The Glassblower (22 page)

40

The next few weeks were turbulent, in Lauscha as well as Sonneberg.

Ruth gave birth to a healthy daughter and baptized her Wanda, Marie spent half her nights at the lamp, and Johanna felt like a fairy godmother.

Thanks to the Woolworth order, she had a whole stack of orders for the glassblowers in Lauscha, the doll-makers in Sonneberg, and various other suppliers. After working for Strobel for more than a year, she knew every family by name, and she knew that many of them lived hand-to-mouth. It gave her a warm glow to think that she helped improve their fate a little. A few months before, she had still been annoyed to find that there was one name that was never on the books: Peter Maienbaum. Peter was as stubborn as a mule and insisted on taking his glass animals to a smaller wholesaler who didn’t have half the contacts that Strobel did. But she was well accustomed to his stubbornness by now.

Johanna was utterly unprepared for the discovery that would shatter all her good cheer in an instant.

She still had about a dozen order sheets to fill in when she came across a line in Woolworth’s order that floored her completely.
Glass roses. Three dozen bouquets @ seven roses each. Crimson red. Retail 3 marks 80
, she read in the neat typewritten list, to which Strobel had added in his own writing
Number 345 and cost 0 marks 40.

That was odd. Johanna frowned. Strobel hadn’t mentioned that he changed his mind and was going to add Swiss Karl’s roses to the product line. Why hadn’t Karl ever said anything to her about it? And then there was the unit cost! Forty pence for such a detailed piece of work? There must be some mistake, but whose? She shook her head as she pushed back her chair and stood up to go look for Strobel. Then she sat down again.
Number 345—that isn’t Karl Flein at all!

A moment later, she discovered that number 345 was Tobias Neuner, one of the few glassblowers who didn’t yet have a gas main and still worked with the old-style lamp. He hardly had enough money to feed his family, much less to spend on technical innovation. Fate had not been kind to his family. Tobias’s parents were bedridden and looking after them took up a good deal of his wife Sieglind’s time. They had eight children, two of whom were not quite right in the head and a burden on the family. Of the other six, only one was a boy. Tobias had a great many mouths to feed and nobody to help him do it. As far as Johanna knew he had never taken a commission that needed colored glass rods, for the simple reason that he could not afford to put down the money for expensive stock. Most of the time Tobias didn’t even work directly for a wholesaler, but rather for Wilhelm Heimer and other suppliers who had more work than they could handle. He was a very good glassblower, and there were always enough crumbs from other people’s tables to keep his family from starving, but he never had much more than that.

And Tobias was suddenly supposed to blow these elaborate glass roses? For just a few pence each? Besides, the rose bouquet was Karl Flein’s invention!

Johanna’s blood was boiling when she found Strobel and confronted him with her questions.

He wasn’t in the least bit perturbed.

“I simply changed my mind and decided to take the roses after all. Three dozen pieces—it’s chicken feed.”

But Johanna didn’t see it that way at all.

“You can’t just take a glassblower’s invention and give the order to someone else without asking him! That’s a swindle!”

“Be careful using words like that, Johanna Steinmann,” Strobel replied, picking up an item at random from the counter. “Here, have a look at this vase. Is there a name on it anywhere? Or here”—he held up a drinking glass—“is there a name on this?”

Johanna didn’t bother to answer, knowing that Strobel didn’t expect her to anyway.

“Anyone can blow glass once they’ve learned how. There’s no law that says that only one glassblower can use a particular design. Oh, wouldn’t that be a lovely world to live in! No, my esteemed Johanna, that’s not how business works.”

Johanna glared at him, bitterly upset. “You’re quite right that there’s no law that states who blew what first,” she answered coldly. “But the way I see it, there are such things as unwritten laws. And they’re just as important as whatever’s in the law books!”

“Unwritten laws?” Strobel wouldn’t hear of such a thing. “Look at your precious glassblowers: they would cut the very ground out from each other’s feet! Every one of them blows to meet the orders he gets. Nobody worries his head over whether someone else might have blown such and such a piece before he did. They all spend their time plotting how to get a glimpse of their rivals’ workshops—after all, you never know what you may see there. And you’re blathering about some kind of honor code?”

Johanna stubbornly held her tongue. He wasn’t entirely wrong.

