Mungus: Book 1 (11 page)

“Are you
Pitre?” I asked.

“Yes, honey, and who are
you
?”

“I’m Walt.  I’m supposed to be working here.  Lauren just dropped me off.”

The old man’s weathered face smiled and he stuck out a straight arm for us to shake hands.  I took his hand and he shook with a firm grip and a lot of movement.  “Oh, how exciting!  A new worker!”  He released his grip on my hand and lowered his voice to a whisper while he looked behind him to see that we were alone.  “Don’t tell Lauren that I told you this, but she’s so excited to have you here.  She’s been talking about you since you arrived on the farm a couple of weeks ago.”

I was shocked by his statement and said the only thing that could come to mind, “why?”

Pitri didn’t answer but just pranced away back through the door and into the house.  I followed him.  The man swung his hips as he walked into the living room.

I shut the great door behind me and came into the house.  The smell of sawdust was in the air and the living room rose tall with spacious white walls and dozens of hanging paintings around the bookshelves.  The marble floors, oak stairs, banister, coffee table, leather couches and chairs were all completely void of even a speck of dust.  The floors shined and whenever I looked down I could see my warped shadow in the white tile.  Surrounding the walls were panels of smooth wood embroidered with carvings of ships, whales, and coral reefs.  I couldn’t imagine how I was going to keep the house in any more order than it already was.

I followed Pitri into the kitchen which impressed me just the same as the living room had.  Gleaming metal ovens and refrigerators lined the walls and pots and pans hung over shining cabinets.  Bacon and eggs were sizzling on the stove and as Pitri flipped the bacon my mouth began to water.  To distract myself from my hunger I asked, “is there anything that I can do?”

As soon as
Pitri answered, I regretted asking.  He handed me two large pales and told me that the tub out back had to be filled halfway up with water for Glen’s evening bath.  He pointed me to the stone well coming out of the ground twenty yards away on the lawn and sent me outside.  I spent the next thirty minutes trudging back and forth from the well to a porcelain tub.  The buckets were heavy with sloshing water and sweat ran down my face.  As I was finishing and going inside I saw that the other servants were scattering out into the fields.  The group that I saw was too far away to identify, but I began to think about Saul working out in the hot sun.  I wondered if he was worrying about me as he picked.

I came back into the house through the kitchen and saw that
Pitri was scrubbing dishes in a basin of water.  “What should I do now?” I asked.

Pitri
looked at me, batted his eyes, and said, “I don’t know, I didn’t hire you.  Lauren’s in the living room.”

I entered the living room and found Lauren and a
2 year old baby girl sitting on the leather sofa.  Lauren was reading a picture book to the child.  The child looked just like her mom except for her cheeks which appeared to be burning red with fever.  She stopped reading when I entered, but she never looked at me.  “Can I help you?” she asked.

“I was just wondering if there was anything that you needed me to do.”

“Go ask Pitri for a broom.  Then you can sweep.”

“Sweep what?”

“The whole house,” she said, and then she continued to read to her baby girl as if I were not there.

Pitri
pointed me to a broom and dust pan in the kitchen and then I bounded up the stairs and into the rooms above.  The house was huge and confusing.  The upstairs was a maze of hallways and I would often find that I had accidentally walked in a circle.  I went into bathrooms, guest bedrooms, offices, and a huge library full of shelves upon shelves of books.  No matter how hard I looked I couldn’t find even a speck of dust to clean up.  The hardwood floors and tiles looked as though they were swept and mopped an hour before I arrived.  I pushed the broom around on the clean floors and whispered to myself, “what am I supposed to be doing?”

After an hour of walking around the house looking for dust that wasn’t there, I came back down stairs and reported to Lauren.  She was sitting upright on the couch with her baby girl lying in her lap.  This time she looked at me in the face.  Her green eyes were so perfect that they made me
self conscious.  “Are you done sweeping?” she asked.

“Yes,
ma’m,” I said.

