Anio Szado (25 page)

I couldn’t listen to this barrage of words. I walked away, directionless across the studio, and found myself holding on to my worktable. Antoine followed, pursuing me with his tale of the young Consuelo, of the rose, assailing me with what I had asked of him.

“She coughs, she blushes, she pretends she needs nothing—it is all in service to the entrapment. She knows the weakness of man. Man needs to feel useful. The need is so great that even her lies lead one to say, Oh, she tells lies because of her pain that comes of not being what she wishes to be … And she lies so simply, so gracefully. One cannot help but be entranced.”

I covered my ears.

Still he continued. “It is not a sin to be enthralled. It is the quality of a child who is not hardened to the world. When the—”

“What are you talking about?” I cried. “How can you tell me there is more than one rose, the world is full of roses—as if that should make me feel better!—and then admit, after all, that only the most devious one deserves your attention?”

“I am telling you that, in romance, I was only a child, enchanted by a spoiled coquette who seemed a child too. I knew nothing of the world. Before Consuelo I had been attaching myself for a night or a week to some pretty little girl I met in a nightclub or a bar. Silly girls who wanted only to dance and be told how adorable they were before settling into a life of darning my socks.”

He banged his hand on the table, making my shears and jar of dressmaker’s pins jump. He roared, “I cannot live with a woman who would darn my socks!”

I couldn’t help myself: I began to smile.

He ceased upon it. In an instant, his anger was gone and his voice had grown plaintive. “Don’t you see, Mignonne?” He ran a tentative finger up my arm. “I committed myself to Consuelo when I knew so little of her.
And then, in spite of my efforts to the contrary, I grew up. It is painful to grow up. My eyes were opened to the nature of the pact I had made—and to the existence of other roses. Women as beautiful and more, as intelligent and more, with as fertile a mind as the first—but stronger. Women who were not so dependent on me for every little whim.”

“You let your wife become dependent on you.”

“I let her? She has made an entire life’s work of accumulating needs and creating drama. I am the cause of all her unhappiness. She claims she cannot live without me, yet does all she can to humiliate and destroy me even as she demands that we reunite. She has entered fine restaurants and announced to the
entire room, at her whim, ‘My husband has just ravaged me!’ or ‘My husband cannot—’ ” He bit off his sentence, turning angrily away.

I said, “She needs to be the center of attention.”

“Hers is not a need but an obsession.”

Was I so different from Consuelo; was I not obsessed, too? I reached across the table to touch the featherweight silk chiffon.

Antoine said, “A man cannot but help a woman in need: his ego demands it. It means nothing, except that man is weak. But when one wishes to help a woman who is strong herself, someone like you, the wish is not born of ego but comes from deep within the heart.”

“Do you wish to help me?” I picked up the neatly folded white fabric and held it out.

Antoine touched it awkwardly. “It is very soft, very nice.”

“It’s very fine silk.”

“Good. That is—I’m sorry, Mignonne. I know nothing about fashion. I’m not sure what you want of me.”

“Hold the fabric for a minute. Just hold it.” I laid the bundle on his upturned palms. “Don’t move.” I walked around to stand behind him. As silently as possible, I slipped out of my clothes.

“What I need,” I said, “is for you to fit the fabric on me.”

He turned around.

The silk shifted. The layers began to slide, cascading from his hands in a whispering sweep. He bent and grappled to stop the flow. Then he straightened, spreading his arms open so the fabric spanned tall and wide.

He draped me in white, a wash of foam on my shoulders, a wake trailing from my breasts. He wrapped me with exquisite tenderness, smoothing the silk with merciless attention to the peaks and dells it caressed.

By the time he reached my hips, the cloth had fallen from
my shoulders and I was rocking on my feet. Whiteness pooled around me and flashed behind my eyes.

His hands were on the small of my back; he was down on one knee. I swayed. I begged hoarsely, “Hold me up, Antoine, please.”

That Sunday morning, I was back in the studio—inspired, alone. I spread the silk on the worktable and examined it. I lifted it and moved it around me, seeing how it would hang as a cape, as a skirt, how it bunched and released in my grip. I held it to my body and wrapped it around my arms, watching how the fabric wanted to flow and bend, taking notes with every step. I pulled it along its warp and weft, and diagonally on its bias, testing its delicacy, its sensitivity, noting its remarkable strength. When I had worked out its basic properties and possibilities, I reviewed my notes, put them aside, and began to sketch.

I wanted something floor-length and flowing: an oversized hood like a shawl, an uncomplicated dress. It would be modest in style, yet distinct in its luxuriousness. A garment uninterrupted by details or fuss. Sleeves that bloused as they draped, cinched into tight cuffs; pearl buttons iridescent at the wrist. At the back, the lines of the hood would drape softly to my waist.

I knew which of the studio’s standard patterns would fit me. I brought one out and placed its sections on a long expanse of paper, traced where the outline should be traced and altered the line where alterations suited my needs. I measured. I measured again. I folded the fabric and arranged the pattern pieces, holding them in place with a cast iron weight. I barely knew this fabric; if I only had more time, I could make something worthy of its delicate, graceful beauty and hidden strength. If only I had more experience, more skill. It was too soon to make a decision, to make cuts that I wouldn’t be able to undo.

But it was always too soon to cut beautiful fabric. I couldn’t
keep this material intact for thirty-odd years as Madame had done. I might never know more than I knew today. I was almost sick with anxiety—but I might never have more courage than tonight.

The silk was insubstantial in the jaws of my shears. The blades parted it into segments, generously shaped, until each had been carefully cut.

