When Mrs. Brandt left to sail back to Denmark with their son, she wished me luck in holding up to the blacks. It was the Arabs she was speaking of. “If you’re not able to handle them, it will be no weakness on your part. They are an ugly, brutish people. Just let Mr. Brandt know that you need help.” I wondered what her husband would do, what kind of help he could offer me. Most staff were not Arab. The chef was French and the house girls who worked in the kitchen and as cleaning staff were Spanish and Portuguese. The gardener in the inner courtyard was from Italy. It was the groundskeepers around the compound who were black, as we called the Arabs then.
One morning, Sitto came back. I hadn’t seen her since Mrs. Brandt and Sven had left. “Madam, something wrong.” I was a miss, not a madam
