The American Lady (The Glassblower Trilogy Book 2)

by Petra Durst-Benning

  Wanda didn’t like every piece she saw, but she did her best to seem delighted by all of them. Her enthusiasm was infectious: suddenly Thomas remembered some pieces he had made years ago for a hotel over in Suhl. He ran down to the workshop and came back a few minutes later with an elaborate table decoration made up of several smaller parts—a pair of kneeling angels supporting a fruit bowl on their heads and the tips of their wings. And this time Wanda truly was impressed; she said that it was glasswork of the first order, admired the detail in the feathers and the robes, and the two brothers beamed with pride. Suddenly each of them wanted to outdo the other, and Eva and Thomas scurried from the kitchen and back again repeatedly, bringing a new treasure each time until the kitchen table was covered with glassware of every kind. Wanda was so happy she could have cried.

  “If only I knew where those perfume bottles are that we made for the Frenchman that time!” Thomas muttered, and then told Wanda that her mother had liked them very much.

  That evening Wanda was so late getting back home that Johanna had told her off mercilessly, threatening to complain to Ruth in New York. “We’re not running a hotel here where you can come and go as you please,” she scolded. Wanda looked into her aunt’s eyes and saw how tired she was from sitting up waiting for her, and she felt a hot flush of guilt. She resolved never to be so inconsiderate again.

  All the same the evening at her father’s house had been worth Johanna’s complaints. For the first time in ages, there was a sense of purpose in the Heimer household, and even old Wilhelm had done his bit. “You’d do well to listen to your daughter now and again,” he told Thomas between two coughing fits. “The girl’s got the sharp wits all we Heimers have, and she’s got Ruth’s nose for a deal as well! She’s a godsend to us, and we’re lucky to have her back here with us!” Wanda had been out in the hallway, buttoning up her jacket, so she hadn’t caught whatever her father had said in reply.

  She’d done the right thing, she decided now, not to spoil the family atmosphere by bringing up the idea of working together with Richard. As she and Eva turned a corner on the road, Wanda saw houses around the next bend. They had gotten as far as Steinach, thank goodness!

  “Maybe we could take the railway the rest of the way after all.” Even the thought of somewhere warm to sit put a spring in Wanda’s step, although her knees were trembling.

  Eva laughed briefly. “Go all that extra way to the station now, and then have to wait for the next train to come along? No, I don’t fancy that at all.” She put her head down and plodded on past Wanda. “Let’s keep going, quick as we can. I don’t want to run into any of my brothers and sisters and have to tell them why we’re on foot. They’ll decide right away that we don’t even have the money for a train ticket these days.” She drew her scarf farther up around her ears.

  Wanda had no choice but to follow Eva. She didn’t say a word, but she took the opportunity to peer around at the village where Eva had been born. Several dozen houses were all jostled up together in a narrow valley. The roofs were tiled with slate, and slate was visible everywhere else as well, in every shade of light and dark, glittering silver gray on the house walls in the sunlight.

  “How beautiful,” Wanda said, pointing to a house with a particularly lovely mosaic pattern of tiles on the front. Then she saw a head pop up in one of the windows and she looked away quickly. Only a few yards on, though, she exclaimed again: there on a house wall was a spray of flowers framed by a pattern of diamond shapes. The natural colors of the slate had been used so cleverly that the whole design looked almost three-dimensional.

  “It all looks so . . . cozy and cheerful!” It seemed that the villagers of Lauscha were not the only people with a gift for the decorative arts. Wanda resolved to visit Steinach with Richard once the snows had melted.

  They had hardly passed the last few houses in the village when Eva straightened up. “Cozy and cheerful!” she spat, imitating Wanda. She tore the scarf from her head. “The only reason you think so is because you’ve never been cold or hungry in your life! Believe you me, if you’d had the childhood I had . . .” She clamped her mouth shut and looked grimmer than ever.

