The Glassblower (19 page)

“Of course we do. But to be honest, I prefer knowing as little as possible about him. He can be a rather odd duck.”

33

On Monday Johanna was so swamped with work that she had no time to think about Ruth’s wedding. She had just unlocked the shop and was putting the key in a drawer under the counter when the door opened and Swiss Karl walked in. He must have set out from Lauscha in the middle of the night to get there so early.

“You’ve got young swallows up under the eaves,” he said instead of hello, and pointed his chin toward the door.

Johanna smiled. This was typical of Karl Flein. The glassblower had a better eye for the beauties of nature than almost anyone else in the village.

“I know,” she answered. “If I let Strobel have his way, I’d have to clear that nest away. He’s worried that the little beasts might drop something on our customers as they come in. But they do say that a house where swallows build their nest will have health and wealth.” Johanna leaned over the counter. “Now then, Swiss Karl, what can I do for you? Are you thirsty? Shall I get you a glass of water? It’s warm for June, isn’t it?”

She’d always liked Karl Flein, a quiet, polite man, even before he had come to Father’s grave with the handblown glass rose as a final gift to a fellow craftsman. She was happy that Mr. Woolworth had ordered several items from him.

Flein waved the offer away. “I shan’t need anything, thank you.”

Johanna waited while he ceremoniously took a sheet of paper from his breast pocket and unfolded it. It was the order sheet she had given to a messenger woman for him last week. For a moment Johanna flushed hot and cold. Had she made a mistake?

“There’s something I don’t understand on your order. What’s this mean?” he asked, pointing to one line.

“We’ll soon sort this out,” she said, taking the sheet from his hand. But the next instant her confident smile faded. “Twenty dozen balls with eyelets for hanging, silvered within, diameter two inches,” she read, furrowing her brow. “What does it mean?”

“At first I thought it was the bead necklaces, since you’ve bought plenty of those from me,” Flein said. “But that can’t be it, not at that size.”

Johanna put her hand to her mouth to disguise her own confusion.

“Two inches in diameter—they’d certainly be very big beads!” she said, trying to laugh. “Mr. Strobel isn’t here at the moment. Let me fetch his notebook. Perhaps he’s written down something that might clarify things a little.” She went to the back of the shop.

She hadn’t noticed anything odd as she was filling out the order sheet. She had simply copied out every item on the Woolworth order that Strobel had written under number 386, which was the number for Karl Flein in the books. Perhaps Strobel had made a mistake about the size of the balls? Johanna bit her lip. Drat it all; it was her job to make sure of details like this. Now she couldn’t even ask him.

Strobel’s notebook didn’t tell her much though. He’d jotted down a comment in the margin for this item, as he often did, but Johanna had trouble deciphering his handwriting.

“New product/ add to catalog/ globes for hanging: as Christmas tree decorations,” she read out loud, frowning.

“Christmas tree decorations?” Flein repeated.

“Glass globes? On a Christmas tree?” Johanna asked, baffled, while outside the young swallows chirped hungrily.

The glassblower shrugged. “Why not? For all I care, your clients can hang themselves on the tree if they want to,” he said with a laugh. “When you get right down to it, these are nothing more than big glass beads then. The only difference is that instead of drawing the tail off the bead, I’ll blow a little hook into it. So that it can be hung.” He smiled confidently. “I can do that, of course, now that I know what the globes are supposed to be fo
r . . .
Well then, I’m off to get back to work.” He pulled his cap down over his brow.

“Anyway, let that wholesaler of yours know that next time he should be a bit clearer about what he wants.” Karl winked and left.

Three weeks later Ruth Steinmann became Mrs. Heimer.

The wedding banquet was such a magnificent affair that it was almost as though Ruth really was marrying Prince Charming. Nearly a hundred guests had been invited, mostly glassblowers and their families but also the Sonneberg wholesalers who did business with the Heimer workshop. For once Wilhelm Heimer hadn’t skimped on costs and had rented the Black Eagle outright. It wasn’t Lauscha’s largest tavern, but it had always been a popular gathering place for the glassblowers.

There were eight waitresses at the reception to serve coffee and fancy cakes. The sweet treats were hardly finished before they brought out potato dumplings with a goulash of venison and wild boar, and both red and white cabbage. The beer flowed freely, and though red wine was also offered, only the Sonneberg businessmen drank it. Glassblowers were beer drinkers and always had been, and the bridegroom was among the staunchest upholders of this tradition—and, at least to start with, his bride watched indulgently. His friends followed his example faithfully, and the celebration grew louder and merrier as the hours went by.

