The Queen of Beauty (The Century Trilogy Book 3)

by Petra Durst-Benning

  Selling wigs in Zurich . . . In his mind’s eye, Roberto could already picture beautiful women stepping into the elegant boutique, where he would be standing behind a fine walnut counter, ready with advice for every customer. No more lice-ridden farm girls whose hair he had to cut off. No more rundown mountain huts. Instead, city style and rich people.

  “Of course, we expect regular reports—one letter a week from each of you. Once you have our shop up and running, which we calculate should take no more than six months, you will go different ways. Toni will stay in Zurich, and you, my dear Roberto, will return to Elva. Michele will then go to Zurich in your place.”

  Michele’s face brightened.

  Roberto looked at his father with incomprehension. “You want me to come back in six months?” From the corner of his eye, he saw his fiancée glaring venomously at him, but he ignored her.

  His father grinned. “In the fall, you’ll go back to the mountain villages. No one is as good at buying women’s hair as you. We simply can’t do it without you. And besides, don’t you want to get married this year? As you can see, my son, we’ve thought of everything.”

  From that day on, the first thing Roberto did every morning was look out the window. The snow was relentless, and he was beyond morose. He wanted nothing more than to be on the road. But the snow was still more than three feet deep, and the earth beneath it was frozen hard, the mountain trails impassable. When old Elena, three houses down, died at the beginning of February, the undertaker had no choice but to store her body in his shed until the earth began to thaw. The previous autumn, he had simply dug too few graves, which was another way of saying that he had not counted on winter’s grip lasting so long.

  Roberto could have screamed in his frustration. In conditions like that, no burial could take place, and no journey could begin.

  Plip. Plip. Plip.

  Roberto rolled over grumpily on his straw mattress. What was that strange, monotonous sound, ruining his sleep, annoying as a stone in a shoe?

  Plip. Plip.

  The next moment, he sat upright in bed. Then he jumped to the window, tore the curtain aside, and squinted out into the colorless morning light. Drops of water. Blessed drops of water. Roberto’s bad mood vanished instantly. Finally.

  The yard-long icicles dangling from the roof had started to melt.

  Their route would take them via Turin and Milan to Monza, and from there onward to Como and Lugano, then Locarno on the shores of Lake Maggiore. After that, they would cross the Alps, following the road to Andermatt, then travel north through Switzerland until they reached Zurich. No one could tell them exactly how far that was or how long it would take them. Was it three hundred miles? Five hundred? It made no difference to Roberto if they had to travel three or five or ten weeks. For him, all that mattered was going! Gaia had been getting more and more clingy and weepy in recent weeks. “Why don’t you take me with you?” she had asked Roberto one evening. Roberto had made an excuse about helping his father with an urgent repair, and quickly made his escape. Away! Just get away, get out of there, breathe again!

  “These leather boots are useless! My feet are already burning again. It’s like I’m walking on hot coals,” Toni grumbled. He leaned on his packhorse’s reins, letting the poor beast practically pull him along. It ducked its head, suffering under Toni’s weight.

  “We’re nearly there,” said Roberto, gritting his teeth. He would have given almost anything to walk in such comfortable leather, but all he had on his feet were thin linen boots. Though the patriarchs were intent on presenting everything as equal between the families, truth was that Giacomo did not like to part with the money that Roberto and Michele brought in, and Roberto was suffering for his father’s tightfistedness.

  “That’s what you always say, and then it still takes hours before we arrive,” said Toni, sounding even more aggrieved than usual. “I’ll starve to death by then. The hole in my belly is so big, I’ll soon disappear into it myself.”

  “Then eat twice as much later,” Roberto shot back. He wanted to give his detested traveling companion a good punch in the face. What a whiner Toni was!

  Roberto never would have believed that the journey could be so strenuous. But it wasn’t the distance traveled each day that pushed him to the edge. Nor was it the responsibility he felt for the packhorses—his had thrown a shoe on the second day. What got to him most of all was Toni’s ceaseless moaning, which was worse than any prissy girl’s. When the sun shone, it hurt his eyes. When it was hazy, he couldn’t see clearly. Instead of being grateful that his packhorse was hauling two hundred pounds instead of him, he complained that his father had not given him a horse to ride as well. And every day, from midday on, he grumbled and groused about how tired and hungry he was.

