Peter nodded at her. “You should only saw branches that are at least an inch thick. I’ll do the rest later with the shears.” Then he fell quiet again.
For the first time in ages, Johanna felt that she could breathe freely. It wasn’t just the air up in the forest that smelled of herbs; it was because there was nobody telling her how to go about doing her job.
She set the saw blade onto another branch, placed the thumb of her other hand against it, then started to saw in smooth, even strokes. Soon she had taken the branch clear off the fallen trunk and set it on top of the heap with the others. Then she moved on to the next one. The rasp of the saw reminded her a little of the hissing of the gas flame, and the rhythmic sound of the blade was soothing.
They worked in silence for a while. Once they had gathered a little heap of branches, Peter threw it downhill to Ruth with a practiced swing of his arm. It would have been impossible to drag all the wood downhill, but even throwing it took effort. Johanna tried to throw down the branches that she had sawed, and it wasn’t long before she was bathed in her own sweat. Saw, throw, saw, throw; soon she had worked out the rhythm that worked best for her.
She was so absorbed in her work that she jumped when she unexpectedly felt Peter’s hand on her shoulder. The saw blade wobbled, snagged in the sappy heartwood of the branch, and got stuck.
“Sorry!” He gave her a wry grin. “But I called you three times already. Are you looking to set a record here?”
Johanna tugged the blade free of the branch. Only then did she realize that her forearms were trembling. “I thought we came here to work,” she said stubbornly and was just about to resume sawing when Peter put a hand on her arm and stopped her.
“Haven’t you looked down the hill? Ruth and Marie can’t keep up with gathering all that wood.” He led her over to a tree trunk that was already cleared of all its branches, and gently pushed her until she sat down.
Johanna admitted to herself that it was good to sit and rest for a few minutes.
As she sat there, she realized how dry her throat was. When she passed her tongue over her lips, it stuck. A moment later, Peter passed her a flask of apple juice.
“Can you read my mind?” She took a long swallow. The juice was so sweet that it tickled her gums. “You really have thought of everything,” she said, sighing.
He shrugged. “Something to drink, bread and ham—it’s the least I can do. I would do so much more for you if I could!”
Johanna turned and looked at him. As always when he was upset about something, there was a long furrow of worry on his brow, right down to the bridge of his nose.
“Oh, Peter, don’t keep blaming yourself and thinking you’re responsible for us. And as for the food, heaven knows we’re not fussy. You should see the stuff they serve up at the Heimers’ table.”
He was silent.
“You know,” she said after a moment, “the worst of it is that Wilhelm’s workshop could be a tidy little business. All it needs is a bit of care and attention.”
“Johanna,” Peter said suddenly. All at once his face was right next to hers. His normally placid features were like a mountain stream after a rainstorm. “Forget Heimer and that mess he calls a workshop! Come to me! You can see how well we work together! I—”
Before Johanna quite knew what was happening, he had his arms around her and was pressing her to him. “You and me,” he whispered, “wouldn’t that be something?”
Johanna felt her cheek burning where his jacket rubbed against it. Her head was at an awkward angle and her neck hurt. She felt as though the ground had been snatched away from beneath her feet. Peter was her neighbor. Her friend. What should she do?
“Peter . . .” she scolded him.
Luckily he let her go a moment later.
As they sat there against the tree trunk, an awkward silence descended.
“I . . .” Johanna began.
At the same moment Peter said, “I’m sorry . . .”
They both laughed, disconcerted. “You don’t need to say sorry,” Johanna said softly. “I’m fond of you too.”
But not like that, she thought.
She squeezed his arm, overwhelmed by the feeling that somehow she had failed. The question What now? pounded through her head. What could she say or do to let him keep his dignity intact?
As the silence dragged on, Johanna listened with one ear for what was going on down the hill. Why wasn’t Ruth calling to ask where the next bundle of wood was?
