The Glassblower (The Glassblower Trilogy Book 1)

by Durst-Benning, Petra

  Marie caught her sleeve. “Are you sure you’ll manage? I mean, you haven’t been to Sonneberg much.”

  “Why can’t you trust me just a little?” Ruth asked, upset. “I’m no less intelligent than Johanna, am I? As long as I catch the slate-maker on his cart, I can be in town in no time. And if not . . .” She shrugged. “Then I’ll just have to walk; I do know the way.”

  “But then the American will be out visiting the wholesalers by the time you get there,” Marie protested. “And how will you find him then? Even if you cross paths somewhere in town, it’s not as though you can just stop him on the street and introduce yourself.”

  Ruth gnawed at her lip. “That’s the only thing that worries me,” she admitted. “I’ve even wondered whether I should try to find out which hotel he’s staying at.”

  “And then?”

  “Don’t play the fool,” Ruth said, shaking her head disapprovingly. “Then I could wait for him there.”

  “That’s certainly one way to do it,” Marie conceded. “But what if he doesn’t speak German?”

  “Marie!” Ruth cried. “We talked about all that at length last night. He must know German. How else would he even get by? I can’t imagine that every wholesaler in town speaks English.” She turned abruptly and went into the kitchen. “And now I don’t want to hear another word about it. The more I think of it, the more nervous I get.”

  14

  When Marie left, Ruth went upstairs. She lifted Wanda from her cot, hastily changed her diaper, and then took her into the next room. Carefully she put Wanda down next to Johanna in bed, whereupon her daughter looked at her wide-eyed. Ruth hoped that she wouldn’t start to cry.

  “What’s all this?” Johanna said ungraciously.

  “You’ll have to take care of Wanda today. I’m going out, and I’m not sure when I’ll be back. I might even be gone for the night.” As she spoke Ruth realized that she hadn’t considered that possibility until now. But it wasn’t all that unlikely, given that she might have to wait some time for Mr. Woolworth . . .

  Johanna sat up in bed and took Wanda onto her lap.

  “You’re going out? Overnight, perhaps?” There was a note of curiosity in her voice. “Are you meeting Thomas?”

  Ruth gave a noncommittal shrug. Johanna could believe whatever she liked. She tried to estimate what a night in a hotel might cost, and what she would have to take with her. She felt sick at the thought that she might have to take a room somewhere. Could a woman alone even do such a thing? And it must cost a fortune! Her palms were damp with trepidation as she took a fresh nightshirt from the wardrobe; she could pack her hairbrush and a few other things down in the washhouse. Then she went back to Johanna’s bed.

  “How do I look?” She did a little pirouette. When Johanna didn’t answer straightaway, she felt her self-confidence wilt. Then she saw the admiration in Johanna’s eyes.

  “You look lovely. Any man who sees you will be enchanted, believe me,” her sister said at last. She sounded absolutely convinced—and convincing.

  Ruth, who had been discreetly holding her breath, heaved a sigh of relief. With any luck, what Johanna had just said would hold true for American businessmen.

  “She hasn’t had anything to eat yet,” she said, nodding toward her daughter. “Can I ask you to take care of her? Marie can give you a hand this evening.”

  “Of course I’ll look after her. What a question,” Johanna said. She tickled Wanda’s tummy, and the baby began to giggle.

  Ruth had to bite back an unkind reply. There had been precious little “of course” from Johanna these past few days. She cleared her throat.

  “I don’t like to ask, but . . . could you lend me a little money?”

  Johanna frowned. “Why do you need money if you’re seeing Thomas?”

  “I . . . umm, I have . . . an idea,” Ruth stuttered. “So what do you say? Can you?”

  “Help yourself. No need to get worked up.” Johanna raised her hands in an appeasing gesture. “You know where my purse is. Just take what you need.”

  A smile played across Ruth’s lips. If only it could all be as easy as this . . .

  She suddenly felt bold and fearless. She stopped in the doorway and turned around.

