Big Sister was out in the yard with a stranger who wasn’t religious? And so all five of us, Little Three-Year-Old Sister, too, ran into the cold in our flannel nighties to be with them. It was pitch black and there was mud and puddles everywhere between the old boards and old tools. We ducked beneath the laundry lines and showed the man the shack. Yulia’s old nameplate had been ripped away by the storm and only the new one was left, the one with the Hebrew name we had given her, because we took it from the Bible and put it on her door, and she just smiled and let us do it.
18
The human resources manager watched the first key turn in the lock and felt certain the second would open something too. It’s mission accomplished, he thought. I’ve got the right woman. And she’s still ours, the personnel division’s. But whyare these sweet little girls still standing around me, shivering in their long nighties? One of them must be my daughter’s age. What do they want from me? Now that I’ve opened the door, they must be waiting for me to go and look for what I promised to take to the hospital.
He beamed at them and said:
“Darlings, thank you for your help. It’s awfully wet and cold out here. And very late, too. Run along now and go to bed before you catch cold.”
Although all six sisters, from the biggest to the smallest, were startled by his strict, if fatherly, tone, they wavered for a moment, as if unsure whether an irreligious stranger need be obeyed. Then, all at once, like a flock of birds warned of danger by a single wing flap, they flew off without looking back. Stepping into the shack, he entered a cool, dark space whose smell of ancient sleep seemed never to have been aired.
He switched on the overhead light. The bulb was weak and he had trouble seeing even after lighting a small table lamp. The bed was rumpled, as if a bad dream had made the sleeper jump out on the last morning she had risen. Behind the pillow was another lamp, attached to the wall. Now there was enough light to survey the room.
For a second, he recoiled. Who had given him permission to be here? Yet he quickly collected himself. The company’s humanity was under attack; it was time for compassion, concern, and involvement, not apologies. If he were to dispose of this woman’s belongings and try to arrange compensation, he had to find a human link to her. Yes, compensation. Why not?
A doll in the form of a barefoot monk lay at the foot of the bed. It had a black robe and a beard of flax, dyed black, on its face. The resource manager held it up to see what it was made of before placing it on a shelf beside a small transistor radio, which he could not resist turning on, hoping to catch the end of the concert. Removing his gloves, he fiddled with the stations. For a while, there was a confusion of sounds; then hefound the wavelength of the unknown, sonorous symphony; the wind section was now trumpeting a solemn slow movement . Carefully holding the little radio, he removed, with a twinge of emotion, a flowery blouse from a wobbly straw armchair, sat down, and shut his eyes.
Back in his days as a salesman, when he’d spent many a night in hotels and lived in constant fear of insomnia, he had made a point of never going to bed before midnight. Now, after leaving his wife and moving in with his mother, he had developed the habit of taking a short but sound nap every evening, when the TV news came on. This helped him stay fresh for a night of bar hopping in the smart new establishments in town, where he hoped to meet someone new. Tonight, though, the nap would have to be symbolic, hastily snatched in the room of the departed cleaning woman.
Although both the door and the main window were shut tight, it was bitingly cold in the shack even with his coat and scarf on. The reason, he saw when he went to look for it, was another, small, open window in the bathroom. A laundry line ran from it to a nearby fence. Visible in the light of the
18
The human resources manager watched the first key turn in the lock and felt certain the second would open something too. It’s mission accomplished, he thought. I’ve got the right woman. And she’s still ours, the personnel division’s. But whyare these sweet little girls still standing around me, shivering in their long nighties? One of them must be my daughter’s age. What do they want from me? Now that I’ve opened the door, they must be waiting for me to go and look for what I promised to take to the hospital.
He beamed at them and said:
“Darlings, thank you for your help. It’s awfully wet and cold out here. And very late, too. Run along now and go to bed before you catch cold.”
Although all six sisters, from the biggest to the smallest, were startled by his strict, if fatherly, tone, they wavered for a moment, as if unsure whether an irreligious stranger need be obeyed. Then, all at once, like a flock of birds warned of danger by a single wing flap, they flew off without looking back. Stepping into the shack, he entered a cool, dark space whose smell of ancient sleep seemed never to have been aired.
He switched on the overhead light. The bulb was weak and he had trouble seeing even after lighting a small table lamp. The bed was rumpled, as if a bad dream had made the sleeper jump out on the last morning she had risen. Behind the pillow was another lamp, attached to the wall. Now there was enough light to survey the room.
For a second, he recoiled. Who had given him permission to be here? Yet he quickly collected himself. The company’s humanity was under attack; it was time for compassion, concern, and involvement, not apologies. If he were to dispose of this woman’s belongings and try to arrange compensation, he had to find a human link to her. Yes, compensation. Why not?
A doll in the form of a barefoot monk lay at the foot of the bed. It had a black robe and a beard of flax, dyed black, on its face. The resource manager held it up to see what it was made of before placing it on a shelf beside a small transistor radio, which he could not resist turning on, hoping to catch the end of the concert. Removing his gloves, he fiddled with the stations. For a while, there was a confusion of sounds; then hefound the wavelength of the unknown, sonorous symphony; the wind section was now trumpeting a solemn slow movement . Carefully holding the little radio, he removed, with a twinge of emotion, a flowery blouse from a wobbly straw armchair, sat down, and shut his eyes.
Back in his days as a salesman, when he’d spent many a night in hotels and lived in constant fear of insomnia, he had made a point of never going to bed before midnight. Now, after leaving his wife and moving in with his mother, he had developed the habit of taking a short but sound nap every evening, when the TV news came on. This helped him stay fresh for a night of bar hopping in the smart new establishments in town, where he hoped to meet someone new. Tonight, though, the nap would have to be symbolic, hastily snatched in the room of the departed cleaning woman.
Although both the door and the main window were shut tight, it was bitingly cold in the shack even with his coat and scarf on. The reason, he saw when he went to look for it, was another, small, open window in the bathroom. A laundry line ran from it to a nearby fence. Visible in the light of the
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