The American Lady (The Glassblower Trilogy Book 2)

by Petra Durst-Benning

  “You don’t seriously intend to climb into that fishpond!”

  The first fallen leaves of the season were floating on the surface of the water, and hundreds of midges flew up from the tub as Pandora approached.

  “Don’t I indeed! Didn’t you hear Ida’s lecture about how water can magnify the sun’s healing powers? Apart from which, I’m frightfully hot!” Pandora let the towel fall from her body and began to dance naked around the tub.

  “You have to dance to the music in your heart . . .” she sang, then jumped into the tub with a raucous splash. Stagnant water dribbled down its mossy sides.

  “It seems to me that there are others who can hear the music in your heart as well . . .” Susanna pointed uphill, where a group of men were practicing archery—though at the moment none of them were looking at the targets at all, for their eyes were fixed on Pandora’s breasts.

  “Let them stare. Maybe they’ll be so . . . excited by what they see that there’ll be something for us to look at as well,” Pandora said, giggling. She stood up with exaggerated slowness and turned around once, then dove down into the water again. “Well, do you see anything moving?”

  Marie and the others all giggled. They had already cracked a few jokes about the tiny loincloths that the archers wore.

  Once she lay down in the sun, Marie realized that she was really quite tired. Her eyelids drooped. How nice to nod off for a while in the middle of the day! Whatever would Johanna say to such a change in her habits? She grinned.

  “You look like the cat that got the cream,” Sherlain said, as she sat up to untangle her red hair.

  “That’s how I feel,” Marie said, stretching out on her towel. “I was just thinking how much my life has changed since I left Lauscha.” She smiled. But she wasn’t the only one to have blossomed with the change of scenery. Sherlain had recovered astonishingly fast after the botched abortion.

  “It’s just as I always say: you have to get out of your rut. If you only want it to be, life can be one huge adventure!” Pandora called over from her tub.

  Marie rolled her eyes. Sometimes Pandora rubbed her the wrong way with that worldly manner of hers. But then again, she was often right . . .

  There she was, Marie Steinmann, lying stark-naked on a mountainside in Ascona above Lake Maggiore with three other women, none of whom she had known for more than a few weeks. All around her, exotic plants were growing on the rock faces, and waterfalls were tumbling down in an Eden she had never even known existed before now. People were singing wordless melodies, strolling about with flowers in their hair, and moving in ways that even Pandora couldn’t quite fathom. By now Marie and her friends had learned that this kind of dance was called eurhythmy, and Pandora was so carried away by it that she got up hours before her usual time to practice. She and the other dancers could be seen at daybreak, when tendrils of mist still veiled the lake, moving along the shore like a fairy cavalcade.

  Everybody here—apart from a few oddballs—was friendly and smiling and loving. Many of them seemed to take “love thy neighbor” quite literally. Love was in the air, and people kissed and hugged and stroked and touched one another whenever they felt inclined to do so. It was a sensual and erotic backdrop for the playground of Monte Verità.

  Once Marie had realized just how unconventional relationships were here on the mountain, she began to worry that Sherlain might simply pick up where she had left off in New York. And lo and behold: it took less than a week for Sherlain to go into raptures over Franz Hartmann, one of the founders of the commune, and his “powerful words,” his “sacred devotion to principles,” and his “gaze that drank in the starry skies.” Marie and Franco laughed about the strange words people used here on Monte Verità, but Sherlain was quite intoxicated by the “honey wine of mountain poesy.”

  Marie snorted in derision at the idea that Sherlain had fallen for someone who preached morals morning, noon, and night. Just a couple of days before, Franz had walked past their cabin as Marie and Franco were having a pillow fight on the wooden deck. How he had looked down his nose at them!

  “Are you off to bring your body and soul into harmony with nature, then, you loon?” Franco called out to him. Franz didn’t react but walked on, his hands folded in prayer and his eyes turned to the sky, whereupon Franco giggled and whispered to Marie, “He’s halfway to Heaven already!”

