The American Lady (The Glassblower Trilogy Book 2)

by Petra Durst-Benning

  Then we went to visit Richard Stämme in his workshop. Before we knocked at the door I joked to Johannes that I couldn’t drink another cup of coffee, not with all the goodwill in the world, but Johannes simply said that Richard was not going to offer me any. Probably another old fellow like Moritz the marble-maker, I thought to myself—you know who I mean, the poor soul who can hardly see a thing but still makes the most wonderful marbles. He even gave me one as a present, with all the colors of the rainbow inside. And he let me sit down at his bench and try my hand at . . .

  “Marie, mia cara—it’s all very nice of course that Wanda tells you everything in such detail, but do I have to listen to it all?” Franco said, waving his hand impatiently. “Quite apart from which—how does any of that tell you that Wanda is in love? She hasn’t said a word about it yet.”

  “The giveaway comes a little later, hold on . . .” Marie leafed through the pages hectically. “Where is it now . . . ?”

  Franco sighed. “I did promise Father that I would have these papers ready by tomorrow.” He pointed regretfully at the stack of official-looking documents on his desk. “The ship will be setting sail in three days, and it’s not going to wait for our wares.”

  “If I’m boring you, I can leave.” Marie gathered up the pages of Wanda’s letter and set off slowly for the door, waiting for him to say something.

  In vain. Franco was back at his ledgers again.

  Marie turned to face him, her hand on the doorknob. “I thought now that the wine harvest is done, you would have more time for me!”

  “Mia cara . . .”

  Marie felt a lump in her throat as she walked toward the orangery. There was always a pile of paperwork to be done! There was always a constant stream of visitors, vintners, customers, all with some request to make! There was always something more important than her. More important than the studies they had planned.

  How they had dreamt of that in the first weeks, when Franco’s workday never seemed to end. They looked forward longingly to evenings spent together at the round walnut table in the library—Franco immersed in a book about wine-growing techniques and Marie looking through a thick volume about the history of art in Genoa. She had spent a whole day wandering the town before she finally found what she had been looking for in an antiquarian book dealer’s shop. Franco had been as happy as a child when she came home and presented him with a book about the old grape varieties and how they could be improved.

  Marie swallowed. To the best of her knowledge, Franco had leafed through that book once, the first time, and then never picked it up again.

  Why couldn’t he simply tell his father that enough was enough? The glass door shivered in Marie’s hand as she yanked it open and walked through the palms and the citrus trees.

  “I grew up in a family business as well. I know how your nearest and dearest can get their claws into you. If I hadn’t insisted on having some time to myself I would probably never have designed a single new globe!” she had told him accusingly just the other night. He had spent the whole day down at the harbor, even though he had promised to help her look through a stack of children’s fairy-tale books for designs to use in the nursery.

  “That’s different,” Franco had retorted. “Father has nobody besides me he can completely trust. I can’t put my own interests over those of the family.”

  Wasn’t it in the family interest for him to take time to look after the vineyards?

  Marie nodded to a gardener who was gathering up the fallen leaves from around a lemon tree. She headed straight for the white wicker chairs that were arranged in the middle of the orangery, under a vaulted dome. She sank down into a rocking chair.

  The orangery had been the count’s wedding present to his bride, since she loved gardening. The two of them had been terribly disappointed when they discovered that the countess always developed a piercing headache whenever she spent more than just a few minutes there. Nobody had ever figured out why, since she never suffered any ill effects when she was outside in the garden. Over the years the orangery had been demoted to a place where the gardening staff nurtured tender seedlings before planting them outside, and where the more sensitive plants were brought in for the winter. Marie was the only one who used it for its original purpose as a greenery-filled sitting room.

  She put both hands on her belly and rocked gently back and forth, her eyes closed, surrounded by the scent of ripening citrus. Remembering the exercises they had taught her at Monte Verità, she held her stomach in as she breathed in and then relaxed it as she breathed out again. When her anger at Franco had finally ebbed, she picked up Wanda’s letter and read on.

