The Book of Salt - Monique Truong [64]
I have the hat because the house there, while spacious enough to be called a petit château, has no running water, and I am often outside in the gardens, where there is a pump. I also have the hat because in Bilignin as in Paris I have Sundays off. The farmers in the village are gracious enough and at first simply curious enough to invite me, the first asiatique they have ever seen, into their homes. And their sons, I have to admit, are handsome enough to make me accept each and every time. All the families in this area make their own wine, so drinking is never a problem, and generosity ills my glass till I thirst for just a bit of water. I have found that water at the end of these nights eases my entry back into Monday. Though sometimes there is not enough water in the sea for me. I awake the next morning to the sound of Miss Toklas slamming pots and pans in the kitchen. These are pots and pans that she and no one else would need for the preparation of the simple breakfast of fruit and fresh sheep's-milk cheese that she and GertrudeStein prefer when they are in Bilignin. I climb down the narrow staircase that leads from my room to the kitchen, and I do the only thing that I know how when I am faced with an angry Madame.
"It is my health—" I lie.
"But I am improving as we speak," Miss Toklas finishes my usual speech for me.
I had overheard a femme de ménage from Brittany use those exact words in the home of a previous Monsieur and Madame, and I had her teach them to me. They are vague enough to cover most household mishaps and oversights and also have the assurance of in-progress improvement tacked on at the end. When she asked me why I wanted her to repeat it, I told her I thought the sentence clever and useful. The femme de ménage agreed, but she said that she could not take credit for it, as she herself had overheard an Italian nanny employ the same words in another household some years back. We servants, in this way, speak the same language learned in the back rooms of houses and spoken in the front rooms on occasions such as these. Miss Toklas and GertrudeStein have also developed an apparent appreciation for this sentence. On subsequent Mondays when my head is again too heavy with wine, my Mesdames' breakfast conversation floats up to my bedroom window, like pieces of burnt paper, from the terrace down below. Amongst their otherwise incomprehensible English words, I recognize the phrase "it is my health" spoken in a fair approximation of a laborer's heavily accented French. Laughter usually ensues. No matter, I think, as I turn over on my side. Laughter in this case is a good or, at least, a nonthreatening sign. Of course, I try not to indulge in this sort of behavior very often, not more than two or three times during the season. It is just that drink is cheaper in Bilignin. In fact, it is free. The farmers there ask very little of me, and when they do they seem to enjoy, unlike their Parisian cousins, the sounds of the French language faltering on my tongue. Sometimes they even ask to hear a bit of Vietnamese. They close their eyes, trusting and sincere, and they imagine the birds of the tropics singing. When they are like this, I remember what the man on the bridge had told me: "The French are all right in France." What he meant, he explained, was that when the French are in their colonies they lose their natural inclination toward fraternity, equality, and liberty. They leave those ideals behind in Mother France, leaving them free to treat us like bastards in the land of our birth. The man on the bridge, I know, would have liked these farmers whose sons never leave Bilignin.
In the summer, my Mesdames kindly overlook my Monday-morning absences. Halfway through the season, Miss Toklas even suggests that I take Mondays off for "my health." Of course, she also reduces my pay by one day. But life in Bilignin does not require a full wallet, so