.”

  “Malka calls you Mirele.”

  “That’s Yiddish. We all know a little Yiddish, because of Malka bringing up Papa, but Yiddish is vulgar, Mama says. She prefers Hochdeutsch. That means High German. My real name is Miriam, but I like Mimi better. I’m like the girl in the opera.” She put down her toast, clasped her hands, and sang in a small, true voice. “‘I call myself Mimi!’ Have you ever been to the opera?”

  “No, but I’m going to, someday. And a Russian ballet, too.”

  “I’ll call you Janet, because we’re almost the same age,” she said. She took a wolfish bite of toast. “Mmmm.” Then she began to gobble.

  While she ate her toast, I took the opportunity to look at her. Nobody looks her best when she’s chewing, and I tried to take that into account, but even if you subtracted the chewing, Mirele Rosenbach was no beauty. She was small and nimble and wore her frilly clothes beautifully. But she had freckles, and her features weren’t regular. The lower part of her face came forward in a way that reminded me of a monkey. Her mouth was wide, and her little white teeth were crooked. Though her hair was curly, it was a disorganized kind of curly that made her look windblown.

  And yet, if she wasn’t pretty, she didn’t know it. She spoke and walked and moved her hands as if she were bewitchingly pretty. And for some reason, it was ha
rd to take your eyes off her. I guess a novel would have said it was the play of her features. She was lively; she was animated; her lips curved with mischief, and her small eyes sparkled.

  I wonder if my features ever play. I bet they don’t.

  I waited for her to finish her toast so that I could carry the tray downstairs. She set down her milk glass and said, “You do your hair too tight. It makes your ears stick out.”

  I agreed with her. The new hairpins are good; my knot of hair no longer lurches or tumbles down. But those little caps aren’t becoming, and my ears look funny sticking out below.

  “It’s not really your ears,” Mirele said, with belated tact. “They’re all right. It’s the way you do your hair. I’ll show you.” She slid out of bed and went to fetch her brush and comb. “Sit down. I love doing hair. I’m good at it. It won’t take a minute, and you’ll look ever so much better.”

  I thought of Malka downstairs, but the temptation was too great. I sat down and let Mirele — Mimi — pluck off my cap. Never for a moment did I doubt that she would be better at arranging hair than I was. Skillfully she brushed and puffed and coiled. In a matter of seconds, my hair was a burnished crown, and my ears looked smaller.

  “That’s better,” Mimi said judiciously. “You need to grab the hair like a rope, and let your hand slide up, down . . . twist, puff, and pin. It makes all the difference, having your hair nice. You have good eyes and a pretty complexion and your bruises are fading. I think your father is just terrible. I complain about Papa, but he would never, never strike me. He never even spanked me when I was little.”

  “Then why do you complain?” I shouldn’t have asked, but it was hard for me to remember that I was the hired girl when Mimi didn’t seem to.

  “Because he wants me to study all the time — and I de-test reading. It makes my head ache. Even during the summer, when I ought to have some peace, he makes me read.” She went to her desk and picked up a stack of books. “Papa gave me these before he left. He told me I had to read one of them. Little Women and Black Beauty and Huckleberry Finn. They’re all dreadfully long, and Huckleberry Finn isn’t even written in proper English. He left me arithmetic, too.” She held up a much-smeared page of sums. “Geography and spelling, and German and Hebrew — Hebrew’s impossible; I’ll never be able to learn it. Did your papa make you learn such awful stuff ?”