Mr. Bianchi the cook and Ms. Danilenko the housekeeper took joint second place. They were happy when Harriet and Margot stayed out of their way and unhappy at all other times. But at a meeting held in Margot’s bedroom on their first evening in the house, the Lees decided that signaling their desire to earn their keep was more important than warding off the combined hostility of the cook and the housekeeper. They rolled up the sleeves of their silk pajamas and got down to work. Margot did a lot of late-night cleaning and laundry, and Harriet sneaked into the kitchen in the earliest hours of the morning to bake gingerbread for everybody, even though Ari and Tamar told her she was free to develop other interests and Mr. Bianchi had plenty of derisive things to say about the fruits of her labor.
If you wanted proper gingerbread, you should have told me. Are we treating this as a rare delicacy best prepared by small hands? Where is the complication in this? Is this pashmak, I ask you . . . is this patisserie? I can make gingerbread like this with my eyes closed, with my hands tied behind my back; I can make this kind of thing in my sleep!
If Harriet were ever to accept an award for her gingerbread, her first shout-out would be to Mr. Bianchi. He was such a perfect hater. His denunciations of “this basic snack” never stopped him eating it, and for all that he went on and on and on about how easily he could match Harriet’s gingerbread, he never let anybody taste the batches he turned out. Gabriel took to studying in the kitchen while Harriet was baking. He’d seen Mr. Bianchi on the prowl with a rolling pin and thought Harriet needed a bodyguard. Margot joined them as additional backup and pored through job listings while waiting for the wash cycle to come to an end, and Rémy joined as a supplementary buffer between Margot and Ms. Danilenko. He was also helping Margot to craft a perfect(ly fictitious) CV for the jobs she wanted but didn’t have the experience for yet. Harriet looked around at her sleepy companions, each one insisting that he or she felt wide awake, Gabriel reluctantly posing as this or that former employer in order to field inquiries from American companies that were considering Margot’s latest job application across time zones, and she felt she had Mr. Bianchi the angry cook and Mrs. Danilenko the even angrier housekeeper to thank for the 3:00 A.M. kitchen team.
Ari Kercheval was the next most readable. Ari was happy with you as long as you didn’t need something it was not in his power to give. Rémy’s independence put a great big smile on his uncle’s face, though at times it seemed to arise from a determination to neither give nor take that struck Ari as unsuitable for—well, a human being. Margot made Ari happy too: he found her requests moderate. Tamar, Kenzilea, and Harriet made Ari about 78 percent happy . . . he understood them; he mostly understood them. Ambrose and Gabriel were bothersome. They hid things from Ari, and even when he was able to discover what it was they had hidden, there didn’t seem to a sane rationale for the hiding. For instance, why did Gabriel hide his perfect school reports? Really it was self-effacement that Ari Kercheval couldn’t understand. Besides, there was nothing to be gained from parading the reports around, since the C’s Rémy earned without studying got more praise than the A’s Gabriel went flat out for.
The problems between Ari and Ambrose and the problems between Ari and Gabriel didn’t just stay between them . . . for instance there was the way Rémy couldn’t seem to let a day go by without offering his father some token of disrespect. This wasn’t something Ari liked to see, and he kept having ineffectual heart-to-hearts with Rémy about it. There were other nasty episodes, like the tearful drunken rages during which Tamar would repeatedly ask Ari if he didn’t wish he’d fathered Rémy himself, or the time Tamar consulted inheritance lawyers behind Ari’s back about how to proceed in the event of a nephew being made chief beneficiary of a will instead of a biological son. Margot assured Ari he wasn’t overreacting to Tamar’s level gaze as she’d said: What if your nervous headaches are an undetected tumor—what then? As if she was wishing it on him . . . what dangerous place was this stuff coming from, and how could this be the same Tamar who still sent Ari love notes via homing pigeon . . .
So Ari’s readability was affected by his wariness. There was rarely a day when he didn’t have to prepare for the next trap that was going to be set for him as a father/husband/brother/brother-in-law/uncle, though not, thankfully, as a benefactor.
Tamar Kercheval was the fourth most readable. Tamar liked to be depended on and didn’t have Ari’s reservations regarding ability to follow through. When Ari had shown her three captive pigeons he’d just been given by a client and repeated the story the client had told him about their being Druhástranian pigeons, she’d said: You never know, it could be true, and had proceeded to bone up on pigeon husbandry. Had Maggie Parker seen the way those pigeons now doted on Tamar, she might’ve been upset—or she might have claimed Tamar as a Parker. Tamar remained mindful of the doctor-patient bond she’d had with Harriet, but she was slightly unhappy about having an attractive and unemployed woman (i.e., Margot) drifting around the house while she was away. For a while Ms. Danilenko was paid extra to send confidential daytime reports. But the Lees soon discovered that Tamar Kercheval resembled the God of the New Testament in that she was keen on anyone who was keen on her son—the boy had been brought forth for the sake of love and therefore ought to receive plenty of it. For Harriet and Margot, doting on Gabriel was very easily done, so they could count on Tamar for anything. She filled in all their immigration papers herself and had lawyers check them over. And she pressed Harriet to make free use of Parker’s Pigeon Post: Write anything you want . . . I won’t read it.
Harriet wrote in Druhástranian, just in case: Hi Zu, I’m staying with very nice people in Yorkshire and everything’s great except sometimes people try to act as if they don’t understand what I’m saying when I think they actually do understand but just think my accent should be more like theirs. Are you well? What about Dottie and Lyudmila and Suzy and Rosolio and Cinnabar and the rest of the GGs? Lots of love, Harriet.
Zu wrote back: Hi H, the GGs bought our farm! We’re doing well—busy—and it just so happens that we’re looking for somebody to come and read farmers’ almanacs to the cows; the job’s here for you if you want it. Our accent may not be the world’s most melodious, but English accents are annoying too, so if anybody makes fun of the way you talk, just give them one slap in the face with your foot! You have to do that for us. Sending love.
Harriet wrote: I’m well, and I’m glad you’re all well.
Zu wrote: We’re glad you’re well and glad that you’re glad we’re well.
They couldn’t write down all they wanted to; the pigeons couldn’t carry it all.