The next morning, Louise Lang presented herself at Maison Valombre under the name Louis Lange.

She had slept badly, but that poor night had left her with a kind of nervous lucidity. In the hotel mirror, before leaving, she had corrected the knot of her scarf three times, adjusted her hat, softened the line of her mouth still further, then attempted that direct gaze she had often observed in men who never wondered whether they had the right to enter somewhere.

She did not truly look like a man.

She looked rather like a hypothesis.

An elegant, ambiguous, fragile hypothesis, yet surprisingly convincing.

In the street, no one stared at her. That was the first surprise. In Montréal, she would have felt disguised. In Paris, she merely seemed a little worked on. A little stylised. A little from a milieu where people give themselves permission to be composed.

She walked to Maison Valombre, repeating her sentence.

— Good morning. I have come about the workshop assistant position.

Too dry.

— Good morning. I have come to apply for the workshop assistant position.

Too polite.

— Good morning. I was told you were looking for someone for the workshop.

Too vague.

At the moment of entering, she forgot all the versions.

Reception was held by a young woman with black hair and a quick gaze. She looked up.

— Good morning, sir.

Sir.

The word passed through Louise like a fine pin. Not painful. Precise.

— Good morning, she replied in a slightly lower voice. I have come about the notice. The workshop assistant position.

The receptionist looked at her, then noted something in a register.

— Do you have an appointment?

— No. I saw the notice yesterday.

— Do you have experience?

Louise hesitated for half a second.

— I have worked in clothing. A great deal. Cutting, materials, presentation, alterations, coordination.

It was not a lie. It was a truth dressed differently.

— Your name?

— Louis Lange.

This time, the name came out better. As if it had existed for longer than since the previous evening.

The receptionist telephoned someone. A few quick sentences. Then she smiled.

— Monsieur Vidal will see you.

Louise lowered her head.

— Thank you.

She followed an assistant into a narrow corridor whose walls bore framed sketches. Black silhouettes, white dresses, profiles of mannequins, pencil notes. She wanted to stop before each one, but she had not come as a visitor. She had come to attempt a gentle break-in.

She was shown into a room bathed in cold light. Rolls of fabric slept against one wall. Two dressmaking mannequins stood in the centre like headless ladies in silent conversation.

A man in his fifties turned toward her. Slender, silver-haired, immaculate shirt, impatient gaze.

— Louis Lange?

— Yes, monsieur.

— Armand Vidal. Head of the workshop. I was told you came about the position.

— Yes.

— Can you sew?

— Yes.

— Can you listen?

— I learn quickly.

— Bad answer. Here, those who learn quickly often make mistakes quickly too.

Louise lowered her eyes slightly.

— Then I can learn slowly.

Armand Vidal looked at her more attentively.

A small smile appeared.

— That is better. Are you available immediately?

— Yes.

— For how long?

Louise sensed the trap.

She was in Paris only for a few days. Her boutique was waiting for her. Her employees. Her debts. Pascal upstairs. Jean in Montréal, always ready to judge.

— A few days to begin with, she replied. Longer if the work justifies it.

— Are you foreign?

— Canadian.

— No one is perfect.

He pointed to a table on which were lying pinned fabric pieces, cardboard, bobbins, lengths of ribbon and an unfinished sleeve.

— Show me your hands.

Louise stepped closer.

— Pardon?

— Your hands. Talkers bore me. Hands lie less.

She placed her hands on the table.

Armand Vidal observed them. He saw the small marks, the precise fingers, the short nails, the habit of material.

— You have worked.

— Yes.

— Not only talked.

— No.

— Good.

He handed her the unfinished sleeve.

— The fall is wrong. Why?

Louise took the piece carefully. She immediately felt that the problem did not come from the fabric, but from poorly distributed tension.

— The armhole pulls here. The slope is too abrupt. The fabric wants to fall, but the cut forces it to obey too high up.

Vidal stared at her.

— Continue.

For a moment, she forgot Louis. She became Louise again without realising it, but a calmer Louise, hidden behind Louis’s appearance.

— If we release very slightly here, and take in there, the sleeve will keep its line without seeming to be punished.

This time, Armand Vidal smiled frankly.

— A punished sleeve. It is idiotic, but accurate.

He took back the piece.

— You start today.

Louise remained motionless.

— Today?

— Do you have something better to do?

