The girl with the big eyes, now the only one obscuring my line of sight, breaks off the leaf and throws the branch to the side. She kneels down and begins to fan the leaf at something that I cannot see. My body leans forward, and my eyes focus on a sweep of gray, moving, barely. A pigeon, an ordinary, city-gray pigeon, stumbles between the girl's black boots and tries to spread its wings. The right one opens to its full span, a flourish of white. The left one collapses halfway, a crush of gray. The bird pitches forward and falls on this sloping left wing. It lies there while the children become excited. A boy is laughing and jutting his finger. The girl with the big eyes is still fanning but is no longer kneeling. Children passing by are now stopping. Their nannies pull them away, scolding them for looking at something dying. The little audience fluctuates in size, but all who join keep a wide ring of stone between themselves and the bird. There must be space enough for such things, an instinct that they all possess, except for the boy with the jutting finger and the girl with the big eyes. She continues to fan and is now on her knees again. Her face is down low, almost touching the pigeon's head, a head that picks itself up and drops itself down, a visible jarring each time it hits the cold surface of stone. The boy with the jutting finger remembers the discarded branch and runs toward it. He brings it back and pokes the pigeon on the back of its neck. The girl stands back, deferring to something violent, deferring to something in herself. The bird responds by rolling itself back onto its feet. Head wobbling to a quiet song, it hops down one step and attempts again to spread its wings.
A flourish of white, a crush of gray.
A flourish of white, a crush of gray.
Adults are now stopping. The spectacle has become a matter of public interest. Death, a private thing, is making a limited appearance, a February sun. Faces, creased and concerned, peer down at the children and the pigeon. Nearby, a man and a woman exchange whispers. I imagine that they are not speaking French. Her shoes, after all, are too practical. No Parisian woman would stand so unadorned and close to the earth. The woman touches the shoulders of those before her until there are none, except for the boy with the jutting finger, a finger made grotesque by the branch that has extended its natural reach. The woman bends down next to the bird that has lost all memory of flight. Sitting on its folded feet, it warms an egg that it can no longer understand is merely stone. The woman takes off her gloves. The gesture stops time. The world becomes small, and she and the bird are the only ones casting shadows on its spinning surface. I close my eyes but cannot keep them shut, another useless flutter on this winter's day.
The woman cups the pigeon in her hands, a washerwoman's mottled pink, and straightens her body. The expected resistance, the bird's fight for freedom, never comes. She walks down the steps, the pigeon before her, raised like an offering to the snow beds down below. She places the bird on a patch of ground where the snow had melted clean. Her hands continue to cup its body, steadying it for what is to come, warming it like no sun can ever again. The assembly has followed the woman down the steps, and, from where I am sitting, I can see their bodies speaking with uncertainty. Backs turn away and then turn back again. Heads form small circles only to unfurl in wavy lines. Uncertain, I can see, about whether the woman's cupped hands have delivered the last rites, whether they can now resume the day, reclaim the minutes lost to a little death. The girl with the big eyes still has the leaf in her hand, fanning the air before her. The boy with the jutting finger stands with two younger boys by his side. Lessons are being learned. Cruelty passes from one to the other, a not so secret handshake.
I see a sudden ripple of coats and hats. Children are being quickly led away, their small hands covering their mouths, larger hands covering their eyes. The ordinary, city-gray pigeon is again in my line of sight. It is attempting flight, creating a spectacle worse than death. With its breached left wing, it manages only to skim the snow. It flies toward a nearby hedge and hurls its body into a tangle of branches. its feathers catch on thorns and other small curious growths and are lifted up, exposed in shameful ways. The pigeon flaps its wings with a force that shakes the hedge, makes it tremble, startles it with something akin to life. The bird falls back onto the snowy ground. its refusal to die a soft, concerted death is an act thought willful and ungrateful by those assembled. They show their displeasure by pulling their attention away, a recoiling hand. The bird flies again into the branches, confused and exhausted.