  “Or he’s taking his nourishment from the forest air,” she answered. Then they raced into the cabin and made passionate love.

  A shiver ran down Marie’s spine. Even if all the Greek gods of Olympus came down and danced stark-naked, holding hands right here on Monte Verità, Franco was the only man for her. She would never have believed she could find such happiness in a man’s arms. The way he . . .

  Someone shook her arm, tearing her away from her daydreams. When she opened her eyes, Susanna was in front of her, an expectant look on her face.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t listening. What did you say?”

  “I just asked whether you wanted to go and see Katharina von Oy later on.”

  “Mmm!” Marie said noncommittally and shut her eyes again. She suddenly felt sick. She opened her mouth and took several big gulps of air to fight the nausea. It seemed the nightmare had really upset her. She hadn’t the least desire to get up from the soft mossy hillside where the sunshine warmed her skin. Quite apart from which, Susanna had already promised several times to take her to see the glassblower who lived up on the slopes above Ascona in a sort of hermitage, but nothing had come of it yet.

  Katharina von Oy used to live in the commune with everybody else. However, once the sanatorium had opened up, and more and more visitors came to the mountain, she had left the hubbub and gone to live in a lonely forest shack. She made a living making pictures in glass, which were sold to tourists down in the village. Of course Marie was interested in what kind of glasswork people liked here, and she had not the first idea what pictures in glass might be. Did it mean stained-glass windows, like those found in churches?

  “If you wait for my dance lesson to finish before you go for your walk, I’ll come with you,” Pandora muttered sleepily.

  “You? Why do you want to go and visit a glass artist?” Marie asked in surprise. “Are you considering a career change?”

  “Nonsense. I just want to see how she lives. Ask her a few questions. How she came to own the land. How much it cost, that sort of thing. Lukas tells me that after phylloxera killed off most of the vineyards hereabouts a lot of land was sold off for cheap. Who knows? Perhaps I can afford a little cabin here myself. I’m not going back to New York, that’s for sure.”

  “You would stay here? Don’t you think you’d miss the hustle and bustle of the city?”

  Pandora stretched her right leg up into the air, admired it for a moment, and then crossed it gracefully over the left. “I won’t miss anybody or anything. Quite the opposite. I’ve never been able to concentrate so completely on dance as I have here. I seem to feel the air vibrating around me. You have to dance to the music in your heart . . .” she sang again.

  “Lukas and I knew this would happen,” Susanna said triumphantly. The next moment, though, she frowned fiercely. “Pandora, darling—you’re not lying right, again! How often do I have to show you how to sunbathe? This is how you have to do it, watch!” She lay down flat on her back with her arms and legs stretched wide, her back slightly arched, her face to the sun.

  “I’ll lie however I like,” Pandora grumbled. “If I lay the way you told me to, I’d feel like I was on a rack.”

  Marie, who was lying on her belly, giggled. “I don’t find it all that pleasant either, to tell the truth. You feel so defenseless . . .”

  “That’s right, isn’t it?” Pandora said emphatically. “And I always worry that a bug will crawl in between my legs. Or even get into my bottom.” She laughed merrily.

  “The way you lot chatter away,
it’s worse than having to listen to the magpies cawing on the balcony,” Sherlain grumbled.

  The others looked over at her. Unlike the others, Sherlain had assumed the prescribed Monte Verità sunbathing position. Her hair lay spread out over the green moss like a ring of flame, making her look more than ever like a Celtic goddess.

  The four women sunbathed in silence for a while, and Pandora even began to snore. Marie smiled to herself. She had never known her friend to be so relaxed.

  In New York Sherlain and Pandora had been birds of paradise, praised and adored for their eccentricities—while here they were just two people among a whole crowd of self-appointed creative geniuses. Life on Monte Verità seemed to be doing both of them good. When she was honest with herself, Marie found the constant quest for wisdom rather silly. And it was almost shocking the way they thundered against alcohol here. Franz Hartmann stridently preached the message that wine and beer were only for the weak-willed, and many of the residents lapped it up, so to speak. Sherlain hadn’t drunk a drop since she had arrived at Monte Verità, but Pandora wasn’t quite so self-denying. The same held true with regard to meat. The hard-liners here talked of meat as carrion and held that it polluted both body and spirit. Marie rather liked the meals of sliced apple, grated carrot, and kohlrabi, but Franco refused to try being a vegetarian even for a short while.

