The Dressmaker of Dachau

‘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 had recaptured something of the old days, but with a difference. Now they were man and wife. Not legally, but as good as.

‘I’ll be gentle,’ he’d said the first time, ‘and wear a rubber.’

‘A what?’

‘A johnny. What do you call them?’

Ada didn’t know. She’d heard bits and pieces from the girls at Mrs B.’s, but nobody had ever sat her down and said this is what happens on your wedding night. Her mother had talked about the sacrament of marriage and Ada thought it something so holy that babies could be made in ways they couldn’t if you weren’t married. Stanislaus had laughed. This bit is for this, and that for that. She knew it was wrong, not being married, but it seemed natural, sidling close so her body soaked up his male smell and her flesh rippled and melted in his warmth. She knew he’d propose, once the war was over in a few months, make an honest woman of her.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to go home?’ Stanislaus said. Ada shook her head. She was in Paris, with him, and wouldn’t wish to be anywhere else in the world. Besides, she hadn’t heard from home, even though Stanislaus had said he’d sent another telegram. All safe. Working in Paris. Telegrams cost money, she knew, but even so, they could have sent something.

After they had eaten, once the evenings had drawn in, there wasn’t much to do. There was a blackout, and the streets were empty, the cafés hidden behind closed doors and shuttered blinds. They played rummy, and pontoon. Ada tried to read French, but it was hard-going. The newspapers, as far as she could make out, were full of news about Germany and Russia, speculation about the Americans and complaints about the behaviour of British troops in France. They didn’t have so much to talk about now. Stanislaus said she wouldn’t understand his business, so she stopped asking. He wasn’t interested in her work. What was exciting about turning up a hem and economizing on a cut? She missed home at those moments, her brothers and sisters. Mum and Dad. She even missed the girls at Mrs B.’s. At least they could have had a laugh.

In December, Stanislaus’s business began to take him away for the night. Two or three times a week. Long, lonely evenings with nothing to do. The old iron radiator in their room creaked and tapped. Ada never got used to it, was sure an intruder was there, padding around, waiting to strike. It was all right when Stanislaus was with her, but on those nights when he was out late, she went to bed early to keep warm, with a small candle by the side, go away, don’t come near me, until she fell asleep. The radiator didn’t give much heat and was turned off at ten, so the room grew bitter and cold by dawn. Sometimes a fine layer of ice formed overnight on the bowl of water they kept on the table.

She hoped one day they could afford better lodgings, with a small kitchen, so she could prepare their own food and not always have to eat at the Bar du Sport. She’d have to learn to cook. She knew how to make a mutton stew but it needed pearl barley and Ada wasn’t sure you could buy that here. There was other food she could try to make, French food. Omelette, for instance, or a soufflé. She could see herself whisking the eggs, the way she’d seen the cook at the Bar du Sport do.

The kitchen would have an airer too, so that when she did their laundry she could hang it up to dry, and not drape it over the bedstead. Perhaps they’d have a little parlour, with a table and a red chenille cloth, and a mirror. She’d keep it pretty, with fresh flowers, if she could get them, in a jam jar. Her wages weren’t much, but with both of them earning money, they’d live a simple life.

But something was changing.

‘The thing is, Ada,’ he said. ‘I need to be in the mood.’

She respected that to begin with, but now it didn’t seem right. She touched his face, ran her fingers along his nose to the tickle of his moustache, tapped a rhythm on his lips.

Stanislaus shoved her hand away. ‘No, Ada,’ he said. ‘Not now.’

She heard his breathing, heavy and hard, felt the air squall from his mouth.

‘Do you love me?’ she said.

‘Stop it, Ada.’

He threw back the bed covers and stood up. Ada heard him pull on his trousers, swearing at the buttons in the dark, yank his shirt from the back of the chair, pick up his shoes with an angry slap and slam the door. She lay still on the bed. She shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t have thrown herself at him. Her mother said no man respects that. Men like to do the chasing. She’d say she was sorry. He’d come round.

The Stanislaus she met in London had thrilled her with his honeyed talk and feathered touch. He had changed. The war had changed him, the business had changed him. He was out, night after night. She’d have to make more of an effort, make herself more alluring. A new lipstick, if she could afford it. She looked young for her age, she knew. Her cheeks still had the plumpness of youth. She’d try to look older, more mature. Perhaps that’s what Stanislaus wanted, an older woman, an experienced woman. Her hair had grown long. She’d roll it in a pleat round her head, like some of the sophisticated women she’d seen in Paris. He’d love her then. Nobody said marriage would be easy.

