I set out on my morning walk with the dog—the same routine as always (what other kind of routine is there?)—pee on the front lawn by the road (the dog, not me), first by the granite boulder on the east side of the lot, then by the pole that supports the basketball hoop on the west side of the lot. Up went the hind leg, then out came a stream of deep yellow fluid. The dog is a standard poodle, the runt of the litter and smaller than you’d expect for a standard poodle. I call him a substandard. When we brought him home last year, the kids named him Brutus. In fact it was James who named him. Jessica was barely talking then. The most she could manage was a slurred “Bus, Bus.”
As Brutus was finishing his second whiz, Mrs. Karsh rounded the corner in her power-walking, hip-swiveling strut, while Goldie, her half blind retriever, drew out the retractable lead to its full twenty-five feet. Ah … the resplendent Mrs. Karsh. Our paths often cross as we take our dogs for their morning strolls. She has a perfect hour glass figure, full firm breasts, and a perpetually burnished skin, the sort of skin you can only get from a basement tanning bed. I give her ten years to her first round of chemo, but in the meantime, she’s a pleasure to behold.
Yes, I confess I have a wandering eye, and Monica knows it. There are times when she challenges me, says that thinking about it is no different than doing it. I challenge her right back and ask where the hell she ever got such a crazy idea. She says it’s in the Bible, which I guess is true, but that’s no excuse. What the hell good does it do to make us feel guilty about the things we do when it’s in our nature to do them? We might as well tell zookeepers to put down tigers because they eat meat. There are certain animal impulses at the core of our being and that’s the end of it. The fact is: I’m happy being married to Monica. We have a fine life here with our home and our two children and our dog named Brutus. Besides which, things in the bedroom are pretty spicy if you know what I mean. And as lovely as Mrs. Karsh might seem when she’s wiggling and bouncing her way towards me, the instant she opens her mouth, it spoils the effect. The woman’s voice sounds like her name: Karsh, a shrill nasal screech, sucked way back into her head like a duck quacking in an echo chamber while an eagle tears it to shreds. I could stumble upon her reclined on a mound of cushions dressed in a diaphanous nightie surrounded by scented candles bathed in soft music and all it would take is a single syllable from her lips. The effect would be instantaneous. A cold shower wouldn’t have half the shrivel quotient. I’d shrink to the size of a cold noodle. Quite apart from the tone of her voice, there’s the quality of the content—yokel gossip that she tries to pass off as urbane chatter. It’s always speculative and specious, wondering what the neighbours are doing, then drawing conclusions even though she has no more grasp of the facts than her dog.
While Goldie and Brutus sniffed each other up the anus like a sixty-nine on a carousel, Mrs. Karsh yakked about the neighbours three doors down, how they were going on a trip to Cozumel even though he had just been laid off and she was supporting a sister in London who was … well … you know (and she twirled a finger around her temple), not all there, plus they had a son, Jeffrey, who was about to leave for university, going through for computer science or urban geography or something like that. She was yakking about all this, and I was trying my best not to wince, when Grayson pulled up in a new BMW, pulled up right beside the two of us, pulled up close to the curb but facing the wrong way around like he was a rebel or a teenager. As Grayson climbed out and stepped just shy of an ancient turd that Brutus had laid on the lawn weeks ago, Mrs. Karsh stepped backwards, taking her leave, saying she and Goldie had a schedule to keep, but she never withdrew beyond earshot, hoping to mine enough nuggets to fuel her next conversation.
Grayson said he’d brought Helga. He stepped to the passenger side and, with a gallant flourish, pulled open the door to a dark-haired woman who eased her way out of the car. Grayson spoke as if I should know all about Helga, but until that minute, I had never gotten the faintest whiff of her existence. The woman stepped up onto the curb and smiled and offered a hand. She was a squat Filipino, young, but not so young she couldn’t be a mother with five or ten kids. Her hair was dark and she wore it long, and she had the habit of cocking her head to one side so the hair fell across one of her eyes.
“This is Helga,” Grayson said.
“Oh.”
From the terse response and what was probably a puzzled expression, Grayon saw that I had no idea who Helga was. “Irene said you’d be expecting her.”
I shrugged.
“Maybe she only spoke to Monica.”
I motioned them to follow me across the front lawn. Monica was in the kitchen cleaning the cappuccino machine. If they were lucky, Monica might be done enough they could each have one—a cappuccino that is.
“Helga’s our nanny,” Grayson explained. “I thought you knew.”
I shook my head.
“Well, our kids are older now and don’t really need a nanny any more, but Helga’s been such a good worker. You know how it is. We don’t wanna just throw her out, two weeks’ notice, so long, good luck, piss off. Seems kinda harsh. We were hoping we could find a good employer for her. I guess it came up in conversation between Irene and Monica and, well, here we are.”
It took me off my guard because Monica and I had never talked about getting a nanny for the children. It seemed too Peter Pannish or Mary Poppinsy. But lots of other neighbours had a nanny. Monica had exhausted her parental leave and so we’d have to think of something to do with the children.