  “The whole of Ascona enjoys la dolce vita and I’m supposed to eat rabbit food?” he had said right at the start. He had since gone down to the village for at least one meal a day. Now and then Marie and Pandora joined him, but Marie always felt guilty after indulging in prosciutto and other meats. Besides, Italian food was bad for the figure. She had never been as plump as she was now.

  Franco however had the time of his life strutting through the narrow streets of Ascona with Marie on his right arm and Pandora on his left. Whenever they sat down in a tavern, he insisted on picking up Pandora’s check as well, which was beginning to get on Marie’s nerves since the dancer didn’t show the least sign of gratitude—quite the opposite in fact.

  “How can you make so much money in the red wine trade when it sells for so cheap all over the world? Who knows what business you’re really in?” she had teased him just the other evening, at which point Marie gave her a hard nudge in the ribs. Franco had once told her in no uncertain terms that aristocrats thought it very coarse to discuss business affairs, and that was the last time she had asked where all his money came from. All she had meant was that she didn’t like the thought that he always paid for everything, but he had put on such dreadful airs that she had changed the subject . . . And maybe it wasn’t so bad to let him spoil her.

  Marie sighed contentedly. She seemed to have it all these days. The best lover in the world and . . .

  “What do you think, Marie?” she heard all of a sudden in her right ear. “You’re an artist yourself, wouldn’t you like that? It would be like Greenwich Village on a mountainside.”

  “I’m sorry? What do I think of what now?” Marie blinked in the sunlight and looked up into Pandora’s face.

  “Admit it, you weren’t even listening!”

  Marie smiled ruefully. “I’m sorry; I must have been daydreaming.”

  “I don’t think I need to ask what you were dreaming about! Are you so much in love that you’re losing track?” Pandora said, peering at her irritably, and then turned back to Sherlain. “I’m sticking with what I said before—if nobody but artists came to live here, it would be just a ghetto and it would do art more harm than good!”

  “Which is exactly where I disagree with you. You’d get something like the purest form of art, crystallizing from the very air.”

  Marie looked from Pandora to Sherlain and back again in confusion. What on earth were they talking about?

  “Don’t worry about it,” Susanna said, her breath tickling her right ear. She came over so close that Marie could smell her body odor. “When I was in your condition, I couldn’t concentrate on anything for half an hour at a time either. I felt so restless—and so sick every morning! It’s the hormones, they say. Anyway I hear that there are doctors now who specialize in just this sort of thing.”

  Sherlain and Pandora turned their heads like bloodhounds picking up an interesting new scent.

  “A doctor? My condition? What do you mean?” Marie frowned.

  For a moment Susanna looked at her in astonishment; then a knowing grin spread across her sunburned face.

  “Well really, Marie, you don’t have to play the innocent with us! Here on Monte Verità we take a fairly relaxed view of that sort of thing as you know. Or are you really worried one of us might be shocked at the news?” Susanna seemed to be enjoying the moment enormously and glanced over at the others to be sure she had their attention. “How daft does she think we are?”

  “Pardon me if I’m a little slow this morning, but I still don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  Susanna’s knowing remarks were beginning to get on Marie’s nerves. The woman always seemed to have to let the whole world know how smart she was.

  “Apart from having had a bad dream that left me feeling a little queasy, I’m perfectly all right. My hormones are certainly all in order,” she said, and rolled over onto her stomach to show that the conversation was over.

  “I see what it is now,” Pandora said, groaning. “Oh no! Is it true? Marie, tell us—are you really . . . pregnant?”