  Roberto’s loathing for his companion grew with each day. Lorenzo Sorri had equipped his son with everything one could want for such a long march: a jacket with an inner sheepskin lining that could be unbuttoned and removed in warmer weather—Roberto had never seen anything like it. Robust leather boots. A leather hat that kept rain, snow, and sun from Toni’s poor head. By contrast, Roberto had to wear his old traveling clothes: a threadbare suit, an extra jacket, and a battered cap.

  As for the money for food and lodging along the way, Toni’s father had given Toni substantially more than Roberto’s father had given him. At every guesthouse, Toni ordered the most expensive food and drink. Rich meat dishes and the best red wine. But Roberto had to make do with a daily plate of pasta or bread and ham, washed down with water. It didn’t help that Toni was about as bright as a rock. Not a day went by without Roberto having to rescue his companion from at least one predicament. Once, Toni left his money bag on their breakfast table. Roberto turned back one last time before they left the guesthouse to make sure that he’d left nothing behind. And it was at just that moment that he saw the maid stowing Toni’s money bag in her skirt. When she saw Roberto coming back, she returned it immediately. Toni hadn’t even said thank you, and he didn’t buy so much as a jug of wine to share that evening. Next time, Roberto decided, he’d just walk away.

  Another time, Toni forgot to tighten his horse’s girth. If Roberto hadn’t pointed it out, the entire load would have slipped and likely spooked the horse or caused it to fall. And every junction brought a discussion. “We have to go left,” Toni might say, whereas the map that Roberto was following clearly showed that they had to go right. With every day, it grew harder for Roberto not to lose his temper. But deep inside, his anticipation at seeing the big city pushed him onward. Zurich. As soon as he reached Zurich, he knew the world would look like a different place.

  “Drink, lad, drink. They’re voting this summer to ban absinthe, and if the confederates get their way, our ‘green fairy’ could be prohibited by the end of the year!” Laughing, the man—a local sawmill owner—tipped his head back and poured the cloudy, greenish liquid down his throat.

  Toni and the others at the table followed his example. But Roberto only pretended to drink. Green fairy? More like a green devil. He had never liked the bitter taste of wormwood, but the men at their table seemed to be sworn devotees of the drink, and one of them was already ordering another round.

  After three weeks on the road, they had arrived in Andermatt, a small village in the Ursuren Valley in Switzerland. The Reuss River, swollen by snowmelt from the surrounding mountains, tumbled noisily down the narrow valley. Roberto and Toni had been following its banks since midday.

  “Madam, the next round is on me!” Toni shouted. His cheeks were red, his eyes unfocused, his voice too loud.

  “Remember that we have to tackle the pass tomorrow,” Roberto said. “If you keep drinking like that, I don’t like our chances.”

  “I don’t like our chances with you either way, you miser,” Toni slurred. “Why don’t you buy a round for once?” The men at the table joined in Toni’s raucous laughter. “Salut!”

  Disgusted, Roberto stood up and went outside. It was a clear n
ight with the promise of spring in the air. From the stable came the happy whinnying of his horse. Roberto grinned. He and the brown had become a good team. For the sake of the horse, he had called a rest day more often than he otherwise would have, though it lengthened their journey. But he didn’t want to change horses along the way; he had taken the brown too deeply into his heart for that. He couldn’t really afford such sentimentality, he thought, as he whistled softly to the horse through the open window. He had big plans. And time was ticking away.

  Reaching the railing of the bridge that spanned the river, Roberto looked up to the sky. Here and there stars glittered, and for a moment he had the feeling that they were sparkling auspiciously just for him.

  Once they cleared the pass the next day, they would have the hardest part of the journey behind them. After that, they would manage the rest easily. Maybe, for a change, without Toni complaining.

  Roberto could hardly wait to get started finding a suitable shop and trading directly on the hair market. He, the caviè from the Maira Valley, trading hair on the exchange . . .

