Читать книгу Helena Rubinstein - Michele Fitoussi - Страница 25

Kazimierz was the mandatory first stop of her trip, and it seemed poor, dirty, and cramped. Helena had grown accustomed to a comfortable life in Australia. She had travelled, and met people from all walks of life – settlers, ladies, businessmen, bankers. She had learned a great deal in their company, and her horizons had expanded. In Melbourne, perpetual movement seemed to be the norm, and the city never slept. Here, in Kazimierz, everything was the opposite. A heavy immobility reigned over everything and everyone. Nothing had changed since her departure: not the ageless rabbis, with their beards and worn black frock coats, nor the housewives gossiping on their doorsteps, nor the students with their skin grown pale from studying and standing outside the yeshivot debating a commentary on the Torah.

Even the streets seemed to have shrunk in her absence. The smell of greasy food wafting from the open windows made her feel nauseous. She noticed the peeling facades, the walls black with smoke, the garbage scattered along the grimy sidewalks as if she had never seen any of it before. In the carriage that took her from the station to her house – no mud-covered pavements for her on this trip – her childhood came back to her in flashes. She could never live here again, among people who now felt like foreigners to her.

Everything about Kraków disappointed her. It was all so provincial, even the shops around the Rynek. Helena’s tastes had become more refined, and she had begun to wear clothing made by renowned dressmakers who copied the latest Paris fashions. The nostalgia she had felt from afar was preferable to such a disappointing reality.

But it was the reception her family gave her that upset her the most.

‘Why are you wearing such a tight chignon?’ asked Gitel in that reproachful voice Helena so disliked. ‘You are ruining your hair. And if you continue dressing yourself up like that you’ll never find a husband, my girl. Your sisters Pauline, Rosa and Regina are already married. As for you …!’

Gitel had aged. Her hands trembled, her face seemed set in a sneer, and too much hardship had accentuated her bitterness. Perhaps there was a touch of pique or envy in her reproaches as well. Her eldest daughter had succeeded, despite all their predictions. Helena was on the verge of raising her voice the way she used to, but then she merely shook her head. Her mother would never change. She was still obsessed with the marriage of her offspring, making lists of hoped-for or potential prospects like a miser counting his gold. Meanwhile, although three of Helena’s sisters had found a husband, the others continued to mope about the house.

Hertzel was off in his corner, studying in silence. He, too, seemed to have shrunk: he was stooped and his beard completely white. With his velvet skullcap and shiny jacket, he looked more and more like his grandfather, the rabbi Salomon Rubinstein, whose stern face looked down from a painting on the living-room wall. He still refused to forgive his daughter and hardly spoke to her. After greeting her coldly, he returned to his books.

Fortunately Stella, Manka, Ceska and Erna were a lot more welcoming. They admired their older sister’s elegance and were fascinated by her jewellery; they touched the fabric of her dress, commented on the lace, the price of her hat, and plied her with questions about her new life. They jabbered, giggled and criticised in their shrill schoolgirl voices.

Helena found ways to defuse their jealousy, joking and setting them dreaming with her stories about Australia. In their wide-eyed gazes she could see their desire to flee to a life elsewhere, the same desire that she herself had once felt. From her bag she took some Valaze cream and lotion, and she covered their faces with cream and massaged their skin the way their mother used to, while she explained her beauty principles and everything she had learned over the past ten years.

For a few hours she enjoyed the illusion that she had returned to the girly camaraderie of her childhood. But the spell was quickly broken. She was bored, and fled as soon as she could, on the pretext that she had important meetings. She would never see her parents again. This largely unsuccessful visit confirmed her belief that she had been right to choose the hard way out, for it had proved infinitely preferable to any forced marriage.

And yet her family members were still dear to her. Her sisters, cousins, uncles, and aunts were the only people she could trust. She wanted to make them her business associates, and she swore to herself that she would do so as soon as she had the chance. Before her departure she persuaded her younger sister Ceska, who was twenty-two at the time, and her cousin Lola, the daughter of her aunt Rosalie Beckman, to come and give her a hand in Melbourne. To give them the time to prepare their belongings, she arranged to meet them in Vienna.

