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By Root 384 0

shirt by the time he comes back to his garret on Sundays, so I do not ask. What does it matter, I tell myself, when he is here with me now. There is then the simple exchange of greetings, the swapping of our given names, what we have waited all week to say, the ways that our bodies make up for the lost time. Sweet Sunday, for me, then officially begins. My hands this morning are shaking, and the damn keys are sticking to their locks. I have not slept all week. Anxiety and anticipation have been playing their loud music all through the nights, and my heart has been keeping time to their jazz beats. Either that, or my Mesdames' next-door neighbors have purchased a phonograph and are choosing to believe that din and ruckus, like Basket and Pépé, do not travel. It is difficult for me to say for sure. About the source of the disturbance, of course, not the status of the dogs.

Basket and Pépé, believe me, are not going anywhere soon. My Madame and Madame are attempting to lessen their guilt about it by acquiring for His Highness and the Pretender to his throne the accoutrements of travel. They bought them leather collars, two apiece, punched through with shiny metal studs, and, for Basket, a fitted coat. No trousers. Basket is a dog, after all. Dogs, even the overly pampered variety, do not seem to require coverage of their hindquarters. As for Pépé, he looks better unclothed, and my Mesdames and he know it. Luckily my Madame and Madame have been much too preoccupied with such preparations to notice my hands, trembling. They think I have been spilling their tea, breaking their china, cutting myself on the flowery shards because I am unused to and, therefore, unhinged by the persistent ringing of their telephone. We at 27 rue de Fleurus finally have a telephone of our very own. GertrudeStein never answers it. Miss Toklas is the house operator. At first she followed the French convention of responding to the rings with an "Allô!" shouted into the mouthpiece. Now she just picks it up and breathes. She waits for the voice on the other end to stumble forth a salutation and an identification. If she does not like what she hears, she hangs up. No explanations, no feigned excuses, nothing of the kind. She does the same thing with her eyes when she greets people face to face, so why would she behave any differently over the telephone line? GertrudeStein laughs out loud when she hears the dull thud of the mouthpiece hitting its cradle. She and I both know that Miss Toklas signals her distaste for the caller by how loudly she lets it drop. Such a useful machine, Miss Toklas thinks.

My Mesdames have been in a playful mood as of late. They are giddy. They have been telephoned. They have been telegrammed. Best of all, they have been photographed. GertrudeStein has not sat down to her writing table for weeks, and Miss Toklas has not once opened the cupboard to make use of the typewriting machine. I have been apprehensive all the same. Because photographers are even more curious than servants. The only difference is that photographers practice their invasive art while my Madame and Madame are still in the room. Midway through their visits, I often hear GertrudeStein sending Miss Toklas off to fetch some small souvenir of their years together in what, I imagine, must be an ongoing effort to sate the assembled crew. Miss Toklas is prouder than anyone of her life with GertrudeStein, but if it is a memento that she does not display in the studio, there is always a compelling reason why. Take "La Argentina," for instance. This past Monday, GertrudeStein sent Miss Toklas to retrieve her for the benefit of two Spanish photographers who had braved the snow to have tea with my Mesdames. La Argentina is a flamenco dancer, whose spinning skirts, red-tipped and full, wake my Mesdames up each morning and each night from where she dances high above their bed. Despite her name, my Mesdames acquired her in Madrid. The label on the back of the poster says so. The front of the poster, well, the front of the poster is a fine example of how some women can look