It was Lilo who had inspired the trip with her suggestion, at the end of the long tourist season, that she and Clara find some time for themselves and take a vacation in Baden-Baden. It was Lilo’s hometown, and there was a luxury hotel, the Hotel Belle Époque, that she was eager to try. Plus there was the added draw of seeing Countess Zuzanna, who had moved from Meersburg to Baden-Baden for the winter.
As appealing as a Baden-Baden vacation had sounded for all the reasons Lilo had pointed out, Clara had known right away that there was a more urgent trip she needed to take.
Laden with two suitcases and a leather travel bag, Clara arrived at Görlitzer Station in Berlin early in the afternoon on October 30, after more than two days of travel. She had not gone ten steps along the platform when she felt her stomach begin to churn. Berlin . . .
She stopped on the sidewalk in front of the station and looked around. To her left she was relieved to see the Schreimann Hotel, where Lilo had arranged a room for her.
While Lilo had helped her plan her trip, Clara had not told anybody in Berlin that she was coming. She wanted to surprise her children right away and then, that evening, Josephine. She had brought gifts, of course: for Sophie, a beautiful porcelain doll and a small case packed with doll’s clothes, and for Matthias, a miniature steam engine. For Josephine, she had her complete new skin-care series, and for Josephine’s daughter, she brought another doll.
Clara sighed. Wouldn’t her children and Josephine be surprised to see her!
There was no one at the hotel reception desk. Clara rang the bell forcefully. She had no time to lose. Finally, finally, more than a year after she left Berlin, she was going to see her children again.
An hour later, Clara approached her old home. It was two in the afternoon, and she had chosen the time carefully. Gerhard was at his office during the day, and when he closed his practice on Wednesday afternoons, he always went out with a group of other doctors. Sophie and Matthias, she hoped, would already be home from school but would not yet have gone off to any afternoon activities. The only other person to deal with would be the young nanny that Josephine had mentioned in her letter, and she would certainly not mind if Clara spent a long afternoon with her children. Clara began to walk faster.
The house looked as it always had. The curtains that she had taken so long to crochet were still there. The garden was in good order, if rather drab because it was November.
Strange, thought Clara, setting down the bag with the gifts. She had spent so many years of her life there, but apart from the deep longing to see her children again, she felt nothing. No connection to the house itself. Not the slightest trace of regret. No sadness.
She pressed the bell and jumped when the door immediately opened wide. “Come in, come in. The broken stovepipe is in the kitchen,” came a man’s voice from the hallway.
Gerhard! Clara’s hand flew to her throat. The fear went through her so quickly that her knees began to tremble. She wanted to turn and run away, far away, or to make herself invisible. But before she could take a single step, she heard Gerhard’s voice again. “Is there a problem—” The next moment, he was on the doorstep in front of her. His face turned to a scowl. “You?” His eyes moved quickly down from her head, past her elegant traveling outfit, and to the tips of her toes. He glanced at her large bag. “What the devil are you doing here?”
“What a friendly greeting,” said Clara. “I would like to see the children. I am still their mother, after all.” Her voice was shaking, and her hands, too. She made fists of them. He did not look any different. Handsome, arrogant, and callous.
Gerhard snorted with laughter, but when he spoke he all but spat. “Oh, you would, would you? What makes you think for a moment that I would let you see my children?” He took a step toward her threateningly, and for a moment Clara thought he might try to hit her. Don’t you dare, she thought, holding her ground despite her fear.
The next moment, a woman’s voice came from inside the house. “Gerhard, what is going on out there?”
And then another voice, softer and more girlish: “Mama? Is Mama here?”
“It’s just some good-for-nothing that strayed onto our street, that’s all. Marianne, send the children to their room!” Gerhard shouted over his shoulder. Then he turned back to Clara. “Have you forgotten that the court banned you from having anything to do with both of the children? You have no business here, so go—now—or I will send for the police!”