“Besides, if you are really so concerned about the good folk of Lauscha, you should be glad I gave this job to one of the poorest of the poor. And just so that you understand I’m not the heartless devil you take me for, I’ll tell you something else: I’ve advanced Neuner the money he needs to buy the color rods. So what do you say to that?” Strobel seemed to be reveling in her disapproval. His tongue was loosened now. “And another thing: Karl Flein hasn’t been left empty-handed. He’s making good money with his Christmas tree globes!”

Of course Johanna could have told him then and there precisely what motivated his so-called generosity: he was exploiting Neuner, nothing more. No glassblower who could afford otherwise would ever have agreed to blow such an elaborate design for a laughable forty pence apiece. Only someone desperate would do such a thing—someone like Thomas Neuner. And just as importantly, Johanna knew that not everyone would be able to make the delicate roses. But she said nothing. Friedhelm Strobel had laid out his arguments, and she knew him well enough to realize that he would not back down.

From that day forward she watched the way Strobel did business with a more critical eye.

She had always known of course, even before she went to work for him, that Strobel was a hard bargainer and always ready to trample on suppliers in his price war against the other wholesalers. She had always told herself that this was just the price of success. After all, the glassblowers didn’t come out of it all that badly, did they? Without the wholesaler’s far-flung networks, most of the glassblowers would be sitting and watching their wares gather dust. She had used such arguments again and again with Peter. And although he never tired of telling her that she worked for a cutthroat, she had admired Strobel. Over the course of the year her appreciation had only grown as she observed his eye for a deal, his knowledge of English and French, his worldly manner, and salesmanship.

Her only consolation after this unpleasant discovery was the thought that she hadn’t let him sneer at Marie’s baubles too. He would probably have stolen that idea as well an
d . . .
The very idea was so dreadful that Johanna didn’t dwell upon it. Marie would have wanted to kill her; that much was certain!

PART TWO

LATE SPRING, 1892

Glass, glass,

What is glass?

A thing that is nothing

where light may pass.

It is air and not air,

it is there and nowhere.

And yet it is hard

and the dazed bird

as it flies through the land

strikes the glass and cannot understand.

—Gerhart Hauptmann

1

With tired motions, Ruth pounded and kneaded the heavy bread dough on the tabletop, over and over again. Then she listlessly formed four loaves, placed them on a wooden board sprinkled with flour, and covered them with a clean cloth. Tomorrow at the crack of dawn she would take the bread to the bakehouse and hope that one of the other women would put it in with her batch. Ruth didn’t have time to put the loaves into the great stone oven and then wait around and chat while they baked. With her job in the workshop, her chores at home, and caring for Wanda, her days were more than full. She would have given anything to have old Edeltraud’s help one day a week.

“You’ll manage the little bit of housework we have here. Just think how it would look if I had to ask Father for help,” Thomas had said, shaking his head uncomprehendingly when Ruth suggested the idea.

“But Eva never has to ask for anything!” she hissed now, not that there was anyone around to hear her.

There was still a cup of lukewarm tea left over from the pot she had made at supper. Ruth looked down into the pale green fluid with disgust. What she wouldn’t give for a cup of real coffee. She still had a few beans left—Johanna brought her a little bag from time to time—but she wanted to save them for another day, when she was in a better mood. The bitter tea was just right for today, she decided in a moment of self-mortification.

She glanced over toward the cot and then drew up one of the chairs that Thomas had dragged out from some dusty corner of Wilhelm’s attic. She would far rather have had a corner bench put in for the kitchen table. “We can sit on chairs just as well. And we’re up at Father’s house most of the time anyway,” Thomas had said when she mentioned it. When it came to spending money, he was just as stingy as his father.

It was shortly before eight o’clock in the evening and still light outside as the days were growing longer. It could be hours before Thomas came back from the Black Eagle, but Ruth nonetheless kept her ears open for any sound at the door. She didn’t want to revisit their argument from earlier that evening, and she knew that Thomas’s mood would not have improved after a few beers.

Once again, he had worked himself up into a rage at the smallest provocation. Wanda was almost four months old, and she had grown so big that she had been kicking her feet up against the end of the cradle for weeks, so Ruth had ordered a little cot for her from Zurr the carpenter—she didn’t want her child to grow up bowlegged after all. Zurr had brought it round that evening and as bad luck would have it, Thomas had been at the door to take delivery. Zurr had hardly said good-bye before Thomas had let fly at her, accusing her of all kinds of things—spendthrift was the very least of his insults. He had hurled one recrimination at her after another. And that wasn’t all.

