The American Lady (The Glassblower Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  17

  She was in love and she was discovering new worlds of art. Despite all that, Marie kept her promise and told Wanda about Lauscha and her real father. Sometimes she just perched on the edge of Wanda’s bed for a couple of minutes before rushing off to meet Franco and told a quick tale of village life, leaving Wanda impatient for more. She loved her aunt’s stories, the more the better. “Didn’t you say that it was time I heard everything?” she said whenever Marie tried to hurry these visits along.

  And so Wanda learned that her father was a talented glassblower and that he still liked to drink, though he was no longer the wild lad he had been in his youth. He was hardly seen down at the village tavern anymore, for now he did the lion’s share of the work for his family. When Wanda asked why that was the case, Marie held nothing back. Wanda deserved to hear the whole truth.

  How her father’s younger brother, Michel, got so drunk one night that he trapped his foot in the rails on the Sonneberg-Lauscha line as a train was approaching and couldn’t get free in time. It was his bad luck that he lost his right leg, the leg that a glassblower uses to work the treadle on the bellows and control how much air mixes in with the gas flame. From that day on, there was one fewer glassblower at work in the Heimer household.

  “Michel used to make eyes at me—I think I was eighteen at the time—and we met up a few times. But I was only interested in spending time with him so that I could pick up a few tricks of the trade,” Marie admitted, laughing.

  Wanda’s other uncle, Sebastian, had left Lauscha immediately when he found his wife Eva naked in bed with his father, Wanda’s grandfather, and he never came back. Eva had stayed with Wilhelm, and they now lived together as man and wife. Wilhelm was an old man and in very poor health. Marie doubted he would survive the next winter.

  Wanda was astonished. It was all so scandalous! She would never have believed that her relatives in the old country could get up to such mischief.

  When she asked Ruth about Eva, her mother replied, “That Eva always was a snake in the grass. The only thing that surprises me is that it took her so long to start playing around behind Sebastian’s back. I can well remember the way she flirted with the old man! Those two deserve one another!”

  Wanda wanted to know more, but Ruth wouldn’t go into detail. She didn’t like the way Marie was dishing up old gossip, and she told her so straight out.

  “Do you think you’re doing Wanda any favors by telling her about that den of vipers?” she snapped at Marie. “None of them wanted anything to do with her—why should she care if the old man’s taken to his bed with gout or arthritis?” Then she rounded on Wanda and accused her of caring more about a crowd of complete strangers than she did about her nearest and dearest. About her father, for instance.

  Wanda knew that Steven was suffering. He took her sudden interest in Lauscha to mean that she no longer felt anything for him. Which was nonsense, of course. He was her daddy despite everything, surely he realized that! But she couldn’t tell him herself, so none of them quite managed to say what they really meant. Ruth tried her best to act as though nothing had ever happened, Steven thought that he had lost his daughter, and Marie suffered terribly from having been the one to start the whole dreadful business. And Wanda? She didn’t know which way to turn.

  So Marie and Wanda continued their conversations up on the roof of the building. Nobody ever came up there except for a few scraggly pigeons, so the two women could talk without interruption.

  Leaning up against the chimney, mostly with her eyes closed, Wanda listened while Marie told her about everyday life in Thuringia and the holidays they celebrated there. She told her about the carnival at the beginning of Lent and about the village dance on the first weekend of May every year. Marie’s stories made life there seem good, and the villagers of Lauscha sounded like happy folk.

  Once Wanda almost fell off the ladder backward in surprise as she climbed up to the rooftop and spotted a sumptuous picnic spread out on a cloth. There were even two bottles of beer. Marie was sitting in the middle of the whole arrangement, grinning broadly. She had bought a huge loaf of rye bread at a German bakery and some blood sausage and liverwurst from a German deli, along with pickled gherkins—although to her dismay they turned out to be salt pickled, not the vinegar pickles she liked. As the two of them tucked into their rooftop feast, Marie chatted away about how the glassblowers at home loved potato dishes of all sorts with a glass of beer alongside.

  Wanda listened, chewing contentedly. At first she could hardly believe that many families only had one dish to eat from and that everyone around the table helped themselves with a spoon—or even with their fingers.

  Marie giggled. “I can still remember very clearly the first day when we went to old Heimer’s workshop as hired hands, your mother, Johanna, and I. Old Edeltraud, the maidservant, came out at lunchtime and put a great dish of potato salad and wurst in the middle of the table, and we were expected to eat from that like pigs at a trough. We were quite taken aback! But you can get used to anything . . . It wasn’t an easy time for any of us, our father had really spoiled us in his way. We certainly weren’t used to being ordered about the way your grandfather used to do. I’m telling you, we had to work our fingers to the bone for a few measly marks! But despite all that—there were good times too. Those brothers loved telling off-color jokes—and didn’t seem to care who was listening. It took us quite some time to get used to their coarse jokes.”

  “Oh, Marie, it sounds like something from another world!” Wanda sighed. “I could listen to you talking about it for hours. But I still feel so cut off from it all. I keep asking myself what all these people have to do with me.”

