“Sick. She caught a cold when she was out boating, and she’s been in bed ever since.”
Clara’s frown deepened. Was it a cold or a new suitor that was keeping her in bed? She dismissed the thought. She would deal with Therese later. “Maybe everyone’s come down with a cold?” That would explain the lack of customers.
But Sophie simply shook her head. She looked as if she were close to tears.
“Now don’t fret,” said Clara consolingly. “In winter, without the tourists, we’re bound to have some quiet days.” But even on the quietest days, a handful of customers had found their way to her shop. Had her run of luck with the business run its course? Had the demand for good creams and lotions evaporated? The very thought was so terrifying that Clara quickly pushed it aside. No doubt the rest of Meersburg is just as quiet, she thought, trying to encourage herself.
“You know what?” she said with forced cheerfulness. “You make us both a cup of tea, and I’ll pay a visit to Fabienne in the flower shop. Some nice flowers on the counter will get rid of the November blues. They will be good for the customers, too.” The florist was a notorious chatterbox, and Clara was certain that she would find out from her what was going on.
The fog lying over the lake like an eiderdown, the choir where they both sang on Wednesday evenings, the approaching days of Advent—all of Clara’s attempts to start a conversation with the florist failed. Without a word, Fabienne Alber tied the tea roses that Clara had chosen into a bouquet.
“Did my cream help with your chapped hands?” Clara finally asked. She extended one hand across the counter invitingly. “May I see?”
But instead of showing her hands to Clara, the florist took a step back. “My hands are fine, thank you. That comes to four marks fifty. Can I get you anything else?”
Clara left the florist’s shop more confused than when she went in. She had never known Fabienne Alber to be so uncommunicative. Worse, she had been downright unfriendly!
Clara had almost reached the Bel Étage again when she thought better of it and walked a block farther.
“I need some new stationery,” she said to Elsbeth Treiber, who was redoing her window display when Clara entered the shop. “Now that winter’s here and everything has slowed down, one finally has a little more time to devote to letter writing, don’t you think?”
“I really can’t complain about a lack of work,” said Elsbeth, and Clara thought she could hear a caustic undertone in the words. Elsbeth took several kinds of stationery out of a drawer and set them out in front of Clara. “Let me know when you’ve chosen something,” she said, and went back to her window.
I’ve had far better service here, too, thought Clara as she flicked through the different papers unenthusiastically.
“At first, I couldn’t believe it when Sophie told me not a single customer had come in to Bel Étage for days. But it’s true! Yesterday and today, too. No one! You’d think a cholera epidemic had broken out,” said Clara to Lilo three days later. Lilo had only returned the previous evening from her trip to Baden-Baden. Clara had been looking forward to seeing her friend again. She had wanted to tell her about how difficult her return to Berlin had been, but all she could talk about now was the inexplicable disappearance of her customers.
She pushed away her plate of soup. “I’m sorry, but I’ve lost my appetite. It isn’t enough that everyone seems to be avoiding my shop, but I get the feeling they’re avoiding me, too. Even the customers I’ve had the best relationships with turn away in the street to avoid talking to me.” She looked at Lilo. “What have I done wrong? I can’t think of a single mistake.”
Lilo said nothing. Then she waved over one of the waitresses to take their soup plates. When the girl left, Lilo refilled Clara’s wine glass.
Diversionary tactics? That’s strange, thought Clara.
“Lilo, do you know something I don’t?” she said, and the hollow feeling in her belly told her she was about to hear something she would not like.
“I was away, too. What am I supposed to know?” Lilo said defensively and drank a mouthful of her wine. But when she saw Clara’s despairing expression, she slowly added. “All right. But I can’t tell you anything concrete. It’s just a rumor, that’s all.”
Clara nodded impatiently. If Lilo talked about a rumor, she could assume that it contained more than a grain of truth.
“I haven’t spoken to many people yet, but it seems likely you can thank your landlady for your disappearing customers.”
“Lydia Schrott? She’s behind this? But I don’t understand . . .” Clara swallowed.
