Love of Finished Years

by Gregory Erich Phillips

  “This will be your room.” Chris opened a door near the end of the hall and setting down her bag.

  She smiled with delight. The west-facing window let in natural afternoon light. The bed looked soft and luscious. There was a sink in the corner and a dresser against the wall.

  Chris politely gave her a moment to look around.

  She could learn to feel at home here. Picking up her single bag, she opened the closet door. She shook her head with a little laugh. If even this, her nicest dress, didn’t meet with approval here, what use did she possibly have for a closet? She set the bag down and removed only Josephine’s Bible, which she set reverently on the table beside the bed.

  Stepping to the window, she looked down into the backyard. A brick patio extended from the back of the house, enveloping a small fountain. A white table and matching chairs sat on the brick. White flowerpots filled with pink-and-purple gardenias lined the outside of the patio. After about ten yards the brick transitioned to grass, which stretched all the way to the back hedge.

  She ran her finger along the base of the glass—no dirt, no bugs, not even a speck of dust. And this was the condition of a house that had been without a maid for three weeks! She could keep this room, this house, and even herself as clean as she wanted. In the life she had known, cleanliness was a luxury for which there was seldom time.

  “My room’s right across from you,” said Chris. “My daughter Katherine has a small room attached to mine.” He paused for just a moment. “It’s a big house, as you can see . . . you’ll think it’s far too big once you start cleaning it. The three of us have this top floor all to ourselves. Though Mr. Graham has filled a few of the rooms up with all his boxes of documents and his books.”

  Elsa smiled. So there were books in the house!

  “Do you have any experience in serving?” Chris asked as he led her back downstairs.

  “No. I always worked in a clothing factory.”

  “Oh, you can sew. That’s good.”

  Elsa almost burst into laughter. If he only knew.

  “You can learn the rest. I’ll help you.”

  He stopped and looked at her inquisitively.

  “What is it?”

  “Do you have any other frocks?”

  “Yes. But this is my nicest one.”

  “Hmph. We’ll have to do something about that. But it can wait until tomorrow. Come, I’ll show you the kitchen. The Grahams take dinner at seven.”

  She followed, feeling suddenly ashamed about her dress. Soon she felt another presence behind them. She turned. A girl of about ten, wearing a blue dress, had begun to follow them. She had tightly curled brown hair.

  “You must be Katherine.” Elsa smiled.

  The girl nodded, as she darted away.

  “She’s shy at first,” said Chris. “But she’ll be your friend soon enough.”

  Elsa hoped so. She felt like such a misfit here and hoped they would like her—not only Chris and his daughter, but also the Grahams.

  “Where are the masters now?”

  Chris laughed. “The masters! Where did you learn to talk like that? Mr. Graham and Mrs. Graham will do just fine when addressing them. And Miss Dafne, of course.”

  She was going to ask who Miss Dafne was, but as they reached the first landing, the front door swung open below. An energetic woman blew in. Tall, athletic, and beautiful, she moved with a grace that gave elegance to her haste. Chris quickly descended to take her wide-brimmed hat.

  “Mrs. Graham,” said Chris, “this is our new maid, Elsa. She speaks, reads, and writes in German as well as English.”

  Mrs. Graham paused and looked at her. Elsa curtseyed, a maneuver she and Sonja had jokingly performed to one another. Nobody laughed, so she assumed she’d done it properly.

  “Wonderful,” Mrs. Graham said after a moment. “Welcome to our home.” She hurried off, the skirts of her long dress flowing behind her.

  Chris took Elsa to the kitchen, then left, assuming she could take care of herself. Finally alone, Elsa allowed herself a big smile.

  This was the opportunity she had worked for, all those nights studying to read and write, sometimes sleeping only two or three hours before getting up for another grueling day at the factory. She felt happy and relieved. What would have become of her if she had come all this way and not been given this job?

  But she did have the job, and what a wonderful job it would be. She stood there in the kitchen hardly believing it wasn’t a dream. She had never even stepped into a house like this before, and now she was living in one. Yet as new and unfamiliar as this place was, she already was beginning to feel at home. The house was large and posh, but not imposing. The people she had met so far were kind. She welcomed the chance to learn her role in the Graham household, even as she feared making some error.

