Прислуга

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ-93
С81

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any form.

This edition published by arrangement with G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of 
Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

ISBN 978-5-9925-1208-3

Стокетт, Кэтрин.
С81 
Прислуга : книга для чтения на английском языке. — 
Санкт-Петербург : КАРО, 2017. — 608 с. — (Modern Prose).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1208-3.

Предлагаем вниманию читателей первый роман американской писательницы Кэтрин Стокетт, вышедший в свет в 
2009 году и сразу ставший бестселлером. В книге приводится 
полный неадаптированный текст романа с комментариями и 
словарем.
УДК 372.8 
ББК 81.2 Англ-93

© КАРО, 2017
Все права защищены

Aibileen

Chapter 1 

August 1962
Mae Mobley was born on a early Sunday morning in 
August, 1960. A church baby we like to call it. Taking care a 
white babies, that’s what I do, along with all the cooking and 
the cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime. 
I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go 
in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the 
morning.
But I ain’t never seen a baby yell like Mae Mobley Leefolt. 
First day I walk in the door, there she be, red-hot and hollering with the colic, fighting that bottle like it’s a rotten turnip. 
Miss Leefolt, she look terrified a her own child. “What am 
I doing wrong? Why can’t I stop it?”
It? That was my first hint: something is wrong with this 
situation.
So I took that pink, screaming baby in my arms. Bounced 
her on my hip to get the gas moving and it didn’t take two 
minutes fore Baby Girl stopped her crying, got to smiling 
up at me like she do. But Miss Leefolt, she don’t pick up her 
own baby for the rest a the day. I seen plenty a womens get 
the baby blues1 after they done birthing. I reckon I thought 
that’s what it was.

1  the baby blues — (разг.) послеродовая депрессия

Here’s something about Miss Leefolt: she not just frowning all the time, she skinny. Her legs is so spindly, she look 
like she done growed em last week. Twenty-three years old 
and she lanky as a fourteen-year-old boy. Even her hair is 
thin, brown, see-through. She try to tease it up, but it only 
make it look thinner. Her face be the same shape as that red 
devil on the redhot candy box, pointy chin and all. Fact, 
her whole body be so full a sharp knobs and corners, it’s no 
wonder she can’t soothe that baby. Babies like fat. Like to 
bury they face up in you armpit and go to sleep. They like big 
fat legs too. That I know.
By the time she a year old, Mae Mobley following me 
around everwhere I go. Five o’clock would come round and 
she’d be hanging on my Dr. Scholl shoe, dragging over the 
floor, crying like I weren’t never coming back. Miss Leefolt, 
she’d narrow up her eyes at me like I done something wrong, 
unhitch that crying baby off my foot. I reckon that’s the risk 
you run, letting somebody else raise you chilluns.
Mae Mobley two years old now. She got big brown eyes 
and honey-color curls. But the bald spot in the back of her 
hair kind a throw things off. She get the same wrinkle between her eyebrows when she worried, like her mama. They 
kind a favor1 except Mae Mobley so fat. She ain’t gone be no 
beauty queen. I think it bother Miss Leefolt, but Mae Mobley 
my special baby.
I lost my own boy, Treelore, right before I started waiting 
on Miss Leefolt. He was twenty-four years old. The best part of 
a person’s life. It just wasn’t enough time living in this world.
He had him a little apartment over on Foley Street. Seeing 
a real nice girl name Frances and I spec they was gone get 

1  They kind a favor — (разг.) Они немного похожи

married, but he was slow bout things like that. Not cause 
he looking for something better, just cause he the thinking 
kind. Wore big glasses and reading all the time. He even 
start writing his own book, bout being a colored man living 
and working in Mississippi. Law, that made me proud. But 
one night he working late at the Scanlon-Taylor mill, lugging two-by-fours to the truck, splinters slicing all the way 
through the glove. He too small for that kind a work, too 
skinny, but he needed the job. He was tired. It was raining. 
He slip off the loading dock, fell down on the drive. Tractor 
trailer didn’t see him and crushed his lungs fore he could 
move. By the time I found out, he was dead.
That was the day my whole world went black. Air look 
black, sun look black. I laid up in bed and stared at the black 
walls a my house. Minny came ever day to make sure I was 
still breathing, feed me food to keep me living. Took three 
months fore I even look out the window, see if the world still 
there. I was surprise to see the world didn’t stop just cause 
my boy did.
Five months after the funeral, I lifted myself up out a 
bed. I put on my white uniform and put my little gold cross 
back around my neck and I went to wait on Miss Leefolt 
cause she just have her baby girl. But it weren’t too long 
before I seen something in me had changed. A bitter seed 
was planted inside a me. And I just didn’t feel so accepting 
anymore.

