The immigration officials were in the next compartment. Wanda could hear their clipped tones. Her heart was beating like a drum. She had to stay calm, had to think of something else.
Would the count have given way to her threats if the baby had been a boy? Perhaps he would not have let go of a young heir to the title so quickly. As it was, he had simply insisted that Wanda sign a declaration that Sylvie had no claim on the de Lucca family. Wanda had signed. It was only when the ink began to dry that she wondered whether she had given in too easily. Her signature had robbed Sylvie of any rights to a share of the de Lucca family fortune. Wanda wondered nervously what they would say to that in Lauscha. Probably that Wanda had let Franco’s father swindle her. But it was done now. And the others hadn’t been there when Marie begged her to take Sylvie, Wanda decided stubbornly. Marie had said very clearly that she didn’t want her daughter to grow up having anything to do with the de Luccas. That meant financially as well, didn’t it?
Patrizia had put up more of a fight, pleading with Wanda to leave Sylvie with her. How was she to explain to Franco when he got back that his daughter would grow up in a foreign country? He would never forgive her for that, or for her failure to tell him when Marie died.
What a dreadful woman! She hadn’t felt the least bit guilty, not even after Marie’s death.
“If Marie had stood by her husband the way a wife should, we need never have taken such drastic measures. But she wanted to leave Franco at the very moment when he most needed her support,” the countess had declared, her voice quivering. Wanda sensed that she still hadn’t forgiven Marie.
I feel sorry for Franco, Wanda thought as she opened her passport. Franco was a victim of that web of lies. But no, he was guilty as well; there was no way around that. How could they all have been so wrong about him? Her handsome Italian, Marie had called him.
“Good day, miss. Your papers, please!” A uniformed official was standing in front of Wanda with his hand out. When he spotted the baby in her bassinet, he frowned.
“Good day.” Wanda handed over the papers with a smile. Don’t tremble, look cool and collected but not condescending, breathe calmly, she told herself silently as though this were a class in finishing school.
The man studied Wanda’s American passport. He seemed especially interested in her entry stamp.
A vein in Wanda’s neck began to throb. Surely he could find nothing wrong with her passport! She fought against rising panic. How disdainfully he looked at her! She cleared her throat. He must have seen her as a fallen maiden who somehow had the money to travel across Europe with her illegitimate baby. Perhaps he thought her family had disowned her. That she was on the run—and he wouldn’t be far wrong. Wanda was almost cheered by the thought.
At last the official handed her documents back. “Did you know that my colleagues in Germany put their stamp in the wrong place?” The man tore the passport abruptly from her hands and pointed. “That’s supposed to be where the American exit visa goes!” He waved it impatiently in front of Wanda’s face. “If everybody went on this way, we would never find our way around a passport!”
“Oh . . . I see, I see. Yes, that was very careless of them . . .”
Thank you, God. Thank you a thousand times.
Once the border official had gone, the trembling started. First her right hand began to tremble. Then her left. When she looked down, she saw that her knees were jiggling up and down as well. She glanced around the compartment. Had anybody noticed? But nobody was looking at her, just as nobody had sat down next to her.
Suddenly it was all too much for Wanda. The last few days by Marie’s sickbed with hardly any sleep, the burial service at the dusty, rocky cemetery, the struggle to save Sylvie . . . Tears flowed uncontrollably down her cheeks, and she sobbed loudly. Her nose swelled up and she could barely breathe.
Marie was dead. Shut away where no gleam of light could reach her, no shine of silver or glitter of glass.
It was so unfair! Marie had never done anything to harm anyone. All her life she had never done anything but work; she had never even wanted to do anything else. And then, the first and only time she wanted to escape from that life, fate had not allowed it.
Why?
Try as she might, Wanda could see no sense in Marie’s death. She buried her face in her coat.
How could somebody with such an appetite for life just die? How could that happen?
Old people died—or not, like Wilhelm Heimer, clinging to life with every fiber of his withered old body. Why had Marie not been strong enough?
Fever . . . that damned fever. Why hadn’t it broken? If it had just ebbed a little, day by day, Marie would be healthy again. But to just shut her eyes like that and say, “The fever won’t leave. I shall.” She couldn’t understand it.
Wanda blew her nose, her fingers trembling, and then she spotted a movement out of the corner of her eye. Sylvie was waving her little hands in the air as though beckoning to her. Her blue eyes under their long lashes were looking aimlessly around.
“Come here, you little thing!” Wanda lifted the baby carefully out of her bassinet. Luckily the trembling had stopped, and she could put her arms around the warm little body.
Wanda held Sylvie so her head was nestled against her shoulder. The baby would have to grow up without a mother.
“We’ll all of us miss your mama. We’ll miss her terribly.”
32
Wanda arrived in Bozen early that evening, and the train to Munich did not depart until the next day. Over the course of the day a mountain of clouds had appeared and hidden the sun, and the heat was almost unbearable. The birds had stopped singing—an unmistakable sign that bad weather was brewing.