  He thrust away the nagging thought that all these thrilling prospects were supposed to come to an end after just a few months. He was out of Elva. Now it was up to him to convince his father to let him stay in the city. Michele could go to the mountains in the fall and cut hair!

  Off to Roberto’s right, one star glinted especially brightly. A lucky star? No doubt. Roberto sighed, satisfied. He did not know where his inner confidence sprang from, his sense that life held more for him than what his father envisaged. But he felt that, somewhere down the road, he would be a rich and important man, one who had a say in how things ran, and who did not just dance to his father’s tune.

  “I’ve never felt so sick in my life,” said Toni when they led the horses out of the stable the following morning. It was already ten o’clock, and Roberto had hoped to be on the road much earlier than that. But no matter how hard he shook Toni, his companion simply would not wake up.

  “If you hadn’t drunk so much, you wouldn’t feel so wretched now, so stop whining,” said Roberto, checking his horse’s harness a final time. Unlike Toni, the animals were well rested, which was good, because the trail over the mountains would take all the strength they had.

  Roberto could not believe it when he saw Toni trying to swing himself onto the back of his horse. “Are you crazy? She’s got enough to carry!”

  “Shut your damn mouth,” Toni growled, and he swung his right leg up once again, boxing the mare roughly on the flank as he did so. The horse shied, and Toni punished it with a sharp jerk on the bit.

  Without a word, Roberto marched off. Toni, leading his packhorse by the reins, trudged after him.

  As expected, the route was steep and winding. In some places, it was as wide as a road, but most of the time it was a narrow track, and when it was, Roberto led the way, his horse following behind, cautiously, step by step. Apart from them, there were few travelers, since most of them crossed the Alps at the Gotthard Pass. With a horse and cart or an automobile, Roberto would also have preferred the Gotthard Pass, but leading a packhorse, he felt more comfortable on the quieter route.

  Crusted snow crunched underfoot, and the snot froze in his nose in the damp chill. Roberto was used to the mountain air in Piedmont, but this climb up to the pass at seven thousand feet was taking it out of him. He was even happier now that he had not drunk too much the previous evening, and he did not want to imagine the extent of Toni’s suffering. He looked back occasionally and saw that his companion was falling farther behind. When they had started out that morning, he stopped frequently and waited for Toni to catch up, but whenever he stopped, his sweating horse began to shiver in the cold. Roberto knew they couldn’t keep going this way, and he was about to call to Toni that he would go ahead to the shelter at the pass when he saw that Toni was once again trying to mount his packhorse, and on a particularly narrow stretch at that. Roberto shuddered. One false step by the horse would be enough to send both man and animal into the abyss.

  “Get your foot out of the girth—” But his warning was lost in the skittish whinnying of Toni’s horse as it frantically tried to shake free of its overweight master. The next moment, its left rear hoof stepped into emptiness. The two-hundred-pound load on its back slipped and pulled the horse over the edge so that only its front legs and stretched belly and chest lay on the path. The mare let out a shriek and scrabbled at the snow and earth, trying to find a footing. Toni, his foot still caught in the girth, was sliding with it.

  “Dio mio . . .” In a panic, Roberto sprinted back down the narrow trail. He was only a few yards short when mare and man tumbled into the chasm.

  “Hey! Toni?!” Roberto’s heart was beating in his throat as he leaned out and gazed down into the gorge. But he could see neither Toni nor his horse, just rugged crags, loose boulders, and crusted snow.

  “Toni! Where are you? Are you all right? Answer me!”

  He heard a pitiful moan. Toni was alive, at least. A wave of relief washed over Roberto. “I can’t see you. What’s going on down there?” he yelled.

  “My leg . . . I think . . . it’s broken.” Another moan, very quiet.

  A broken leg? Roberto did not want to think about what that would mean. “What about the horse?” Frowning, Roberto waited for an answer. When none came, he called out again, “Toni? Can you hear me? Say something!” His heart beating hard, he leaned out a bit more, but still could see nothing. Either they must have fallen very far or were lying in a cleft in the rocks that he could not see into. The mountains there were full of such deep gashes, cut into the rocks over millennia.

