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Ihave yet to meet my new housekeeper. She comes highly recommended from one of the more af- fordable agencies headquartered in an anonymous brick building along the industrial riverfront where, if local historians are to be trusted, a loose affiliation of second-rate magicians used to gather during the Depression to practice their dark arts. Like those il- lusionists, my housekeeper vanishes with remarkable precision before I arrive home from my office at the graphic design firm. She is meticulous in her duties, and her schedule never varies.
Every Friday afternoon, while I’m creating minimalist logos and obsessing over fonts, she attends to the dreadful messes I make during the week and puts everything back in order. She waters the neglected aspidistra and waxes its wilting leaves. She pulls the recliner and sectional sofa away from the exposed brick walls to vacuum the dust that gathers in furry gray clumps along the baseboards. She also cleans the three enormous loft windows overlooking the down- town streets. I have no idea how she reaches the high- est glass panels. I can only guess that, along with her brooms and dustpans, her mops and spray bottles, her soaps and disinfectants, she lugs a step ladder every- where she goes. I also have reason to believe she wears a toolbelt. During hard freezes and winter storms
the big square-cut carpentry nails have a tendency to pop out of the hardwood floors, but the housekeeper hammers them back into place. In the six months she has worked for me, she has oiled squeaking hinges, repaired dripping faucets, patched and sanded small holes in the plaster, and adjusted the wobbling blades of an incorrectly calibrated ceiling fan.
When it comes to manual labor, you see, I have no natural ability.
Ever since my divorce last summer, I’ve been renting this two-bedroom apartment in a converted ware- house not far from the lake. The building is more
than a century old, a relic from the sweatshop days of the early twentieth century when children as young as eight and nine were sent at dawn by their half- starving parents to work twelve-hour shifts at the looms and presses. In my dreams I see them some- times, the shades of those miserable little boys and girls, their faces sparkling with graphite dust, their tiny fingers working the spindles of those unforgiving high-speed machines. I have an 18-year old daughter who lives with her father. Had she been around in the
days before the enactment of child labor laws, she would have been a professional saboteur. Within an hour of entering the building, she would have made sure every lever and gear had malfunctioned. What’s more, an entire army of cigar-chomping overseers, their eyes scanning the floor for whimpering slack- ers, never would have caught her in the act. She is
a genuine sneak, my daughter, and an exceptionally convincing liar.
To blame her for my divorce might sound callous but trust me when I say she made life far more stressful than it needed to be. Now, instead of living in a sub- urban colonial with my family, I live in a fashionable but drafty downtown loft for upwardly mobile young professionals with a tentative grasp of the city’s past. Well, “young” might be something of an exaggeration. I turned forty-five yesterday.
At five o’clock sharp, I crept unnoticed from my cu- bicle and headed home. I was actually relieved when my colleagues, who lack the usual social graces, avoided me at the office and forgot to wish me a happy birthday. I was looking forward to an evening alone with my customary bottle of red wine and carry-out from my favorite Italian restaurant around the block, but when I opened my apartment door, I was surprised to find dozens of gray helium balloons rolling like angry thunderheads along the ceiling. It was only a matter of time before the balloons popped against the rough wooden beams. My daughter, still wearing her black overcoat, looked up from her phone and sprang like a startled cat from the recliner. Her scuffed engineer boots left prints on the freshly polished floor.
“Surprise?” she said with a sheepish grin.
I glanced at the kitchen counter. Evidently the can- dles on the cupcakes had been burning for quite some time. Thick pools of hot wax had congealed on the chocolate frosting. I set my portfolio down on
the coffee table and calmly explained that she wasn’t scheduled to stay with me until next weekend. I pointed to the calendar hanging on the wall where I’d
49
The Disciple of Baphomet
Kevin P. KeAting