Wanda looked up at the sky, concerned. A storm was the last thing she needed. Her fingers were damp as she shifted the bassinet from her right arm to her left, then shouldered her bag and picked up her suitcase again. After just a few paces she felt her strength failing once more. She couldn’t go on like this; she had to rest. She spotted a little patch of grass across the street in the shade of two huge chestnut trees. Wanda staggered to the lawn, where a marble monument and a bench stood. She put down the suitcase and her bag, then put the bassinet on the bench and sat next to it. She stared ahead, her eyes blank.
Only a week ago she had strolled through these streets with Richard as though they had all the time in the world, happy beyond measure. They had gone to dinner nearby and they had kissed in front of that fountain with the chubby cherubs. And then later that night . . .
Wanda’s feet burned as though she had been walking over hot coals. Her mouth and her lips were dry, and her stomach was so empty that she was dizzy with hunger. It was just a matter of time before Sylvie started to protest at being carried around town in this heat. But none of these challenges were her biggest problem.
She had trudged around town for more than two hours looking for a place to spend the night. She had been to three hotels and two smaller boarding houses, and every one of them had turned her away. Was it because she was so young, or because she looked rather bedraggled after the long train journey? Was it because she didn’t have a husband or her parents with her, or was it all because of the baby in her bassinet? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she’d had the same answer everywhere: they had no free rooms.
She had never missed her mother so much in her life. And Aunt Johanna too. Both of them were always so sure of themselves! Their problems seemed to solve themselves on their own. They wouldn’t end up sitting here like a sniveling heap of misery. No, they would . . . What would they do? Wanda had no idea. She would so much have liked to follow some example.
Her arms were tired as she lifted Sylvie from the bassinet and gave her the last bottle of milk that she had. The baby began to suckle at the rubber nipple. Her red cheeks pumped in and out and a little furrow of concentration appeared on her brow. Wanda smi
led. Was she imagining things or had Marie’s daughter really grown in the last two days? The sight of the hungry little girl filled her with new strength.
She couldn’t just sit here! She had to find a pharmacy and buy some powdered milk for Sylvie. And she had to find a room for the night.
While she fed Sylvie she went over an inventory in her head of what she was carrying in her luggage. The travel bag was full of the presents she had brought from Lauscha—mostly baby things. She would be able to do without most of those, especially the clothes that were too big at the moment, but she would need all the diapers.
When Sylvie was full and back in her bassinet, Wanda got to work. She didn’t care that the passersby stared as she sorted methodically through her luggage, discarding everything that she did not need on the journey. Once she was finished, her traveling bag was almost bursting but she could leave the suitcase behind. Perhaps somebody would come by who needed it more than she did. She set out, her load lightened and her feet a little rested.
When she found a pharmacy after only five minutes, she could have almost cried with relief. Her voice shook as she asked, half in German, half in Italian, for something her baby could eat.
“I will have to go into the stockroom. If the young lady would be good enough to wait . . .” the pharmacist answered in a melodious Austrian accent. Then he vanished through a door.
He came back with three cans, various glass flasks marked with white lines, and some bottles with rubber nipples. He arranged everything carefully on the counter and explained to Wanda how to prepare the milk.
A weight fell from Wanda’s heart. She had been worried that she wouldn’t be able to buy powdered milk in a little town like Bozen. Ever since she boarded the train in Genoa that morning, she had been scolding herself about not having bought milk for the journey. When the pharmacist asked if there was anything else he could do for her, Wanda felt another surge of panic. What else did a baby need? He was the first person she had met on her journey who had been friendly and polite, but she could hardly ask him for childcare advice. So she bought a little box of peppermints and thanked him for his help, then left.
The shop bell was still tinkling behind her as she opened the box and shoved one of the peppermints greedily into her mouth. Right away the cool taste of mint quenched the worst of her thirst.
A moment later, she had the idea.
It was such a simple idea—and it was wonderful.
It was exactly what her mother would do instead of tramping around the streets like a beggar. Wanda picked up her pace. Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner?
Wanda and Sylvie reached the entrance of the Grand Park Hotel just as the first raindrops started to fall. At reception she paid the wickedly high price for a room, and as she took the key she silently thanked her parents for their generosity, which allowed her to spend the night at such a fancy place. All manner of well-heeled and worldly guests came and went here, and the receptionist was far too discreet to ask how a woman happened to be traveling alone with a baby. It was house policy to welcome any guest who was ready and willing to pay the outrageous cost for the night.
A bellhop took Wanda’s bag and showed her to the room. Once he had unlocked the door, she asked him to bring her a pitcher of lemonade. He asked whether she would like him to bring something to eat as well or whether she would prefer to dine in the hotel’s restaurant, the Belle Époque. As soon as he asked, Wanda’s belly began to rumble in a most unladylike manner. She ordered the dish of the day and waved away his description of what the chef had prepared.
No sooner had the young man shut the door behind him than Wanda took Sylvie out of the bassinet. The baby began to wave her arms and legs immediately. Wanda spoke gently to the little one as she went into the bathroom, where she was pleased to find hot and cold running water. She ran lukewarm water into the elegant washbasin and added a pinch of the pink bath salts as well. If they were good enough for high-society ladies, they were good enough for her little princess!
