the tub, closed my eyes, and when he moved to cover
my mouth with his own, my cries were not of protest.
Afterwards, he wrapped himself in his robe,
leaned over the edge of the tub, took an ivory comb,
and, in a motherly manner, combed my hair counting
one, two, three until he got to fifty.
Those snowed in days were full of the
humdrum routines of the house: elevensies left on
silver trays and silent lunches in the library and
honorifics in my speech. But those nights were so full
of lips and teeth and water, the sounds of the radiators
moaning open and shuddering closed, mimicking and
muffling our own passions. My lord and I never
acknowledged what was happening during the day,
only at night when I would draw him a bath or he
would slip into my room would he whisper passionate
and reckless billet doux to me. I started keeping
extensive, coded journals just to have a confidant.
Innocence is a flighty sprite—once lost, I began to
wonder if I ever really had it, or if some part of me
knew when I took this job what those looks meant,
those leanings-in, those too-eager eyes. When he
interviewed me at the Huize Damiaan, when he
grabbed my hand to lead me out of the car, I’d
thought my mind was playing tricks on me. But after
those nights, I saw how the mind can play a trick
within a trick, each nestled inside the other.
In a few mornings—two, three days? they
melted into one another in the heat of those nights—
the roads cleared, and I knew the others would return.
I could say nothing to them—I could say nothing to
anyone. I set my suit on, the white forever marked by
36