I close my eyes, a useless flutter. I open them, and I see you half a world away. I hear fever parting your lips. I feel your shiverings, colorless geckos running down your spine. I smell the night sweat that has bathed you clean.
The woman with the pink mottled hands is the only one who has remained. No one wants to stand so close to desperation. It is too thick in the air. It is naturally invasive, has the dank odor of musty rooms and vacant houses, a distinct taste, tangy and burning on the tongue. The woman should know. She carries desperation with her, soiled into the seam of her skirt, sewn into the lining of her coat. She examines the bird and recognizes the signs, the secret markings of her tribe, and she knows that this will take time. She picks up the pigeon, again a swift wrapping of pink, and walks it up the steps. She walks it past me and lays the bird under the trees, near where the girl with the big eyes had dug up the branch. The woman looks over at me, and we exchange promises. Someone would do the same for me when my day comes, I imagine her saying. With no farewell words, she leaves me.
"Ça suffit!" I shout at the children who are regrouping on the top steps. "That's enough! That's enough! That's enough!" My barely comprehensible French makes them laugh, makes them consider my sanity. The deliberation is brief. I am crazy, they decide. They run off, leaving me on this bench at the edge of a garden that is trying to tether a retreating sun. I hear the pigeon thrashing its body against a mound of snow. With each attempt, its wings become heavier, ice crystals fastening themselves, unwanted jewels, winter's barnacles. The faint crunch of snow is making me cry. I will sit here until it stops.
I know you are in your best áo dài. You bought it when you were just eighteen. Gray is not a color for a young woman. Gray is the color you wanted because you were practical even then, knew that gray is a color you would grow into, still wear when your hair turned white. You snap yourself into this dress and cannot help but notice that it hangs from your body, nothing to cling to. Your breasts are smaller now than when he first saw them. Your belly bears the scars of your four sons and your one husband. You touch your face the way that no one else has since I have gone. You smile because you know that I am with you, understand your need to don this dress, a thing you can call your own. You know I am holding your hand, leading you out the front door of his house. You step out into the street, and you are a sudden crush of gray. Silk flows from your body, softness that he had taken away. In the city of my birth, you keep the promise that we made to each other. We swore not to die on the kitchen floor. We swore not to die under the eaves of his house.
21
"BEE, the Steins are making plans to go away."
Sweet Sunday Man, of course, I know where and why. I cannot believe, though, that you already know. My disappointment is a fish bone lodged in my throat. I have been saving that bit of news for over a month now. I have been saving it for later on tonight.
Yes, what you have heard is true. My Mesdames have received telegrams from the Algonquin Hotel in the city of New York. The telegrams confirmed that the Algonquin would have a steady supply of "oysters" and "honeydews." I have made it a point to remember these two English words, and as I repeat them now for you, you as usual smile. I have to say them again several more times, altering and flattening out my tones as best as I can, AYster, aySTER, hooNIdoo, and so on, before you recognize them. The translation of "oyster" into French is easy enough for you, but you are having difficulty with "honeydew." You explain to me that a honeydew is a melon, but you are uncertain whether there is an exact equivalent in French. You will have to spend some time,
you tell me, looking through your books and dictionaries. I look at you and shrug. I, frankly, do not understand the reason for your anticipated effort. Words, Sweet Sunday Man, do not have twins in every language. Sometimes they have only distant cousins, and sometimes they pretend that they are not even related. At least with this one, we know the family: melon. I, therefore, know that a honeydew is a fruit that smells like a flower, a fruit with a texture that hovers somewhere between solid and liquid, a fruit whose juices cool the lucky body that consumes it. As for the other characteristics of a honeydew, those I will just have to imagine.