Christmas-time she bought Stanislaus some new handkerchiefs and a pipe. Wrapped the presents in newspaper and tied them with a ribbon from Madame Lafitte.

‘Thank you, Ada,’ he said, putting the gifts on the floor beside the bed. Stanislaus had made her a stocking, one grey sock bulging with walnuts and a small bottle of perfume.

‘L’Aimant,’ she read. ‘Coty.’ Loving. She knew it. He just couldn’t say it. Some men were like that. She dabbed the perfume behind her ears. It was too sweet for her taste, but she liked that he’d thought of her, had taken the trouble to make a stocking, even if it was only full of nuts. Dad did the stockings at home. Brussels sprouts more likely, and a couple of spuds. Ha ha, got you there. But he made sure there was an orange in the toe, or a spinning top, and Mum always made them a new outfit for Christmas.

She’d never spent Christmas away from home. She’d have given anything to be back in Theed Street today. Go to Mass, while Dad cooked breakfast. Bacon and egg and fried bread. Then he and the boys would go to the King’s Arms for their jug of porter while she and Mum got the meal ready.

Lunch in the Bar du Sport didn’t feel or taste like Christmas dinner at home. They’d splashed out on a bottle of wine. Vin du Pays. It was thick and heavy, a dark, ruby red. It reminded her of Ribena, and Ada didn’t much care for it, but Stanislaus knocked it back as if it was fruit juice and then had a couple of brandies to chase it down.

He patted his stomach, winked at her. ‘Nothing like a good meal, is there, Ada?’ he said. ‘Fancy a game of rummy?’

‘That would be nice, Stanislaus,’ she said, pushing herself away from the table. Mum would be bringing in the Christmas pudding now. If Dad had got his bonus, he’d get a drop of brandy from the chemist and pour it over. Turn out the lights. Put a match to the brandy and bring the pudding to the table in a ball of flaming blue.

‘You smell good,’ Stanislaus said, opening the door to their room and pulling her towards him. The alcohol was fusty on his breath.

‘Are you tipsy, Stanislaus?’

‘Just merry, Ada. Merry,’ he said. ‘Why shouldn’t a man get merry at Christmas?’

He crossed his arms around her, squeezed her close. Maybe she should have worn perfume before.

He released his grip and flopped on the bed, patting the place next to him. Ada took off her dress and stockings and lay down beside him. His eyes were shut and he’d fallen asleep, put-putting through velvet lips, one arm raised above his head. Ada watched him as the daylight faded. She should get up, pull the curtains, turn on the light. But the room was quiet, soft in the twilight, and Stanislaus was sleeping. She ran the back of her hand down his cheek, caressing the soft flesh of his skin, the sharp scratch of his whiskers.

He grabbed her wrist, pinching it tight so she yelped. ‘Lay off, Ada,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you before.’ He looked at her as if she was a stranger, then shoved her onto her back. ‘Is this what you want?’

He reached for the rubber, fitted it with clumsy fingers, thrust himself into her and pulled away without a sound. He rolled over and fell asleep.

Ada buried her head in the pillow. This wasn’t love, not like it used to be.

*

Winter filtered into spring, fizzing flecks of green in the parks and on the trees. Despite the bitter cold, there had been something safe about the winter, tucked beneath the long thick blanket of the blackout. Now the later evenings and brighter days were like a searchlight illuminating everything and Ada jumped whenever an aeroplane droned above. There were more planes flying overhead, and soldiers on the move along the streets and boulevards, boots, boots. Ada picked up a newspaper almost every day and Monsieur Lafitte brought his wireless into the shop. Madame Lafitte said that she’d seen British tanks near the Belgian border when she went to visit her sister, lumbering monsters that churned up the roads. Her sister said that the British had sent thousands of men, so they were expecting trouble. Ada couldn’t imagine that number. So many young men in uniforms. Who had made them all?

Stanislaus shrugged. ‘What will be, will be,’ he said. ‘We can’t stop it.’ He was back to his old self, relaxed, happy.

But Ada fretted. War marched with hobnail boots, left right, left right. The streets around the Boulevard Barbès filled with refugees, haunted faces in shabby clothing pushing their possessions in a child’s pram. Stanislaus didn’t seem to notice. Nothing worried him. He was a continental, that’s why. Continentals were relaxed. He looked foreign, neat ears close to his skull, short fair hair, his clipped moustache in the centre of his lip, a bit like Hitler, she often thought, though that was the fashion these days. Milky eyes framed by his glasses. He always wore them. She couldn’t imagine his face without them. It must have been such a come-down for him, living like this.

