by Kitty Zeldis
“I’ve heard good things about you,” he said when Patricia introduced them.
“That would be from me,” Margaux said. “I’ve told Daddy everything.” She patted an empty chair beside her. “Sit with me and have some breakfast? Henryka’s made eggs and they’re so good.”
“Thanks, I’ve already eaten,” said Eleanor who nevertheless sat down beside Margaux. “But some coffee would be nice.”
Henryka brought the coffee and set it down a little too hard on the table. A few drops flew up and landed in the saucer. Now what? Patricia could sense Henryka was cross, but didn’t know why. Was it because of Eleanor? Patricia had anticipated a problem with Wynn, but not Henryka, who’d been with her forever, and knew every ripple and eddy in their household. Well, clearly she’d need to have a talk with her, though now was not the time.
“I noticed your hat as soon as you came in, Miss Moss,” said Wynn. “It’s very becoming.”
“It is,” Patricia agreed. Eleanor’s hats were far nicer—and more expensive looking—than her clothes. “Where did you get it?”
“My mother made it,” Eleanor said. “Maybe you know her shop? It’s on Second Avenue and Eighty-Fourth Street—”
“You know, I think I may have heard of it,” Patricia said. “But I’ve never been there.” She was only being polite. She had not in fact heard of the shop; she rarely strayed so far east. But she was intrigued. Refined, Latin-reading Eleanor had a mother who was a milliner. How had a hatmaker’s daughter ended up at Vassar, anyway? Eleanor continued to surprise her.
“Second Avenue,” mused Wynn. “I never get over there. Do you think I should, Miss Moss? Is there a lot to see?”
“It depends on what you’re looking for.” Eleanor seemed slightly uncomfortable and Patricia felt like she was ingesting that discomfort along with her eggs.
“Nothing in particular,” Wynn said. “I just like to . . . look.”
“I doubt you’d be looking for a ladies’ hat shop, Daddy,” said Margaux as she buttered her toast.
“That’s true,” said Wynn. “I leave the hat buying to your mother. I just pay the bills.” He took a forkful of his eggs and looked over at Eleanor again. “My wife tells me that you were at Brandon-Wythe.”
“I was,” said Eleanor.
“Good school. One of the best. What made you leave?”
The table seemed to go very quiet and Patricia watched as Eleanor set down her coffee cup. “Well, I just wanted to go in a different direction and—” Before she could finish, both the bell and the phone rang almost in unison. The bell turned out to be a delivery and the phone was Wynn’s office and by the time he’d finished the call, Eleanor and Margaux had left the table and gone into the study to work.
“Just stop that!” Patricia hissed when she and her husband were alone.
“Stop what?” He gave her a wide-eyed look—the big phony.
“Stop grilling her.”
“Well, aren’t you the least bit curious about why she left? It can’t have been easy for her to get that job. So why would she leave? Maybe she was fired.”
“I doubt it. She had a perfectly marvelous letter from the headmistress.”
“That still doesn’t answer the question about why she left.”
“Well, maybe it was about money. We’re paying her more than she was making there.”
“And how do you happen to know that?” he asked.
Henryka appeared with more coffee and Patricia waited until she’d gone before replying. “I asked around before I settled on a salary.”
“Clever you.” He patted his mouth with a damask napkin and stood. “As for Miss Moss’s decision to seek out greener pastures, I suppose that makes sense. Looking for a financial edge.”
“Aren’t we all?” Patricia was annoyed by her husband’s dig about Eleanor’s background. But Wynn had already left the room and seconds later, the apartment. It was only then that she felt she could finally exhale. At least the first meeting between her husband and her daughter’s new tutor was over. Patricia would try to make sure all subsequent encounters went more smoothly; she didn’t want Wynn to scare Eleanor off.