  Roberto forced himself to breathe and dropped into a crouch. He bit his lip. He was at a loss. What now? Should he try to climb down? Would he even be able to find a grip on the icy rocks with his thin linen boots? And what was he supposed to do with his own horse in the meantime? God forbid it should wander away with its valuable cargo or be stolen by some passing traveler.

  Roberto turned away from the chasm and looked up to the pass ahead. The station at the pass was an hour’s hike, probably less, he guessed. Best to get up there as quickly as he could and find help, he was thinking, when a second, very different thought crept into his mind: What if Toni died before he could get back?

  The rescue was difficult and was still going on after nightfall. Torches lit the steep trail while Toni, his right leg almost certainly broken, was hauled inch by inch up the mountain by the men from the pass station.

  Roberto stood anxiously to one side. The men had assured him that it wasn’t the first time they had pulled someone out after an accident. With God’s blessing and a little luck, they would be able to rescue his friend.

  “You’re really not going to come?” Toni looked up tearfully from the stretcher. His right leg was, in fact, broken, and they suspected a broken bone in his right wrist. And, of course, he was grazed and bruised all over. His horse had not survived the fall, and they had left the cadaver in the cleft in the rocks. Luckily, the men from the station had told Roberto that they would recover the load the horse was carrying.

  Roberto hated to think what would have happened if they’d lost the valuable hair and wigs as well, and he said to Toni, “What am I supposed to do in Elva? You can lie back and let yourself heal there, but I’m needed elsewhere.” How much would it cost to buy another packhorse here in the mountains? he wondered while Toni’s stretcher was lifted onto a wagon.

  “But it was never agreed that you should go to Zurich alone. Our fathers won’t like it at all,” Toni grumbled.

  “And it was never agreed that you’d be idiot enough to get drunk on absinthe and break your leg,” Roberto snapped. “What about our plan to open a shop and take the sale of our hair and wigs into our own hands? Are we supposed to give that up because you’re a fool? Our fathers would be furious if I went back with you. But . . . there is one thing,” Roberto said, and he cleared his throat. “I need the money from your father. Otherw
ise I won’t have nearly enough to open a shop or even buy a new packhorse.

  “You want me to hand over my money? All of it? What if you run off and take the hair and the money with you?” Toni’s expression, usually so lethargic, was suddenly alert.

  “Now there’s an idea,” said Roberto with a laugh, and he clapped Toni Sorri companionably on the shoulder.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was the pharmacist, Frieder Weingarten, who gave Clara the crucial tip. It was New Year’s Day, 1908. Christmas had come and gone, her second without her children. Again, she had sent presents and cards for them via Josephine.

  “There’s a shop on Unterstadtstrasse that will soon be vacant,” the pharmacist said when he and his wife visited Clara in the Hotel Residenz. “In the first row, where all the better shops are.”

  “What good does that do me?” Clara asked while Sabine Weingarten, rather shyly, offered her a homemade New Year’s pretzel. Clara was so inwardly nervous that she almost put the pretzel aside untouched, but then she thanked Sabine and turned back to Mr. Weingarten. “Do you really think anyone in town will rent me anything after all the slander?” Although she did her best to sound calm, she could hear the tremor in her voice. What if someone really . . .

  The pharmacist only smiled. “I already talked to the owner of the building and told him what an absolutely reliable and exceptionally clever woman you are. If it had been necessary, I would have told him not only that I would rent you a shop myself, but that I entrusted you with my wife and child!” He smiled fondly at his wife, who was pregnant with their second child, then said to Clara, “If you like, we could go and see the place right now. Mr. Schmidt is expecting us.”

  “Now? On a holiday? Really, are you serious?” She was fighting back tears. It was so good to have friends! She felt like giving the man a kiss on his cheek in sheer gratitude, but what if Sabine took it the wrong way? Where men were concerned, Clara never again wanted to find herself in a situation that could be misconstrued or in which her reputation was compromised.