My Mesdames had received the Algonquin's menu in the mail in January, soon after the preparation for the trip began. Actually, I believe it may be more accurate to say that the preparation for the trip did not begin until the hotel's menu arrived in the mail and was judged suitable. GertrudeStein read each item out loud while Miss Toklas offered occasional commentary. I myself was surprised to hear that a menu from an American hotel would include so many French dishes: canapés, meunières, paupiettes, glacées. The words were comforting for me to hear as I walked back and forth between the dining room and the kitchen, clearing away the remains of my Mesdames' supper. As to be expected, there were also some items, presumably American in origin, that I did not recognize. By the end of the recitation, Miss Toklas looked impressed, maybe even a bit proud. GertrudeStein looked simply relieved. She had located the two items, apparently the only two items on the menu that she had any interest in. In the month since, we at the rue de Fleurus have received more menus from hotels in cities all over America. The same reading aloud has occurred with each one. When oysters and honeydews were not read aloud or even when they were but the wording was vague or made references, I assumed, to seasonal availability, a frantic course of correspondence would then begin with Miss Toklas drafting telegrams and anxiously awaiting their replies. More often than not, though, GertrudeStein recited "oysters" and "honeydews" with a noticeable sigh of pleasure after each word, and the tension that accompanied these proceedings would then leave the room.
Oysters on the half shell and fresh honeydews both served on a bed of crushed ice, you tell me, are the only foods that GertrudeStein can eat before she gives a lecture.
"Lecture? But I thought my Madame writes books."
"She does. Then she lectures about them."
"Oh."
You had heard a rumor about GertrudeStein that, until now, seemed far-fetched. It had been whispered at the Saturday teas that she is nervous before she lectures, that this monument of a woman actually has to sit down to keep from fainting. Even though you are an iridologist and not particularly interested in the internal organs, you know that a jittery stomach is a sensitive one. So while you personally could not imagine keeping down a meal of raw oysters and cold honeydews even on the best of days, you could certainly understand how the delicate colors of these two foods could have a calming effect on GertrudeStein.
"Before she lectures," I say, trying to imagine GertrudeStein standing before an audience of people so formidable that they could cause my Madame's confidence to waver.
"That's why the Steins are returning to America in October."
"How do you know?" I ask.
"I read it in the newspapers."
My face expresses shock that the newspapers would know about my Madame's prelecture menu, and you smile.
"Oh, that. Don't worry, only you and I know about the oysters and honeydews," you assure me.
"Shh, Messieurs, please remain still and look straight ahead," the photographer Lené instructs.
We both take in a long deep breath and wait motionless for the flash of white light. In the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night, the stars, believe me, are never that bright.
"Come back next Sunday, Messieurs. I will be here, and so will your photograph," the photographer Lené says, as he hands you the receipt. You fold the blue slip of paper in half and place it inside the pocket of your coat.
"Only seven days," I say to myself.
When we return to the rue de l'Odéon, the scent of narcissus, the sunlight undressing at the garret windows, the belly of the Buddha stove growing full and warm, all assure me that this was a gamble worth taking. A week's worth of anxiety for a week's worth of anticipation, a fair enough trade, I think. Anything for my scholar-prince, I think. Really, how can I not imagine you in that role? Your interest in my Madame's books is far from casual. Your desire to examine the writings in her notebooks is certainly academic in purpose. Your ability to gather facts about her and Miss Toklas has lately equaled even my own.
