The Help

The old man showed the cleaning lady around the mansion, through all the rooms he wanted her to keep clean. Five bedrooms (all but one unused), two bathrooms, the toilets, the breakfast and dining rooms, the kitchen and pantry, and the library.

There was also the study, which the old man made quite clear that she was only to clean under strict supervision, and the workshop, which was strictly off-limits.

She’d change the bed linen, clean the kitchen, do laundry, and take out the trash. All this, the old man thought, would free up time to dedicate to the true work.

The first time she cleaned, he’d check up on her periodically, and make sure that there were no un-dusted surfaces remaining, no corners that weren’t vacuumed, and no surfaces left unmopped. He had not much to complain about in the end. She did the job very well. Quickly, too, remarkably so for the size of the place: she’d start early in the morning, work through lunchtime, and be done well before dinnertime.

The old man was satisfied also by the cleaning lady’s quiet dedication. Idle chatter, he thought, would only distract from the true work. A “good morning” and a “good evening” was sufficient, he felt. With that, he returned to his journals, in which he sketched contraptions and performed a great deal of calculations, carefully hidden from view.

Yet, as the weeks progressed, he found himself not just looking forward to the outcome of her visit — a fresh and clean house — but also the company of another human being. And so, little by little, bits of banter here and there broke the silence increasingly often, and the old man welcomed it.

One day, he invited her to accompany him for lunch. He had baked a rather delicious gratin dauphinois the day before; the cleaning lady accepted, and so he re-heated two large slices which they enjoyed together, alongside a conversation that turned more personal; two human beings finally connecting after having only seen each other at a distance for a couple of months.

The new friendly attitude, however, the old man came to regret. The young lady had taken his warmth as a permit to get familial — too familial for his comfort. It was a distraction from the true work, but the old man had no good sense of how to take the conversationalist nature down a notch.

It escalated further. The lady brought her thoughts about society to the mansion. It wasn’t right that they let just anyone in, she said. There must be some oversight at least, she argued. The old man smiled, unsure how to respond.

Over the weeks, the cleaning lady put all her beliefs on the table. The old man had no idea what made her put her trust in him. She spoke about the government being replaced. It wasn’t safe, she warned. She explained how they can listen in to conversations with telescopic microphones. The old man kept nodding and smiling, and steered his side of the conversation to not much more than the sufficient “good morning” and a “good evening.”

The cleaning lady didn’t take the hint. When she talked about government planes that can go so fast that they turn invisible, he leaned in to her, and whispered to her that he had been in one. He told her that he’d been abducted, and that he remembered because the anesthetic hadn’t properly taken hold. When the cleaning lady emerged from the frozen stupor that followed, she dropped the broom right there on the kitchen floor, strode out through the entry hallway, grabbing her coat in the process, and drove off in her car, flooring the gas pedal.

The confusion that beset the old man lasted a few minutes, but he figured that the now-uninterruptible time would best be used to continue the true work.

The cleaning lady did not show up the coming week. The old man called her number, but got no response. He then telephoned the agency, but they too had lost contact with her. Dreading the thought of having to take up the task of doing any cleaning himself, he opted to let the agency send a temp; they assured him someone new would show up two days from now.

The old man continued the work. He jotted down more thoughts in his journals and made more sketches of various contraptions, with which he occasionally disappeared into the tightly secured workshop.

But the old man couldn’t shake a sense of curiosity around the cleaning lady. Most of what she said didn’t make a lot of sense, but it also didn’t come across as entirely ludicrous to him. Perhaps, the old man thought, she knew more of the truth that she herself knew, and she was a lead worth digging into.

He placed a phone call to an old colleague for whom it was child’s play to look up the home address matching the cleaning lady’s telephone number. Then, at the onset of night, he unlocked the workshop and considered his collection of inventions: the invisibility cloak, sound damper, and electronic lock pick would be precisely what he’d need for this job.

Under cover of darkness, he drove to the cleaning lady’s house and parked his car a safe distance from the building. He engaged the cloak and damper, and made his way forward. There was no sign of life. He walked to the front door, invisibly and silently, and confirmed the name on the doorbell. The automated lock pick finished its work with a satisfying click. He pushed the front door open slowly and stepped inside.

A well-dressed man stepped out of the shadow and pushed a hypodermic needle into the old man’s neck. A few seconds later, the old man was unconscious on the hardwood floor.

The well-dressed man tapped on a device attached to his ear. A burly man in a worker’s overall came in, threw the old man effortlessly over his shoulder and carried him outside. The well-dressed man followed him across the empty street, where a stationary car became visible with a hiss as the optical camouflage disengaged. The burly man stowed the old man on the back seat and the gentleman took the driver’s seat. As the two of them took off, with cargo, the car slowly disappeared into thin air.

Two days later, the temp would show up at the mansion, where no-one would answer — not today, not ever.