Helga seemed nice enough, and when we brought the children into the kitchen where she was sitting with her cappuccino, they took to her right away. She had a magnetic appeal that drew the two of them straight into her arms.
Later in the evening, after we’d tucked the children into their beds and sang them good-night songs, we talked about it. Reviewing our finances, it seemed we had enough money for a nanny. We had the space, too, with a guest room on the main floor that would do nicely for her apartment. There wasn’t a bathroom on the main floor, but we could install one. We’d been planning to do a bathroom addition for a couple years anyways and this would give us just the push we needed to get the job done. In the meantime, Helga could use the upstairs bathroom with everyone else. It would be great! It would save us time since we wouldn’t need to make a twice daily run to the daycare centre. When the kids were napping, she could do some cleaning, maybe even some laundry. Those were reasons that appealed to Monica, and I nodded. Secretly, though, I found another reason to hire a nanny: I could rub Mrs. Karsh’s nose in it; she was always holding herself out as oh-so-superior in her ways and manners and whenever we met on our dog walks, she managed one way or another to remind me that the Karsh’s had a nanny and the Hamblyn’s didn’t. It would give me boundless satisfaction to tell her that we did, in fact, have a nanny, and not from an agency either. A personal recommendation.”
The only thing that remained was the paperwork, which turned out to be more complicated than I had expected. In the first place, Helga was Filipino and not a landed immigrant. The only way she could stay in the country was on a work visa, and if she was losing her job with Grayson and Irene, then I had to go down to the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration to fill out forms and swear affidavits assuring the powers that be that we would guarantee Helga’s employment, otherwise they’d put her on a slow boat to Manila and that would be the end of it. In the second place, Monica and I had to register as employers so we could do source deductions and remittances to the government. Calculating taxes taxed my brain. Fortunately Monica has a head for numbers and she kept everything straight on the fancy schmancy spreadsheets she kept at work.
After two weeks, Helga was living in the downstairs guest room and we were having discussions with an interior designer about the new bathroom. Monica had clear ideas about what she didn’t want, but not so clear ideas about what she did want. That meant the renovations went slowly. Drawings went back and forth and back again. Paint chips became the subject of heated discussions at the dinner table. Monica was forever emailing links to web sites showing bright photos of fluffy towels and brushed nickel taps and gleaming white toilet bowls. Contractors dropped by in the early evening with heavy metal tape measures clipped to their belts, tapping walls and rubbing chins, then scribbling quotes on the back of grimy business cards.
Meanwhile, we told Helga that she was to use our bathroom upstairs. After all, she was now part of the family and should feel free to come and go as she pleased. We didn’t want to be rich white asshole employers like some of the neighbours we’d heard about who forced their nannies to double up as unpaid baby sitters on the weekend, or made them buy their own food and cook it on a hotplate, or made them sleep in an unheated garret above the garage. Helga was a serious woman who didn’t show much emotion and kept to herself, but she worked hard; and if the children didn’t warm up to her in a fuzzy cuddly way, at least they respected her and did as they were told.
Helga woke up every day at five o’clock and had the kitchen ready for breakfast. We didn’t need an alarm clock anymore. We woke up to the sound of pots and pans clattering in the kitchen, then the pop and sizzle of bacon grease; there was the smell of the bacon mixed with eggs and toast rising up the stairwell and under our bedroom door. We’d go to the bathroom then and throw on our housecoats and trundle downstairs where we’d find Helga already feeding the children. It was such a pleasure—and such a change from the frantic scramble that had typified our lives. After we had left for work, Helga would clean up the kitchen while the children played, then she’d take them out in the stroller for a long walk with Brutus.
After a couple months, we found ourselves settling into a pleasant routine. The children seemed happy. Helga had made the guest room her own. And we had found a contractor to do the new bathroom for us. It was about then that I had my first intimation that something might be a little off. Late one evening, as we were getting ready for bed, Monica raised a new issue: “Have you noticed about Helga?”
“Noticed what?”
“I’ve been keeping track.”
“She’s not stealing, is she?”
“No. Nothing like that.” Monica had pulled on a flannel nightgown. It was officially autumn now and nights were getting colder. “I’ve been tracking her bathroom usage.”
“Is she using too much toilet paper?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Monica started to brush her hair at the night table. “The opposite in fact.”
“She’s not using enough toilet paper? I don’t think we’re supposed to get that involved in her life.”
“No. What I’m trying to say is: I don’t think she’s using the bathroom.”
“Well then where the hell is she doing her business?”
James had come to Monica earlier in the evening, curled up in her lap for a bedtime story, and when the story was done, he leaned in close to Monica’s ear and whispered that he had a secret. He was awkward and halting, and even when Monica coaxed him to speak, she couldn’t understand half of what he said. It was something to do with Helga. James had seen her do something, but he didn’t want to say what. It was almost as if he felt guilty, as if sharing his secret was an act of betrayal. It had happened in the kitchen. That’s where he’d seen it. He was supposed to be in his room having his afternoon nap, but he was a big boy now—almost four years old—and didn’t feel like taking naps much anymore. Most of the time now, he just lay there with his eyes open, looking around the room and having conversations with all the things he saw. He’d gotten out of bed and padded downstairs, walking on tiptoe in sock feet, gliding across the smooth tiles without making a sound. He’d walked into the kitchen and found Helga standing on a chair with her jeans around her ankles. In fact, she wasn’t standing. James had demonstrated to his mother how he had found Helga when he stepped into the kitchen that afternoon. It was more of a squat so that she hovered above the kitchen sink.
