The Foreigners - Maxine Swann [67]
“I’ve come for my salary,” Isolde said.
Belén looked at her nervously. “Please wait,” she said.
Isolde stepped inside to wait. It was humiliating, but she insisted on getting the money she deserved. There was not exactly a lobby, just a marble table with white-and-maroon swirls, a large mirror above it and a chair on either side. The chairs were purely decorative. They both faced out toward the door, not toward one another across the table. Clearly, no one was actually meant to sit here. All the furniture seemed to be sneering, whispering things like, You’re not supposed to be here, You’re not welcome, Anyone who enters will know you’ve been rejected.
A middle-aged man did enter, glancing at Isolde as he walked by. He turned back as he was nearing the elevators. “Can I help you?” he asked.
“No, no, thank you. I’m waiting for my friend.”
After ten minutes, Belén reappeared.“Señora says she can’t help you. Last week was a trial.”
Isolde turned red. Here she was humiliated in front of the maid. “I won’t leave unless I’m paid,” she said.
“I’ll be right back, Miss Isolde,” Belén said.
Belén went back up and came down again. “You can come up and wait in the kitchen. Señora’s in a meeting.”
Isolde went upstairs. She sat with Belén in the kitchen. Belén was busily making empanadas. Alicia was obviously trying to humiliate her. Isolde felt many things, but overriding them all was the brute conviction, No matter what, I won’t leave until I’m paid.
She waited twenty minutes, a half hour. She heard Alicia laughing in the other room, then, finally, someone leaving. Next Alicia took a call. After that, she rang the bell for Belén. Belén went to her. Another ten minutes passed. Belén returned to the kitchen and handed Isolde some bills. It was the weekly salary they had agreed upon. Isolde put the precious bills in her wallet.
“I’ll go down with you,” Belén said, as if afraid that Isolde would insist on seeing the Señora.Again, Isolde flushed red. She could find nothing to say. Belén of course knew everything, but what did she think? Her expression didn’t betray a thing beyond nervousness. They went down in the elevator together. She must feel something, Isolde thought. She could imagine Belén telling the story to her friends, all of them putting their hands over their mouths, laughing. But she couldn’t think about that. She’d got the money. It wasn’t much, but she had to do what she could to make it last.
Alicia’s building was walking distance from Isolde’s house. At home, Claudia was making lunch. Isolde was glad to see her, to see someone. She was like this. When she felt badly, she wanted to be with people. She sat down at the table to wait until the lunch was ready.
“How’s your father?” she asked Claudia.
“He’s better,” Claudia said. “He doesn’t much like to take care of himself though. I said you have to stop drinking. He’s drinking again. Poor guy. But what else is he going to do? His wife dead and children all gone.”
She talked in her usual meandering way, her voice fading in and out. This time Isolde didn’t mind. But she couldn’t help interrupting.
“You’re married, right?”
“Yes. It’s been two years.”
“That’s not so long.”
“No.”
“How old are you?” Isolde had imagined that, like Belén, all maids married young.
“Forty. When I was thirty-eight, I decided I wanted to have a baby. I had boyf riends, but boyfriends are no good. I needed to find a victim.”
She had mumbled this last word. “A what?”
“A victim. I started looking around. Soon after that, I found him. He was the doorman in the building down the block. I started walking by there every day. I knew someone who knew him, another doorman, so I asked him to introduce us. From then on, whenever I walked by, we’d talk. One day, he asked me out.”
Isolde laughed. “And he’s your husband now?”
Claudia nodded, giggled.
“And is that okay?”
“He’s a good husband. I knew he would be.” She shrugged, went on working.