The Book of Salt - Monique Truong [101]
"Bee, what about a photograph?"
Yes, I nod, acknowledging my childlike wish for an image of you and me.
"We'll do it. We'll go to Lené Studio and have our photograph taken, once you..."
An even exchange. A fair trade. A give for a take. I have played this game before, I think.
"Please, Bee. Just one week, Sunday to Sunday, and then you can..."
"Our photograph" is all that I want, and it is all that I hear. Sweet Sunday Man is a honey talker, and I am his Bee, after all. When I am with him, I am reminded that sweet is not just a taste on the tongue. Sweet is how my whole being can feel. He quickens my pulse, and I stay in that alert state, even when our bodies are no longer one. He inhabits a body that is free to soar through the continuous blue of this city's sky, and he takes me with him when he dreams. He fills my lungs with his breaths and his sighs. I cook for him, and he feeds me. That is the nature of our relationship.
Dressed in her kimono and her prayer beads, GertrudeStein is standing in front of the door of the studio, and she is waiting. For Miss Toklas, I imagine, when I look at this photograph. GertrudeStein's hair is abundant and continues to grow thick and lush inside this image. A half smile graces her face, deepening the dimples in her cheeks. It is a smile that says, Remember me. It is not so much a command but a sage bit of advice, a tip on a winning horse. My Madame is staring into the camera so intently that I imagine it was she who willed the shutter to close and open back up again, fixing her in that moment when she declared, "I am the one." It is an important occasion that my Mesdames are for some reason reluctant to share. But then again, my Madame and Madame have always been somewhat erratic about what they make public and what they press, viselike, to their bosoms. This photograph, for instance, they have chosen to keep inside the cupboard along with Miss Toklas's typewriting machine and GertrudeStein's notebooks and papers. Resting against the back panel of the cupboard, the photograph shows GertrudeStein with her hands clasped in front of her breasts, a knot waiting to be untied. By Miss Toklas, I imagine. The hem of GertrudeStein's kimono touches the ground and disappears into the white border of the photograph. I hold onto her there, at the hem of her garment, and I ask my Madame, "Would you do the same?" Miss Toklas, I know, would answer "Yes!" GertrudeStein is never faced with such dilemmas. She stands there and she waits, not patiently but confidently, for what she knows is rightfully hers. She is the recipient and never the procurer of love and affection. She has Miss Toklas for that. I stand in front of the open cupboard, in the silence that takes over 27 rue de Fleurus when my Mesdames are locked arm in arm for the night. I take from the cupboard a thin notebook that to me says it is small, insignificant, forgettable even. The notebook is not from the middle of the stack as Sweet Sunday Man had advised, but it is not from the very top either. It is a safe distance away, I gauge, from where I have seen Miss Toklas running her thumb through the accumulated pages. Their edges sliding down the smooth hillock of her finger makes her ticklish with anticipation, leaves her with a sensation that she would later remember as inevitability. I close the cupboard, but not before I bid GertrudeStein, beatific in her kimono, good night. I return to my room, close the door, and open the notebook. I see inside an unbroken string of words. My eyes scan them for ones that I may know, that I may recognize, like the face of a brother in the blur of a passing crowd. No, nothing, I think. Then I see the word "please"—one of the few English words that Sweet Sunday Man has taught me—and I see it again. I turn the page and "please" is there as well.
"Please" can be a question: "May I?"
And a response: "You may."