The Book of Salt - Monique Truong [69]
First, my Madame pushes in GertrudeStein's chair and gathers the papers and notebooks knocked off the table by her Lovey's hands. When I first saw them I thought of overgrown knobs of ginger or sage sausages pushing against their casings. Either way, assertive and unmistakable, I thought. Next, Miss Toklas wipes away the ink from the fountain pen, replaces the tip that GertrudeStein has flattened like the top of a volcano, and returns the instrument to its red lacquer box. Opening up a nearby cupboard, Miss Toklas places the box inside and takes out a typewriting machine. She sits herself down at the dining table, not in GertrudeStein's chair but in the one to the right of it, and begins to type. The piece of paper, strapped to the machine, flails up and down as each key comes in for a slap or a kick and always looks to me as if it is resisting.
Before meeting you, Sweet Sunday Man, I never thought twice about Miss Toklas's typing. I thought of it as a typical act of overindulgence, like the careful cutting of meat into bite-sized pieces for a child who is no longer one in age, or a singular act of pampering, like the donning of a new pair of shoes in order to soften their leather for the tender feet of a lover. Miss Toklas is capable of doing both. After hearing your predictions about my Mesdames' purported fame, Sweet Sunday Man, I must admit that I am more curious about the cupboard with the heavy black typewriting machine and the red lacquer box lying inside, like the skeletal remains of a once heftier machine and its elongated heart. Who knows what else this cupboard may hold? I think. My curiosity, which is the term that we in the servant trade prefer, tends to peak on Mondays, and, conveniently, Mondays are also when my Mesdames are absent from the rue de Fleurus for the good part of the day.
At the beginning of everyone else's workweek, my Madame and Madame take a leisurely drive around the city, often followed by a chorus of horns, to attend to their errands and occasionally to their friends. Today is no different. I watch from the kitchen window as GertrudeStein lugs a large satchel of books to their automobile. Miss Toklas follows with two pâtés en croûte, one perched in each hand. The "meat loaf," as Miss Toklas calls these pastry-wrapped beauties, are going to the homes of two of their friends. "One who is in poor health and another who is just poor," Miss Toklas said. "Skip the truffles in both," she told me. "It is the meat that they need, not the fuss." Miss Toklas has a judicious approach toward extravagances, culinary and otherwise. Waiting inside the kitchen for tonight's supper is a third pâté en croûte with three times the usual amount of "fuss." After all, Miss Toklas is a sorceress: an act of charity and self-indulgence combined into one. Lucky GertrudeStein is always the intended recipient of truffles and other reserved luxuries. Outside, GertrudeStein is sounding like a race car driver and she knows it. Miss Toklas knows it too and places her hands over her ears. The repeated revolutions of the motor, the sounds of petrol pushed into an unwilling machine, wake the concierge, and he leans out of his window and shakes his fist. "Crazy Americans!" he grumbles. GertrudeStein waves back and smiles, assuming that the concierge must have said something to the jovial tune of "Bon voyage!"
My Mesdames are too trusting. They never assume the worst about those around them. Though, sometimes,