while I was unconscious makes my skin crawl.
I don’t like his smile when he sees me again. His teeth are too square and too white. He looks like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
“Get undressed,” he orders.
“Why?” I say.
“Because the boss says so,” he grunts.
When someone tells me to do something, I feel this impulse to obey. That’s what I’m used to doing, at home and at the dance studio. I follow orders.
But not here. Not with these people.
I wrap my arms tight around my body and shake my head.
“Unlike you, I don’t answer to your boss,” I say.
The maid shoots me a warning look. I can tell from the distance she keeps between herself and the black-haired man that she doesn’t like this guy. She’s trying to tell me not to mess with him, that the veneer of civility only runs so deep.
I could have guessed that for myself. As much as I disliked the Beast, he at least appeared intelligent. This guy looks like a goon through and through, with his caveman brow and his bad-tempered scowl. Stupid people are not creative. They always resort to violence.
“Here’s the thing,” the goon says, frowning at me. “Klara here is supposed to help you bathe and get dressed. If you won’t let her do that, then it’ll be up to me to strip you naked and soap you down with my bare hands. And I won’t be as gentle about it as Klara. So it’s in your best interest to cooperate.”
The idea of this overgrown ape attacking me with a bar of soap is more than I can stand.
“Fine!” I snap. “I’ll take a bath. But only if you leave.”
“You don’t get to set terms,” the ape laughs, shaking his oversized head at me. “I’m supposed to supervise.”
God, I want to puke, just from the smug expression on his face. He’s not watching me get in that tub, not voluntarily anyway. What would Mary Lennox do?
“If you try to make me put that dress on, I’ll rip it to shreds,” I tell him calmly.
“We’ve got lots of dresses,” the ape says, as if he doesn’t care.
I see the flicker of annoyance on his face, though. His instructions were to make me wear that dress, not just any dress.
“Go away, and Klara can help me get ready,” I insist.
The smug smile fades off his face. Instead of an ape, he looks like a sulky toddler.
“Fine,” he says shortly. “You better hurry up, though.”
With that attempt to salvage his dignity, he goes back out into the hall.
Klara looks relieved that the confrontation ended that easily. She gestures toward the bathtub, which is now full almost to the brim with steaming water. She’s scented it with some kind of oil—almond or coconut.
At least I know her name now.
“Klara?” I say.
She nods.
“Nessa,” I touch my own chest.
She nods again. She already knew that.
“What’s his name?” I point toward the door where the ape just disappeared.
She hesitates a moment, then says, “Jonas.”
“Jonas is a dick.” I mutter.
Klara doesn’t answer, but I think I see the tiniest of smiles tugging at her lips. If she understands me, then she definitely agrees.
“What about your boss?” I ask her. “What’s his name?”
An even longer pause, in which I don’t think she’s going to answer. Then, at last, Klara whispers, “Mikolaj.”
She says it like the name of the devil. Like she wants to cross herself afterward.
It’s obvious she’s a lot more afraid of him than she is of Jonas.
She points to the bath again and says, “Wejdź proszę.” I don’t know a single word of Polish, but I’m assuming that means “Get in, please,” or “Hurry, please.”
“Alright,” I say.
I strip off my sweatshirt and jeans, which were getting kind of gross, and then unhook my bra and step out of my panties, too.
Klara looks at my naked body. Like most Europeans, she’s not embarrassed by nudity.
“Piękna figura,” she says.
I’m assuming “figura” means “figure.” Hopefully “Piękna” means “pretty” and not “gangly” or “horrifying.”
I’ve always liked languages. My parents taught me Gaeilge as a child, and I took French and Latin in school. Unfortunately, Polish is a Slavic language, so it doesn’t share many words. I’m curious if I can get Klara to talk to me, to see if I can catch the gist of it.
I know she’s not supposed to talk to me. But she is supposed to get me dressed. The more I pester her, the more she relents so that I’ll cooperate with the bathing and the hair-washing. Soon I’ve learned