The Book of Salt - Monique Truong [99]
"She," who was by then undeniably GertrudeStein, refused to be ridiculed by anyone, especially by Leo. The infidelity, the betrayal, the savagery of it, shrunk her love for him into a thing so small that one day it disappeared.
"Babble!" GertrudeStein complained to Miss Toklas.
"Lovey, there can be only one," Miss Toklas whispered, repeating the phrase that would absolutely, mercilessly sever GertrudeStein from her brother Leo, her only one. Miss Toklas knew that it would.
***
Choose something from the middle, you tell me. No one ever remembers what happens there.
"No."
"Bee, they'll never even notice."
"No."
"Bee, please ... just for the week and then you can take it back with you the following Sunday."
What an odd request, I think. Or is it more of a plea, a childlike wish, which in the mouth of a man can quickly become an either-or command?
You want to see GertrudeStein's handwriting, her crossed-over words, the discarded ones. She is the twentieth century, you tell me. What she keeps and what she does not will tell you about the future, you insist. My Madame is not a soothsayer, I think.
"Ask me something else," I beg. The tips of my fingers are throbbing, picking up as they always do the electrical charge that is in the air, that precedes the appearance of any threat, lightning before a driving storm.
Sweet Sunday Man, please understand. My Madame and Madame sustain me. They pay my wage, house my body, and I feed them. That is the nature of our relationship. Simple, you may think. Replaceable, even. The morning meals, the afternoon repasts, the evening suppers, the day-to-day is what I share with them. You may think that that is just an unbroken string of meals, continuous but otherwise insignificant, but you would be wrong. Every day, my Mesdames and I dine, if not together, then back-to-back. Of course, there is always a wall between us, but when they dine on filet de boeuf Adrienne, I dine on filet de boeuf Adrienne. When they partake of salade cancalaise, I partake of salade cancalaise. When they conclude with Crème renversée à la cévenole, I conclude on the same sweet note. Do you understand, Sweet Sunday Man? These two, unlike all the others whom I have had the misfortune to call my Monsieur and Madame, extend to me the right to eat what they eat, a right that, as you know, is really more of a privilege when it is I who am doing the cooking. My Mesdames do not even demand that I wait until they have finished, that I scrape together my meals from what is left of theirs. When I place that first bite of boeuf Adrienne in my mouth and I am brought to my knees—figuratively speaking, of course, as I reserve that posture for love and prayers—by the white wine, cognac, laurel, thyme, and red currants, that elusive final ingredient that ends all of their compliments with a question mark, I know that my Mesdames are on their knees as well, saying a word of thanks for two heady days of marinating and one hour of steady basting. With their meals of beef, my Mesdames insist on oysters as an accompaniment. These briny morsels are more of a juxtaposition, a counterpoint to the buttery aftertaste of cow's blood. Salade cancalaise provides my Mesdames with that and more. Inside the curl of a leaf of lettuce is a single poached oyster. Underneath this dollop of ocean fog is a soft pallet of potatoes. A shaving of black truffle covers all. The potatoes are there for heft and texture, but the truffle, ah, the truffle is a gift for the nose. Pleasure refined into a singular scent, almost animal, addictive, a lover's body coming toward yours on a moonless night. Even this my Mesdames