“Are you doing my treatment today? Like you used to? That would make me so happy,” Elena said.
Clara looked at Sophie, who was scheduled to do the treatment. Klaus Kohlwitz was waiting for Clara in the manufactory. The chemist wanted to show her a discovery he had made. But that could wait, couldn’t it?
“I most certainly am!” Clara said before she could think about it too long. “Just like the old days.”
The summer of 1910 came dressed to the nines, putting the many vacationers in the best of moods with plenty of sunshine, a fresh breeze, and a radiant lake so blue that it competed with the sky.
Clara’s days were fuller than ever before. But instead of working all the time, as she had in the previous two years, she now found the time for other things, as well.
She met Lilo early every morning to go swimming. When the sun was just rising and ribbons of fog drifted across the surface of the water, they had the lake to themselves. Clara often thought of Isabelle and Josephine, who had gone out cycling in the same early hours of the morning. “While the world is still asleep, the streets are ours,” they had said. Only now did Clara understand the gift of those early morning hours.
She was not able to stop for lunch every day, but whenever it was possible, she went out with Klaus or Laszlo or one of her friends. Sometimes, Clara preferred to keep her own company, and on those days, she took a book to the lakeshore and read. Perhaps a few pages of Cleopatra’s Beauty Secrets or Oriental Bathing Rituals, and more technical treatises as well, like The Chemistry of Cosmetics or the recently published Brush Massages for a Healthy Body. Upon reading the book about brush massages, Clara bought a suitable brush from Treiber’s Emporium and used it on her own body until her skin had turned a rosy pink and she was in seventh heaven. She thought about offering the massages to her customers, but decided against it on practical grounds. She could hardly ask a woman to strip in a narrow treatment station and sit naked on a chair for a brush massage. Her shops were simply not suitable for something like that.
It was only when she started reading again that she realized how much she had missed it in the months when she had done nothing but work. Now, her reading hours became precious again, not only for increasing her knowledge, but also for restoring her strength, both spiritual and physical.
Clara began using her renewed strength to give treatments on a regular basis. It was a source of pleasure to take care of her customers, and whenever she saw dull or damaged skin become radiant—and with it, the woman to whom the skin belonged, as well—then she was reminded that her work was worth doing.
Sometimes, Clara met with her customers outside her work, among them Countess Zuzanna, who had decided against selling her Villa Carese after all. “The mood of a moment,” she said, excusing herself, when Clara mentioned Stefan’s suggestion. But if she were ever serious about the idea in the future, she would offer the property to Clara first. Clara had nodded politely, but the idea of moving into a new house with Stefan had lost its charm for her.
She swore to herself that she would never again let herself be pushed into isolation as she had, neither by Stefan nor by her own obsession with her work in the laboratory.
What surprised Clara most of all was that she was making better progress with all her experiments and research than ever before, even though she was spending far less time in her laboratory. It was as if all the newfound variety of her active life inspired her work in the laboratory.
Thanks to her close collaboration with Klaus and Laszlo, her less-expensive cosmetic range was coming more and more to fruition every day. In Clara’s view, it was high time that it did, especially since many women were still firmly convinced that beauty and skin care were only for the rich.
The shop in Stuttgart was flourishing after just a few weeks thanks to her carefully selected and trained personnel. And the Baden-Baden Bel Étage was back on its feet, too. Because of the competition, of course, she did not have as many customers as before, but there were still enough to keep her three new beauty specialists on their toes.
All the traveling among her shops took up a great deal of Clara’s time, but she did not regret a minute of it, because then she was able to talk to her staff. Whether it was about which laundry could return their towels smelling fresher, or how often the front windows should be cleaned, Clara kept an open ear to everything her women had to say. And her employees, who were not used to working in such a trusting atmosphere, responded with their dependability, punctuality, and hard work.
Berlin, October 1910
Dear Clara, dear Isabelle,
Please don’t be alarmed to receive this letter a little stained and blotchy. Because I wanted to write to both of you, I thought I would try out our carbon paper system, which we use in the office to duplicate our written records. If I had known that carbon paper would smear and spot like this, I think I would have taken the time to write everything twice. But you will forgive me, won’t you, my dears?
Clara smiled. Duplicating written documents? She could use something like that herself. Then every time she had to send new or revised instructions to all her shops, she would only have to write them once. At the same time, the duplicate that she had received from Josephine did not look very good at all. Was Isabelle’s letter just as messy? It didn’t matter. She was so happy to hear from Josephine that she would ignore the blue smears.
Don’t be surprised if I don’t write about too many personal things today. I have so many thoughts going through my mind that I would like to share with you. But I will say this: we are all well. And your children, dear Clara, are also in the best of health. I see Sophie once or twice a week. She and my Amelie are still best friends.
History is repeating itself, Clara thought. And in this case, that’s good.
