She lifted the pail, and he led her through the scullery to an outdoor lavatory. A climbing rose had been planted against the wall, covered in plump orange rose hips. It thrived in that soil, must catch the sun. Ada went inside. From the stains in the bowl, and the smell, Ada knew the lavatory had not been cleaned for years. The man turned away as she emptied the receptacle, then walked her back into the scullery, handing her a chipped enamel bowl half-full of beige slop. The old Ada had never liked porridge, could only eat it if it was smothered in sugar, but this Ada, a different Ada, swallowed it greedily. He waited while she ate.
“Who are you?” she said. He pressed his lips together.
“Can you talk?” He shook his head. Das ist nicht gestattet. Wagged his finger. Verboten.
He led her back to the room, where Frau Weiss was waiting for her. She had a bolt of fabric over one arm and what looked like a ladies’ magazine in her hand. Ada wondered if the Germans had rationing, like the French. This woman seemed short of nothing.
She placed the fabric on the table and, flicking open the magazine, handed it to Ada. “This,” she said, pointing to an image of a ladies’ suit, and then to the material on the table.
Ada studied the picture. The jacket had a fitted waist and was fastened up to the neck with a straight line of studs down the center. The skirt was an A-line flare. Dull as ditchwater. So was the fabric, donkey gray with a dun check. Frumpy. But Ada could see that buttoned to the side, with a mandarin collar, two trim pocket flaps to match, and a pencil skirt with a kick pleat at the back, the suit would be young, modisch. She had learned the word from Herr Weiss. Just like the English, only spelled differently. Frau Weiss was pulling out lining fabric and threads. She had not said a word about the dress, but Ada knew that she must have been pleased with it, otherwise she would have sent her away.
Ada looked at her. “Madame.” She took a deep breath. “Perhaps”—she pointed to the picture—“buttoned here, pocket there. More modisch.” Ada waited for a shout, but Frau Weiss was listening. “Do you have a pencil and paper?” Ada went on. “I want to show you.”
Frau Weiss left the room and returned. Ada was not good at drawing, but she could manage a design if she sketched it in stick form, lean and angular. She saw Frau Weiss play with a smile. She was a vain woman.
“I need the suit for tomorrow.” Ja. She turned and left the room.
Lined, too. Ada would have to stay up all night.
She picked up the magazine and closed it. The Nazi insignia was on the front, with the words NS Frauen-Warte. Ada ran her finger over the letters. She couldn’t read German, but she guessed at Frau. There was a photograph on the cover of a large German woman in a long, embroidered pinafore dress and a white blouse sitting on a bench knitting a sock. A chubby toddler played in a cot by her side. The caption to the photograph was written in a strange, old-fashioned script. The child on the cover looked about the same age as Thomas, sitting in his cot, smiling, his hair neatly cut and parted.
The child upstairs was crying again. Why didn’t Frau Weiss pick the baby up? Ada would never have let her baby cry like this, for hours on end. He’d give himself a hernia. The Frau must be hard as nails. It went with vanity.
—
ADA WAS LET out twice that day, taken into the scullery and given watery soup and coarse black bread, which she and the man ate standing up, in silence. Back to her room, where she cut and draped and sat and sewed. She needed weights for the jacket so it would hang to perfection. The window had curtains, rotting fabric that hung in swathes from the rusty curtain rail. Ada felt the hems. She fished out the tiny leads that weighted them down, took a couple. She’d sew them later into the jacket bottoms. When the house was quiet, she slipped on the suit, marked where it pulled or puckered, adjusted the darts. Weights in place and the linings French-tacked. Although the wool was dull, it was soft against her skin, and the lining was smooth. Frau Weiss would never know that she had tried it on, that the fibers of the lining that had caressed Ada now clung to the Frau like cobwebs. She liked that idea.
She fell asleep in the easy chair. As dawn approached, Frau Weiss entered the room and took the suit without a word.
The routine was the same as the day before. She emptied her bucket, ate the watery gruel, returned to her room.
This time, the man brought in a basket of clothes and shoved it into her arms. “To mend,” he said.
