The Book of Salt - Monique Truong [102]
"Please" can also be a verb, an effortless act that accompanies Sweet Sunday Man into every room.
"Please" is also a plea, a favor that he has asked of me.
My index finger jumps from "please" to "please." Here ... it is a question. There ... it is a response. Here ... it is an act, and there ... it is a plea. I am following a story line that I may be alone in finding, but for an instant I tell myself that I, like Sweet Sunday Man, am reading my Madame's writings. I turn the page, and I see there the word "Bin." I recognize it as the spelling of my Mesdames' name for me. I find my American name written again and again on the following pages as well. With each sighting, I am overwhelmed by the feeling that I am witnessing myself drowning. There ... I am, I think. Here ... I am again. I am surrounded on all sides by strangers, strung along a continuously unraveling line that keeps them above the water's surface. It is a line that I cannot possibly hold onto. GertrudeStein knows it, and she has cast me in there anyway, I think.
I did not give you my permission, Madame, to treat me in this way. I am here to feed you, not to serve as your fodder. I demand more money for such services, Madame. You pay me only for my time. My story, Madame, is mine. I alone am qualified to tell it, to embelish, or to withhold.
Here, Sweet Sunday Man, here. This notebook may belong to my Madame, but the story, it belongs to me. Look, it has my name all over it. Here and here and here. Your eyes follow my finger as it skims the inked pages, and you smile. "Don't worry, Bee," you assure me. The story, my story, you tell me, could be affectionate, glowing, heroic, even. You place my Madame's notebook inside your desk. You lock the drawer with a key that you wear around your waist. "I'll tell you all about it next Sunday. Now, we should go or we'll be late for our appointment," you say, smiling again. A photograph of you with me, I think. The sound of the drawer shutting, the flat note of wood on wood, the sharp click of the lock, follow us down the rue de l'Odéon. The sun is shining, and I am lost in its glare. I close my eyes, and all I can see there is my Madame's face smiling back at me.
After this photograph of GertrudeStein in her kimono was taken, Leo wrote a note to his sister, as they had chosen no longer to speak, accusing Miss Toklas of stealing her away from him. When Miss Toklas read this, she laughed, and wrote back: "Your sister gave herself to me."
How true, I think. A gift or a theft depends on who is holding the pen.
20
A FEBRUARY SUN is offering itself to this city, a rare commodity that Parisians snap up by the handful. They swarm the Jardin du Luxembourg, finding comfort in the puddles of light. Like melted pools of butter, I think. The chestnut trees have been bare for months now. I am still taken aback when I see them, so many in a row, turned upside down, their leaves deep in the earth, their roots waving with the wind. Contortionists, acrobats, a spectacle that, I am afraid, I alone see. I find myself searching the brambles for rose hips. I am moved that they have remained, stoic orbs of color in a city that has otherwise lost its palette. I trace the lines of low-lying branches. My fingers find the swelling just beneath the surface, the node that marks the persistence of life. A winter garden is a gift that this city has given me, honey in a hive, corals in a raging sea. To see it, I must endure. Children run past me. Their nannies follow, eyes on their charges, gossip on their lips. Young women walk by, arm in arm, their bell-shaped hats swing to the brisk rhythm of their feet. Students, I imagine. Eyes too kohl-rimmed for shopgirls. Tourists, Americans maybe, file past with their guide, a Frenchman wearing a beautiful blue overcoat and a crooked ivory smile. I am the only fool sitting still. There is no competition for the benches in February. Another benefit of this garden pruned by the cold.
Winter waited for me on the shores of this country like a vengeful dowager, incensed and cold-shouldered. She never