Lilo leaned across the table conspiratorially and whispered, “It seems that Lydia Schrott has been spreading word around Meersburg that your creams contain a dangerous poisonous acid and that they gave her a bad rash.”
Clara jumped up so suddenly that she bumped the table, nearly knocking over the wine. “That’s outrageous! First, her husband forces himself on me so vigorously that I was lucky to escape, and now his wife is spreading lies?”
“Calm down and talk quietly. Everyone is looking!” said Lilo, urging Clara to sit.
Clara’s heart was pounding and she was shaking with anger. “I feel like wringing Lydia Schrott’s neck,” she hissed. “What does she get out of it? If I can’t pay my rent anymore, it only hurts her.”
“Maybe she wants you out,” said Lilo. “Her lies and her husband’s interest in you might be connected. Have you considered that? The woman is jealous!”
Clara snorted. “As if I’d ever give that repulsive beast husband of hers a second glance. Besides, Alfred Schrott chases every skirt in town. It’s not as if I’m the only one he’s after. Do you really think . . .? And the people have nothing better to do than believe the words of that jealous old hag? They think Lydia Schrott is more trustworthy than I am?” Clara’s voice was growing loud and shrill again, but when she saw Lilo’s raised eyebrows, she quieted down. “Sorry. But it’s like a knife in the back. I always thought the women here trusted me.”
“Against malicious gossip, you don’t stand a chance,” said Lilo with suppressed fury. “I found that out for myself a few years ago. My ex-husband’s business partner, Kurt, didn’t like me ‘sticking my nose in’ all the time. He and I had a different opinion about every single important decision. The man hated me!” Lilo laughed bitterly. “And I, idiot that I am, thought that because I was Horst’s wife I was immune to his attacks. But I was wrong. At some point, Kurt began spreading rumors that I was sleeping with the male guests at our sanatoriums.”
“Your husband didn’t believe it, I hope?” Clara forgot about her own situation as she listened in horror to her friend’s story.
“Not at first,” said Lilo. “But backstabbers like Kurt—and Lydia Schrott—are very clever. It seems that Kurt was constantly dropping insinuations, things that cast me in a bad light. In the end, it got so bad that I couldn’t bear the endless fights and having to justify myself all the time. That was when I left town.”
“But I thought you left of your own accord?” Clara didn’t know what to believe anymore.
Lilo sighed. “You can look at anything two ways.” She waved one hand as if throwing something away. “Old history. Enough. I’m glad those times are over. And as far as you’re concerned . . .” She took Clara’s right hand in hers and squeezed it. “I hope with all my heart that you defend yourself better than I ever could.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Northern Italy, early 1908
The meeting was taking place at the Old Jug Inn. A week earlier, Giacomo Totosano had reserved the side room in Elva’s only tavern, and a day later Lorenzo Sorri had shown up with the same request. Anna, the proprietress, had known perfectly well that a meeting between the hair-trading families was to take place in the room, but she still allowed herself the fun of saying to Lorenzo, “Scusi, but everything is booked for that evening.” Only after Lorenzo Sorri started pulling at his beard did she tell him that it was actually his business partner, Giacomo,
who had booked the room. For both of them.
When he heard that, Anna had sensed Lorenzo’s blood was boiling, but the hair trader presented his usual friendly self. “Well, then, good old Giacomo . . . how prudent of him.”
Anna had grinned to herself. As much as the Sorris and the Totosanos liked to emphasize how well they cooperated and how happy they were to do so, everyone in the village knew that the two families were locked in eternal competition. And some of the villagers took great pleasure in stirring up the men—and their wives. The wealthy hair dealers believed they were a notch better than the other villagers, and they were quite willing to show it, so a touch of revenge felt good.
