Lydia Davis - Varieties of Disturbance

I was rushing around most of the morning when I should have been at the typewriter. I offered her the full-time position because the one time we had company she did such a fine job. She put on a beautiful dinner, exquisitely arranged and well cooked and perfectly served. The whole thing went off exceedingly well. But she calculated that the full-time job wouldn’t be worth it to her. She also told me that if she took the full-time job she didn’t see how she could get her Christmas shopping done. That was the crowning remark.

Her experience of our household was not at its easiest. We were moving at the time, and we were still not settled before I had to rush to finish a story. But she could not see that this was a chance to make herself useful to a coming writer who could thereafter afford to pay her better.

Mrs. D, the “Coming Writer”

It is not clear what Mrs. D’s ambitions are. She writes easily and fluently, and has no difficulty conceiving plots for her stories. Over lunch she and Mr. D often exchange ideas for stories or characters, though Mr. D rarely has time now to write fiction. Mrs. D’s plots often involve domestic situations like her own. The characters, usually including a husband and wife, are skillfully and sympathetically drawn; they have complex relationships with recognizable small frictions, hurts, and forgiveness. She is particularly good with the speech of young children. However, the stories often have a vein of wistful sentimentality that works to their detriment.

Her approach to writing is practical. She will “capture” certain qualities in a character, a change will take place, there will be small epiphanies. When the story is done, she will try to sell it to the highest class of magazine, or the one with the best rates. The cash often makes a difference in the family’s economy.

Mrs. D’S Creativity

Mrs. D spends her energies on many other creative projects besides writing. She sews clothes for the children, knits sweaters, bakes bread, devises unusual Christmas cards, and plans and oversees the children’s craft projects. She takes pleasure in this creativity, but her pleasure itself is rather intense and driven.

Hope for Better things to Come

Mrs. D writes:

Now we are looking forward to the new maid, Birdell, who will be starting Saturday. She promises to have all the warm Southern sweetness and flexibility of the old-fashioned Negro servant.

Birdell Does Not Work Out. Another Prospect is Lillian

According to herself, Lillian Savage can do anything from picking up after the children to setting out a tasty snack to “swanky” stuff like typewriting and answering the phone or even taking dictation. She says: “You have to be good-natured to take a domestic job. Nothing flusters me. You’d be surprised at what I’ve taken from men that get to drinking, and I know how to handle it; I don’t get insulted.”

Perfidy

Lillian seems like a good possibility, but then an old employer wants her back. Gertrude is going to help out and fix it so that Lillian can come anyway, but then she doesn’t call and Lillian doesn’t call. After the matter of Ann Carberry, neither one of them ever calls Mrs. D again.

Mrs. D Reflects on Gertrude, Who Didn’t Work Out

She was always pleasant, but was often home with various diseases — colds, etc. Once, she stayed home because, thinking she was getting a cold, she took a heavy dose of physic and it gave her cramps in the stomach and brought on her “sickness” two weeks early. The next time she had an inflammation of the eye; she thought maybe it was a stye. It was terribly inflamed. The doctor put drops on it which stung terribly but helped. The doctor said not to go to her job for fear of infection. She felt fine but supposed she’d have to do what the doctor said.

Her husband had health problems, too. She talked a lot about his bad physical condition and his stopped-up bowels.

Then he got drafted. Well, that was that for her — she wouldn’t be working for me any more. He was set on making her stay with his relatives while he was gone and she was not strong enough to resist. She would just have to work for nothing in the boarding house and be part of family quarrels which she hated and which made her ill. She was a very attractive and interesting personality. Any attractive white girl who was willing to do other people’s housework at a time like this was bound to be interesting for some reason.

Further Reflections, Including Annoying Things About Gertrude

She would leave the house in terrible shape: diapers on the floor, the bathroom strewn with everything, all the baby’s clothes, wet diapers, socks and shoes and unwashed rubber pants. The tub was dirty, the towels and washcloths and the baby’s playthings were all over, the soap was in the water, and the water was even still standing in the tub. She left thick cold soapy water in the washing machine and tubs, diapers out of the water, and the bucket was never upstairs.

She would make pudding using good eggs, when we were out of freshly made cookies.

She was always grabbing dish towels for everything, throwing them toward the cellar door when they were too dirty, along with others that had been used maybe once. She left ashes around in all sorts of dishes, such as the salt dishes.

Then she went and recommended a maid who was too old, feeble, and deaf for the job.

Mrs. D’s Work Habits

Mrs. D likes to start work as early in the morning as she can. Once the children are taken care of, she sits down at her typewriter and begins to type. She types fast and steadily, and the sound is loud, the table rattling and the carriage bell ringing at the end of every line. There is only an occasional silence when she pauses to read over what she has just written. She makes many changes, which involve moving the carriage back a little, x-ing out the word or phrase, rolling the carriage down a little, and inserting an emendation above the line.

She makes a carbon copy of each page, and she types both her first drafts and the copies on cheap yellow paper, aligning a piece of yellow paper, a piece of carbon paper, and another piece of yellow paper, and rolling them together into the carriage. Her fingers, with their carefully applied clear nail polish, sometimes become smudged with ink from the typewriter ribbon or with carbon from the carbon paper.

Mrs. D sits at her worktable with good upright posture. She has full, dark-brown, medium-length hair with gentle curls in it and combed to one side. She has dark eyes, round and naturally rosy cheeks, an upturned nose, and nicely shaped lips to which she applies lipstick. She wears no other makeup except, occasionally, some powder when she goes out. She looks younger than she is. She dresses nicely, usually in a skirt, blouse, and cardigan, even when alone at the typewriter.

Mrs. D Makes Another Attempt

Mrs. D writes:

We are in the throes of trying to get a maid to take with us to the summer cottage.

The Summer Cottage

Mrs. D has found a reasonably cheap cottage close to the sea where they can spend the summer. It is not a very long drive from the college town. Mrs. D goes out to the place ahead of time and puts in a good-size garden. Because of the garden, they are allowed extra gas for the move out there. Gas has been rationed because of the war.

Once they are settled, Mrs. D urges friends to come stay with them. But these friends will probably take the train: there is now a ban on pleasure driving because of the shortage of gas. They are allowed to use the car if they are going to buy food, so they may plan a food shopping trip around picking up a friend at the station. They are also allowed to use the car if they are going clamming.