The Glassblower (15 page)

Strobel congratulated himself on every sign of progress he saw in his assistant, for he did not miss the slightest change in her either. Friedhelm Strobel was in a springtime mood and decided to see her as a butterfly that must first spin a cocoon before revealing itself in its true splendor. Any interruption to the process would be dangerous for the butterfly, which would need large wings to be able to soar high above the humdrum world. In short: it needed time to grow.

And so Strobel waited for his moment. Waited, and watched. In the meantime the letters flew back and forth between Sonneberg and B.

26

The winter had overstayed its welcome like an ill-mannered guest, but in the third week of April it finally said good-bye. Bushels of yellow cowslips and blue squill blooming among the old grass heralded the coming spring, and virgin green buds were on the verge of bursting into leaf on every branch and treetop. Lovesick tomcats crept through the alleyways, keeping the good folk of Sonneberg awake at night with their serenades. Spring was on its way and Nature almost outdid herself in preparing the world for its arrival. It was simply inevitable that this unrest would spread to humanity as well.

Though it was warm enough now to walk through the village without a jacket by day, it was still cold after the sun went down. And so—for want of any better place—Ruth and Thomas continued to meet in old Heimer’s warehouse.

Ruth ran her tongue quickly over her teeth to be quite sure that she didn’t have a breadcrumb still lurking there from supper. Then she began to nibble gently on Thomas’s lip. She didn’t know where she had gotten the idea; she was simply doing what felt right. She nipped at his upper lip. Then sank her teeth more firmly into his lower lip. The skin at the corners of his mouth was dry, almost cracked. Spontaneously, she ran her tongue over it and Thomas moaned. His desire was overwhelming. A glow of pleasure spread through Ruth’s belly. She could have kept up with these games foreve
r . . .
unlike Thomas.

He pulled her head toward his quite suddenly. “Now we’ll kiss for real,” he whispered hoarsely.

His mouth clamped down on hers, and for a moment she was choked by the beery gust of his breath, which had only been a gentle spicy scent in the air before. His tongue prodded around in her mouth like a red-hot poker and swept roughly against her gums. Ruth tried to tip her head back a bit, but he held her tight. The delight she had just felt drained clean away.

Thomas’s hands were busy with the buttons of her blouse. Ruth shuffled backward as far as she could. When the rough stonework of the wall pressed up hard against her spine, she shoved Thomas away with all her strength.

He looked at her in utter shock. “What is it now? Come back here!”

Ruth’s heart was hammering. “You know very well that that’s not what I want!” she said reproachfully, and began to button her blouse back up.

It was the same every time; she gave him a bit, and he only wanted more and more. But her anger vanished a moment later, and she felt miserable. Joost’s warnings echoed in her ears again. “In this world, once a girl loses her honor she has nothing left to call her own!”

Thomas stood up and straightened his pants. “This is the last time I let you make a fool of me!” His voice was trembling. He stood before her with his legs wide apart.

Ruth found she couldn’t stop looking at the great bulge between them.

“You shove your breasts at me week in and week out, but if I want to touch them I have to beg like a dog. You show off your legs but won’t even let me set eyes on what you have between them. Let alone put my hand there. I’ve had enough!” He slammed his fist against the wall. The nearby shelves shuddered.

“If everyone else knew that you’d been leading me up the garden path like this, I’d never live it down! They all believe we’ve been at it for ages by now.”

“What has everyone else got to do with us? I hope you don’t talk to your buddies about what we do! This has nothing to do with anyone but you and me!” Ruth said heatedly. She toyed fleetingly with the thought of getting up and leaving—it might be better to have this conversation when Thomas wasn’t in quite such a rage—but the moment passed and Ruth stayed where she was.

He went on as though she hadn’t spoken. “They’ll say you’ve got me whipped. They’ll call me a gelding. If you plan to keep your maidenhead right down to Judgment Day, then just tell me now!”

Ruth flinched as though she’d been punched in the gut. Thomas had never spoken to her so coarsely before.

She was even a little afraid as she saw how greedily he was looking at her. Like a snarling beast that had fought long and hard for its prey. She tried to clamber to her feet, but all of a sudden he was on his knees in front of her.