There, Helena made the acquaintance of Dr Emmie List, who was renowned for her peeling treatments to eliminate acne and persistent blemishes. After six months of regular exfoliation, scars faded and the skin looked youthful again. The doctor became Helena’s friend. When the time came for Helena to open her salon in London, she would have Dr List come and work with her.

Lola and Ceska joined her in Vienna. They took the train together to Germany, where surgeons were inventing new beauty techniques. In Berlin in 1901, Dr Eugene Hollander had been the first to perform a facelift on a Polish aristocrat. A few years later, Dr Jacques Joseph performed the first nose surgery. Of all these innovations the injection of paraffin into the face to make wrinkles disappear was the most spectacular.

But the consequences could also be disastrous, because when the paraffin moved beneath the skin it created undesirable hollows and lumps or even, on occasion, blindness or necrosis. Cosmetic surgery, which claimed to ‘remedy ugliness and deformity’, was still in its infancy.1 The results obtained did not meet people’s expectations. It was only after the First World War that surgeons would learn to repair the severe facial injuries suffered by soldiers in the trenches. For the time being, everyone agreed that these operations were bound to leave traces, and a new way would have to be found to reduce scarring.2

As they continued their journey, the three young women discovered spas. For Helena, they were a revelation. Her enthusiasm was so great that all through her life she would visit spas regularly to lose weight, rest, or treat a temporary depression, which often happened after she opened a new salon.

For European aristocrats, taking the waters was a rite of passage proving they had attained a certain social status. They would go to Brides-les-Bains or Eugénie-les-Bains, two hot thermal springs patronised by Napoléon III and his family. They also favoured Budapest, Baden-Baden and Marienbad, which became fashionable thanks to King Edward VII, who was a connoisseur of natural healing. Every spa had its own speciality and star physician who prescribed hydrotherapy, body wraps or chemical peels. ‘There were many Hungarians and Romanians who were very good at skincare, and they taught me a great deal,’ Helena would recall.3

In Wiesbaden, on the right bank of the Rhine, Helena befriended Dr Joseph Kapp, the director of the thermal baths, who prescribed a venous treatment for the circulatory ailments she was suffering from. She observed his methods with every intention of copying them. The physician became one of her role models. Whenever she needed to update her medical knowledge, Helena, whose thirst for knowledge would never wane, would turn to Dr Kapp.

In Paris, the belle époque was synonymous with an insatiable appetite for life. Helena fell instantly in love with Paris, and it would remain one of her favourite cities. During her short stay she did some frenetic shopping: vases by Gallé, flasks by Lalique, jewellery, clothing, her first paintings.

She was only too happy to spend the money she had rightfully earned, and ordered her first haute couture garments from Doucet and Worth on the Rue de la Paix. She appreciated the discreet comfort of the salons and fitting rooms, and the shop girls waltzing to and fro in a whirlwind of ribbons, lace, satin, and velvet. When her outfits were delivered to the hotel, she spread them out on the big bed: jackets and tight-waisted dresses with long, gored skirts. She would have liked to wear them all at once.

All her life, Helena would go to the great couturiers for her wardrobe, initially because she liked their work, and subsequently as part of her quest to be her own best brand ambassador. Anything Helena spent was good for Helena Rubinstein. Besides, as she often said, ‘couture and beauty go hand in hand’.

But she had not come all this way to be an idle tourist. In France, medicine and hygiene had evolved considerably. Since Pasteur’s discovery of microbiology in 1860, the use of aseptic techniques had become compulsory in hospitals. Helena began her series of visits to Marcellin Berthelot, who invented disinfection through the use of bleach in 1875. The chemist was already very old – he would die two years later – and agreed to see her without a reference.

