Four hours later, Stella walked into the Hotel Krasnapolsky cold, wet, and thoroughly exhausted. She’d done her job and it had nothing to do with the list. She’d bought multiple panels of stained glass, four paintings, two tea sets, an incredible French sewing box in tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl that supposedly belonged to the fabulous Thérésa Cabarrús. It was the right age, Napoleonic, but Stella seriously doubted the woman famous for her beauty, lovers, and salon spent much time sewing.
“Micheline, my goodness, you are damp.” Ludwik rushed up and the concierge took the basket out of her grateful hands. “Daan! Daan! Come get this coat!”
The doorman ran over and took off Stella’s coat. He reached for her hat that had once had a stiff brim but was now flopping in her face, but she took it off herself and handed it over. “Can you have them cleaned? There’s mud and who knows what.”
Ludwik agreed that everything must be cleaned and sent Daan off to the laundry with her things. He looked her over and then at the basket. “You’ve had a busy day.”
“Shopping. Shopping. Shopping.”
“For your clients?” He held up the heavy basket.
“Take a peek. I couldn’t resist bringing it back with me instead of having it sent to the shipper. It’s so lovely.”
Ludwik looked under the oilcloth covering the basket and made an appreciative noise. “A beautiful box. What is it for?”
“Sewing.”
His kind face crinkled up in doubt. “Sewing?”
She explained the box, but he had to see the tools inside to believe anyone would make such a beautiful box for such a mundane activity. It wasn’t the Dutch way at all; despite being Polish in origin, Ludwik was very Dutch.
“Remarkable,” he said with disapproval.
“I know. I know, but my client will like it.”
“What will he do with it?”
“He’ll put it on a sideboard and tell everyone it belonged to a famous French revolutionary who nearly died in the Terror.”
“This is a good thing?”
“It’s a conversation piece.”
“Americans need these things?”
She leaned forward. “Yes.”
He grinned, but then said, “I see you have not done the shopping you should have.”
Stella drew a blank and the concierge sighed. “Your dress. The party is tomorrow and you have no dress.”
“Oh, that,” she said. “I’ll just wear something I have.”
He drew back in horror. “To the baron’s party? You cannot.”
Stella couldn’t help but tease him a little. “It’ll be fine. No one will even notice what I wear.”
“The baron will notice and you will not be asked back. He is a man of taste and refinement.”
And appetites.
“Well, all right, Ludwik,” she said with an exaggerated sigh. “Tell me you have a plan because all I have is a sewing box.”
The concierge smoothed back his thin, oiled hair and steepled his fingers. “I have a surprise for you.”
“I thought you might.” Stella smiled.
The Kras had excellent service and if they could anticipate Uncle Josiah’s needs and keep him out of jail, Ludwik could handle clothes.
“I put in a call to Madam Milla,” he said in triumph.
“And she is?”
“A personal designer to the baron. She has done costumes for him and designed the sets.”
Sets?
“Ludwik, I know you’re trying to help, but there’s no way I can afford that kind of designer. I need something less silk and more cotton.”
He waved that away. “It is done and she is coming.”
“How much money do you think I have? My company only pays for my room and meals.”
“There’s another surprise.”
Please, no.
“Don’t say jewelry,” said Stella.
“See you do know something about a society party.”
I do and I should’ve known better.
“I can’t possibly—”
Ludwik leaned over and said, “I have arranged for you to borrow the items. Milla will bring a selection and she will choose all. You don’t need to worry.”
“Am I borrowing the clothes, too?”
He turned her toward the elevator and handed her over to the operator, who maneuvered her into the tiny space. “Not to worry.”
“I am worried,” she said. “This could cost me a month’s pay.”
Ludwik winked at the operator and said, “Milla’s cousin’s nephew is married to my niece. So she will take good care of you. It is a challenge. She loves a challenge. Up you go. I will call and she will come. One hour. Be ready.”
With that, the door was closed and Stella couldn’t think what to do. This Milla couldn’t get too close. Her face was Micheline. Her body wasn’t.
“Don’t worry. Madam Milla will take good care of you,” said the operator.
“So I hear.”
They stopped on her floor and he let her off saying, “I will have the kitchen bring up your favorite dinner?”
“Yes, thank you. Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need luck. As Ludwik said, she loves a challenge.”
“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?”
He said yes, but his eyes said no. In a way, it was a compliment. The whole hotel thought she was hopeless, just like she was supposed to be, but still it kind of stung.