  Wanda felt dreadfully naive. She linked arms with Eva, who stiffened and left Wanda in no doubt that the gesture was unwelcome, though she pretended she hadn’t noticed. Eva’s scarf was about to slip off her shoulders and Wanda put it back in place with her free hand.

  “Why don’t you tell me how it was back then?” she asked gently.

  “So that you can have a good laugh at me?” Eva glanced at her mistrustfully.

  “I won’t, I swear it!”

  But Eva simply pursed her lips even tighter and they walked on in silence.

  A few minutes later, when Wanda had already given up on the conversation, Eva began to talk. She told Wanda about being one of eight children and about her father, who worked in the slate mine like most men in the village. She talked about the thousands of slate pencils that they made and packed into boxes in their little house, week in and week out. “Day after day and late into every night. We were hardly home from school before it was time to sit down at the table and work. Oh, how my back ached, even after just a couple of hours of sitting there! But Father never listened to our complaints; he just cursed if any of us dared to start crying from the pain. Even today I get the shivers whenever I hear a grinding wheel whir!” She shook herself. “There was slate dust everywhere—in our hair, on our skin, in the rags we wore instead of clothes. Everything was so horribly dirty! And it was no good at all for our health!” In a flat tone, Eva told Wanda about her brothers and sisters who had died because the dust had settled into their lungs, tearing them to shreds. “ ‘For every one born, there’s one who dies’—that’s what my mother used to say. But our house was always full of children, and I was the one who had to look after them, wiping their little butts.” Eva laughed harshly. “Then when I got married, I never had even one child of my own.”

  Not knowing what to say, Wanda kept silent. Marie had already told her how much Eva had suffered from not having children of her own.

  “All the same—I wouldn’t want to swap places with any of my sisters. I was lucky Sebastian came my way!” Eva grinned wryly. “Love is blind; you say that in America too, don’t you?”

  Wanda nodded so emphatically that both of them burst out laughing.

  20

  By the time they got to Sonneberg, Wanda was so exhausted that she insisted they stop at one of the taverns first thing. She ordered a grilled sausage and Eva persuaded her to have a beer with it, then they discussed their plans: Eva would begin by taking her to the wholesalers who had dealt with the Heimers in the past. Then, if Wanda wanted to meet with some more, Eva would take her to others. Even though they had gotten a little closer during the walk, Eva could still not be persuaded to go in with Wanda on her visits. So Wanda put on fresh lipstick, squared her shoulders, and set off to be of some help to her family.

  It took a while before she found anyone who seemed likely to help.

  “Of course I am aware that I am almost the only one left who thinks so—in an age where the slogan of ‘Art for All’ seems to be on everyone’s lips. And they make money with it too . . .” Karl-Heinz Brauninger folded his hands and stretched his arms out as though he felt a twinge of rheumatism. “All the same I am not ready to jump on the bandwagon of mass production just so that anyone can fill his living room with all sorts of ornaments that will simply gather dust! Others are quite welcome to sell figurines of ladies dancing—I will have no such gewgaws in my catalog!” His expression indicated his distaste.

  “So what do you have in your samples books?” Wanda asked curiously.

  “Samples books—now there is another symptom of the mass-production mania. Believe me, if I showed any such thing to my clients, they would jump like a scalded cat! My wares are all one of a kind. They are poems in glass; they are delicate and
fragile works, and each one reflects the feelings of the artist who made it. Every glass is a cornucopia of inspiration; every bowl is an expression of humanity’s infinite creative potential and boundless soul! These pieces are the very essence of one moment in the artist’s life—and who can ever repeat such a moment?”

  Wanda heaved a sigh of genuine agreement. “You have no idea how pleased I am to hear you say so. So far my market survey has only turned up wholesalers who want cheap wares at rock-bottom prices—which is exactly what we wish to set ourselves apart from, in our workshop.”