“What do I have to do to show you that I love you? Tell me and I’ll do it!” he pleaded. “I don’t know how to treat a woman right. How am I supposed to know?” He shrugged convulsively. His blustering manner had melted away, and now he just looked helpless. “If you like, we can meet somewhere else from now on. I’ll think of something,” he said in a defeated tone. “Just tell me: What can I do to make you happy?”

Ruth looked at him, astonished. He had certainly changed his tune! Unsure as to how to answer him, she took a moment to shake out her skirt as though to free it of all the dust and grime. Should she use the opportunity she’d been given? Or should she wait for Thomas to come to the idea on his ow
n . . .
She would probably have to wait until Judgment Day herself before
that
would happen.

She went to him and put her arms around his shoulders. “Do you want to have me?” she asked, choosing her words carefully.

Thomas nodded. There was hunger in his eyes.

Ruth smiled quietly to herself. He must think he got where he wanted. Ha!

“I’ll let you have me. And you don’t even have to do anything to ‘make me happy,’ ” she said, her voice as smooth and sweet as syrup.

She ran her hands along his forearms. Her lips drifted up his cheek to his right ear. “I love you, Thomas Heimer. And I want you to be my man.” She pressed herself up against his bulging loins. Her legs were trembling, and she wondered whether she was going too far. On no account did she want to send him back into a fury. Then she slipped out of his embrace, gently but firmly, before it could turn into anything more.

Thomas could hardly believe his ears. “Ruth! Ruth! Ruth!” he whispered over and over again. He buried his hands in her hair and breathed in the vanilla scent of her hair powder. “You don’t know how much I’ve wanted to hear those words!” He still had no idea how to read her mood, and he tried to push her down to the floor.

“Not here!” Ruth’s voice sounded like the crack of a whip, stopping him instantly. “You don’t really think I want to lose my virginity in this ghastly dust-filled room!” She took a step back.

“I’ll sleep with you.” And now
she
was looking at
him
like long-awaited prey. “But it will have to be in some lovely, romantic spot that suits the occasion.”

He looked at her, baffled.

“And I have one more condition: I want you to tell everybody that we are engaged, at the village dance in May. You know quite well that I will only give my virginity to the man who’s going to marry me.” She raised a hand to fend him off. “There’s no need to say anything now. You have more than a week to think it over, and I don’t want your answer until then.”

27

The sun was still shining weakly as Johanna set out for Lauscha. Just as he did every Friday, the slate-maker was waiting with his cart at the outskirts of Sonneberg to take her as far as Steinach. The man might even have agreed to take her all the way to Lauscha, but Johanna liked to walk the rest of the way; it took barely an hour and gave her a chance to enjoy the warm April air, which already held a breath of sweet summer temptation. And though she could easily have afforded it, she didn’t use the railway either.

Strangely enough, she also needed time to get herself ready for Lauscha. Though they were only thirteen miles apart, the distance in her mind was much greater than that. More and more often these days, it felt to her like a journey from one world to another. Sonneberg meant something new every day—foreigners and new faces, interesting encounters and commerce. Lauscha was home. The same dear old place, day in and day out. Johanna loved them both and could hardly wait to be back with her sisters. But all the same her thoughts kept returning to her last conversation with Strobel.

“It might be that you will have to stay in Sonneberg next weekend,” he had told her as she was leaving. “I am expecting some important clients from America. A gentleman by the name of Mr. Woolworth will be visiting us for the second time. Last year he told me that he wanted to stop in Sonneberg for at least two days on this coming visit, and his assistant has confirmed this by letter.”

Johanna had nodded. She had seen the letter with its faded American postmark.

“Unfortunately Steven Miles could not tell me in advance when exactly he and Woolworth would be coming.”

Was it just her imagination, or had Strobel actually seemed a little nervous? “Of course I’ll stay in Sonneberg next weekend,” Johanna had answered. “But only if you tell me what’s so special about this Mr. Woolworth.”

