The Dressmaker of Dachau. Mary Chamberlain
she’d got so used to his accent. ‘I have no money. Not now. With the war. I won’t be able to wire.’
Ada couldn’t imagine Stanislaus without money. He’d never been short of a bob or two, always flashed it round. Surely they wouldn’t be poor for long? And anyway being poor in Paris with Stanislaus would be different from being poor in Lambeth. She felt a surge of love for this man who had swept her off her feet, a warm, comfortable glow of optimism.
‘We don’t need money,’ she said. ‘I’ll work. I’ll look after us.’
The waiter reappeared with two more cups of coffee and placed them on the table, tucking the bill under the ashtray.
‘L’addition,’ he said and added, ‘la guerre a commencé.’
Stanislaus looked up.
‘What’s he say?’ Ada said.
‘Something about the war. Guerre is French for war.’
The waiter stood to attention. ‘La France et le Royaume-Uni déclarent la guerre à l’Allemagne.’
‘It’s started,’ Stanislaus said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m bloody sure. I may not know much French, but I understood that.’
He stood up abruptly, knocking the table so their coffee spilled in the saucers. He stepped to the side, as if he was leaving, then turned and sat back down again.
‘Would you stay with me?’ he said. ‘Here, in Paris? We’d get work, the pair of us. Won’t be short of money for long.’
Ada had been so sure a few moments ago, but now a wave of panic tightened round her head and fear clawed at her stomach. War. War. She wanted to be home. She wanted to sit in the kitchen at the back of the house with her parents and brothers and sisters. She wanted to smell the dank musk of the washing as it dried round the cooking range, to listen to the pots boiling potatoes for tea, to hear her mother thumb the rosary beads and laugh at her father as he mimicked her, Hail Marx, full of struggle, the revolution is with thee, blessed art thou among working men …
But there was no way she could get home, not by herself. She nodded.
‘Would you mind,’ Stanislaus said, ‘if we used your name?’
‘Why?’
‘My name’s too foreign. The French might lock me away.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘I’ll get rid of my passport,’ he was talking fast. ‘Pretend I lost it. Or it was stolen. I could be anyone then.’ He laughed and the gold in his tooth glinted in the evening sun. He fished in his pockets for some coins to pay the waiter and picked up their bags.
‘Come,’ he said.
‘Where?’
‘We have to find somewhere to stay.’
‘The hotel,’ Ada said. ‘We’ll go back there.’
Stanislaus put his arm round Ada, and rested his chin on top of her head. ‘They’re full. They told me. We’ll find somewhere else. A little pension house.’
*
The room had a bed with a rusty iron frame and sagging mattress covered in stained ticking, a small table, a chair with a broken seat, and some hooks on the wall. The wallpaper had been torn off at some point, but stubborn shreds stuck in corners and above the wainscoting, bumping and rippling with the slumbering bugs beneath.
‘I can’t stay.’ Ada picked up her case and stepped towards the door. Stanislaus had never been poor, didn’t understand how low they had fallen.
‘I don’t know where you’ll go then,’ Stanislaus said. ‘With no money. The hotels will be full. The army have commandeered them.’ He sat on the bed, releasing a small cloud of dust. ‘Come here.’ His voice was soft, tempting. ‘It’s just till we get back on our feet. I promise you.’
They’d find jobs, move up in the world. She’d done it before, she could do it again.
‘What will you do?’ she said. ‘What job will you look for?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m not used to working.’
‘Not used to working?’
‘I’ve never had to,’ he said. She had forgotten. He was a Count. Of course Counts didn’t work. They were like Lords and Ladies. Bloody parasites, her father called them. Getting rich on the backs of the poor. For a moment Ada saw him from a different angle, as someone alien. She saw something else too: he was lost, didn’t know what to do. He was an innocent and she the streetwise urchin. She felt sorry for him. Pity. She could hear her father snorting. Pity? Would they ever take pity on you? Did the Tsar pity the peasants? Got what he bloody deserved.
Ada stood up. She was still wearing the striped dress. A bit crumpled, but she pulled it taut over her body and fished in her handbag for her lipstick. She dapped some on, rubbed her lips together.
‘I’ll be back,’ she said. She had to take charge. She knew where she was going.
*
Walked into the very first establishment, and landed herself a job. Ada couldn’t believe her luck. But she supposed that’s what she was: lucky. The wages weren’t much, but the work was plentiful. Monsieur Lafitte ran a thriving business. Wholesale, retail, and tailor. He was a congenial man who reminded her of Isidore. He spoke French very fast, but slowed down for Ada, took pains to help her learn the language. Ada filled the vacancy left by Monsieur Lafitte’s apprentice, who had enlisted in the army, leaving him with more work than he could handle himself. Although Ada longed to invent new drapes and cuts, and from time to time would suggest a new detail – the twist of a collar, the turn of a pocket – he’d frown and wag his finger. Non.
Within a week she and Stanislaus had moved from the filthy room to a small attic, closer to the shop and the better end of the Boulevard Barbès. Between Monsieur Lafitte and the concierge, Madame Breton, her French became passable and she was talking to customers even.
Ada couldn’t quite believe there was a war. It was too quiet, didn’t seem real, even though there were more soldiers on the streets and in the bars and cafés. There were stockpiles of sandbags on the corners, and shelters built in the parks and squares. Men and women walked about with gas masks slung over their shoulders.
‘Even the prostitutes,’ Stanislaus said. ‘I wonder how they do it, with those on?’
They hadn’t been issued with masks, but Stanislaus conjured two for them, tapping his nose, ask no questions. ‘I’m in business.’ She loved him, with his mystery and his charm and his strange, foreign accent that waxed and waned depending on how excited he was.
From time to time a siren wailed, but nothing came of it and at night the neighbourhood was black and impenetrable. Cloth was scarce, good cloth at least, and Ada began to cut the garments with a narrower fit and a shorter length, and a seam allowance that skimped and scraped.
*
‘What do you do all day when I’m not here?’ She and Stanislaus were sitting in the Bar du Sport. They’d been in Paris two months now and were regulars, had taken to having a glass of red wine at night before they ate dinner there. It was a far cry from cocktails at Smith’s, but Ada made an effort to dress up. Monsieur Lafitte let her have the remnants and offcuts and, with the new vogue for plain styles and shorter hems, Ada had run up a presentable winter frock for going out and some simple skirts and blouses. Monsieur Lafitte had given her some old clothes that, he said, had belonged to an uncle of his, now deceased, which Ada had remodelled for Stanislaus. Madame Lafitte had given her a winter coat which she had adjusted. Stanislaus would need a coat soon and Monsieur Lafitte had hinted that he might be able to lay his hands on some surplus army fabric. They made ends meet, and Stanislaus had money again.
They