I am trying to remember that Gertrude Stein looked just like my grandmother who smoked like Marlene Dietrich—a remarkable feat for a woman of eighty who never was a spy. I do remember her when she was younger—I am speaking of Hedwig, the grandmother I wasn't named after—but I don't remember her taking up smoking until she looked like Stein.
Before that, when it got summer-hot, she'd dress in her slip, black heels and hat, and take out her brushes and her canvas. She'd paint while I sat in the shade and read Freud. I don't know what Gertrude did in the heat or if she kept her buttons under her hat, but if Hedwig had ever walked a dog with Alice, you'd have heard about it from Freud. He'd have said she'd been drinking with Stein and Picasso even though you'd remember you'd heard they'd all died.
Gertrude had a brother named Leo, which is not impossible. Hedwig's brother was Edgar. We never met but twice she said my brother David smiled like him. Which reminds me of Leo, not because of the grin, but because we never met either, Leo and I, even though I was once younger and he was nearly famous. Leo, I've read, had notions about adjectives posing as nouns, which is something I must agree with—we'd have gotten along. Despite our shared views and grandmother's likeness to his sister, Leo and his sister didn't. My brother and I do talk, regardless of our fame or if we're still alive.
Yesterday a friend sent a letter quoting Cocteau writing on Pleasure, in which he speaks to where it's found. He describes finding himself with one leg (I couldn't say which) up in the air whenever he makes something totally new. And here is where the friend and I disagree: he thinks he's a completely new invention and I say I doubt that could have happened. Even without his father, who was Italian and who went missing, I remind him that everything has at least one ancestor—even our ideas. Besides, if I tried to be Cocteau, I'd just fall down.
Grandmother's father's second wife wore her predecessor's jewelry which only made Grandmother Hedwig, not Gail who never smoked and who only had one mother, remember her own mother more, like the time she taught her how to make soap. Somehow, one of the diamonds survived. I wear it, which might be art, according to Leo, who said at least one other thing: The real and the abstract feed from the same dish. I'm quoting him loosely. And when I do, Hedwig returns to painting because she's fond of red. When Picasso painted Gertrude she said it looked nothing like her. Picasso, who was always angry, said It will.
Her name—I'm referring now to Hedwig—means 'strife' in German. Which seems so unfair. Or perhaps it was a warning. And because she taught be German she ought to have known. When I took up smoking the two of us would sit at her dining room table. We'd cross our legs, hold our hands somewhere near Berlin, then we'd curl out index fingers over our Gauloises. We smoked just like spies. Seife, we whispered, Seife. Seife. And while Marlene's preference for bosoms might not have been German, her heart, she assured us—her soul—always was. Perhaps that's why she looked at the camera the way she did. When she sang we believed no one was ever as good at hiding men named Leo.
Because she's such a noun today, Grandmother resumes in German, while I consider the French. And although she's never worn tuxedos, she exhales as if she is Freud's imagination. He was from Austria; my other friend says. Close enough, we decide. Between us we wonder if Cocteau ever fell over and kept it a secret. When Gram tips her hat, I start to sing. Listen to this: Gertrude was born in Pennsylvania; I've never seen Berlin.
All this talk of smoke makes me want to dial up Freud. Sigmund, I'd lie—as if we were related—according to Cocteau, no one needs to die in our paintings or our stories. Everyone seeks ways to feed from bowls of pleasure.
See now, how my leg is up in the air?
BB
