Months ago, when the second or assistant cook arrived, she was in the kitchen and around the dining room first at breakfast, then at dinner, when she had met the standards set by the head cook, and, instantly, she reminded me of Leslie Van Houten, because her hands were unsightly, she was a nailbiter, and though she was clean and scrubbed, a reluctance or remorse in her stained her solid body and made it unsightly, and, though armored, or because, she had an almost palpable vulnerability. I couldn't imagine her life outside these walls. I liked but nearly pitied her, though pity's a disgraceful emotion, for, though younger than the head cook, she waded in a shallow trough of regret where she was stuck, exposed and raw, and couldn't crawl out, like the animals trapped in the swamp less than six feet under my family's lawn. During the winter, when the ground was frozen, when the wind whipped my face and seemed to penetrate places it shouldn't have, my father drove me to the ocean, whose waves were dark without the sun to lighten their mood. Without sun to warm the sand, I didn't run barefoot or stroll at the edge of the ocean, the border to the safety of my world. I thought then my father didn't love my mother, but that she loved him and dressed well for his approval, except when she stayed at home doing housework, which she hated, but she always dressed in good materials, silk, cashmere, fine wools; I can't remember if the fabrics were usually his. She applied the same brand of real red lipstick to her lips for years from a golden tube kept in the bathroom of the house I loved but which was sold against my protests, along with other precious objects, like the Eames chairs and table, or thrown out, like my childhood relics, mercilessly, or she carried it in her pocketbook when she and my father went out to dinner or the theater and opera, where my father might fall asleep. My mother's devotion to one lipstick brand and color, like my father's to his gray Buick, signaled a consistency or even a character to them, I thought when I was young, and even though I often hated both of them, especially my mother, I admired their capacity for devotion. But it wasn't the case, I realized, for to other things, more important ones, my parents weren't devoted, like our cat and my dog.
Our family cat, who was the uxorious companion my father wasn't, who followed my mother when she shopped or visited neighbors, walking by her side like a dog, also regularly followed my mother into the bathroom and watched her apply her red lipstick. The cat once stayed behind after my mother, who had neglected to close the lipstick tube, left it on the sink, and later the cat emerged, her lips and mouth as red as my mother's, and it was this cat my mother and father abandoned to a shelter, to be killed, and it may have been then my brother abandoned us, I'm not sure, since coincidence plays a role in memory, contorts it or condenses events, mostly in the rememberer's favor, as memory has the subject's limits, and we forget much more than we remember, with little or no control over it, though its insistence at having happened can determine our fates, that is, how we speak about the past and consequently live in the present, but he did run away around then, I'm pretty sure, for which my father condemned him, since my brother might have saved the business. Now, when my mother talks in her sleep, and I sometimes stand at the foot of her bed, with her devoted cat whom she rarely pets beside her, she addresses her dead husband and tells him, "I have a cat, and you should see how adorable she is, she plays with me, and puts her paw on my face and then I stroke hers like silk."
Silk was discovered in the 13th century. Silkworms feed on mulberry bushes, seeds of which were smuggled in the socks of Buddhist monks who carried them to the West. The soft wool of the angora goat made a fabric called camlet, and it was imported into England from the Near East; earlier, in the first century BC the Chinese brought textiles to the Mediterranean by camel caravans. Bruges had 40,000 looms in the 13th century, and in the 15th century, Italians tried to limit silk wearing to the upper classes, but they couldn't. It was once believed that the love of finery caused women to become prostitutes. In the Renaissance, the center of silk production was Lucca, Venice was famous for ribbons, Naples decorative trimming, and when I enter a warehouse of fabrics, textures and colors undulate, like a harem of dancing men and women, and material sensation runs riot. I breathe in a variety of pungent smells that blend into the aromas which wafted in my father and uncle's office, its stockroom, especially, where the stockboy, junior, worked. When I'm around textiles, I sometimes wonder if he is still alive and what he's doing, the way I do the black women who worked in our house, and the son of Harriet with whom I roller skated. Harriet took care of me, and later Cassie cleaned the house for nay mother. Cassie worked for my mother for ten years, she was a squat, cocoa-colored woman with sharp black eyes, whose son died of a heroin overdose, though I didn't know that when I was ten, when I was given my dog for Christmas. I knew nothing about her life, except what there was of it in our house, since she was very quiet, though I was rude to her sometimes, but she never spoke to me or even glanced at me. She appeared neat and solemn, and my mother picked her up at the bus station and returned her there at the finish of her workday.
The assistant cook was at breakfast this morning. On some days she will cook eggs after breakfast is officially over, and then the latecomer feels inordinately grateful. On some days even her forbearance is limited, and she averts her eyes from the pleading face of the latecomer and says, I'm sorry, you're late, and returns to her kitchen duties, wiping a countertop or closing a jar, an insignificant activity that further humiliates the latecomer. But that is that, there is no talking to her, no cajoling will affect her resolve to shut down the kitchen and go home. I don't know what happens in her home, and sometimes when she keeps the kitchen open, I think she is being kind or delaying her return there, because of a problem at home, since everywhere there are problems, though we are not supposed to think of the staff's problems, only of our own, which here we can or might ignore or resolve, but whether anyone can change enough to uncover a solution not previously in evidence is questionable. Some of the staff were once residents, and recognize our challenges and difficulties with more sympathy or even empathy than others might, having once experienced them themselves; but for the same reason, they can also be indignant and less patient. Breakfast can be a hopeful time, except when the head cook is on duty, since she never allows latecomers into her kitchen, and sometimes even takes away the bread outside the kitchen proper that could be made into toast, abating someone's hunger, and unlike the other, younger cook, she never relents. But since there is something for everyone, breakfast can still mostly be a time for optimism, which is regularly in short supply at the other meals. The other two meals are more complicated, coming when they do in the day, for one thing, and the cook, to achieve the feat of pleasing a highly diverse set of palates and food prohibitions, must prepare many more different kinds of meals, but few residents are ever fully satisfied. Sometimes no one is satisfied, and almost never are all satisfied. There are omnivores, carnivores, dairy eaters, nondairy or lactose-intolerant eaters, fish and egg but no red-meat eaters, vegans, raw-food eaters, lifelong vegetarians, some of whom feel sick at the sight of red meat and others who don't, and everyone claims to be sensitive. Hitler was a vegetarian who loved animals, but the head cook who cooks regularly and never has facials who has been here many years is not.