Shaking off the remnants of her old vanity, Stella went in her room, took a quick bath, and redressed in a pair of loose and concealing pajamas. Her wig was worse for wear, but she had no time to fix it before her dinner arrived and shortly after Madam Milla. None of her training had prepared her for that.
Madam Milla strode into Stella’s room looking like she stepped right off of Vogue magazine, but in a way Vogue could never have imagined. Milla was nearly seven feet tall in her six-inch heels, thin as a beanpole, wearing makeup Max Factor would’ve envied and a black and white suit with both checks and stripes. Her hat, fire engine red to match her heels, was as large as a dinner platter and just as flat. Madam Milla was also a man.
How Stella knew was hard to say. How did she know when Uncle Josiah was drunk ten feet away from the back? How did Florence know that Millicent would start wailing two minutes before she did? “Here it comes,” Florence would say while looking at her perfectly pleasant child and then the eruption would happen, never failing to shock Stella with the accuracy.
Instinct. It had to be, because the illusion was truly remarkable and Stella stood back as Madam Milla swished her hips around the room, examining the clothes in her wardrobe and her scant makeup on the dressing table. She was not impressed.
“It is very good that you call for me,” she said, holding out a long black cigarette holder with an unlit cigarette fixed to the end.
Greek? Hungarian? French?
“Ludwik said you would find me a challenge,” said Stella.
Milla’s dark brown eyes went up and down her body with an expression of extreme disappointment, like a mother with a dumpy daughter, which Stella supposed she sort of was. “Yes, but we will have no trouble with you. Paola!”
An older woman about sixty-five hustled in, wreathed in smiles. She was the absolute opposite of her boss, five feet tall and nearly as wide with grey curly hair tucked halfway under a beret. “I’m here. Shall I bring the rack?”
“Please do,” said Madam Milla as she began to circle Stella like some kind of high fashion jackal.
Paola wheeled in a rack of fabulous clothing and to Stella’s surprise it wasn’t only dresses. There were coats and suits, too. This was going to be a challenge. She was Micheline Dubois. Dumpy and plain was her calling card.
“Ludwik was correct with your measurements,” she said. “He has a good eye.”
“What would you like first?” Paola asked in a strong Hungarian accent and Stella wasn’t sure who she was talking to. She was the customer, but it didn’t really feel that way.
“The café down by the lobby is open, yes?” Madam Milla asked.
Startled, Paola looked at Stella.
“I think so,” said Stella.
Madam Milla jutted out a bony hip and said, “You’ve had a long day, Paola, in all this rain. Go down and have a nice dinner.”
“Oh, no. I’m fine.”
“You’re tired and cold. Have a rest.” She was kind but firm and Paola relented. She left and closed the door quietly behind her. Madam Milla went to the door, leaned back on it and struck a pose. Very Vogue.
“You are not ugly.”
“Um…thank you.”
“And you are not a woman of—” she waved the cigarette up and down Stella’s form “—thirty-five or forty years as Ludwik said.”
The hair on Stella’s arms stood up under the level gaze of Madam Milla’s inscrutable eyes.
“I have my mother’s skin,” she said.
“The wig is a disaster. Throw it out. Burn it.”
Stella couldn’t speak. Madam Milla knew. Instantly, just the way Stella knew about her.
Taking a breath, she gathered her wits and thought of escape routes. “I’m sorry you don’t like my hair. Perhaps this isn’t a good idea. I’m not really your sort of client.”
“You’d be surprised.” Madam Milla’s voice was husky but not particularly low. Uncle Josiah would’ve called it a whiskey voice and Madam Milla was undeniably sexy. It was the strangest thing to look at her and call her a her, when every instinct said she wasn’t a woman. But she was, too. Very confusing.
“I don’t need a dress. I’m fine,” said Stella.
Madam Milla tilted her head to the side and narrowed her large eyes. “You are going to the baron’s party, are you not?”
Not now.
“Maybe.” Stella tried to stop herself from searching for stubble on Madam Milla’s chin, but she couldn’t help herself. Her eyes couldn’t stop looking, even though there wasn’t any. How did she do that? Nicky couldn’t go three hours without a touch of stubble.
“Maybe? An invitation to the baron’s is a triumph.” Her eyes were searching, too. They roamed over Stella’s hairline, her eyes, neck, and hands. She was seeing Stella, really seeing her, and Stella fought to control her breath.
“I know.”
“It no longer has meaning to you?”
Careful.
“Certainly, it does, but maybe such events are not my place.”
“And you will not go?”