  Wanda treated Brauninger to one of the smiles that had always gotten her another drink in Mickey’s bar in Brooklyn no matter how deep the crowds. She sat forward on her chair and spoke to him in hushed tones.

  “Do you know what I simply don’t understand? That these wholesalers put on airs and proclaim that their products are the very peak of the modern artistic style! When really, let’s be honest, they’re just production-line goods, aren’t they?” Wanda watched for the gleam of agreement in the man’s eyes and congratulated herself silently as it appeared. Perhaps she’d come to the right place?

  If Eva had had any say in the matter, Wanda wouldn’t even be visiting Brauninger; the Heimers had never dealt with him directly, though they had done some work for his father years ago. After that, there hadn’t been any more commissions. “The old man was an arrogant pig, and his son won’t be any better!” Eva had said. But Wanda hadn’t budged from her plan—she didn’t want to go back home feeling that she had left even a single stone unturned. And it seemed her stubbornness had not been entirely in vain.

  “Their dishonesty is precisely what I hate so much, my dear young lady!” Brauninger replied. “They call themselves revolutionaries, friends of the proletariat, and they take money from the poor worker’s pocket for gimcrack that has no real value! Whereas I come straight out and say that I sell art, and that not everyone will be able to afford it.”

  Where many people would have been put off by such arrogance, Wanda felt that this was her chance . . . now she just had to take it!

  She cocked her head and said, “Did you know that such a forthright approach is a very American way of doing business? I mean that as a compliment,” she added hastily.

  “Well now, I can’t really be the judge of that, but if you say so, young lady, then . . .” He was blushing! Although Wanda hadn’t asked for it, he poured some water into a tall, elegant glass for her.

  Wanda batted her eyelids demurely and thanked him. As she did, thoughts raced around in her head. Karl-Heinz Brauninger’s dislike of mass production could be just the chance she was looking for. The only question was how to start doing business with him. Wanda took a sip of water.

  She need not have worried so much—her elegant outfit and the fact that she was from America had ensured that wherever she went, she was welcomed most civilly and politely. She had always made quite sure to say that she was not there to represent Miles Enterprises, rather she was inquiring on behalf of a new and very modern glass workshop that was just setting up in Lauscha. The wholesalers offered her a seat and listened to what she had to say about a market survey to find out what the customers wanted these days. However what they told her was anything but encouraging. Most of the wholesalers got their goods from factories, and the rest already had plenty of pieceworkers under contract.

  “Is it fair to assume that most of your clients are galleries?” Wanda asked once she had drunk half the water.

  “It’s true that I have a handful of gallery owners who buy from me, but even they seem to pay more attention to price than to originality or quality these days.” Brauninger waved his hand. “I do most of my business at the large art fairs. I know that my esteemed colleagues here in town find that rather ludicrous; they think that I am nothing more than a common salesman. But what do they know? Paris, Madrid, Oslo—there are art lovers all over the world who are ready to pay money for luxury goods. Indian maharajas, opera singers, bankers: the crème de la crème buy from me, and—” Brauninger broke off as he suddenly realized that he had said a great deal more than he intended.

  Wanda swallowed. Maharajas and opera singers—she could hardly imagine that they would want Heimer’s warty glass bowls, or the goblets with pictures of deer . . .

  “My dear Mr. Brauninger, you have not merely impressed me; I might almost say you have dismayed me,” she confessed with a disarming smile. “The workshop I represent in my market survey has some artistic items to offer, it’s true, but . . .” She paused for effect. “If you will allow me an indiscreet question: Who do you buy from? Or to ask a little less directly, do you have any glassblowers from Lauscha among your suppliers?”

  “You will understand of course that I cannot name names,” Brauninger said in a rush, as though regretting having given away so much already. “But, yes there are one or two Lauscha glassblowers who work for me. Our working relationship, however, is . . . how shall I put this . . . difficult.”

  Wanda frowned. “Are they not able to meet your high standards?”