“Great.  There are some sandwiches in the kitchen if you want any.  They should still be hot.  After you eat, go back upstairs and sweep some more.  You’re doing a good job.”

I didn’t understand.  What was I supposed to be sweeping?  I told her that I was done.  I went into the kitchen and found stacks of hot sandwiches.  Thick pieces of hot wheat bread were on either side of a mixture of roast beef, melted cheeses, and assorted onions and sauces.  It was the best meal that I had had during my entire stay on Mungus.  I ate two sandwiches and when I was finished my stomach was full and my eyes were sleepy.

With nothing else to do, I headed up the staircase and walked around the house aimlessly with my broom and
dust pan.  Still, I couldn’t find anything that needed to be swept.  The house was impossibly clean.  I entered the library and began to walk along the rows of books.  Oak shelves rose up tall against the walls and a rolling ladder was attached to each shelf to retrieve books too high to reach.  The back wall was a tall half circle window that provided light throughout the entire study.  Outside the window were acres and acres of green crop.  Near the window was a heavy wooden desk with a shining top and locked drawers.  Away from the window was an assortment of leather couches and chairs sitting on the hardwood floors.  Many of the books had unnamed leather cases and I plucked one and went and lay down on a couch and began to read.  I had nothing else to do.  I read of a man sailing off to sea on a raft and soon my eyes began to get heavy.  My stomach was digesting the sandwiches I had eaten and a fan swung above my head giving the room a cool breeze.  I couldn’t fight my fatigue for long, and soon, I was asleep.

When I awoke I expected to be in my cabin with Saul snoring beside of me.  Instead, I found that I was in Glen’s study and that Lauren was standing above me.  She was smiling and said, “Wake up, sleepy head.”

I sat up in a flash and grabbed my broom and dust pan.  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” I began to speak so fast that my speech began to mashing into one word, “it-will-never-happen-again-I’msosorry-please-forgivemeifyoucouldIwouldreallyappreci…”

“
Shhh,” Lauren said and I quieted.  “You’re not in trouble.  You’ve done a fine job, really.  I’m just waking you to let you know that Glen’s about to be back from the fields.  You should go back to your cabin.”

Some emotion that I didn’t expect flashed over her eyes and then she paced out of the room.  I smiled and although I was gracious for her hospitality, it confused me.  I replaced my book where I found it and went downstairs and into the kitchen to return my
broom and dustpan.  I returned the items and then saw that the stack of sandwiches was still tall.  I took three, one for me and two for Saul, and tucked them into my shirt and held them as I walked back to the cabin.

Whenever I got back,
day light was fading and supper was being served.  I hid the sandwiches in my cabin and Saul and I received our dinner-a gray stew with no meat and only a few vegetables.  Saul and I ate our dinner inside of our cabin.  When I revealed the food that I had brought, his eyes lit up in excitement.  He scarfed down both sandwiches and all of the stew and said, “thank you, Walt,” profusely.  I noticed that his stomach was flatter than it used to be and that his shoulders were losing thickness.  I made up my mind at that time that I would sneak as much food to him as possible.  He was huge and still growing.  He needed a lot to eat.

After my afternoon nap I was
wide awake when night came.  The temperature fell and the farm became quiet.  Saul snored beside me and the moon rose.  I waited for a couple of hours and then dug myself out from my cabin and ran over the fields.  I ran further and faster that night and when I collapsed I felt even happier than I had the two previous nights.

I snuck back into my cabin and as soon as the pots and pans rang out in the morning air and my door was opened I headed for Lauren’s house.  I knocked on the front door and this time
Pitri answered and hugged me.  It was an odd gesture, but he was an odd guy.  He pranced off into the kitchen.  He was cooking egg and ham omelets for Glen and Lauren and I went outside and filled the back tub with water.

Whenever I was done I came back into the kitchen and found that
Pitri had made me an omelet too.  I had never had an omelet before and found that I loved them.  The melted cheese, ham, and egg were delicious.  I ate until I was full, a feeling that I wasn’t accustomed to.