“I think you already know just what you like, don’t you!” Wanda said as she washed the baby rather clumsily. “We’ll have to heat the stove every day in winter so that our little princess can have a bath! My word, that’ll take a lot of firewood! Richard will have to sell a few more glasses.”
Richard . . . the thought of him was like an arrow to her heart. She was supposed to meet him at the Hotel Riviera today. She could already see him in her mind’s eye, pacing impatiently up and down and looking at a clock on the wall every few minutes.
A knock roused her from her thoughts. She wrapped Sylvie up in a thick towel and opened the door.
“Madame, your supper! Veal schnitzel in a lemon sauce, with butter noodles and . . .”
As soon as Wanda saw the bellhop, she knew just what she had to do. She hastily pulled him into the room complete with the tray. Then she stood in front of the door, blocking his way.
“It smells wonderful—but all of a sudden I’m not hungry anymore. What a pity . . .” She shrugged apologetically. “Perhaps you should eat it so that it doesn’t go to waste?”
“Me? But . . .” The young man looked at her in astonishment.
“No buts! Sit down here at this table, right now, and have a good meal! I have something very important I have to do in the meantime. It’s a matter of life and death, so to speak,” Wanda pleaded. “And I need your help, or else all is lost!”
“But . . .”
She pushed him farther into the room. She fumbled in her bag for money and said, “Nobody but us needs to know what happened here, that goes without saying. If your boss tries to tell you off for staying away from your post, just blame me! Tell him . . . oh, tell him anything you like! And while you eat, will you please keep an eye on my daughter? She’s just fallen asleep, and I’m sure she’ll be no trouble. I’ll be right back.”
“But . . .”
“Please! Stay here and watch over my child, will you do that for me?” Without waiting to hear his objections, Wanda pushed some money into his hand. Then she ran from the room.
“It’s an emergency. I swear to you that it is!” she pleaded at the reception desk a few minutes later. “I need a connection to the Hotel Riviera in Venice, whatever it costs!”
“It is not a matter of cost, dear lady, rather it’s a technical problem,” the receptionist told her for the second time. “Even if you happened to know the number of the hotel—which clearly you don’t—I still couldn’t call it directly. We would need an operator to put us through. And the telephone exchanges are hardly ever manned at this time of night.”
Wanda wrung her hands. “But couldn’t you at least try? Perhaps . . . if luck’s on our side . . . please!”
She summoned the charming smile that she had worn so easily in a previous life.
The receptionist gave a resigned shrug, picked up the receiver, and began to dial.
33
“Wanda! I’ve been waiting for you for hours! I didn’t leave the hotel all afternoon because I thought perhaps you might arrive earlier than we planned . . . Where are you? At the station? Should I come and meet you? That would be no problem, I know Venice like the back of my hand by now, even if all these canals . . .”
It was so good to hear his voice! Wanda’s hand began to tremble as she held the receiver. She was close to tears.
“Richard, be quiet for a moment and listen! I’m not in Venice. I’m in Bozen.”
“You’re where? This connection . . . I don’t think I heard you right.”
Wanda smiled sadly.
“I’m in Bozen,” she repeated. “On my way back to Lauscha.” And before he could reply, she burst out with all the essential details. That Marie was dead. That she, Wanda, was traveling back to Lauscha with Marie’s newborn baby. She said as little as she could about Franco, and about Marie’s confinement. How she longed to be able to tell him all these dr
eadful things! But she didn’t feel comfortable explaining it all over the telephone. She also had to blow her nose, since she could hardly breathe through the tears.
For a moment Wanda heard nothing but the crackle of the line. Then Richard said, “I . . . I don’t know what to say. Wanda, my darling Wanda, it must have been dreadful for you! I can hardly believe that Marie . . . I’m so terribly sorry—”
Richard fell silent. But his honest sympathy said more to comfort her than a thousand words.
Then he seemed to pull himself together. He asked how Wanda was holding up. And how Sylvie was. She noticed gratefully that he had remembered Sylvie’s name without prompting.
“I’ll pack my things tonight. Then I’ll catch the first train to Bozen in the morning. You stay right where you are, and we’ll go back to Lauscha together. I’ll take care of everything from now on. You needn’t worry about anything, all right? We’ll make it.”
It was so tempting! It would be so easy, so simple. Wanda took a deep breath.
“No, Richard, I want you to stay in Venice. It’s important for you. I’ve made it this far; I can go the rest of the way as well,” she answered with more confidence in her voice than she truly felt.
“Forget the exhibition! I’ve already made a few useful contacts. And the whole thing’s happening again in two years anyway. But you need me now! Great heavens, when I think that you are on your own there with Sylvie—” He stopped abruptly, then started again hesitantly. “It’s just that . . . tomorrow’s not the best time to leave, but I can certainly come the day after tomorrow. No later than that. And then we—”
“No!” Wanda broke in. “Please don’t say another word. I miss you dreadfully, of course I do! But right now all I want is to get back to Lauscha as fast as I can. That’s where Johanna and Eva are, and they’ll help me. Don’t you understand? I’m not entirely comfortable looking after her on my own. What do I know about babies, after all?” She laughed awkwardly.
The American Lady (The Glassblower Trilogy Book 2) Page 40