But the food and drink, good though it was, was not the high point of the occasion. That was the table itself and the decorations; Marie had spent days wreathing box branches into lengths of tracery and adorning them with rosettes of gold paper that she had cut into delicate patterns. She wound one length around the chairs of the bride and groom, joining them together so that they looked like one royal throne. Another length was placed around the tables that bore the wedding gifts.

And there were plenty of gifts: the glassblowers gave them all kinds of glassware of course—from drinking glasses, dishes, and plates to perfume bottles, vases, and little lidded pots. Swiss Karl had given the couple a whole bouquet of glass roses blown from the orange and red rods in his stock, complete with green leaves and thorns along the stem. The whole piece was so lifelike that Edeltraud came hurrying up with a vase full of water for the roses. When the guests standing around noticed her mistake, they laughed until their sides ached.

Thomas’s brothers gave the couple two goose-feather quilts and pillows, which they handed over with much ado and several off-color remarks. The gifts from the Sonneberg wholesalers included a two-way mirror, a five-armed porcelain candelabrum, and a set of silver flatware for fish. Johanna got the impression that all of Heimer’s business partners were trying to outdo one another with their gifts. She found herself thinking ungraciously that the newlyweds might have liked some more practical presents for day-to-day use, perhaps some cooking pots.

Ruth received all the gifts with a dignity befitting a queen. Having always dreamed of having some luxury in her life, she was visibly overjoyed by all the expensive, unusual presents. And she was equally effusive in thanking the guests who brought only a few towels or a single glass dish, like Widow Grün. All day long Ruth had a kind word for everybody, tirelessly shaking hands and receiving their congratulations.

“If only Father could see her now,” Johanna said quietly.

Marie nodded. “Somehow I feel that he’s here anyway,” she confessed. “I have to stop myself from looking up to heaven all the time.”

“You too?” Johanna and Marie traded awkward smiles. Then Johanna sighed. “But I don’t like the thought that you’ll be living on your own from now on.”

“Well, look who’s talking! Who’s been living with a strange man for more than six months now?” Marie countered, then added, “You don’t have to worry about me. I don’t mind being on my own.”

“I’m just next door after all,” Peter said. “All Marie has to do is knock on the wall if there’s anything she needs. Beside
s . . .
” he said, pulling Johanna gently to her feet. “I think you’ve had enough worries for today. Come on, let’s go join the fun.”

The newlyweds had just finished the first dance and were beckoning for everyone else to join them on the dance floor. Ruth’s pregnancy didn’t show at all. In fact the dress that she had chosen in Sonneberg rather emphasized her tall, slender figure. She had decided against an elaborate coiffure and instead wore her hair in one thick plait all the way down her back.

“Ruth looks beautiful,” Johanna whispered to Peter as they joined the other dancing couples.

“And you look just as lovely,” he whispered back. His breath tickled the hairs at the back of her neck.

Johanna felt clumsy as she fended off the compliment. “Nonsense,” she said. “I’m nothing special.”

“You are to me,” Peter said emphatically.

Johanna looked up at him, on her mettle. “Don’t you ever give up?”

He shook his head. “I never will. I’m still quite convinced that we belong together.”

“Oh, Peter!” she said, nudging him gently. “And what if you have to wait for me until you’re old and gray?” It was only half in jest. While she found it flattering that he was so insistent, she didn’t want to raise any false hopes. It didn’t matter how Peter felt about her; she saw him as a brother, nothing more.

“I’ll take the risk,” Peter replied cheerfully. “Look at those two.” He nodded toward Ruth and Thomas. “A year ago nobody would have thought that they would be married.”

“Well I have to agree with you there at least; nobody knows what time may bring,” Johanna said vaguely, to end the conversation on a friendly note.

Once they had danced enough, they went to the bar and ordered two steins of beer. Then they sat down at a little table where the waitresses put their drinks. It gave them a good view of the crowd while they weren’t noticed themselves.

“I think I’ll stay here for the rest of the party,” Johanna said, her cheeks glowing. The beer was cool and refreshing. “I can’t take any more of Wilhelm Heimer’s speeches today. There’s a way he always looks at me out of the corner of his eye as he talk
s . . .
brrr! As if he always wants to remind me what a good catch our Ruth has made.” She sighed. “Though I must admit it’s very generous of him to give them the apartment over his warehouse. I didn’t even know he owned that building.”

Peter laughed. “Well there you have it. Thomas really is a good catch.”