“Well then, let’s get on with it before this thin air up here turns my head again,” Peter said, getting up. He took a deep breath to stop himself from smiling awkwardly. “What is it? Are you going to sit there until you put down roots?” He gave her a wry grin, and stretched his hand out to Johanna. She took it.
He pulled her to her feet. “Once we’re finished with this tree here, we’ll deserve a bite to eat. The others must be hungry too,” Peter said as though nothing had happened.
As she leaned into her saw, Johanna cast furtive glances in Peter’s direction. He’d accepted her rebuff so graciously. He didn’t seem the least ashamed that his feelings had gotten the better of him, but somehow just rose above it all. Johanna felt stupid for having ruined someone’s day again.
Before she could look away, his gaze met hers. Peter shrugged. “About just now . . .” A roguish grin spread over his face. “I can’t promise you that something of the kind won’t happen again. Knowing myself the way I do, I reckon that’s not the last time I’ll push my luck.”
She shook her head and smiled. “You’re impossible!”
They worked on, side by side, with not a trace of ill feeling between them. They were friends, and nothing had changed that.
16
The next few weeks flew by in a flurry of work. It was pitch dark when the three sisters left the house in the morning, and had been dark for hours by the time they got home in the evening. Johanna yearned to be able to hang out the laundry in the sunshine, or to be able to dust the house by daylight. But the housework lay unattended, and with good reason. In every house in Lauscha the only job to do so close to Christmas was blowing glass and preparing the wares, until they were all so tired they were fit to drop. It was no different in Heimer’s workshop.
Buyers arrived from all over the country. They may have hemmed and hawed in the fall, but now they thronged the doorways of the Sonneberg wholesalers to be well supplied for the Christmas sales. The haggling now was not over prices but over delivery times and deadlines, for every client wanted his orders delivered as soon as possible. The wholesalers passed on the deadlines to their pieceworkers, pushing them to deliver toys and wood carvings and glass as quickly as they could—all while pocketing the profits themselves.
Thomas and his brothers sat at their lamps without a break from morning till night, while the hired hands painted, silvered, labeled, and packed. In addition to the two women he normally paid to take the wares into Sonneberg, Wilhelm Heimer hired a farmer from a nearby village to take a delivery into town every day.
As Johanna sat there stringing twenty glass beads each onto lengths of string and knotting the ends, she forbade herself even to think of her Friday visits to Sonneberg during the Christmas season in years past. But threading the strings was tedious work, and as the heap of glittering trinkets grew ever higher, Johanna could no longer keep the memories at bay.
The taverns and cafés were all lit up, and the town’s narrow streets were filled with crowds. There were few foreign buyers in Sonneberg that time of year, as it was impossible for them to get their orders across the borders so soon before Christmas. But dialects from all over Germany flowed through the streets. And the air was filled with scents so intense that the memory of them started Johanna’s mouth watering. On these cold, short days, old ladies stood in front of their houses with a pot of mulled wine spiced with cinnamon, aniseed, p
epper, and secret ingredients. Others sold gingerbread—much to the disapproval of the bakers of Sonneberg, who could do little to stop their competitors from breaking the guild monopoly just once a year. Still others toasted almonds or grilled the famous Thuringian sausages. And all of these treats sold quickly, since there was a hardly a visitor to town who would refuse a snack along the way. Johanna always had liked to soak up the hustle and bustle, and she always returned to Lauscha energized.
She let her hands drop onto the workbench. The gleaming silver beads swam before her eyes. Ruth and Marie had always been so pleased when she brought back a bag of almonds or an elaborate gingerbread biscuit. Father had never objected to the extra expense. He never even counted the money that Johanna handed over from the sale of the glass.
She glanced over at Wilhelm Heimer, who was upbraiding Sebastian about something. Her new employer hardly knew the meaning of the word trust, and took an inventory every evening. She would never want to steal any of his ugly products—the ones Marie designed being the only exception. “Cheap, gimcrack stuff,” she muttered under her breath.
