The Glassblower (The Glassblower Trilogy Book 1)

by Durst-Benning, Petra

  “You’re a pair of silly fools, both of you!” Johanna got up from the table and started to take the dishes to the basin. “For all I care you can go and find a man to marry,” she told Ruth. “But when I look around the village, it hardly seems like an earthly paradise! Times are hard, and it makes no difference whether you’re married or not. Do as you like though . . .” She shrugged. “While you’re at it, you can make sure that whoever he is, he has a brother, and then that’s Marie taken care of. As for me, I’m going to Sonneberg tomorrow!”

  6

  It was still dark outside when Ruth shook Johanna awake. For a moment Johanna just lay there, uncertain whether she was still dreaming, but then she remembered what she had to do that day. While Ruth went downstairs, still in her nightgown, Johanna got dressed. She had taken her clothes from the wardrobe the night before and gotten everything ready. She looked with dismay at the thick woven jacket, but it was too chilly to go in just a thin knitted cardigan.

  Down in the laundry shed she scrubbed her face with a wet washcloth and combed her hair. It had gotten tangled up in the rough collar of her jacket, but she teased it out and braided it tightly. Then she wound the braid around the crown of her head and fixed it in place with several pins. She bound a headscarf over it and knotted the ends so that the corners were tucked away out of sight. If she had done her hair any other way, she would have trouble with the load of glass she had to carry. It was in a deep basket with shoulder straps, and when she hoisted it on her back, the top of the basket reached high above her head. She looked briefly at herself in the mirror, but all she could see was a pair of vast dark eyes. Every time she saw her face without its frame of hair, she was astonished at how different she looked. Her mouth looked much bigger as well. Maybe the mirror was rippled? She opened her mouth slightly and saw that the mirror told the truth—the change was indeed in her face. Her lips curved sensually, and it almost looked as though she were blowing a kiss to her image in the mirror! Johanna frowned. Father had never liked the idea of sending her off to Sonneberg on her own. He had always insisted that she dress modestly. Not for the first time Johanna wondered whether she had achieved the effect he had in mind. Then she stuck out her tongue at the woman in the mirror, and went back into the house.

  Ruth had already loaded the cardboard boxes into the wooden frame that would fit inside the basket. Four jars to each box. The two of them carried the pack out to the front step, and Johanna looked up the steep village street. She was glad to see that there was no mist today. With a practiced motion, she shouldered her pack and buckled the belt tightly. Then Ruth lifted up the wooden frame and strapped it into place at all four corners. She put her hand on Johanna’s arm. “When you’re in Sonneberg, keep your ears open. You may hear of someone who wants us to work for them. Perhaps Strobel knows a glassblower who would take us on.”

  Johanna nodded. The wooden frame was already digging into her back. She set out.

  “And try to get a better price from the old skinflint this time. We need every penny!” Ruth called after her.

  As if she didn’t know that! Johanna grimaced. It was all very well for Ruth to give orders like that, but she never wanted to go and sell the wares herself. “Strobel gives me the shivers,” she had said the year before, the only time she went along with Johanna. “I wouldn’t want to see him too often.” Johanna didn’t much like the look of the man either, but what could be done about it? She sighed, and strode on purposefully.

  It was just after half past six.

  When she passed the railway station, the temptation to go in and buy a ticket to Sonneberg was as strong as ever. Ever since the rails had been laid four years ago, more and more women took the train when they ran errands from the village and delivered the wares to town. But Joost had no fondness for the train; he had always called it a “stinking black contraption.” Johanna could hear his voice as clearly as if he were still alive: “It’ll break down halfway, just like it did when they cut the ribbon for the maiden voyage, and then you’ll have to hike the rest of the way all the same!” She wondered, however, whether he had really been so distrustful of the new technology, or whether his attitude had more to do with the fact that they just couldn’t afford the fare. Just as they had never been able to afford to send one of the village women into town on their behalf.