‘For you, madame.’ He pulled a round box from behind his back and presented it to her. She undid the ribbon and pulled out a hat, a lemon straw pillbox with a spotted black veil. ‘Your Easter bonnet.’

It didn’t go with her winter outfits, and the weather wasn’t warm enough yet to put on her summer dress, but Stanislaus had gone out of his way to purchase the hat when goodness knows this kind of raffia was hard to come by now.

She put it on, the veil drawn across her face. A grown-up hat, a woman’s hat. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘Shall we, as the French say, faire une promenade?’

Ada giggled. Stanislaus rarely spoke French, at least not with her. It was always English and even so he often got his ‘v’ and ‘w’ muddled, and could never pronounce ‘th’, however many times she tried to show him. Sometimes he was in a good mood, sometimes not. He’d taken to putting the bolster down the middle of the bed, his side, hers.

Two weeks after Easter, Germany invaded Norway, neutral Norway. There was news of resistance and fighting, of British troops sent in to help. Endless blah blah on the wireless about the Maginot Line and what to do if Germany invaded France. Refugees needed to be vetted. Sympathizers would be shot. It was the duty of France to stand up and fight back.

Her neighbours’ faces were pinched and Monsieur and Madame Lafitte looked gaunt and frail. A smell began to permeate the Paris air. It oozed from the pores of women and mouths of screaming babies, from grown men and from the hairs of dogs pissing on the lamp-posts. Ada sniffed it in her nostrils, on her clothes, from Stanislaus as he lay on his side of the bed at night. Ada knew it now, the stale onion of fear.

There was talk of rationing. She wondered whether Stanislaus would change his mind, if she could persuade him to leave. They should go home, find a way to England. Monsieur Lafitte was hinting that it was time he retired, now the work was getting thin, and he didn’t want to start making army uniforms, not at his age. What if she lost her job? What then?

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said one day. ‘A young girl like you. It’s too dangerous. Go home. While you can.’

She thought of where her parents lived, close to the river with its docks and ports, of her younger brothers and sisters, living goodness knows where in the country, of her Mum, thin with worry, and Stanislaus out till late, leaving Ada with nothing to do but gnaw at her anxieties like a fox in a trap.

*

Stanislaus came back one night in May with a bloodied nose and broken lip, his spectacles twisted and crooked on his nose.

‘Pack,’ he said. ‘We have to leave.’

‘What happened?’

He splashed water from the basin on his face. Drops fell onto the table, washed pale and pink. There was blood on the towel he dried himself with.

‘What happened?’ Ada said again. ‘Did someone hit you?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Just pack. Now.’

She moved to dab at his cuts with the cloth but he grabbed her hand and forced it away.

‘Pack,’ he shouted. ‘Now.’

She knew he only raised his voice when he was worried. Perhaps someone had thought he was a German.

‘Are you listening? We must go.’

He took her suitcase from the top of the wardrobe and flung it on the bed. She opened it, took out a dress from the cupboard, started to fold it. He snatched it from her, threw it into the case.

‘No time for that.’ He scooped up the rest of her clothes, grabbed her hat and shoved it in, yanked her underwear from the bedpost where it had been drying, tossed it on top and slammed the case shut. ‘Come on.’

He hadn’t packed a thing. She followed him down the stairs, racing, two at a time. She’d trip if she tried to keep up. She held the banister to steady herself. ‘But where—’

‘Shut up,’ he said.

The concierge had gone home for the night, the blind pulled down, her office dark and vacant. They walked out of the building, through the courtyard, into the street, and up to a black car parked nearby, a car she’d never seen before. He lifted the boot, put the suitcase inside and opened the passenger door.

‘Get in.’

She climbed inside, the leather seat chill against her bare legs. Stanislaus pulled at the starter handle until the car chugged to life, climbed in beside her and drove off, the shaded lights throwing narrow triangles on the road in the pitch-black midnight. Her stomach tightened in a ball and her mouth tasted of metal, of fear.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Belgium.’

‘Belgium?’

‘Belgium’s neutral.’ She was right. They thought he was a German. She wanted to say how sorry she was. She couldn’t see him in the dark, but she knew his lips were closed and tight and he was not going to talk to her about it. He was a brave man.

‘Where did you get the car?’

‘I borrowed it.’

Then she remembered. ‘My samples,’ she said. ‘I left my samples. We have to go back.’

‘Forget it.’

‘Please, Stanislaus.’

He laughed, a cruel, mocking ‘Ha, ha’. She had never known him like this.

