Konstantin Sokerov was present at almost every party Flora attended. Each time Flora saw him, she hoped that he might come a little closer to her. The thought excited her as much as it made her anxious. What was she supposed to say to the good-looking man? Should she curtsy as she did with the older guests? If she did, she knew she would feel strange, because he was, at most, just a few years older than she was. What would she talk about with him? No doubt he would find her terribly dull . . .
The chance that Konstantin Sokerov might make his way through the throng of guests at one of those events was slim. The moment he entered a room, he was surrounded by women who laughed too loudly at his jokes, flushing red and fanning themselves furiously. Usually, he had Princess Stropolski on his arm, and she laughed louder than anyone else at his humor.
How can anyone make such a fuss? Flora wondered.
Normally, it was well past midnight when Flora—with swollen feet and a sore back, but happy—made it home from one of those parties.
Even so, she was back on her feet again the next morning the moment it was light.
“I really don’t know why you don’t just give up picking flowers yourself and sleep a little longer,” said Ernestine one morning, when Flora returned to the store with an armful of ferns. “Mr. Flumm will be coming soon. Why not just buy what you need from him?”
“Because the wildflowers have become something like my trademark,” Flora replied. “Besides, many of them are important in the language of flowers. These ferns, for example—”
She did not finish her sentence, because the door to the store opened. It was not the expected nurseryman, however, but a man in uniform.
When Flora recognized the policeman that Else Walbusch had dragged into the store the previous year, she was momentarily taken aback. Then she recovered herself and said with a smile, “I haven’t poisoned anybody this time. These ferns are completely harmless, I can assure you.” She heaved the green bundle that she had cut in a clearing in the forest into a bucket of fresh water.
“Mrs. Sonnenschein, I have to inform you that we have received a complaint about you for vandalism of the woods and meadows along Lichtenthaler Allee. I have received a statement asserting that you cut rare plants there almost every day.”
“Can you believe it? I can thank the women in Maison Kuttner for this, I’m sure of it,” said Flora to Ernestine and Mr. Flumm, who had just arrived.
The store door had just closed behind the departing officer. He had informed Flora that she had to appear in person at the station sometime during the day, where her own statement would be taken. In a grave voice, he had added that a court appearance was not out of the question. Flora had felt quite ill at his words. This was all she needed now that business was going well! Why couldn’t something just go along easily for once?
“What will they do to me? Will I have to go to prison?” She looked from one to the other despondently.
“And what will the people around here say when they get wind of this?” Ernestine chewed her bottom lip anxiously.
The elderly nurseryman lifted his hands dismissively. “Don’t go getting yourselves worked up. The most you’ll get is a fine. If it will help, I’ll testify on your behalf and tell them how you buy large quantities of flowers from me every week. I don’t think the vandalism charge will go very far.”
“You’d do that for me?” Flora’s heart was already a little lighter.
Flumm nodded. “But why is Josef Kuttner trying to blacken your name at all? That’s not something I’d expect among comrades in this business.”
“Comrades!” Ernestine spat the word. “He’s never looked on us like that. And now that we’re successful, he’s suddenly burning with envy.” Her face had flushed bright red. “What he has done is simply wrong. Oh, I’d like to give him a piece of my mind.”
“Don’t worry,” said Flora grimly. “I have a much better idea.” She seemed to hesitate for a moment longer, then took a deep breath.
“Mr. Flumm, I need yellow flowers. Roses, lilies, whatever you have. This very morning!”
The nurseryman did not have to be asked twice. He hurried out to his delivery wagon and trundled off.
Another yellow rose here, a handful of marigolds there—Flora’s bouquet grew and grew. She stopped only when she could barely hold it in both hands. With a final flourish, she tucked half a dozen yellow silk ribbons among the flowers.
“Yellow, wherever you look! It’s marvelous,” Ernestine said reverently. She had sat and watched Flora assemble the entire thing. “But for whom is such a magnificent construction intended?”
