Anio Szado

by Studio Saint-Ex

  Antoine blew a long, slow course of smoke toward the ceiling. “Raising a fashion protégé is perhaps not so different from training a pilot to be single-minded in delivering the mail. She pushes and kneads you to almost a breaking point, tempering you like steel. It’s ‘Those are the orders,’ always and only,” he said, quoting Night Flight’s high-minded aviation chief.

  “Madame Fiche is not the Garment District Rivière!”

  He chortled. “True. Her morals are firm enough but of questionable value. And her ethics are highly suspect. Still, she has you working hard for the success of her enterprise.”

  “It’s for my own success, too. I need her, and though she doesn’t realize it, she needs me.”

  “And you both place your fate in the hands of Consuelo?”

  “And in those of all the expats. Madame Fiche has given up on American women; she says they dress to disguise themselves as nothing, but Frenchwomen still dress to be French. She thinks if we can get Consuelo to wear us, the whole community will notice.”

  “You agree?”

  “Consuelo’s our best hope to get our designs out there. I’ve been working on all sorts of ideas, but Madame doesn’t want to take a risk. She wants to sell her an ensemble from our Butterfly Collection, the one I designed at school. I showed you my sketches, way back when.”

  “They were very dramatic and skillfully done—but I admit I am not fond of the ornate. For me, perfection comes not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. There is far less beauty in clothing than in the body’s naked state.”

  “Consuelo said she liked the butterfly idea because it reminded her of an adventure in her childhood.” Antoine nodded as though he knew the story well. “But that’s all we have. I think I need to come up with something else that reminds her of better days. She won’t wear just anything. It has to speak to her. It needs to reflect who she is. As you said: frail and humble, mean and vain.”

  “Did I say this? I’m not sure if I hinder you or help you. I give you the thoughts of a man who is fed up with the ways of his wife.”

  “Then think back to the young Consuelo. When you fell in love. What was she like then?”

  He smiled. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

  Of course I wasn’t, but I was sure that what Consuelo wanted more than anything else was to return to those times. And the most important thing, for a designer, is to understand a client’s heart.

  Antoine asked, “Are you not afraid that if I conjure it all up, I will fall in love with her all over again?”

  “Do you really think you’ve stopped loving her? Because I don’t believe you’re capable of falling out of love.”

  He pulled out his wallet and removed a photograph. The young woman in the picture was an extraordinary creature, asleep, her dark hair tumbling down the side of a satin-sheeted bed. The peaks of her breasts were covered by a sheet, her face turned slightly away from the camera. She was elegant and tranquil, a pure and naked beauty whose complete serenity surely came of being well used and fully satisfied by her Tonio—by my Antoine.

  I turned the photo over. In Antoine’s writing, “Consuelo chez Greta Garbo, New York”; in what must have been Consuelo’s hand, “Don’t lose yourself, don’t lose me.”

  He said, “When I met Consuelo, she was twice widowed already, at your age. She had an air of tragedy. Her face was delicate and precise. Her eyes were so large and expressive, one couldn’t look away.”

  They were still like that.

  Antoine said, “I noticed them immediately, along with her wrists.”

  As had I.

  “Once when our money ran out, as it often did, she claimed she would go to work scrubbing floors. I said, ‘With your thin wrists!’ and she said, ‘Jesus Christ had thin wrists, too!’ ” He laughed. “She was not made for work. She has always been fragile. She would cling to me as though only I could save her from some terrible end. Early on, we were walking in the square in her homeland. We hardly knew each other then. There was a demonstration and gunfire, and she pressed herself against me. She was trembling like a flower that is about to be picked. I imagined her this way, too, when she was living with the refugees in Oppède and I was flying for France. Always, I worried about her. I wanted only to ensure that she was safe from harm. I would fly overhead and feel the pull of her heart on mine, calling me to her defense.”

  I made myself listen. I had to hear it. Let him say it; let me use it; then we would put it all away.

  “But whenever she was angry—and anything could set her off—she would insist that she didn’t need me, that she could take care of herself. And with what?” He shook his head. “She acted so fierce.”

  “She still does.”

  “And yet her weapons against the sorrows and demands of the world amount to nothing. No more than three or four thorns on the most breakable of stems.”

  “Thorns?”

  “Just so. A few feeble little thorns.”

  Deep inside me, a hollow feeling grew. Thorns … of a rose.

  The rose is Consuelo. Not me. Consuelo.

  How could he have drawn the flower for me, the rose that was his wife, on our most intimate of nights?

  I pushed him from my lap and got to my feet. “Thorns of a rose.”

  He looked perplexed. “Just so.”

  “My rose!”

  “What?”

  “You drew a rose for me. And now you tell me that you were thinking of Consuelo.”

  “No, no.” Antoine stood up. “It was not like this. There is not only one rose in the world.”

  “There is on the planet you’re writing about.”

  “But Mignonne, you’ve heard only the beginning of the story! There may be other roses to come. You will see.”

  “I’ve seen enough!”

  “It isn’t fair that you ask me to speak of my love for Consuelo, then attack me for it.”

  “You think you know what’s fair?”

  “I do not mind being held to task for things I do wrong, but do not berate me for things I do well and at your bidding.”

  I bent my head into my hands, my fingers digging into my scalp.

  Antoine continued. “You asked me to tell you how I saw my wife in the beginning. Yes, it was as the Little Prince saw his rose. She appeared like the sole representative of her species, a rare flower in a land of dangerous volcanoes and voracious trees—where a blade of grass sprouting from a crack in a sidewalk could become a rainforest that obliterates an entire village.”

  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.”

  29

  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.”