The Help / Прислуга. Книга для чтения на английском языке

I take the seat in front a her, turn around and listen. Everbody like to listen to Minny.

“…so I said, Miss Walters, the world don’t want a see your naked white behind any more than they want a see my black one. Now, get in this house and put your underpants and some clothes on.”

“On the front porch? Naked?” Kiki Brown ask.

“Her behind hanging to her knees.”

The bus is laughing and chuckling and shaking they heads.

“Law, that woman crazy,” Kiki say. “I don’t know how you always seem to get the crazy ones, Minny.”

“Oh, like your Miss Patterson ain’t?” Minny say to Kiki. “Shoot, she call the roll a the crazy lady club.” The whole bus be laughing now cause Minny don’t like nobody talking bad about her white lady except herself. That’s her job and she own the rights.

The bus cross the bridge and make the first stop in the colored neighborhood. A dozen or so maids get off. I go set in the open seat next to Minny. She smile, bump me hello with her elbow. Then she relax back in her seat cause she don’t have to put on no show for me.

“How you doing? You have to iron pleats this morning?”

I laugh, nod my head. “Took me a hour and a half.”

“What you feed Miss Walters at bridge club today? I worked all morning making that fool a caramel cake and then she wouldn’t eat a crumb.”

That makes me remember what Miss Hilly say at the table today. Any other white lady and no one would care, but we’d all want a know if Miss Hilly after us. I just don’t know how to put it.

I look out the window at the colored hospital go by, the fruit stand. “I think I heard Miss Hilly say something about that, bout her mama getting skinny.” I say this careful as I can. “Say maybe she getting malnutritious.”

Minny look at me. “She did, did she?” Just the name make her eyes narrow. “What else Miss Hilly say?”

I better just go on and say it. “I think she got her eye on you, Minny. Just… be extra careful around her.”

“Miss Hilly ought to be extra careful around me. What she say, I can’t cook? She say that old bag a bones ain’t eating cause I can’t feed her?” Minny stand up, throw her purse up on her arm.

“I’m sorry, Minny, I only told you so you stay out a her —”

“She ever say that to me, she gone get a piece a Minny for lunch.” She huff down the steps.

I watch her through the window, stomping off toward her house. Miss Hilly ain’t somebody to mess with[12]. Law, maybe I should a just kept it to myself.

A couple mornings later, I get off the bus, walk the block to Miss Leefolt’s house. Parked in front is a old lumber truck. They’s two colored mens inside, one drinking a cup a coffee, the other asleep setting straight up. I go on past, into the kitchen.

Mister Raleigh Leefolt still at home this morning, which is rare. Whenever he here, he look like he just counting the minutes till he get to go back to his accounting job. Even on Saturday. But today he carrying on bout something.

“This is my damn house and I pay for what goddamn goes in it!” Mister Leefolt yell.

Miss Leefolt trying to keep up behind him with that smile that mean she ain’t happy. I hide out in the washroom. It’s been two days since the bathroom talk come up and I was hoping it was over. Mister Leefolt opens the back door to look at the truck setting there, slam it back close again.

“I put up with the new clothes, all the damn trips to New Orleans with your sorority sisters, but this takes the goddamn cake.”

“But it’ll increase the value of the house. Hilly said so!” I’m still in the washroom, but I can almost hear Miss Leefolt trying to keep that smile on her face.

“We can’t afford it! And we do not take orders from the Holbrooks!”

Everthing get real quiet for a minute. Then I hear the pap-pap a little feetum pajamas.

“Da-dee?”

I come out the washroom and into the kitchen then cause Mae Mobley’s my business.

Mister Leefolt already kneeling down to her. He’s wearing a smile look like it’s made out a rubber. “Guess what, honey?”

She smile back. She waiting for a good surprise.

“You’re not going to college so your mama’s friends don’t have to use the same bathroom as the maid.”

He stomp off and slam the door so hard it make Baby Girl blink.

Miss Leefolt look down at her, start shaking her finger. “Mae Mobley, you know you’re not supposed to climb up out of your crib!”

Baby Girl, she looking at the door her daddy slammed, she looking at her mama frowning down at her. My baby, she swallowing it back, like she trying real hard not to cry.

I rush past Miss Leefolt, pick Baby Girl up. I whisper, “Let’s go on in the living room and play with the talking toy. What that donkey say?”

“She keeps getting up. I put her back in bed three times this morning.”

“Cause somebody needs changing[13]. Whooooweeee.”

Miss Leefolt tisk, say, “Well I didn’t realize…” but she already staring out the window at the lumber truck.