“Get the house straightened up and then go on and fix 
some of that chicken salad now,” say Miss Leefolt.
It’s bridge club day. Every fourth Wednesday a the month. 
A course I already got everthing ready to go — made the 

chicken salad this morning, ironed the tablecloths yesterday. 
Miss Leefolt seen me at it too. She ain’t but twenty-three 
years old and she like hearing herself tell me what to do.
She already got the blue dress on I ironed this morning, 
the one with sixty-five pleats on the waist, so tiny I got to 
squint through my glasses to iron. I don’t hate much in life, 
but me and that dress is not on good terms.
“And you make sure Mae Mobley’s not coming in on 
us, now. I tell you, I am so burned up at her — tore up my 
good stationery into five thousand pieces and I’ve got fifteen 
thank-you notes for the Junior League to do…”
I arrange the-this and the-that for her lady friends. Set 
out the good crystal, put the silver service out. Miss Leefolt 
don’t put up no dinky card table like the other ladies do. We 
set at the dining room table. Put a cloth on top to cover the 
big L-shaped crack, move that red flower centerpiece to the 
sideboard to hide where the wood all scratched. Miss Leefolt, 
she like it fancy when she do a luncheon. Maybe she trying to 
make up for her house being small. They ain’t rich folk, that 
I know. Rich folk don’t try so hard.
I’m used to working for young couples, but I spec this is 
the smallest house I ever worked in. It’s just the one story. 
Her and Mister Leefolt’s room in the back be a fair size, but 
Baby Girl’s room be tiny. The dining room and the regular 
living room kind a join up. Only two bathrooms, which is 
a relief cause I worked in houses where they was five or six. 
Take a whole day just to clean toilets. Miss Leefolt don’t pay 
but ninety-five cents an hour, less than I been paid in years. 
But after Treelore died, I took what I could. Landlord wasn’t 
gone wait much longer. And even though it’s small, Miss 
Leefolt done the house up nice as she can. She pretty good 

with the sewing machine. Anything she can’t buy new of, she 
just get her some blue material and sew it a cover.
The doorbell ring and I open it up.
“Hey, Aibileen,” Miss Skeeter say, cause she the kind that 
speak to the help. “How you?”
“Hey, Miss Skeeter. I’m alright. Law, it’s hot out there.”
Miss Skeeter real tall and skinny. Her hair be yellow and 
cut short above her shoulders cause she get the frizz year 
round. She twenty-three or so, same as Miss Leefolt and 
the rest of em. She set her pocketbook on the chair, kind 
a itch around in her clothes a second. She wearing a white 
lace blouse buttoned up like a nun, flat shoes so I reckon she 
don’t look any taller. Her blue skirt gaps open in the waist. 
Miss Skeeter always look like somebody else told her what 
to wear.
I hear Miss Hilly and her mama, Miss Walter, pull up the 
driveway and toot the horn. Miss Hilly don’t live but ten feet 
away, but she always drive over. I let her in and she go right 
past me and I figure it’s a good time to get Mae Mobley up 
from her nap.
Soon as I walk in her nursery, Mae Mobley smile at me, 
reach out her fat little arms.
“You already up, Baby Girl? Why you didn’t holler for 
me?”
She laugh, dance a little happy jig waiting on me to get her 
out. I give her a good hug. I reckon she don’t get too many 
good hugs like this after I go home. Ever so often, I come to 
work and find her bawling in her crib, Miss Leefolt busy on 
the sewing machine rolling her eyes like it’s a stray cat stuck 
in the screen door. See, Miss Leefolt, she dress up nice ever 
day. Always got her makeup on, got a carport, double-door 