Ada could barely get her arms round the overflowing basket. She pulled out the items. Socks for darning and ladies’ hose, with fine runs at the top, just below the suspender line, for mending. Cardigans and sweaters with frayed cuffs or worn elbows, trousers with missing buttons, a skirt with a broken zipper, blouses with open seams, dresses in need of hemming, brassieres without hooks. There was a blanket with loose edges, a jacket with torn lining, a large tweed greatcoat, which Ada could only imagine was there for turning, and a child’s ripped romper suit.
What kind of a housewife must Frau Weiss be, letting the mending all pile up, turning a minor chore into a major one? Some women couldn’t sew, Ada knew, and Frau Weiss must be one of them, but she should have made an effort. She must be a real slut. Ada was surprised at the viciousness of her thoughts, surprised that she cared. This would take her days and days to finish. She wondered whether she would ever return to the geriatric home, to Sister Brigitte and the others, whether she would ever see beyond this room and the lavatory, would ever speak English again. Would ever talk again, would ever get home, be free.
ADA LOST TRACK of the days, began to count in menstrual cycles. At least with the old people, Sundays were different and they could mark time, but here every day was identical. Ada was let out for food and the lavatory. She was given a washbowl and rag. At some point a package arrived with a fresh wimple, drawers, and shift. It must have come from the Red Cross. Sister Brigitte had got through to them, after all. Perhaps a letter would come soon, too.
What had Sister Brigitte said? Remember the date. Remember. Ada started to keep a tally, chalked them on the underside of the table. It was summer now, the end of July 1942. She’d been here seven months, had watched the snow become rain and the rain give way to the sun. Her fingers sweated in the heat as she sewed. She had to keep wiping them on an old piece of toweling so she didn’t leave greasy marks on Frau Weiss’s finespun lawns and tulles.
One hot day the door opened and Herr Weiss entered, smart in a white shirt and loden waistcoat, his stick tapping on the floor.
“Nönnchen,” he said. “My nephew told me you were here.”
She was right. Herr Weiss had arranged this, was connected to the Obersturmbannführer, whom Ada had not yet laid eyes upon. She tensed, her fingers tight inside her palms, her teeth clamped hard against her jaws.
“Come, my little Sister Claralein.” He walked towards her, the metal tip of his stick tap-tapping on the stone floor. “Aren’t you pleased to see me?”
Why had he come now? After all these months? What did he want?
“You don’t smile when you see your old professor?” He ran his stick along the ground, flicked the hem of her habit. “Is it not good to hear English again?”
Be polite. Don’t ask for trouble. She smiled, a small lilt of her lips. He beamed back, placated.
“I have forgotten what it sounds like.”
He laughed. “You never forget your native language. It rests deep inside you, always. Shall we sit down, you and I?”
Ada always made her bed in the morning, placing the cushions back on the chair, folding up Sister Jeanne’s old habit and hiding it beneath. She had invented little routines to bring order to her life, something ordinary that reminded her of another world, that gave her some control.
“There is only one chair,” Herr Weiss said, limping his way across the room towards it. Tap, tap. He was more stooped than she remembered. An old man.
“I’ll sit on the stool,” she said. A safe distance away.
“As you will,” he said, “as you will.”
She s
at down, tension slipping free, her muscles smoothed flat. Calm down, she told herself. He was here for a talk, for an English lesson. Nothing more.
“And how do you find it here?” he said.
“As prisons go,” Ada said, “not bad.” It was the truth. She could be washing old bodies, dead ones, or dying ones with sagging scrotums and fingers that clawed at the covers. She might not have enough food or clothes or a decent bed, and she worked all hours, but it was work she could take pride in. Even though Frau Weiss never praised her, much less showed her gratitude, Ada knew she appreciated her skill.
“I thought you would approve,” Herr Weiss said. “I would have come to see you sooner, but I wanted you to settle first.”
He was wily, cunning. They were alone in this room, with no one to interrupt. The scissors were on the table, within her reach. If he came towards her, she could rush and grab them. Her heart was hammering. Could she do it? He might be old, but he was strong, vigorous. She was thin and weak. No match.