  At this time of year the sun was so low over the horizon that it almost shone through from below the treetops. The rain that had poured down during their father’s funeral was long gone, and it was unusually warm for September. Johanna soon felt the heat gathering in her armpits; the thick woolen jacket made her perspire. Her back was damp, and it itched. She had tied the headscarf too tight, and she tried to ease it with her finger so that the air could get to her scalp.

  Usually she would have hitched a ride with a wagon for most of the thirteen or so miles into town, but today, whenever the drivers slowed up and offered to let her ride, she waved them on. If she accepted their offer, she would have to give them a couple of pennies for the favor, and she had to be careful with what little money she had.

  The rain over the last few days had made such a quagmire of the path that Johanna found herself cutting through the trees to avoid sinking up to her ankles in mud. Great clods of earth got caught in her soles all the same, and every step was an effort. She toyed with the idea of washing her boots in the Steinach brook, but it was swollen with rainwater and no longer the tame little stream she knew; it had broken its banks and foamed and thrashed wildly, throwing up fountains of spray in places that Johanna had to dodge. She carried on with the mud still clinging to her boots.

  When she reached Sonneberg, she looked up at the church clock and saw to her dismay that it was already past eleven o’clock. More than four and a half hours—it had never taken her that long before. Usually she was one of Friedhelm Strobel’s first callers, which was an advantage since she never had to wait long to speak to him. She looked down at her filthy boots and her heart sank further. Strobel would hardly be pleased to have her tramping mud all over his gleaming parquet floor.

  Like every Friday when she came to town, she was struck by how busy it was. Johanna knew she was late and picked up her pace unconsciously as she walked. She often had to step aside to let others past, which wasn’t easy with the great basket on her back.

  Sonneberg was full of people this time of year, and as Johanna crossed town, she heard countless German dialects and foreign languages buzzing around her. Almost every inn and lodging house had hung up a shingle to show that there were no more free rooms. Buyers had flooded into town from far and wide to see what the craftsmen in the nearby villages had made over the summer months. Most of all, they were here to reserve stock for the Christmas season.

  Rather than going from house to house and haggling over the items with the pieceworkers, the businessmen relied on local wholesalers, who had set up their networks of suppliers years before and turned the putting-out system into a fine art form in Sonneberg. There were at least twenty wholesalers in town—maybe more since their shops were sometimes hardly recognizable as such from outside—and all of them could contract any kind of piecework a customer cared to name. Not that they had storerooms full of glassware sitting on the shelves waiting for a buyer—instead, most orders were placed from the wholesaler’s catalogs. These great tomes were full of pen-and-ink drawings or even photographs, with every item described in minute detail, including its dimensions and material. Each wholesaler guarded his samples book fiercely. There were no prices in the catalogs, for those were always negotiated separately for each order.

  The buyers came to Sonneberg for the beautiful porcelain dolls in particular; they had real hair and glass eyes that moved, and they were dressed in finely sewn silk clothes. But they also bought toys of tin or wood, and colorful glass marbles and beads, and all the other wares that a glassblower could make. Thuringian handiwork was known and admired all over, and sold for good money
in the department stores of Munich, Nuremberg, and Hamburg, and even farther afield in Saint Petersburg, Copenhagen, and Brussels.

  Once a customer had made his choice from the catalog, he would work out a price, the size of the order, and the delivery date. Then the wholesaler would go to his pieceworkers with the order book under his arm. The Christmas orders were all coming in now, and a wholesaler’s door had hardly swung closed before the next visitor came bustling into his shop.

  Johanna could tell at a glance which people were buyers and which were pieceworkers. The buyers were far more elegantly dressed, in clothes of the best quality. What’s more, they almost invariably had a secretary at their side, carrying a leather briefcase or a carpetbag, which likely held samples of their own, so that they could ask a wholesaler, “Could you make me a vase like this one?” or “What would you charge for a hundred wooden candlesticks?”

