Crackpot, p.12
Crackpot, page 12
Sometimes Hoda had so many feelings all going on in her at the same time that she felt as though she would burst, and all those feelings that were churning around that way inside of her would come splattering out in all directions like her blood and guts were supposed to in that song the kids had once made up about her eating so much she was going to burst. The feelings were so thick in her they even sometimes pushed up into her mind, somehow, without her even wanting them to. The things that got said in her head, some of them were just awful! An awful thought would pop into her head, without her even wanting it, and she’d have to say in her mind, “No, I didn’t mean it,” over and over again, to chase away the bad thought and make it all right. Sometimes her thoughts were just opposite to the thought she really meant to think, and they made her feel bad too, because she must be a really awful person to think things like that about wishing people were dead and other bad and scary stuff like that. She didn’t know how those ideas even got into her head. She just wanted everyone to be nice to everyone else and the lovetime to hurry up, and people to come and buy Daddy’s baskets so there would be money for rent and wood to heat the stove and a new tunic for next fall and maybe a dress or something for now because she wasn’t very good at sewing and Mamma’s housedress looked funny on her the way she had tried to sew in an extra piece to make it fit. Of course, when the really good time came she would be thin and beautiful like everyone else, and have plenty to eat anyway. If only people would hurry up and begin to buy Daddy’s baskets.
It didn’t seem to bother Daddy much; he said they had to be patient, but Hoda was surprised and disappointed that all the people for miles around hadn’t come rushing in to buy as soon as she had hammered up her signs. Why were they so slow? Once the school year was over, and Miss Flake had bid them all a moving farewell, wishing them good luck, each and every one of them, and bidding them pray for all our sakes for a quick Allied victory, and sending them off, after spraying them with her final benediction, “Have a simply splendid summer,” Hoda set out to make sure that people had a chance to get better acquainted with Daddy’s handiwork. She took a whole armful of samples out to sell by herself. She walked all the way to the busiest street in the district, where all the people went to shop, and she walked up and down, all the way up to the farmer’s market and back. The second time she even wound in and out of the aisles of the open-air farmer’s market, beaming broadly and offering baskets and straw bags to everyone she saw. It was fun. You talked to people and people talked to you. Sometimes they shoved you aside and wouldn’t listen, but there were always new people to go up to, so you didn’t have time to feel badly. More important, she actually sold a straw bag, sold it to a farmer who would only pay half the price she asked for it, though he threw in a couple of tomatoes, but the rest was real money he gave her. And then when she was coming back down the main street and stopping people on the way, that cop came and told her to get away and stop bothering people, because she didn’t have a licence to peddle. She wanted to argue with him. This is a free country, isn’t it? Some free country! Only what if he took her to the station like he threatened to when he caught her the second time, and they took away Daddy’s baskets, or worse still, if they found out who she was and Uncle told them to put her in the orphanage or she would go on breaking the law? Well they’d have to catch her first. Next time she saw a cop she’d scoot before he saw her. Someday she’d tell those police what she thought of them and their free country where they chased you around when you weren’t even doing anything wrong but only trying to help your daddy.
It was while she was standing with her baskets in front of the bicycle shop, in the shade under the awning, partly to shield herself from the summer sun, and partly because some boys she knew sometimes came and hung around the bicycle shop window, that a lady who knew her, because Mamma used to work for her, came up and asked Hoda if she wanted to come clean her house sometime like Ma used to. She wouldn’t pay so much at first till Hoda got experienced on the job, but if Hoda was a good girl and worked hard and was honest like her mother, she might even get to earn as much as a grown-up someday. The woman’s name was Mrs. Pankess and she warned Hoda that the last cleaning woman she had was lazy and used to drink the cream off the tops of the milk bottles if she left her alone in the kitchen, even for a minute, and that kind of thing didn’t go with Mrs. Pankess, she wanted Hoda to know right from the start. She turned her milk bottles upside down on cleaning days now so the cream rose to the bottom.
Hoda assured her eagerly that she wouldn’t dream of stealing anyone’s cream. Her mummy had taught her never to drink from the bottle anyway. And she wasn’t lazy; Hoda was sure of that. Not that Mrs. Pankess listened to her protestations. She was too busy telling Hoda all the awful things that cleaning women had done to her. Hoda hadn’t realized how things had deteriorated since her mother had died. They just weren’t the same anymore. Almost, Mrs. Pankess talked as though she was mad at Rahel for having died and betrayed her personally into the hands of the inferior new breed of cleaning woman. Hoda hadn’t realized how important her mother was. She would show this lady that it wasn’t true there was no one left to be trusted. She would work hard. She would prove she wasn’t lazy. And she would earn a lot of money, all summer, while Daddy was gradually building up his basket business.