Stella went over to her wardrobe and all her practice of inhabiting Micheline fell away. She was shaky, her voice tremulous. Park-Welles had taught her what to do. In fact, she’d been retrained after being tracked by Ruth in Berlin. The sweet young Jewish girl hadn’t known Stella was a spy, only that she was escaping Germany. That turn of events had turned out in Stella’s favor, but this was wholly different. She was to get out immediately if this happened. If she had to kill Madam Milla to do it, that was acceptable, at least to the SIS it was.
She found a dinner dress in violet silk and held it up. “I’ll wear this. It’s fine and it fits. You can leave and join Paola for dinner. I’m sure she’d enjoy that.”
“I’m sure she would,” said Madam Milla, “but I cannot leave.”
“Of course, you can.” Stella hung up the dress and went for her handbag. “I’ll pay you for your time.”
“My time isn’t the problem.”
Stella continued to get out her pocketbook and tried to calculate what it would take to get Madam Milla and her clothes out of the room. She’d give her anything, everything to just get out. “How much?”
“He is expecting you,” she said.
“Who?”
“The baron.”
“He doesn’t know me. We’ve never met. I doubt he’ll notice what I wear or whether I’m there or not.” Her voice had grown tight and odd, but the accent hadn’t slipped so that was something.
“The baron knows who you are and is looking forward to meeting you,” she said.
Oh.
“That’s right. You know him, don’t you?”
“I do and, more importantly, he knows I’m dressing you for the evening,” she said.
Stella took a breath and gathered her wits. It wasn’t easy. Madam Milla was so unexpected and frankly, unnerving the way she stood there calmly watching Stella struggle. “That’s no problem. I changed my mind. Clients do, don’t they?”
“Not my clients. Getting an appointment with me is harder than getting,” she pointed at Stella’s invitation on the dressing table, “that.”
“Oh, well, I don’t mean to insult you,” said Stella. “We’re just not a good fit.”
She waited, but Madam Milla didn’t move. She was thinking. That much was clear, but what did such a person think of? Where did she come from? Stella had spent plenty of time in Amsterdam and she’d never seen anyone like her. The boys at Valkyrie in Berlin were the closest, she supposed. They loved their costumes and would often dress in the girls’ costumes for a laugh. Stella’s favorite, Rolf, had once put on a dirndl and done a dead-on impression of Stella, bringing the room to hysterics.
Looking at Madam Milla, Stella saw that she was a performer, but why put on that performance? What would be the point?
“We are at what is called an impasse, I think,” Madam Milla said after a moment.
“No. This is simple. I pay you for your time and you take your beautiful clothes away for someone else,” said Stella.
“I could do that, but then what would happen?”
I get out of Amsterdam as fast as I possibly can and try to explain this disaster to my superiors without sounding like a crazy person.
“Nothing.”
“That has not been my experience,” said Madam Milla.
“Experience with what? Customers?” Stella asked, her heart pounding.
“People. I’m adept at the reading of people. I have to be.”
Don’t panic. It’s fine.
“A useful skill, I’m sure.”
“And one we share,” said Madam Milla. “You know. I know. We, the both of us, know.”
“I don’t know anything, except that I’m tired and I’d like you to go.”
“You knew the moment you saw me.” Her voice grew a tad deeper. “A survival skill, yes? Another thing we share.”
“I’m just a buyer for wealthy Americans.”
“What are your intentions?”
“I intend to go to bed,” said Stella. “Please go.”
Madam Milla got a little tortoiseshell lighter out of her tiny handbag and lit her cigarette. “Usually I’m in the cage alone and trying to find a way to escape. But we are in this cage together. A new and uncomfortable experience for me. You are the same. I can tell this.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s no cage. I’m fine. You’re fine. Everybody’s fine.”
“I can’t let you go and not only for myself. I am a patriot. And you are not Micheline Dubois. Are you even Belgian? Or is that fake as well?”
“Nothing’s fake and I am Micheline Dubois. Ludwik told you who I am,” said Stella.
She laughed. It was not feminine but also not male either. “Ludwik. Dear Ludwik. He doesn’t know. He has an eye for figures, but not an eye for the truth. He does not know about me and we have known each other for years. He could know you for years and never see the makeup around your eyes or the wig that has just a little too much hair for a normal person or that your hands are much too young for a woman of middle years.”
That’s when Stella started thinking about her weapons. Park-Welles, given her needs in Berlin, had seen fit to issue her a decorative pen that, with a press of a button, shot out a razor-sharp icepick, lock picks, an explosive device in a pack of cigarettes, and double her normal cache of pills, ill, kill, and energy. None were handy and even if they were killing Madam Milla in her hotel room was hardly an ideal solution.