— No.

— Then take off your coat.

And so, Louis Lange was hired.

________________________________________

The workshop of Maison Valombre was nothing like a vaporous dream.

It was a taut, brilliant, exhausting human mechanism. Scissors snapped. Machines purred. Low voices exchanged measurements, urgencies, reproaches. Fabrics passed from hand to hand with more respect than certain people. Everything seemed fragile and pitiless at once.

Louise was introduced quickly.

— Louis Lange. He is helping us for a few days.

A few heads turned.

There was Camille, assistant première d’atelier, a round, lively woman with glasses hanging from a red chain. There was Noé, the bleached-haired assistant Louise had noticed the day before. There was Baptiste, delicate and nervous, wearing fine rings on almost every finger. There was Sara, silent, quick, who seemed capable of pinning a hem while holding her breath for a full minute.

— Canadian? asked Noé.

— From Montréal, Louise replied.

— Ah! So you have known winter and still come toward fashion. That is heroic.

— Or unconscious.

— Both are useful here.

Baptiste observed her scarf.

— Pretty knot. A little too defensive, but pretty.

Louise raised her hand to her neck.

— Defensive?

— Yes. Like someone hiding a scar he does not have.

Camille clapped her hands.

— Poetry is over. We work.

Louise worked.

At first, she feared her disguise would hinder her. On the contrary, it protected her. Louis spoke less. Louis observed more. Louis did not have to justify a struggling boutique, nor reassure suppliers, nor smile at Jean, nor contain Pascal. Louis was there to do. It was restful to be reduced to usefulness.

She carried rolls. Sorted samples. Reworked hems. Helped install a dress on a mannequin. Checked colour matches. She did nothing dazzling, but everything with such exact attention that people quickly stopped treating her as a curious passer-through.

At noon, Noé handed her a coffee.

— You look like someone who has not yet decided whether he wants to survive us.

— I thought I was being discreet.

— Here, discretion gets noticed.

Baptiste sat on the edge of a table, despite Camille’s disapproving look.

— You have a strange way of touching fabrics.

— Strange how?

— As if you were asking their opinion.

Louise smiled.

— They sometimes answer.

— Ah, very good. A textile mystic.

— No. Only someone who has often seen clothes take revenge for a bad cut.

Noé burst out laughing.

— I like this one.

Camille passed behind them.

— We are not here to like him. We are here to wear him out.

— That is the workshop version of affection, murmured Baptiste.

Louise felt an unexpected warmth invade her. Not spectacular gratitude. Something more modest. She was being accepted into the rhythm. Into the fatigue. Into the joke.

In Montréal, lately, she had felt like the owner of a failure.

Here, under this borrowed name, she became a hand among hands again.

________________________________________

At the end of the afternoon, Solange Arvay entered the workshop.

Louise stiffened at once.

Solange wore the same precision as the day before: dark glasses, grey suit, gaze that seemed to cut before the scissors did.

— Monsieur Vidal, she said, I want to see the proposal for passage twelve.

— It is not ready.

— I am not asking whether it is ready. I am asking to see it.

The workshop contracted.

A dress under construction was placed on a mannequin. Beautiful, certainly, but heavy. The top had force, the skirt movement, yet the whole seemed to hesitate between two incompatible women.

Solange walked around it.

— No.

One single word.

Everyone understood it.

Armand Vidal inhaled slowly.

— The initial drawing called for that volume.

— The initial drawing lied.

Silence.

Louise did not want to speak. Louis even less.

But she saw the problem. Too clearly. The dress wanted to escape from its own importance.

Solange noticed her gaze.

— You, the new one. What do you see?

Louise felt all eyes turn toward her.

— Nothing useful, perhaps.

— Bad entrance. Start again.

She swallowed.

— I see a dress that is trying to impress before it breathes.

Noé lowered his head to hide a smile.

Solange did not smile.

— And?

Louise stepped closer to the mannequin, cautiously.

— The skirt is beautiful, but it arrives too early. The volume should be born lower down, not here. As it is, it swells like a defence. If we keep that line closer to the body until this point, then open it afterward, it will seem to choose its fullness instead of undergoing it.

Armand Vidal looked at her.

— Show me.

Louise took a few pins. She asked permission with a gesture. Vidal nodded.

Her fingers worked quickly, but without haste. She lifted a pleat, released a tension, slightly moved the starting point of the volume. The dress changed. Not completely. Just enough.

