“It has nothing to do with the cost; you know that as well as I do. Now calm down. I’m still confident that it will all turn out for the best.”
Isabelle nodded halfheartedly. Then it occurred to her that Josephine could not see her.
Lost in thought, Josephine replaced the heavy telephone receiver on its hook. Isabelle was right. Time was running out. But she had done what she could, and her hands were tied. Now it came down to the courage of another.
“Do you really think it’s fair that Sophie and Matthias’s mother is still not allowed to see her children?” she had asked Marianne Gropius some weeks before. It had been a warm day, heralding spring, and they had ridden their bicycles out to Wannsee lake.
“Of course I do!” Marianne replied. “You can’t entrust children to an adulteress like her.”
Josephine had sighed at her words, disappointed and sad. How could she have expected anything different?
“The official reason that led to their divorce back then was that Clara committed adultery. But have you ever wondered whether the truth might have been very different?” she had asked as they sat beside the lake.
“Gerhard never talks about that time. And whenever I dared to raise the subject, he got angry, so I let it drop. But that’s all old hat now,” Marianne said, gesturing dismissively.
Old hat? If she only knew! Josephine had thought angrily. “Clara is suffering severely from being separated from her children,” she said quietly. “If she could just see Sophie and Matthias now and then. And Sophie talks about her mother all the time, as you know. But Gerhard . . .” She pressed her lips together to stop herself from saying the wrong thing.
“Are you trying to turn me against my husband?” Marianne said, her tone sharp. “You won’t do it, because I happen to love Gerhard. For me, he is the best man in the world.”
“With you, Gerhard has really turned into a different person. Your love is good for him,” Josephine said. “But his marriage to Clara was not born under such a lucky star.” She felt like slapping herself in the face for uttering that kind of saccharine nonsense. But when it came down to it, she wanted something from Marianne, and she knew that Marianne’s defenses would go up if she said a word about Gerhard’s abuse, his spitefulness, or his domineering manner. So she talked instead about two people who were simply not suited to each other. About parents who pushed Clara into marrying the good doctor. And about Gerhard Gropius himself, who was apparently such a man of honor that he complied with the expectations of Clara’s parents and married Clara, although he felt no love for her.”
Marianne had hung on each of Josephine’s words. Two hearts that did not beat in harmony. Gerhard and Clara, the two of them trapped in a loveless marriage. A misunderstanding, of a sort.
“Clara fabricated the entire story about the adultery. Do you understand that? If she had not gone through that farce, there never would have been a divorce. Clara Berg has been shunned for something she never did. When all is said and done, you can be grateful to her that she had the courage to free herself from that unhappy marriage. And Gerhard, too, because it meant that he found you, his true love.”
“I’ve never thought about it like that before. Clara accepted a great sacrifice.” Marianne frowned. “But you can’t count on the judges sharing that view. Those men probably know as little about true love as they do about the yearning of a mother’s heart.”
Josephine nodded in agreement. Her mouth had gone dry with excitement, and, her voice high-pitched and cracking a little, she said, “A matter like this can also be handled another way. Privately, so to speak. Would you have anything against Clara seeing her children occasionally?”
Marianne shrugged. “If it’s only occasionally. And as long as she doesn’t try to get involved in their upbringing. But Gerhard would never agree to have her come to the house. And I wouldn’t feel comfortable with it, either.”
“That goes without saying.” Josephine had to suppress a squeal of glee. “It isn’t even necessary for Clara to come to Berlin. There’s another possibility . . .” Then she had taken Marianne’s hand in hers and painted her a picture of that possibility in all the colors of the rainbow.
“That really does sound very tempting,” Marianne had finally said. “The only question is whether I can make the idea palatable to Gerhard.”
With a heavy heart, Josephine finally stood up from her telephone table. She had tried to sound as confident as she could with Isabelle, but she was far from certain that Marianne would succeed.
Chapter Forty-Four
It had been a mild winter, and the trees had started blooming earlier than usual. Now, at the end of April, the mosaic tiles of the terrace, the beautiful new rattan furniture, and the Villa Bel Étage itself were covered in countless millions of white petals. When Laszlo went to Clara’s house, a single falling petal landed on his nose, making him smile. But his mission was far from cheerful.
The house was teeming with people, but Laszlo found Clara easily. She was standing in the garden like a military commander, surrounded by a crowd. Therese was standing beside her, holding out a thin sheaf of paperwork to Clara. At the same time, two tradesmen were talking to her, and a third man stood beside them, shifting his weight impatiently.
And now there he was, too. Downcast, he approached the group. He had put off this talk for too long. Now it simply had to be done. The perfume maker in Paris had written to him again. He needed a good man, and as soon as possible! Laszlo had played for time, but he knew full well that he could not stall indefinitely.
“The reconstruction work inside is almost complete, and the extension for the cosmetic treatments is finished. Almost all the outside work has been completed, too. All except the Kneipp pool, which is still just a hole in the ground.” Clara looked down in annoyance at the shallow excavation beside her, provisionally covered with a few planks.
“It all looks very good,” Laszlo said, turning back to the house. “But with the lake at your doorstep, I still don’t really understand what you need with a Kneipp pool.”
