O Wanda, Wanda, why hast thou Floridaforsaken me, Wanda?
You’re here to dust, no? a matron asks as she straightens out the starch of her whites over fishnets, you’re late and not in uniform. She flips with the disdain managed only by the utmost professional through papers, a clipboarded stack, blueprints, a roll.
Take the upstairs, she says, beginning with the Master Bedroom, working down the hall to His; get moving, we’ve got two hours, three at the most.
An Assistant Site Supervisor, at least that’s what it says over her name, she clucks over, her head a uselessly nippleless breast tufted wildly with blond from the bottle, tucks a duster molting its feathers under her arm and so introducing the rest of her tag: Mary, that’s it, they’re all named Mary, to us; hands Adela from the pocket of her uniform a tweezers, and a sheaf of glassine sacs already labeled. Tweezer the mold from the grout of the Master Bathroom, she’s repeating its ilk already for the tenth time this morning, placing all in the appropriate sacs, one for each wall of the shower, north, south and, you get me, ceiling and floor, the toilet stalls, then from around the sinks, the whirlpool tub — being as careful as possible to preserve the integrity of the sample; then proceed, down the hall to each bathroom on the floor; don’t worry, it’s all already been imaged; but, she flicks a wrist up to expose a pink watch — you’ve only got ten minutes until they disassemble the Master Bedroom; God, you’d better hurry — you were supposed to’ve been here at dawn…
Adela loops her hair up, walks professionally together upstairs-upstairs, with tweezers and sacs makes her way past the Master Bedroom — such joy, shirking orders — its Master Bathroom with the two toilets his & hers, the bidet, the jacuzzi and sauna, keeps her face down to pass handfuls of other maids sweeping, dusting, vacuuming nothing in their areas, assigned; she recognizes none of them, they must be new here, must be strange to say — foreign: a kind-mouthed pigtailed shvartze plying a tub atop her head piled with the salts Israel would water, then soak in; a Mexican girl she has to be with that host of martyrs churchcandled in her eyes hauling three racks of shoes that are the slippers Hanna’d step into at the foot of the night, to slip the pair she’s eyeing not into her pockets, which’ll be searched, but onto her feet, exchanging her old maid, public transportation sneakers for these luxury fluffies with the loose pink ribboning and the bows by the heels. As Adela turns into the last stretch of hall, there’s a voltaic storm, announcements’ crackle, coming over the house’s infant monitoring intercom system who knew ever worked: Attention, the voice robo remote, mechanically feminine,
Water Will Be Shut Off In Nine Minutes — Remember To Unscrew, & Label All Lightbulbs — All BASEMENT Perishables Including Medication Must Be Brought To The Kitchen Supervisor For Immediate Refrigeration—Adela heels away from drowning softly in the carpet, bluewhite oceanically plush, being rolled up tightly just a step behind her stride; down this hallway passing more suggestive maids and their observing recorders in still other rooms who’d even guess (Wanda, she’d only visit Wanda, through the tunnel, its wardrobe up to her room and return, the other rooms only an imagination, like the Koenigsburg’s, only different). What they’re doing here seems an abstruse discipline of what, sibling archaeology, familysifting, the excavation of daughters, maybe, these women in their immaculately fitted, speckless uniforms feathering dust, tweezering mold, yes, but also diagramming the disposition of posters, of plaques, compiling the loose stacks of blandly centrist newsmagazines, listing the order of books on the shelves, encyclopedias Volume 1 ABRAHAM — AVRAM, dictionaries and condensed biographies of kin, Einstein, Herzl, whichever Marx, insane, that and a million more processes that must’ve been incredibly well thought out, planned like war, anticipated like miracle, long before Adela ever arrives at the hall’s furthest funeral, which grave would’ve been the door to Benjamin’s room if it hadn’t already been tagged, bagged, removed, relocated. Wholesale. It’s open, exposed, scandalous to air, there isn’t anything left inside, not even carpet, rug, blinds, window; it’s freezing with the snow winded in and its guest, which is ice — they’d taken what there was to take, they’d repossessed all the possessions: no bed, that fourposter, which’d been Rubina’s then her mattress, too, the bassinetcrib never used, no chairs either, neither the chair fixed like the Heaven above the heavens above the turning earth, nor the chair that like spring reclined, which’d been brought here from Israel’s office and its conference room now barren (Everything must go! each to its own gleaning, professional, expert) — no blankey comforters, no cushions from any of the sofas Hanna’d always said couches, from the family’s livingroom, Israel’d said den, which had served as pillow for His pillows; none to sleep, none to wake, thank God at least with Wanda gone, but for how long, she’d said she’d be back for the New Year.