Walking down the hallway, Patricia stopped before the closed door behind which Eleanor was cloistered with Margaux. She used to do this when Mr. Cobb came too, and so remembered the various tones of voice—pleading, exasperated, resigned—that he’d used to deal with Margaux’s seemingly intractable hostility. Today, though, she heard Eleanor’s measured, quiet voice intercut with Margaux’s higher, more insistent one. And then she heard something she had not heard in months: the sound of Margaux’s laughter. Patricia’s own face bloomed into a wide smile at the sound. What a sweet, pure delight. How long had it been since Margaux had laughed? Patricia couldn’t recall. But here she was, laughing with Eleanor Moskowitz. Patricia did not care a jot why Eleanor had left her old job; nothing would turn her against the person who had wrought this little miracle.
She turned and went back down the hall. She did not need to insert herself into whatever was happening behind that closed door; she did not want to break the spell. She felt almost giddy with relief, and decided to get out, get away from the apartment that had felt oppressive and constricting all morning. Stepping into her bedroom, she fetched her gloves, handbag, and hat—thinking again of that straw number Eleanor had worn—and then went into the kitchen.
“Henryka, I’m going out for a bit. Do you think you can start on the packing without me? Miss Moss is working with Margaux, so you won’t be disturbed.” They were going off to the country soon and the preparations really did need to get under way.
“Yes, ma’am.” Henryka was polishing a silver pitcher that had belonged to some long-dead relative of Wynn’s. She kept her back to Patricia as she spoke, a silent but clear indication that she was still miffed about something.
“You don’t have to bother with the silver today if it’s too much,” Patricia said.
“I can do,” Henryka said. She turned around. “You go out now. You stay in too much. Fresh air do you good.”
“Yes, I think it will.”
“You be home for lunch?” Henryka clutched the rag, black with tarnish, in both plump hands.
“Probably not,” Patricia said. When she saw Henryka’s wounded look she added, “But I’ll be looking forward to whatever dinner you’re serving for tonight. What do you have planned?” She had to be careful with Henryka, who was visibly hurt if Patricia declined, for any reason, to eat; this was a pattern established years ago, and the intervening decades had not altered it one bit.
“Goulash, noodles, and creamed spinach. And coconut cake.”
“You know I’m mad for your goulash,” Patricia said. “And no one can resist your coconut cake.”
“My coconut cake very good,” Henryka said, somewhat mollified.
“You can serve lunch to Margaux and Miss Moss at around twelve thirty.”
“She will eat here every day now?”
“Would that bother you?” Henryka said nothing, so Patricia pressed on. “It seems you don’t like her.”
“She nice girl,” Henryka said. “For a zhid.”
Patricia recognized the slur—Polish for Yid and just as insulting. So that was it. “Well, Jewish or not, Margaux likes her very much.”
“She do.” Henryka’s subtle defiance had softened; she cared for Margaux and had suffered along with Patricia during her illness.
“So it’s important that we make her feel comfortable here. Welcomed.”
“Mr. Bellamy—he make her feel welcome?”
“He will,” Patricia said firmly. “He’ll get to know her better, and when he does, he’ll come to like her as much as Margaux does.”
“Oh, I think he like her right now. I think he like her just fine.” She turned away and resumed her polishing.
Patricia stared for a moment at Henryka’s back. What in the world did she mean by that? She waited a few seconds, but clearly Henryka wasn’t going to elabo
rate. Fine. She’d had enough of this for one morning. She slipped on her gloves, but before she headed out, she saw that there was a stain on the front of her dress, so she quickly changed into the blue dress she’d worn yesterday. It was one of her favorites and she always felt so pretty in it.
It was a magnificent day. The previous night’s heat had lifted and there was the most delightful breeze that swooped up random bits of paper from the sidewalk and raised them festively in the air, like confetti. Patricia took a big breath and, though she had no clear destination in mind, stepped up her pace.
It had been a day like this, just a little over two years ago, when the announcement came that the war in Europe was finally over. Hitler, that insanely evil, raving man—he spat when he spoke, Patricia had seen it clearly in one of the newsreels—had shot himself in April and by early May, the so-called thousand-year Reich had toppled.