  As chance would have it, a few days later on their way to dance class they passed a poster announcing that a well-known gallery would be holding an exhibition of Murano glass. This was Venetian glass, not Thuringian, but it was glass all the same. So Marie suggested they go see it. She knew that Ruth was a frequent visitor to the gallery and she wanted to ask her to join them. But Wanda talked her aunt out of it; talking to her mother about glass or anything connected to Lauscha these days was like waving a red flag at a bull. Wanda wanted to go just with Marie, but Franco came too.

  Marie’s detailed descriptions of Lauscha and the villagers had not prepared her for the sight of the exquisite glass pieces on display. Wanda was fascinated. Arm in arm with Marie, she walked from one showcase to the next, both of them exclaiming in delight.

  “I can hardly believe that my father makes artwork like this too,” Wanda said, shaking her head. “How do they put those spirals into the glass? And look how this one shimmers! It’s iridescent! And look at the vase over here with thousands of tiny flowers melted into its sides. How in the world do they do these things? These glasses are amazing! You would hardly dare to drink water or wine from such a thing! They’re magical . . .” She was at a loss for words. “It’s such a cold material but it radiates such warmth . . . it’s poetry!”

  Marie smiled. “You’re a glassmaker’s daughter for certain!” she said, and Wanda felt a warm shiver run down her spine.

  Marie did her best to explain the various techniques to Wanda, but some of what she saw was new to her as well. “I must admit that these Venetian glassblowers know a few tricks that leave our techniques in the shade! I’d love to sit down at the lamp and try out one or two of these ideas, though I don’t know whether I’d manage!”

  Franco had been listening to the women talk, his face impassive, but now he offered to find the two artists so that Marie could learn more about their techniques.

  While he set off in search of them, Marie took Wanda aside.

  “Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t want what I say now to spoil your good mood. But when it comes to your father’s workshop . . .” she cleared her throat, embarrassed. “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression.”

  “What is it, Aunt Marie?
” Wanda said, though she was only partly listening. She had just spotted a glass that was tinted a delicate pink like cotton candy and so lovely that . . .

  “Time was when the Heimer workshop was well-known for the quality of their wares and the range they could offer, but they’ve been in a bad way for a few years now. Don’t ask me why!” Marie said, raising her hands in protest. “All I know is that Wilhelm would never hear any talk of getting into Christmas ornaments.”

  “But there are so many things they could make other than Christmas ornaments, aren’t there? If . . . if Thomas Heimer is as good a glassblower as you claim, then he must get enough other work,” Wanda replied. She couldn’t bring herself to say “my father.”

  Marie laughed. “It’s not that simple. You see, the orders don’t come in these days the way that they used to. You have to go out and look for the work. Nowadays a glassblower has to have a streak of the salesman too, or he’ll go under.”

  “Who goes out and gets the orders in your workshop?” Wanda asked, frowning.

  “Johanna, of course! She takes care of the whole business side of things—I know nothing about any of that,” Marie said. She waved to Franco, who was headed toward them with two men in tow. “Isn’t he handsome, my proud Italian?”

  Wanda rolled her eyes. There was no talking to Marie once she got that dreamy look on her face. She took a couple of steps and stood right in front of her aunt.

  “Do you think I might ever become a glassblower?” she asked, feeling stupid as soon as the words were out of her mouth. “I only mean . . . since both of my parents are from famous glassblowing families. Sadly, though, I’ve never been terribly good with my hands. I can’t do embroidery at all, for instance. Whenever I try to do fine needlework my fingers get all sweaty and cramp up—whatever I try ends up looking clumsy and ragged . . . Aunt Marie, you’re not listening to me at all!”

  “Could you blow glass? Well, we’d have to try and see . . .” Marie replied, her gaze still fixed on Franco.

  Wanda held her breath. Should she go ahead and blurt out the crazy idea that had been buzzing around her head these past few days?

  “What would you say to my coming to Lauscha to visit you sometime?” she asked, her voice trembling. “I could try my hand at glassblowing. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? If Mother lets me, I could come with you when you go home.”

  Before Marie could answer, Franco gestured to the two Italian glassblowers to come forward.

  “May I introduce Flavio Scarpa and Mateo di Pianino? They will be happy to answer any questions you have about their art, but you will have to put up with me doing the translation, since I’m afraid they can’t speak English or German.”

  Marie and the two glassblowers launched immediately into a highly technical discussion of cameo technique, powder melts, layering applications, and a thousand other things that Wanda knew nothing about and didn’t care about. Marie was absolutely in her element, though. She seemed to have forgotten not just Wanda but even her own handsome Italian, whose face grew ever darker.

  I seem to have chosen the worst possible moment to share my idea, Wanda thought irritably as she wandered off among the showcases on her own.

  18

  After they had escorted Wanda home, Marie and Franco stopped by a little bar near Ruth’s apartment building. The bar wasn’t chic or especially cozy; it didn’t have a fancy menu—in fact it only served sandwiches, and the regulars there were just ordinary folks. Despite all that—or perhaps precisely because of all that—Franco and Marie liked the place. When they sat at one of the little red oilcloth tables with a glass of beer or a whiskey in front of them, nobody intruded on their private little world. The other customers included neither artists wanting to talk with Marie nor Italian restaurateurs wanting to haggle with Franco for better terms. Marie occasionally spotted a neighbor from Ruth’s building, but even then they exchanged nothing more than a quick nod of greeting. Marie loved the hubbub of Greenwich Village, but sometimes she just wanted a little peace and quiet.