I go on to the back, so mad I’m stomping. Baby Girl been in that bed since eight o’clock last night, a course she need changing! Miss Leefolt try to sit in twelve hours worth a bathroom mess without getting up!

I lay Baby Girl on the changing table, try to keep my mad inside. Baby Girl stare up at me while I take off her diaper. Then she reach out her little hand. She touch my mouth real soft.

“Mae Mo been bad,” she say.

“No, baby, you ain’t been bad,” I say, smoothing her hair back. “You been good. Real good.”

I live on Gessum Avenue, where I been renting since 1942. You could say Gessum got a lot a personality. The houses all be small, but every front yard’s different – some scrubby and grassless like a baldheaded old man. Others got azalea bushes and roses and thick green grass. My yard, I reckon it be somewhere in between.

I got a few red camellia bushes out front a the house. My grass be kind a spotty and I still got a big yellow mark where Treelore’s pickup sat for three months after the accident. I ain’t got no trees. But the backyard, now it looks like the Garden of Eden. That’s where my next-door neighbor, Ida Peek, got her vegetable patch.

Ida ain’t got no backyard to speak of what with all her husband’s junk – car engines and old refrigerators and tires. Stuff he say he gone fix but never do. So I tell Ida she come plant on my side. That way I don’t have no mowing to tend to and she let me pick whatever I need, save me two or three dollars ever week. She put up what we don’t eat, give me jars for the winter season. Good turnip greens, eggplant, okra by the bushel, all kind a gourds. I don’t know how she keep them bugs out a her tomatoes, but she do. And they good.

That evening, it’s raining hard outside. I pull out a jar a Ida Peek’s cabbage and tomato, eat my last slice a leftover cornbread. Then I set down to look over my finances cause two things done happen: the bus gone up to fifteen cents a ride and my rent gone up to twenty-nine dollars a month. I work for Miss Leefolt eight to four, six days a week except Saturdays. I get paid forty-three dollars ever Friday, which come to $172 a month. That means after I pay the light bill, the water bill, the gas bill, and the telephone bill, I got thirteen dollars and fifty cents a week left for my groceries, my clothes, getting my hair done, and tithing to the church. Not to mention the cost to mail these bills done gone up to a nickel. And my work shoes is so thin, they look like they starving to death. New pair cost seven dollars though, which means I’m on be eating cabbage and tomato till I turn into Br’er Rabbit[14]. Thank the Lord for Ida Peek, else I be eating nothing.

My phone ring, making me jump. Before I can even say hello, I hear Minny. She working late tonight.

“Miss Hilly sending Miss Walters to the old lady home. I got to find myself a new job. And you know when she going? Next week.”

“Oh no, Minny.”

“I been looking, call ten ladies today. Not even a speck a interest.”

I am sorry to say I ain’t surprised. “I ask Miss Leefolt first thing tomorrow do she know anybody need help.”

“Hang on,” Minny say. I hear old Miss Walter talking and Minny say, “What you think I am? A chauffeur? I ain’t driving you to no country club in the pouring rain.”

Sides stealing, worse thing you’n do for your career as a maid is have a smart mouth. Still, she such a good cook, sometimes it makes up for it.

“Don’t you worry, Minny. We gone find you somebody deaf as a doe-knob, just like Miss Walter.”

“Miss Hilly been hinting around for me to come work for her.”

“What?” I talk stern as I can: “Now you look a here, Minny, I support you myself fore I let you work for that evil lady.”

“Who you think you talking to, Aibileen? A monkey? I might as well go work for the KKK[15]. And you know I never take Yule May’s job away.”

“I’m sorry, Lordy me.” I just get so nervous when it come to Miss Hilly. “I call Miss Caroline over on Honeysuckle, see if she know somebody. And I call Miss Ruth, she so nice it near bout break your heart. Used to clean up the house ever morning so I didn’t have nothing to do but keep her company. Her husband died a the scarlet fever, mm-hmm.”

“Thank you, A. Now come on, Miss Walters, eat up a little green bean for me.” Minny say goodbye and hang up the phone.

The next morning, there that old green lumber truck is again. Banging’s already started but Mister Leefolt ain’t stomping around today. I guess he know he done lost this one before it even started.

Miss Leefolt setting at the kitchen table in her blue-quilt bathrobe talking on the telephone. Baby Girl’s got red sticky all over her face, hanging on to her mama’s knees trying to get her look at her.

“Morning, Baby Girl,” I say.

