The Glassblower (The Glassblower Trilogy Book 1)

by Durst-Benning, Petra

  She gave Thomas a gentle dig in the ribs.

  “When are you finally going to say it?” she whispered.

  He looked at her as though he had no idea what she was talking about, but then seemed to remember.

  “There’s still time for that,” he said, waving a hand. “The fun’s only just starting.”

  By then the band had started to play. The instruments all seemed to be engaged in a battle over which one could drown out all the rest, and it soon grew so loud that nobody could hear a word anybody was saying. This didn’t seem to bother anybody, however—they simply raised their voices and yelled louder. Ruth didn’t know how in the world Thomas expected anybody to hear him. And soon nobody would even be sober enough to grasp the news when he gave it. One or the other of them was always getting up to fetch more beer. Even the women were drinking, although less than the men. Turned off by the bitter taste, Ruth hadn’t taken so much as a single sip from the stein that Thomas had pushed across the table at her.

  It was already nine o’clock by the time Thomas finally made a move to announce the news.

  Ruth was shocked when she saw that he struggled to keep his balance as he got to his feet. Surely he hadn’t drunk that much already, had he?

  “Quiet, you lot. Thomas has something to say!” Michel called out, unexpectedly coming to his brother’s aid.

  Thomas took Ruth’s arm and pulled her up to her feet beside him. “It’s like this . . .” Tongue-tied, he pushed back a hank of hair from his forehead.

  Ruth lifted her chin proudly. Now they would all hear it.

  “Well spit it out and then leave it at that!” Sebastian yelled, lifting up his beer stein. “We’re not here to make speeches after all!”

  The others grunted their agreement. Ruth’s smile turned sour.

  Thomas glared at his brothers. “It’s like this,” he repeated. “Ruth and I, we . . .”

  Now he’d gotten the attention of most of the table. Her sisters and the others at the end of the table were looking their way, Ruth realized. She beamed at Johanna and Marie.

  “You all know the proverb, I’m sure: a cobbler should stick to his last. Which is why glassblowers should marry the daughters of glassblowers. Uh, that’s to say . . .” His face flushed when he saw Sebastian and Eva glowering at him. “There are exceptions that prove the rule of course.”

  Everybody else joined in the laughter, and the awkward moment passed.

  Ruth smiled indulgently. She had never imagined that Thomas would be so nervous!

  “Anyway . . . We’re not getting married, not today anyway, but engaged. This is it, today, this is our engagement.” Thomas had hardly stopped talking before he began to sit down again, but Ruth held him firmly by the sleeve. Smiling, she glanced all around while Thomas’s friends, astonished, began to call out congratulations. His brothers didn’t say a word, but instead looked fixedly at their father, who rose heavily to his feet.

  “My son and, eh, dear Ruth . . . Although as a rule I don’t like it when something’s decided without my say-so”—he wagged his finger as an exaggerated caution—“you have my blessing! And that means that I would like to welcome you, Ruth, as a member of our family here and now!” He raised his beer stein toward her.

  “You two work well together, as we see every day in the workshop,” he continued. “And although we’re not there yet, after you get married, I wish you every success in another line of work. I’m an old man, and I wouldn’t say no to a grandson or two!”

  He basked in the laughter that followed his little speech, while Ruth hoped fervently that she wasn’t blushing.

  “You’re getting married? When?” Eva asked in a voice like a pistol shot as soon as they sat down again. She was the only one who hadn’t congratulated them yet.

  Ruth held her breath. She was just as curious about Thomas’s answer as all the rest of them. They hadn’t talked about fixing a date for the wedding yet; she hadn’t wanted to push him too hard.

  Thomas looked at Ruth as though he’d never even thought about it. At last he said, “We’ll see. Not today anyway.” He laughed at his own joke, but when he saw Ruth frown in dismay he hastily added, “Let’s drink to the prettiest girl in the village. My betrothed, and my bride-to-be, Ruth!” He held her hand up in the air as if she’d just won an arm-wrestling match.

  Ruth beamed.

  Wilhelm Heimer boomed out, “If only Joost could be here today!” and then her sisters and Peter, too, came over and hugged her.

  Eva sat there with an icy look on her face as more and more people came across to the table to congratulate the newly engaged couple.