A murmur passed through the workshop.

Baptiste breathed:

— Ah, there she is.

Solange came closer.

She observed for a long time.

— It is better.

In her mouth, it was almost a declaration of love.

— Did you study? she asked.

— Not here.

— That is not what I am asking.

Louise hesitated.

— I mostly learned by working.

— And by drawing?

The question struck her.

— Yes.

— You draw?

Armand Vidal intervened:

— He has an eye, in any case.

Solange held out her hand.

— Show me.

— I do not have…

Louise stopped herself. She had her notebook. Of course. Even disguised, even under a false name, even in a Parisian workshop, she had brought a few drawings rolled in a folder.

— I have a few sketches.

— Go and get them.

She obeyed.

Her hands trembled slightly as she took out the sheets. The dress The Escape. The coat with falling shoulders. A black dress with split sleeves. An ivory silhouette. Two variations inspired by the boutique, drawn one evening of discouragement.

She placed them on the table.

The silence changed in nature.

Noé leaned forward.

— Oh.

Baptiste came closer too.

— Is this yours?

— Yes.

Camille took a sheet, without delicacy but with respect.

— This collar is clever.

Armand Vidal examined another.

— The cut is sometimes naïve, but the line is true.

Solange remained before The Escape.

— I know this drawing.

Louise felt the blood drain from her.

— Madame?

— You showed it to me yesterday.

A brutal silence fell.

Louise did not move.

Solange finally raised her eyes to her. She looked at the scarf, the hat, the altered face, the held posture.

Then, with almost cruel slowness:

— Madame Lang?

Noé opened his mouth.

Baptiste blinked.

Camille placed both hands on her hips.

Louise could have denied it. But the lie had already served her entrance. It must not serve her cowardice.

She removed her hat.

Her hair, tied low, did not truly fall, but the gesture was enough.

— Yes.

No one spoke for a few seconds.

Then Noé murmured:

— Magnificent.

Camille slapped him on the arm.

— Be quiet.

Solange seemed neither shocked nor amused. Only interested.

— Explain.

Louise breathed.

— Yesterday, I came to present my drawings. I was too nervous. Too much the owner. Too much the applicant. I saw the notice for the assistant. I also saw your young men in the workshop, their freedom, their way of being in their place without asking forgiveness. I thought that in another form, perhaps I would dare enter better.

— You lied.

— Yes.

— Why should I keep someone who lies on the first day?

Louise lowered her eyes toward her sketches.

— Because Louis Lange does not exist, but he had the courage Louise Lang no longer had.

The silence deepened.

Baptiste murmured:

— It is almost too beautiful.

Camille shot him a look.

Armand Vidal, for his part, was still examining the drawings.

— Personally, I say we do not much care. Man, woman, angel, crook or Canadian: this person corrected passage twelve in five minutes.

Solange gave him a dry look.

— Thank you for your philosophy, Armand.

— It is logistics.

Solange took The Escape again.

— Madame Lang, your drawings are better when you are not selling them. Why?

Louise gave a small, sad laugh.

— Because I do not know how to sell myself.

— That is visible.

— Thank you.

— It was not a compliment.

— I know.

Solange placed the drawing on the table.

— Very well. You remain in the workshop for the week. As an assistant. Or assistant in whatever form helps you work. I do not care about the costume as long as the ideas stand up.

Louise raised her eyes.

— You are keeping me?

— I am observing you.

— That is already a great deal.

— Do not be grateful; I told you it is tiring.

Noé applauded softly with the tips of his fingers.

— Welcome, Louis-Louise.

Baptiste added:

— Can we say Lou? It is practical, elegant and sufficiently troubled.

Louise smiled despite herself.

— Lou suits me.

Camille took back the sketches.

— And now, Lou, you are going to explain this split sleeve to us. Because if it is feasible, it could save passage seventeen.

________________________________________

The following days were among the strangest and happiest of Louise’s life.

She worked under two first names, but with a single energy. In the morning, she arrived as Louis: trousers, shirt, scarf, restrained silhouette. In the workshop, they called her Lou. No one seemed to want to resolve the enigma completely. On the contrary, ambiguity became a convenience, almost a collective elegance.

Noé said:

— Lou sees dresses as wounded animals.

Baptiste replied:

— Yes, but he heals them.

