• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 386 0

I think they are just careless about what they care about. Either way, it is an unusual trait in an employer of domestic servants. I once worked for a Monsieur and Madame who placed a chain around the icebox before they went to bed at night. You can keep the damn cold, I thought. I had another Madame who padlocked the door to the toilets before she left the house. The nearby café, as I was forced to discover, required the price of a drink with every flush. Madame, your kitchen sink will have to do when my bladder is too full and my pocket is too dry, she should have heard me thinking. The worst, though, was a Monsieur who locked up the kitchen knives at night and wore the key around his waist. They are the instruments of my trade, for goodness sake! You, Monsieur, do not trust me with your life, but you trust me with your meals? Absurd, n'est-ce pas? All of this is to say that I was anticipating a security measure or two with my Madame and Madame as well, but their cupboard opens quietly, easily.

I see table linens, bundles of tea-stained cloth tied with mustardy strings, a sort of graveyard for ruined tablecloths, napkins, and runners. I am not surprised that Miss Toklas would save such things. Odd, though, that she would store them in this cupboard, I think. But what was at first glance undeniably cloth turns into reams and reams of paper, as my eyes adjust to the sight, to the ivoried remains of what must be decades' worth of GertrudeStein's one-quarter of an hour. What you would have given to see this, I think. Opportunity presents itself to me so rarely. I am amazed that I still recognized it. Yes, I think, what would you give? Endless Sundays drenched in cathedral bells, the left side of your bed, a good-night kiss instead of a good-bye one, a drawer for my razor and comb, your eyes warm on my face when I am serving you tea in my Mesdames' studio, your desire for me worn there like a red bloom in your lapel.

***

Every Saturday, I wait. My presence, just inside the entrance to my Mesdames' kitchen, ensures that all the cups are steaming and that the tea table stays covered with marzipan and butter-cream-frosted cakes. Always discreet, almost invisible, I imagine that when the guests look my way they see, well, they see a floor lamp or a footstool. I have become just that.

"Hardly! You're not nearly as bright or useful."

Thank you, Old Man, for showing me the error of my ways.

At the edge of a crowded room, held in place by the weight of my shoes, thick-soled and cracked by the cold, I wait. The heat of so many bodies crowded together but not touching keeps the studio at a comfortable temperature, but the feeling of cold is, for me, a relative thing. Every Saturday, I search this gathering for Sweet Sunday Man's face and catch only glimpses of his back. But today, I tell myself not to be afraid. I will not be cast adrift. It is not only a matter of time. I do not need a reflection in a mirror, red on the blade of a knife, proofs that this body of mine harbors a life. I have my Madame and Madame. As long as I am with them, I have shelter. I am in the center of a hive, and it is Sweet Sunday Man who is the persistent bee. The honey that he craves is the story that he knows only I can tell. Last Sunday when I told him about the cupboard and what my Mesdames have stored inside, his breath left him. Sweet Sunday Man wanted to know the exact number of notebooks. He wanted to know the order of the typewritten pages. He wanted to know the exact words that GertrudeStein had written and that Miss Toklas had dutifully typed. I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. In his excited state, Sweet Sunday Man forgot that the English language is to me a locked door. His breath left him again. He sat down at his desk, and I took that as a sign to begin preparing our evening meal. For the rest of the day, the usual rhythm of our routine prevailed. I cooked and he read. I caught him stealing glances, though. Admiringly, I thought. A sea change, I hoped.

But today's tea is like all the others. At 27 rue de Fleurus, even the furniture