So Strobel had done just that. “Well, first of all, I confidently expect to do a tidy bit of business with him,” he had admitted, grinning. “Last year he bought hundreds of dolls, glass dishes, and glass candlesticks. All of them from the bottom of our price range, admittedly, but it adds up. Especially in the numbers that Mr. Woolworth orders. But that’s not all. The man himself is something of a phenomenon. There is even a name for someone like him in the American language; he’s called a ‘self-made man.’ The story goes that his parents had a potato farm and that he never learned a trade himself. He worked his way up from the very humblest beginnings with nothing more than ambition, and perhaps a certain hunger for power.” Strobel had shaken his head, marveling. “You have to wonder at a story like that; he started with absolutely nothing and now he owns a whole chain of stores. It sounds like a fairy tale but it’s the truth. Who knows what the man will do next?”

Johanna had never seen Strobel so carried away and he only very rarely expressed admiration for others. Next week was sure to be another interesting week, she told herself with delight.

From a ways off, Johanna saw Peter up ahead. He was waiting on the last hilltop before the descent into Lauscha, just as he did every Friday. She waved at him. Then she stopped for a moment and rubbed her sore feet. The dainty new ankle boots she had bought were certainly elegant, and the black leather fitted her as snugly as a glove, but they were not particularly well suited to long walks. She walked on toward Peter, half hobbling, half hopping.

“So? How was your week?” they both asked at the same time and had to laugh. It was the same every Friday.

“Chacun à son goût,”
Johanna said.

“I beg your pardon?” Peter asked, frowning.

“It’s French,
monsieur
!” Johanna said, grinning. “We had the first French buyers in this week,” she explained. “It seems that the roads are clear again.”

“Just wait until we get a few more railways. Then the foreigners will be visiting all year round,” he grumbled.

“I’m happy about every new line they add. How else are we going to get Lauscha glassware out into the big wide world?” Johanna replied. Then she told him about her meeting with the French clients.

“You’ve never see a married couple like the Molières. He must be at least eighty years old. It took him an age to get from the shop door over to the table. And guess how old Madame Molière is? All of twenty-five! Blonde as an angel and absolutely beautiful!” She looked expectantly at Peter.

“I daresay she didn’t marry him for his blue eyes,” he said dryly.

Johanna laughed. “I thought at first that it had to have been for the money, as well. But you should have seen the two of them! They spent the whole time billing and cooing. Strobel and I didn’t know where to look. And then when they left, Strobel said, ‘
Chacun à son goût
!
’ which more or less means ‘There’s something for everyone.’ ”

“You and Strobel seem to get along well.” The note of jealousy in Peter’s voice was impossible to miss.

“That’s putting it rather too strongly,” Johanna said, struggling to give an honest reply. “I still find him a very odd man. Not that I want to change him to make him more to my tastes,” she added hastily when she saw Peter’s face cloud over.

“How exactly can you find Strobel odd when you spend all day, every day with him?” he asked suspiciously.

She gave him a friendly nudge. “I’ll never know anyone as well as I know you. Now, let’s get going before these shoes kill me. I can hardly wait to get the things off my feet.”

She listened halfheartedly as Peter told her about an eight-year-old boy who had come that week to have a glass eye fitted.

“When I asked the parents why they hadn’t gone to a glassblower in the Black Forest—that would have been much closer for them in Freiburg, after all—they told me that they came all the way to Lauscha because of my good reputation!” Peter sounded as though he could hardly believe it.

Johanna looked askance at him. “Why are you always so ridiculously modest?” she asked mercilessly. By now every step she took was torture.
“If you want to be successfu
l . . .
then you must look successful,”
she heard in her head like an echo.

“What do you mean modest? Of course I feel proud when word gets around that I’m good at my job. But that doesn’t mean that I have to boast about it like some people do. Or do you like braggarts these days? There are certainly enough of those in town.”

Johanna had to hold back from making a sharp reply. Instead, keeping her voice soft and calm, she asked, “So? What is the latest news on your glass animals?”

Instead of taking up her offer of a truce, Peter snapped back, “You don’t really care. What do a couple dozen glass critters mean compared to your commercial conquests?”

Johanna looked away. After a full week of hard work, the last thing she needed was to argue with Peter about his provincial views.