The Glassblower (The Glassblower Trilogy Book 1)

by Durst-Benning, Petra

  “That means I’ll have to go to Sonneberg as soon as possible. Once Woolworth’s in town, nobody will have any time for me. I’ll have to get to them before the American does. And then”—she gave them all a grin—“our wholesaler, whoever it is, can show Marie’s baubles to dear old Woolworth when he comes!”

  “In that case, you should go this week. Shall I come along with you? I could help you carry the samples and then wait for you with Wanda while you visit their shops,” Ruth put in.

  Johanna’s grin faded. A wave of nausea passed over her at the thought of Sonneberg. All the same she said, “No, I think I’d rather go on my own. I don’t think Wanda would like it in town in this heat.”

  “Magnus could go with you,” Marie suggested. “He has the time, and I know he’d be happy to . . .”

  “Magnus! What’s Magnus got to do with it?” Peter asked, frowning. “If anybody goes with Johanna, then I will.”

  Johanna looked from face to face, irritated.

  “Are you quite finished? I don’t need anybody to go with me,” she said, rather more loudly than she had meant to. “I’ve been going to Sonneberg on my own since I was seventeen years old. And I’ll do it again. I don’t need a nanny.” She swallowed. “I’ll set off first thing in the morning—even if it’s raining cats and dogs. If it would make you feel better, I’ll take the train; then I’ll be in town in next to no time.”

  The other three looked at one another. There was nothing they could say to that.

  “But I’ll decide which globes you take along,” Marie said. “I’d best go choose which ones are fit to be seen.”

  “And I’ll find that crate of cardboard boxes. Then we can pack up the best bits this evening.” They left the room arm in arm. Shortly thereafter there was the sound of footsteps and furniture being moved up in Joost’s old room.

  As Johanna poured a glass of water for herself and for Peter, she said quietly, “Thank you.”

  “What for?”

  Johanna wasn’t quite sure what she meant. All she knew was that there was not a man in the world she was fonder of. Perhaps she even loved Peter. In her way. “For not trying to talk me out of this.” And then, because she couldn’t help it, she added, “Given that you’d much rather have me come and work for you.”

  “Well,” he replied, “life doesn’t always work out the way we’d like it to.” He sighed, deep in thought. “It looks as though I’ll just have to get used to the idea of eventually marrying a businesswoman.” He shrugged expressively, comical and resigned all at once.

  “Peter!” Johanna gasped. “I can’t believe my ears. Do you never give up?”

  He just looked at her. “No, not where we’re concerned. I never give up.”

  The next morning Ruth made breakfast and then went upstairs to wake Johanna. All of a sudden the memory of old times was so strong that for a moment she believed she would hear Joost clattering around in the washhouse. What would he make of their plans? She stopped for a moment at the dormer window and looked out into the cloudless sky. He would approve, she decided, then walked into the bedroom.

  “Time to get up! Today’s the big day!” As Ruth swept open the faded curtain, Johanna mumbled, “I’m already awake.” But Ruth, not entirely convinced, shook her sister’s shoulder just to be sure.

  “Train’s leaving in half an hour. Don’t you dare go back to sleep!” How had her sister ever managed in Sonneberg, she wondered, not for the first time. Then she glanced into the little room next door, where Wanda was sleeping peacefully in Marie’s old cot. With any luck she would stay that way until Johanna was safely out of the house.

  By the time she went back downstairs, Marie had already finished her coffee. She was standing at the sink, washing out her cup.

  “I’m so nervous! I probably won’t manage to paint a single flower stalk today, everything will turn out zigzags.”

  “Don’t let anyone notice. Otherwise Thomas will come round again wanting to know what’s going on. He doesn’t like it one bit that I can get by without him,” Ruth answered, pouring a cup of coffee for herself. “There’s no need for him to know what we’re up to yet.” “Not answering back now, Ruth Steinmann, are you?” She could hardly wait to see his silly face once they had their contract in the bag. She savored a mouthful of coffee.