  Elsa began to feel the pressure of her responsibilities right away. First and foremost, she had to make dinner for the family that night. The stress of this realization came upon her gradually, finally striking her with its full, worrisome force. Although she knew how to cook, she doubted her skills were enough for this task. Rich people like the Grahams would surely expect something more involved than the simple meals she had made for her family. She doubted she had much margin for error.

  She looked around the kitchen as her palms began to sweat for the second time that day. In the little kitchen at Andretti’s, they only kept enough food to make one or two meals at a time. They hadn’t owned a refrigerator, so advance storage of food was impossible. In the Grahams’ kitchen, there was enough food to feed the family plus the servants for weeks. Elsa couldn’t guess whether something specific was intended for tonight’s meal. Who had done the shopping up until then? Would that also be her responsibility? She would have asked Chris, but he had just driven off in the automobile.

  After her examination of the refrigerator, she opened the freezer. There was meat in it, but it was unusable. It was like the meat that froze out in the shed during the winters in Germany, or the meat that had likewise frozen on their kitchen counter during some of the worst winter nights in New York. This kind of meat had to be thawed over the fire before being cut and cooked. How strange to own a machine that provided this inconvenience in April. Elsa decided then and there that she did not approve of freezers.

  Ignoring the frozen things for now, there was still plenty with which she could make a meal. She could have made ten meals. That was the problem. She wanted some instruction. What if she used something she wasn’t supposed to? All her life she had been accustomed to clear instructions and commands. Now she was on her own. She sat down at the table, at a loss how to start.

  It was completely overwhelming.

  A strange patter approached the kitchen. It sounded like steps, but unlike the fall of any shoes Elsa had known. She started and looked toward the door just as a teenage girl entered the room. Elsa lurched to her feet.

  “Well, here she is!” said the girl, whose cropped blonde hair was slicked down against her head.

  Elsa curtseyed. “Miss Dafne?”

  “Yeah, I’m the one.” Her eyes quickly scanned Elsa from head to foot, then back up again. “So what are we sitting at the kitchen table for?”

  Elsa was terrified. “I’m making dinner,” she stammered, barely above a whisper.

  “I see.”

  Elsa had never met anyone before or after as quick at understanding an implication as Dafne Graham.

  “So let me guess,” said Dafne, “you don’t know what we expect from you, and you’re afraid if you do it wrong, you’ll get axed, yeah?”

  Elsa nodded. She had never heard the word “axed” referring to anything other than trees, but the context made the meaning perfectly clear.

  Dafne laughed. It was a friendly laugh, not making light of Elsa’s plight, but suggesting that it was unworthy of so much stress.

  “Okay, darling, let’s see what we’ve got.”

  Dafne strode toward the refrigerator, hurling her short
jacket with perfect aim over the back of one of the chairs. She opened the door of the cooler, leaning in with one hand on her raised hip. It was in this posture that Elsa noticed the floppy galoshes on her feet, which she had presumably worn that day because of the morning rain. This accounted for the odd sound of her approach.

  “The first thing you need to learn around here—what’s your name?”

  “Elsa Schuller.”

  “Elsa.” Dafne turned back from the refrigerator and beamed at her. She quickly resumed her inspection.

  “The first thing you need to learn, Elsa, is that you’re in charge around here. I suppose you’ve been working for other folks all your little young life. But now you’re the boss. This is your house.”

  Throughout her speech, Dafne plucked things out of the refrigerator and piled them on the counter.

  “There you go. Some beef, some veggies . . . the bread’s over there. What self-respecting serving girl couldn’t make a feast out of this?”

  Elsa finally smiled. Dafne’s personality startled her, but she had begun to relax in her presence. She knew Dafne wasn’t an enemy.

  She took the meat and vegetables over to the counter, placed them on a cutting board and began her work.