He gave her a masterclass on the principles governing the health of the skin and Helena sounded him out about her theory that skin could be classified into several types, which would enable her to expand her range of products. She consulted dermatologists, who taught her how to regenerate tissue, make it firmer, and delay the appearance of wrinkles. She would learn how electrical techniques were being applied to skincare barely a quarter of a century after their invention.

Some physicians did not take her seriously. A woman’s place is in the home, they informed her. Why was she insisting on cluttering up her charming little head with complicated information that would be of no use to her?

Helena did not try to win them over. There were any number of well-known scholars who were only too eager to help her. But she had learned her lesson. To get what she wants, a pretty woman must never seem too smart. She wasn’t used to subtle manoeuvring – she tended to mow down obstacles like a tank – but she was prepared to do whatever was necessary to get her way.

She was convinced that body care was an essential part of beauty, and took a keen interest in massage techniques using rollers to knead the flesh, which were said to eliminate jowls, double chins, and fat. Some rollers used electric current to massage the face, body and breasts more efficiently than by hand.4 Healthy eating had not yet become the obsession of the century, but beauty-conscious women already knew how to improve their figures through treatments and diets that changed with the fashion and the season.

Helena’s attentive visits to Parisian salons also enabled her to observe the treatments that were similar to those offered in spas: hydrotherapy to invigorate and shape the body, a variety of electrical treatments, light therapy, gymnastics and massages.5 She would introduce these new treatments in her salon in Melbourne and subsequently in Europe and the United States, improving upon them as time went by. Where skincare was concerned, her imagination knew no bounds.

From everything she learned during her journey, she retained two or three significant ideas that would form the basis of her regimes. To increase the efficiency of her products and maintain a glowing complexion, it was vital to lead a healthy lifestyle, involving physical exercise, proper breathing techniques and a low-fat, low-toxin diet based on water, fruit juice and vegetables. Her future clients must realise it was not enough just to buy her cream, they must also apply her principles.

Her last stop was England. From there she would sail for Australia. In London, beauty was the preserve of the elite. Privilege was more sharply delineated here than elsewhere. A few English perfumers such as Atkinsons and Yardley dominated the market. Imported French brands, such as Coty, Bourjois and Rimmel remained expensive. Helena discovered them at Harrods on Brompton Road, a department store every bit as wonderful as the ones in Paris. She was accompanied by Ceska and Lola. The three young women were fascinated by the escalator in Harrods but were afraid to use it for fear of getting their long skirts caught.

They went on to inspect the beauty institutes on Bond Street, which didn’t live up to expectations despite their luxurious interiors. I’ll have my work cut out for me here, thought Helena, who had every intention of visiting England again. Everything she had seen, observed, and remembered had shown her, yet again, that beauty was something one must strive for and earn. The effort would be worth it; she firmly believed that there were no ugly women, only lazy ones.

She overlooked – or chose to overlook – the fact that all women are not equal when it comes to beauty, that the world was divided between those who had the time and the money to improve their physical condition and those who poverty condemned to premature ageing.

On the return voyage her trunks were crammed with new outfits and work supplies – slimming tablets, formulas to cure acne or the ill effects of the sun, and electric rollers to knead, massage and firm the legs, buttocks and breasts. She also brought back vases, particularly opaline ones, to add to her growing collection, paintings, knick-knacks, fabrics and ideas to redecorate her two salons.

A display advertisement in the Australian daily The Talk in 1906 announced that ‘Mlle. Helena Rubinstein’ had just returned from Europe. Her consultations with the most eminent skin specialists had enabled her to improve the treatment she offered at her 274 Collins Street salon. The text made special mention of her newly hired ‘Viennese’ assistants. The two young ladies took their role very seriously.

Ceska, however, found it difficult to get used to Australia and suffered from homesickness. And Helena was far too demanding. She made them work from dawn to dusk like slaves in a coal mine. Surely there were other things in life than beauty salons?

‘No!’ Helena replied categorically. ‘Do you think I go around having fun? How do you expect to make a living otherwise?’

