Anio Szado

by Studio Saint-Ex

  I slid the empty glass across the bar. “So now it’s my fault that the community’s falling apart.”

  “I don’t blame you for taking off. I wouldn’t be here myself if I had a choice. I keep going back to the draft board asking them to take me. I got a punctured eardrum, that’s all. But they just laugh and say I should go home. My friends are out training to kill while I’m mixing sidecars and drawing beer.”

  “It must be boring when business is slow.”

  “Honestly? I’d be just as happy if no one came in. The members who come are worse than the ones who stay away.” He lowered his voice. “All they care is that their money’s safe. They aren’t going to get their hands dirty fighting Hitler. They do their fighting here, over whisky sours and escargot.”

  I swiveled in my seat, trying to imagine it. “What kind of fighting?”

  “Cattiness, nastiness. So-and-so is for so-and-so, so-and-so’s a dirty such-and-such. From that to whatever viciousness you could dream up. It’s just talk, but these days talk can skewer a man.”

  “And it’s all made up.” There was no way the things they said about Antoine could be true. How could they be, when half the talk contradicted the other half?

  Eddy slid over another drink. “Can’t say one way or another. Everyone spouts off like he’s a hundred percent right and he heard it from the mouth of God. Tell you why, too: everyone’s got his own guilt to work out.”

  “Whatever happened to ‘Say Three Hail Marys and go in peace’?”

  He laughed. “It would be a better world. And this room would be a much nicer place.”

  When Yannick finally arrived, it was with Leo leading the way and—joy!—towering, rickety Philippe following behind, a smile splitting his handsome, well-lined face. The ancient doorman looked away politely as I hugged Yannick hello.

  “Something to drink?” asked Eddy.

  I said, “I’ll have amother martini.”

  Yannick frowned. “Leo, take Mignonne to a table.”

  Philippe stepped forward. “Allow me, please.” He offered his lanky arm. “Mademoiselle Mignonne, so long I have waited to see you again! And so worth it. I am pleased that your uncle alerted me that you would be here.”

  “It’s wonderful to see you, too.”

  As we began our slow progression, he leaned in close. “The boy at the door: I apologize, mademoiselle. I didn’t realize that his training by our new deskman was so deplorably incomplete. I’ve had words with them both; such an omission is intolerable. It will never happen again.”

  We stopped at a table and, inch by inch, Philippe pulled out a chair for me. He looked back. Yannick and Leo were still at the bar. With stiff limbs, Philippe crouched down beside me. “I wanted to tell you: Every day I thank our Lord for your papa’s time on earth. And every day”—his rheumy eyes watered—“I ask the Lord to bless him and his children.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Did you know he arranged that I may remain with the Alliance for life? An emeritus position.” He lowered his voice to a proud confidential tone. “I am no longer required to work evenings; I am here only when I wish to be. Your father said I should be the Alliance’s figurehead, as on a ship.”

  “I’m so glad, Philippe! I didn’t know what to think when I came in and you weren’t here.”

  “Ah. Mademoiselle, I am mortified by what you were put through. The boy is young and very new, but that is no excuse.” He broke off as the others approached. With gritting effort, he rose to his feet.

  “Philippe,” said Yannick, “let me get you a chair. Join us for a while.”

  “You are kind, but I must return to my duties.”

  “You must have a lot to tell us about what’s been happening here lately,” said Yannick. “And you’re probably wondering what our Mignonne has been up to.”

  “I know only what Monsieur Leo has told me when he has been in.”

  Leo nodded. “Same old thing. Fashion, fashion, fashion. Always working. Too busy for boys.”

  Philippe bowed. “I’m afraid I must wish you a good evening. But if you need anything”—he patted my arm shyly—“if you need anything at all, please only say the word.”