This year there would be no gingerbread, nor any other treats. Instead they would sit staring at Father’s empty chair, and the Christmas carols would sound thin and feeble without his voice booming out the words. Johanna was beginning to understand why those who had suffered a death in the family always hated Christmas so much; the hole that their loved one left behind seemed bigger in the light of the Christmas candles.
But it wasn’t just grief over Joost’s death that made her so miserable. She was also worried sick about money. She had to plan the budget down to the last penny every month to make their wages last. So far they had not gone to bed hungry, but it had been close at the end of last month. It was true that Heimer paid them a mere pittance, but there was another problem too: everything from bread to soup cost more now that they were working outside their home. Before, Ruth had spent every Wednesday morning kneading a huge batch of dough, which she then took to the bakehouse to bake into six loaves that would last the family through the week. But now they no longer had time to bake, so they had to buy bread instead, which cost much more. Since they didn’t have time to go to the butcher to buy a bag of bones or to stand by the stove boiling them for soup, they had to rely on a can of Liebig’s Extract of Meat from the pantry.
Johanna looked down with hatred at the heap of beads in front of her. She couldn’t understand why anyone would spend good money on that sort of thing. Money, money, money—that was all she thought about these days. But neither Ruth nor Marie ever gave her a word of thanks for keeping accounts and sticking to a budget. Instead Ruth always complained that she couldn’t bear to see another meal of potatoes or bread and drippings, that she wanted a nice juicy roast or a dish of herring. As though it were her fault that they were short of money, Johanna had to explain to them again and again why it was out of the question to spend a little extra on a drawing pad or colored pencils, a hair clasp or comb. Though Johanna had to admit that her sisters had stopped making such extravagant demands recently. Maybe they finally understood that she couldn’t just snap her fingers and make these things appear. Johanna sighed again. Perhaps old Heimer would give them a couple of extra marks for Christmas. She toyed with the idea of asking Griseldis if Heimer might do this, but she dismissed the thought immediately. She didn’t want to sound too bold, especially since Griseldis was always telling her how grateful she should be to have a job at all as a woman. As a woman—sometimes Johanna wondered whether being a woman was like having some ghastly disease.
The impulse to shove all the beads off the workbench with one sweep of her hand was so strong that Johanna stood up. Confound it all, she didn’t want to spend another moment thinking about the Christmas that lay ahead.
Unlike Johanna, Ruth was always able to find some room for optimism. Thomas had hinted that he had a present for her. And so Ruth spent most of her time thinking about what it could be. She wouldn’t say no to a bead necklace, even if Johanna thought that they were tawdry old things. But she would quite like one of those perfume bottles that they had spent the last few days packing away by the hundreds . . . though she had no idea what she would put in it.
The very best present Thomas could give her would be to propose, but Ruth was realistic enough not to hope for too much. Even at this busy time of year Thomas begged and pleaded to meet her in the warehouse as often as possible, and when they did meet he was never short of compliments and declarations of love. He was always telling her how beautiful her body was, her hair, her skin—everything. In front of the others, however, he acted as though he had no feelings at all for her. If she tried to take his hand over the table at lunch, he pulled it back. And he’d never taken her out, not even to the Black Eagle, much less Sonneberg. Ruth didn’t budge an inch: as long as Thomas insisted on hiding the fact that they were in love, she wouldn’t let him under her skirts. He got angry about that every time they met, and she could partly understand his frustrations. She liked it too, to feel his hands on her, to hear his breath come faster. Kissing and petting was much better than the awkward silences that fell whenever they tried to have a conversation. “We’ve got all day to gab at one another,” he said dismissively if she tried to tell him what was on her mind.
Maybe it was time to take the next step? Wouldn’t Thomas be surprised if she suddenly stopped putting up a fight? Or perhaps she could think of a Christmas present she could give him instead? But how was that supposed to work, when she didn’t have a penny to call her own?