When Flora told her, Ernestine could hardly believe her ears.
With the overflowing bouquet in her arms, Flora set off. When she arrived at Maison Kuttner, she noticed immediately that the shop seemed all but dead. One of the girls was dusting a shelf, and the rest were standing behind the counter looking bored. A pity—if it had been up to Flora, she would have wanted as many customers as possible to see her entrance.
As she stepped inside, a disbelieving murmur went through the room. The young woman dusting dropped her dustrag in astonishment.
Flora stifled a grin and let her eyes roam calmly around the room. “No esteemed clientele in sight?” She put on her sweetest smile. “I guess business isn’t quite as good as it was not so very long ago. Well, the cake’s been sliced differently this year, hasn’t it? But perhaps I can cheer you good ladies up a little.” In both hands, she held out her bouquet to the young women behind the counter. “A floral arrangement for a flower shop. At first glance, perhaps, a rather unusual choice.” She giggled affectedly. “But believe me, this is a bouquet you have honestly earned.”
The girls exchanged a mystified look.
“You know, in the language of flowers, yellow is the color of envy.” Flora looked from one to the other. “And in my entire life, I have never come across more envious women than you. As for your complaint to the police, all I can say is shame on you!” Her head held high, she turned toward the door, but with the doorknob still in her hand, she swung back a final time.
“If it had been up to me, we could have gone on existing peacefully side by side. Baden-Baden is big enough for two florists. But you’d better get used to hard times. Believe me, I’m going to steal as many customers away from you as I possibly can.”
The vandalism report went nowhere. Flora showed that no plant suffered any long-term detriment because of her, and the police dismissed the complaint.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Princess Gagarina came in this morning. Imagine that!” said Flora, looking across the lunch table to Friedrich and Ernestine.
It was the start of June. The season was in full swing, so sitting and eating lunch together had become a rare event. Flora had little appetite anyway. Oppressive humidity had been smothering the town for days, and on that particular day it was making her downright queasy. She had almost thrown up that very morning.
She picked at a piece of trout with her fork and acted as if she were lifting it to her mouth. It smelled very strong—had it gone off, perhaps?
“Princess Isabella Gagarina . . . It would not surprise me these days to hear that the Russian czar had come by,” said Friedrich, jabbing his fork into a potato.
“What if he did?” Flora said. “Don’t you think I could deal with him?”
“So, is it true that—” Ernestine began.
“Sabine! Where’s the sauce? The fish is bone-dry,” Flora shouted at the same moment.
Sabine came in with the saucière and a sour look on her face. She went around the table, but when she got to Flora, Flora held her hand over her plate. “I’ve changed my mind. In any case,” she went on, ignoring Sabine entirely, “the princess wants to celebrate an Italian-themed summer party in two weeks, and it’s my job to decorate her palace park for the occasion.”
Friedrich let out a derisive snort. “Gagarin Palace! When I hear that name . . . you know, before the princess spe
nt a fortune renovating it, it was just the old Schweiger mill. But a German name wasn’t good enough for the Russkies, apparently.”
“So what? What are you trying to say?”
“Children, now don’t start fighting,” Ernestine cut in as she dabbed the sweat from her brow with a small cloth. “Tell us about this Italian party. I can’t imagine what she has in mind.”
“Honestly, neither can I.” Flora frowned. “What do I know about Italy?”
Friedrich shook his head and said, “Italy in Baden-Baden? I wouldn’t put much past the Russians, but my Lord, what a mad idea that one is.” He looked at his wife. “I hope you turned it down? You don’t have to take every job that comes along anymore. Besides, I don’t like it that you go running around town at night, alone. We should have agreed on a fixed time long ago when I can come and collect you from your parties.”
Flora sniffed. “I wish it was as easy as that. Oh, Friedrich. Baden-Baden is a safe town. You worry too much.”
