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downstairs . Others tried to teach us themselves. This is a bucket. This is a mop. This is a broom . One of them could never remember our name. One of them greeted us warmly every morning in the kitchen but whenever she passed us outside on the street she had no idea who we were. One of them barely said a word to us in the thirteen years that we worked for her but when she died she left us a fortune.
    WE LIKED IT BEST when they were out having their hair done, or eating lunch at the club, and their husbands were still away at the office, and their children not yet home from school. Nobody was watching us then. Nobody was talking to us. Nobody was sneaking up on us from behind as we were cleaning her fixtures to see if we’d missed any spots. The whole house was empty. Quiet. Ours. We pulled back curtains. Opened windows. Breathed in the fresh air as we moved from one room to the next, dusting and polishing their things. All they see is the shine . We felt calmer then. Less afraid. We felt, for once, like ourselves.
    A FEW OF US stole from them. Little things, at first, which we did not think they would miss. A silver fork here. A saltshaker there. The occasional swig of brandy. A beautiful rose-patterned teacup we just had to have. A beautiful rose-patterned saucer. A porcelain vase that was the same shade of green as our mother’s jade Buddha. I just like pretty things . A handful of change that had been sitting out on the counter for days. Others of us, though tempted, kept our hands to ourselves, and for our honesty we were well rewarded. I’m the only servant she’ll let upstairs in her bedroom. All the Negroes have to stay down below in the kitchen .
    SOME OF THEM dismissed us without any warning and we had no idea what it was we’d done wrong. “You were too pretty,” our husbands would tell us, even though we found it hard to believe this was true. Some of us were so inept we knew we would not last more than one week. We forgot to cook their meat before serving it to them for supper. We burned their oatmeal every time. We dropped their best crystal goblets. We threw out their cheese by mistake. “I thought it was rotten,” we tried to explain. “That’s how it’s supposed to smell,” we were told. Some of us had trouble understanding their English, which bore no resemblance to what we had learned in our books. We said “Yes” when they asked us if we would mind folding their laundry and “No” when they asked us to mop, and when they asked us if we’d seen their missing gold earrings we smiled and said, “Oh, is that so?” Others of us just answered “Um-hmm” to whatever they said. Some of us had husbands who had lied to them about our abilities in the kitchen— My wife’s specialties are chicken Kiev and vichyssoise —but it soon became apparent that our only specialty was rice. Some of us had grown up on large estates with servants of our own and could not tolerate being told what to do. Some of us did not get along well with their children, whom we found aggressive and loud. Some of us objected to what they said about us to their children when they did not realize we were still in the room. If you don’t study harder, you’ll end up scrubbing floors just like Lily .
    MOST OF THEM took little notice of us at all. We were there when they needed us and when they did not, poof, we were gone. We stayed in the background, quietly mopping their floors, waxing their furniture, bathing their children, cleaning the parts of their houses that nobody but us could see. We spoke seldom. We ate little. We were gentle. We were good. We never caused any trouble and allowed them to do with us as they pleased. We let them praise us when they were happy with us. We let them yell at us when they were mad. We let them give us things we did not really want, or need. If I don’t take that old sweater she’ll accuse me of being too proud . We did not bother them with questions. We never talked back or