  4

  Harold took his watch from his pocket for the umpteenth time and toyed with its gold chain. His heart gave a little leap of joy, as always, when he opened the lid and heard that satisfying click. As a little boy he had longed to have a pocket watch and now he had one—gilded, at that! He brushed away an imaginary wisp of lint from the watch glass and shut the lid. He would never indulge in this newfangled habit of wearing his watch on his wrist, the way some of his colleagues did!

  He frowned and looked over at the door.

  Where was Wanda? They were supposed to meet at eight o’clock, and now it was twenty past. I should have insisted on picking her up at home, he thought irritably. At least then he wouldn’t have had to worry about whether she was all right.

  The waiter in tails who had been hovering near Harold’s table ever since he sat down took a step closer.

  “Perhaps monsieur would like to choose a wine first? Or should I bring the menu?”

  “No, thank you. I’m still waiting for someone.”

  “May I bring monsieur an aperitif?”

  “No,” Harold replied irritably. He hoped this restaurant wouldn’t turn out to be the wrong choice—he wanted the setting to be just right, tonight of all nights. His right hand wandered involuntarily to the breast pocket of his jacket. The little leather case felt cool and smooth to the touch.

  The waiter hesitated a moment longer, then stepped back and waited three paces away from Harold’s table, his hands clasped behind his back.

  Harold took a sip of his glass of water.

  They could have met at Mickey’s Brooklyn Bar, of course. Or at one of the Italian restaurants they both liked. But Harold wanted more than just beer or spaghetti on this occasion, and a fancy French restaurant seemed just the thing.

  Besides, he knew that he wouldn’t be confronted with German grilled wurst and potato dumplings here. He would hear no German conversation and no German songs. There were no German flags hanging on the wall and although the waiter was rather insistent, at least he wasn’t wearing German folk costume. Thank goodness!

  Harold kept an eye on the door as he tried to count up how many German clubs and patriotic societies Wanda had visited over the past three weeks. She had gone to the Black Forest Brotherhood, the Mecklenburg Ladies’ League, the Hamburg Harmony Choir, and even to the Banat Swabian Society. And every time, she had given him a detailed account of each little clan’s customs—in glowing terms. She told him all about the sense of c
ommunity that bound them together. About the patriotism that shone through in every word and every action. She still didn’t know which of the clubs she actually wanted to join. She liked the North Germans’ songs best, but the Bavarians had the best food, and the Swabians had the most impressive rituals and ceremonies. At the moment, Wanda was most inclined to join the Banat Swabian Society. When Harold had arrived to take her out for a walk last weekend, he had found her bent over her needlework, embroidering a sentimental slogan about the waters of the Danube and the lush green fields along its banks. She showed him her work proudly, although frankly, she had made quite a mess even though she was barely past the first word. Her mother was visibly annoyed by the whole thing, but what influence had Ruth Miles ever had over her daughter’s flights of fancy?

  Harold smiled. Wanda! It was really something to watch her launch herself into her latest project, every single time.

  Ever since Marie had left, she had been consumed by the idea of rediscovering her German roots. Wanda’s obsessions reminded him of some of his Wall Street colleagues, who were never happy with their profits and always wondered what would have happened if they had invested just a little more money, held onto their stocks just a little longer. Some of them couldn’t get such thoughts out of their heads and turned into virtual monomaniacs. Harold had long ago decided that although he enjoyed his job he never wanted to turn into one of them.

  The latest bee in Wanda’s bonnet had given him one thing to be grateful for: there was no more talk of her finding a job. Rather she spent her days browsing in German shops and reading books about Germany. Whenever they met, she wanted to tell him all about what she had been reading, in German of course. The fact that he only spoke a phrase or two didn’t stop her at all. She offered to teach him German if he liked—it was her mother tongue after all, she said! Harold had refused as gracefully as he could.

  He turned the glass of water around and around in his hands. He was looking forward to what might come next. If Wanda turned out to be just as enthusiastic about preparing for the wedding, and then keeping house afterward, there wouldn’t be much left of his salary at the end of every month despite his recent raise. Well never mind that! It was high time Wanda found her “mission in life”—she’d been looking for one for as long as he’d known her.