The Book of Salt (29 page)

After this photograph of GertrudeStein in her kimono was taken, Leo wrote a note to his sister, as they had chosen no longer to speak, accusing Miss Toklas of stealing her away from him. When Miss Toklas read this, she laughed, and wrote back: "Your sister gave herself to me."

How true, I think. A gift or a theft depends on who is holding the pen.

A FEBRUARY SUN
is offering itself to this city, a rare commodity that Parisians snap up by the handful. They swarm the Jardin du Luxembourg, finding comfort in the puddles of light. Like melted pools of butter, I think. The chestnut trees have been bare for months now. I am still taken aback when I see them, so many in a row, turned upside down, their leaves deep in the earth, their roots waving with the wind. Contortionists, acrobats, a spectacle that, I am afraid, I alone see. I find myself searching the brambles for rose hips. I am moved that they have remained, stoic orbs of color in a city that has otherwise lost its palette. I trace the lines of low-lying branches. My fingers find the swelling just beneath the surface, the node that marks the persistence of life. A winter garden is a gift that this city has given me, honey in a hive, corals in a raging sea. To see it, I must endure. Children run past me. Their nannies follow, eyes on their charges, gossip on their lips. Young women walk by, arm in arm, their bell-shaped hats swing to the brisk rhythm of their feet. Students, I imagine. Eyes too kohl-rimmed for shopgirls. Tourists, Americans maybe, file past with their guide, a Frenchman wearing a beautiful blue overcoat and a crooked
ivory smile. I am the only fool sitting still. There is no competition for the benches in February. Another benefit of this garden pruned by the cold.

Winter waited for me on the shores of this country like a vengeful dowager, incensed and cold-shouldered. She never lets me forget that I had ignored her existence for the first twenty some years of my life, never felt her in my bones, never longed for her on days when the sun was too high in the midday sky. At first, she was all patience and beauty, disguising herself in colors, hiding among autumn leaves. When she blew the first kiss, I welcomed her with arms opened wide, never suspecting that within days she would make me cry.

When I was born, heat licked her heavy lips and embraced me. Before my mother could take me into her arms, I smelled her. Before I could take in my mother's milk, I tasted the salt on her nipple. I tell this to myself, repeating it like a prayer to keep me safe, something warm to wrap around me. Overcoats are never thick enough for me. I would try wearing two, but I own only one. And wind would merely whip through the additional layers of wool, and then I would wish that I owned three. I get lost in this city only in winter. I am lost in this city today. Ice intensifies my lowest emotions, magnifies what I lack. Snow makes me want to sleep, not in my bed but on the corners of busy boulevards, in alleyways, underneath the awnings of crowded shops, wherever I happen to be when my body says, Please, no more. The desire is sometimes so strong that I return to my Mesdames' apartment exhausted from the struggle. It is not always a victory for me. Often I have lost the day on a park bench, sitting so still that pigeons were inspecting themselves in the shine of my shoes. How long I have been there, I can tell only by the stiffness of my limbs, the time it takes for blood to spike through my arms and legs.

Today I am watching a group of children playing on the stone steps leading up to where the cold has bolted me to this bench. I first notice them when a little girl with big eyes breaks from a circle of children and runs up the steps. She leaves the walkway and heads directly toward the trees. Once underneath, she begins to dig at the snow with her mittened hands. She dislodges a thin arm-length branch with one brown leaf still attached to it. She runs down the steps, and the ring of children splits open, their padded bodies forming the hemisphere in which the tragedy I had not anticipated would unfold.

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.

"
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.