“According to my specialists, there are many women who are terrified of the lake and won’t go near it, let alone actually bathe in it. They’re afraid of the depth, the fish, the swans. These women should also be able to enjoy the benefits of water treatments, thus the pool. I know that some people will think me mad for putting in all this effort . . .” She shrugged apologetically. “But the villa has become very dear to me, and everything has to be perfect!” As she spoke, she began to leaf through the paperwork that Therese had given her. “The first drafts for the hotel brochure. I have to look at them right away.”
Laszlo cleared his throat. “Clara, there’s something I have to tell you.” His heart was beating in his throat and his mouth was parched. “Something very important.”
“I’m glad you have the time,” she replied. “Because I would love to show you my concept for the perfect beauty day. I’ve been shaping it and reshaping it for so long that I can’t see the forest for the trees anymore. But you could look at it with fresh eyes and an open mind, and you could perhaps tell me if you see any problems with it.”
Had she heard him? Laszlo wondered. Just then, Sabine’s voice came from inside the house.
“The first housekeeper is here. Can you come, Clara?”
“Oh, yes, the interviews.” For a moment, she seemed to Laszlo to stagger a little.
“A thousand things at once—it’s too much for you,” he said, exasperated. “Won’t you let Klaus deal with the new staff? He’s good at that kind of thing.” Among the women working in the manufactory—all diligent, reliable, and with good morale—there were few resignations.
“I appreciate Klaus’s depth of experience very much,” Clara said. “But for the villa, I want to be the one to decide. I know what a mistake it can be to let someone else make too many important decisions. That time, it ended in chaos. I don’t want that to happen again.”
But she can’t possible compare h
er no-good husband with decent, upright Klaus, Laszlo thought, irritated. He said, “Either way, everyone has to take a rest now and then, even you. Why don’t we go and have a cup of coffee together. My treat.” He could see clearly that in that madhouse he would not be able to turn their discussion to his resignation. It made him queasy to think that he had to tell Clara that he was going to Paris.
“No time, no time!” she laughed. “It’s really nice of you to worry about me, but not necessary. I can relax once we’ve opened, when my friends are here. Josephine and Isabelle are coming, and Therese and Lilo will join us whenever they can find the time. And I’ve invited Beate Birgen, the actress, too. And Countess Zuzanna, of course. I’m friends with both of them now, I’m happy to say.” Clara laughed again. “Because my very first guests have to test for themselves what I’ll be offering here. Not everything will work from the start, I’m sure of that, but everyone gets to stay here for free! It’s going to be a lovely week.” Clara sighed with pleasure at the thought, but a moment later, she almost lost her balance again.
Laszlo reached out to catch her, but she had already caught herself. “If you last that long,” he said with a mix of concern and anger. She was so pigheaded!
“I’m just a little dizzy, that’s all. I haven’t had any lunch yet.”
He would have loved to take her off to the nearest restaurant and feed her tasty tidbits, but Clara did not want his help. She had shown that clearly more than once.
He took a deep breath. Now or never! Or else he would stay in Meersburg and wither away from unrequited love, like a field of lavender waiting too long for rain.
“Clara, I have to go,” he said abruptly. “To Paris.” Every word was the stab of a knife, but he went on. “My resignation is already on your desk.”
Clara looked at him with wide eyes. “You want to . . . but, Laszlo! That . . . I . . .” She flapped at the air helplessly with her arms, as if trying to catch the right words out of the air. At the same time, she took a step back and trod on one of the planks covering the Kneipp pool-to-be.
Laszlo saw the accident coming. His arm shot forward, but the plank slipped, and Clara fell two feet down into the shallow pit.
Chapter Forty-Five
Clara had been lucky, all things considered. “Someone told you to break a leg, but you only broke an ankle,” said the doctor who had treated Clara in the hospital in Friedrichshafen, and laughed alone at his joke. Her leg would be immobilized in a cast for six weeks. And to observe her for any signs of thrombosis, they wanted to keep Clara in the hospital for a week or two.
Clara had burst into tears when the doctor gave her this “good” news. Now, when the villa still needed a thousand decisions and Laszlo was probably already . . . She could not bear to think that thought to its end.
She had begun to bargain desperately with the doctor. Couldn’t she go home? She would keep her foot raised, the whole day if need be, and at night, too, of course. And she would take it easy. Easy, easy, easy!
But the doctor was not the negotiating kind.
So Clara found herself lying in a stiflingly hot hospital, with a stack of magazines that Therese had brought her beside her bed. But instead of losing herself in the pages of the Gardener’s Weekly or Berlin Illustrated News, Clara was frantically going through a pile of documents that Therese had handed her with Sabine’s compliments: paychecks that she had to sign, invoices requiring approval, calculations for the expected running costs for the first year, something the bank had asked her to supply when the reconstruction of the villa had become more expensive than originally planned. Pieces of paper were constantly sliding off the bed, and Clara had to struggle to retrieve them. The skin beneath her cast itched terribly, and she had to poke a long hairpin beneath the bandage to get any relief at all.