  I ordered a creamy whitefish bake with a side of pointes d’asperges. As we ate, I asked Yannick for news from Montreal, for although Mother and I exchanged letters and she had plenty of questions for me, she said little about herself. Yannick spoke of her good health, her backyard garden, her volunteering at the Ladies’ Auxiliary. She had begun keeping company with a man—a fact that Leo couldn’t stomach and Yannick skirted, though it resounded in every “they”: “They went to a dance … they were driving to church when … they’re thinking that maybe one day.” He said to Leo, “She asks if you’re okay.”

  “I’m better than okay.” Leo spoke around his steak. “Got a job. Roof over my head.” He took a drink of beer. “Got my little sister coming and going at all hours, as she pleases.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s the business,” I said, and refilled my glass.

  “Late nights?” Yannick asked with pretend nonchalance. When it came to his niece and nephew, his instinct for potential troubles was like a collie with its sheep.

  “Overnight,” said Leo.

  “Ignore him,” I said. “He tells me he expects me to work all night, then he gets mad when I do.”

  “You do?”

  “Just the once.”

  Yannick asked, “And you come home every night, Leo?” He dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. “Look, I know you worry about Mignonne.”

  “Of course I do!”

  “Good. You lead me to something I need to say.” His expression grew stern. “Your mother feels the same about you as you feel about Mignonne. You don’t telephone or write; she never gets a word from you. If it wasn’t for your sister’s letters, your mother wouldn’t know you’re still alive.”

  Leo scowled.

  “Start giving a thought to the ache in your mother’s heart,” said Yannick, “and you’ll have the right to be concerned about your own.”

  Leo got up and walked to the bar.

  “He’s just being Leo,” I said.

  “And I respect that. He follows his own path. He knows what makes him happy. But your mother is entitled to be happy, too. You know, I was hoping he would straighten out if you moved back in with him.”

  I contemplated the irony of that.

  Yannick asked, “Do you really work through the night?”

  “We have deadlines. There’s a sofa I can sleep on.”

  He checked his watch. “Speaking of which, it’s getting late. Would you like dessert, coffee—nothing? Oh, well. Okay, we’ll leave Leo to his snit and go home. You must be tired.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Such as?”

  Such as drinking, drawing, waiting, conjuring Antoine as I lay in bed. No doubt my face was as red as my wine. I brought my glass to my mouth.

  “Saint-Ex!” called Yannick.

  Wine spilled over my lip and mottled the tablecloth.

  Yannick grinned. “Of course you remember my niece.”

  “He does,” I said.

  Yannick looked back and forth between the two of us. His expression grew uncertain, but he said, “So I see.”

  Antoine was smiling warmly. “Mignonne has changed little since our tutoring sessions—except in all the best ways.”

  “I’m much much older,” I said. Maybe I’d had enough to drink.

  “And wiser?” asked Yannick.

  I said, “That depends on what you think is wise. For example.” I took another drink. “Yannick.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m ’splaining.” When I turned my head to look at my uncle the room continued turning, and so I spoke directly to Antoine. “Yannick is so smart. Right? Everyone says so.”

  “He is,” said Antoine. “He understands everything.”

  “So why did he introduce us?”

  Yanni
ck said, “You were a tutor. Saint-Ex needed a tutor.”

  “Right. And what did you think I needed—a married man?”

  From the surprise on Yannick’s face, it was clear that he finally really did see. He looked at his friend. He looked at me. His niece and Saint-Ex, after all, and since when? Saint-Ex and his niece—and Consuelo.

  “I’ll take you home,” said Yannick.

  “No.” I was just getting started.

  But now another figure came to join our party, an older woman whom even my father had disliked. She stood at our table, staring down at me. “Good evening, count, monsieur, mademoiselle.”

  “Good evening, Madame Lucrece,” said the men in unison as they stood. “Won’t you join us?”

  “I wouldn’t think of taking the seat. Surely the countess will be wanting it.” She leaned down to pat my hand. “I trust you know there is a countess, mademoiselle. Of course you do! I keep hoping to meet her. Why, when I saw how the count looked at you when he arrived tonight, I thought for a moment you must be her. Silly me.”

