Alice B. Toklas is Missing by Robert Archambeau

Author:Robert Archambeau
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Published: 2023-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

25

“Walk? Walk? Stai scherzando! I will not walk a single step,” declared Marinetti, “until I have a drink to wash the foul taste of Surrealism out of my mouth.” Ida thought better of pointing out the irony when Marinetti immediately followed his refusal to walk with a full-speed march down the street, looking left and right for the nearest drinking establishment. Tom and Ida trailed behind the accelerating Futurist, who was surprisingly fast for a man of his years. When Marinetti came to the end of the street, he looked to his left, then pointed, as if about to shout “Land Ho!” from the crow’s nest of a galleon. He disappeared around the corner, with Tom and Ida struggling to keep up. Soon, Marinetti was waving them through a doorway like an irate crossing guard, and the group found itself ensconced in a tiny establishment named, simply enough, Bar Americain. The dim room couldn’t have been six feet wide and was dominated by a zinc stand-up bar behind which loomed shelves of bottles arrayed in tiers to the ceiling. Marinetti barked for red wine, and the expressionless bartender set out three glasses and poured. He then fished behind the counter and produced a small dish of unshelled peanuts—a gesture designed, Ida assumed, as a show of American authenticity. The crushed shells on floor indicated that this was a very popular snack, or perhaps that the staff took a cavalier attitude toward cleaning.

“Are you quite certain,” said Tom slowly, “that the map in question is in, or is part of, this journal you have?” He was seated between Ida and Marinetti, and while he addressed his words to Ida, he watched the agitated Marinetti out of the corner of his eye.

“No,” said Ida. “I’m not at all certain.”

“But was there anything in it, anything at all, that looked promising?” Tom asked. Marinetti had finished his wine and was signaling the barman for more.

Ida squinted, tried to envision the journal the Surrealists had given her when she’d first visited the bureau, while picking up items from Teddy’s reading list. It seemed like such a long time ago. La Révolution Surrealiste—that was the title, she remembered. But what else? She pictured the journal with its cardstock cover—maybe fifty pages, and about the size of a sheet of typing paper—between her hands. “The cover was phosphorescent,” she began.

“Legerdemain—the work of frauds!” said Marinetti, his voice simmering with contempt but not quite rising to the level of a shout. His hands crushed the lapels of his jacket as he spoke.

“And inside,” asked Tom, “any images?”

“Several,” Ida recalled, looking at Tom. “There was a picture of a Navajo doll from New Mexico.”

“So that’s it,” grumbled Marinetti. “We enter the catacombs from D. H. Lawrence’s ranch in Taos. Book us passage on an ocean liner, dear Ida, if you will.”

“Surely,” said Tom, giving Ida a sympathetic look, “there were more…”

Ida closed her eyes and tried to recall. “A line drawing of a cluster of fellows in workingmen’s clothing,” Ida remembered.

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