Now I found myself impatient to start sewing—wanting to put the dress together before I could start questioning my choice of design and regretting having committed myself so irrevocably. But I would do no more today. The skirt portion was cut on the diagonal; it needed to hang for a day or two, to stretch to a natural shape that would let it lie smoothly without bunching or twisting, before I could proceed with the real sewing. I tacked its bias-cut seams together with a long basting stitch and carried the skirt into the dim storage area behind Madame’s desk, where I hung it on a dress form before returning to my worktable. The pieces for the upper portion would wait, too. There was no technical reason not to proceed with them; they did not need to stretch or hang. I could baste the upper portion together and run it through the sewing machine right away—but it didn’t seem right to do so, not while the rest waited in the dark.

I piled up the shapes that would become the sleeves, bodice, back, and hood. Tenderly, respectfully, I laid them aside to wait.

Then it was Monday, the morning of the day Consuelo would visit. Madame pretended it didn’t matter a whit to her—she came in at her usual eleven fifteen, and tossed her jacket onto a chair—as though I had not been devoting every extra hour for weeks to transforming the chaotic studio into something organized, energizing, and clean.

“The countess comes this afternoon,” I said as I picked up Madame’s jacket and hung it.

“Roll out the collection. Dust what needs dusting.” She walked over to inspect my work area—the drinking glasses I had brought from home and placed on the window ledge, the small vase of flowers beside them, the fine cut fabric dolloped on the table in soft mounds like whipped cream. She had not paid it any attention these last few days; she had been all but ignoring me for the past week.

She asked, “You are making something?” She poked at the silk.

“A dress for myself.”

“You have hemmed Mrs. Englander’s skirt, and let out the waistband of her husband’s trousers?”

“Not yet. They’re just sewing jobs.”

“If I give you sewing to do, I expect you to do sewing.”

“But doesn’t it make sense to focus on our designs instead of adjusting other people’s clothes? I thought if I made a dress, I could wear it when I next see Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry. We’ll show her the Butterfly Collection today, then I’ll wear something interesting every time I see her until she gets a full sense of what we can do. We’ll win her over one piece at a time.”

Madame narrowed her eyes. Her brow was meticulously plucked, her forehead taut. Her face looked as though she might have taken it out of a drawer and polished it before attaching it to her scalp, which had not a hair astray. “We will win her over with the Butterfly Collection. Your dilettante efforts are amusing, but unnecessary.” She waved her hand above my table. “I don’t want to see this silk again. Put it away.”

I ignored her: I walked to the end of the studio behind Madame’s worktable and desk. I chose a garment cart and rolled it to the center of the studio.

Madame stood waiting.

I removed the covers from the nine remaining garments of the Butterfly Collection, one by one, pulling off and folding each cotton wrapper; one by one, carrying each wrapper to a
table to add to a growing stack. I disappeared into the storage area, taking my time clearing garments from a second rack. Then I emerged with the empty rack and distributed the collection over the two, ordering and spacing the clothing for maximum effect. When I was satisfied, I pulled both racks to the edge of the room.

Madame’s fingernail tapped a staccato on my table. She was waiting for me to look over. What would be the point of dramatics if they were to go unseen?

All right, then. I looked.

With spitting fire in her eyes, Madame swept her arm into the pile of silk, propelling it off the edge of the table and onto the floor. It fell sumptuously.

I turned back to my task. I hummed as I brushed and fluffed the garments on their racks. What did I care where the silk lay for the moment? It wasn’t anywhere it hadn’t already been. It wasn’t anywhere that I hadn’t lain, too.

The white silk was still on the floor—neither Madame nor I had been willing to bend to pick it up—when two o’clock arrived and Consuelo did not. Two thirty passed. It was a little after three when we finally heard footsteps and a rap at the door.

Madame stood up. She gave the hem of her black jacket a firm, corrective tug and walked with monarchical bearing to usher in her guest.

Guests: Consuelo entered on Binty’s arm.

“
Comtesse
de Saint-Exupéry!” Madame Fiche said, curtseying as she took Consuelo’s hand. “I am Madame Véra Fiche. I welcome you to my atelier. And this is?” She tipped her head a little to regard Binty with a girlish, sideways gaze.

He shook her hand. “Jack Binty.”

Consuelo said, “My paramour.”

Madame Fiche’s always-straight posture became rigid. Through tight lips she said, “Thank you for coming, Mr. Binty.”

“Lovely to see you again,” I said, holding out my hand.

Consuelo took it and touched it to her lips.

Binty smiled a wry, crooked smile.

Madame’s piercing gaze moved from Consuelo’s face to mine. She said, carefully enunciating, “We have much that is beautiful to show you, Madame
la Comtesse
.”

Consuelo said, “Indeed”—her eyes holding mine, her voice rich with intimation.

In the next instant, unceremoniously, she dropped my hand. “Bring it on, then. I’m bored, I’ve had a rotten day, and I don’t have a thing to wear.”

Madame’s mouth opened just a little—perhaps not enough for the guests to note, but with my knowledge of Madame’s unfailing composure before clients, the opening seemed to yawn like a crevasse. I interjected myself between Consuelo and Binty, gently elbowing them apart and linking each of their arms with my own.

“Come on,” I said. “Sit where it’s comfortable, and we’ll give you your own personalized Atelier Fiche show.” I led them to the sofa, squeezing their elbows close to my sides until their shoulders bumped companionably against mine and their steps were comically misaligned. On the rug, I released Binty and spun the giggling Consuelo around so her back faced the sofa.

“Countess Consuelo,” I said, “our studio is yours. Your wish is our command.”

Consuelo sunk into the sofa and kicked off her shoes. She put her feet on the coffee table. “Excellent, darling. Let the show begin!”

In a dark corner behind racks and shelves, I wriggled out of my dress. Madame Fiche had taken a chair. Snippets of her stilted conversation reached me as I pulled an outfit over my black corselet.

“And of course the weather … Needless to say, one does not like to … A woman of your stature,
comtesse
 …”