“There we have it indeed!” Johanna scoffed, jutting her chin toward the dance floor, where Thomas and his buddies were making fools of themselves, clucking like hens and prancing about. Johanna raised her eyebrows as the women tried to drag their men off the dance floor. She was relieved to see that Ruth was not among them.

“Do you think it’ll work out?” she asked Peter, nodding toward the newlyweds.

Peter shrugged.

Johanna knew that the happiness she felt today was just an exception: the dancing, the easy chatter, none of Strobel’s odd remarks, no worries about how Marie would get by on her own. Everything would be quite different again tomorrow.

All at once Johanna felt sick at heart. She changed her mind about sitting and led Peter back onto the dance floor, hoping that her worries would go away.

34

And then summer was over. Up on the forest heights where the wind was strong, deciduous trees shed their leaves, exposing the grim dark pines behind them. The sun was soon barely visible behind the steep mountains, and the shadows stayed in the village longer each day. When Johanna set off for home on Fridays, it was already dark as the slate-maker’s cart rattled on its way.

There were days when Ruth felt unwell as her belly grew rounder, but she turned up for work right on time all the same. And a good thing too, since the workload at Heimer’s workshop never ebbed. Thomas and his two brothers sat at their lamps and blew glass from morning till night, while Ruth, Marie, and the other women painted and finished the wares.

Although Marie often had a backache after the long hours up at Heimer’s, she frequently sat up half the night at the kitchen table with her sketchpad. She felt invigorated by the peace and quiet in the house now that Ruth had moved out. At last she could put her sketches and her colored pencils wherever she liked, could draw and experiment and cross out without anyone looking over her shoulder and squealing with delight. Her sisters’ interest in her art had always felt like rather a burden. They were bound to praise her, whatever she did. If anyone was going to pass comment on her work, then Marie would have much preferred that it be someone who really knew about art, someone with whom she could exchange ideas. Despite the fact that she had no such expert guidance, her designs became clearer and more considered over time. All the same, Marie constantly found herself drawing circles and spheres rather than the dishes or bowls she had intended and which she ended up crossing out in frustration.

The ideas had started with a passing remark many months before. Something that Johanna had said shortly after Ruth’s wedding had put those shapes into Marie’s head, and now they simply wouldn’t go away.

“You can’t imagine all the new things I get to see at Strobel’s shop,” Johanna had said. “There I am thinking I know every kind of glass made in Lauscha and then a glassblower comes along and surprises me with some new design.”

Marie had asked her sister what exactly she got to see, even though she would have liked to put her hands over her ears. She didn’t want to hear about all the wonderful things—or even the ugly things—that the glassblowers brought to Strobel. Not when Wilhelm Heimer had just turned down another of her designs.

“You have good ideas, girl, I’ll give you that,” he had said. “But as long as we still have commissions to work through, we don’t need to go trying anything new.” He clapped a friendly hand on her shoulder, but it did nothing to lessen the disappointment. So Marie had only listened with half an ear while Johanna talked about Karl Flein and his order from an American buyer. “We’ve seen people hang glass beads on their trees of course, but glass
globes
—can you imagine?” Johanna had laughed.

And all of a sudden Marie had pricked up her ears. She had nodded impatiently at Johanna.
Tell me more!

Taking the hint, Johanna had explained, “When Strobel got back from his trip, I asked him how on earth Mr. Woolworth had gotten the idea of ordering glass globes for Christmas trees—whether that was what they usually hung on their trees in America. Strobel said it wasn’t, but that Mr. Woolworth had told him he’d bought a small consignment of clear glass globes from a dealer in Pen
n . . .
Pennsylvania”—she had stumbled over the name a little—“and only because the man had been so insistent about it. If nobody had bought the globes, he’d have sent them back to the dealer. But apparently they sold like hotcakes.

“Woolworth’s a businessman and saw there was a tidy profit to be made. And now Swiss Karl’s working away on them. I’m glad that Strobel picked him for the order. His family can certainly use the work.”

Marie had asked for an exact description of the globes. There really wasn’t much to them, she realized. But the idea itself was fascinating.

When Johanna had gone back to Sonneberg shortly thereafter, she had no idea that her remarks had planted the seed of a new idea in her sister. Marie had tossed and turned sleeplessly in bed that night, fighting to hold back the flood of images in her head: glittering globes, their colors standing out against a green pine. The candlelight playing across the silver sheen. She wanted to get out of bed and put the pictures safely down in her sketchbook. But then she scolded herself for the thought—Wilhelm Heimer would never want to bother with these globes, any more than he did with the rest of her designs.