Frigidaire with the built-in icebox. You see her in the Jitney 
14 grocery, you never think she go and leave her baby crying 
in her crib like that. But the help always know.
Today is a good day though. That girl just grins.
I say, “Aibileen.”
She say, “Aib-ee.”
I say, “Love.”
She say, “Love.”
I say, “Mae Mobley.”
She say, “Aib-ee.” And then she laugh and laugh. She so 
tickled she talking and I got to say, it’s about time. Treelore 
didn’t say nothing till he two either. By the time he in third 
grade, though, he get to talking better than the President a 
the United States, coming home using words like conjugation 
and parliamentary. He get in junior high1 and we play this 
game where I give him a real simple word and he got to come 
up with a fancy one like it. I say housecat, he say domesticized 
feline, I say mixer and he say motorized rotunda. One day I 
say Crisco. He scratch his head. He just can’t believe I done 
won the game with something simple as Crisco. Came to be a 
secret joke with us, meaning something you can’t dress up no 
matter how you try. We start calling his daddy Crisco cause 
you can’t fancy up a man done run off on his family. Plus he 
the greasiest no-count you ever known.
I tote Mae Mobley into the kitchen and put her in her 
high chair, thinking about two chores I need to finish today 
fore Miss Leefolt have a fit: separate the napkins that started 
to fray and straighten up the silver service in the cabinet. 
Law, I’m on have to do it while the ladies is here, I guess.

1  junior high — (разг.) школа для детей 12–13 лет (средняя школа)

I take the tray a devil eggs out to the dining room. Miss 
Leefolt setting at the head and to her left be Miss Hilly 
Holbrook and Miss Hilly’s mama, Miss Walter, who Miss 
Hilly don’t treat with no respect. And then on Miss Leefolt’s 
right be Miss Skeeter.
I make the egg rounds, starting with ole Miss Walter first 
cause she the elder. It’s warm in here, but she got a thick brown 
sweater drooped around her shoulders. She scoop a egg up 
and near bout drop it cause she getting the palsy. Then I move 
over to Miss Hilly and she smile and take two. Miss Hilly got 
a round face and dark brown hair in the beehive. Her skin be 
olive color, with freckles and moles. She wear a lot a red plaid. 
And she getting heavy in the bottom. Today, since it’s so hot, 
she wearing a red sleeveless dress with no waist to it. She one a 
those grown ladies that still dress like a little girl with big bows 
and matching hats and such. She ain’t my favorite.
I move over to Miss Skeeter, but she wrinkle her nose 
up at me and say, “No, thanks,” cause she don’t eat no eggs. 
I tell Miss Leefolt ever time she have the bridge club and she 
make me do them eggs anyways. She scared Miss Hilly be 
disappointed.
Finally, I do Miss Leefolt. She the hostess so she got to 
pick up her eggs last. And soon as I’m done, Miss Hilly say, 
“Don’t mind if I do,” and snatch herself two more eggs, which 
don’t surprise me.
“Guess who I ran into at the beauty parlor?” Miss Hilly 
say to the ladies.
“Who’s that?” ask Miss Leefolt.
“Celia Foote. And do you know what she asked me? If she 
could help with the Benefit this year.”
“Good,” Miss Skeeter say. “We need it.”

“Not that bad, we don’t. I told her, I said, ‘Celia, you have 
to be a League member or a sustainer to participate.’ What 
does she think the Jackson League is? Open rush?”
“Aren’t we taking nonmembers this year? Since the 
Benefit’s gotten so big?” Miss Skeeter ask.
“Well, yes,” Miss Hilly say. “But I wasn’t about to tell her 
that.”
“I can’t believe Johnny married a girl so tacky like she is,” 
Miss Leefolt say and Miss Hilly nod. She start dealing out the 
bridge cards.
I spoon out the congealed salad and the ham sandwiches, 
can’t help but listen to the chatter. Only three things them ladies 
talk about: they kids, they clothes, and they friends. I hear the 
word Kennedy1, I know they ain’t discussing no politic. They 
talking about what Miss Jackie2 done wore on the tee-vee.
When I get around to Miss Walter, she don’t take but one 
little old half a sandwich for herself.
“Mama,” Miss Hilly yell at Miss Walter, “take another 
sandwich. You are skinny as a telephone pole.” Miss Hilly 
look over at the rest a the table. “I keep telling her, if that 
Minny can’t cook she needs to just go on and fire her.”
My ears perk up at this. They talking bout the help. I’m 
best friends with Minny.
“Minny cooks fine,” say ole Miss Walter. “I’m just not so 
hungry like I used to be.”

1  Kennedy — Джон Фицджеральд Кеннеди (1917–
1963), американский политик, демократ, президент США 
(1961–1963)
2  Miss Jackie — Жаклин Кеннеди (1929–1994), жена 
Дж. Ф. Кен неди, была очень популярна среди народа в основном из-за своей красоты и умения модно и элегантно одеваться