Camille corrected:

— She tames them.

Armand Vidal concluded:

— Lou works. Do the same.

Very quickly, Louise proposed adjustments, then variations. An overly severe dress received an unexpected opening at the back. A graceless jacket found a suppler line through a shifted seam. An evening gown, judged cold, gained an inner panel that appeared only in movement, like a coloured secret.

Solange almost never gave compliments.

She said:

— To be reviewed.

Or:

— Possible.

Or:

— Keep that idea.

At Valombre, “Keep that idea” was almost worth a kiss on the forehead.

One afternoon, around a table covered with fabrics, Louise dared go further.

— For your next show, you have many strong silhouettes. Very constructed. Very sure of themselves. But perhaps there is a dress missing that seems at first to hesitate.

Solange turned her blade-like gaze toward her.

— A dress that hesitates?

— Yes. Not weak. Not indecisive. A dress that holds something back. That gives the impression a woman might change her mind in the middle of her own entrance.

Baptiste placed his hand on his heart.

— I want to die in that sentence.

Camille sighed.

— You are all going to kill me.

Solange did not take her eyes off Louise.

— Draw it.

Louise took a pencil.

She drew standing up, quickly. A long, pale, almost simple silhouette. Then an offset line at the hip. An invisible closure that was not one. A sleeve that could partially detach. The dress had two states: one restrained, the other open, as if the garment revealed its second thought over the course of the passage.

Noé looked over her shoulder.

— It is a dress of regret.

— No, said Louise. A dress of late decision.

Solange took the sketch.

— Passage twenty-one.

Armand Vidal raised his eyebrows.

— Already?

— Yes.

— The sequence will have to be redone.

— Then redo it.

No one protested.

Louise remained motionless, her hand still suspended above the table.

One of her drawings had just entered a Valombre show.

Not officially. Not gloriously. Not under her name yet. But it was there.

Form, she thought, had changed everything.

Louise Lang, anxious owner, had begged people to look at her work.

Louis Lange, ambiguous assistant, had shown what he could do.

The difference was unjust.

But it was real.

________________________________________

Every evening, she telephoned Montréal.

Because of the time difference, she often called at the end of the day in Paris, in the middle of activity over there. The first call was reassuring. Élodie had sold two scarves and a jacket. Claire had prevented a customer from leaving by telling her that a dress should not be judged under the neon light of a fitting room. Marie-Soleil had rearranged the window “according to a more welcoming vibration”, which, apparently, had worked.

— And Pascal? asked Louise.

A silence followed.

— He is obeying, replied Élodie.

— Meaning?

— He is obeying in his own way.

Louise pinched the bridge of her nose.

— What has he done?

Claire took the telephone.

— Nothing serious. He only offered a haiku to a customer who was trying on a coat.

— Claire.

— She bought the coat.

— Ah.

— But she also asked whether the poet came with it.

— That is not funny.

— A little.

Marie-Soleil then took the line.

— Do not worry. I am watching him.

— That worries me too.

— Your boutique is holding. Concentrate on Paris.

Louise breathed more easily.

— I may have a chance here.

— I knew it.

— You could not know.

— I could feel it.

— Obviously.

— And Jean called twice.

Louise tensed.

— What did he want?

— To know exactly where you were. I answered: in the process of becoming harder to control.

— Marie!

— Would you rather I lied?

— Yes.

— Next time, I shall lie with poetry.

Louise hung up almost light-hearted.

The next day, she called again. Everything was still more or less all right. Sales were not extraordinary, but the boutique was breathing. One customer had ordered an alteration. Another had asked whether the red dress existed in black. Pascal had helped carry boxes without making a public declaration. That was progress.

The third call changed everything.

Louise was leaving Maison Valombre. It was raining over Paris, a fine rain that made the stones more intelligent. She sheltered beneath a building awning and dialled the boutique’s number.

Élodie answered.

— Heart of Fabrics, good morning.

— It is me.

A silence.

Too long.

— Élodie?

— Madame Lang…

The young woman’s voice was trembling.

— What is happening?

— I do not know how to tell you.

The sound of the street seemed to move away.

— The boutique?

— No. It is not the boutique.

— Then what?

Élodie breathed with difficulty.

— It is Monsieur Chauvet.

Louise felt her stomach knot.

— Jean?

— Yes.

— What has he done?