  Dafne sat at the table, leaning back in her chair with her galoshes on the table. She questioned Elsa about her former life—both in New York and in Germany—deducing whatever Elsa didn’t say from the short answers she gave.

  Dafne’s appearance shocked Elsa. She had never seen this hairstyle before—short and slicked to one side. Dafne’s dress fell straight from her shoulders to her calf. Only a tiny line designated her natural waist. The sleeves fit her upper arms snugly, leaving the lower three-quarters of her arms bare. At sixteen, Dafne didn’t have noticeable curves—not that anyone would have noticed in her straight dress. Her makeup was light and barely noticeable.

  Elsa’s eyes kept returning to the galoshes, elevated on the table. They must have been worn all day as some bizarre fashion statement, even when the rain was gone. It was very odd.

  Dafne’s appearance defied the old feminine ideals that even Elsa knew. How different her attire was from the flowing gown and wide hat in which Mrs. Graham had appeared that morning. Dafne seemed to be a modern girl in every way she could manage.

  “Do you go to school?” Elsa asked, finally daring to pose a question to her young mistress.

  “Yeah. I guess it’s a good thing to do. I don’t suppose you got to go to school?”

  “For a little while in Germany. But not here in America.”

  “But you’ve learned English perfectly. You must write it, too, if my father hired you. To do that without school . . . you must be a clever gal.”

  Again she surprised Elsa with her deductions about her former life. Dafne seemed to know everything about her without her telling.

  “I have tried to learn whenever I had a chance.”

  “That’s neat. I’m so bored with school.” Dafne yawned.

  Elsa wasn’t sure whether the yawn had been intentional to illustrate Dafne’s point, or whether it was inspired by the mention of school. Either way, the young lady seemed to be suddenly both tired and bored.

  “You got it now,” she said, standing up slowly. “I need a nap.”

  Daphne walked toward the door. Her genuine smile warmed Elsa to her core.

  “I’m going to like having you here,” Dafne said. “You’ll do just fine.”

  She winked, then galoshed her way upstairs.

  To Elsa’s relief, the first dinner in the Graham house was uneventful. Nobody commented on the cooking except Dafne, who complimented it repeatedly and sent Elsa encouraging looks throughout the meal. She felt the family was satisfied with her first effort at domestic service.

  Mr. Graham had come home just before the meal. Elsa still hadn’t been properly introduced to the man for whom she would be doing the majority of her work. Her first impression of him, at the dinner table, was positive. She liked the whole family already.

  After dinner, Dafne had a friend to the house who supposedly wanted to meet Elsa. Nervously she answered the summons to Dafne’s bedroom, where Jeanette Streppy waited on the edge of the bed.

  “Oh, she is cute!” said Jeanette.

  Elsa curtseyed for the third time that day, having become rather confident in the maneuver.

  “Elsa’s been working in a factory in lower Manhattan,” said Dafne, flinging her arm around her servant and compelling her to enter the room farther than she was comfortable with.

  “She never went to school, but she reads and writes in both English and German. She can do anything. Your only problem,” she turned from Jeanette to Elsa, “is that you’re too afraid of doing something wrong. Our last maid ran this house.”

  She turned to Jeanette again. “She bossed Mommy and Daddy around like you wouldn’t believe. I think she hated me, because whenever she told me to do something I’d just stamp my foot and say no! I’m glad she’s gone.” Turning back to Elsa, “Remember, you’re the factory boss now.”

  Elsa couldn’t help but smile.

  “I can’t see you in a factory,” said Dafne before turning back to Jeanette. “She’s been following orders instead of giving them, but that’ll change soon.” She looked back at Elsa. “Sit down, dear. Jeanette wants to ask you about Germany.”

  “Germany?” protested Jeanette as Dafne slid a chair up behind Elsa. She was glad she wasn’t required to sit on the bed.

  Dafne continued her narrative while standing. “Didn’t I tell you? She came over from Europe when she was twelve in a big, crowded ship like you hear about, with people freezing their toes off and catching horrible diseases. Then she lived in one of those tenements in the city that the socialists and reformers and my mother are always complaining about, with bugs and sewage and more disease . . .”