Clara scanned the next few lines quickly, but found nothing about Gerhard’s reaction to the letter from her lawyer, which he had sent in the middle of July. She wasn’t sure Josephine would know anything about it anyway, but she could not completely get rid of her disappointment. So far, there had been no reaction from Berlin at all, not from Gerhard, not from his lawyer, and not from the court. This particular case, her lawyer had told her the last time they met, was special, and it would take time. Maybe she would visit him later that day and ask if he had heard anything new in the meantime. Clara sighed and went back to reading Josephine’s letter.
Please excuse me if I sound a little sentimental. I don’t know if it has to do with the autumn or with getting older, but I have been thinking back more and more to our younger years. We were the best of friends when we discovered cycling for ourselves. And weren’t we scorned for it at the time! These days, when I walk or cycle or drive through Berlin, seeing a woman on a bicycle is perfectly normal.
Clara looked up from the letter and out the window of her laboratory toward the lake. Every day, she saw men and women riding along the lakeshore, and she never gave it a second thought. She read on.
So much has changed in the last twenty years! Women are so much more willing to try new things these days. Do you recall how we wished for what we called a “turn-of-the-century wind”? A wind that would come and sweep away all the dusty opinions about us as the “weaker sex.” One that would blow fresh thinking into people’s heads. We wished that women could have their own bank accounts, study at university, run their own businesses. When I look back at it now, I find it strange that it was always about what we were allowed to do and what not. But the men never needed to ask permission for anything!
Clara frowned. Was Josephine going to become a suffragist? And, in fact, the next thing her friend wrote was:
It may be these thoughts about how hard it was for us back then have moved me to join the General Association of German Women. Have you heard of this organization? We are fighting for a woman’s right to earn the same pay as men for the same work. We are working on education and income protection for mothers who have to stop work to care for their children, and on the conditions
for working women. I’ve already given two talks about that, and there were over a hundred women in the audience! Very few of them work in conditions anywhere near as good as the women Adrian and I employ. At first, Adrian was a little skeptical about my involvement with the association, but now he understands the necessity for it and supports me wherever he can.
My Adrian, your Daniel, dear Isabelle, and your Stefan, dear Clara—these are the kinds of men that society needs! Do you think so, too? When a man and a woman work shoulder to shoulder and not against one another, then it is a sheer joy to see what we can get done. Of course, there are so many things in a sorry state. I am not foolhardy enough to believe that we will soon achieve everything possible for women—we are still not allowed to choose who decides on the political direction of the German empire. But when I look around, my conviction grows that our turn-of-the-century wind, the wind of change for which we yearned so wholeheartedly back then, is already whistling through every lane and alleyway in the land.
Clara let Josephine’s letter sink. For a moment, she heard a loud droning in her ears; then she grew calm again.
Their turn-of-the-century wind might well be whistling through society, but in her own life, all she could hear was the death knell of her marriage. In short: it had failed.
As painful as it was for Clara to admit it to herself, it was also a relief. It was enough to feign a stable marriage to the rest of the world, but at least she no longer had to pretend it to herself. And while it was nice of Josephine to mention Stefan in the same breath as Adrian and Daniel, the truth was that Stefan had nothing in common with her friends’ husbands. And she herself was different from Isabelle and Josephine in a crucial way: when it came to men, she simply had no luck at all.
She had brooded over what had gone wrong. Who had made mistakes? When? Had she expected too much of Stefan? Or had she entrusted him with too little? The questions never ceased. Would such questions even be asked in a trusting marriage? Shouldn’t a couple be able to find common ground, whatever problems might appear?
In the end Clara had come to a simple conclusion: she had been wrong about Stefan. He had bewitched her with his charms, and she was only too happy to let herself be enchanted. In times in which she was all but drowning under her workload, he had relieved her burden. And she had been so happy about that she had not realized until it was far too late about his vanity, his superficiality, the way he was always looking to turn things to his own advantage. What she found hardest of all to swallow was how much he enjoyed riding roughshod over those weaker than him. For that, she might as well have stayed with Gerhard! Had she really been stupid and blind enough to fall for the same kind of man twice?
It made no difference how much she pondered and agonized; one thing was clear: any love she had once had for Stefan was gone, though their marriage, on paper, was still intact. But she could not bring herself to write that to either Isabelle or Josephine. Maybe she wanted to spare herself an “I told you so!” Maybe she was ashamed of her own stupidity. Whatever it was, she now had other things to think about.
Lilo—and maybe Therese, too—probably suspected the truth about her marriage, but they were discreet enough not to mention it. And Clara was grateful to them for that. A second divorce or even a separation was out of the question if she ever wanted to see her children again, so she had no choice but to put on her facade for the rest of the world and to hope that Stefan was prepared to do the same. As long as she continued to pay him enough for it, she probably didn’t need to worry. In fact, whenever they appeared somewhere together, he played the perfect husband. “Bella Clara,” he always called her, and held her as if she were the most precious thing on earth. “Mia cara,” he said in her ear so that everyone could see and hear it. Women looked enviously at Clara—for some of them, so much loving attention from their husband existed only in their dreams.