Why hadn’t she told him before that she had ordered the bed, Ruth chided herself. He didn’t like it when she went behind his back, and he always wanted to be kept informed. Heaven forbid that she not let him know what she was doing and why. But damn it all. She wasn’t his prisoner! Did a married woman have no rights at all?

She wanted to go to bed. Her arms ached from carrying heavy cardboard boxes full of glassware back and forth all day, and her head pounded with a dull leaden pain. But instead she reached for her knitting basket. For a moment she hesitated over the three pieces she had already started, wondering which to carry on with, but then she settled on a little jacket. By the time she finished, Wanda would probably have long outgrown it.

“Moaning minnie!” she chided herself. Then she rummaged around in the basket for the most colorful piece of wool she could find. Perhaps there would be enough of the yellow to put two narrow stripes up the sleeves?

Her knitting needles clicked in an unsteady rhythm—as unsteady as her thoughts, which were chasing around in her head now that there was finally time after a long and strenuous day of work. Struggling helplessly to clear her mind, she looked around the apartment that was now her home. They had moved into these rooms above the Heimer warehouse straight after the wedding. It seemed a hundred years ago now.

Was that what people meant when they talked about the way of the world? The days trundling by, one day blurring into the next, unnoticed, uneventful? Going to work, coming home, looking after the child, cooking, cleaning, sleeping. Arguing. Going to work.

“What do you want, child?” Griseldis had asked her with a sigh, when Ruth once ventured to talk about how unhappy she was. “That’s life after all. Be glad of what you have: a husband, a healthy child, and God knows you don’t have to worry about keeping the wolf from the door. You have it a lot better than many others! And believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

Ruth had only felt worse after this little sermon. Widow Grün was right: on the surface at least, she had a good life.

Her knitting needles stopped clattering for a moment. Ruth frowned. What did they say about superficial appearances? All that glitters is not gold. Scratch the shiny surface and underneath there will be bumps and scrapes or even great gaping holes.

“Be glad of what you have!”

Ruth looked lovingly over at the cradle. Wanda had been a ray of sunshine from the moment she was born. Everybody said so. She almost never cried, she smiled cheerfully at everybody who had time for her, and she had slept through the night when she was only a few weeks old. And she was so pretty! Like her mother. Everybody said that too.

There was only one problem with Wanda. Ruth felt a lump forming in her throat.

She wasn’t a boy.

The knitting needles blurred in front of her eyes.
Don’t be a crybaby,
Ruth thought but she couldn’t hold back the tears. Soon her shoulders shook with tiny, powerful sobs. She didn’t even care.

When could she give way to the tears otherwise? During the day, in the workshop? Under Eva’s venomous gaze? Eva, who was just waiting for something like this to happen? While Thomas was around? He would enjoy it; that was certain. Or should she cry while she was changing Wanda’s diaper, dripping tears onto her rosy-pink skin?

Thomas had been so looking forward to the child. He’d been bragging all around the village about what a great strong lad he would be, the best of the Heimer and Steinmann lineages. Night after night he and his buddies had drunk toasts to the health of his unborn son.

And then it had happened. The baby that had given her not the least bit of trouble during the whole pregnancy had been born with the worst possible defect that a Heimer man could imagine: it was a girl. He didn’t care one bit that she was healthy, that she had beautiful smooth skin, that her fluffy hair was so soft and blonde that Ruth couldn’t help stroking it all the time. Thomas had taken one look at the child and then turned and left the nursery without a word. He hadn’t come home at all that night. Ruth had tried to convince herself that he was celebrating the birth. But deep down she knew better. When that viper Eva had visited her the next morning—under the pretext of wanting to see the child—she hadn’t even said “What a pretty thing!” but launched straightaway into a hypocritical outpouring of sympathy for her and Thomas. “Not an heir after all, the
n . . .
and Thomas was so looking forward to having a son! And Wilhelm wanted a grandson too. If only the rest of them hadn’t teased him so down at the Black Eagle! They said that Thomas was just like your father and soon the women would be ruling the roos
t . . .
No wonder that a man might drink one or two beers too many, after a disappointment like
that
! Sebastian tells me that Thomas was so drunk he couldn’t even find his way home. So he brought him over to us. Oh, I wouldn’t like to have his hangover! Wilhelm even gave him the day off work. You can imagine what
that
must mean.”