The question had come naturally to her. With Jean, catastrophes often took the form of an action.

But this time, Élodie did not answer at once.

— He is dead, Madame Lang.

Louise did not understand.

— What?

— He is dead. Suddenly. This morning.

The Paris rain continued falling.

Louise looked at the passers-by, the umbrellas, the taxis, the yellow reflections in the puddles. Everything continued moving with obscene indifference.

— How?

— We do not know exactly yet. Marie-Soleil says it was probably the heart. He was in his office. Someone found him. I am sorry.

Louise leaned against the wall.

Jean.

Jean Chauvet, with his world-owner’s phrases, his advice that resembled threats, his signature kisses, his money, his conditions, his way of wanting to help her by tying her down.

Dead.

The word did not fit him. Jean was too busy to die. Too convinced he had files to settle. Too certain that important things were meant to wait until he entered the room.

— Madame Lang? Are you there?

— Yes.

Her voice seemed to come from elsewhere.

— Are you… are you coming back?

Louise closed her eyes.

Coming back.

Heart of Fabrics. The employees. The debts. Pascal. Jean’s death. Maison Valombre. Her drawings. Louis. Lou. Everything began to turn inside her.

— I do not know.

Then she heard another voice at the other end of the line. Marie-Soleil took the receiver.

— Louise?

— Yes.

— Breathe.

— I am breathing.

— No. You are answering. It is not the same thing.

Louise inhaled, slowly.

— What happened?

— Jean was found dead in his office. They are speaking of a heart attack. It is very sudden. William Lee called. He wanted to reach you.

— William Lee…

— Yes.

— Why?

— I think there are documents. Perhaps things connected to the boutique. I did not understand everything. He absolutely wants to speak to you.

Louise felt a new worry rise.

Even dead, Jean found a way to leave papers behind him.

— And Pascal?

— He is silent.

— Pascal?

— Yes. It is rare.

— Does he know?

— The whole neighbourhood is beginning to know.

Louise placed a hand over her mouth.

She no longer loved Jean as one loves a man. Perhaps she had never loved him that way. But he had occupied a massive place in her life. He had supported her, wounded her, impressed her, diminished her, stimulated her. He had believed in her on condition that she remain within the frame in which he could understand her.

And now he was no longer there.

She would have liked to cry.

Nothing came.

Only immense fatigue.

— Louise, said Marie-Soleil, do not decide anything right away.

— I am in Paris.

— Precisely.

— I am working at Valombre.

— Then work today. Cry later if it comes.

— That is horrible advice.

— No. It is practical. The dead no longer have schedules. The living do.

Louise gave a broken laugh.

— You are impossible.

— I know. Call William Lee when you are able. Not before.

— All right.

She hung up.

For a long moment, she remained beneath the awning, motionless, dressed as Louis, holding Louise’s sketches in her bag.

Jean was dead.

And Paris, around her, continued selling dresses.

________________________________________

When she returned to the workshop, Solange Arvay noticed her face immediately.

— What happened?

Louise hesitated.

— Someone has died in Montréal.

Solange did not ask the idiotic question many people would have asked. Was it someone close? Was it serious? Was it sudden? She merely said:

— You may leave.

Louise looked at the fabrics on the table. The sketch for passage twenty-one. The pins. The mannequin.

— No.

— No?

— I want to work.

Solange observed her for a long time.

— Very well. But do not touch the scissors if your hands are trembling.

— They are not trembling.

That was false.

Baptiste came closer softly.

— I can do the basting.

Noé added:

— And I can pretend not to worry. I am excellent at it.

Camille placed a cup of tea near Louise.

— Drink that. Afterward, we work.

Louise looked at these people she hardly knew. These colleagues of a few days. These workshop accomplices born of a lie and a necessity. None of them asked her to describe her grief. None tried to console her with grand phrases. They made room for her.

That moved her more deeply than condolences.

She took the tea.

Then she returned to the mannequin.

The dress of late decision was waiting.

Louise passed her fingers over the fabric, as one touches the forehead of a living being.

— We take it in here, she said. The line must hold, but it must not imprison.

Armand Vidal, behind her, murmured:

— Exactly.

She worked until evening.

Jean Chauvet had died that morning.

And, in a Parisian workshop, a dress he might perhaps have judged unsellable was beginning to find its form.

END OF CHAPTER V