  “You’re right,” Marie agreed. “It’s probably nothing more than a pipe dream anyway.” But her face was flushed with excitement and her eyes gleamed with expectation.

  Ruth had no patience even for Wanda that day, and Marie felt the hours drag by in the Heimer workshop. They could think of nothing but Johanna and how she was getting on. How many wholesalers would she have to visit before she found one who liked Marie’s baubles? Would she really get an order? Or would none of them want to buy from a woman? When the sun began to sink in the sky, a glowing red globe, they wondered when they could expect Johanna back. Was it a good or a bad sign that she was away for so long?

  Peter joined them after his workday was over; he too was impatient. He suggested going to meet Johanna at the station, but Ruth and Marie were against the idea. What if one of the neighbors saw them all waiting for Johanna? It would only lead to prying questions. So Peter was reduced to pacing up and down in front of the door like a prison warden. Ruth and Marie left him to it.

  It was almost eight o’clock when they finally heard him say, “She’s coming!” They all rushed outside.

  Johanna was as white as a sheet. She didn’t wave her hand, or laugh, or call out “We’ve got a contract!” From the look on her face and her heavy gait, there could only be one explanation.

  It had all gone terribly wrong.

  They didn’t dare look at each other. They were rooted to the spot as they watched Johanna approach. Neighbors passing by on the street watched the scene in surprise.

  “Johanna, what’s the matter? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” Ruth cried out at last.

  Johanna walked past them into the house, her shoulders drooping. Her dress was clinging to her back where the sweat had run down between her shoulder blades. She sat down at the table.

  “I feel like I have.” Her voice was as frail as an old woman’s, and her eyes wandered aimlessly around the room.

  Was it the heat? Or had Sonneberg reawakened painful memories of the rape? Had it all been too much for her?

  Ruth and Peter exchanged worried glances while Marie put a glass of water in front of her sister.

  Peter sat down on the bench next to her and put an arm protectively around her shoulders.

  “It’s all right now. You’re back home with us.” He held the water glass up for her.

  Nobody knew what to say. It was so quiet that all they heard was the sound of Johanna drinking.

  “I went to visit every wholesaler. I knocked on every door, every single one. They wouldn’t even listen to what I had to say,” she began at last.

  Fat tears ran down her face.

  “I felt like I had the plague and leprosy all at once. But in fact it was worse than that.”

  The others looked at each other.

  Ruth felt the disappointment knotting painfully in the pit of her stomach.

  “What are you talking about, for God’s sake?” Peter asked, shaking her gently. “Did Woolworth come earlier than planned, or what happened? Why did nobody have time for you?”

  Johanna shook her head. “At first I didn’t understand what was going on,” she said tearfully. “After the first shopkeeper was so rude to me I thought, he’s just having a bad day, I’ll try the next fellow. When the next one looked me up and down and said he had no time, I didn’t think anything of that either. But then . . .” She put both hands to her face and sobbed at the top of her voice. “I’ve never felt so horrid in all my life. I mean . . . except when . . . but now . . .” Her words were lost in a fit of sobbing.

&nbs
p; The others waited helplessly for her to calm down.

  “When I asked the woman . . . in the perfumer’s, she wouldn’t tell me . . . I still had no idea what was going on,” Johanna said at last in a tearful voice.

  Ruth was growing angry on top of the disappointment. “So what is going on? Would you please be so good as to actually explain to us?”

  Marie kicked her under the table.

  “Strobel told the whole town that I stole from him and that’s why he kicked me out.” Johanna’s face was devoid of expression. “Everybody thinks I’m a thief. That’s what’s going on!” The hysteria in her voice gathered strength. Her laugh cut through the silence as the others sat there in shock. “I’m done with Sonneberg. Once and for all. Even the dogs wouldn’t give me the time of day there!”

