The dining room was smaller than the rest of the rooms in the house that Malee has seen. Other than the large wooden table in the middle that could seat about 10 persons, there weren’t much in the room. Malee spoke to the lady besides her and was told it was only the dining room for the family. There is another room for special occasions such as parties. Malee accepted it without as much as a second thought. After working there for less than a day, Malee wouldn’t be surprised if she was told there was an elephant somewhere in the building. The building that servants stayed was much bigger than most of the houses she had seen before.
The door quietly opened and Mary came in to the room. Followed her by the same lady whom Malee had seen before, the one they called the mistress, and George. His eyes were half-closed, but when he noticed Malee, they opened wide and he gave a gentle smile. Malee observed that while Mary was serving the young master, another lady served the mistress. The breakfast itself was quickly done and over with both of them having some soup and bread. Once done, without saying a word, they went out of the room as quietly as they had come in. Mary went along with the young master, presumably to prepare him for the school.
The lady besides Malee went to the table and started carrying the remaining food, and Malee followed her to do the same. Soon , Malee was back in the servant dining room and having breakfast with the rest of the servants. The food was better than Malee had ever tasted, and she noted a few of her fried potato were eaten while she was bringing the plates back. She reminded herself to ask George later when he was back from school.
Mary came in a while later and joined in the breakfast with the rest. Malee could see they were very close together as they had a few laughs and talked constantly while eating, which was closer to what Malee had done many times with her mates at the shops at the front of the road of her hut. In contrast, both the mistress and George had breakfast earlier without even saying a word. After the breakfast, Malee helped with cleaning the dishes, pots and pans with the rest. Once it was all over, Mary pulled Malee out to the garden.
“I will tell you your duties and your pay later but now I want you to help the others with the laundry. They will wash clothes and drying them. Once done, we will have breakfast and you can rest till the young master is back from school. Understand?,” said Mary. Malee nodded. Washing clothes seemed like a much better deal to her than pushing the cart in the rain and shouting from top of her voice. It came with free meals to boot. Malee couldn’t think of anything to complain about what she was doing so far. Malee followed Mary back into the kitchen and into another room full of various machines and a few baskets of clothes.
Malee was told to take the clothes from the baskets and sort them out according to the fabrics into empty baskets. Malee sat down by the basket nearest and sorted out the clothes. They were mostly women wear clothes so easier to sort them out. Malee had never seen such variety of clothes under gourmets and such before, but she was a quick learner. Soon, with a few corrections from the other servants, she could sort them into respective baskets and handed over them to the others. Once they have checked, Malee saw them taking some liquids, they smelled of soap, into the machines and subsequently putting the clothes in them. Then they switched on the machines one by one after closing the main door.
Malee watched as the machines vibrated and made a large noise and understood why the door was closed before they had started the machines. Mary signalled her to come out of the room into the kitchen. She sat down at the large table that they were preparing the breakfast and was joined by the gardener, her husband, and a boy her age, whom Mary introduced as Michael, her son. They sat together and had tea. Malee was told it was not as good as the one young master usually have but Malee couldn’t notice the difference at all. They asked several questions to Malee and how she came about. Malee told her of the events from yesterday and they had a good laugh at what happened to the cart and the car’s back light.
“So what happened to the car?,” asked Malee, curious as to the car that George said he didn’t like.
“We sold it. Master gave it to young master for his birthday before left so it was up to the young master to decide. Don’t worry, he has a car from last year and with the money, he will probably buy another.,” replied the gardener while sipping tea from the cup. It seemed a car for the family was something like a shoe for others, something to be replaced easily. Malee couldn’t imagine such a life because she never has enough money to buy a new cloth or shoe before yesterday.
Malee nodded. She thanked her luck it was up to George. If the car belonged to his mother, Malee couldn’t imagine what would happen to her. Probably jailed, or fate worse than that. She took a final sip before bringing the cup to the basin to wash and put back the cup on the shelves. By then, the noise from the washing room had stopped and Mary had already gone into the room with Michael washing the cups for his mother. It was time to dry the clothes in the sun. To Malee’s surprise, the time they had pulled out from the machine already dried the clothes. Others laughed at her naiveness and hung those in the sun, as to make them smell better, she was told.
Mary followed the rest in carrying the clothes in a basket to the mini garden behind the washing room and started hanging them on the wires setup for such purpose. The amount of clothes she carried surprised them as from looking at her thin body, they thought she couldn’t carry much at all. Malee smiled at the surprised faces, being thin and able to carry that amount of clothes were due to her having to push the cart daily since young, not something she was proud of. We did quickly it in less than half-an hour minutes and they went back into the cooking room to avoid the sun’s ever hotter light. Malee watched as they were having another round of talks and laughter and wondered what about the job hard for her. She simple done a few friend potatoes, carried a few baskets and changed some clothes. Compared to her previous life, it was like a heaven. She was spending more time sitting down and drinking tea than doing any work. She had not even broken a sweat at throughout the whole morning and the blisters from her hand and feet seems to be disappearing.