The Book of Salt - Monique Truong [89]
"Think of them as the Lives of Sinners," said GertrudeStein. "There are," she insisted, "similarities."
"Sinners lack passion," countered Miss Toklas.
Miss Toklas decided that they should not stray from their usual routine. They would invite you to the next Saturday tea but nothing more. Nothing should appear as if it had changed. Everything, of course, did once my Mesdames had their eyes on you, Sweet Sunday Man. Miss Toklas was delighted when you approached her that following Saturday with your inquiry for a cook. Such a convenient confluence of self-interest, she thought. That was when your hands unraveled your story. Miss Toklas noticed them immediately. A performer of some sort, she thought. So expressive, the way his fingers bend, tracing the curving currents of air. An actor, maybe a puppeteer, in either case a man who makes his living by hiding himself away, she thought. Unlike me, Miss Toklas could not be absolutely sure. So she asked GertrudeStein that night whether your behavior had been the same as the week before.
"Yes," answered GertrudeStein, who then reported to Miss Toklas that you were much more discreet this time, but it was there all the same. Your erratic actions, your wayward bouts of disinterestedness, she announced, were rooted in an acute aversion to music or at the least any serious discussions of it. "A music critic, no doubt," GertrudeStein declared, her lips crackling into bits of much savored laughter. My Madame is always satiated by her own jokes. For Miss Toklas, I have noticed, the enjoyment is rarely the same.
"No, no, Lovey, he is not a writer," Miss Toklas insisted.
"I know he's not a writer, Pussy. I told you he's a critic."
"He is not a critic either, Lovey."
"Whatever Lattimore is, this afternoon he walked away right in the middle of my discussion with Robeson. A fascinating debate," GertrudeStein said, "for anyone with even the slightest interest in music."
"Robeson, the opera singer?"
"Yes, I asked him why he insisted on singing Negro spirituals when he could be performing requiems and oratorios. Do you know what that curiosity in a suit said? In that basso profundo voice of his, he replied, The spirituals, theys a belong to me, Missa Stein.'"
"Lovey, stop! You sound like a shoeshine boy. Have you considered that, maybe, for Lattimore your discussion with Robeson had nothing to do with music."
"No."
"Maybe it is Robeson who is the subject that Lattimore has no interest in, or maybe Lattimore has too much interest and does not want to let it show."
I suspect that Miss Toklas's intuition has always been above average, but after having to sit through the recitation of all those detective stories, it has sharpened into a bullet that never, never misses.
"Oh," said GertrudeStein.
"For goodness sake, Lovey, music? That is a bit of a stretch. When one looks at Mister Paul Robeson, the first thought that comes to mind is not music. Missa Stein, for a genius you ese a'ways plain wrong."
My Mesdames looked at each other, and their laughter rose up and consumed them. It climbed the walls, turned the corner, and followed me as I walked back into the kitchen. Malice, I was afraid. On second thought, that was not what I heard. Their laughter was not configured in that way. I know malice well, and it is a more meticulous, laboriously constructed thing. Theirs had a wormy center, a now-and-then upkeep. Unsettling to hear all the same. Unsettling because such things have no natural barriers, nothing that can contain their spread. Like my Mesdames, they can be born elsewhere and then taken abroad. That is how they seed. That is how they grow.
That was not what Robeson said, was it, Sweet Sunday Man? Tell me his response. Say it out loud.
"Miss Stein, with spirituals I can sing. The others I have to perform. '"
GertrudeStein and Miss Toklas are brazen, indeed. Do you think, Sweet Sunday Man, that my Mesdames would have sent me out to just anyone? A good cook is a great commodity in this city. Any city, really.