The Costume Shop – Part 1: Pins

"Not between your teeth," said Katharina.

"Sorry."

"Pins go in the cushion. Or the cuff. Or, as a last resort, the mouth. But not between the teeth. You will swallow one and then I will have to tell the soprano why you are dead."

Dani spat out the pin and clipped it into the red cushion on her wrist. She was twenty-eight, a new apprentice in the costume workshop of the Vienna State Opera, in a borrowed apron and a pair of terrible shoes. She had ten days before opening night and a mannequin in front of her wearing forty metres of silver silk.

Katharina was thirty-five, head of costumes, tall, sharp-featured, dressed entirely in black, with a tape measure round her neck like a stole and the cool, dry manner of a person who had never been late.

"The soprano arrives at four," she said. "Her gown will be finished by then."

"All of it?"

"All of it."

Dani looked at the gown: an architecture of silk and tulle and beadwork. She gulped. Then, with a steadiness she did not feel, she picked up her needle.

They worked through the night. Katharina hovered, correcting, adjusting. Dani stitched. At two in the morning, the workshop was silent but for the whir of a sewing machine and the faint sound of a rehearsal piano two floors below. Cups of cold coffee sat everywhere. Beads rolled under the tables.

"Can I ask you something?" said Dani, her eyes bleary.

"Yes."

"Why did you hire me?"

"Because your hems were crooked." Katharina bit a thread. "And you stitched them again, without being told."

"That's why?"

"It was the only thing I needed to know."

Dani blinked. Her face warmed. In the lamplight, Katharina's expression was suddenly gentle.

"Green?" said Dani, a colour of silk.

"Green," said Katharina, with a rare, small smile. "Very green. Hold the hem."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Opening Night.