  “Wish me luck!” Grinning, she blew them both a kiss.

  She could feel Johanna’s surprised glance following her down the stairs.

  She had just reached the outskirts of Steinach when the slate-maker who always used to pick up Johanna came around the corner with his old nag and rickety cart. Seeing Ruth, he drew up alongside her and let her climb on. Instead of putting the basket full of Marie’s Christmas globes in the back of the cart with his crates of slates and pencils, she put it down between her legs. As they clip-clopped along the road, they passed several of the village women who were on their way to town to run errands. Ruth looked at their wicker carrying packs and was reminded of the ants she had seen on the forest floor when she had met Thomas there. Unlike the busy little ants, however, these women were clearly marked by hard work. They crept along the path, many of them with pain showing on their faces, their backs bent under their loads and their hands wiping away sweat or brushing away flies. Ruth knew how heavy a pack like that could be when it was filled with glass, and she wouldn’t have traded places with them for anything in the world. Suddenly, she felt terribly important sitting up there in the slate cart.

  Once they reached Sonneberg, she shouldered her pack and marched off. Nobody paid any attention to her; the town was full of women like her delivering wares. The narrow streets were heaving with activity: mail coaches, carriages, people on foot—all trying to get wherever they were going faster than anyone else. More than once Ruth was roughly shoved aside and had to struggle to recover her balance. She was so worried that her fragile wares might break that she ended up walking close to the houses. Her eyes darted around the streets all the while. The air was thick with the sound of voices speaking in Saxon and Thuringian dialects, as well as foreign languages. Ruth began to feel that her fears had been justified; it would be a small miracle if she actually met the American tycoon in this crowd. The only sensible thing to do was to track him down at his hotel.

  Though she was parched with thirst and desperately wanted a glass of fresh lemonade or at least some cold water, she headed straight to the photographer’s studio, where the pictures of Wanda were still waiting to be collected.

  The photographer was much less polite than he had been during her first visit, and she wondered whether he too had heard the rumors that Johanna was a thief. He muttered angrily to himself as he slowly searched through a box for the envelope with her photographs. As Ruth stood there, her face expressionless, she felt her chances of getting any useful information from him dwindling. But as soon as she saw the pictures of Wanda, she couldn’t help chuckling with delight. Her daughter looked like a little princess!

  Her enthusiasm had an infectious quality, and the photographer smiled as well.

  “I knew that these pictures would turn out to be something special! All très, très chic!” he remarked, with undisguised pride in his artistic achievement. “Look at the lighting! And how clear the lines are!”

  Ruth beamed at him. “They are the most beautiful photographs I have seen in my life!” she said truthfully. He didn’t need to know that they were also the only ones she had ever seen. She paid him the price they had agreed.

  “It was my pleasure, Madame.”

  Ruth decided to try a little flattery. Perhaps that was the way to get him to open up. “You’re a true artist. The people of Sonneberg should count themselves lucky to have a photographer like you in their midst. I should imagine you must be flooded with work, are you not?”

  The man’s face fell. “You would think so, wouldn’t you?”

  “But . . . ?” Ruth raised her eyebrows and toyed with a curl of hair.

&nbs
p; He snorted. “Dolls, glass, toys—all they think about in this town is selling!”

  Ruth rejoiced inwardly. “And the foreigners? After all, that American gentleman has been in town since yesterday, and everyone’s expecting great things from his visit. I’m sure he would know the value of a fine photographer such as yourself.”

  The man snorted again. “Not at all,” he said and waved a hand dismissively. “Not him. He seems to be a most parsimonious fellow.”

  “But . . . I thought . . . given all that we’ve heard about this Mr. Woolworth . . .”

  “Oh no! When he’s buying for business, money’s no object!” The man was clearly happy to tell Ruth his woes. “Which is why the wholesalers all bow and scrape before him. Just this morning, the two Americans walked past my studio, and the wholesalers were all buzzing around them like moths around a flame!” He adopted a mocking tone. “‘Step this way, sir! Do come in! No, this way first if you please!’ But they don’t give the rest of us the time of day. He’s even staying at the cheapest hotel in town, and they say that he orders the simplest meals on the menu.”

