“AH, MAGDA IS HAPPY. I don’t need to translate, just take a look at Magda!”
“She only hopes,” Pepi added, “that she can also afford to pay the artist. It worries her.”
Adam smiled at Magda—who wouldn’t stop talking—held the fabric up and kept looking back and forth between the open magazine and his own sketch.
“I haven’t started yet, and you act as if I had it all done.”
“But Herr Adam, from the way you talk about it, the things you say, we already know that it will be special, something very, very special.”
“It’s a good thing you talked her out of that dress.”
“It would just hang in the closet afterward,” Adam replied. She can combine other things with this skirt.”
“Should I translate for her?”
“Tell her that she has a good figure.”
“A good figure?” Pepi asked. And Frau Angyal gave him a surprised look too. Magda turned around and gawked, at a total loss, from one to the other.
“Go ahead and tell her. She’s a little full figured, but the proportions are right, and that’s what counts—the same as with you, Frau Angyal, right?”
Pepi and Frau Angyal traded glances, then both started talking at once. Frau Angyal traced a serpentine curve in the air and a similar line along her own body. Magda stared in the mirror as if checking out this information, lifted her chin, and didn’t stir a muscle.
“And now tell her, please, that you are paying me, that my work is a present, otherwise she’ll leave and take the fabric with her—”
“A present?” Both Angyals stared at him.
“She couldn’t pay me anyway. But you, as her friends, you were able to persuade me.… What’s the problem? That’s what it would’ve cost me to pitch my tent.”
“You’re doing it for free?”
“She’s to leave the rest of the fabric to you—it’s first-class goods! We’ll not get our hands on anything like this for a long while.”
“But Herr Adam—”
He sat down on the windowsill, pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket, gave its trimmed end a quick check, and lit it. As he blew the first smoke out the window, the three women had already lined up in front of him.
“She is happy,” said Frau Angyal. “And, it goes without saying, she immediately accepted your offer. That upsets me, Herr Adam, that was wrong, you shouldn’t have done that.”
“Does she really not understand a word?” Adam asked, nodding at Magda.
“She’s a cheapskate.”
“A tightwad,” Pepi said, turning toward Magda.
Adam waved his hand to drive the smoke away. He took another draw on his cigar and leaned out the window.
“No need, Herr Adam, we like the smell. It’s part of your world, so Pepi says—”
“It’s a deal, it’s a deal,” Pepi whispered. “Whatever’s left over is ours to keep.”
“I’ve already got an idea.”
“We’re so lucky to have you here,” Pepi said. “You can smoke in the room, let the whole house smell like cigar smoke.”
“What’s your mother busy telling her?”
“She’s explaining to Magda that she really can’t accept the leftover fabric. If Mama’s not careful she’ll have convinced Magda she means it.”
“Tell her to come back in three days for the first fitting. Take a look at that woman!”
Magda had pulled in her tummy and sucked in her cheeks, set her arms akimbo, and turned one side to the mirror. Her half-closed eyelids made her look a little dopey.
She seemed embarrassed when it came time to say good-bye and made a hint of a curtsy. Pepi was going to drive Magda home. Frau Angyal put together a shopping list for Pepi and accompanied her to the door.
With the cigar in his mouth, Adam unrolled the fabric across the extension table with one hand—it flowed in gentle waves.
“We really can’t complain,” he said when Frau Angyal reappeared. “Even if I make her a blouse as well, there’ll be more than half left for us. With enough for Pepi besides.”
“Really? I’m ashamed of saying such bad things in front of you, Herr Adam. But Magda really is a cheapskate.”
“I’ve already thought of something very beautiful,” Adam said.
“Shall we begin?”
“Right here, right now?”
He nodded and blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling lamp. He carefully laid his cigar on the edge of the windowsill and pulled the tape measure from around his neck. “Don’t you want to?”
Frau Angyal sat down on the edge of a chair she had pulled away from the table. “How can it go on like this, Herr Adam, this is terrible. Tell me what is to come of it? Frau Evi is such a beautiful woman, pretty as a picture, but tell me, what does she see in him? Why does she do this?”
Adam’s mouth twisted. “I don’t know,” he said. “I figure another ten days, then I’ll drive home with her.”
“Do you think so? You are willing to take her back?”
Adam shrugged. “It’s just a lot of foolishness.”
“Really? I don’t know.”
“We’ll see. But my main concern is whether I can stay on here.”
“You can stay here, of course you can stay on here, as long as you like, always, for as long as you—”
“Thanks a lot, the—”
“But you know this—there will always be a place to stay here for you.”
“Thanks,” Adam said, taking the tape measure in both hands and looking at Frau Angyal, who appeared to be inspecting her polished toenails.
“Pepi told me all about it,” she suddenly said. “And I can assure you that we would have taken care of the baby. Pepi hoped that she was pregnant.”
“How’s that? What did Pepi say?”
“It was not to be, back then. But she’s always talking about you. For Pepi those days she spent with you in your garden were the loveliest ever.”
“I thought it was a very lovely time myself,” Adam said. “Doesn’t Pepi have a boyfriend? She did have one, didn’t she?”
“No, he was no good for her, she was always the loser with him. When she returned home it was all over. I was so very glad.”
“Pepi hoped she was pregnant?”
Frau Angyal nodded. “Yes, that was so, that was so. But only I know that—and now you.”
Adam wrapped the tape measure around his left index finger. From somewhere outside came the sound of a buzz saw.
“Shall we?” Adam asked.
“Yes, yes, but what?” Frau Angyal stood up from her chair.
“I need your measurements anyway.”
“What do you want me to do, take this off?”
“There’s no need.”
Frau Angyal turned to one side and unbuttoned her apron dress. She stood there in front of him in a white slip with a wide lace hem. “Should I leave my sandals on?”
“Absolutely,” Adam said. He walked around behind her, held the tape measure to that particular neckbone and drew it along the shoulder and down to the wrist. Then he measured her hips, her waist, her chest. “I think I know what I want to do,” he said as he put his pencil and notebook away. “But maybe you’ll want something totally different? … Frau Angyal?”
“Herr Adam, would you please embrace me? Just once. Or may I embrace you?”
Adam cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said, stuffing the tape measure into his pants pocket.
Frau Angyal stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. When his hands touched her back, she pressed against him. “Silk, genuine silk,” Adam whispered. His fingertips traced across her shoulderblades, wandered downward, and reached Frau Angyal’s rear end. She stood on tiptoes, pressed tight against him, and let out a brief lusty sound that made it clear to Adam in a flash—he was alone with her.