After the first time she went to work for Mrs. Pankess Hoda wasn’t so sure herself that she wasn’t lazy. Could this be laziness that she felt, this ache in all her bones from scrubbing walls and pushing furniture and washing floors in the summer heat for thirteen whole hours and more? Maybe it was, for she had thought she was through with her work and had been eager to go home hours ago but every-time she had wanted to leave Mrs. Pankess kept giving her new things to do. And though she did all those extra things that hadn’t even been mentioned before, she was not at all sure that she had convinced her employer that she was really as industrious as her mother had been. Mrs. Pankess complained all day, as Hoda worked, and acted as though Hoda were taking advantage of her as she reluctantly counted out the girl’s meagre payment into her eager, reddened palm. But Hoda knew she couldn’t have failed entirely, because in spite of all her criticism, Mrs. Pankess said that she would, after all, call Hoda in the next time she needed to give the place a real going over.
Tired and hungry though Hoda was, because her allotted time for lunch had been brief and her allotment of food minuscule, from her point of view, and she had made the mistake of gobbling down the two sardines and the chunk of stale bread very quickly, not realizing that there would be nothing to follow, she was nevertheless elated. Not only was there real money in her hand, but if one woman wanted her and would pay, why not some of her mother’s other old customers? Maybe they weren’t all as stingy as Mrs. Pankess. Mamma used to talk about her and her stinginess and fussiness, though Mamma had certainly never mentioned the contrasting generosity of Mr. Pankess, well, probably because he wouldn’t dare do that to Mamma. Maybe that was why his wife kept calling out all day, from wherever she happened to be in the house, “Manny, where are you?” to make sure he didn’t have much chance to do that to the cleaner. Poor old man, with that funny shuffle and stiff arm and buggy-out eyes and mouth drooping down one side; she hadn’t even heard him coming up behind her while she was standing on tiptoe on the fourth rung of the ladder, steadying the pail with one hand and scrubbing the wall with the rag in the other, and really scared because the ladder-step jiggled and she didn’t like to be up so high. And then when she felt something touch her behind that way, when she wasn’t even expecting it and didn’t even know he was there, she couldn’t help it, she let out such a yipe! and nearly fell off the ladder.
That sure must have scared him, when she let out that yell, because when she looked around, tugging her sweat-wet dress down again with one hand and clinging to the ladder with the other, he was standing there trying to say “shh shh!” out of his droopy mouth, only it came out “sss…sss!” And his eyes nearly fell out of his head when his wife called out, “What? What did you say? Manny where are you?” from the kitchen, and he frantically felt in his pocket with his good hand and brought out a dime and pushed it into Hoda’s hand, begging her, with his buggy eyes and wordless movements of his slack, stiffened mouth, to be quiet.
“Nothing!” Hoda yelled back to reassure Mrs. Pankess. “I didn’t say anything. I was just singing.” And she felt like singing, too, the rest of the day, with all that extra money to add to her wages. All that money for just a little poke! Husbands were more generous than wives, that was for sure. She couldn’t believe that he didn’t intend to try some more, just to get his dime’s worth. What if he sneaked up on her again? Why didn’t he wait till she was washing the floors? It wasn’t fair while she was on the ladder. A person could fall. Hoda could sense his lurking presence in the background as she worked, shuffling about, awaiting a second chance. Once or twice, as she paused to wipe her sweaty face or tug at her clinging damp garments, she caught his glossy eyes on her, and lowered her own modestly and heaved herself back around to her work. It gave her something to think about as she crawled about the house. It also gave her employer something to complain about. “You’re slow,” Mrs. Pankess commented, at one point. “And why do you keep looking around all the time like that? You’ll never get your work done that way. I’m not paying you to play.”
Hoda tried to work more quickly. No, of course he couldn’t have done it with that stiff arm that hung down at his side. The thought made her shudder, though almost simultaneously she wanted to giggle, at the idea that flashed through her head, that maybe the only times the arm stopped being paralysed was when he saw a girl with her back to him on a ladder. Then it went shooting out suddenly, jab! A whole dime, just for that!
Hoda tried to concentrate on her work, but still she couldn’t help wondering at how easily money could fall into your hand sometimes while at other times you had to work so hard. She felt sorry for poor Mr. Pankess, sorry because she was repelled by the look of him, and a little scared, which was a mean way to feel because he couldn’t help it, and sorry most of all because he really must have fallen passionately in love with her at first sight, if he couldn’t resist coming at her that way. Seraphina only got a nickel for letting that man really do it to her. In a way she was sorry that Mr. Pankess never got a chance to get another feel in that day, not just because he gave her a whole dime, but to make up for the fact that she didn’t love him.