  Elsa didn’t recall telling Dafne anything about her voyage or apartment in the city.

  “. . . then she worked all day in a sweat shop, making clothes for practically no pay, yet she learned to speak, read, and write English better than I do!” Dafne looked back at Elsa. “I don’t know how you did it.”

  Jeanette didn’t ask Elsa about Germany. Dafne told Jeanette about Germany, occasionally requiring a sentence or two from Elsa, from which she would construct a fantastic tale of Elsa’s life. Amazingly, Dafne’s stories were never far from the truth, even if they were more elaborate.

  The longer she stayed in their presence, the more Elsa felt like one of them, rather than inferior in social standing. Yet once she recognized this feeling, she resisted it. She had to re­member her place. She looked for an opportunity to slip away.

  Suddenly Dafne demanded that Jeanette play billiards with her. They dashed down the hall to the room with the billiard table. Elsa hadn’t seen this room on her tour with Chris, who had skipped the entire second floor.

  Elsa thought this would be a good moment to make her escape, but Dafne made her stay and watch as she thrashed Jeanette in a game of pool.

  Next, Dafne insisted that Elsa learn the game. Elsa vehemently protested, knowing there was still work to be done in the kitchen, but Dafne was unmoved. She authoritatively thrust the stick into Elsa’s hand. After several inept attempts, Elsa finally sunk a ball. She hopped in place with pleasure before she could stop herself. She was then required to play a game with Jeanette.

  “My brother Glenn came home today,” Jeanette told Dafne before striking a ball.

  “Really?” Dafne didn’t sound very interested. “Came home from where?”

  “Harvard, you silly!”

  “Oh, is he graduating?”

  “No. He still has another year. He’ll be home for two weeks. He’ll be at the dance at the grange tomorrow and knows all the new dances. You’re coming, of course?”

  “Nobody told me there was a dance.” Now Dafne’s interest was piqued. “Who else’ll be there?”

  “The usual crowd,” said Jeanette as she hit the cue ball aga
in. Elsa’s turn had been quick and uneventful. After watching the satisfying plop of the ball into the pocket, Jeanette turned back to her friend. “Yes, that means Will Sweeney, too.”

  Dafne smiled.

  Jeanette floated around the table to take another shot. “There’s a hot little band from New York that’s coming to play, so it should be a good show.”

  By now Dafne was nearly giddy in anticipation of the party.

  Jeanette missed her shot, and Elsa prepared for her own. But she never got to take it. Mrs. Graham appeared at the top of the stairs and summoned her to follow. Elsa straightened quickly, fearing she had been caught doing something very wrong. It didn’t matter that Dafne had forced her to play. She expected to get fired.

  With growing dread, she handed the pool cue to Jeanette and followed Mrs. Graham down the stairs, chiding herself again and again for having been caught playing a game. Mrs. Graham led her to Mr. Graham’s study—one of the first-floor rooms in which Elsa hadn’t yet gone. He sat in a big chair behind a desk. Elsa curtseyed.

  “What’s your name, girl?”

  “Elsa Schuller.”

  “What part of Germany are you from?”

  “Niedersachson, sir.”

  He motioned for Elsa to sit and for his wife to leave. As soon as she was seated, Elsa began to feel more relaxed. At least she wasn’t getting fired this very moment.

  Mr. Graham’s study looked notably older than the rest of the Grahams’ modern home. Although the actual structure of the room was the same, the antique desk and chairs, walls of old books and two corrugated-metal candlesticks on the desk gave the office an ancient feel. Although there was an electric light in the center of the ceiling, Mr. Graham clearly preferred to work by candlelight.

  “I have seen samplings of your translation work,” said Mr. Graham, “so I trust you are equal to the task. But I would like to see you translate a brief of mine tonight so I can observe your work for myself.”

  As her fear subsided, Elsa took a moment to observe Mr. Graham. He seemed to be a serious but gentle man. His brown hair was a light enough shade that Elsa did not immediately notice where it was streaked with gray.