My cleaning lady is Ukrainian, which has posed some ridiculous problems since the day we met. First, I should say I don't really know that she's my cleaning lady since she introduced herself in Ukrainian. She's either my cleaning lady, or possibly the president of the Ukraine was just walking around my neighborhood one day with a Swiffer mop and keys to my apartment. Either one. I still can't understand her.
The first day she was there I had just moved in and the place was a mess and she was very glad I had my own cleaning products for reasons I couldn't understand. For almost an hour she spoke nothing but Ukrainian, so I just kind of nodded along or said nothing at all. She would say something long and Slavic and I would just look at her kind of dazed, like I was really trying to process whatever she said in Ukrainian. I wasn't. Ever. I was just watching her talk and motioning to things, staring at her mouth twisted into foreign shapes as she cooed entirely unintelligible phrases to me. I just stood there, staring at her mouth.
Then, when she was about to leave, she said, "Two weeks Tuesday?"
Two weeks Tuesday!? Them is American words! I replied, "Yes! Tuesday!" Then she said, "Then once month after Tuesday."
Holy crap, this whole time she spoke some English and didn't tell me! Here I was pantomiming Mr. Clean Magic Eraser when I could have just said, "Mr. Clean Magic Eraser." I was so excited I just repeated to her as she walked down the stairs, "Two weeks Tuesday! Two weeks Tuesday!"
Two weeks Tuesday she came back, this time again speaking only in Ukrainian for almost an hour. I helped her scrub some lingering scum off my range top and at one point she stopped, faced me and touched my shoulder and said slowly, "No. BL. Each. On. Sto. Ve." For a moment, afraid she might be having a stroke, shook my head sort of panicky and said, "What?? What?? What??" She repeated herself a little faster, again touching my shoulder but also tapping her lips, as if to make me look at her mouth. "No bleach on stove. Never. No bleach on stove."
I gave her a look of acceptance and thanks and nodded, thinking I got it, lady. No bleach on the stove.
Later, as I walked past her she grabbed my arm, pointed to her mop and said just that, "MO. P. Mop." She tapped her lips and pointed to mine.
"Mop?" I said.
"MOP!" she said.
Mop. Let's alert the media to the profundity of the moment.
She left soon after, I chanted "Two weeks Tuesday" as she tromped down the stairs and continued to think that perhaps she's just learning English now, maybe that's it. I came up with this whole sympathetic story about her coming to the US on a limited work visa, living with distant family in a cold shack across town, taking the bus to my house every two weeks Tuesday to clean my grimy stove and try her darnedest to speak in my native tongue, the tongue of the Americas! Of liberty and justice for all!
When she pulled up this morning in her Mercedes SUV, I felt less sympathetic.
Her sympathies for me, however, had not shifted at all, which was obvious when she set down her cleaning supplies, came over to me with a wide smile and presented a book she'd brought with her for us to read together: "Working With The Deaf and Dumb: Easy Illustrated Sign Language For Everyone!"