That summer was not as busy with cleaning work as she had hoped it would be, though she did manage to get a few women to overcome their distaste for letting a mere child do heavy physical labour, and allow her to help clean their houses. In her favour was the fact that Hoda was so big and fat that it was somehow easier to forget that she was just an adolescent, at least some of the time. She needed close supervision, though, the women said, and sometimes when she opened her mouth she wouldn’t close it; that was where the childishness showed. You had to be firm with her. If you didn’t keep your eye on her and remind her occasionally of what she was supposed to be doing she tended to moon and dawdle, and given half a chance she would stop work altogether, and with a big, friendly grin on her face follow you around and try to keep you in conversation for hours, talking all kinds of nonsense her head was filled with, poor thing. But she was good-natured, and willing; if you told her to do something she tried to do it, though you did have to watch her. Well, don’t you always have to watch them? If only she didn’t talk so much! When she caught your eye on her she thought you were trying to be sociable, and it would begin all over again, with her daddy this, her daddy that; such a great, clumsy-looking creature with a bust and belly at that age already that could be hiding twins, heaven forbid. Poor orphan. Well, she was stronger than her mother, that was one good thing when it came to moving the furniture around, though sometimes she was a little too enthusiastic in her movements. You had to keep telling her not to be so wild; she might break something. And the way she wolfed down her lunch it was as though she had come straight from the hungry land. No matter how much you had prepared it made you feel like such a cheapskate to see her dabbing her damp finger on the tablecloth and in her empty plate, to pick up crumbs to lick. Not that she asked for more, but in spite of yourself if you had any heart in you you felt compelled to ask if she was still hungry. And she always was. Well, once you’d asked and she said yes what could you do? You could tell her it wasn’t good for her to be so hungry all the time, with all that ugly fat on her, but that was where the childishness showed too, in the sudden rapid blinking of grey eyes that were suddenly watery, as if you were begrudging her instead of telling her for her own good as her mother would have done. So before you knew it, just to prove you weren’t begrudging her, you’d almost emptied the ice box. Well, she was an orphan and just a child, practically. It was a good deed to feed her, and people couldn’t go around then trying to say you were taking advantage of her, just because you were letting her earn a few pennies.
Hoda herself did not in the least realize that she was being so well fed. But her appetite was not helpful to her aspirations as a professional cleaner, since some women who would have been inclined to overcome their reluctance to hiring a schoolgirl for hard physical work, retained their prejudice against such exploitation in view of the uneconomic aspects of such an appetite in a menial. Anyway, a Jewish girl should find something better to do. Some of the women lectured her, as they followed her about the house, interspersing instruction and criticism with well-meant advice. “Enough your mother had to slave her life away. You think if she were alive she’d want to see you crawling after her up the walls? More to the left there, a little higher; you’ve left a grey streak. Watch out, you didn’t wring out the cloth enough. It’s dripping down. Make sure you get all the soap out. What kind of future is there for you? Your mother worked, poor thing, so her daughter shouldn’t have to have swollen knuckles. Be careful, you’ll tip over the ladder. Isn’t it time you should change the water? It’s thrown-away work to wash black with black. She had to do it, poor thing; well, her case was different, an immigrant, a cripple. What choice did she have with a husband who was nothing but a burden? But you’re a young girl. You can study. You can learn to do something more fitting, so your mother shouldn’t have to weep in heaven.”
“That’s what my daddy says,” Hoda would try to express her agreement, though she didn’t like it when people called her mother a cripple, right out, just like that, and her father a burden. What did they know about it? “He and my mamma always wanted me to study and learn and stand up in the world like a real human being, and have something to say so things will get better and better for everybody.”
But the people who hired her only wanted to talk, not listen. They hardly ever let her finish saying anything. “That’s another story. Take my advice. For a young girl you have a little bit too much to say. While you’re working it’s best not to have too much to say because you’ll never get your work done. When you’re working, take my advice, it’s best to listen and not talk. Didn’t I tell you a long time ago to change the water? It’s thrown away work to drip that filth on the walls. Get down, get down, I’ll hold the ladder. Oi, where did you get such a behind? On a young girl, it’s the first time in my life…your mother was such a wisp. You should gobble less food, take my advice. What man will marry you? Gogmagog himself would be baffled. It slows down your work, too. Why would anyone want to lug around such a carcass?”
Hoda didn’t want to lug around such a carcass. She was used to being told in less than complimentary terms about how fat she was, and she didn’t care, really she didn’t. But when, interlarded with all that other stuff that all seemed so kindly meant, people said all those mean things, as if she had no feelings and she mustn’t open her mouth to say anything, when she was working so hard to please them, as if it was her fault that she looked that way, she could feel the water line rising in her eyes, and she had to keep her head tilted a certain way to prevent it from spilling over and also to prevent her employer from noticing it. That was why she was slow in coming down from the ladder, not because she was so big. She just wished Mrs. Shmantz would go away, though she knew she was right about some things. Hoda didn’t want her mother to weep in heaven. Hoda didn’t want to climb on walls all her life, and come home with her whole body aching so much she didn’t even feel like going out to have fun, and then when she tried to join the girls her age, to discover they all knew she was a cleaning woman, all the kids, and laughed at her as though it was something dirty. Mrs. Shmantz was right about that all right. Hoda wasn’t going to do this all her life. But if Mrs. Shmantz didn’t like a fat behind coming down at her from the ladder, well, she knew what she could do. Miraculously, Hoda didn’t say that last thought, though it was swinging on her tongue and kicking at the door of her hastily shut mouth. Hoda remembered the wages she was to receive and had to let herself be satisfied simply with the thought of uttering that rudeness. Furthermore, if she wanted to lug a big fat carcass around it was her own damn carcass, and Mr. Pankess hadn’t complained and maybe Mr. Shmantz wouldn’t either, if he knew her.
