The Help / Прислуга. Книга для чтения на английском языке

”

Aibileen picks up another fiddlehead, starts washing its long stem, the curly green ends. “No ma’am,” she says after a pause.

It takes me a few seconds to realize what we’re talking about here.

“Aibileen,” I say, trying to catch her eye. “You really think Constantine was fired?”

But Aibileen’s face has gone blank as the blue sky. “I must be misrememoring,” she says and I can tell she thinks she’s said too much to a white woman.

We hear Mae Mobley calling out and Aibileen excuses herself and heads through the swinging door.

When I walk in the house ten minutes later, Mother is reading at the dining room table.

“Mother,” I say, clutching my notebook to my chest, “did you fire Constantine?”

“Did I… what?” Mother asks. But I know she’s heard me because she’s set the DAR[57 - DAR – сокр. от Daughters of the American Revolution – организация женщин, чьи семьи жили в Америке со времен Войны за независимость (1775–1783)] newsletter down.

“Eugenia, I told you, her sister was sick so she went up to Chicago to live with her people,” she says. “Why? Who told you different?”

I would never in a million years tell her it was Aibileen. “I heard it this afternoon. In town.”

“Who would talk about such a thing?” Mother narrows her eyes behind her reading glasses.

“What did you do to her, Mother?”

Mother licks her lips, gives me a good, long look over her bifocals. “You wouldn’t understand, Eugenia. Not until you’ve hired help of your own.”

“You… fired her? For what?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s behind me now[58 - It’s behind me now – (разг.) Дело уже прошлое 108] and I just won’t think about it another minute.

“Mother, she raised me. You tell me right now what happened!” I’m disgusted by the squeakiness of my voice, the childish sound of my demands.

* * *

Mother raises her eyebrows at my tone, takes her glasses off. “It was nothing but a colored thing. And that’s all I’m saying.” She puts her glasses back on and lifts her DAR sheet to her eyes.

I’m shaking, I’m so mad. I pound my way up the stairs.