“I’m a normal person,” she said with more conviction. “I just want you to go. That’s all I want.”
“This is what I want as well,” Madam Milla said. “But I cannot risk myself or my country.”
Is it possible? Could she be…like me?
“You’re not risking anything. I don’t know anything.”
Madam Milla reached up and plucked her amazing hat off her head, taking the glossy dark hair with it. “Do you still deny?”
Stella stared. Madam Milla wasn’t any less feminine without her hair. But she became unsettling. Yes, that was the best word. Her real hair was the same glossy dark color but chopped short like a man’s, but otherwise every feature was female.
“See. You were not surprised,” she said. “Who sent you and why are you in Amsterdam?”
“How do you do that?” Stella asked, not bothering to conceal her amazement. “It’s absolutely brilliant.”
“Oh.” For the first time, Madam Milla’s cool composure cracked and a flicker of pride or perhaps it was vanity crossed her face.
Not a spy.
Stella made a decision. Oliver would be furious, but it didn’t matter since she would have to leave immediately, job undone, anyway. She may as well find out what she could. If she was anything like the boys in Berlin, Madam Milla was sweet and unlikely to expose her. The last thing she would want was exposure.
“Ludwik really doesn’t know?” she asked.
“No, he doesn’t.” Without her hat, Madam Milla became shy and a bit fearful. The exposure wasn’t planned and now that it was done, she reminded Stella of a dog that had been kicked more often than not.
“And you really are…” Stella asked.
“I am,” said Madam Milla. “I take it you’ve never seen anyone like me before.”
“Has anyone?”
She smiled and showed small very white teeth, too small for a man of her size. Stella suspected they’d been filed down to make them less prominent. A genius idea really. Madam Milla thought of everything, like Stella’s unaged hands. Now that it’d been pointed out, it was painfully obvious.
“Of course,” she said. “I’m not so unusual in my world.”
Stella crossed her arms and gave her a sideways glance. “I think you’re very unusual. Which world doesn’t matter. Does Paola know?”
“She’s my mother,” said Madam Milla.
“Really? She’s so…short.”
She looked at the cigarette that she had yet to take a puff of, walked over to Stella’s side table, and snubbed it out on the ashtray the maid had left there. “You aren’t going to tell about me.”
It was a statement, not a question, but Stella asked anyway, “Why would I?”
“People do.” She put her hat and wig back, growing instantly more self-assured the moment her head was covered. “They like to. They enjoy it.”
“I wouldn’t,” Stella said truthfully.
“You wouldn’t want to be exposed either.”
Stella sat down in the armchair next to her bed and put her feet up. “We haven’t agreed that I have anything to expose.”
“This is true, but I think now that you wouldn’t do this to me anyway,” said Madam Milla. “You’re not…mean.”
“And you would know?”
“I would. I have to.”
It was a sad thing to admit, but Madam Milla did it without sentiment or sorrow. It was a fact of her life and an unescapable one. She reminded Stella of Maria telling her that she was really Ruth, a Jew living in the world of Nazis. Maybe it was the same in a strange way.
“You’re right, of course,” said Stella. “Now what about you?”
“You think I might be mean?” she asked striking another pose.
“I doubt it, but I haven’t got much experience.”
Madam Milla watched her for a moment and then asked, “Why are you in Amsterdam?”
“I’m not going to answer that.”
“You’re not going to tell me that you buy from the Jews and pay much too much.”
For crying out loud.
“I don’t know that I do,” said Stella.
“I do. Ludwik does.” Madam Milla went to the dressing table and sat down. “Why do you think I’m here? Because some dumpy woman of a certain age needs a—”
“I’m not that old!”
She laughed again. This time it was looser and full of genuine mirth as she examined her perfection in the mirror. “You might as well be with that wig.”
“This could be my real hair.”
“It could, but it is not. The brows are well done. This is what saves you.” She got out a tube of lipstick in a gold case and applied it with a deft hand. “You know that you must tell me who you are.”
“Or what? You’ll expose me? I don’t think so.”
Madam Milla pursed her lips and then said, “Why do you want to go to the baron’s party?”
“Who says I do?”
“Cornelia.”
The air went out of her lungs in a silent whoosh.
“She’s very fond of you,” said Madam Milla, turning to look at Stella and propping her elbow up on the dressing table. The picture of elegance. “I thought it was a fast friendship, but now I see you and it’s not a mystery.”