  “Oh, I’m tired!” she said as soon as she had sat down. “My feet feel about ready to fall off. But it was worth all that walking—it was a magnificent exhibition! Those pieces struck a chord that’s still sounding inside me. And Wanda was so enthusiastic! She’s like a child, don’t you find? She can be a lot of hard work, though, can’t she? Or . . . what is it, why are you looking so grim?” She frowned. She realized now that Franco had been unusually quiet and introverted all day.

  “We have to talk, cara mia.”

  “I hope you aren’t jealous,” Marie said, feigning anger. “Can I help it if Flavio kept on calling me bella? Or if Mateo insisted on taking hold of my hand so that I could understand his wound glass technique?” She smiled. In fact she liked it when Franco was jealous. It made her feel . . . desired. But of course she would never let him know that.

  He looked at her. “I have to go back to Genoa next week.”

  Marie felt as though she’d been punched in the belly.

  “What is it? Why don’t you say anything?”

  New York without Franco? She couldn’t imagine it.

  “A week, so soon . . . My ship doesn’t leave until the end of September,” she murmured.

  He leaned across the table toward her.

  “Marie, I beg you, come with me! I’ve never felt this way about any woman. Meeting like this, in this huge city, it can only have been fate! We belong together, you and I. I can’t live without you!”

  “Do you think I feel any different?” Marie cried out. “But this is all so sudden. I don’t know what to say.”

  She looked into his eyes to see whether he understood.

  “I could leave New York without thinking twice—the city’s beginning to get to me anyway; I feel I can hardly relax. And Ruth certainly wouldn’t care if I took an earlier ship, ever since I upset her little family idyll. But that isn’t the only thing I have to consider. You and I . . . we haven’t ever talked about . . . about the future. My family expects me to come home—there must be a mountain of work waiting for me. I have to prepare this year’s catalog, I have work to do at the lamp, there are the rods as well . . . I can’t just up and leave!”

  Even though I want to, she added silently. She clung to Franco’s arm. He took her hands between his.

  “You wouldn’t have to. There’s still time to organize it all. You could send your family a telegram, for instance. And then write a longer letter later, explaining everything. Of course they’ll be surprised by the news at first, but that would be true even if you had weeks to plan and prepare.”

  Marie gnawed at her lip. Franco was right.

  “And as for your art . . . you can work in Genoa as well. I’ll have a whole studio fitted out for you in the palazzo, and you can send your designs to Germany from there just as you do at the moment. Italy and Germany—they’re hardly far apart! It’s just a stone’s throw. I’ll work in the vineyards, and you’ll have the days to yourself, but the nights will be ours to share! You’ll love Italy, I swear! Just this afternoon you said that winter can be terrible back in your country.”

  Had she really said that? When Franco looked at her like that, Marie couldn’t be sure of anything.

  “Just imagine, cara mia: you look out the window and the sea gleams in every shade of blue, the houses are shining white in the sun . . .” He swept his hand around to underline his words.

  “I can just imagine how a view like that would give me all sorts of ideas for Christmas decorations,” Marie replied with a touch of mockery. She found it flattering that Franco had already thought of all this, but it riled her as well. It seemed that as far as he was concerned, everything was settled. She heaved a deep sigh. Why couldn’t things stay as they were?

  “Oh, Franco! It all sounds so lovely! But all the same your plans worry me a little. You don’t even know whether your parents want me in the
ir house. What if they don’t like me? And then your idea of putting in a studio—that sort of building work costs money. There are so many unknown factors—”

  “I know they’ll like you!” Franco interrupted her. “And Mother will be glad if we find a use for one of the rooms, believe me! As for my Father—he’ll love you! Marie, mia cara, there’s only one decision you can make . . .”

  He spoke so passionately that a few of the other customers turned to look at them. But Franco only had eyes for Marie.

  Marie shuddered. At times like these she felt she wasn’t ready for Franco’s love.

  “But my return voyage is already booked and paid for . . .”

  Franco smiled triumphantly.

  “If that’s all it is . . . you can give the ticket away! We’ll travel first class! I’ll see that you’re treated like a princess. And not just during the crossing. As soon as we arrive in Genoa, I’ll buy you the finest tools to be had. And the most beautiful glass, the colored rods, everything you need . . .”

  “I haven’t said yes yet,” Marie said, struggling to be stern with him. But she knew even as she tried that she couldn’t be. Franco’s offer was so tempting; it was as though he had spread out a picnic of all the finest delicacies in front of her. All she had to do was reach out and take one.

  “But you will; I’m sure!” Franco replied as he waved the barman over. “A bottle of champagne for the most beautiful signorina in the world!”

  “You’re impossible!” Marie laughed. “My beautiful, impossible Italian!” But then she turned serious again. “Give me some time, at least a day or two—I have to ask that of you.”