  What I most admire about Richard’s work is the self-confidence that shines through every piece. When I told him that I had seen some similar pieces in New York at an exhibition of Venetian glasswork, he just gave me a look! He told me that the similarity was quite intentional, and that he wanted to apply Lauscha’s techniques to the Venetian style to create something quite new. Something all his own. To me he seems like a man rowing, who dips his blade deep in the water and pulls strongly at the oar, his eyes fixed on land, knowing exactly where he is headed . . .

  How can someone so young know so precisely what he wants to do? You can’t imagine how embarrassed I was when Richard asked me what I had studied or learned as a trade! I muttered something about having been to business college and I hoped he would leave it at that. Should I have told him that my job is being a dutiful daughter? A man like him would just despise me for that. A man like that doesn’t want a girl who’s a china doll, he wants . . . I have no idea what he wants, perhaps I should ask my dear cousin Anna? When I found out at supper that day that Richard Stämme is ‘Anna’s Richard,’ I almost dropped my spoon. If he’s really courting her, then why does he never visit? After Harold and I were introduced, he was always turning up at our door and bringing me flowers or a box of chocolates. Don’t they do that sort of thing in Lauscha? You understand of course that I don’t want to intrude, but I would be interested to know just what the story is behind Richard’s relationship with Anna. Perhaps you know a little more about this?

  “Oh dear! Wanda, Wanda, you’ve fallen for him . . .” Marie muttered, smiling.

  “. . . like a man rowing, who dips his blade deep in the water and pulls strongly at the oar . . .” In all the weeks she had been in New York, she had never heard Wanda describe Harold in anything like such glowing terms. Rather, she talked of him almost disdainfully, as though she were laughing at the lengths he went to for her sake.

  Richard Stämme—Marie wasn’t in the least surprised that Wanda should take a shine to him. The young glassblower was not just confident and talented but also very good-looking—even though he could never afford fine clothes and his long hair was always badly cut. He was something of a lone wolf. People always wanted to spend more time in his company than he allowed. Marie knew from Magnus that the other glassblowers were always finding ways to invite him to come down to the tavern for an evening’s drinking but that Richard preferred to stay at home and work on his designs. He made a living by working in larger workshops when they needed extra help filling their commissions. Johanna had given him jobs from time to time when the Steinmann-Maienbaum workshop was at full capacity. That was how Anna and Richard had first met.

  Marie suddenly felt slightly dizzy. She got up from the rocking chair and arranged some of the pink velvet cushions on the wicker chaise longue. Then she put her legs up, spread a blanket over herself, and resumed her train of thought.

  Richard had once confided in Anna—and she was so much in love that she couldn’t resist passing it on to Marie—that his dearest wish was to have a large workshop of his own. He lived in a shabby little house, and his burner wasn’t even connected to the gas mains—it was all that his parents had left him, but that didn’t stop him from dreaming. “One day I want to have a workshop where high-society clients c
ome to see my wares and buy them,” he had told Anna. “They’ll place orders with me for the finest addresses in the world.” Marie was fairly sure that Richard would make his dream come true one day, and Anna agreed.

  If he shared his dreams with her that way, did it mean that the two of them were already planning a life together? Marie didn’t know, and she hadn’t taken Anna’s gushing reports all that seriously. But now that she thought about it, she couldn’t imagine that they had ever kissed. Anna was still like a child, and she didn’t know how to make the best of her admittedly meager womanly charms. But should she write as much to Wanda and encourage her? Or would it be better just to keep out of the whole thing? If Wanda really did have her eye on him, then she could only feel sorry for poor Anna.

  Suddenly Marie missed her family so much that it hurt. She began to stroke her belly again, enjoying the closeness she felt to the child in her womb.