There was no traffic on the road and they sped through Paris, the unlit streets and suburbs unfolding behind them. Maybe they could go back later, when this crisis had blown over. Madame Breton would keep them for her. That’s what concierges did.

‘Do you know the way?’ Ada said.

‘I’d better.’

‘How long will it take?’

‘Five hours, six. Who knows?’

Six hours was a long time. He was driving fast.

‘Will they catch us?’

‘Who?’

‘Whoever is after you.’

He said nothing. They sat in silence. She closed her eyes. She was tired. The burr of the engine and the rocking motion of the car were soothing, even though her stomach churned and her head spun with questions. Something had happened, something serious. What if they were caught? She’d be in for it too.

She must have fallen asleep because it was dawn, a soft, grey light that mottled through tall trees and drew faint stripes across the road.

‘Glad you slept,’ he said in a bitter tone.

Ada stretched her legs and arms, clenched and unclenched her hands. The road ahead was straight, the countryside flat. ‘Where are we?’

‘Picardy,’ he said. ‘Somewhere.’

Her father used to sing, Roses are shining in Picardy. It was one of his favourite songs. That and Tipperary. She wanted to hear it now, a longing so acute it lunged like a knife. She could hear him singing, his voice sweet and tender, and she began to sing with him in her head, a soft, mournful duo, in the hush of the silver dew. Roses are flowering in Picardy, but there’s never a rose like you.

Stanislaus turned and faced her. ‘Where did that come from?’

‘It was a wartime song,’ she said. ‘The soldiers sang it in the trenches. I expect you Germans sang the same kind of songs.’

His knuckles tightened on the wheel and the muscles in his jaw flexed. ‘I am not a German.’

‘I know.’ She was cross, tired. A silly mistake. But still, he didn’t have to speak so sharp. She wasn’t the enemy.

‘Do you think they’ll fight again here?’

‘Shut up.’

She slunk back in her seat, stared out of the window, tears pricking her eyes. She had no idea where they were and there didn’t seem to be any road signs. They passed a platoon of troops, dressed in khaki, helmets and rifles at the ready.

‘They’re British,’ Ada said. ‘Stop, I want to talk to them.’ Ask where they were going, what they were doing. Perhaps they’d look after her. Take her home.

‘Please stop,’ she said again.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said, adding, ‘you’re a fucking liability, you know that, don’t you?’

He’d never sworn before. She turned in her seat and watched them disappear through the rear window.

The car began to slow down.

‘No.’ His foot pumped the pedal on the floor and he shifted the gears on the dashboard, making angry grinding sounds. The car spluttered and stopped.

‘No.’ He was screaming.

He got out and slammed the door. Ada watched him open the boot, felt the car shudder as he banged it shut again. He walked round to her side, and flung open her door.

‘Out,’ he said.

‘What’s happened?’

‘We have no petrol.’

‘What will we do?’

‘Walk,’ he said.

Ada stepped onto the running board and jumped to the ground. She looked down the road behind her, but the soldiers were out of sight. She could run, catch them up.

He grabbed her hand and began to pull.

‘My case,’ she said. ‘I need my case.’

‘No time for that. It’ll slow us down.’

‘But my shoes,’ Ada said. ‘I can’t walk in these shoes.’ She only had the shoes that she had travelled in to France, all that time ago, simple courts with high, stacked heels. She had worn them constantly and there was a hole in one of the soles. They were comfortable enough, but not for walking.

‘Then take them off,’ he said. He would not let go of her hand and his pace was fast.

‘How far is it?’

‘Ten kilometres. Fifteen.’

‘What’s that in miles?’

‘Seven,’ he said. ‘Roughly. Ten.’

Ten miles. Ada had never walked so far in her life, and here she was, trotting to keep up with him.

They stopped once when Stanislaus needed to relieve himself. Ada was glad for the pause. She had a stitch, and sat down on the side of the road, slipping off her shoes. They were old and worn, but at least they weren’t rubbing. She wiggled her toes. She had no idea what time it was, but the sun was already high in the sky. They had passed several platoons of soldiers. She wanted to call out to them, Good luck, boys! To ask them for help, to take her home, but Stanislaus told her to keep quiet, threatened to silence her, once and for all, if she made a sound. There were other people on the road, walking like themselves, or on bicycles, men with their girlfriends or wives sitting on the crossbar. One couple had a baby, and another a young child strapped into a chair over the rear wheel. From time to time a car passed, piled with luggage. Well-to-do people, she thought, who had found a way round petrol shortages. She wondered who Stanislaus had borrowed the car from.