  Yannick, bless his soul, jumped in before I could speak. “Mademoiselle knows the countess well. In fact, she is the countess’s couturière.”

  “Is she, indeed?” The woman turned to Antoine. “I didn’t realize you took such a keen interest in fashion. You continue to amaze us, Count de Saint-Exupéry.”

  As she left, my companions exchanged glances. Antoine picked up his drink and carried it with him to a table in a corner of the room. Yannick called for a pot of coffee.

  What did he know of falling in love? He’d never been married. He used to joke that he was too good of a cook to get married. He never seemed to have a girlfriend. He probably didn’t even date.

  He spoke quietly. “I’m sorry, Mignonne. I didn’t know about Consuelo until she showed up while you were away—and then I assumed there was no reason for you to care. Never in a million years would I have set you up to be hurt.” The pot arrived, and he poured us each a cup.

  “I’m not hurt, I’m drunk.”

  That got a laugh from him.

  “He doesn’t even want Consuelo. Why do you think she’s at home and he’s here with me?”

  “You do realize Madame Lucrece was just asking the same thing?”

  “She’s a meddler.”

  “She’s your clientele.”

  The truth of that, or the coffee, made my stomach churn. “You think I should break it off with Antoine.”

  “As your uncle, I should insist that you do so.” He stirred his coffee and reflected for a while on the steam.

  As my uncle. I wondered what he thought that implied now that my father was gone and the closest substitute was him. I was sure we were both wondering what Papa would have said. The truth was, my father had always gone easy on me. He’d wanted me to be an artist, whatever that took and whatever it meant. While Leo’s mechanical aptitudes had been overshadowed by his unruliness, I earned favor for both my early creative attempts and my occasional defiance. When Papa was home he had indulged me, made excuses to Mother for me, telling us both that we had to be open-minded, that there were worlds within me struggling to emerge.

  All I’d managed to create so far was a world of confusion.

  Yannick’s spoon clattered lightly into his saucer. “You know, Mignonne, I hear a lot of confessions, if I may put it that way; and what people don’t tell me outright, I see in how they eat. Half my customers are in love with someone other than their own husband or wife. I’m not a priest; I’m a restaurateur. I don’t trade in penance but in private tables. I shuffle reservations. I make people happy. Their happiness makes the filet more tender, the crème brulée more sweet.”

  “You don’t want me to break with Antoine.”

  “What I want is for your heart to be glad. You tell me what that would take.”

  “Make Consuelo go away.”

  “Your biggest client?”

  I groaned.

  Yannick pushed my coffee cup closer to me. “How on earth did you end up designing for her?”

  “I don’t know. I think it was Antoine’s doing.”

  “Then he can help us fix at least one angle in this mess.” He waved him over. “Listen, Saint-Ex. In a few days, we’re going to have dinner together at Le Pavillon, the four of us, my treat.”

  “Four?” said Antoine.

  “You and Consuelo, Mignonne and me.”

  I snorted.

  Antoine said, “And this is intended to accomplish what?”

  Yannick spread his arms. “Just a friendly dinner. A dinner between friends.”

  “I owe my wife neither explanation nor charade, and she is hardly in a position to expect either.”

  “My niece has a position to consider, too. She has persuaded Consuelo to commission some fashion work.”

  “You really are her couturière?” asked Antoine.

  “I went to her apartment, like you asked. No more meeting her at the Alliance, just like you said.”

  Antoine brought his hand to his chest. “Thank you. This means much to me.”

  “What it means,” said Yannick, “is a tenuous position for Mignonne. How will it look if she is seen with her client’s husband, and at other times with his wife, but never with the two together? You know how the ladies here gossip. I know you don’t want Mignonne to lose all chance of building a clientele. We’ll take a prominent table. If you still think it’s a bad idea when the time comes, I’ll cancel the reservation at the last minute. I have that privilege. In the meantime, check with Consuelo and give me a call.”

  Leo had gone missing at some point. Now I noticed him again on his perch at the bar. He was watching.