The proprietress stared at the closed door and wondered what the meeting was about. Was there another wedding in the offing? Roberto Totosano and Gaia Sorri had become engaged the previous autumn, after all, and Anna was not the only person in the village wondering why a wedding date had not been announced. Certainly, her tavern could use a big wedding celebration. Anna glanced outside through the tiny window. The roads and houses of Elva were still buried beneath heavy snowdrifts. Like a fairy tale, where everything has fallen into an eternal sleep, she thought. She sighed heavily, but then it occurred to her that the hair traders might be planning the wedding for after Easter. Most of the snow would have melted by then, or at least Anna hoped that would be the case. Not a sound had come from the room since she had served the drinks and food they had ordered, and Toni Sorri had shut the door behind her. No sign of a heated dispute this evening, Anna thought with disappointment.
“As all of you know, for years we’ve been selling our hair to the dealers in Dronero,” said Lorenzo Sorri, looking around at the group with an air of importance. “We did the same last year, too.”
Roberto cast his father a disparaging glance. Why wasn’t he speaking? Why did he hand over the reins to Lorenzo?
“And as all of you also know, those dealers earn a pretty penny with the hair we collect. They sell it on the open market, shipping it off to America and England, and they make many times what they pay us.”
It was an effort for Roberto to stifle a snide laugh. Did Sorri really believe that he was telling any of them anything new? Michele and he had been saying the same thing to their father for years, trying to convince him that it would be far more profitable to circumvent the dealers and sell the hair on the market themselves. But Giacomo Totosano had never wanted to hear a word of it, and they could just forget Lorenzo Sorri! Everything ran fine as it was. The old order, ad nauseam.
The old order! Roberto felt as if an iron ring were clamped around his chest, making it hard to breathe. The old order also meant the sons and daughters of the two families obediently married each other, deepening their mutual dependence. Not a word about love or affection. At the same time, Michele and Marta’s marriage appeared to function very well indeed. And their sister, Elena, seemed satisfied with Federico Sorri.
Roberto looked over at Gaia Sorri, his fiancée. This year, he would have to convince himself that it could work with her. A shudder ran through him.
Gaia was pretty, certainly, and she had strong legs and large breasts, but she also had a sharp tongue, and there was something tomboyish about her that did not appeal to Roberto. He could see that, in just a few years, she would fall apart like a cheap string of pearls. Just like her mother. Instead of drinking wine and listening to the men’s discussion, Gaia had brought a sack of comb-hair with her. She had spread it all out on the table in front of her and was going through it, patiently sorting it into its various lengths and thicknesses. It almost drove Roberto insane. The sight of the dusty hair nauseated him. He felt like letting out a powerful sneeze and “accidentally” blowing the hair off the table, but he didn’t think he could pull it off. He wondered whom Gaia was trying to impress with her fake industriousness. He would have preferred it a thousand times over to see his bride-to-be stitching some pretty embroidery instead.
Comb-hair was hair that had fallen out or been combed out rather than cut off. It was a waste product, collected over the course of a year by the residents of the houses that Roberto and Michele visited: picked from pillows, the floor, the wash basin, wherever it landed. When the hair traders came to buy hair, the residents usually handed over a small sack of comb-hair as well, and the brothers paid only a few pennies for it. Sorting the loose and usually foul-smelling hair was hard work, and it brought little profit because it was no good for wigs and only used to weave cheap hair brooches and rings. Roberto could not imagine who would voluntarily wear such a piece of jewelry on their lapel or finger. But the Sorri and Totosano women sorted the comb-hair gladly, because they were allowed to keep the money from its resale for themselves and could spend it how they liked. That, too, was the old order.
The old order. Roberto would have given anything for a terrible avalanche to come roaring down the mountain and sweep away all the old laws and rules and bury them forever. Why was he the only one concerned? The Sorri brothers—Federico, Martine, and Toni—sat there, drinking their wine, adding nothing, not even a yes or no, to the discussion. Not that he’d contributed much himself. But no one expected it from him any more than they did from any of the sons. It was only their fathers who showed off with big speeches.
“The hair trade in Elva has worked very well for a very long time, mainly because our families cooperate. And that’s the way it should continue.” Lorenzo Sorri’s gaze moved from one person to the next, and everywhere he looked heads nodded in agreement.