As we settled onto the bed, Monica said: “Alan, our nanny is using our kitchen sink for a toilet.”
“Oh, come on. You’re not going to believe that from James, are you? He’s only three. He still has imaginary friends. And you couldn’t understand most of what he was saying anyways.”
“I think you should confront her.”
“What?”
“Point blank. Just ask her. Have you been using the kitchen sink to uh … you know?”
“I’m not going to ask her that.”
It’s one thing to say you’re not going to do something, but quite another thing to actually go ahead and not do it. That’s how it is when dealing with Monica. She has this stern way of looking at me and there’s always the implied threat of withholding: if I’m going to not do something, then she’s going to not do something too. It was an impossible situation, so I relented and promised to confront Helga the following evening as soon as I got home from work.
It turns out that confronting somebody about her habits of elimination is harder than it sounds. I stood in the kitchen doorway, watching as she fed Jessica spoonfuls of a yellow-green mush, and hoping for an opening. Helga made cooing sounds and smiling baby talk, and even mimicked an airplane as she dropped her payload on Jessica’s tongue.
“Helga?”
She looked up at me from her crouched position by the high chair.
“Helga, I was wondering if I could have a word with you.”
She stood. There was a worried expression on her face. I cleared my throat and hemmed and hawed and made a few incoherent comments about how the children seemed to have taken to her. As I stumbled along, I saw how her expression shifted from worry to fear. Shit! That’s not what I wanted. I trashed my planned talk and, instead, told her how pleased we were and wanted her to know that if there were any concerns—anything at all—she should feel free to come speak to either one of us. Helga nodded—yes, yes—then crouched again and shoveled another spoonful of mush into Jessica’s mouth.
It was the weekend, so I took Brutus for a walk and let Helga go off with her nanny friends to whatever place nannies go when they’re not tending to children and walking dogs. Brutus followed the same routine as always (what other kind is there?), peeing on the granite boulder on the east side of the lot, then drifting to the west side of the lot and peeing on the pole that holds up the basketball hoop. He’d already killed most of the grass around the base of the pole, but I don’t suppose that matters; no amount of grass is going to hide the fact that a basketball hoop on the lawn by a driveway is an act of aesthetic sabotage. The smell of piss gives it credibility. Just as the last dribble fell to the grass, the redoubtable Mrs. Karsh swept into view. I tried to pretend I hadn’t noticed her, but our eyes had already met, so it was too late. I eased Brutus to the end of the driveway and waited for Mrs. Karsh to wiggle and bounce her way up to us.
“I need to have a word with you.” She spoke in a loud nasal voice that people could hear from one end of the street to the other.
Brutus and Goldie did their usual dance, sniffing each other up the ass and getting their leashes tied in a knot. Once we had them untangled, Goldie crumpled in a heap on the grass not far from the pole and the puddle of piss.
“I hafta tell you,” she said. She assumed an officious manner which reminded me of a civil servant. “The other day—was it Tuesday or Wednesday?—I forget—been meaning to tell you—I saw something. I thought you should know. Something of concern. I was in the park with Goldie. You know the one? Hedgerow Place? Near the community centre? So I was in the park with Goldie. You know how they have that stand of trees in the middle with all the bushes and overgrown weeds? You know the clump I’m talkin’ about? The one the kids like to play hide and seek in? Yeah, you know the one I’m talkin’ about. Well on Tuesday or Wednesday Goldie and I were walking there between the clump of trees and all those swing sets, and I look over and there, in the bushes so you could hardly see, there was your nanny. Whatsername? Olga?”
“Helga.”
“Helga. Yeah, Helga. There she is in the bushes with her pants down, squatting against a tree.”
It was hard to know how to read Mrs. Karsh. She behaved like all she wanted was to help, but I knew her better than that and suspected that she was secretly gloating. We hadn’t used an agency, so we were getting what we deserved. “Huh!” I said, pretending that nannies pee in bushes all the time. “Wonder why she’d do that?”
“She’s a pervert. That’s why.”
“Well … let’s not jump to conclusions.”
“Pardon me?” Her righteousness made me feel feeble. “I thought your children would come first.”
“Yes, of course.”
“You should fire her.”
I think, in her mind, I was keeping a house for degenerates, a safe haven for deviant foreigners, and if I didn’t act in a decisive and immediate way, then I was as much a degenerate as my nanny. I could be wrong; Mrs. Karsh could have been thinking about the weather. But that was the impression I got as I watched Goldie sniff at the piss on the grass, then raise a hind leg and lick his own penis.