When a friend had suggested he contact Marvelous Maids in Wilshire Park, he thought that was still a little too close to the movers and shakers on Sunset Boulevard. But when this person said a polite young Polish woman named Eva Kruse had expertly and oh-so-quietly cleaned their trashed home after a particularly wild party, Irving made the call and Carson plunked down the money.
It was the Polish part that had motivated them both. Melanie knew this because Irving had told her.
“I’ve found you a housekeeper,” he’d said, not long after Carson had moved her into a furnished house whose owner was on a two-year assignment to Cairo. “She’ll be perfect for you. She’s a DP.”
“What’s a deepee?”
Irving had given her a quickAre you joking?look and then replied, “You know. A Displaced Person. From Europe. From the war. A DP. She’s one of those people the American government brought over after the war because they couldn’t go home or didn’t have a home anymore.”
“Someone from one of those horrible death camps?” Melaniehad been ashamed to say the mere thought of being that close to true suffering scared her.
“No. No, she’s Catholic, I think. Polish. That doesn’t matter. She’s not from around here. That’s what’s important. She’ll be perfect.”
“But I can’t afford a housekeeper,” she’d said.
“But Carson can. And he wants you to have one.”
Carson was already paying her rent, and her lawyer’s fees, and buying the groceries that were delivered every Saturday. And now a housekeeper? Carson could indeed afford it; he was rich. And he’d just snagged a great role on Broadway despite being blacklisted, too. Apparently, plenty of theaters in New York didn’t kowtow to congressional hotheads. But still. Carson was being too generous.
“Why is he doing that?” Melanie had asked.
Irving shrugged. “Why do you think?”
It wasn’t because Carson was in love with her; she knew that. Their off-screen romance had been for the gossip columnists—who’d eaten it up like free candy. She hadn’t minded the pretense, though; the post–movie release exposure had been good for her popularity. And then when she and Carson had realized they actually enjoyed each other’s companionship in spite of the studio-arranged affair, she hadn’t minded that, either. Or Carson’s gifts or the fancy dinners or the limo rides. Carson was a fun date.
But he didn’t love her. He’d told her early on he wasn’t one to fall in love, though he was awfully fond of her.
“I’m asking you anyway,” she’d said to Irving.
“He probably feels guilty. You’re in this heap of a mess because of him. If you two hadn’t been seen around town, you’d probably be working right now. I would have had all kinds of offers lined up for you if you hadn’t taken up with him.”
She’d bristled at the inference that this was all her fault. “An arrangement you told me would be good for my career.”
“Yeah, well, if it weren’t for this witch hunt, it would’ve been. He wants you to have a maid. At this point what difference does it make? He’s paying for everything else, and you already know how I feel about that. Do you really want to do your own laundry and scrub your own toilets if he wants to pay to have it done for you?”
It hadn’t been that long ago that she was doing her own laundry and scrubbing her own toilet. But a maid for six days a week? For six hours a day? What kind of a slob did Carson think she was?
It occurred to Melanie now as Eva peeked into the Blankenships’ backyard that perhaps Irving was wrong and guilt had nothing to do with it at all. Maybe the real reason Carson had been happily paying for a maid was that Eva had actually been hired to watch her. To make sure she wasn’t letting reporters into the house or taking phone calls from them.
To make sure Melanie was sticking to her promise to keep her mouth shut and to sound the alarm if she wasn’t.
She frowned. That new explanation didn’t square at all with what she saw in Eva every day. Eva didn’t come across in the least as a spying snitch. Eva didn’t hover, didn’t linger in the room, didn’t seem to be interested in any phone call Melanie made or took.
And it wasn’t because she didn’t understand English. She did. Eva’s accent was pronounced, to be sure, but she could answer any question Melanie posed. Could speak to anyone who came to the door if the bell rang. Could ring up the grocer if Melanie wanted something added to the list. The only time Eva engaged with Melanie was when Melanie initiated it. Eva was like a ghost the rest of the time, a specter who floated from room to room with her broom and feather duster, cleaning a clean house without a sound.
Melanie knew she was only five years younger than Eva, but the maid seemed much older. Her eyes, her demeanor, the way she stared off into space. It was as if sometimes she was back in her homeland and running from the Nazis or whatever or whoever it was that had made her a Displaced Person. Even when she was cleaning in the same room as Melanie, she often seemed far away and certainly not snooping or eavesdropping.
Eva wasn’t a spy.
But how hard was it to obey a simple instruction?
Melanie was just about to rush across the lawn in her nightgown to ask June herself when at last she saw Eva straighten and speak to the woman.
She couldn’t hear Eva but she saw June jump. Saw the woman nearly knock her shovel to the patio in surprise.
Melanie watched as June listened to Eva’s next words, saw June lift her head to gaze at her brother-in-law’s window, and then return her attention to Eva. Saw her shake her head.
Eva said something else.
