Anio Szado (36 page)

“Would you please?” I whispered, unsure whether Consuelo could hear us from her bed.

“First show me what you have drawn and what you have sewn. You don’t mind if I give you my opinion or contribute a squiggle or two? Let me get my supplies.”

I followed him into the hallway. He looped his arm around me and kissed my nose. He said, “It has been too long since we have sketched together. What was it Madame Fiche said? ‘It is fun to have many hands at work’?”

“ ‘Jolly.’ ”

“Very jolly,” said Antoine, laughing, as he crossed to his apartment door.

At first I sketched tentatively, painfully aware of the creative genius of the man who worked alongside me. But soon enough, I felt myself transported back to the comfort of our long evenings in the studio. Antoine and I were collaborating. His hands
were gesturing over my sketches, pointing out where this or that detail could be refined. This was not the fiery intense creativity I witnessed when he worked on his writing, but something sweeter, less agonized. We began to fill pages with lines in both our hands, wordlessly adding to each other’s sketches, working as though we were two aspects of one mind.

One day, when I excused myself to take lunch in the café, Antoine also put down his sketchbook. He tagged after me as if we were two inseparable friends, as though Consuelo did not exist, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for him to follow me. We entered the elevator together, a capsule of quiet bliss. He was lost in thought, and I was content to imagine what might be developing in his head.

In Café Pedro, we took a table by the window. He devoured his steak tartare, then stared at the street and smoked. I found a pencil and a small pad of paper in my handbag.

Once upon a time, I thought as I drew his profile, there was a man with a nose as upturned as a smile, with a full and inviting lower lip. He sat in view of the world with the girl who was his secret love. He yearned to tell her his hidden dreams, unaware that she could see what was in his heart …

I was lost in the maze of Antoine’s ear, my imagination and eyes as misty as if they already peered through a wedding veil, when a burst of internal excitement made him start in his seat. “I’ve got it! We give each soldier his own small, motorless helicopter, completely silent. Like a whirligig.”

He jabbered about physics and mechanisms all the way back upstairs, where his wife greeted him with shrieks of indignity. Antoine was all innocence. “But Consuelo, you told me you would never again set foot in Café Pedro. Surely you don’t expect me to eat my lunch alone.”

On another day, in the midst of a rousing fight, Consuelo threw herself at her husband and locked her lips onto his, muting his criticism mid-word. Antoine pulled away in a moment,
shaking his head and chuckling softly, the kiss having put a conclusive end to the disagreement.

I shut my sketchbook and went to my machine. I sewed furiously, head down, until Antoine left. The fabric cratered where the thread caught in the feed dogs. An ill-run, irreparable tangle bound it to its own machine bed.

Antoine arrived with Bernard at his side. I stood up to greet him, but a look from Antoine sent me back to my seat.

“Lamotte,” he said, “you’ve spoken to my wife, Consuelo; I believe you’ve never met. This is her creative partner, Mignonne Lachapelle. Bernard Lamotte is a famous painter and illustrator. I’m sure you must have heard of him.”

“At last,” said Consuelo. “Such a pleasure, Monsieur Lamotte.”

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, shaking hands all around. “Call me Bernard. Or Lamotte. Saint-Ex has told me what you’re up to. Interesting project.”

Antoine opened Consuelo’s sketchbook. “Imagine
The Little Prince
taking place in that.”

Bernard’s tone was noncommittal. “It is somewhat severe.”

Consuelo said, “Maybe you’ll understand my vision, Mr. Lamotte. The landscape is in contrast to the tenderness of the rose. It is harsh and unforgiving, while the rose is beautiful and soft.”

Antoine protested, “The rose is not the star of the story.”

“But she’s the star of the fashion show,” said Consuelo.

All heads turned to me.

I said, “The sets shouldn’t be designed primarily as backdrops for the clothing. The most important thing is that they work with the story we’re telling.”

“Which is why I’ve brought in Lamotte,” said Antoine. “Supporting a story visually is his forte. He is renowned for it.”

Consuelo said, “Painting is two-dimensional; sets are not. And I am a sculptress. I don’t need anyone’s help.”

“Lamotte is not here to help you, but to take over from you. He will bring the sets to life.”

Bernard was going to design the sets! This alone would guarantee the attention of the press. I said, “This is great news, Consuelo! It frees you to do the work we should have had you doing all along.”

She stopped whining. “What are you talking about?”

“I haven’t had a minute to look at the photos from the modeling agencies. It won’t be easy to find the right girls. They’ll have to carry the designs and reflect the story. They have to be able to act, not just walk, and they need some French. Plus they have to look the part. It’s a lot to ask, but you’ve got an eye for these things. Who better to do it than you? I hereby appoint you head of casting.”

Consuelo straightened her dress. “If I have to take this on along with everything else, the rest of you had better start carrying your own weight.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” I said gleefully. The whole silver-tongued, pulling-the-wool-over business wasn’t so hard. I almost did a jig.