“Mama! Mama!” she say, trying to crawl up in Miss Leefolt’s lap.

“No, Mae Mobley.” Miss Leefolt nudge her down. “Mama’s on the telephone. Let Mama talk.”

“Mama, pick up,” Mae Mobley whine and reach out her arms to her mama. “Pick Mae Mo up.”

“Hush,” Miss Leefolt whisper.

I scoop Baby Girl up right quick and take her over to the sink, but she keep craning her neck around, whining, “Mama, Mama,” trying to get her attention.

“Just like you told me to say it.” Miss Leefolt nodding into the phone. “Someday when we move, it’ll raise the value of the house.”

“Come on, Baby Girl. Put your hands here, under the water.”

But Baby Girl wriggling hard. I’m trying to get the soap on her fingers but she twisting and turning and she snake right out my arms. She run straight to her mama and stick out her chin and then she jerk the phone cord hard as she can. The receiver clatter out a Miss Leefolt’s hand and hit the floor.

“Mae Mobley!” I say.

I rush to get her but Miss Leefolt get there first. Her lips is curled back from her teeth in a scary smile. Miss Leefolt slap Baby Girl on the back a her bare legs so hard I jump from the sting.

Then Miss Leefolt grab Mae Mobley by the arm, jerk it hard with ever word. “Don’t you touch this phone again, Mae Mobley!” she say. “Aibileen, how many times do I have to tell you to keep her away from me when I am on the phone!”

“I’m sorry,” I say and I pick up Mae Mobley, try to hug her to me, but she bawling and her face is red and she fighting me.

“Come on, Baby Girl, it’s all right, everthing —”

Mae Mobley make an ugly face at me and then she rear back and bowp! She whack me right on the ear.

Miss Leefolt point at the door, yell, “Aibileen, you both just get out.”

I carry her out the kitchen. I’m so mad at Miss Leefolt, I’m biting my tongue. If the fool would just pay her child some attention, this wouldn’t happen! When we make it to Mae Mobley’s room, I set in the rocking chair. She sob on my shoulder and I rub her back, glad she can’t see the mad on my face. I don’t want her to think it’s at her.

“You okay, Baby Girl?” I whisper. My ear smarting from her little fist. I’m so glad she hit me instead a her mama, cause I don’t know what that woman would a done to her. I look down and see red fingermarks on the back a her legs.

“I’m here, baby, Aibee’s here,” I rock and soothe, rock and soothe.

But Baby Girl, she just cry and cry.

Around lunchtime, when my stories come on tee-vee, it gets quiet out in the carport. Mae Mobley’s in my lap helping me string the beans. She still kind a fussy from this morning. I reckon I am too, but I done pushed it down to a place where I don’t have to worry with it.

We go in the kitchen and I fix her baloney sandwich. In the driveway, the workmen is setting in they truck, eating they own lunches. I’m glad for the peace. I smile over at Baby Girl, give her a strawberry, so grateful I was here during the trouble with her mama. I hate to think what would a happen if I wasn’t. She stuff the strawberry in her mouth, smile back. I think she feel it too.

Miss Leefolt ain’t here so I think about calling Minny at Miss Walter, see if she found any work yet. But before I get around to it, they’s a knock on the back door. I open it to see one a the workmen standing there. He real old. Got coveralls on over a white collar shirt.

“Hidee, ma’am. Trouble you for some water?” he ask. I don’t recognize him. Must live somewhere south a town.

“Sho nuff[16],” I say.

I go get a paper cup from the cupboard. It’s got happy birthday balloons on it from when Mae Mobley turn two. I know Miss Leefolt don’t want me giving him one a the glasses.

He drink it in one long swallow and hand me the cup back. His face be real tired. Kind a lonesome in the eyes.

“How y’all coming along?” I ask.

“It’s work,” he say. “Still ain’t no water to it. Reckon we run a pipe out yonder from the road.”

“Other fella need a drink?” I ask.

“Be mighty nice.” He nod and I go get his friend a little funny-looking cup too, fill it up from the sink.

He don’t take it to his partner right away.

“Beg a pardon,” he say, “but where…” He stand there a minute, look down at his feet. “Where might I go to make water?”

He look up and I look at him and for a minute we just be looking. I mean, it’s one a them funny things. Not the ha-ha funny but the funny where you be thinking: Huh. Here we is with two in the house and one being built and they still ain’t no place for this man to do his business.

“Well…” I ain’t never been in this position before. The young’un, Robert, who do the yard ever two weeks, I guess he go fore he come over. But this fella, he a old man. Got heavy wrinkled hands. Seventy years a worry done put so many lines in his face, he like a roadmap.

