The Book of Salt - Monique Truong [66]
For the farmers of Bilignin, the end of the summer season is marked by two events, the departure of the two Americans and their asiatique cook and the gathering of the grapes. The gathering is a festival at which the younger farmers of Bilignin meet their future wives or lovers, but then again they do not do that sort of thing there. The wine casks and jugs from the past vintage have to be emptied to make way for the new. That requires almost as much work as the actual removal of the fruits from the vine. But that is why the farmers of Bilignin work and drink like horses. I drink like the Old Man. I am fine after the first bottle, but then I turn red. As these farmers and others have pointed out, I look as if I have been burnt by the sun. My cheeks, I am embarrassed to admit, are crimson. I cannot pass it off as a blush because the color is too intense. But beyond this red cast, I remain remarkably unaffected. Well, that is until I pass out. The line between being awake and not is easy for me to overstep, as I never see it coming. One moment I am sitting at one of the long tables set outside under the harvest moon for the occasion, and the next I am being slapped and doused with water. I take that as my signal to begin my walk back to my Mesdames' house. There, I am greeted by Basket and Pépé, who delight in the task. They begin to bark as soon as I open the iron gate to the gardens. They continue to bark as I unlock the door to the kitchen, where they are sitting in wait. These two act very undoglike at moments like these. They never jump on me, sniffing and nipping. They are obviously not happy to see me. His Highness and the Pretender to the throne do not have a drop of fear or protective instinct directed toward me either. These two sit by the stove and bark, obligated by a pact with each other to call attention to the time and the state of my arrival. When they are in Bilignin, Miss Toklas and GertrudeStein must sleep like dogs—well-mannered ones, that is. I never see their bedroom light turn on when I enter the gate, and I never hear them rustling about upstairs when I am in the dark kitchen below. Basket and Pépé, despite their mean-spirited efforts, always fail to rouse my Mesdames from their bed to come and see their cook, red, wet, and bleary-eyed.
Well, except for last summer when His Highness and the Pretender scored a great victory. Granted I did help their cause by throwing up and then passing out before I could reach the stairway to my room. Their noses must have been offended by the strong smell of alcohol that my vomit released into the kitchen. I can imagine that their barking then reached a particularly persuasive pitch. Pépé does have a tendency to emit a eunuch-worthy howl when he is in pain or when there have been too many days of rain. I remember groping for the stairs one moment, and then the next I am being doused with water for the second time that night or, maybe, it was already morning. I looked over at the pool of vomit on the floor and then at a nearby pair of sandals standing slightly apart. "Bin, you will take the train tomorrow. GertrudeStein and I will take the vegetables with us in the automobile," said a voice that, I am afraid, like the sandals, belonged to Miss Toklas. The sandals then padded away, gently slapping the tile floors of the dark house.
The next day, I walked around the house, somber and silent, closing the shutters and putting cloth over the furniture. The last of the summer vegetables caught a ride back to Paris with my Mesdames. Basket's ears were flapping. Pépé's were twitching. The usual traveling circus took off in puffs of dust as GertrudeStein