  “Your mama’s sentimental,” she whispered up at the orange trees. “Instead of enjoying the Italian sunshine, she’s pining for winter in Thuringia.” For a moment she struggled with the impulse to fetch pencil and paper and write to ask Wanda why she had said nothing about any visit to her father. Had they really managed to avoid one another all this time? In Lauscha, that would have been difficult. Or had meeting Thomas Heimer been so bad that Wanda simply didn’t want to write about it? Marie felt tears pricking at her eyes at the thought.

  She decided not to write. If she composed a letter now, when she was so tearful, she might end up writing things that she didn’t even mean and that her family would take the wrong way. Better to leave it a few days and think of the best way to tell them of her pregnancy. She would give them the news as a Christmas surprise, so to speak. Marie smiled. Wouldn’t they be surprised to hear that there’d soon be a brand new member of the family!

  She flung the blanket aside and stood up. “Never mind dolce far niente—work is the best medicine!” she said loudly, as though trying to convince herself.

  A little while later she was sitting at her workbench, annoyed at herself. How could she have let half the day slip through her fingers when she had so much work to do! Her gaze fell on the mosaic that she had started the day before. Her fingers were quite literally itching to get back to work on it, since it would be one more step toward her greater, daringly ambitious plan to open her own gallery in Genoa’s historic city center. She hadn’t dared tell Franco about the idea yet. She still felt she had to protect her plans, nurture them like a young plant that needed plenty of water if it were ever to thrive and grow strong. But she wanted to share her vision with Franco in the new year. Perhaps he could help her look for suitable premises, so that she could begin outfitting the place after their child was born—if not earlier. White walls and plenty of glass, nothing that could distract the visitor from looking at the colorful pictures on show. Marie sighed.

  The only thing that was missing here for her to work comfortably was the praise that Johanna’s clients had always given her so unstintingly. Without someone to admire her work, it was like calling out into a void. She was used to hearing other voices echo her own—and though she knew that it was vain of her, an artist needed an echo, she decided. Which was why she could hardly wait to hear what Genoa’s art lovers thought about her new masterpieces.

  Instead of opening a jar and picking out the little green beads she would need for the picture in front of her, she got up and went over to the shelves where she kept the rods that Franco had ordered for her weeks ago. Marie had left them to gather dust—too immersed in her new technique of lead seams and mosaic images—but Christmas was creeping inexorably nearer.

  Her first Christmas without her family.

  Her first Christmas with Franco.

  If she was to have her surprise ready for him in time, she had to work fast.

  When she took the rod in her hand it felt smooth and cool, the old familiar feeling. A wave of happiness washed over her. Franco and his parents would be so astonished to see a tree full of shining new baubles standing in the dining room on Christmas Eve!

  She had spent a long time pondering what the baubles should look like. In Germany the traditional Christmas colors were red, gold, and green, but those felt too heavy for the palazzo. She wanted to capture some of that Italian airy lightness, the glittering blue of the sea, the white of a marble balustrade, the pale winter sunshine. While she lit the gas flame, she tried to conjure an image of the finished product: silvered glass globes painted with delicate, featherlight strokes of the brush in pastel tones.

  The flame hissed its old familiar song in her ear as Marie began to blow globes, each one exactly the same size.

  11

  “Are you sure you want to go? He could have come here to see you anytime he chose . . .” Johanna put her hands on Wanda’s shoulders to lend her confidence. Her fingers were so cold from shoveling snow that Wanda could feel it right through her woolen dress. She could hear Magnus cursing from outside, where he had taken over the shoveling from Johanna. It had snowed a good eighteen inches during the night, and there were endless mounds of snow to be shoveled aside before anybody could get out of the house.

  “He didn’t, though,” Wanda answered bluntly. “I don’t mind taking the first step. And Christmas is a good time to do it, surely?” She pointed to the linen bag where she had stowed her presents for her father, Uncle Michel, Eva, and Wilhelm, who was sick in bed. There was nothing extravagant there, just little gifts—some handkerchiefs for the men and a bottle of schnapps each, which Uncle Peter had advised her to go and buy in the village store. Eva would get a silver locket that Wanda had bought at a silversmith’s off Fifth Avenue. She was the kind of woman who was sure to like getting jewelry.