“I like Cornelia very much.”
“She believes you to be a kindred spirit of a certain age and I ask myself why would this girl do this thing to Cornelia? Could it be that she is like the man in the canal?”
“Canal?”
“A tailor from Delft with an interest in his neighbors. He asked questions. Very many questions.”
“About?” Stella asked.
“The government. The Jews. The NSB,” she said. “You are interested in the Jews.”
“I buy from them. That’s true.”
“You are kind,” said Madam Milla.
“I’m fair,” said Stella.
“Few are fair these days. They take advantage.”
Stella stayed silent. That she was so well-known and understood wasn’t good. How far had this information gone? Who else knew?
Madam Milla turned back to the mirror and turned her face from side to side, evaluating her perfection with a critical eye. “But you don’t ask about the government or the NSB.”
“What did the tailor want to know?” Stella asked.
She smoothed a brow with the tip of a finger painted scarlet. “Who was friendly to the Germans? Who would flee if they came? Where would the government go if they fled? How would they get there? Very many questions.”
“Yes,” said Stella. Too many. “Sounds like he was for Germany coming.”
“This is why he took a swim.”
“They killed him?”
Madam Milla turned and crossed her shapely long legs. “He had an accident.”
“Accidents happen when you want your country to be overrun.”
“Yes, and now you see how we are caged together.”
“Are you threatening to throw me in a canal?” Stella asked.
“Not me. Never me,” she said. “But were it to be known that you are not who you say you are and are friendly to the Jews. There are some that would put these pieces together and…”
“And it’s the same for you? A dip in the canal, if the wrong people knew.”
She nodded. “We are in this bad place together.”
“I’m not a tailor,” said Stella.
“You don’t care about the government?”
“Not my concern.”
“What is your concern?” Madam Milla asked. Her face was impassive but her eyes intense.
“Does Cornelia know about the Jews and my…generosity?”
“Yes.”
“Does the baron know?”
“If Cornelia knows…”
Stella took a breath. This was a horse of a different color and could be useful.
“And I’m still invited,” Stella said.
Madam Milla nodded.
“I’ve heard that the baron has many friends in many quarters.”
“He does,” she said. “You find those friends interesting?”
“I do, but not as interesting as where his loyalties lie,” said Stella.
Madam Milla stood up, a languid movement, and went to her clothes rack to sift through the dresses. “They lie with us.”
“Us?”
“His country. The Dutch. You and I.”
“I’m not Dutch,” said Stella.
“Aren’t you?”
“No.”
Madam Milla took a gorgeous forest green dress with accordion pleats down the bodice to an embroidered belt in black off the rack. She held it up and gestured to herself. “Like me, I think you are close enough.”
“You trust that I won’t tell?”
“I do.”
“May I ask why? You don’t know me and as you pointed out, neither does Cornelia,” said Stella.
“You weren’t repulsed by me. Even after you thought about it, you weren’t.”
“Um…no.” The thought had not occurred to Stella. Many things did repulse her. Nazis in general. Oscar von Drechsel specifically. Hate. Stupidity. Turnip soup. The list was long, but a man dressing as a woman was not on it. She found that she couldn’t care less, especially since it was looking less likely that Madam Milla was going to betray her.
“You were thinking it over,” said Madam Milla with a touch of amusement.
Honesty was working so Stella decided to stick with it. “I was and I can’t think of a reason to care about what you do. You’re not hurting anyone.”
“And you’ve really never known anyone who wasn’t…quite the same before?”
Stella thought about Uncle Josiah, the boys in Berlin, Ruth, Mavis at home in St. Louis and she laughed. “I’ve known a lot of people who aren’t quite the same, but you are unique.”
“Unique is what I have always wanted.”
“You’ve achieved it and then some.”
She held out the dress. “This will cover you, but it will seem like it’s not.”
Stella stood up and took the dress. The silk was so fine it felt like running water under her fingers. “So we have an agreement?”
“Tell me your name.”
Stella set her shoulders. “Micheline Dubois.”
“You’re real name.”
“Micheline Dubois.”
“I will tell you mine,” said Madam Milla.
This surprised Stella immensely and spoke of a need Madam Milla’s visage didn’t convey. It saddened Stella. Madam Milla knew she was a spy of some sort, by definition she wasn’t a person to be trusted, but the need to be known was stronger than logic.
“I’d be honored to know it, but it wouldn’t be safe for you.”
She pulled back. “Safe? But you will not tell. You promised.”
