Girl Reading by Katie Ward Page A

where marshals struggle to hold the mob back so they can be seen individually within. The gang vents its frustration by jostling and grumbling at the front, by pushing and yelling at the back, where they strain to see what is happening. They press onward. Desperation and conviction swell the throng, each applicant eager to catch the eye of the Committee, impatient to be signed up. Advance, advance, stand out from the masses. Be fearless. Many will be turned away.
    The son of a painter, more timid than most, huddles down and presses between the shoulders and torsos of his rivals. He is kickedand punched. The new suit of clothes his parents gave him marks him out as middle class, may get torn before he is seen. His nose may get bloodied or his teeth knocked out. If he stumbles, they will trample him. He pushes toward the front of the multitude. He digs deep.
    At the same time, elsewhere in the city, a maid works vigorously through the rooms of a house, brushing, scrubbing, shaking out. When she has finished a job, she slaps the furniture or object, admonishing it for becoming dirty. Now she makes the beds, smack for being slept in. Now she empties a dustpan, bang for getting dusty. She picks up her mistress’s shoes and drops them, thud, thud, find your own way back. It is only when she is standing on a chair forcefully rubbing at the windowpanes that her energy subsides, the glass gleaming, the latticed sunlight streaming in. She has expended some of her anger.
    Esther can only be this way when she is on her own. Is it really the best use of her solitude? Closing the widows gently and stepping down from the chair, she looks about to see what is left to do in the lady’s bedroom. Cushions to be set straight, jewelry to be put away, the mirror on the wall needs a polish. It is too early to move the cradle in, but perhaps time to sort out baby clothes from the storage trunks. She wipes her hands down her apron, tries not to think of Young Pieter.
    Certain there are some in a chest here, she opens it and examines the contents. Jurina’s dresses and petticoats are at the top; these Esther sets aside in neat piles. Beneath are the shifts, bootees, and bonnets each of the children has outgrown; blankets, swaddling, a christening gown. Jurina should choose. Carefully Esther excavates the layers and separates this from that. A few family documents and letters and sheet music are kept here. Milk teeth in a jar. A perfume bottle from the Orient. Spare leather. Embroidery thread. And books. Only three, all unwanted gifts. The maid knows these. Jurina’s books, literature, are neglected. She prefers her Calvinist Bible.
    At this moment—when temptation invites, when it hurts no one and discovery is unlikely—a pause. Esther covets this. Not wealth, not the station of her mistress, not the person of her master. She covets this, the liberty to sit, to choose. A suspension. The awareness of an indistinct version of herself who comes into focus, who steps into the light.
    The beautiful story of the knight Malegis, who won the famous horse Baiart and undertook many wonderful adventures.
    The rhythms of the story fill her up.
    Esther does not have the disposition to dwell on who deserves what, and why she should be born to one class and not another, for reality is reality. She is concerned with her own spiritual well-being and goes to church for that. She is good at her job, for if she has to work, she will work well. But who is this other Esther, stirred into life when she is permitted to read stories? She remembers her from childhood—the girl who picked wildflowers for their magical properties, who had imaginary friends, who would stare at the fireplace alive with dancing, wicked goblins. This is the Esther to whom her parents would tell and retell parables and folk tales, and she would sit and listen without interrupting while their hands made dancing shadows.
    The romance she is engrossed in has made etchings in her mind’s eye; she