María Dueñas - The Time in Between

My activity those days didn’t stop: the growing number of clients meant that my work hours just kept getting longer, but I managed to arrive at a sensible rhythm, sewing till the early hours without a break and having every garment ready by its allotted time. Ten days after that first meeting, the three items that Rosalinda Fox had ordered were resting on their respective mannequins, ready for the first fitting. But she didn’t show up. Nor on the next day, nor the next. Nor did she take the trouble to send me a message explaining her absence, postponing the date, or justifying her lateness. It was the first time this had happened to me with an order. I thought that perhaps she had no intention of coming back, that she’d been a foreigner just passing through, one of those privileged souls able to leave the Protectorate on a whim and move freely beyond its borders: a woman who was truly cosmopolitan, not fake worldly like myself. Unable to find any reasonable explanation for such behavior, I chose to set the matter aside and focus on the rest of my commitments. Five days later than we’d agreed upon, she appeared, as though dropping from the sky, when I was still finishing my lunch. I’d been working in haste all morning and had finally managed to take a break at three in the afternoon. Someone rang the doorbell and Jamila answered it while I was finishing off a plate of plantains in the kitchen. As soon as I heard the Englishwoman’s voice at the other end of the corridor, I washed my hands and ran to put on my heels. I rushed out to greet her, cleaning my teeth with my tongue and retouching my hair with one hand while repositioning the seams of my skirt and the lapels of my jacket with the other. Her greeting was as protracted as her delay had been.

“I have to tell you how extremely sorry I am for not coming before and arriving now so unexpectedly. I’ve been away algunos días—a few days—I had things to sort out in Gibraltar, though I fear I wasn’t able to. Anyway, I hope I’m not arriving at a bad time.”

“Not at all,” I lied. “Please, do come in.”

I led her through to the fitting room and showed her the three designs. She praised them as she took off her clothes till she was down to her underwear. She was wearing a satin combination that in its day must have been a delight, but time and wear had partly stripped it of its former splendor. Her silk stockings didn’t exactly look like they were fresh from the shop either, but they exuded glamour and exquisitely fine quality. One by one I tried my three creations on her fragile, bony body. Her skin was so transparent that it was possible to see the bluish network of veins underneath. With my mouth filled with pins, I set about making minute corrections and adjusting little pinches of fabric to the delicate contours of her shape. She seemed pleased throughout the process, allowing me to get on with it, agreeing to the suggestions I offered and barely asking for any changes. When we finished the fitting, I assured her that it would all end up being très chic . I left her to put her clothes back on and waited in the living room. She only took a couple of minutes to come back in, and I guessed from her attitude that despite her untimely arrival she wasn’t particularly anxious to leave that day either. So I offered her some tea.

“I’m dying for a cup of Darjeeling with just a drop of leite—milk, but I’m guessing it will have to be green tea with mint, no?”

I hadn’t the least idea what this concoction was that she was talking about, but I hid it.

“Just so, Moorish tea,” I said without the slightest concern. I gestured to her to take a seat and called for Jamila.

“Even though I’m English,” she explained, “I’ve lived most of meu vida—my life—in India, and even though I’ll probably never go back there are a lot of things I still miss. Like our tea, for example.”

“I know what you mean. I also find it hard to get used to some things here and I do miss other things I’ve left behind.”

“Where did you live before here?” she wanted to know.

“In Madrid.”

“And before that?”

I was about to laugh at her question, to forget all the impostures I had invented for my supposed past and acknowledge that I’d never set foot outside the city where I was born until a scoundrel decided to drag me along with him only to abandon me like a cigarette butt. But I restrained myself and reverted to my feigned vagueness.

“Oh, different places, here and there, you know how it is, though Madrid is probably the place I’ve lived longest. And you?”

“A ver—let’s see,” she said with an amused expression. “I was born in England, but taken out to Calcutta immediately afterward. My parents sent me back to England when I was ten to study, umm… then at sixteen I returned to India and at twenty came back again to the West. Once I was here I spent some time in London. Then another long stretch in Switzerland. Then another year in Portugal—that’s why I sometimes confuse the two languages, Portuguese and Spanish. And now, at last, I’ve settled in Africa: first in Tangiers, and then, a short while back, here in Tetouan.”

“Sounds like an interesting life,” I said, unable to retain the order of that jumble of exotic destinations.

“Bueno, depends how you look at it,” she replied, shrugging, as she sipped at the cup of tea Jamila had just served us, careful to not burn her lips. “I wouldn’t have minded at all to have stayed in India, but I had some things that happened to me unexpectedly and I had to move. Sometimes luck decides to make our decisions for us, no? Así es la vida. That’s life, no?”

Despite the strange way she pronounced her words and the obvious distance that separated our worlds, I knew precisely what she meant. We finished our tea chatting about insignificant things: the little finishing touches I’d have to give the sleeves of the dress in patterned dupioni silk, the date for the next fitting. She looked at the time and immediately remembered something.

“I’ve got to go,” she said, getting up. “I’d forgotten I have to do unas compras, some shopping before I go back to get ready. I’ve been invited to cocktails at the house of the Belgian consul.”

She spoke without looking at me as she adjusted her gloves, her hat. I watched her with curiosity, wondering with whom would this woman be going to all these parties, with whom did she share this freedom to come and go; I wondered about her carefree, privileged background, constantly traversing the world, leaping from one continent to another to speak confusing languages and drink tea that tasted of a thousand different places. Comparing her seemingly leisurely life with my everyday work, I felt the touch of something running down my spine that resembled envy.

“Do you know where I can buy a bathing suit?” she asked suddenly.

“For you?”

“No, for meu filho.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“No, sorry—my son?”

“Your son?” I asked in disbelief.

“His name’s Johnny, he’s five years old and es un amor… an absolute darling.”

“I haven’t been in Tetouan long either, I don’t think I can help you,” I said, trying not to show my uneasiness. In the idyllic life that only a few seconds earlier I’d been imagining for that flighty, childlike woman, there might have been room for friends and admirers, for glasses of champagne, transcontinental travels, silk lingerie, parties till dawn, haute couture evening wear, and—with a great deal of effort—perhaps a husband as young, frivolous, and attractive as she was. But I never could have guessed that she would have a son, because I had never imagined her to be a woman with a family. And yet it seemed she was.

“Anyway, not to worry, I’ll find one somewhere,” she said by way of farewell.