What was the old man getting at? Roberto wondered. He turned and looked peevishly at Toni Sorri, sitting next to him and stuffing his face with a dish of pickled kidneys and onions as if he hadn’t eaten in days, which Roberto knew was not the case with a mother who cooked like Toni’s did. The biting smell of the food mixed with the stale atmosphere of the room, and once again Roberto felt as if he could not get any air.
Toni’s long hair fell in his face, and strands caught on his lips, greasy with onion broth. If Toni kept on like that, he’d have trouble getting women to part with their hair at all—they would not like the idea of handing over their locks to a pig like him, Roberto thought. He and Michele took a completely different approach. Even on days when they’d had to spend the previous night in a stable, not a piece of straw remained on their clothes. The Totosano brothers always looked neat, and that simply made a better impression.
“They can’t be serious,” said Michele, on the other side, and he gave Roberto a jab in the ribs. “Did you hear that?”
Roberto had been so caught up in his thoughts that he had stopped listening to Lorenzo Sorri. He shook his head, momentarily confused.
“But we’ve always dreamed of reselling the hair ourselves!” Michele said, perplexed, misinterpreting Roberto’s shaking head.
“Oh, yes, of course,” Roberto grumbled, angry at himself for losing his concentration. Were the patriarchs actually making a break from the old order? He looked at his father and, with as much composure as he could muster, asked “So, what exactly do you have in mind?” hoping that that topic hadn’t already been discussed.
His father and Lorenzo Sorri exchanged a look and smiled, then Giacomo said, “Naturally, Lorenzo and I have considered this important step carefully. And we have decided to do things the usual way.” He nodded, satisfied with his decision.
The usual way could mean many things, not all of them good. His father seemed to expect more than silence from him, so Roberto asked, “What does the usual way mean?”
Giacomo seemed pleased to hear the question. He nodded again, then said, “Lorenzo and I, in the usual way, have decided together to open a kind of subsidiary—a shop—in Zurich, from where—”
“From where, in the future, we will do business directly on the Zurich hair market,” Lorenzo Sorri interrupted. “And that’s not all. In our shop, we will also sell wigs. Zurich is a rich city with rich citizens, and we think we can count on good revenues,” he added, his chest puffed up pro
udly.
A shop? The hair market? Doing business themselves? A wave of unrest rumbled through the offspring of both families. What did that mean for each of them?
“And because we want to continue with the cooperation that has served us so well in the past, we have decided to send one son from each family to Zurich. My choice is you, my dear Toni”—Lorenzo looked at his second son—“and from the Totosanos, Giacomo has selected Roberto to be his representative.”
For a moment, Roberto thought that he would never breathe again. He was going to Zurich? But that meant . . . The iron ring clenched around his chest suddenly released with a bang. Away from that stifling village. Out into the big, wide world. It might even mean putting off his wedding or dissolving the engagement altogether! He would be free. He almost let out a whoop of joy. For the time being, he pushed aside the thought that he would have to travel with fat Toni.
“Why not me, Papa?” Michele asked then, with a pang of jealousy. “I’m the eldest, and I’d be good for a job like this.”
“Or even better—why not let Michele and me travel together? We’re a good team, a successful team!” Roberto suggested, earning a grateful look from his brother.
“Now wait just a minute until you’ve heard the whole plan,” said Giacomo, and he rapped Roberto on the top of his head as if he were an unruly four-year-old.
“When do we go?” asked Toni indifferently, pushing away his empty plate.
“As soon as the snow has melted and the trails are passable again. Between now and then, Giacomo and I will prepare everything,” Lorenzo said. “Each of you will lead a packhorse, and you will be carrying six hundred and fifty pounds of the highest-quality hair. When you get to Zurich, the first thing you will do is look for a suitable storefront. Our two families will provide the capital you will need. As for the journey itself, I will give Toni enough money to get to Zurich, and Giacomo will do the same for Roberto.”
Roberto’s father nodded. “Until then, our women will do nothing but make wigs. We want to have a lot to offer in the shop, after all.”
The Queen of Beauty (The Century Trilogy Book 3) Page 18