Wynn had been about to go to his office on West Forty-Fourth Street when they got the news, and on impulse, Margaux and Patricia had gone along with him. They couldn’t find a cab, so they decided to walk down Fifth Avenue before heading west, to Times Square. The closer they got to their destination, the more crowded and jubilant the streets became. Cars honked and people cheered; some held up copies of the newspapers, whose headlines proclaimed “The War in Europe Ends! Surrender Unconditional” and “Nazis Give Up.” Sailors in their dazzling white uniforms swarmed the area, pumping the hands of strangers, kissing girls. People were laughing, embracing, wiping tears of joy from their eyes. Policemen with bullhorns barked out instructions from Mayor La Guardia, telling everyone to behave.
Wynn had been spared from actual combat by the loss of hearing in one ear and had a desk job stateside for the duration, but Tom had been sent to France almost immediately and Patricia had been plagued with nightmares in which he’d been shot, blown up, or simply swallowed by the great maw of battle, never to be heard from again. Now she could put down the burden of that worry. The pinch of rationing would be over too. The country—and the world—would be at peace. That this monstrous dictator had been taken down, that the forces of justice and democracy had, at least for the moment, prevailed made her feel buoyant and hopeful about so many things. Maybe Wynn would make partner—he wanted it so very much—and maybe, even after all the years of disappointment, she’d have another child.
But the euphoric feeling didn’t last. There was still fighting in the Pacific, and August brought the incomprehensible news that atomic bombs had been dropped not once but twice, first in Hiroshima and then in Nagasaki; thousands of people were instantly incinerated. The reports started trickling, then pouring in, about the so-called work camps where people, Jews mostly, but others too, had been warehoused and turned into virtual slaves. That is, if they had not been gassed or shot to death first. The pictures, when Patricia could bring herself to look at them, made her feel like she was witnessing the end of the world. Wynn did not make partner, and began drinking more heavily. Their marital relations turned into a chore rather than a delight. Patricia’s hopes for another baby ended, as they always did, in a clench of pain and a puddle of blood. Then Margaux contracted polio and Patricia had embarked on the frantic, desperate quest—the specialists, the hot packs, and the dreaded iron lung—to save her life.
Still, on this glorious June day, hope made a tentative return. Margaux had laughed this morning. Laughed out loud, and Patricia had been there to hear it. Margaux was animated for the first time in months. She wanted to study Latin. The sun was streaming down on the sidewalks, and on the elegant facades of Park Avenue. Instead of heading down toward Fifty-Seventh Street, or west toward Madison or Fifth as she usually did, Patricia turned east, toward Second Avenue. She had a sudden yen to see Hats by Irina. So, swinging her bag by one hand, she set out to do exactly that. But the going was slow; the ground floors of the tightly packed brick tenements contained so many quaint and unfamiliar shops to tempt her. German and Hungarian delicatessens where whole roasted fowl gleamed in the windows, and a dozen different kinds of sausage hung on hooks from the ceiling. Strange cheeses in wedges, in wheels, in bars, and in blocks. Groceries that sold loose spices, sharp or sweet mustards, stores that offered gauzy white blouses thick with embroidery and hand-painted wooden eggs. Patricia stopped at a pastry shop for a cup of tea and despite the promise of coconut cake that evening, ate a piece of apple strudel, light and delicious, its still warm filling oozing onto the plate. Had she not feared offending Henryka, Patricia would have brought one home.
Fortified by the sweet, she kept going, only to be sidetracked by an appealingly jumbled antiques shop where her perseverance was rewarded by a crystal paperweight for Wynn—a replacement for one Margaux had broken—and a small gold ring with an oval-shaped moonstone at its center for Margaux. Then it was a secondhand bookstore that detained her. There, amid the crammed shelves and perfumed dust of the past, was a linen-bound edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets illustrated with hand-tinted plates that seemed as if had been created for the sole purpose of delighting Eleanor Moskowitz. Not that Patricia had a specific reason to buy the girl a gift. On the other hand, she had every reason in the world, she thought as the shopkeeper wrote out the receipt.
It was past two o’clock by the time she reached Eighty-Fourth Street, and there it was, Hats by Irina. Eleanor had told her that she and her mother lived in the apartment above the shop. Patricia studied the window. There was a hat very much like the one Eleanor had worn today, a pale straw cloche with a small cluster of cherries on one side. There were others too, like the wide-brimmed black straw and the tipped tricorne made entirely of feathers. All looked very well made and stylish. They would not have been out of place in the millinery department at Bergdorf Goodman, and yet here they were, in this unprepossessing little shop far north of fashion’s familiar center. She would have no trouble picking out a hat, that was clear.
