María Dueñas - The Time in Between

“Good luck. And remember, I’ll be expecting you in five days.”

“I’ll be here, I promise.”

She left and did not keep her promise. Instead of the fifth day, she turned up on the fourth: without prior notice and in a tearing hurry. Jamila announced her arrival to me at around noon when I was doing a fitting for Elvirita Cohen, the daughter of the owner of the Teatro Nacional on my old street, La Luneta, and one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in my life.

“Siñora Fox say she need see Siñorita Sira.”

“Tell her to wait, I’ll be with her in a minute.”

One o’clock had gone by, twenty past probably, because I still had to make quite a few adjustments to the dress that the beautiful Jewish girl with the smooth skin was going to show off at some social event. She spoke to me in her musical Haketia: bring it up a bit here, mi reina , how lovely it looks, mi weno , ah yes.”

It was through Félix, as usual, that I had learned what the situation was like for Sephardic Jews in Tetouan. Some of them wealthy, others humble, all of them discreet; good businessmen who had set up shop in North Africa after their expulsion from the Peninsula centuries earlier. At last they were Spaniards with all their rights, ever since the government of the Republic had agreed officially to recognize their origins just a couple of years earlier. The Sephardic community made up more or less one-tenth of Tetouan’s population in those days, but it wielded a good part of the city’s economic power. They built most of the new buildings in the ensanche and set up many of the best shops and businesses in the city: jewelers, shoemakers, fabric and clothing stores. Their financial might was reflected in their educational centers—the Alliance Israélite Universelle—in their own casino and their synagogues, where they gathered for their prayers and festivals. No doubt it would be in one of these that Elvira Cohen would debut the grosgrain dress that she was trying on when I received my third visit from the unpredictable Rosalinda Fox.

She was waiting in the front room, seemingly troubled by something, standing beside one of the balcony doors. The two clients greeted each other from a distance with remote courtesy: the Englishwoman distracted, the Sephardic girl surprised and curious.

“I’ve got a problem,” she said, approaching me rapidly the moment the click of the door announced that we were alone.

“Tell me. Would you like to sit down?”

“I’d rather have a drink, por favor.”

“I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything but tea, coffee, or a glass of water.”

“Evian?”

I shook my head, thinking I ought to supply myself with a little bar for raising the spirits of my clients at moments of crisis.

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered as she sat, languidly. I did the same in the armchair opposite, crossed my legs with careless ease, and waited for her to tell me about the reason for her untimely visit. First she drew out a cigarette from her tortoiseshell case, lit it, and tossed the case carelessly onto the sofa. After the first drag, thick and deep, she realized that she hadn’t offered me one and apologized, making a gesture to rectify her behavior. I stopped her—no, thank you. I was expecting another client shortly and didn’t want the smell of tobacco on my fingers within the intimate space of the fitting room. She closed the cigarette case, and at last she spoke.

“I need an evening gown, a stunning outfit for tonight. An unexpected engagement has come up and I have to go dressed como una princesa.”

“Like a princess?”

“Eso—right. Like a princess. In a manner of speaking, of course. I need something very elegant.”

“I only have your evening dress ready for the second fitting.”

“Could that be ready for tonight?”

“Absolutely impossible.”

“And any other designs?”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you. I don’t have anything I can offer you: I don’t work with ready-to-wear clothes, I make everything to order.”

She took another long drag on her cigarette, but this time she didn’t do it distantly; rather, she watched me fixedly through the smoke. That expression of an unconcerned girl from her previous visits had disappeared from her face, and her gaze was now that of a woman who was anxious but determined not to be defeated.

“I need to find a solution. When I moved from Tangiers to Tetouan, I packed some baúles, some trunks for sending to my mother in England with things I wasn’t going to be using. Accidentally the trunk with all my evening wear also ended up there. I’m waiting for them to be sent back. I’ve just learned that I’ve been invited tonight to a reception hosted by the German consul. Es la primera ocasión, the first time I’ll be seen in public at an event in the company of a, a… a person with whom I have a… a… a very special relationship.”

She was speaking quickly but carefully, making an effort for me to understand everything she was saying in that attempted Spanish of hers, which, because of her nerves, sounded more Portuguese influenced and more peppered with words from her own English language than at either of our previous meetings.

“Bueno, it is very important for this person and for me that I make a good impression on the members of the German colony in Tetouan. Hasta ahora, so far, Mrs. Langenheim has helped me to meet some of them because she is half English, but tonight, esta noite, it’s the first time I will appear in public with this person openly together and that’s why I need to go extremely bien vestida, very, very well dressed, and… and—”

I interrupted her; there was no need for her to keep exercising her Spanish so much to no end.

“I’m so sorry, I really am. I’d love to be able to help you, but it really is impossible. As I’ve just said, I don’t have anything ready in my studio and I cannot finish your dress in just a few hours: I’ll need at least three or four days for it.”

She put out her cigarette stub in silence, lost in thought. She bit her lip and paused for a few seconds before looking up and resuming her assault with a question that was quite clearly uncomfortable.

“Perhaps you might be able to lend me one of your own evening outfits?”

I shook my head while I tried to come up with some plausible excuse to hide the pitiful fact that in reality I didn’t have any.

“I don’t think so. All my clothes stayed behind in Madrid when the war broke out, and I’ve been unable to retrieve them. All I have here are a few everyday clothes, nothing for the evenings. I don’t have much of a social life, you understand? My fiancé is in Argentina, and I—”

To my great relief she interrupted me at once.

“Ya veo. I see.”

We sat in silence for a few endless seconds, each hidden in her discomfort, attention focused on opposite ends of the room. One toward the balcony doors; the other toward the archway separating the living room from the entrance hall. She finally broke the tension.

“Creo que—tengo que irme. I think I must leave now.”

“I’m sorry, please believe me. If we’d had just a little more time…” I didn’t finish the sentence, realizing at once there was no point in dwelling upon what couldn’t be fixed. I tried to change the subject, distract her attention from the sad reality that she was looking forward to a long disastrous night with the man with whom she was no doubt in love. I was still intrigued by the life of this woman who at other times had been so confident and graceful and who, at this moment, was pensively gathering up her things and heading for the door.

“Tomorrow everything will be ready for the second fitting, all right?” I said, as a rather unhelpful solace.