The Book of Salt by Monique Truong Read Free Book Online

exaggerate—has called me by my given name. Their mispronunciations are endless, an epic poem all their own. GertrudeStein's just happens to rhyme. Every time she says my name, I say it as well. Hearing it said correctly, if only in my head, is a desire that I cannot shake. I readjust and realign the tones that are missing or are sadly out of place. I am lonesome all the same for another voice to say my name, punctuated with a note of anticipation, a sigh of relief, a warm breath of affection.
    "Thin Bin," says GertrudeStein, "how would
you
define 'love'?"
    While my Madame begins her question with what I have to come to accept as my American name, she has to deliver the rest of it, the meat of it, to me in French. It is, after all, the only language that we have in common. And GertrudeStein's French is, believe me, common. It is a shoe falling down a stairwell. The rhythm is all wrong. The closer it gets, the louder and more discordant it sounds. Her broad American accent, though, pleases her to no end. She considers it a necessary ornamentation, like one of the imposing mosaic brooches that she is so fond of wearing. She uses it freely on her daily stroll around the neighborhood with Basket pulling at her by a red rope leash. GertrudeStein never walks the Chihuahua. Pépé does not perform well when there is dirt or stone underneath his stiletto paws. First he shakes and then he passes gas. For a dog the size of a guinea hen, he passes more than can be imagined. GertrudeStein prefers the goat-sized poodle. Basket's cape, she believes, gives him a sensible air. Together these two ample ambassadors of American goodwill canvass the streets of the Left Bank, engaging the shopkeepers in their doorways, the old men walking their tiny dogs, the kind that, like Pépé, shiver all year round. It is always surprising for me to see Basket strolling with GertrudeStein. For all of His Highness's haughtiness when he is home alone with me, the poodle Basket on the streets of this city is reduced to yet another tongue-lolling, rear-end-sniffing, pee-spraying object of undue affection. I am not the jealous type. It is just that dogs, or rather Madame and Madame's love relationships with them, are more foreign to me than their language could ever be. As Anh Minh would say, "Only the rich can afford
not
to eat their animals."
    GertrudeStein is fully versed in the language of canine appreciation. She uses it and Basket, panting and pink, to befriend even the surly butcher on the boulevard Edgar-Quinet, a man with one glass eye constantly trained on the rows of small stripped carcasses hanging in his shop windows. She uses it and Basket to sweet-talk the long-lashed Gypsy girl on the rue de la
Gaîté who hawks bundles of rosemary or violets, depending on the season, when Basket bounds over and licks her hands and sniffs underneath her skirts. My Madame uses it and Basket because her French, like mine, has its limits. It denies her. It forces her to be short if not precise. In French, GertrudeStein finds herself wholly dependent on simple sentences. She compensates with the tone of her voice and the warmth of her eyes. She handles it with stunning grace. When I hear her speak it, I am filled with something very close to joy. I admire its roughness, its un-apologetic swagger. I think it a companion to my own. I think we will exchange one-word condolences and communicate the rest with our eyes. I think
this
we have in common.
    GertrudeStein has, in turn, taken an interest in my, well, interpretation of the French language. She is affirmed by my use of negatives and repetitions. She is inspired by witnessing such an elemental, bare-knuckled breakdown of a language. She is a coconspirator. She would, of course, enjoy the show. I remember that on the day that I was hired GertrudeStein was present for my first discussion with Miss Toklas about the menus for the coming week. That conversation took place then, as it does now, in the