“Gerhard, please! Half an hour, that’s all! I’ve missed them so much . . .” Clara pressed her lips together hard to stop herself from crying.
“The state of your feelings does not interest me. Leave now! And take your trash with you.” He kicked the bag that Clara had set down, and there was a crunch that Clara felt sure was the head of Sophie’s doll breaking.
“It was so horrible,” Clara sobbed an hour later. “I couldn’t even say hello to them, and I even heard Sophie calling out to me.” She covered her face with her hands.
Helplessly, Josephine put one arm around her weeping friend. “Don’t cry. Things will get better again.” She was trying to console Clara, but she knew how hollow her words sounded. Sometimes, nothing gets better again.
She and Adrian had been ready to go out when the doorbell rang. The driver, Josephine had thought, and had picked up her hat and gloves. They were planning to spend the afternoon looking at an empty factory hall with a large adjoining open area in Berlin’s north. Once they had decided to risk a foray into the automobile industry, they urgently needed more space.
But it was not their driver. It was Clara, standing on the doorstep. One look at her bloodless face and Josephine knew that something bad had happened. She and Adrian had looked at one another.
“You stay here. If I think the property might be what we need, we can go and look at it together another time,” Adrian had whispered to her before leaving.
Josephine smiled sadly. Adrian was so understanding and sympathetic. Why couldn’t Clara have been as lucky?
Josephine led Clara into the sitting room, and the two friends sat together on the sofa. “It’s been over a year since I last saw either of my children. Some days, I’ve wanted to see them so much that I was overcome by pain. When it finally was clear that I could travel to Berlin, I thought I might perish from the ache.” She looked at Josephine almost as if it were all her fault. “Why did Gerhard have to be home today? Why today?”
Josephine had nothing to say.
“What must Sophie think of me? She heard me. Maybe she even saw me from the window,” Clara said, with panic in her voice.
“Oh, Clara,” said Josephine weakly. She could have told Clara from the start that Gerhard Gropius would never allow her to see the children, but she hadn’t thought it would be necessary. Now, though, she was amazed at Clara’s naïveté, at how she could assume that such a spontaneous visit would even be possible.
“I’ve been working so hard, morning to night, to build up my business, to earn a livelihood of my own. And for what? Without my children, it’s for nothing. I might as well jump in front of a train. At least then the misery would end.”
“Now stop it!” Josephine said vehemently. “Gerhard’s won the last battles, but not the war.” She tugged lightly at the bell pull that hung beside the sofa. When her maid appeared, she said, “Ludovika, make us a pot of coffee, please, and a bring a few slices of gugelhupf. The carafe of cognac and two glasses, too.”
At first, Clara resisted. She did not want to eat or drink anything. Josephine pressed the glass of cognac into her hand. “Take it, drink it. No talking back!” To add emphasis to her words, she raised her own snifter and swallowed the contents in a single draft. The golden liquid ran warm and harsh down her throat, and she felt its heat spread through her.
“I never want to hear about an idea to jump in front of a train or anything like it, is that clear?” she said severely when Clara also had drained her glass. “You’ve already achieved so much in your life, and y
ou will get through this crisis as well. Expecting Gerhard to treat you fairly, by the way, is like expecting to jump into Lake Constance and not get wet.” She saw that her remark drew a tiny smile from Clara.
“If Gerhard were a sensitive, compassionate man, you would never have divorced him. But he isn’t. He’s cruel, and he has always enjoyed watching you suffer. Why would that have changed since your divorce? Just think about the humiliation you inflicted on him with that.”
Clara shrugged helplessly. “But what does that mean for me? That I can never see my children again, ever?”
Josephine knew she needed to tread carefully, but she said, “Of course you will see them again. But you have will to be a lot more clever about it than you were today. Maybe you should hire a lawyer?”
“A lawyer?” Clara suddenly sat at attention, and some color came back to her face. “Do you really think a lawyer could do something?”