“Just yesterday,” Friedrich went on, “a vagrant began shouting abuse at a group of guests from the Holländer Hof. Particularly vile, I’m told. The man’s been drifting around town for quite some time, they say, and several thefts have been ascribed to him, but so far the police haven’t been able to collar him. I don’t want him to cross your path one night.”
“That’s all well and good, but Princess Gagarina is not someone I can just cancel with. Her opinion counts for too much around here. If this commission goes well, then . . . but you don’t understand that.” Friedrich could be impossible sometimes. Flora pushed her plate away angrily. What little appetite she’d had had vanished completely.
“Child, don’t drive yourself mad. You’re the darling of the season,” said Ernestine, and she patted Flora’s hand. “Oh, by the way. Josef Kuttner was in the Grüns’ pharmacy the day before yesterday. He did not look good at all, Gretel said, and he wanted something to help him sleep. Your success is robbing him of his sleep, I’ll wager.” Ernestine told her story with so much zeal that a chunk of fish fell off her fork without her noticing.
At least my mother-in-law is happy, Flora thought, unlike my husband.
She had to swallow a sob and felt tears welling in her eyes. She glared furiously at Friedrich. “That’s so typical of you. Now that the store is running well, it doesn’t suit you. Instead of helping me come up with a few good ideas for the Italian party, all you do is grumble and groan.” She let out a sob, then stood up abruptly and ran from the room.
“What was that all about?” Friedrich could only sit and watch helplessly as his wife ran out.
Ernestine pushed her own plate away. “Everything is simply too much for your wife right now. In winter, she was worried about the future, and now all the work and being afraid that she can’t live up to the standards the Russians demand. It’s no wonder she gets upset. And you really were not very helpful just now.”
Friedrich put down his fork and sighed. “You’re right, of course. Flora is completely overtaxed, and that’s why I feel sorry for her. I know very well how it feels to be responsible for a thousand things at once. When everyone wants something from you at the same time and the day already didn’t have enough hours in it . . . But how am I, of all people, supposed to help her with her Italian party?”
Sunflowers? Would they be the right thing for an Italian party? Or would she be better off with roses and—
Flora was halfway back into the store when Sabine grabbed her by the sleeve from behind.
“That fish was not dry in the slightest! And if you hiss at me like that one more time, I’ll be out the door before you know it! I can find a job like this one anywhere.”
Flora’s brow furrowed. “It wasn’t meant that way. I’m sorry, truly. But leave me alone now, I have to get back to work.”
But Sabine pushed between Flora and the store, blocking the entrance. “Irritable, no appetite—I’ve seen that often enough before, with my own mother. How long do you think you can pull the wool over our eyes?”
“What? What are you talking about?” Flora shook her head in confusion.
Sabine laughed. “Now don’t look at me all innocent like that. I’ve known for weeks that you’re expecting, and you’re already starting to show a little.”
“Show what . . . ?” Flora looked down at her stomach, which had been feeling quite bloated in recent days. She had put her queasiness down to the sultry weather and having so much to do that she forgot to drink enough water.
“That you’re pregnant. What else?” Sabine replied and rolled her eyes.
Flora collapsed against the wall. The nausea in the morning, and she had not had her period for two months—how could she have been so naïve?
“No, that can’t be true!” She let out a sob and threw herself onto Sabine’s shoulder.
“Now, now. Settle down,” Sabine murmured, and she stroked Flora’s head as if she were a small child. “You know, it’s strange in a way. You are so clever, but sometimes, you don’t have the faintest clue.”
Of course, Friedrich and his mother were overjoyed when Flora haltingly told them she was pregnant. Friedrich kissed Flora and excused himself a thousand times for his behavior at lunchtime. Then he hurriedly fetched writing paper so that they could tell Flora’s family the happy news right away.
“A grandchild! If only Kuno could have lived to see this,” Ernestine said, and she wiped a few tears from her eyes.
“A child . . . ,” said Flora.