  Ruth swallowed. That didn’t sound like the man she’d been expecting to meet. She also noted that Woolworth had apparently not come alone.

  “I’ve never seen an American,” she confessed. “What does this Woolworth look like?”

  “Oh, chérie,” the photographer said, taking her hand across the counter and patting it. “He looks the way middle-aged men look. An ill-fitting suit, a bit of a belly, glasses, thinning hair.”

  Ruth couldn’t conceal her disappointment.

  “What were you expecting?” the man asked, amused. “You know, businessmen from all over the world come to Sonneberg—after all, I ended up here as well—but I learned one thing about them long ago: whether they come from Hamburg, Rome, or New York, in the end, they’re only human like the rest of us.”

  By the time Ruth left the studio, she knew that Woolworth was staying at the Sun Hotel, and she had drunk a glass of water, which assuaged her thirst.

  15

  Ruth spent the whole day near the hotel, keeping an eye on the entrance. But there was no sign of Woolworth at lunchtime, or all through the afternoon. Ruth’s feet ached, and the heat was making her unbearably thirsty again. She had leaned her basket up against a birch tree, but it offered little shade. As the hours passed, the shade disappeared altogether, and the heat became worse. Ruth found herself thinking of Wanda and felt like crying. The daisies in her hair had wilted and shriveled away. Ruth plucked them out, one by one, and threw them away. Her ringlets had lost their curl and hung limply, framing her face. Dark patches of sweat showed through her dress and Ruth grew more and more anxious: How would she ever make a good impression in this bedraggled state?

  Passersby on the street cast curious or even suspicious glances at her, and in the end she felt so desperate that she plucked up her nerve and went into the hotel. It was so cool in the lobby that it was like plunging into cold water after the heat outside. Although she already knew that it was the cheapest hotel in town, she was struck by how sparsely furnished it was. There was only an unstaffed reception desk and a wooden bench. Ruth sat down on the bench and had hardly been there for five minutes when a door opened behind the desk and a man came toward her with a hostile look on his face.

  “What do you want?”

  Ruth shifted forward on the bench.

  “I’m waiting for a guest,” she replied with all the poise she could muster.

  The man looked her up and down.

  “And are you a guest of our establishment yourself, Madame?”

  “No, I—”

  “You can’t wait here then,” he said, grabbing her sleeve roughly and pulling her to her feet. “We don’t want peddlers here,” he hissed in her ear.

  The next moment Ruth found herself back outside in the August heat. She glared over her shoulder at the man. What a pig! It wouldn’t have inconvenienced anyone to allow her to sit on the bench a little longer.

  She didn’t dare loiter about in front of the hotel any longer. That man would probably go and fetch the police if she did. Half carrying and half dragging her basket, she walked around the corner. She felt a lump forming in her throat and tears gathering in her eyes. Her shoulders drooping—both from the weight of the basket and disappointment—Ruth came to a stop.

  “You silly clod!” The man’s voice rang out again and Ruth opened her eyes with a start. “How can anyone be so stupid? The bedspreads, I said! The bedspreads! Not the pillows!”

  Ruth breathed out. She couldn’t see who he was yelling at this time, but at least it wasn’t her. Only then did she realize that she was standing at the back of the hotel. There were half a dozen washing lines stretched across its narrow backyard, all hung with shabby-looking pillows that had odd stains and not enough stuffing. Among them stood a chambermaid, almost hidden from view by the towering figure of the hotelier standing in front of her.

  When the man left, the young woman began to take the pillows down from the lines. Ruth looked at her over the fence. She had small eyes and her mouth was set in a grim line that didn’t suit her rosy cheeks. Ruth cleared her throat.

  “Your boss seems to be a harsh taskmaster.”

