How should I recognize him, my recognition is based on memories, on all those little sequences as different parts of him have become visible down through the years.
Who he really is, she said, the manager.
What you mean, I should actually have said, is who I want him to be.
IN THE FIRST few days after we had engaged her, Marija confined herself to the floors and stairs. She washed the long corridor upstairs, worked on the staircase, audibly discussed with herself what kind of cleaning product would be most suitable for the old linoleum on the stairway leading to the basement, discarded several bottles before asking dejectedly if she could buy a different brand. After only two days I saw her perched on a ladder outside the windows while rivers of soapy water covered the surface of the glass, like a heavy downpour of rain. Her face came gradually into view through vertical lines in the water, she lifted the squeegee and drew it down to the sill, the determined expression she wore when she was working. In the rooms there was an aroma of lemon that I immediately began to associate with her, it became her scent. Surfactant and soap. Pine needles.
We did not like our new role, neither Simon nor I. The more determinedly she labored, the greater our discomfort became. This feeling of contributing to a system that is not entirely regulated, of making use of cheap labor, people without rights.
At the same time we were keeping an eye on her during that initial period, listening to her footsteps around the house, we got the idea that perhaps she was not cleaning the house at all, but inspecting our closets or simply standing talking into her cell phone like the previous home help had done. Simon read an article in the newspaper about East European thieves and left the newspaper lying open at the page so I could read it too. He did not say anything, I did not say anything. It was a shameful little scenario. We probably both excused ourselves by saying we have never been used to having other people in such close proximity.
It also took the form of a kind of guessing game. What do you think she’s doing down there in the utility room, she’s been there now for over an hour. I think we used her as the basis of some jokes too. In the beginning. Would it have surprised her if she had known that? Eventually that passed, it vanished, that initial nervousness or uncertainty, we had let someone in, a stranger. We became used to the closeness. It almost felt like cooperation, although it was by no means that. Curiosity became more kindly disposed. After a while. It took awhile.
One evening after she had left, Simon asked if I thought she had done the same kind of work in her native country. She had commented on a book by an author we both admired. Simon had not expected that, I think it startled him.
I don’t know, I said. You ought to ask her.
Shaking his head, he said he could not ask about that, he felt it implied something. That it could be misunderstood.
Imply what you think of her, about this type of work, I said.
No, that’s wrong, he answered. He most decidedly felt I was mistaken. He only wanted to know what she did in her own country, the home help. It was not a denigration of this kind of work, or of her.
That’s not the way I regard her.
He said.
No, I answered.
But we both knew it.
What lies there. Hidden underneath. Beneath all the understanding, the goodwill. We do not disturb it.
THE HOME HELP and her, perhaps I tried to distinguish the two, make them into two different people. She did not suit the notion I had of home help. Nevertheless: Now that is what I recall, that thing about her height, that she could lift a man, what is that, what kind of meaning does that have. And that she had a discussion with herself about what type of cleaning product she ought to use. It was an impression I had, actually quite comical, but it contains nothing of what I associate most with Marija. Now it pops up all the same. She has become an idea of home help, they are both the same person, is that not the way I see her? But that was not the way I saw her, the way we saw her. The person she eventually became once we had become acquainted with her, there is not so much to say about that. It is simpler now just to view her as the home help. That tall Latvian woman. After what happened.
IT WAS SIMON who phoned to tell them, our daughters, that we had terminated Marija’s employment. He used that turn of phrase. He could be slightly clumsy when he wanted to express things, a bit careless. It was an unfortunate way to put it. That in itself must have annoyed them. That he spoke in that way about her, about having to let her go. After we had been so dependent on her, after she had been our Marija for more than three years. They were taken aback, he told me afterward. They wanted him to explain why. Marija who had become almost part of the family.
And then they wanted to come home to us and talk about it. Actually all three of them were intending to come, but it was Greta who did. When I think about it now, I see that she has always had the role of the sensible one, the one who takes the lead in proceedings, who puts forward proposals in both camps. I quickly appreciated that she was angry. I guessed that her sisters were too.
My clumsy attempts to express love for them, it has been so important to make them understand, perhaps because of my guilty conscience. About everything we have not said, about what they do not know. They have always been so independent and strong, especially Greta and Kirsten. We were proud of everything the girls did. On Saturdays they used to present little performances for us, cabarets and plays that always developed into wild dance numbers and improvised stories that could continue for hours. They had secrets, we tried to create boundaries for them, give them a good upbringing. We are sitting there watching, they grow up before our very eyes. They are children. Now they are grown up. The girls have always done what they themselves wanted. Apart from Helena, perhaps. I see us in her. Everything we have been afraid of, our cowardice, it has become visible in her. The evasion, the silence.
It was only Greta and I who talked. Simon went into the kitchen to make some coffee. He is so afraid of conflict with the girls. We sat there, Greta and I, she wanted to know why, they wanted to know why, she said. What rules had not been complied with, what could Marija have done wrong.
Her voice had something, sarcasm perhaps, underlying it while she was speaking. She had brought out a pack of cigarettes, opening and closing the lid, repeating that the entire time we were talking. I could see the white patch with the warning and bold script beneath her fingers.
I have my reasons, I said. Dad and I.
But what, she said. What could it be?
She has opinions, I answered, principles that I don’t agree with.
Don’t agree with, she said. What do you mean by that?
I did not know what to say, I was searching for an excuse, a suitable motive, I asked if she knew for example that Marija was against abortion, that she opposed divorce, that she was more fundamentally conservative than I had at first thought. I was vague, it did not make sense. Why should she believe that explanation, believe what I said.
Good God, she’s a Catholic, Mom, Orthodox, what did you expect. The house is falling down. You can’t manage without that help.
Other people manage fine with what they get, I said. I do not even remember what I meant by that.
Greta looked at me. You’ve always been like this, she said. Done whatever you wanted.
She thought it was unseemly, she said. Unseemly.
She fell silent. When she started speaking once more, she seemed only sad, disappointed. As mothers can be when they are talking to their children, as I may have spoken to her when she was younger. She had lit a cigarette and opened the veranda door.