  13

  Johanna was almost more distraught than she had been after the rape. She had been able to explain the attack by telling herself that Strobel was mad, that he was not in his right mind. Although he had raped her and robbed her of her innocence, deep inside, by some miracle, she had stayed whole. But his slander had wounded her innermost self; she, Johanna Steinmann, had lost her dignity. All the values that Joost had passed on to his daughters were shattered in a stroke. It was only a question of time before the rumors reached Lauscha as well. Perhaps it had already happened? Perhaps people were already making wicked remarks behind their backs?

  She retreated to her room and spent days on end there, brooding in the summer heat. While the air outside shimmered in the heat wave that had descended on the village, she didn’t want to see or speak to anyone.

  Eventually an even worse suspicion dawned on her: perhaps she had been the reason Ruth left Thomas. Had he called her a thief and Ruth had come to her defense? Was that why Ruth was keeping quiet about why she had fled in the middle of the night?

  Brooding and furious, she relived every humiliation of her visit to Sonneberg over and over again.

  “I won’t put up with it any longer. She’s hardly shown her face down here for days. When I look in on her, she turns her face to the wall. So I stand there feeling like a fool and have to leave again,” Ruth fumed, pacing up and down the kitchen. “How long is this going to go on? This Woolworth is probably in town by now, and we still haven’t got a wholesaler for your globes.”

  “How many times are you going to say that? Just put yourself in her shoes. Johanna’s not doing all this just to annoy you.” Marie was tired. She had spent the whole day working with enamel paint and still had a nasty smell in her nose. She also had a headache.

  She went into the workshop and sat down at Joost’s workbench. How long had it been since she had last had an evening’s peace in here?

  Ruth followed her.

  “It doesn’t fix anything to have her hiding in her room while we’re down here worrying about her. But the worst of it is how she won’t even talk to us.”

  “Look who’s talking. You’re silent as the grave yourself about what went wrong between you and Thomas.”

  “That’s got nothing to do with anyone but me and him. But this—this is about all three of us! It’s our future, our life, our . . .” Ruth fell silent.

  “But Johanna’s the one who’s been libeled. And it’s all Strobel’s fault. I can hardly imagine what it’s like. You stand there talking to people, and all the while they believe the most horrible things about you. And there’s not a thing you can do about it. I wouldn’t want to be going through what she’s going through, that’s all.”

  “And we’re not, thank God,” Ruth said bitterly.

  “You can be very unkind, do you know that?” Marie said.

  “And you only ever assume the worst of me. I don’t mean that the way you think I do.” She drew up her old chair from the workbench and sat down next to Marie.

  “You heard what Johanna said: her name’s mud in Sonneberg. But that doesn’t mean that we’re all tarred with the same brush now, does it?”

  “I don’t know. Really, it ought not to. But the wholesalers might lump us all together when they find out that we’re Johanna’s sisters,” Marie answered. She had guessed what Ruth was driving at. It wasn’t as though she too wasn’t racking her brains about what to do next.

  “Do you think so?” Ruth bit her lip. She looked as though she hadn’t been expecting that answer.

  “Actually I was going to suggest that I take your globes and show them to the wholesalers. But of course, if they show me the door just the way they did with Johanna . . .”

  Marie looked askance at her. So she wasn’t as brave as all that!

  “I think we should ask Peter to show my baubles to his wholesaler.”

  Ruth looked up, relief showing on her face. “As you like. After all, they’re your baubles.”

  And who had just been blathering on about our future and our life, Marie grumbled silently to herself.

  Marie was already asleep when somebody shook her arm roughly.

  “Wake up!” Ruth whispered in her ear. “I have to talk to you.”

  Marie stumbled downstairs after Ruth so as not to wake Johanna, and followed her into the kitchen.

  “Are you mad? Why are you waking me up in the middle of the night? I can’t spend my days lazing about like some people, I have to go to work in the morning,” she said as Ruth put the gas lamp on. The light shone unpleasantly harsh in Marie’s eyes, so she turned the flame lower.