Ceska made a face and kept up her complaints, but eventually got used to her new life and spent hours in the ‘kitchen’ watching her sister concoct her new preparations, L’Eau Verte and L’Eau qui Pique. In the evening, Ceska was invited everywhere. Like all the Rubinstein daughters, she had inherited her mother’s flawless complexion and looked younger than her age. And like Helena, she cheated, saying she was eighteen when in fact she was four years older, although being unmarried at twenty-two did not seem to bother her. Besides, no one in Australia seemed to mind whether you were married or not. A charming Englishman called Edward Cooper had begun to court her, and Ceska was not indifferent to his advances.

What of Helena? She was rich, pretty and still youthful despite being the wrong side of thirty-four. Her salon in Melbourne was virtually running itself, her beauty line perfect and her reputation firmly established. She, too, could give some thought to getting married.

But Miss Rubinstein was cut from a different cloth than most of the young women around her. It was not her ambition to start a family or raise children who would be just like her. In her dreams, there was no room for love letters, for wooing by moonlight, or languorous embraces. Her well-ordered brain buzzed with serious words like balance sheets, ledgers, turnover, or expansion. She was one of the few self-made women of her time and had every intention of continuing along that path. Her future was mapped out for her and she was determined to succeed – on her own. She had no need for men. She could not see what purpose they would serve.

Melbourne was beginning to seem too small for her.

She had set her sights on London, which was her kind of city – modern, elegant, bustling with activity. There was so much she could do there. During her brief stay in the capital, Helena had had ample time to observe Englishwomen: their cheeks, like Australian women’s, were dry and blotchy. Many of them suffered from persistent acne which they did not know how to treat and so hid beneath thick layers of powder.

Helena could hardly contain her impatience. She already knew what she wanted to do. She would move to England at the beginning of the following year. Before that, she would oversee the opening of her salon in Sydney – work had already begun. Ceska would keep an eye on things. Helena was also still thinking of expanding to Wellington, New Zealand.

It was closing time. All alone in the salon, Helena could not bring herself to go home and take a rest. Her two employees had left half an hour earlier than usual, and Lola and Ceska had done the same. It had been a difficult week, with more clients than usual, and the young women were exhausted and had asked for some time off. Helena had agreed, almost in spite of herself, to let them go.

Once she had finished the books she would mop the floor and lower the heavy metal shutter. No task was too shameful or lowly for her. She stood behind the counter, busily adding up the day’s receipts.

May could sometimes be as hot as the summer months in Melbourne. Heat was still radiating off the asphalt on this particular May evening, with little hope of cooler temperatures at night. Helena unbuttoned her bodice slightly more than was appropriate. Her cheeks had turned crimson and her forehead was damp with sweat. A few rebellious strands of hair escaped from her chignon. This unruly touch softened her habitually severe appearance and made her particularly charming.

‘Do I have the honour of addressing Miss Helena Rubinstein?’

Surprised to hear a man’s voice, she looked up and turned her hawk-eyed gaze on the man who had just raised his hat. He was a tall, elegant, dark-haired fellow wearing a starched shirt and a suit cut from the best fabric. He was carrying a few books and newspapers tucked under one arm. His bright eyes were surveying her closely from behind his round glasses. She had the impression he was taking note of her untidy appearance and open bodice, and hastily began buttoning it up.

‘Yes?’ she enquired.

‘I met two of your sisters in Kraków a few months ago, when I went to visit my family,’ the man said. ‘They told me about you. I’m a journalist. I was born in Poland like you, but I’m an American citizen.’

A compatriot? He was charming and easy-going with a warm voice. Perhaps a bit too sure of himself. She relaxed a bit, wiped her forehead, tucked her hair back.

He had still not told her his name.

‘Forgive me. I wasn’t thinking straight. My name is Titus. Edward William Titus.’

Helena nibbled on her pen, and looked down at her ledger. Her heart was pounding and she could not understand why.