  I drained my cup. “I have to go. Have to get to the studio in the morning.”

  “You will be there late tomorrow, as well?” asked Antoine.

  “Early, late. All or nothing, all day long.”

  24

  The next day’s work stretched on into twilight as I planned the construction of another dress of my own design. Dusky light lit the windows, lending a pink tint to the bricks of the wall and door, then faded as I continued to draw.

  I had folded the silk chiffon and placed it within reach on my table where I could consider it as I sat with my book. I had long since turned on the table lamp; my eyes stung as I bent into its glow.

  I was hunched over, worrying a detail—the exact spacing of gathers at a neckband—when footsteps sounded from the hall. The footfalls ceased, but their rhythm continued in a folk song I recalled from my childhood. Papa had sung it in upbeat tones. This voice—the middle timbre, the tinge of melancholy—it had to be Antoine’s.

  I set down my pencil and sighed in relief.

  The door opened; the singing stopped. The yellowish light from the hall cast him in silhouette.

  He said, “You look so peaceful sitting there in your island of light, as though time does not exist.”

  “It exists, believe me. I’ve been sitting here for hours.”

  When Antoine closed the door, the studio seemed to plunge into greater darkness than before, despite the constancy of the desk lamp. Unlit above us hung row after row of dangling green metal light shades. I said, “The switch for the overheads is on the wall to your right, where the keys are hanging.”

  He ignored the suggestion and crossed the shadowy room with an unhurried gait. “The solution is not to turn on the lights, but to extinguish your lamp.” He switched it off. “It is not so dark now. You see?”

  It was true: the sky’s cool, blue glow filled the studio as my eyesight adjusted. Outside, the skyscraper towers were only black silhouettes, but across the street, in low-rise buildings here and there, candlelight and gaslight glimmered against glass and swayed on walls, and incandescent lights burned with a tireless, steady smolder.

  Antoine was looking beyond the rooflines, at the sky. He spoke quietly. “I went to Montreal for only a few days—and returned after five weeks. Did you not wonder what had become of me?”
<
br />   “I thought that you made up your mind you never wanted to see me again.”

  “I was a hostage in your old land of refuge, Mignonne. First the Americans told me I had not the paperwork to return, then my body turned on me. I was ill, so drugged that I could only sleep. I wish I could leave this old crock of a body. Since my crash in the Sahara, it only betrays me. Even yesterday, for perhaps an hour or two, I was again like a man on his deathbed. One minute nothing, the next, a fever of thirty-three.” He glanced at me. “I don’t know what it is in your Fahrenheit. This strange pain I have, this thing that comes and goes as fast as a rabbit in its hole, that has plagued me for years, I thought at last it would be the end of me. God’s hand has crushed me into the ground many times and I did not fear. But then, a sudden fever, a sharp pain …”

  “You should sit down.”

  “Death doesn’t frighten me. I only felt sad that I might die with so little achieved and with no purpose ahead.”

  “Oh, Antoine, don’t be ludicrous. Regardless of what happens with the Air Force, you still have your writing to do.”

  “I do have writing to do, in fact.” His tone lifted. “And not just the unfinished manuscript I lug around. I have been working on an idea for something completely different: a sort of children’s tale about a pilot and a boy, a young prince who appears from out of nowhere.”

  “Kind of how you like to show up at my door?”

  “Perhaps—if I came from another planet and not just from uptown.”

  “Tell me about this prince.”

  “Come, let’s sit where it’s comfortable. If we’re going to talk about a boy who lives on an asteroid, we should be looking at the stars.”

  “There are no stars tonight.”

  “Stars often require imagination.” He took my hand and led me across the studio. As we settled on the sofa, he said, “When I fly, I imagine the stars as lights shining up from the earth, one for each person who waits for me.”

  How many waited for him—girls going through the motions of their business, keeping their hands busy, wrestling with their worries as they worked, the pinpricks of their lamps spread across the earth like storm lanterns placed on docks and doorsteps for the lost and the late?