Ilil Arbel: Madame Koska and the Imperial Brooch

“Yes, I remember. Once Maria Pavlovna started working for Chanel, she did not maintain the standards… too much machine work with Madame Coco Chanel, if you ask me. Great designs, great talent, but still…” said Madame Koska. “I would never let my girls do machine embroidery. So how does Natalya survive, other than on what you can send her?”

“She mostly does drawn work for other ateliers,” said Madame Golitsyn. “She does fifteen stitches to the inch, can you believe it? Not merely ten, like so many mediocre workers; with such skill, she is still in demand. But she is always taken advantage of, always underpaid. I think you will like her, Vera. She is timid and quiet, but a truly hard worker and very sweet.”

Madame Koska thought for only a moment, drumming her fingernails on the table. Anna’s advice was never, ever wrong. “Write to her, Annushka,” she said. “I can afford one more and I would love to have such a specialty. This kind of bead work will destroy the competition.”

“Thank you, my dear,” said Madame Golitsyn. “I will write tonight. Vasily will come too, of course, but I will find him something to do at my business; I am sure he could start by driving the deliveries. We’ll have to look after them a bit in the beginning, you know. Thankfully, they both speak reasonably good English.”

“All of you are such linguists… Yes, they can move into my current apartment, since I am moving above the Establishment,” said Madame Koska. “I’ll arrange it with my current landlord.”

“Thank you, Vera. How nice this would be for them! And it will be very convenient for you to live above the business,” said Madame Golitsyn. “Not quite as elegant as we want you to appear, but no one really has to know.”

“No, I am not telling anyone other than a few close friends,” said Madame Koska. “Nobody’s business. When the money starts coming in, I will get a place in the country for weekends and holidays.”

“I would love to visit you,” said Madame Golitsyn. “How nice, to go to the country. But that reminds me. I might have a rather interesting mannequin for you. I just thought of her…”

“That would be wonderful,” said Madame Koska. “Really good ones are hard to get. Who is she?”

“Her name is Mevrouw Gretchen Van der Hoven. She lives in the country now, with her aunt and uncle.”

“Mevrouw? So she is Dutch?”

“Half Dutch. Her father lived for years in the colonies, and married a Polynesian, I believe. Or Chinese… I am not sure. Gretchen is Eurasian, and you know how beautiful they can be. I cannot begin to tell you how lovely the girl is. She was educated in England, a boarding school, so her English is perfect.”

“Where are the parents?”

“Both dead, poor girl,” said Madame Golitsyn. “Sad. Mother died in childbirth, and her father met some strange accident a couple of years ago, I am not sure about the details. She was only seventeen years old at the time.”

“Does she have any training?” asked Madame Koska.

“Not professionally, but she did many charity shows,” said Madame Golitsyn. “With her looks, they would always pick her to do it.”

“Very well,” said Madame Koska. “As always, Vera, you have the best ideas, the solution to every problem.”

“Not all of them,” said Madame Golitsyn enigmatically. “Not the private ones, anyway… But most business issues, yes, these I can resolve. Well, let’s go and choose some beautiful, sumptuous curtain materials for the new Madame Koska Dressmaking Establishment!”

“Be careful, young man!” exclaimed Madame Golitsyn as she was suddenly pushed from behind while trying to enter Madame Koska’s Establishment. All around her was chaos—movers carrying furniture, women in striped dressmakers’ smocks running back and forth with cardboard boxes, and men leaving with their tool boxes.

“Sorry ma’am,” mumbled the mover. “Couldn’t see you with these things…” He went past her, carrying two substantial dressmaker’s dummies, partially wrapped in brown paper.

“At least the plaque is on,” said Madame Golitsyn to a tall, very thin woman, past her first youth, who was walking by her side, carrying a large carpet bag. “That is very important. And it’s beautifully done. Well, come along, Natalya.” The woman, pale and timid, followed without a word. However, they were forced to stand aside since another mover pushed past them, carrying a chest of drawers.

“We’ll never get on these stairs,” said Madame Golitsyn. “It’s pandemonium… Natalya! Stand up straight. Don’t stoop like that. What your governess would have said about the way you stand, after all the hours she spent teaching you to balance a book on your head…”

“Dear Fräulein Strauss,” Natalya murmured. “Yes, she tried to make me stand up straight, and I did, but now… I am so tall, everyone will notice me.”

“You did not seem to like her so well when you were a child,” said Madame Golitsyn.

“What did I know… a child does not appreciate… but now that she passed away, I do miss her.”

“Then stand up straight for her sake, Natalya. I won’t have you meet my dear friend looking like a cowering serf.”

“But soon I am going to be only an employee of this atelier, a low-level employee, Aunt Anna. I know my place.”

“Nonsense. This is not Saint Petersburg. The classes here, are, well, a bit vague. It’s rather unique to this country, I know, but the English gentry mingle freely with the upper middle class.”

“And what am I? Not quite middle class, since I have no money. Not upper class for sure. My noble title was stripped away by the Revolution…”

“What are you? You are a Saltykov, Natalya. The cleanest, purest blood in old Russia. That is what you are! Be proud of it. And now, let’s get in. Seems the movers are taking a short break. One thing you must remember, though, malenkaya . We will not speak Russian—only English. Madame Koska insists that this is respectful for the other employees, and for her adoptive country.”

Natalya sighed with resignation, picked up the carpet bag, straightened her shoulders, and followed her aunt.

The commotion was even worse inside. The large, sunlit front room was full of furniture in complete disorder. Boxes overflowing with fabrics, beads, thread, needle cases, pin boxes, ribbons, and lace littered every surface. Seamstresses ran back and forth, carrying boxes to the sewing room and stacking them on the shelves. Madame Golitsyn went to a woman who was attempting to sort a huge box of ribbons into separate containers. “Excuse me, could you please find Madame Koska for me?” she asked. At this moment Madame Koska’s voice came from the sewing room, saying “No, no, ve don’t vant it here, ve vant the mirror in the other room…”

“Never mind,” said Madame Golitsyn. “Come along, Natalya.”

“Annushka! How nice to see you!” said Madame Koska, smiling hospitably, apparently entirely unperturbed by the mayhem.

“Is everything going well?” asked Madame Golitsyn.

“Perfectly,” said Madame Koska. “Just as it should. And who is your friend, Annushka?”

“This is my niece, Countess Natalya Saltykov,” said Madame Golitsyn. A slightly worried look came over Madame Koska’s face. Madame Golitsyn knew what bothered her friend. “I have explained to Natalya that here we must speak English, even among us, out of respect to our adoptive country and to those we work with who do not speak Russian. And I think Natalya would prefer to be called simply Miss Saltykov, wouldn’t you, dear? We don’t need to bring our titles into the conversation while we work. I certainly never do.” Relief showed very slightly on Madame Koska’s face. Anna always knew what to do…