“What does the voice say?” Tessa asked.
“It’s easier to cut than to innovate.”
Carmela said she wanted to get to know the three Busacca millinery shops, and she was surprised at the sparseness of the store’s interior, but it was as if she didn’t exist.
“Making hats can be a form of art,” Tessa said, “a unique statement. I like your shop on the Rue de la Paix, but this store has the potential for so much more.”
David examined Tessa’s face, lacing his fingers together and resting them on his stomach. “I had to let most of the staff go. Not enough business. Our head designer does everything now.”
“And you do what?” Tessa asked.
He shrugged, wiping a palm across his beard. Crumbs fell onto the front of his coat and scattered over the floor.
“We’d like to see your workroom, if we may,” Tessa said.
He pointed toward the door with a deflated gesture and led them into the back room.
Musty and dank, the workroom needed a good airing. As she looked around, Carmela was surprised at herself. It was as if she were born with a handful of straw, ready to be woven and dyed, shaped, fitted, and trimmed. She felt her soul leap. Even in this mess, she understood what she saw and the process of designing hats. She didn’t discount David, no. She thought he had a brain, but somehow it had grown dormant, and the store, barren.
A woman sat in the corner, a bit older than Carmela’s mother, sipping her morning coffee and reading the paper by a single gas jet. Next to her was a long table and at the end, two sewing machines. David introduced her as the designer, and she nodded to Carmela and Tessa. Although there were enough gas jets and lamps to light the room, only a few were in use. David’s desk was filled with papers, envelopes, patterns, pieces of felt, some thread and feathers. A half-eaten baguette was perched on top, the montage illuminated by a single lamp. Carmela went to the far wall and opened the windows.
David started to speak, but Tessa stopped him.
“You need air, light,” she said.
David furrowed his brow but said nothing, continuing to stare at Tessa.
Dust lay thick around the room, covering rows of wooden hat blocks in various shapes, stretchers, pressers, turntables for gluing and trimming, powder for making glue, and Carmela wasn’t sure what else she was seeing. One wall was covered with shelves containing bobbins of glazed thread, rolls of buckram, some already formed into crowns and brims of different shapes and sizes, lace, feathers, buttons, horse hair, ribbons, pieces of wool, felt, and netting, rolls of silk, wool, boxes of straw. All the supplies and tools necessary to create glorious hats, but the shop was empty and the hats were forgotten dreams.
“When was the last time your uncle was here?”
David held up his hands. “I can’t remember.”
“And your mother?”
“She comes, but…”
“Let me guess, she doesn’t seem to care,” Carmela said.
“It’s not that, exactly. She is… confused,” David said.
“You have all the supplies you need, and you’re not using them. Why?” Tessa asked.
David blew out some air. “As I told you, students aren’t interested in hats.”
“How can they be? Carmela asked. “They’re aren’t any hats for them to see in the store, not even a beret, just some old general’s ostrich feather wafting in the window. Nothing glittering. Nothing with fine lines, exciting angles, daring color and fabric to tempt them. Nothing to make them memorable.”
“Where’s your fire, man?” Tessa asked, her arms waving. “You’ve made this store into a home for spiders.”
David said nothing. His complexion mottled. He straightened a pile of papers on his desk and rubbed the wood free of dust.
“Can you tell us the quickest way to get to Rue du Mont-Parnasse?” Tessa asked.
“You want to see our store, of course. It’s in a quarter of Paris called Montparnasse filled with students and cabarets. It’s our most interesting store, close to the Boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. Caters to the cabaret crowd. But don’t look beneath the surface because you’ll find debt.”
“Will we find the same disuse?” Carmela asked.
“Perhaps. I never go there.”
“Too much to do here?” Carmela arched an eyebrow.
He folded his arms. “Pay a visit if you must. My brother manages it, but on such a day, he’s probably at Longchamp.”
“Ricci,” Carmela said.
“You’ve met him?”
“Quite charming, I hear,” Tessa said.
David frowned. “Visit, by all means, but I’d like you to return in a few hours.” He slid his eyes to the side where Tessa stood, arms crossed.
After they’d left the store, Carmela shook her skirt free of dust. “He suffers without his father.”
Tessa gave her a strange look. “Perhaps.”
In front of Busacca et Fils on the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, a clown met them in white face wearing a chapeau melon, striped shirt and white gloves. A street performer, he drew a crowd, bowing and producing flowers, scarves, an agitated rabbit. The magician tossed his hat high in the air, catching it on top of his head, stepping aside so that customers could enter.
The store’s windows and red wooden facade gleamed, as did the inside where clerks and designers were busy helping customers try on hats and admire themselves in long mirrors. The store bustled with people and hats, women and men, pill boxes, small vertical feathery things, straw boaters with floppy brims, berets, and small woolen contrivances. There was a display of military uniforms, kepi, tricorns, some weathered and drooping; others, great plumed affairs, smelled of distant battles.
They were greeted by a woman wearing the smart dress of a clerk who had a ready smile. After Carmela asked to speak with the manager, she disappeared. Carmela and Tessa waited, remarking on the difference between the two stores. In a minute the clerk returned followed by Ricci Busacca wearing a morning suit, his long red curls wound in the back and fastened at the nape in a style she’d only ever seen in paintings. He smiled. She introduced herself and Tessa, stating the nature of their business.
“My uncle hates Paris so he sends his emissaries,” Ricci said and grinned, “but this is a charming surprise. I met your mother last week, I believe.”
“And mine too,” Tessa said.
“You prosper here,” Carmela said, feeling a bit foolish.
He led them to his office through a long, neat workroom where several hatters were busy at long tables and asked a young woman sitting at the end to bring them coffee.
“Did he ask you to examine the books?” Ricci asked.
Carmela looked at Tessa. “In this instance, there is no need. We’ve seen your other stores and by comparison-”
“Looks can often fool. I know how to entertain, not how to run a business, I’m afraid. And I’m the first to admit it. But you may tell him we’ve recovered from the worst. The last four years have been hard-the Siege, the Commune, but especially my father’s passing. He was the businessman who knew how to hire good workers, inventive designers. He knew where to shop and how to cut expenses. We lost a lot when we lost him. I know about racing horses and how to charm.”
Carmela looked at Tessa. She was surprised by his honesty and his ability to know himself. He’d show her the books, of that she had no doubt, but she wouldn’t know what she was looking at. Instead, she asked him to pick out a hat for Tessa.
He laughed. “I’m even less of a designer, but let me introduce you to our chief of design.”
They followed him to a desk in the corner of the workroom where a woman of a certain age sat looking through half-glasses at a book brimming with swatches of fabric. Ricci introduced them to Madame Josephine Joyeuse. Pieces of felt lay on her desk as did some peacock feathers, strands of horse hair, netting and lace. At the sound of Ricci’s voice she rose, a tall woman, slender. She had Gallic features and a presence. Her smile warmed the air around them, and her graying hair was pulled up, pinned, curled and arranged in an elaborate French coiffure.