  “I just don’t want you to . . .” Johanna broke off rather helplessly.

  “To be disappointed?” Wanda laughed dryly as she knotted her headscarf firmly under her chin. “I know quite well that Thomas Heimer is not going to fling his arms around me and weep for joy. He probably won’t be very happy to see me. But I don’t care. I just want to meet the man whom I might, under other circumstances, have called father. Please don’t worry about me.” She was almost at the door when she turned around. “There is one thing, though . . .”

  “Yes?”

  Wanda felt her cheeks flush red. “How on earth should I talk to him? I mean . . . I don’t want to sound like a snob by speaking standard German, but if I try to speak the local dialect I’ll just make a fool of myself and he’ll think I’m making fun of him.”

  Johanna laughed. “If that’s your biggest problem then just calm down! Thomas Heimer won’t feel you’re looking down on him if you speak standard German. We may be from Lauscha but we know our own language, thank you.”

  The streets of Lauscha were busier than usual that day. People were out and about, though not because they were carrying glassware or materials to and fro. Rather someone in front of every house was shoveling a pathway to their front door; soon enough the snow was piled up like mounds of cotton candy on the narrow sidewalks and in the street. Wanda kept sinking ankle-deep into the snow. Then came the moment when the snow crept its way in over the top of Wanda’s boots and was promptly melted by her body heat. A chill trickle of icy water ran down her ankles and soaked her socks.

  By the time she got to the abandoned foundry, she was so exhausted that she toyed with the idea of turning around. She was worried she might get sick again, but she took off her headscarf all the same to wipe away the sweat that had pooled at the nape of her neck. Then she bundled the scarf up and stuffed it carelessly into her bag. She looked up the hill to the upper edge of the village. What if it was even worse up there? What if nobody had even started clearing the snow away in front of the Heimer house?

  These were all excuses, she decided. This was no time for second thoughts. She had been born in Lauscha, for goodness’ sake, and she wasn’t going to let a little snow s
care her. She marched on, her knees trembling.

  Wanda had played through the moment a hundred times in her mind. Had tried to steel herself for the wave of emotion that she expected would break over her. She was quite convinced that it would affect her deeply; after all, didn’t they say that blood was thicker than water? She had made up her mind on one thing, though: however this first meeting with her father played out, she wouldn’t lose control of herself. She had made sure to consider every conceivable outcome, even the most terrible. Her father might slam the door in her face. He might swear at her. He might let her in and then treat her with cruel indifference. Or they might just end up sitting in painful silence for lack of having anything to talk about. Wanda had even prepared for that possibility, and had a little list of topics for conversation; first the weather, then what plans they had for Christmas, what she had seen of Lauscha so far . . . Perhaps she would even be able to steer the conversation around to the glassware that the Heimer workshop made—it would certainly help break the ice if she said a few words of praise. And if she really couldn’t find anything else to talk about, she could ask after her sick grandfather.

  Sometimes, when she was feeling especially softhearted, Wanda imagined that they would both burst into tears and fall into one another’s arms.

  There was only one thing she hadn’t prepared herself for: that when she set eyes on Thomas Heimer she would feel nothing. Nothing at all.

  The man who opened the door to her, dressed in a work smock and a faded old pair of pants that were going baggy at the knees, was a complete stranger. He was of middling height and pale with gray stubble. His eyes flickered just once when he saw Wanda standing there, and then it was as though two doors slammed shut. His expressionless gray eyes looked out at her from under bushy eyebrows that were creeping together to meet in the middle. There were fine wrinkles in his thin face that made him look rather ill. Nothing about this sickly, aging man even remotely resembled Ruth’s description of the good-looking youth she had fallen in love with once upon a time, the broad-shouldered fellow with the wicked laugh.