  While the businessmen were fresh faced and well rested after a night in their lodgings and a leisurely breakfast, the pieceworkers had often worked through the night to have their orders ready on time. If they had had time to eat at all before they set out, then it was nothing more than a few potatoes or a slice of bread. They walked briskly through the streets, and Johanna suspected that they hurried not for the love of business but because they had a house full of children back home and a pile of work that grew bigger every minute they were away.

  When Johanna opened the door to Friedhelm Strobel’s showroom, she was almost choked by the thought that this would be the last time she came here. She was suddenly glad that she had to wait until the glassblower who had arrived before her had finished his business with Strobel. She sat down on the wine-red velvet sofa at the other end of the shop, her heart thumping.

  It was strange that she had been here so often but had never really looked at the place before now. The shop was lined floor to ceiling with cabinets in which Strobel kept his samples and finished wares. None of the drawers were labeled, but Strobel knew even with his eyes closed what was where. At the very top of the cabinets was a shelf with baskets instead of drawers. One of the baskets was full of the balls of soap that he bought from an old woman who lived in a nearby village and who made the soap by hand with the help of her two daughters. Johanna had once been at Strobel’s when a consignment of soap was delivered, so she knew it was the source of the glorious herbal smell that always filled the shop.

  As she wrinkled her nose to stifle a sneeze, she heard Strobel’s voice. “The bowl’s much too deep,” he was saying. “My client wants to use each bowl to present seven or eight pralines, but you could put a pound of chocolates in there. I made this quite clear when you were here last!”

  Johanna knew all too well the expression of scornful incredulity that went with that tone of voice—as though he could hardly believe the stupidity of the world. She had been in the shop often enough when one of the other suppliers was the target of such a dressing down. Every time this happened, she had felt sorry for whoever was on the receiving end.

  As Strobel spoke, he pulled over a wooden ladder and climbed three steps to open one of the drawers. “I’d like to know why I bothered to show you the sample piece at all if you’re not going to stick to the model. Look here, you managed to get the radius right but this bowl is much shallower!” He held up the pale blue glass bowl.

  The man took the bowl and looked at it closely. Strobel snorted impatiently. He glanced over at Johanna and tried to catch her eye, but she turned away. Surely he didn’t imagine that she would take sides with him against this poor fellow! The man spoke: “You didn’t make such a fuss about it last time. What happens now?” He looked worried.

  Strobel shrugged. “Is it my problem that you can’t listen? I have to supply what my clients order.”

  “But you must have some clients who want bowls this deep! What am I supposed to do with fifty of them?” A look of despair crossed his face. Johanna didn’t want to think what would happen if he returned home with his pack still full of the glass bowls he had been planning to sell.

  Strobel clapped his hand onto the man’s shoulder. “I’ll keep one here as a sample. Maybe I’ll find a use for it,” he said, steering him toward the door. “I’m sure we’ll do business again one of these days.” That was probably meant to reassure the poor soul, but the man was hardly out the door before Strobel put the bowl away in a drawer under his counter without a second glance.

  “Johanna!” He held out his arms toward her. “I just heard what a dreadful misfortune has befallen your household! My deepest sympathies!”

  Friedhelm Strobel’s handshake was bony and always just a little too firm. The skin around his fingernails was bitten to the quick, seeping blood and even pus in places. Johanna gave him her hand unwillingly and pulled it away as soon as she could.

  “I’ve come to sell the last jars that we have,” she said, pointing to the pack. She didn’t want to talk to this man about how Joost had died.

  Strobel didn’t seem to take the hint though. “He was such a hard worker, and an excellent glassblower. It’s quite a tragedy that he should have died so young!”

  He put a hand on Johanna’s arm, leading her to the table where he had his catalogs laid out for his customers. The polished red wood of the tabletop reflected the chandelier that hung above them. On either side of the table, comfortable armchairs were upholstered with gold and brown brocade. The furniture made the whole room look elegant and prosperous. Johanna had never been invited to sit there before, but today Strobel practically pushed her into a seat. He gazed at her intently.