  The maid turned her head. “So? What’s that to do with you?” she spat.

  “Nothing at all,” Ruth said with disarming honesty. “It’s just that I got on the wrong side of him myself a few minutes ago.”

  The girl looked at her mistrustfully but didn’t ask any questions. She continued to tug at the pillows, pulling them off the line without bothering to unclip the pegs.

  Ruth told her what had happened anyway. “I was sitting there on the bench as quiet as a mouse. I only wanted to wait for someone.” Tears sprang to her eyes again at the thought of all her wasted effort. She fished a handkerchief from her purse and blew her nose.

  “That’s a fine necklace you’ve got,” the chambermaid said, having obviously decided to talk to Ruth after all.

  “Do you think so? My sister made it. She’s very clever at that sort of thing.” Ruth recognized the greed in the young woman’s eyes. “Here! Why don’t you try it on?” It only took her a moment to open the clasp and she held out the necklace over the fence.

  “May I really?”

  Ruth stretched her arm out farther. “Would I have offered otherwise? I know it will suit you nicely.” She swung the necklace from side to side.

  At last the girl reached out, taking it as reverently as if she held the emperor’s crown.

  “I’ve never had a piece of jewelry like this. Just a clasp for my hair. I could never buy myself anything as lovely as this with the money that old skinflint pays me!”

  Ruth’s heart beat faster. “If you like, you can have the necklace, I just need you to do me a little favor . . .”

  A short while later, as the hotelier was on his way to the bank, Ruth went into the hotel through the service entrance. She followed her guide swiftly across the worn parquet floor and up a narrow staircase. Keys rattled and a door opened.

  “This could cost me my job, so whatever you do, don’t get caught!” the chambermaid whispered as she peered over her shoulder at the stairs.

  Before Ruth could thank the girl, the door shut behind her. And Ruth was standing in Frank Winfield Woolworth’s room.

  The next few hours were at least as nerve-racking as the day spent in the baking sunshine. The longer Ruth waited there alone, the more scared she felt by the sheer effrontery of what she was doing.

  It must have been about eight o’clock in the evening when she heard voices in the corridor. Ruth’s heart began to beat wildly. What if they thought she had broken in? That she was a burglar? Where should she be standing when the man came in? At the window? Right by the door? By the table where she had set out Marie’s baubles on a white cloth she had brought with her? As
the voices drew nearer she hurried over to the table. Dear God, please don’t let him throw me out immediately, she prayed silently.

  “Actually, I agree with you,” she heard a man’s voice saying in measured tones. “But with all the expenses . . .” A key fumbled in the lock.

  Please, God, make . . .

  The door opened. A man came in and stopped, rooted to the spot, surprised and clearly angered as well.

  “What the heck are you doing in my room?”

  Ruth didn’t need a translation.

  “I’ve come from Lauscha,” she replied in German. “I . . .”

  Ruth hardly ever prayed but she began again now. Dear God, let him understand German. She gestured helplessly and swallowed. Her throat was dry. “I’d like to show you something.” She pointed to the table and tried to smile. “Christmas globes.”

  Woolworth stared at her uncomprehendingly and with a distinctly unfriendly look on his face.

  She clenched her hands around the back of a chair, just in case he planned to throw her out of the room.

  Then another man walked in.

  Ruth glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and instantly forgot what she had been trying to say. She had never seen such a handsome man in her life!

  The two men talked to one another for a moment and then went to the table.

  A moment later, the famous Mr. Woolworth was holding a glass globe, one painted with an ice-crystal pattern. Though the room was quite dark, the globe picked up what light there was and seemed to sparkle and glow. He turned again to his companion, and they exchanged a few words in English. He picked up a second globe, then a third. When he next spoke, his voice was oddly hoarse.

  Though Ruth couldn’t understand a word, she could tell that the man was interested. She unclenched her hands on the chair a little. Just when she had plucked up the courage to take another look at the handsome assistant, he turned to her. Their eyes met over the sparkle of Marie’s globe.