Mario’s face took on a deepening hue of shame. “My fiancée has it,” he said. “She is recutting it into a wedding dress.”
“What! She’s cutting it? With scissors?” I said, horrified.
“Magda is a fine seamstress,” Mr. Delani said.
“No, she is a designer, like Miuccia Prada, but not as famous,” Mario explained.
“She has won many awards,” Mr. Delani added.
“Look,” Mario said, twirling around, modeling. “She made my shirt by hand.”
My heart was racing. We had to stop her. “Has she already begun?”
Mario nodded. “We’re getting married Saturday,” he said. “She was to wear her mother’s dress, but this was much more beautiful. And she didn’t mind it had been on a dead woman first.”
The mortician spoke to Mario in Italian, accompanied by passionately gesticulating hands. John involved himself in the conversation just as loudly and as physically as the two of them. Finally Mario wrote down an address on a piece of paper and gave it to us. “Here is where Magda took the gown,” he said. “It is her shop. I will call and tell her to stop what she is doing. But she has been sewing for hours. You are most probably too late.”
I’m Getting Married in the Morning
DENIS PARKED THE VESPA on the sidewalk in front of a small storefront marked “Sarta” just south of Piazza Navona. From the painting of a spool of thread and needle on the sign, I figured that meant “tailor.” Call it instinct.
Bells jangled as we opened the door.
A woman appeared from behind a brocade gold curtain. Her round face was doll-like with bright blue eyes, a turned-up nose, and thin lips. She wore the tiara that went with the Roman Holiday costume in her mound of wavy auburn hair. Her top half was slight and waiflike, while her buttocks and hips were anything but. The overall effect was that of a small torso resting on top of an end table. I’m not being catty; I’m just pointing out that from a physics standpoint, there was no way that she was going to fit into that a gown made for Audrey Hepburn.
“Magda San Giovanni?” I said.
“Are you the couple who have come for the dress?”
I nodded.
Magda fell to her knees and clasped her hands in front of her face. “Please, please,” she begged. “Do not make me give it back until after the wedding. My mother’s dress makes me look like pork.”
This was Mario’s fiancée? How could such a classically handsome boy marry such an oddly shaped girl? Was their love so strong it transcended the physical? Did the brilliance of Magda’s sewing skills blind Mario to her thunder hips? Was Magda a tigress in bed? Could I be any more superficial? All these questions whirled through my mind as Magda hugged my green pant leg with her head and quivering arms. I gave her a gentle kick so she’d let go.
“Magda, this dress was worn by Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday,” I explained. “It has to be delivered to the Istituto di Moda for a show.”
“But the show will not start until Monday,” Magda said. “Someday I plan to be a great designer and I never miss their exhibits. If you’ll allow me to wear it at my wedding, I’ll sew it back together for the Istituto. No one will ever know it was dismantled.”
“Dismantled? Completely?” I said, feeling light-headed. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I removed the seam stitching so I could change the shape of the gown to fit my figure,” Magda said.
We followed her into the workroom. Pinned onto a mannequin of what appeared to be Magda’s unique bottom-heavy form was the princess-styled bodice of Audrey’s dress. The seams had been opened to just above the waist. In each of these original seams, Magda had created six narrow gussets by stitching triangular pieces of delicate, cream-colored silk, expanding the lower bodice to accommodate her ample hips. The heavily gathered folds of the skirt had been loosened and reattached to the newly expanded bodice. The hem had been turned up by about ten inches, but it had not yet been stitched. The red sash that Princess Ann wore in the movie had been removed and carelessly tossed on the table. Seeing such an iconic gown desecrated like that was almost too much to bear.
“When is your wedding?” Denis asked.
“Saturday at ten,” she said, “at the chapel at Mario’s padre’s camera ardente.”
“You’re getting married at the morgue?” I said. “Isn’t that bad luck?”
“Yes,” Magda said, “of course it is. How can a couple start their life at the house of death? But it is, ah, how do you say, free, so Mario insisted. He is as cheap as he is handsome. If I have to wear a pork dress for a wedding in a camera ardente, what chance does our marriage have?”
“She has a point,” Denis said. “The ship docks here on Sunday. Maybe we should stay till then, and get the dress fixed after the wedding.”
Can this dress be repaired in a day? I wondered. Conservators would take months to undertake such a job.
“Our wedding is Saturday morning, unless there is a funeral, in which case it will be delayed,” Magda said. “I’ll stay up all night to make alterations.”
“On your wedding night?” Denis said.
“It’s all right,” Magda said. “Mario is, how do you say, like thunder in the bedroom, ten minutes and finito.” She clapped her hands together to emphasize the point.
“You mean lightning, right?” I said. “The electrical bolts from the sky.” I pantomimed lightning for her.
“Yes,” Magda said. “He is rapido like lightning.”
“I don’t know, Magda. What if you sweat? What if something spills on it? What if it can’t be fixed in time? The dress has to be returned to its original state and I’m not sure that’s even possible now that you’ve added those gussets.”
“It’s