But she nonetheless came back again and again over the following weeks and months to the thought that Karl Flein’s glass globes would soon be on their way to America to glitter and shine as Christmas tree ornaments. She was full of pride that glass blown in her home village was cherished all over the world.

Once again, Marie couldn’t sleep even though she was dead tired. Christmas was fast approaching, and she didn’t know whether to look forward to it or dread the day. Ruth would spend Christmas Eve with the Heimers, but she had promised to visit Marie and Johanna for a while.

On her last visit, Johanna had said, “I’ve thought up a few nice surprises.” Marie could well imagine what that meant; Johanna would probably come home with a whole trunk full of gifts. But that was hardly unexpected given how much she earned.

If only she could think of something that would
really
surprise her sisters.

In the end Marie gave up on getting to sleep. She found her socks in the dark, put them on, and went downstairs. She lit the kitchen lamp and sat down at the table with a cup of tea. She hadn’t taken the trouble to light the stove earlier that evening, so it was unpleasantly cold. She went to the window, checking for drafts. Though the pane sat snugly in its frame, the cold seemed to be seeping through the glass all the same. Marie’s gaze fell on the frost flowers that had spread themselves across the window like the finest Plauen lace. She traced their delicate tracery thoughtfully with her finger. Nature still shows us the best designs, she reflected, the most beautiful works of art. And then she thought,
There must be some way for me to capture this wintry beauty.

She fetched a shawl and threw it over her shoulders, then hurried into the workshop.

Should she decorate a Christmas tree, the way they used to do when she was a little girl? She could weave some stars out of straw and then paint them white perhaps, to make them look like ice crystals. That was not exactly an original idea though.

But a tree with glass globes like the ones Karl Flein made—that would be a real surprise!

Deep in thought, she began to wipe down Father’s workbench with a damp cloth.

She had gotten into the habit of dusting the abandoned workbench and all his tools once a week, no matter how much other work she had. Her father had worked at this bench all his life, day in and day out. The ritual was important to her, just as Ruth felt it important to clear the moss away from Joost’s gravestone regularly.

Everything was still just as he had left it: the gas pipe to the left with the box of matches that had a picture of an orange flame on the label; the air hose to the right, which connected to the treadle-operated bellows under the table; and in between there were the glass rods, neatly lined up by color and length. Marie carefully picked up each one and wiped the dust away. Then she put aside the cloth and sat down.

She gazed into the darkness for a while. Dusting the bench had just been an excuse, she realized, a pretext for sitting here. She reached for the matchbox and took out a match. Her hand was trembling a little at the audacity of what she was about to do. She hesitated. Then she looked over the workbench, checking that all was in place.

And then she did what she had to.

She turned the gas tap counterclockwise, once round, twice, until the gas began to flow invisibly. Marie couldn’t see it, could hardly even smell it.

And with that, Joost’s workbench awoke to new life.

Her right foot found the bellows and her leg settled into the rhythm of its own accord. Up, down. Up, down. Marie bent down and held the hose to her cheek, testing the flow. She seemed to feel every little hair in the gentle stream of air.

“You have to blow hard to make the flame sing!” she heard her father say. She choked back a sob. Then she lit the match and held it to the flame. A bluish-red flame shot up.

Marie sat up straight, took a deep breath, and tried to shake some of the tension from her shoulders. There was no reason to be nervous. She had the gas under control. She wouldn’t open the tap any more than she knew was safe. She needn’t be afraid.

Once she had calmed down a little, she took the air hose, which had been blowing off to one side, and brought it closer to the gas tap. Very soon the flame would turn blue, and then it would burn ever more fiercely until it was hot enough to melt glass.

But nothing happened.

Marie was taken aback. Not enough gas? Or not enough air?

She began to work the bellows faster. Still nothing. Not enough gas, then. She put the air hose into its clip so that her hands were free. Then she turned the valve on the gas tap all the way around. When she turned the air hose back onto the flame, it flickered for a moment, but Marie could see at a glance that the temperature was still far too low to heat up one of the glass rods.

She struggled to recall just how far Thomas and his brothers opened their gas pipes. Even though she was at the workshop every day, she never paid attention to such details. She was a woman and had nothing to do with the glassblowing. Women just finished the wares.

Marie stared at the gas tap as though it would tell her what to do. She had turned the valve three times by now—did she need to turn it ten times, or twenty, to get a good flame?

It was no use, Marie decided. Either she plucked up her nerve and used more gas, or she could give up right now. She swallowed. Then she turned the gas tap round and round until she heard it hiss. She knew that sound! She brought in the air.

The next moment a burst of flame shot up toward the ceiling.