What surprised Clara was how easy it was for her to maintain the farce. When she had still been married to Gerhard, she had carefully covered bruises with locks of hair, and cried into her pillow at night, only to bravely smile at every insult and disparaging comment the next day. Compared to that, her life these days was good. She consoled herself with this whenever the melancholy threatened to overwhelm her. She had her own life, her own money; she had dear friends and valuable employees. She could think whatever she wanted and do whatever came into her head.
Clara slipped Josephine’s letter back into its envelope. She would write back that evening, but for now, she needed to get to the Hotel Residenz, where she had agreed to meet Laszlo and Therese for lunch. Lilo had invited them; there was something to be celebrated, her friend had confided mysteriously the night before. She decided to be on the safe side and to buy a small bouquet for Lilo at Fabienne’s flower shop.
When Clara stepped outside, the wind off the lake tousled the strands of hair that had worked loose from her chignon. She smiled. It seemed the turn-of-the-century wind was blowing for her after all. And if it hadn’t brought with it the love of her life, so be it.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“He’s such a sweet little boy!” said Clara, and she tickled Therese’s two-month-old baby Christopher’s tummy.
With a blissful smile, Therese took her son from Clara, and she sat in a comfortable armchair by the window and unbuttoned her blouse.
The sight of the feeding mother awakened a familiar yearning in Clara. She had sat like that herself once, very long ago. Matthias was now fifteen, Sophie ten. The childhood years vanished so quickly. She had missed so many . . .
“Oh, did I tell you? I’ve received a letter. It’s from Gerhard’s new wife, Marianne. She sent a thick envelope,” Clara suddenly said.
Therese’s eyes at first widened in surprise, then narrowed suspiciously. “What does she want from you?”
Clara laughed. “That was my first reaction, too. I was trembling all over when I opened it. But then I found two letters inside from my children and a brief message from Marianne herself. She said she hoped it would make me happy to receive the letters from my children for Christmas. Admittedly, Matthias’s letter consisted of a few lines in which he wished me a merry Christmas and happy New Year. But Sophie’s was overflowing! She wrote five full pages and put in two pictures that she drew herself. I’m going to have them framed, of course,” said Clara.
“That’s very nice of their stepmother. Do you think Gerhard knows about it?”
“Unless Matthias said something, I doubt Gerhard knows anything about it at all. I expect he’s spitting bile about my application.” Clara sniffed. “All things considered, I think Marianne Gropius has really shown some courage, sending the letters. Josephine has written several times about what an attractive and smart woman Marianne is. I find that hard to believe, somehow. I mean, what kind of attractive and smart woman would fall for a man like Gerhard?”
“You,” said Therese.
The two women laughed. At the same moment, someone laughed out in the hotel hallway, which only made Clara and Therese laugh louder.
Therese had been right. When her pregnancy was beyond doubt, her landlord had thrown her out. At first she had stayed at the Hotel Residenz, but shortly afterward Therese had moved into Lilo’s small apartment in the left wing of the building. Lilo had sailed off to America in October. Love—or, more precisely, Jonathan Winter, widower and one of Lilo’s summer guests—had spirited her away to his ranch in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. When she had told Clara about her plan to live with Jonathan for three months at the ranch—as a kind of test—Lilo’s eyes had sparkled, full of adventure.
Clara’s first question was “What about the hotel?”
“I will be leaving it in the capable hands of my staff. And if there is an emergency, they can reach me quickly by telegram. I’ll be back in the new year, regardless.” And that was the end of that subject. Her new life on the ranch, with the horses and surrounded by the wilds of the Rocky Mountains, had filled the rest of their conversation. And Jonat
han, too, of course, a giant of a man with a full beard, a man like no other.
Clara looked out of the window and watched a pair of seagulls gliding in slow circles above the lake, and wondered if Lilo was already snowed in in the Rocky Mountains. And would she really come back? Her letters so far had practically dripped with love and bliss.
“Has your attorney been able to get anywhere yet?” Therese asked, drawing Clara out of her thoughts.
“Not yet, I’m afraid. But he has had a message from the court in Berlin to say that my case is being reviewed. Apparently, my situation has no legal precedents.”
Therese shook her head and scowled. “At least I don’t have to go through a divorce from Benno.” She buttoned her blouse and lifted the baby to her shoulder; a little burp, then the boy smacked his lips and gurgled.
Clara smiled. “Well, now that Christopher’s satisfied, I have to be going. If I don’t get my packages into the mail today, my Christmas presents won’t get there on time at all.”
“Clara, wait. There’s something else I’d like to talk to you about,” said Therese, one hand on Clara’s sleeve.
Despite the late hour, Clara had no choice but to sit again.
“It’s like this . . . ,” Therese began haltingly. “I wanted to open my hairdressing shop again at the start of the year, but now I dread the idea. To be honest, I’m not sure I ever enjoyed hairdressing very much.”
That possibility had occurred to Clara, especially when Therese didn’t come in to work or left early.
“I can take over your half of the shop. I’d like to, in fact. But how will you live?” she replied.
Therese pursed her lips. “This is where you come in. See, I’ve had an idea . . .”
The Queen of Beauty (The Century Trilogy Book 3) Page 38