Aye-aye? thought Consuelo. There was nothing more infuriating than mock respect. On the other hand, the girl did have a point. No one knew better than Consuelo what made a woman beautiful—or what types of women to surround oneself with in order to seem the most beautiful in the room. It wouldn’t do for the rose to be upstaged. “Where are the pictures?”

“I put the box in your bedroom,” said Tonio. “Under the bed.”

“Come,” said Consuelo to Mignonne, and led her out of the parlor. When she threw aside the sheet that was lolling off the edge of the bed, the corner of the box was visible, almost touching Consuelo’s feet.

“Get that. Be a love. Get on your knees.”

“You can’t get it? It isn’t heavy,” said Mignonne.

“I can, darling. But you will get it for me.”

The girl looked confused. “What’s going on?”

“If we’re going to start assigning new roles, it’s my turn to tweak yours. I need an assistant. What a face, Mignonne! You prefer the word ‘helper’? Or ‘minion’? Ha! I’ll have to tell Binty he had it right all along.”

Mignonne kicked the box. It slid further under the bed and hit the far wall.

“Temper,” breathed Consuelo. “A little joke, that’s all. I just wanted to see that sweet rosiness right here on your lovely cheeks.”

Mignonne slapped away her hand.

Consuelo let the action send her sprawling across the bed. Yes, just like that, she thought, as the girl turned and fled.

“Tonio!” Consuelo cried out.

The silence that answered her arranged itself into a faint murmuring, in the slow way that one comes to hear the whispers of a distant brook. Mignonne’s soft sniffling. Tonio’s softer, soothing hush.

Antoine and Bernard could talk for hours about the visual impact of the set, the logistics, the qualities of the materials Bernard would employ. I sketched and snipped and sewed contentedly while, in the background, the two deep voices carried on—debating the value of simplicity, probing the aesthetics of nature, discussing engines or physics, arguing the pros and cons of building structures oneself versus bringing in experienced tradesmen. Occasionally Antoine would practice his cards or his juggling as they talked. Sometimes he kept up the conversation even as we collaborated, communicating with me through silent pointing or by taking my pencil to enhance or add to my lines without a pause in his discussion with Bernard. A couple of times he seemed to forget himself in the midst of a joke, and put his arm around my shoulders or his hand on my knee as he laughed.

But he never fully forgot himself when Consuelo was in the room. He couldn’t entirely forget or forfeit who and what he really was.

Consuelo, meanwhile, flitted in and out as she immersed herself in the model search. The coffee table overflowed with eight-by-ten photos of beauties and less stunning girls. Most had straight blond hair. Many had unusual figures—a little bottom heavy, or overly broad shouldered, or thin to an ungainly extreme.

The stacks of photos grew. The parlor grew ever more cramped.

“Consuelo,” I asked, “aren’t we ready to audition these girls? I need some real bodies to fit the clothes on.”

“That raises a problem.” She turned to Antoine. “But I’ve thought long and hard, and I have a solution. There’s no room to hold auditions in the parlor. We’ll do them in my bedroom; I’ll have the superintendent dismantle the bed. I’ll just have to move into your apartment, my darling, until I can find us both a bigger place to rent. I’ll keep my clothes here, and go back and forth.”

“You are talking nonsense.”

“A wife living with her husband is nonsense?”

“We’ll hold the auditions at the Alliance,” I said. “I’ve already cleared it with Philippe. He’s holding a date for us. All he asks is that we use the back door.”

“This should be easy,” said Consuelo as we waited for the first of the models to arrive.

We sat in the third row, center, where we could scrutinize the features of each girl’s face and the quality of her dramatic gestures, and have the perspective to assess how she moved across the stage. Antoine had volunteered to man the door. He had been given a list of names for each time slot, and had been instructed to note the time of each girl’s arrival and point out the first of a series of scrawled arrows to follow to the wings where the girl would await her turn. He had been instructed, as well, to make a note of the girl’s ability to understand his French.

After several girls had completed their audition, Consuelo and I listened again to the sound of dainty heels entering the wings. We heard Antoine’s heavy footsteps following behind and his voice pitched in query. “Why don’t you have a favorite author? Because you love so many, or because you do not read?”

He emerged on the heels of a thin young woman whose
alarmed expression made it clear that she wished she had never come. He asked her, “You have at least heard of Gide, have you not?”

Consuelo yelled, “Tonio!”

He walked calmly to the edge of the stage. “You cannot seriously be considering her.”

“Leave her alone! I haven’t even seen her. Will you please go back to your post and let me do my job?”

Antoine scowled and headed back toward the wings. Consuelo and I waited for the next girl to arrive. We had her walk the stage and strike a series of poses while we scribbled on our pads.

The audition continued through the morning. “Bold walk,” I wrote. “Strong nose. Small gestures.”

The next was a clear call. “Choppy stride. Can’t act.”

“Tell the next girl to walk on,” said Consuelo.