“I spec you gone have to go in the bushes, back a the house,” I hear myself say, but I wish it weren’t me. “Dog’s back there, but he won’t bother you.”

“Alright then,” he say. “Thank ya.”

I watch him walk back real slow with the cup a water for his partner.

The banging and the digging go on the rest a the afternoon.

All the next day long, they’s hammering and digging going on in the front yard. I don’t ask Miss Leefolt no questions about it and Miss Leefolt don’t offer no explanation. She just peer out the back door ever hour to see what’s going on.

Three o’clock the racket stops and the mens get in they truck and leave. Miss Leefolt, she watch em drive off, let out a big sigh. Then she get in her car and go do whatever it is she do when she ain’t nervous bout a couple a colored mens hanging round her house.

After while, the phone ring.

“Miss Leef —”

“She telling everbody in town I’m stealing! That’s why I can’t get no work! That witch done turned me into the Smart-Mouthed Criminal Maid a Hinds County!”

“Hold on, Minny, get your breath —”

“Before work this morning, I go to the Renfroes’ over on Sycamore and Miss Renfroe near bout chase me off the property. Say Miss Hilly told her about me, everbody know I stole a candelabra from Miss Walters!”

I can hear the grip she got on the phone, sound like she trying to crush it in her hand. I hear Kindra holler and I wonder why Minny already home. She usually don’t leave work till four.

“I ain’t done nothing but feed that old woman good food and look after her!”

“Minny, I know you honest. God know you honest.”

Her voice dip down, like bees on a comb. “When I walk into Miss Walters’, Miss Hilly be there and she try to give me twenty dollars. She say, ‘Take it. I know you need it,’ and I bout spit in her face. But I didn’t. No sir.” She start making this panting noise, she say, “I did worse.”

“What you did?”

“I ain’t telling[17]. I ain’t telling nobody about that pie. But I give her what she deserve!” She wailing now and I feel a real cold fear. Ain’t no game crossing Miss Hilly. “I ain’t never gone get no work again, Leroy gone kill me…”

Kindra gets to crying in the background. Minny hang up without even saying goodbye. I don’t know what she talking about a pie. But Law, knowing Minny, it could not have been good.

That night, I pick me a poke salad and a tomato out a Ida’s garden. I fry up some ham, make a little gravy for my biscuit. My wig been brushed out and put up, got my pink rollers in, already sprayed the Good Nuff on my hair. I been worried all afternoon, thinking bout Minny. I got to put it out a my mind if I’m on get some sleep tonight.

I set at my table to eat, turn on the kitchen radio. Little Stevie Wonder’s[18] singing “Fingertips.” Being colored ain’t nothing on that boy. He twelve years old, blind, and got a hit on the radio. When he done, I skip over Pastor Green playing his sermon and stop on WBLA. They play the juke-joint blues.

I like them smoky, liquor-drinking sounds when it get dark. Makes me feel like my whole house is full a people. I can almost see em, swaying here in my kitchen, dancing to the blues. When I turn off the ceiling light, I pretend we at The Raven. They’s little tables with red-covered lights. It’s May or June and warm. My man Clyde flash me his white-toothed smile and say Honey, you want you a drink? And I say, Black Mary straight up and then I get to laughing at myself, setting in my kitchen having this daydream, cause the raciest thing I ever take is the purple Nehi.

Memphis Minny get to singing on the radio how lean meat won’t fry, which is about how the love don’t last. Time to time, I think I might find myself another man, one from my church. Problem is, much as I love the Lord, churchgoing man never do all that much for me. Kind a man I like ain’t the kind that stays around when he done spending all you money. I made that mistake twenty years ago. When my husband Clyde left me for that no-count hussy up on Farish Street, one they call Cocoa, I figured I better shut the door for good on that kind a business.

A cat get to screeching outside and bring me back to my cold kitchen. I turn the radio off and the light back on, fish my prayer book out my purse. My prayer book is just a blue notepad I pick up at the Ben Franklin store. I use a pencil so I can erase till I get it right. I been writing my prayers since I was in junior high. When I tell my seventh-grade teacher I ain’t coming back to school cause I got to help out my mama, Miss Ross just about cried.

“You’re the smartest one in the class, Aibileen,” she say. “And the only way you’re going to keep sharp is to read and write every day.”

So I started writing my prayers down instead a saying em. But nobody’s called me smart since.

