Page 66 of Still Me
“Are you serious?”
“Ilaria goes to see her sister on Saturdays. Mr. Gopnik’s at his club. I’ll park them in front of the television. How hard can it be?”
He looked at me. “You don’t have children, do you, Miss Louisa?” And then he recovered himself. “But, man, that would be a lifesaver. If Mr. Ovitz stops by and sees me with these three I’ll be fired before you can say, uh...” He thought for a moment.
“You’re fired?”
“Exactly. Okay. Lemme come up with you and I’ll explain who is who and who likes what. Hey, kids, you’re gonna have an adventure upstairs with Miss Louisa! How cool is that?” Three children stared at me with wet, snotty faces. I smiled brightly at them. And, in tandem, all three began to cry again.
—
If you ever find yourself in a melancholy state of mind, removed from your family and a little unsure about the person you love, I can highly recommend being left in temporary charge of three small strangers, at least two of whom are still unable to go to the lavatory unaided. The phrase “living in the moment” only really made sense to me once I’d found myself chasing a crawling baby, whose obscenely filled nappy hung half off, across a priceless Aubusson rug, while simultaneously trying to stop a four-year-old chasing a traumatized cat. The middle child, Abhik, could be pacified with biscuits, and I parked him in front of cartoons in the TV room shoveling crumbs with fat hands into hisdribbling mouth while I tried to shepherd the other two into at least the same twenty-square-foot radius. They were funny and sweet and mercurial and exhausting, squawking and running and colliding repeatedly with furniture. Vases wobbled; books were hauled from shelves and hastily shoved back. Noise—and various unsavory scents—filled the air. At one point I sat on the floor clutching two around their waists while Rachana, the eldest, poked me in the eye with sticky fingers and laughed. I laughed too. It was kind of funny, in athank God this will be over soonkind of way.
After two hours, Ashok came up and told me his wife was caught up in her protest and could I do another hour? I said yes. He wore the wide-eyed look of the truly desperate and, after all, I had nothing else to do. I did, however, take the precaution of moving them into my room, where I put on some cartoons, tried to keep them from opening the door, and accepted, with some distant part of me, that the air in this part of the building might never smell the same again. I was just trying to stop Abhik from putting cockroach spray into his mouth when there was a knock on my door.
“Hold on, Ashok!” I yelled, trying to wrestle the canister off the child before his father saw.
But it was Ilaria’s face that appeared round my door. She stared at me, then at the children, then back at me. Abhik briefly stopped crying, gazing at her with huge brown eyes.
“Um. Hi, Ilaria!”
She said nothing.
“I’m—I’m just helping Ashok out for a couple of hours. I know it’s not ideal but, um, please don’t say anything. They’ll only be here a tiny bit longer.”
She eyed the scene a moment longer, then sniffed the air.
“I’ll fumigate the room afterward. Please don’t tell Mr. Gopnik. I promise it won’t happen again. I know I should have asked first but there was nobody here and Ashok was desperate.” As I spoke, Rachana ran wailing toward the older woman and hurled herself like a rugby ball at her stomach. I winced, as Ilaria staggered backward. “They’ll be gone any minute. I can call Ashok right now. Really. Nobody has to know...”
But Ilaria simply adjusted her blouse, then scooped the little girl up in one arm. “You are thirsty,compañera?” Without a backward glance,she shuffled off, Rachana huddled against her huge chest, her little thumb plugged into her mouth.
As I sat there, Ilaria’s voice echoed down the corridor. “Bring them to the kitchen.”
—
Ilaria fried a batch of banana fritters, handing the children small pieces of banana to keep them occupied while she cooked, and I refilled cups of water and tried to stop the smaller children toppling off the kitchen chairs. She didn’t talk to me, but kept up a low croon, her face filled with unexpected sweetness, her voice low and musical as she chatted to them. The children, like dogs responding to an efficient trainer, were immediately quiet and biddable, holding out dimpled hands for another piece of banana, remembering their pleases and thank-yous, according to Ilaria’s instructions. They ate and ate, growing smiley and placid, the baby rubbing balled fists into her eyes as if she were ready for bed.
“Hungry,” Ilaria said, nodding toward the empty plates.
I tried to recall whether Ashok had told me about food in the baby’s rucksack but I had been too distracted to look. I was just grateful to have a grown-up in the room. “You’re brilliant with kids,” I said, chewing a piece of fritter.
She shrugged. But she looked quietly gratified. “You should change the little one. We can make a bed for her in your bottom drawer.”
I stared at her.
“Because she will fall out of your bed?” She rolled her eyes, as if this should have been obvious.
“Oh. Sure.”
I took Nadia back to my room and changed her, wincing. I drew the curtains. And then I pulled out my bottom drawer, arranged my jumpers so that they lined it, and laid Nadia down inside them, waiting for her to go to sleep. She fought it at first, her big eyes staring at me, her chubby hands reaching up for mine, but I could tell it was a battle she would lose. I tried to copy Ilaria and softly sang a lullaby. Well, it wasn’t strictly speaking a lullaby: the only thing I could remember the words to was “The Molahonkey Song,” which just made her chuckle, and another about Hitler having only one testicle that Dad had sung when I was small. But the baby seemed to like it. Her eyes began to close.
I heard Ashok’s footsteps in the hall, and the door open behind me.
“Don’t come in,” I whispered. “She’s nearly there...Himmler had something similar...”
Ashok stayed where he was.
“But poor old Goebbels had no balls at all.”