17
Two days before Christmas Eve, Wilhelm Heimer beckoned Ruth over to him. Eva watched suspiciously as Ruth followed him up to the family’s front parlor on the second floor, which they kept for special occasions.
Heimer shut the door behind them. Because the room was hardly ever used, it smelled heavily of dust. Ruth sneezed.
“I need you to do me a favor, but I’ll pay you just as if you were still at work,” Heimer said, wheezing a little from the exertion of climbing the stairs.
Ruth felt flattered and waved away his offer. “Of course I’ll help you!” Maybe it meant something that he had chosen her, in particular, to lend him a hand.
Heimer pointed to the table behind him. “These presents are for Evie and a few of the others. Now that there’s a woman in the household again I want Christmas to be really special. Like it was when my wife was still alive, God rest her soul. But I can’t let Evie wrap her own presents.” He pointed to a few sheets of wine-red paper printed with golden angels. “I didn’t skimp. It was the most expensive wrapping paper I could find.”
Ruth nodded, keeping her face neutral. Heimer certainly shouldn’t see her eyes pop out at the sight of such extravagance. She stole a glance at the table. There was a round case of some kind, a woolen garment, and a few little bottles. She looked at Heimer. “You’ve even bought name tags and gold ribbon!” She couldn’t entirely conceal her surprise. She never would have expected him to go for such luxuries.
Heimer beamed. “Only the best for Evie!” He told Ruth to put the presents on the dresser once she had wrapped them, and then he trotted back downstairs.
Evie, Evie, all day long! Ruth rolled her eyes. All the same, she couldn’t wait to see what Heimer had bought his daughter-in-law.
As soon as she was alone, she rushed over to the table. A powder compact! Decorated with red and gold roses and—Ruth fiddled with the catch until the case opened—a mirror inside the lid. Ruth gazed at her reflection and pretended she was powdering her face. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the powder settling on her skin like silk.
The garment was a knitted jacket in hunter green. Ruth grinned. Eva would look as pale as a milkmaid wearing that. But she sighed when she saw the next gift: a piece close to six feet long of the finest Plauen lace. Ruth ran her fingers along the stiff edges of the lace, estimating enviously as she felt the quality of the handiwor
k. It would be enough to edge a blouse and then some—enough for one bodice at least, maybe two. A lump formed in her throat. All for Eva. It was so unfair. Ruth pushed aside the cardboard box that held the lace. When she saw that there were no more presents with Eva’s name on the tag, she was almost relieved. She picked up one of the little bottles. Aha, a liqueur for old Edeltraud. Not that she’d be able to pour herself more than two glasses. How stingy he was! Ruth put the bottle aside and picked up the next. Another liqueur, this time with Sarah’s name on the tag. So at least there was something for the hired hands. She picked up the third. This one was for Griseldis. Ruth looked up and down the table but saw no presents for Thomas and his brothers, nor for herself and her sisters. She tried not to be too disappointed. It could only mean one of two things, she thought as she wrapped the lace in the wine-red paper: either Wilhelm Heimer had some special gifts for his sons and Joost’s daughters, or . . . they would get no presents at all. But surely that wouldn’t be the case, Ruth told herself as she smoothed the paper flat.
Though it was only two o’clock in the afternoon, it was so gloomy that she had to turn the light on. The dark heavy furniture made the room even dimmer. Ruth put down Edeltraud’s present. If her voice ever came to count for something in the Heimer family home, the first thing she would do would be to put this room in order. Striped wallpaper would look good in here. And new curtains. Maybe she’d even be allowed to choose some new furniture. Once she was Mrs. Heimer, she would get to work making it a room they could be proud of. After all, not many houses in the village even had a front parlor like this.
Maybe she wouldn’t even live here, though, but in the empty rooms above the warehouse instead? Just a few days before, Thomas had said in passing that the whole house belonged to his father. Perhaps he’d mentioned it for a reason?
The Glassblower (The Glassblower Trilogy Book 1) Page 10