Just two weeks until the Gagarins’ Italian party, and now I find out I’m pregnant . . .
Flora did not get any sleep that night. Of course she was happy. But couldn’t a child have waited a little while? In her mind, she calculated that the child would be born sometime in January or February. Maybe Sabine could give her a more accurate estimate; she seemed very well informed about such things.
That meant that she would be able to work through the rest of the season. But what would become of the seed trade in the winter?
She tossed and turned restlessly, pondering, preventing Friedrich from sleeping. He tried to take her in his arms, telling her that in her condition sleep was the best medicine, but Flora escaped his embrace. Finally, she climbed out of bed and went to pore over past issues of Die Gartenlaube, hoping to find something about Italy. But her efforts were in vain.
The following midday—Flora managed to eat a few noodles, but no more—Friedrich pushed a book across the table to her. “Goethe’s Italian Journey. I borrowed it for you from the reading room.”
Flora’s brow creased. “What am I supposed to do with it?”
Friedrich opened the book to a marked page and, in a solemn voice, recited:
Know’st thou the land where lemon trees do grow?
And oranges ’midst dark leaves golden glow?
With gentle winds from deep blue heavens fanned
The myrtle hushed, the laurel tall doth stand?
Know’st thou this land?
“That’s very pretty . . . but wait a moment. Oranges and lemons? Myrtle and laurel? That’s it!” Flora’s joyful whoop was so sudden that Friedrich and Ernestine jumped in surprise. Before Friedrich knew it, Flora had thrown her arms around his neck.
“I finally know the mood my flowers have to create. Oh, Friedrich, what would I do without you?”
The Italian summer party in the Gagarins’ garden was Flora’s greatest success. For the rest of the season, the guests raved about the lemon trees, about the silver plates on which she arranged oranges and white flowers into the most arresting still lifes, about the handwritten poems of Goethe that every guest was given, and about the water lilies drifting in enormous glass bowls filled with blue-tinted water.
Flora was made to feel like a celebrated artist, and from that night on no festivity or function was complete without her artfully conceived, lovingly executed arrangements.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Now that Flora was expecting a baby, it was even more importan
t to take some of the burden of running the shop off her. Ernestine was adamant about that, and after a few sleepless nights, she found a solution: Sabine would be her assistant. The maid would still be responsible for all the housework, but for the shopping and cooking a young widow from the neighborhood would come in every day to give Sabine the time she would need to help Flora in the shop.
Nobody asked Sabine’s opinion, however. She would have been ten times happier to have someone come in to take over the drudgery of her housework and to let her continue her work in her beloved kitchen.
Flora was satisfied with the new arrangement. With Sabine’s help, she would get through the season well enough. But as far as Friedrich was concerned, she still spent far too many hours in the shop.
“In this kind of muggy August heat, you should be sitting in the garden and putting your feet up,” he said one evening when they went to bed. “My goodness, look at yourself!” He pointed at Flora’s legs, which were so swollen that she winced and cried out a little when Friedrich touched them.
“It’s just a little water in the legs. It’s not so bad,” she managed to say. “My mother wrote that it would go away again. I can’t just sit around in the garden—what if someone important walked in just then?”
“Shall I?” Friedrich held up the bottle of medicinal alcohol, and then he heaved Flora’s legs onto his lap to work the spirit in. “I wouldn’t be surprised if our child came into the world behind the counter,” he said.
Flora laughed. “Then I would certainly be very much like my mother. She gave birth to me while she was working out in the fields. Oh, Friedrich, I know you mean well, but I find the work so enjoyable. Oh, that feels good,” she added with a sigh as he massaged her legs.
Friedrich smiled. He was happy that his wife managed everything so well and so uncomplainingly. He had not been able to find the time to be much help to her; in the evenings, he rarely returned home before nine.
“What a crazy summer it’s been. I have never worked as many hours at the Trinkhalle as I have this year.”
The Flower Shop (The Seed Traders' Saga Book 2) Page 22