In her irritation, Clara looked up from the paperwork to the gray walls around her. God, it was ugly in there. And the air was so stale that she perpetually had to fight a vague nausea. For the thousandth time, she looked at the watch on her wrist, only to find the hands moving much slower than usual.
Everything was chugging along just fine, Therese had informed her the day before. Klaus had shouldered the responsibility for the personnel, and Lilo had taken over supervising the various workers. With a grin, Therese had said that the workers had at least as much respect for her as they did for Clara. Which meant that everything was going as it should. Clara, by rights, should have been able to lean back and let her convalescence take its course. But a loud voice inside her was screaming: I have to get out of here!
The urgency and persistence of that voice had nothing to do with the villa.
A long time ago—she had still been quite young—she had spent some time in a hospital because of a broken leg. She had practically torn her hair out with boredom. Out of sheer desperation, she hobbled down to the hospital library on her crutches to find something to read. Fascinated, almost reverently so, she had peered into tomes about the internal organs, the structure of human skin, and other specialized subjects. With a stack of medical textbooks pinned beneath her arm, she bumped into Gerhard on her way out, and the books fell to the floor. Gerhard gallantly bent down to pick them up for her. “That’s not what a young lady should be reading!” he reprimanded her and put the books back on their shelves. And she had been so intimidated by his good looks that she simply accepted the way he imposed his will on her . . . and worse, she had fallen in love with him. One could say that her broken leg was to blame for the disaster of her first marriage.
And now her ankle was broken.
Clara let out a stifled, despairing scream that was immediately swallowed up by the gray walls. Then she closed her eyes and began to compose the most important words she felt she would ever speak.
“Lavender water!” Clara smiled with relief. “I wanted to ask Therese to bring me a bottle.” She immediately began sprinkling a few drops of the fragrant liquid on her pillow and blanket, and it soon became easier for her to breathe. “Thank you,” she said softly, and looked into his eyes for the first time. She saw a jumble of emotions there, and felt as if she were looking into a mirror.
She knew it was him as soon as she heard the knock on the door. Laszlo radiated such a presence that she could sense him there. Her heart had started to thump, and Clara could not have said whether it was caused by fear that he was bringing her his resignation, or by the joy she felt seeing him again. Or was it the inner turmoil she felt about what lay ahead? Probably all of it at the same time, she thought.
And now he was there. And it was time. She cleared her throat. “Laszlo, we have to talk.”
“In a moment,” he said. “I have something else for you.” Carefully, as if he were handling a fine porcelain ornament, he withdrew a book from his bag and placed it on her lap.
The book was small and delicate. The cover was an elegant beige-colored linen bordered in pale rose-pink. The title was printed on the front in large, sweeping letters in the same pink tone: “Beauty for Every Woman. By Clara Berg.”
Clara blinked back the tears that rose to her eyes. Her book. Her work. Another dream come true. Almost fearfully, as if she might find only blank pages inside, she turned back the cover, and just below the subtitle, “A Guide for Modern Women,” there was a faithful reproduction of a rose. On the following page was a table of contents, each entry also separated by a rose. How lovely.
“Congratulations. That’s something to be really proud of,” said Laszlo, and there was pride in his own voice.
Without thinking about it, Clara took his left hand in her right. “Without you, I would never have dared to write it. I want to thank you for everything you have done for me. You are a wonderful man.” She bit her lip. Forgotten was her carefully arranged speech about how love could grow if one allowed it the time to do so. Instead, the words came tumbling out. “Laszlo, I love you!”
His face was suddenly incredulous, almost fearful, as if he thought she might be playing a trick on him. Clara f
elt herself on the verge of tears.
“I have no right to expect any love in return, especially given how impossible I’ve been to you all along. What I said in Friedrichshafen . . . I’ve regretted those words a thousand times. But I didn’t have the courage to ask you to forgive me, because that would not have been possible without admitting how much I loved you.” She picked up the book and tapped on the subtitle. “‘A guide for modern women’—that sounds so presumptuous,” she said self-mockingly. “I would love to be one of those modern women. If I were, I might have tried to tell you earlier how much you mean to me. And if I were the least bit brave, I would have admitted even in my year of mourning that I feel more for you than just affection. But when it comes to love, I’m a coward.”
Why doesn’t he say anything? Clara wondered. Serves you right, letting you stew. But why does he look so strange? Is he smiling?
She picked up her thread uncertainly. “I’m better with things like willfulness and stubbornness and impatience.” She laughed softly. “At least, that’s what my mother always used to accuse me of. She said, the way I acted, it was no wonder I made my husband angry. What I’m trying to say . . .” She looked at Laszlo almost pleadingly, felt the words pouring now not from her rational mind but from her heart. “. . . is that, really, I’m am the wrong woman for you, unequivocally. But still, I am gathering up my courage now and—” Clara tried to sit up straighter, pushing against the lumpy mattress. Blast it, she could not finish this conversation if she was half lying down! But her cast had gotten tangled in the blanket, and she gave up and sank back again. Jumping around in bed like that, she was probably just embarrassing herself. Laszlo probably thought her entire declaration of love was embarrassing.
The Queen of Beauty (The Century Trilogy Book 3) Page 45