As I was eating in the kitchen Lauren came in and talked to me.  “How are you today?” she asked.

“Good,” I said through a mouthful of omelet.

“I’ve talked to Glen and he was upset about what time I let you go yesterday.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“No, it was my fault,” she said.  I cocked my head at this.  It confused me.  Weren’t Salyers supposed to be
mean?  Wasn’t everything supposed to be my fault in her eyes?  “But from now on, you will have two more jobs.  In the mornings, you have to serve us breakfast, and in the evenings you will be our servant for dinner.”

“What do I do?” I asked.

“Pitri will show you.  It will be easy, really.  You just stand there while we eat and if we want anything you go and get it for us.”

“I can do that,” I said.

“When you’re done eating, set the table.  Glen is getting dressed right now.”

Pitri
helped me set the table.  I hadn’t been in the dining room before.  It was a long room with renaissance style paintings of Biblical scenes covering the walls.  A long wooden table sat in the middle and china cabinets with beautiful decorative plates and bowls sat against the walls.  After the table was set, Pitri and I stood around it and waited for the family to arrive.

Lauren came in first holding her little girl.  The little girl’s cheeks were still burning red and her nose was running.  Lauren smiled at both
Pitri and I.  “Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning,” we both said back.

The little girl sat in a high chair and Lauren began to feed her a bowl of applesauce.  When Glen came in he looked angry.  He sat his gun down against the wall as he stomped in on his boots.  Mad veins scattered around his neck and he threw himself down in his seat without a word.  The scar that ran over his eye seemed to be inflamed.  He began to eat his omelet like a starving dog, slapping his jaws together as he did so.

Lauren looked at Glen and whispered, “honey?”

“What?” he boomed back.

Lauren looked from her daughter to Glen.  “Julia’s hasn’t been eating.  I’m worried.”  Lauren held a spoonful of applesauce up to the toddler’s mouth and the little girl shook her head.

“Who made the applesauce?” Glen asked while he chewed.

“I did, sir,” said
Pitri.

“Well, there’s your problem.”  Glen looked up at
Pitri with such an angry and venomess expression that it made me decide that Glen Taylor was not only a mean person, but that he was insane.  “It’s probably awful.”

Pitri
nodded and tried to smile but was obviously hurt by what Glen had said.  “Glen,” Lauren said.  “She’s burning up.  She’s been running a fever for days.  Look at her cheeks.  She has Mungus fever.”

“No she doesn’t,” Glen said and forked another bite into his mouth.  He chewed twice and then spat his food onto his plate.  “Are you kidding me!” he growled.  “
Pitri, this is cold!”

Glen stared at
Pitri with angry eyes.  Lauren looked scared.  “I’m sorry, sir.  I’ll try to do better next time,” said Pitri.

Glen took one more bite then pushed his plate off of the table where it broke and scattered over the floor.  Lauren flinched and baby Julia began to cry.  Glen grabbed his gun from the wall and then stormed out of the dining room and out to the fields where he would work for the rest of the day.

As soon as he was gone I was on my hands and knees cleaning up the pieces of broken plate and food off of the hardwood floor.  Lauren crawled down to help me and I could see that her eyes were red with tears.

After the dishes were cleaned I took my broom and dustpan and went back up to the library to ‘sweep.’  I found the book that I had been reading the day before and I plopped down on the sofa and began to read.  With my stomach full of omelet I watched the fan spin above my head and I began to drift off.  When I awoke I sat up on the couch and looked around.  I could see out of the half circle window in the back of the room that the sun was still high in the sky.  It felt as though it was about noon.  I was hungry and I wondered if
Pitri had made any sandwiches that day.

I stood up, left the library and walked down the long hall towards the stairs.  As I was walking, I heard a scratching sound and stopped.  It was Lauren, on her hands and knees of the bathroom, scrubbing the tile floor with soap and water.  “Hello?” I said.