  “I have an idea!” Ruth said, bursting with excitement. “I have a wonderful idea!” She bounced across the kitchen and knelt down in front of Marie. “Just imagine; there’s a way I can help us all. If what I have in mind works, then we won’t be dependent on anyone. We—”

  “Ruth, please!” Marie chided her. “It’s the middle of the night, and I’m not in the mood for riddles. Tell me what’s buzzing about in that head of yours and then we can both go back to bed.”

  All at once Ruth looked like the fun-loving girl she had once been. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glowed with delight, and she laughed mischievously.

  “Once you hear what I have in mind, you won’t get a wink of sleep anyway!”

  The next morning Ruth got up earlier than usual. After looking in on Wanda, she went down to the washhouse. Marie happily ceded the mirror to her and even offered to go in and take care of breakfast. When Ruth nodded to her absentmindedly, their eyes met in the mirror.

  “You really think you can do this?” Marie asked, her hand on the door handle.

  “It’s the only way,” Ruth replied.

  “It’s not. As I said yesterday, we can always ask Peter . . .”

  “You’re right. But . . .” She nodded into the mirror to cheer Marie up, who was looking worried. “Just let me give it a try. The worst that can happen is that I get turned down. In which case we’d be right where we are now. But if my plan actually works . . . knock on wood . . .” Hurriedly, she rapped her knuckles against the wall. “But we shouldn’t even talk about it. No need to tempt fate.”

  Once Marie had left, she washed herself from head to toe and carefully combed her hair. Then she took a thick strand between her fingers and held it up to the sunlight that shone through the narrow window. Was she imagining things, or had her hair lost some of its shine? It used to look better than this. She stepped back to the mirror. And wasn’t her skin rather pale, despite all the time she’d been spending out in the fresh air? Had her eyes lost their sparkle? She put the brush down as a wave of sadness overcame her. She felt so old all of a sudden. Old and worn like a tool that had passed through many hands—this despite the fact that she had only fallen into one pair of hands. She gave a bitter laugh.

  It took some effort to shake herself out of the joyless mood. She gave her hair another fifty strokes of the brush and made faces at herself in the mirror as she did so, trying out various expressions. She had to radiate confidence. She wasn’t loo
king for Mr. Woolworth’s sympathy—she wanted a contract.

  No sooner had she finished putting up her hair than she was assailed by more doubts: Wasn’t this hairstyle a bit too old-fashioned? The American must be used to women who were the height of style. She gently teased out a few strands, making sure not to ruin what she had just achieved and skeptically turned her head to the left and right. Yes, that was better, but now it looked rather too playful. She wound the strands around her finger until they curled gently. Much better. Glancing coquettishly at herself in the mirror, she decided she was still very pretty. And there was no point trying to compete with high-society ladies. She would just have to make the best of what she had.

  With a practiced motion, she pulled her dress on over her head without putting even a hair out of place. She would have liked to wear her wedding dress, but that would have been impossible in the August heat. So she had settled for her second-best dress: the color was nothing impressive—a dull brown—but it was a well-cut garment with plenty of fabric and especially luxuriant skirts. The brown complemented her skin nicely. As she was putting on a necklace that Marie had recently made her from glass beads and silver wire, she suddenly had an idea. She ran out to the back of the house, picked a bunch of daisies, then hurried back into the washhouse and twined some of them into her hair. She pinned a final posy onto the shoulder of her dress. At last she was happy with how she looked.

  When she went back into the house, Marie was about to leave for work.

  “The basket with the baubles is out in the hallway. I put the biggest pieces on top, just make sure nothing gets cracked.”

  “And? Did she notice anything?”

  “Johanna?” Marie shook her head. “Either she was pretending to be asleep when I went into the room to fetch the basket or she really was asleep. She didn’t make a sound at any rate.”

  Ruth breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God. I wouldn’t want to explain all this to her.” She turned to go into the kitchen and drink a quick cup of coffee.