  “Quite the opposite. They really know their glass up there!” He nodded vaguely in the direction of Lauscha. “But they’re such a tight-lipped crowd! Whenever I ask them what they were thinking of as they made this or that piece, it’s like pulling teeth! Just recently one of them brought me a set of four bowls in blue glass. Excellent work, that goes without saying! I realized immediately that if I nest the four bowls one inside the other, the whole assembly looks like a forget-me-not flower. The viewer is drawn into the blossom the way a bee is drawn to nectar. The effect is all the more powerful because the bottoms of the bowls are a pale yellow.”

  Wanda nodded, delighted. “I can just see it! An allegory, a description in glass of how we were tempted in Eden!” Monique Desmoines and all those well-heeled customers at Dittmer’s would be blown away by the idea, she thought mischievously. She would never have imagined that she would have cause to be grateful to New York’s high society.

  Brauninger nodded, impressed. “A splendid comparison, dear lady! What do you imagine the artist told me when I asked what had been his inspiration as he worked? He told me that it was very practical to be able to stack the bowls one inside the other so that they took up less room in the cupboard!”

  Wanda had to laugh. Her father could quite easily have said that very thing!

  Brauninger joined in her laughter. Then he said, “How much more sensuous the French artists are! They understand the emotions so well! Perhaps you know the name Émile Gallé?”

  Wanda nodded. “My mother admires the French glassworkers enormously. Being a New Yorker, she likes Tiffany as well, of course,” she added, to show him again that she knew a thing or two about art. “And what opinion do you have of Venetian glasswork?” she asked as innocently as she could manage.

  Brauninger smirked. “I know that the whole world raves about Murano, but to be perfectly honest the work they do there is a little . . . insincere for my tastes.” He flapped his hand dismissively.

  Wanda nodded wisely. “The backward-looking style, I know.” She waved her hand as well, as though to suggest that she had considered the question of Murano glass closely and come to precisely the same conclusion.

  Brauninger cleared his throat. “I do not wish to be impolite, my dear lady . . . But sadly I have an appointment in a few minutes.” He blinked in embarrassment. “And though I have found our conversation most pleasant, I am not really sure how I can help you.”

  Wanda gathered her skirts. “You have already helped me far more than you will ever know, my dear Mr. Brauninger,” she said as she rose to her feet. Then she opened her eyes a fraction wider and said, “Now that I know there are still connoisseur dealers such as yourself, I am all the more determined to make Lauscha glass a byword for the most refined achievements of the glassblower’s art. You might easily say that you have restored my faith in mankind!”r />
  Brauninger frowned, and she realized that she had gone a bit too far. She did her best to look businesslike. She put out her hand and took a deep breath.

  “If it should happen that in the next few weeks or months I am shown a piece of glass that I feel might satisfy your high standards—may I bring it to show you?”

  Karl-Heinz Brauninger beamed. “Anytime, dear lady, anytime! I am already looking forward to our first transaction.”

  Dusk was falling by the time Wanda went back out onto the street. The snow was glittering in the twilight—a sure sign that it would be another ice-cold night.

  “There you are at last! I was beginning to think you’d decided to spend the night in there!” Eva’s shadow detached itself from a doorway across the street. “If we don’t hurry, we’ll miss the last train back to Lauscha!”

  “I’m sorry. I never even noticed the time passing,” Wanda answered guiltily as they hurried off to the railway station.

  Eva peered over at her. “You’ve got such a look on your face . . . Was it worth my freezing my backside off out there? Go on, tell me, do we have a contract?” Eva’s eyes shone as if she were a young girl again.

  Wanda put her arm through hers and this time met no resistance. “Not yet, but I’ve got something much more valuable, and it’s going to change our whole future!”

  The light in Eva’s eyes died away. Wanda was twinkling like a Christmas tree, however. She stopped and turned to face Eva. Wanda was shivering from head to toe—she wasn’t sure whether from the cold or excitement.