Yes, Ruth could well imagine it, even without Eva rolling her eyes and casting meaningful glances her way. Since then, Thomas had been knocking back the booze worse than ever. She tried not to let Eva’s needling remarks get to her, and she told herself that Eva was just jealous because she and Sebastian still couldn’t manage to conceive.

When Thomas had finally come home that night, he didn’t speak a dozen words together, never mind offer her an apology for staying out all night. She had been waiting for him to look into the cradle, or at least to ask how the child was doing, but he had done nothing of the kind.

His brothers were no better, nor was the old man. For them, Ruth’s daughter didn’t seem to exist. It hadn’t helped that Ruth had suggested the name Wanda in the hope that Wilhelm would be happy with the
W
. Nobody seemed to care in the least what the child would be called.

And the
n . . .

Thomas had hit her for the first time a week after Wanda was born. And that wasn’t all. Even now, months later, Ruth shuddered when she thought of that evening.

That day her left nipple had been inflamed, and breast-feeding was so painful that tears had sprung to her eyes. Thomas hadn’t offered a single word of comfort, hadn’t taken her in his arms and told her that he loved her. No, he had looked right past Wanda’s tiny body and stared at Ruth’s bare breast as though he had never seen it before. When she had gone to bed at seven o’clock that evening, tired to the bone, he had followed her into the bedroom.

“Now there’s no more big belly to get in the way!” he said as he undid his trousers. For a moment Ruth didn’t understand what he wanted of her. He couldn’t possibly mean to sleep with her? Today of all days, when she felt so miserable?

But that was exactly what he meant to do. And Ruth had been too weak to put up a fight. He had been enraged by the way she just lay there. “Are you my wife or a lifeless doll?” he had shouted as he thrust away.

Ruth had closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, hoping that he would be done soon, crying a thousand tears inside.

She hadn’t expected him to hit her. First across the right cheek, then the left. Slap. Slap. With no warning at all. She had opened her eyes in shock, and, for a moment, she sensed that he was at least as surprised as she was.

“You brought that upon yourself,” he had shouted in her face. “Next time you look your husband in the eye when he takes what’s his by right of marriage. You can keep your airs and graces for outside!”

From that day forward, he hit her again and again. Never so hard that the marks were visible—God forbid Thomas Heimer would become known as a man who beat his wife.

Unconsciously Ruth put a hand behind her ear, to the bruised spot where he had drawn blood earlier that evening.

She hadn’t even had a chance to explain to him about the new bed when he gave her a clip on the ear.

“Where do you even get these crazy ideas?” he had yelled, as if she were a naughty schoolchild.

She still couldn’t believe this was happening to her. To her, Joost’s daughter. Her father had always treated women with such respect.

She was so ashamed that she couldn’t bring herself to tell Johanna or Marie about it. What good would it have done? Nobody had forced her to marry Thomas. She had accepted him of her own free will, with all her heart. And that meant she had accepted the Heimer family as well, none of whom had even bothered to come to Wanda’s baptism. There had been some “important business” to take care of, that day of all days. If it hadn’t been for her sisters, she would have been alone with Wanda and the pastor.

She still hadn’t gotten over the disappointment, but whenever she looked into the cradle or put Wanda to her breast, she felt a warm wave of happiness. She loved this child. How she loved this child! The baby was a Steinmann, like her and her sisters.

When she thought of Johanna and Marie she had to smile. Her sisters made up for all of the Heimers’ neglect. Wanda was hardly a week old when Marie drew the first of many portraits of her, and she had captured every important moment in Wanda’s young life from that point on. Ruth didn’t dare hang Marie’s beautiful drawings up around the house, but she took them out of the drawer to admire them time and time again. And Johanna! Not a weekend went by that she didn’t come home with some darling little dress. Only last week she had brought a solid silver teething ring, and the little one hadn’t even begun teething yet!

Ruth’s features grew hard. As far as she was concerned, Johanna could spoil the baby rotten. Very soon after Wanda was born, she had resolved that she would be proud of her daughter, as proud as Joost had been of her and her sisters. Wanda should lack for nothing. She was her little princess.