“Come, my dear,” he was saying. “You don’t look happy. Life could be worse, believe me.” He pushed himself up from the chair and lifted his stick from where he had leant it against the arm. “Next time I come, I would like a little gratitude. But for now, dinner will be served, and my nephew is a stickler for punctuality.”
He clicked his heels together and bowed. “I believe,” he said, “we have wild boar with an excellent French claret. Vintage, 1921. Our German wine is good, but it doesn’t have the body of the French. Good evening, Sister Clara.” He spun on his heel and tap-tapped from the room, turning at the door. “We have much to celebrate. The Russians are in retreat.” He smiled, bowed. “Until next time.”
She listened as his footsteps drifted along the corridor into silence. She rubbed the heel of her hand into one eye. After all these months she had thought she was free of Herr Weiss, free of his slimy charm, his bony fingers pressed against hers, pushing them hard into his loins while he writhed and groaned beneath her. She was sick at the memory and at the future it waved in front of her. She wondered if the war would ever end, whether she would ever start a new life. What would be left? Who would be left? She didn’t hear much about the war. Frau Weiss never spoke about it. But if the Russians were in retreat, that must mean something. She didn’t know much about geography, or politics, but she remembered her father saying how vast Russia was. Not just Russia. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. She could hear him saying, Imagine, Ada, the most powerful country on earth, and socialist. Paradise. If they were in retreat, Germany must be the most powerful country now. What did Herr Weiss call it? The Third Reich.
She longed to hear her father’s voice. You had it bad, Ada girl. To start up where she’d left off, before she met Stanislaus, back at Mrs. B.’s. To have made a different choice that night they met in London. No, thank you. I must get home. I can’t join you for tea at the Ritz. Where would she be now? Miss Vaughan, our most accomplished modiste. She might have met a husband. Loyal, not treacherous like Stanislaus. One of her own kind.
Instead, she was trapped in this prison, at the whim of Herr Weiss, ruining her eyesight and her looks. This was slave labor, she knew—but at least she was sewing, was creating. A modiste. Perhaps when the war was over, if it was ever over, she’d go to Paris again. She’d have experience, after all. She didn’t have to say where she’d got it. House of Vaughan. She’d need someone to back her, like Coco Chanel had, someone who’d see her talent. Modiste extraordinaire. What did they call those old-time magicians who turned metal into gold? Alchemists. That’s who she was, that’s what she’d do. That’s what this was, her war. Metal. She’d turn it to gold. Sometime. Maybe. She must hope. She’d lost her lover, her family, her child, but she wouldn’t lose this.
She rushed to the bucket, dry, painful heaves of bile. There was nothing inside her to vomit except misery.
She stumbled back to the stool. She was powerless. If she was ever freed from this place, she would never let another person have such control over her life.
She picked up her sewing and bent over the table, squinting at the needle. Above her, the child began to scream. Ada heard Thomas in those cries, saw his tiny face pucker in misery before the priest’s bag closed over him. She couldn’t get him out of her head, her baby boy, her abandoned baby boy, all alone. It made Ada want to scream, too. What’s wrong with you, Frau Weiss? What mother lets her baby suffer like this? He needs comforting. Or gripe water. Hours and hours went by, until Ada heard the yells shudder to a halt and silence close over. She’d rather be flogged every day than listen helpless to the child’s anguish. She’d rather Herr Weiss with his lewd, vile needs.
She’d rather die.
She stared at her scissors, fingered the blade. How long would it take to bleed to death? One hour? Twelve? Hanging would be quicker. She could make a rope, easy as anything. Hang it from the ceiling lamp. Move the table, stand on the stool beneath, kick it away. The light cord looked skimpy. Wouldn’t take her weight. She wanted to be sure she would die.
She returned the scissors to the table. Was this what they wanted? Work her to death? Drive her out of her mind? What had happened to the person who’d been here before her? Did that woman go mad from the silence and loneliness? The worry? The screaming baby? Did it remind her of her own children?
She looked again at the light cord. She pushed the stool towards the table and climbed on top. It wobbled, and Ada squatted to save her balance.
This was madness. She didn’t even have the courage to throw herself off a table.