Patricia peered inside, beyond the display. No customers were in the shop but there was a lone woman behind the counter. Not young, but possessed of good posture. Short gray hair, marcelled in a style popular at least fifteen years ago. Dark dress with a white lace collar. Silver brooch pinned at the center of the dress, between the collar’s two points. So this was Irina Moskowitz, Eleanor’s mother. The resemblance was there—the dark eyes, the delicate mouth—easy enough to see. Patricia went in and a small bell tinkled, noting her entrance.
“May I help you?” said Irina. She had just the slightest accent and her tone was pleasant, not pushy.
“Do you mind if I browse?” Patricia asked, eyes roaming around the shop. Should she reveal her identity as Eleanor’s employer? She wasn’t sure, but the indecision, and the feeling that she was somehow deceiving the woman by not revealing this fact, caused her heart to accelerate just a bit. “I’ve never been in here before; you have such lovely things.”
“Thank you,” Irina said.
“Do you make them yourself?”
“Yes. I do.” The quiet pride in that statement was evident.
“So you’re Irina.” Patricia gestured to the window, where the gold letters spelling out the shop’s name appeared backward. She knew the answer of course, but thought she was doing a good job pretending this was new to her.
“I am. And please let me know if you’d like to try anything.” Patricia nodded as she surveyed the shop. Two small oval mirrors on stands stood on either end of the glass-topped counter, and in the corner was one large cheval glass. She approved; sometimes it was essential to see how the hat looked with the entire ensemble. Inside the glass-topped case lay hair ornaments, combs and clasps made of tortoiseshell, ivory, and mother-of-pearl. Patricia admired one of the latter; she thought it would look very smart on her own blond coif. But really, it was a hat she wanted.
“Actually, there’s something I’d like to try,” she said to Irina. “That one, over there.” Patricia pointed to a tightly fitting paisley cap shaped like a broken eggshell, with jagged points extending down and framing the face on b
oth sides.
“You have excellent taste,” Irina said approvingly. “This is one of the most original hats in the store.” She removed it from the black lacquer stand and handed it to Patricia. “The material is a textured silk, made in Italy. Can you feel the weave? Not every woman would have the confidence to carry it off.”
Patricia took off her own hat and slipped on the cap, which fit perfectly. She walked over to the cheval glass. The hat gave her face an unfamiliar, even startling look. But it was also very chic and modern looking, with colors—deep fuchsia, scarlet, indigo, and a surprising bit of marigold—that were at once exotic and radical. She could see this hat with a dark suit, a dinner dress, or even her mink coat. It was a gem, a small, startling explosion that broke open the strictures of convention and predictability. Which, at that moment, seemed exactly what Patricia wanted.
“I’ll take it,” she said.
“You’ll be the only woman wearing this hat,” said Irina, looking pleased. Her smile made her look younger and Patricia had the realization that she wasn’t old so much as careworn; hers had not been an easy life. “I just made one, and I won’t make another.” She took the hat back from Patricia and began to wrap it in black tissue paper that she pulled out from a drawer behind her.
“Really?” asked Patricia, feeling even more pleased with her decision.
“Yes. I felt that this hat should go to someone special and that there shouldn’t be another.” She climbed onto a stepladder and reached up, toward the shelf that ran the length of the store. On it was a row of round black hatboxes, each with a band of white bisecting its center. It was only when Irina had taken one down and packed the new purchase in it that Patricia saw the top: a series of black and white concentric circles, like a target. And in the black center, the same elegant gold script that adorned the window: HATS BY IRINA.
Patricia thought of the trademark boxes from stores all over the city. Henri Bendel had its signature brown and white stripes; Bonwit Teller, sprigs of violets. There was Schiaparelli’s shocking pink box, and the black-gloved hand holding a single rose at Lord & Taylor. This pared down black-and-white box could hold its own with any of them.