I turn the pages a my prayer book to see who I got tonight. A few times this week, I thought about maybe putting Miss Skeeter on my list. I’m not real sure why. She always nice when she come over. It makes me nervous, but I can’t help but wonder what she was gone ask me in Miss Leefolt’s kitchen, about do I want to change things. Not to mention her asking me the whereabouts a Constantine, her maid growing up. I know what happen between Constantine and Miss Skeeter’s mama and ain’t no way I’m on tell her that story.

The thing is though, if I start praying for Miss Skeeter, I know that conversation gone continue the next time I see her. And the next and the next. Cause that’s the way prayer do. It’s like electricity, it keeps things going. And the bathroom situation, it just ain’t something I really want to discuss.

I scan down my prayer list. My Mae Mobley got the number one rung, then they’s Fanny Lou at church, ailing from the rheumatism. My sisters Inez and Mable in Port Gibson that got eighteen kids between em and six with the flu. When the list be thin, I slip in that old stinky white fella that live behind the feed store, the one lost his mind from drinking the shoe polish. But the list be pretty full tonight.

And look a there who else I done put on this list. Bertrina Bessemer a all people! Everbody know Bertrina and me don’t take to each other[19] ever since she call me a nigga fool for marrying Clyde umpteen years ago[20].

“Minny,” I say last Sunday, “why Bertrina ask me to pray for her?”

We walking home from the one o’clock service. Minny say, “Rumor is you got some kind a power prayer, gets better results than just the regular variety.”

“Say what?”

“Eudora Green, when she broke her hip, went on your list, up walking in a week. Isaiah fell off the cotton truck, on your prayer list that night, back to work the next day.”

Hearing this made me think about how I didn’t even get the chance to pray for Treelore. Maybe that’s why God took him so fast. He didn’t want a have to argue with me.

“Snuff Washington,” Minny say, “Lolly Jackson – heck, Lolly go on your list and two days later she pop up from her wheelchair like she touched Jesus. Everbody in Hinds County know about that one.”

“But that ain’t me,” I say. “That’s just prayer.”

“But Bertrina —” Minny get to laughing, say, “You know Cocoa, the one Clyde run off with?”

“Phhh. You know I never forget her.”

“Week after Clyde left you, I heard that Cocoa wake up to her cootchie spoilt like a rotten oyster. Didn’t get better for three months. Bertrina, she good friends with Cocoa. She know your prayer works.”

My mouth drop open. Why she never tell me this before? “You saying people think I got the black magic?”

“I knew it make you worry if I told you. They just think you got a better connection than most. We all on a party line to God, but you, you setting right in his ear.”

My teapot start fussing on the stove, bringing me back to real life. Law, I reckon I just go ahead and put Miss Skeeter on the list, but how come, I don’t know. Which reminds me a what I don’t want a think about, that Miss Leefolt’s building me a bathroom cause she think I’m diseased. And Miss Skeeter asking don’t I want to change things, like changing Jackson, Mississippi, gone be like changing a lightbulb.

I’m stringing beans in Miss Leefolt’s kitchen and the phone rings. I’m hoping it’s Minny to say she found something. I done called everbody I ever waited on and they all told me the same thing: “We ain’t hiring.[21]” But what they really mean is: “We ain’t hiring Minny.”

Even though Minny already had her last day a work three days ago, Miss Walter call Minny in secret last night, ask her to come in today cause the house feel too empty, what with most the furniture already taken away by Miss Hilly. I still don’t know what happen with Minny and Miss Hilly. I reckon I don’t really want to know.

“Leefolt residence.”

“Um, hi. This is…” The lady stop, clear her throat. “Hello. May I… may I please speak to Elizabeth Leerfolt?”

“Miss Leefolt ain’t home right now. May I take a message?”

“Oh,” she say, like she got all excited over nothing.

“May I ask who calling?”

“This is… Celia Foote. My husband gave me this number here and I don’t know Elizabeth, but… well, he said she knows all about the Children’s Benefit and the Ladies League.” I know this name, but I can’t quite place it. This woman talk like she from so deep in the country she got corn growing in her shoes. Her voice is sweet though, high-pitch. Still, she don’t sound like the ladies round here do.

“I give her your message,” I say. “What’s your number?”

“I’m kind of new here and, well, that’s not true, I’ve been here a pretty good stretch, gosh, over a year now. I just don’t really know anybody. I don’t… get out too much.”

She clear her throat again and I’m wondering why she telling me all this. I’m the maid, she ain’t gone win no friends talking to me.

“I was thinking maybe I could help out with the Children’s Benefit from home,” she say.