No, damn it. She would survive. They wouldn’t have that victory. She’d talk to herself, keep herself company. Make up stories with happy endings. Recite poems she’d learned at school. The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees. Who wrote that? The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. She couldn’t remember. There was no one to ask. The road was a ribbon of—Noyes, Alfred Noyes—a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor.
“And the highwayman came riding—” Ada shouted.
“Riding—riding—
“The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.”
THAT SEPTEMBER, THE September of 1942, Frau Weiss introduced Ada to her friends, stout women and slim ones, too, none as squeamish as Frau Weiss but fussy nevertheless. They arrived with pictures circled in the Wiener Bunte Mode or the NS Frauen-Warte. Simple designs. Stolid, practical clothes that lacked flair and inventiveness. Ada adapted a neckline, a hem length, adding or removing a trim to make it different, unique, to emphasize the woman beneath and not the mother. From time to time they would come with photos of glamorous women called Zarah Leander or Emmy Göring, who Ada guessed were actresses or film stars. They pointed to the pictures for Ada to copy.
They weren’t like the clients who came to Mrs. B., upper-class women, gracious with the servants. That’s breeding for you, Mrs. B. had said. These German ones had money, but no class. Thick Bavarian accents. Their husbands would be shopkeepers. Or pharmacists. Doctors, even. Führer this and Führer that. A river of words that meandered through places Ada had never heard of—Wannsee, Stalingrad, El Alamein—and eddied in pools round people she did not know: Johannah, Irma. That Fräulein. A model, for goodness’ sake. A photographer. Here in Munich. Who did the Führer think he was kidding? Why didn’t Magda Goebbels have a word with him? Ada listened hard, trying to glean some news from home in the currents of talk—General Government—Luftwaffe—London. But the topics flowed past on a tide of gossip about other women, not the war. That Fräulein’s complexion. Too perfect. She must come by powder. Lipstick, too. She didn’t seem to be suffering in the war economy, taking her belt in a notch or two like the rest.
They preened in front of each other. They didn’t see Ada as she cut and molded the fabric round their bodies, tucking here, pinning there. Silk had been commandeered; you couldn’t get stockings, or butter. But Frau Weiss served them coffee, real coffee— from a little man I know—and she would
give a smile and serve some cake sweetened with sugar, real sugar. Pranced round them—Do help yourselves, bitte schön—proud to be generous with her cakes and coffee, gracious in sharing her little secret with them, her nun, her dressmaker. Ada knew an upstart when she saw one, could see through Frau Weiss’s phony ways and false demeanor. If it wasn’t for Ada and her skills, none of these women would pay court to Frau Weiss.
They all looked good in Ada’s clothes. This was her magic, her special talent, steaming and stretching the fabric so it fitted like skin, smoothed out the bumps, glorified the line. They didn’t care how her head throbbed at night, how her eyes saw double in the morning, how her stomach cramped with hunger. Sehr feminin. Modisch. They entered her room like peasants and left like queens. Ich könnte ein Filmstar wie Olga Chekhova sein. Ada knew that they needed her. She saw them as they were: naked and vulnerable, their glamour only empty airs and graces, plain women, no different from Ada or the Poles. Without Ada, they were nobodies.
She hated them. Every time they entered her room a deep, visceral loathing bubbled like brimstone in the pit of her stomach. Frau Weiss, cold as stone, indifferent to the suffering of others. Immoral, she could hear her mother say. Amoral. She hadn’t always seen eye to eye with her mother, but that was over now. She’d make it up to her, become successful. House of Vaughan. She’d make her mother beautiful. Give her good foundations, girdle, brassiere, drape her in crepe de chine and the finest charmeuse. Watch your back, Isidore would say, charmeuse. A wily fabric. Untrustworthy. Unreliable. Ada could see herself in her workshop, a bright attic with windows floor to ceiling, like those artists’ houses on the Great West Road. A tailor’s dummy in the corner, one of those expandable ones that you could adjust. A double rail for her creations, one on top of the other, with a pole and hook to lift the dresses up and down. An Oriental carpet on the floor, Thomas playing in the middle, making bridges with his Meccano.
What happened to Tommy’s father, Ada? He died. Horrible death. In the war. I don’t like to talk about these things.
The Dressmaker's War Page 12