Stella didn’t promise, but there was that pesky need again. “Some people get thrown in canals. Others have different more painful fates.”
“I don’t…”
“A person never knows how they will react until they face it.”
“What?”
“Pain.”
“Oh. You think you might get…”
“The less people know the safer we are,” said Stella.
Madam Milla handed her the dress. “This is the story of my life.”
“And mine.”
She looked away, blinking rapidly. “Try it on. I can make alterations if they are needed.”
Stella decided the trust was worth expanding on and unbuttoned her pajama top. She slipped it off and her bottoms, too.
“You are not shy in front of me.” Madam Milla stepped back in surprise. “I thought you would go in the bathroom.”
“Remember when I said I know others who weren’t quite the same?”
“Yes.”
“Well, let me tell you about Berlin.”
Madam Milla lit up while she helped Stella dress. Stella told her about an unnamed club she worked in in Berlin and the boys she met there. She got Madam Milla laughing, belly laughing. She’d probably revealed too much, but it was worth it. That laugh hadn’t been so well used in a long while and besides she was supposed to make contacts and connections. So Madam Milla wasn’t what Park-Welles had in mind. She wasn’t a clerk in Bikker’s hotel or a valet in the royal house. So what? She was Dutch and she was on their side.
While chatting, they decided on a dress, the green one. Stella was deeply in love with the style and the concealed pockets. Every dress should have pockets in her opinion. Then they moved on to shoes, a coat, hat, and stockings for the baron’s party. Madam Milla told Stella what she knew about the baron, but it wasn’t a lot. There was a secrecy there and Madam Milla knew it, too, but she couldn’t say what it was about. She didn’t think it had anything to do with a leaning toward the Nazi regime, but she admitted that she could be wrong.
“I think Cornelia would know,” said Madam Milla.
“You never asked?”
She shrugged. “I don’t like to pry, but she would not tell me if I did anyway. She and the others are very protective of the baron. They love him.”
“How protective?” Stella asked.
“They are Dutch first.” Madam Milla was strong on that and Stella didn’t doubt her, but it was worrying. Where there was something to hide, there was something to exploit. The Nazis were all about exploiting.
Madam Milla stepped back from the finished product and had Stella twirl. “Very good, but I must insist you give me that wig.”
Stella fluttered a hand over her heart. “My hair? I can’t take off my hair.”
She rolled her eyes and held out her hand. “It is a mess and ugly.”
“That is the point.”
“Give it to me. I will make it better.”
Stella gave her the side eye. “Maybe, if you tell me about someone.”
“And who is that?”
“Jan Bikker and his wife.”
She drew back. “Why would you be interested in them?”
“We should all be interested in them,” said Stella.
“I see what you mean. They are not kind to the Jews. Cornelia said that she told you that.”
“Not unusual though, is it?”
“No, but they do care for Germany.”
“The Dutch have close ties with Germany. The Nazis think of you as Aryan.”
“Not me,” she said. “I am also Hungarian, remember?”
“Right,” said Stella. “I forgot. Do you dress Anna Bikker?”
“I have.”
A mysterious answer that brought a smile to Stella’s face. “Do tell.”
Madam Milla didn’t know Anna Bikker well, but the woman was as Stella observed, tacky and over the top. She would not listen, had no taste whatsoever, and worst of all, she had altered a Madam Milla dress after it was delivered.
Stella grimaced, thinking of the shoes with the bows and buckles. “Did she add sequins?”
“Yes.”
“More than sequins?”
“Yes.”
Anna Bikker had taken a velvet evening gown with impeccable lines and an understated elegance and added sequins, gold braid, and crystal droplets.
“She looked like a cheap chandelier,” said Madam Milla.
“No one would think that was your work,” said Stella.
“I lost customers. This is a business of taste and I did not look well with that dress.” She held out her hand expectantly.
Stella hesitated. The wig, no matter how awful, had become a part of her persona. She was oddly attached.
“How would your American clients say it? A deal is a deal.”
“They do say that, but they aren’t so good at living their words.” Stella reached up and whipped the wig off her head, striking a pose in an imitation of Madam Milla. “Happy?”
Madam Milla took the wig and tossed it on the bed with disdain. “Awful thing. It should die. Now let me see who you are.” She moved in close and cupped Stella’s cheekbones. Her hands were so large they wrapped around her head so that her fingers touched in the back. She moved Stella’s face left and right and then shook out her light brown hair.
“I remove my previous comment,” said Madam Milla, stepping back and jutting out a hip.