Josephine thought of the lawyer who had represented Clara—ineffectively—during her divorce trial. “A good lawyer could at least examine the legality of the court’s original decision. But the time may not yet be ripe to take that step,” she said with a little more reserve. Pensive, she crumbled a piece of cake into her plate. “You are an independent businesswoman now, earning your own money. That’s a big step forward. But you’re still stained by the affair you created to get away from Gerhard. And by the divorce.” Despite Josephine’s ironic tone of voice, Clara winced. Josephine went on quickly. “If you really expect a lawyer to make any headway for you, he will need strong evidence that you have an impeccable reputation. Earning a good living, by itself, won’t be enough, nor even will your successful business. Living in your own apartment instead of a hotel room, perhaps even a new husband . . . that would show the court that you can offer your children stability.” She did not mention that Gerhard was doing everything he could to offer exactly that kind of stability for his children. So far there were only rumors, but people were saying that the new nanny had become more to him than an employee.
“And I’m supposed to just conjure up a new husband out of my hat?” Clara snorted indignantly. “No, thank you. I’ve had enough of men.”
Josephine laughed. “That’s exactly what Isabelle said after Leon’s death, remember? And then she went and fell in love after all, and with two men at once.”
“That must have been the French air. Or all the champagne,” Clara said. “But you don’t fall in love in Lake Constance quite so fast.”
Both women laughed, but they quickly grew serious again.
“Forget my suggestion,” said Josephine. “Getting married only to get a judge to give you visiting rights to your children isn’t the solution. But somewhere, sometime, you are going to fall in love again, and then . . .” She shrugged. “I understand that, for now, you want to prove that you can get your own life in order. But pushing too hard and acting rashly won’t help. You have to move cleverly and cautiously—and be patient!”
“Be patient, when all it does is tear my heart apart?” Clara replied, tears again brimming in her eyes.
The girls collected pinecones, acorns, and beech nuts beneath the trees on the edge of the park. Their braids swung wildly, the moist air causing the ends to curl and crinkle. It was a cool, windy early November day, and apart from a few people walking their dogs, the park was empty. But the girls were so involved in their collecting that they forgot about the cold.
Josephine called the girls over to her to show them something. Amelie immediately ran to her mother, Sophie just behind.
Clara pushed aside a few branches to be able to see better from her hiding place. When she realized what Josephine had made for the girls, she had to smile. Josephine had used a small knife to carve a hole in an acorn and had then pushed a small branch into the hole. Her handiwork looked like a pipe. And, in fact, Josephine lifted her creation to her mouth and pretended to smoke.
The two girls squealed with glee.
The young woman who had come with Sophie said something in an admonishing tone, but she, too, was smiling. She looked very nice. Tall, blond, and pretty, with an open, friendly face. Sophie’s new nanny looked as if she would not hurt a fly.
Sophie tugged trustingly at the woman’s skirt. “Can I have a pipe like that, too? There are lots of fat acorns back there.” Sophie gracefully bounded off toward the trees, and the nanny followed.
“I don’t think we should tell your papa that you want to smoke, though. He could get the wrong impression about how I’m caring for you,” the nanny said, smiling back at Josephine.
“Men don’t need to know everything,” Josephine said, with a conspiratorial wink back.
Clara pressed her hand over her mouth to stop herself from sobbing out loud. That could have been an exchange between her and Josephine.
How grown up her daughter was. She would turn eight in January. A schoolgirl now, not a little child anymore. Her brown-and-white checked skirt stopped just above her knee. It was about time someone sewed a frill along the hem of the skirt to lengthen it. Or crocheted a lace border. Red, thought Clara, that would match the brown nicely. She felt a pang in her heart. It took all the strength she had just to stay out of sight behind the cherry laurel bush. There were just a few yards between her and her daughter. To take her in her arms, to kiss her, to hold her tight . . . to reassure her that her mother loved her. She would have given anything. Anything! But she didn’t. She couldn’t. So she stayed hidden in the bushes like a thief.
