Of The Dark

Chapter 3

"He usually wakes up at around six, but you have to be here at five. You will help prepare his breakfast, which he eats half an hour after his father at around half past seven, which is when you'll do his bed and tidy his room. Then you'll come down and help tidy up and see if anyone needs help in the kitchen. Understand?"

Overloaded with information by the Matron, I nodded my head, pretending I absorbed all of that. She was walking at an incredibly fast pace around the basement kitchens as I trailed along behind her, attempting to learn my new schedule.

"He doesn't spend much time at home, he's usually in the camps or out with friends. Most of the time he eats lunch elsewhere. If Herr Diedrich chooses to come back for dinner, he will eat an hour after his father at around eight or nine. You'll never find them eating together. In-between that time, you'll clean his room, wash and press his clothes and anything else he tells you to. Hans will inform you on the specifics of the cleaning."

"Why doesn't he eat with his father?" I asked curiously, sure I was told he was a family man just yesterday.

"What did I tell you about prying?" Matron narrowed her eyes at me, warningly. "After dinner, he will either go to his room or go out with his friends. If he stays at home, you'll wait on him until he tells you you're free to leave. If he goes out with his friends, you'll wait for him until he comes back and tells you you're free to leave, which at earliest will be four am."

"Four am? When am I supposed to sleep?" I tried taking in as much as she said, already exhausted by the condense schedule.

"You don't." She replied, snappily. I blinked hard with bafflement. A slender looking, blond haired boy approached us, sporting a ragged striped uniform with a matching hat. He smiled warmly at me with a wave. "Hana, this is Hans. He'll show you what to do from here." With that, the Matron was off in a rush.

"Hi, I'm Hans." He greeted, politely. He looked fairly young even with his slouchy posture, but he had a welcoming look on his face that was a real contrast to Matron's grimace. "Your name's Hana, right? That's so cool! Our names are almost the same. Hans, Hana, get it? Just the last letter that's different. Mines an 's' and yours is an 'a'."

I smiled at his kindness, something I hadn't seen in a man for quite a while. It was refreshing, to say the least.

"You're supposed to tell me the ins and outs of my duty?" I replied, smiling for the first time I had in weeks.

"Oh, yes." He said, gesturing for me to follow him to a cabinet of cleaning goods. "There's not that much to do, really. You have a very lucky job."

By eleven pm, I had changed his bedsheets, ironed his outfits for the upcoming week, scrubbed his floors, dusted absolutely everything and all other domestic chores you could possibly think of.

In all fairness, I was accustomed to it since I would take the heavier bearing of all the housework at home in Berlin whilst mother did the cooking and attended to young Lola and my drunken father. The exhausting part was having to work in a room that only served to induce painful memories of me being violated, still fresh in my memory.

The layout of his room never left my mind. The vinyls, the decanter, the chaise. Even the feeling of his mattress felt imprinted on my body and the images that accompanied those memories sent excruciating shocks down my spine.

But I pushed them out, eager to do my job. Hans was right. I was lucky for him to ask me to be here since my other option was to break my bones a hundred times a day. Cooking and cleaning fit into my skill set, I just had to learn to adjust to the setting. It made me feel better knowing that Herr Diedrich wasn't home very often and also by the fact that I had not seen him all day, to my relief.