The Coat Route by Meg Lukens Noonan Read Free Book Online Page B

gray-and-black Prince of Wales check, and he has paired it with a maroon-and-white pinstriped shirt and a dark silk tie. On his feet are black brogues, polished to an obsidian sheen. I realize that I am envious of this man in his beautiful suit, of all the men in their suits.
    I’m envious of the excitement they must have felt when they walked into their tailor of choice, knowing they would be placing an order. I’m envious of the time they spent paging through books of cloth, weighing the merits of this nubby gray or that rich navy. I’m envious of the thrill they must have felt when their tailor held their new jacket behind them and they reached back and slipped their arms into the sleeves and felt it settle onto their shoulders, perfectly flush to their neck. And I’m envious of the moment, that delicious moment, when they fastened the buttons for the first time, gave the lapels a sharp little tug and saw, yes, that it fit, just right.

A
few days after his first consultation about the coat, Keith Lambert returned to John Cutler’s shop to discuss fabrics. The tailor was not surprised to hear his client say that he was thinking cashmere—Keith always wanted the very best. John showed him books of swatches—in the tailoring trade they’re known as “bunches”—and Keith rubbed the small squares of sample cloth between his fingers. Then John had a thought. He hesitated. Perhaps …
    “We could do cashmere, Keith,” he finally said. “Or we could take it a step further.…”
    John got up and walked into a back room. A few minutes later, he reappeared holding a long, narrow mint-green cardboard box, embossed on top with a gold coat of arms and the words “Dormeuil. The World’s Best Cloths.” John placed the box on the table in front of Keith, then lifted the lid and took out a bolt of folded dark-blue cloth. He laid the fabric across his client’s lap
.
    “Feel that,” he said
.
    Keith touched the edge of the material, then ran his hand along the length of it. John knew just what he was feeling. The cloth was unimaginably soft—softer than the finest cashmere, but with more substance and spring—and it had a short, distinct nap that begged to be stroked
.
    “That’s lovely,” Keith said. “What is it?”
    “Vicuña,” John said, almost whispering the word. “Very rare. From Peru.”
    John watched Keith caress the fabric and study the play of light and shadow in its shallow folds. For twenty years, the tailor had been holding on to this extraordinary and, at $6,000 a yard, staggeringly expensive cloth, waiting for the right client. Yes. He could see it now in Keith’s face. He had found him
.
    What is this strange animal who lives high above the clouds in a region where practically no other mammals can survive; this small creature who, inconsequential in stature and number, because of its almost priceless pelt, has been singled out from among the animals of the earth?
    SYLVAN STROOCK
    J ane Wheeler hates winter in Lima. From May to November, a dense, cool ocean fog, known as the
garua
, enshrouds the sprawling Peruvian city of nine million in a depressing, damp all-day dusk.
    “Another beautiful day,” the owlish sixty-seven-year-old scientist with cropped graying hair says from behind the wheel of her black pickup. It is a murky morning in late July 2010, and we are heading for her office at the University of San Marcos.
    I had arrived in Lima after midnight and been driven to Jane’s home about twenty miles south of the city. From the back of the taxi, I had been aware of the fog, the way it softened the lights on the hills and fuzzed the headlights of oncoming trucks. It made the trip dreamlike and thrilling. I was in the land of the Incas, Pizarro’s City of Kings, heading down the Pan-American Highway on the ragged desert edge of South America. But in themorning gloom, from the passenger side of Wheeler’s Toyota, I see that, for all its exoticism and glories, Lima is, above all, a