“What comment?”
“That you haven’t done a good job.”
“You didn’t say that.”
“I was thinking it.”
“Well, thanks for the retraction,” said Stella. “What did I do right?”
“The hair.”
“Really?”
“It is so bad, frizzy and—” she waved her hands around in disgust “—it conceals you very well. You are quite pretty.” She started rearranging Stella’s hair in sweaty waves over her shoulder and wiping off the makeup. “Yes, yes. I could do so much with you. So very much. The figure it is sadly short but well-proportioned. Very good.”
“Thanks. Help me off with this dress.”
Madam Milla helped Stella out of the clothes and she put on her big pajamas again while the designer worked on her wig.
“Don’t make it too much better,” said Stella.
“It is impossible to make it too much better. We will settle for not hideous.”
She combed out the wig’s frizzy locks and worked them into what might pass for curls if you didn’t think curls should be smooth and shiny. Then she picked out a jeweled comb and strategically placed it behind the right ear.
“Not good at all.” Madam Milla looked Stella over as she sat on the bed legs crossed and feeling more like herself than she had in months. “You must go like this?”
“Like Micheline? Yes.”
“Why?”
“I am Micheline.”
“The baron likes pretty young girls and you have the charm. That would be better.”
“It’s too late now,” said Stella. “Besides, what would Jan Bikker like?”
She made a face that barely changed the smooth lines of her face. “He would like nothing. You could not seduce him even as you are now.”
Stella was a bit hurt. She knew she wasn’t a femme fatale, but it would be nice to think she had some seductive skills. “Why not? Anna did.”
“Yes, and he is thought to be a fool,” said Madam Milla.
“Does he know that?”
She laughed. “No. He sees nothing but himself.”
“Maybe that’s why all Anna’s flash got her noticed. He can’t see the subtle only the spotlight.”
“Don’t take him for stupid. He is not.”
“I won’t underestimate him,” said Stella. “Can you tell me anything else?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know him well. He never comes to the baron’s parties and I saw him at the Bikker house, but he would not speak to me.”
“Why not? His wife hired you. Didn’t he like the dress?”
“He didn’t like her hiring me,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I told you I’m Dutch and Hungarian. I brought Paola with me and he knew right away. He didn’t want us in his house.”
“But you didn’t tell them she was your mother,” said Stella.
“No. Only the people who know know, but he looked at me closely. At first I thought he might guess, but what he guessed was that I was Hungarian, too.”
“He guessed you were a Hungarian, but not that you’re a…”
“No. People believe what you tell them.” She smiled. “You are a rare exception.”
“Hungarian,” said Stella. “You’re Hungarian.”
She frowned. “Yes, I am.”
“This might sound farfetched, but do you know other Hungarians?”
“Of course, I do. We are a small community.”
“Do you know Mr. Elek that works in this hotel?”
Madam Milla smiled. “Of course. You have an attraction?”
“Not at all,” said Stella. “What do you know about him?”
She ignored the question and went over to Stella’s dressing table and looked at the makeup. “Where’s the rest?”
“What?”
“The makeup you use to disguise your face,” said Madam Milla.
“Why?”
“I will show you how to do the hands and neck.”
Stella had the designer turn her back and then got out the makeup that was concealed under the wardrobe. “Here it is.”
Madam Milla looked it over and Stella had the distinct feeling she was looking for clues as to its origin. She waited patiently. There was nothing to find. Generic makeup. It could be Dutch or French or Russian.
“This is very plain and simple,” she said, looking dissatisfied.
“That’s best. Why make it complicated?”
Madam Milla gestured to her own face. “I like complicated.”
“You’re a professional.”
“As are you.” She sat Stella on the bed and showed her how to shadow her hands to make the bones slightly more prominent and then adding the smallest amount of blue tint to the veins, making them seem bulbous and protruding.
“There,” she said. “You like this?”
Stella held up her hands. “It’s subtle, but it does make it better, a lot better actually. How about the neck?”
Madam Milla worked on her neck at the dressing table so she could see how to shade the barely perceptible lines and age her dewy fresh neck a good fifteen years.
“Tell me about Elek,” said Stella as another line was added.
“I don’t know him well, but as you said, he is Hungarian and extremely handsome.” There was a warmth to her voice that got Stella’s attention.
“He is pretty stunning, but what else?”
“Just that he works here at the hotel as you know. I think his family has been here a long time,” she said evasively.
“Elek knows Anna Bikker, right?”