***
Powdered sugar, cracker crumbs, salt. A short walk out onto these city streets today, and I will be covered with them. I am no poet, so forgive my lack of appreciation, my nonaffection for the snow. Back at the Governor-General's, the chauffeur told us that it was like the softest down of the whitest dove, that it nestled like blossoms in the hats of all the pretty French girls. He told us that when snow touched his face it felt like a kiss. I know now that that was just memory talking, blatantly making things up because the chauffeur, like all of us, so wanted to believe. When the Saigon sun cracked our lips, splitting them open like some soft fruit, the promise of a kiss, even one so far away, could get us through the endless procession of days. I, in truth, have always preferred the rain. It has little to do with my vocation. Cooks, unlike poets, are unmoved by the weather. From the very beginning, the best ones, according to Minh the Sous Chef, know how to use the extreme heat, the bitter cold, to their advantage. They take the sun and turn the flesh of fruits or animals into a mouth-savoring chew. They never forget, even as the skin underneath their fingernails turns blue, that the appearance of ice means the advent of meat without maggots or a crust of salt. As for the rain, it means that yeast may be slow to rise and that eggs may rot within days. My affinity for the rain really has little to do with its culinary consequences. I, like all my brothers, was conceived in a downpour. What else was there to do during the rainy season? Hell, I suspect everyone in Saigon was conceived amidst the sound of water, carousing on the rooftops, slinking down the drainpipes. In this city, well, anyone conceived in Paris today would be treated to the sound of automobile horns and church bells because a snowfall contributes nothing to the city's constant chatter. A snowfall in February, silent—sullen would not be overstating it—is for me the most unforgiving. There is no pretense of grace, no lofty swirling, no laceworked confetti. The sky just opens up and pours down powdered sugar, cracker crumbs, salt. These are my exact thoughts. Nothing poetic, nothing profound, nothing more worldly than the miserable weather and how I would have to be out in it before the markets closed for the day. Breakfast has been served. Basket and Pépé have been stuffed with livers. Lunch for their Mesdames is still hours away. GertrudeStein and Miss Toklas are staying in for the day because of the weather and because photographers are expected later for tea. The rhythm of a Monday at the rue de Fleurus punctuated by a gripe about the snow, a refrain about tropical rain. Fate, though, is listening in. Worse, it mistakes a melancholic aside for a bout of nostalgia. The latter honors the past. I am merely regretting it.
"Thin Bin, this is for you."
I turn my head from the ice-flocked window, and my heart stands still. So soon? I think. It has only been a day, Mesdames. Only one day.
Miss Toklas is standing just inside of the kitchen doorway, and next to her is GertrudeStein. GertrudeStein has one hand in the pocket of her skirt, and the other is pointing to a small silver tray in Miss Toklas's hands. "Thin Bin, this is for you," GertrudeStein repeats.
A one-way fare for the métro? Severance pay minus the cost of one notebook, used? A letter of recommendation for my next Monsieur and Madame: "Marvelous cook but clumsy when inebriated and has on occasion been known to pilfer. Yours truly, The Steins. "No matter, whatever my Mesdames have for me on that tray, I can at least assume it is not a canape. In all the years that I have been with them, I have never seen them t
ogether in quite this way. First of all, GertrudeStein rarely accompanies Miss Toklas into the kitchen. They have a division of labor, and GertrudeStein's half has nothing to do with this room. Second, Miss Toklas always does the talking when it comes to matters of domestic affairs. GertrudeStein does not even know how much I get paid. As for the silver tray, I can only assume that these two are a bit more formal about their dismissal practices than other Messieurs and Mesdames. The timing, after breakfast and before lunch, is classic. More cooks are discharged during these few fateful hours than any other. Most Messieurs and Mesdames require coffee and something sweet from me before they will let me go. Monday is also the preferred day of the week for such tasks. It leaves Monsieur and Madame with enough time to find a replacement. That is why most dinner parties are scheduled from Thursdays through Saturdays. The beginning of the week is set aside for the general flux of firings and hirings. And, of course, there is the snow. Inclement weather always seems to encourage Monsieur and Madame to show me the door and lock it. But for once, I have no intention of hastening the process, so I glumly stand my ground. Mesdames, you already have it on a silver tray. You might as well take those extra steps and serve it to me.
"Thief," I hear the Old Man hissing in my ear.
Shut up. It was mine to give.
"Liar."
We have something in common, after all, Old Man.
GertrudeStein takes the tray out of Miss Toklas's hands and walks it over and places it into mine. I am, by now, sitting on their kitchen floor. My life is moving too quickly, and as always I believe that being closer to the ground will slow it down. My Mesdames have grown used to my occasional slipping away. At first they chalked it up to the gulf in languages, then to the stupor brought on by drink. Lately, they have attributed it to a degenerative hearing loss on my part, which would explain their raised tone of voice and their repetition of even the simplest of commands.
The Book of Salt Page 23