A few hours later, she was on the train, heading back to Lake Constance. She was so exhausted that she could not imagine even changing trains at the next stop. All she could picture was Sophie’s too-short skirt. She never would have allowed her to wear anything that she had grown out of. A mother had an eye for things like that. It didn’t matter how nice the nanny was; she was no replacement for a mother.
What had she done, getting the divorce? Why hadn’t she just kept putting up with Gerhard’s cruelty? Her children would have been worth it ten times over.
Her thoughts were as grim as the landscape passing beyond the window of the train. This entire trip had been a mistake. She had been so stupid, so thoughtless, that it was doomed to failure from the start. Nothing like that could ever be allowed to happen to her again. Never again!
At some point, Clara had had enough of her own silent accusations, and she felt herself gripped by such a destructive fury that she could barely stay in her seat. She wanted to get up and smash the train compartment to pieces. Or hit somebody. She was scaring herself, she realized. What kind of law was it that ordained that a mother could no longer see her children just because she was divorced from their father? Why was the law always on the side of the men, and never on the side of women or justice? Wasn’t it time to change that, and not just swallow every injustice uncomplainingly? Wasn’t it time to defend herself?
It would not be the first time, after all. Back then, in court, she had defied Gerhard. She had spent weeks refining her story of the traveling salesman, and only when every detail was in place did she tell the court her story. It was only because of her clever, careful preparation that the judge had granted the divorce.
“Acting rashly won’t help. You have to move cleverly and cautiously—and be patient!” Josephine had advised her. Now Clara could see just how right her friend was.
She would fight for her children! She would scrutinize every step she took to see if it would help that single-minded cause. No more impetuous, ill-considered decisions like this trip to Berlin! No. She would continue to build up her business to give herself a solid, reliable income. And she would look for a good, large apartment. Josephine had been right about that, too—a judge wouldn’t look favorably upon a hotel room as a home. But if she had an apartment of her own, perhaps then the court would allow the children to visit her during their vacation.
Clara smiled dreamily. She would take Matthias to Friedrichshafen, and with a bit of luck they would be able to watch the zeppelins r
ising from their enormous hangar. And Sophie was certain to find the Bel Étage fantastic. She could take both of them to the lake, and they would be amazed to see how well their mother could swim!
The next moment, her smile vanished, and a thin line appeared on her forehead, between her eyes. The battle would take longer than she wanted it to. Gerhard would throw every obstacle he could find in her path. But that was just how things were. She would show him how resilient she could be.
Chapter Twenty
“So how was business?” Clara asked as she hung up her coat at Bel Étage. She inhaled deeply, luxuriating in the perfume of lavender and rose, and looked around her shop. It was good to be back.
“What business?” replied Sophie.
Clara laughed as she straightened the lime-green velvet armchair her customers used during their skin consultations.
“It’s true there are some customers who only want to be seen by the boss, but we have a lot of women who know that you know about beauty treatments, too.” She smiled benevolently at her young assistant, then went to the cash register and opened it. She blinked, confused. If she were not mistaken, the register held exactly fifty-five marks—the same amount she had handed over to Sophie before she had gone away, and not a pfennig more.
“I don’t know how to tell you this.” Sophie shrugged helplessly. “Since you left, not a single customer has come in. I’ve been going mad, checking the door ten times a day to make sure I hadn’t accidentally locked it.” She shook her head. Clara frowned. “Has anything special happened in town? Something that’s been taking up all the ladies’ time?” She couldn’t imagine herself what that might be.
Sophie shook her head. “At my parents’ guesthouse it’s business as usual, and I haven’t heard about anything else.”
“And Therese? Where is she?” said Clara, narrowing her eyes in the direction of the abandoned hairdressers.
The Queen of Beauty (The Century Trilogy Book 3) Page 17