Madam Milla jerked up from where she was working on a line on Stella’s décolletage and said, “How did you know that?”
Stella told her about following Anna Bikker and how she disappeared into the back of the hotel. Madam Milla was doubtful until Stella told her about Marga in the café and her inference about Elek.
“You think they’re having an affair?” asked Madam Milla.
“I’d put money on it.”
“That is…unexpected.” The warmth was gone.
“Why? People have affairs. She’s attractive if classless.”
“I thought he had more taste.” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. No.”
“Do you know him well enough to say that?” Stella asked.
Madam Milla and her mother celebrated the holidays with other Hungarians. They’d had Christmas dinner together in December. It didn’t happen every year. Sometimes it was Easter or New Year’s. They were casual acquaintances, but Elek had brought young women to the parties more than once. His choices were quiet, demure girls with traditional values.
“Beauty isn’t a factor?” Stella asked.
“They were pretty girls, but not remarkable. Elek was the prettier of the pairs and very well spoken. The girls hardly spoke at all. I’ve heard him discuss literature and music. He likes the theater and dance. I think he may paint watercolors, but I am not sure.” The warmth was back.
“Nothing like Anna Bikker then.”
She scoffed. “Anna is smart enough to ensnare her husband and no smarter. I doubt she has read a book in years. I have seen her at the theater, but she does not pay attention to the stage. She is there to be seen herself.”
“How do you know that she knows Elek?” Stella asked.
“Because when I was at the house, Jan Bikker noted that we were Hungarian and not fully Dutch. I asked if he knew any other Hungarians and he said he didn’t, but that Anna did. Then she made a big fuss how she doesn’t know Elek anymore. He was not her sort of person at all.”
“How did she act?”
Madam Milla closed Stella’s makeup containers and thought about it for a moment. “Embarrassed, I think.”
“To have known Elek?”
“Yes and that her husband threw it in her face.”
“I wonder how they know each other,” Stella mused.
“Attractive people have a way of finding each other, don’t you think?” Madam Milla said.
That was true, but they were having an affair. It seemed out of character for Anna Bikker, a woman who’d gone to such trouble to marry well to jeopardize that with a tryst. And Elek worked at a rival hotel to boot and was nowhere near Bikker’s social status. Anna gilded the lily on every occasion, but not with her lover. Very odd and it said something about her. It said something about Bikker, too. Stella just didn’t know what.
“She’s not as attractive as he is,” said Stella.
“And he is a bookkeeper. Why would Anna make love to a bookkeeper? It does not make sense to take that risk.”
“He’s the assistant manager, but I don’t think that’s much better.”
“He was a bookkeeper at Christmas,” said Madam Milla thoughtfully.
“When was your appointment with Anna?” Stella asked.
“Over a year ago. Why?”
Stella picked up her pocketbook and sat down on the bed. “They’ve known each other for a long time then, so the affair has been going on for a long time.”
“Maybe. Does it matter?”
“It means Jan Bikker either isn’t very observant or he doesn’t care.”
She nodded. “Most men would care and he isn’t thought to be stupid.” She hesitated. “This is important for us?”
Stella smiled. “We need to know what kind of man he is if we are to understand what he’ll do. He won’t be at the party though.”
She shook her head. “No. He’s not social. He only works.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“This makes him hard to know?”
“It does.”
Madam Milla gathered up her things, sewing kit and measuring tape, and put them in a basket on the bottom of the rack. “Anna is social.”
“Yes. That is what I’m hoping.”
“You need her to know Bikker?”
“It’s all I’ve got.”
“And you will come to the party?”
It might be a mistake, but one had to take risks and follow instincts. The job couldn’t be done without those elements. Otherwise, you were just a tourist taking notes.
“I will.”
“Then I will make sure that the baron likes you,” said Madam Milla.
“Is that essential for knowing Anna Bikker?” Stella asked.
“She doesn’t come for the food. She comes for the connections and if he likes you, she will whether she does or not.”
“Anna Bikker sounds about as deep as a puddle.”
Madam Milla smiled and then the amusement drained off her face. “She is, but I fear her husband is much deeper.”
“That’s what we have to find out.”
She came over and sat on the edge of the bed, taking Stella’s small hands in her long elegant ones. “My cage is a gilded one. I am glad to share it with you.”
“I’ve never been fond of cages, gilded or otherwise,” said Stella.
“But it’s where we must stay for safety’s sake,” said Madam Milla.
“My cage has an exit. Does yours?”
“I don’t know.”
Stella thought for a second and then said, “I don’t think I know either.”