  “We’ll have a look at your jars later,” he said offhandedly.

  Johanna had to make an effort not to roll her eyes. She really didn’t have time to listen to one of Strobel’s little speeches. She just wanted her money.

  “You barely even knew my father. I hardly think you can be much affected by his death,” she said sharply.

  Strobel’s gaze moved from her eyes to her cheeks, then settled on her lips.

  “Did I say that I was?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

  Without quite meaning to, Johanna pushed her chair back a little.

  Strobel leaned forward, propped up his elbows and folded his hands as if in prayer.

  “I was mostly thinking about what his death must mean for you and your sisters.”

  As she noted the look in his eyes, the great sigh he heaved, and the eagerness in his face, Johanna felt her hackles rise. She was ready to snap at him again, but she held back and instead said, “It’s not been an easy time for us. A great deal has changed now that he’s dead.” She held her breath. Perhaps he knew someone who had work for them.

  “What would life be like if nothing ever changed? We can’t stop such changes; that’s for certain. But sometimes we can turn the screw a little and make them work for us.” Strobel nodded portentously. “Which is why, my dear Johanna Steinmann, I have an offer for you.”

  7

  “I would like you to come and work for me. As my . . . assistant.”

  Strobel’s words echoed in her ears. Assistant—what a fancy word. Why not say shopgirl, or hired hand? She walked through the streets of Sonneberg as though in a daze, and a thousand thoughts crowded round her, keeping pace. Strobel’s offer had given her a great deal to think about.

  At the edge of town, she stopped suddenly. Should she buy a bag of coffee as she usually did? Deciding that they wouldn’t starve to death for want of a few pennies, and that they all deserved a reminder of the good times, she headed for the grocer’s that she visited every Friday. She ignored the silver trays piled high with tempting pastries and the barrels of salt herring. A little while later, she left the shop with a couple of ounces of coffee. The smell of freshly ground beans was an extra treat she could enjoy for free.

  As soon as she reached the outskirts of town, the road began to climb gently uphill. Johanna strode on like a sleepwalker.
Her thoughts kept going round and round, always returning to the conversation in Strobel’s shop.

  He had said that he admired the stubborn way she bargained with him, and he thought that she might turn out to have a good head for business—whatever that might mean.

  Her first reaction was to say, “Me? Help you here? I can’t be of any use to you!” But she had paused a moment and stroked the smooth mahogany table with the palm of her hand. Then she had asked, “What kind of work would I be doing for you?” Her voice was flat, toneless. She thought she knew the answer—indeed, she could already see herself polishing the floor. Some work!

  “I would make you my right-hand woman,” Strobel had replied. “As I do business with my customers, you will draw up inventory, note down their orders, and then deliver them to the suppliers. The greater part of your work would involve keeping proper records. In a business the size of mine, written records of every transaction are absolutely crucial.” What a pompous tone he had! “I’ve been thinking for some time of hiring an assistant. Perhaps the time has come to make the thought a reality.”

  She had just nodded. It could hardly have been more astonishing if Strobel had offered her a job polishing the moon.

  “I would pay you of course,” he had added, misinterpreting her silence. “Though you understand that we would have to agree on some probationary period at a lower rate of pay. But once you have been on the job for a while—” He broke off there, leaving the rest of the sentence to dangle tantalizingly unspoken, like bait on a hook. Johanna snorted. He hardly needed to lure her in like this! His first few sentences had been enough to conjure up images in her mind’s eye that were quite tempting enough in themselves: Sonneberg and all the visitors in its streets, customers from all around the world, orders that ran into the hundreds of items, the samples all sitting neatly in their drawers waiting for the right client—and in the middle of all this hustle and bustle, Johanna Steinmann from Lauscha. Then straightaway she had felt a pang of guilt. How could she let herself be carried away so soon after Father’s death?