  But soon the news seemed to lose its sparkle, and so did Ruth’s mood. The men became ever more drunk with each hour that passed, their jokes ever more shameless. While Peter danced with Johanna and Marie by turns, it never even crossed Thomas’s mind to invite her for a dance. When she looked at the dance floor, Ruth tried to convince herself she was glad to have nothing to do with it; the planks were so roughly hewn that anybody dancing there had to be careful not to get a splinter in the soles of their feet. As for the music, Ruth wanted to clap her hands over her ears to shut out the monotonous blare of the trumpets. She had thought it would all be so different. And definitely more romantic. She had seen herself in Thomas’s arms, a scented bouquet in her hand. He would make a beautiful speech about how much he loved her. There would be candlelight and violins. But who in this village had a violin? Nobody. She had to laugh at her own naïveté.

  “So you’re enjoying yourself at last! I thought I’d never see a smile.” Thomas’s breath stank of beer and the hand he cupped around her chin was unsteady.

  “I’m tired. I want to go home,” Ruth yelled in his ear. “Home,” she said again, seeing that he couldn’t hear her.

  At last he seemed to catch on, but as he got up, he staggered so wildly that Ruth had to catch hold of him. She drew him aside.

  “I think we should put off our little plan for another time!” she yelled in his ear. But when she turned to leave, Thomas grabbed her by the arm.

  “A deal’s a deal. Don’t you go thinking you can talk me out of it again,” he slurred. He stumbled and Ruth staggered a little. “You’ll see. I’ve got everything ready. It’ll be so rrromantic!” Cackling, he rolled the r the way the Italian migrant workers on the railroad used to do.

  “You’re hurting me,” Ruth said, digging her fingers into his hand to free herself. He couldn’t possibly believe that she was going anywhere with him tonight. Not when he was as drunk as this.

  “Maybe you need to treat her right for a moment!” Sebastian called out. “Some women want that sort of thing.”

  “I can give it a try.” Instead of letting her go, Thomas put his other arm around Ruth’s waist and began to dance about in the narrow space between the table and the bench.

  Ruth realized that he no longer even knew what he was doing.

  “Let me go this instant,” she hissed, still trying to avoid making a scene. Thomas stumbled again, this time backward onto the table, almost pulling Ruth down with him.

  Ruth felt a surge of panic rising within her.

  “Hey, Thomas Heimer,” came a voice from behind her.

  It was Peter. He looked down contemptuously at the man sprawled backward on the table.

  “Even if you and Ruth are engaged now, that doesn’t give you the right to mistreat her. If she wants to go, you let her go. And you do it right now!” Peter looked as though he meant every word. Thomas released Ruth’s arm.

  She didn’t know where to look. There was such eager anticipation on the faces all around. As though they were enjoying the spectacle.

  Ruth had never felt so humiliated in her whole life. But all the same, she wanted everyone to see how well suited she and Thomas were to each other. She wanted the other women to envy the future Mrs. Heimer.
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  After that it all happened much too fast: Thomas swung his fist and hit Peter. Later, Ruth would still wonder how he had even managed to do such a thing in his condition. Peter hesitated for only a moment and then hit back. The women leapt aside, shrieking. The other men’s eyes gleamed, and suddenly they decided that someone had knocked over a beer, or jostled them, or simply looked at them wrong—and those became reasons enough for a brawl. Without any warning, it was in full swing.

  30

  “So how was your sister’s engagement? Or rather, I should ask: How was the May dance?”

  Johanna had hardly taken off her jacket and Strobel was already hurling questions at her. Usually he wasn’t the least bit interested in what she did in her free time in Lauscha, so she was not ready for his interrogation.

  Strobel sniggered. “Let me guess,” he said, putting his finger to his lips in an exaggerated gesture. “The music was awful, the dance itself was provincial, and everyone was horribly drunk by the end. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the engagement was a fiasco because the groom-to-be was drunk!”

  Johanna’s cheeks flushed.

  “If you really must know, it was absolutely horrid! I’m sorry I even went,” she said vehemently, as though Strobel had talked her into it. She tried to ignore the look on his face, which unmistakably said I told you so. The best thing was to forget the whole weekend as quickly as possible.

  “Did Mr. Woolworth come in the end?”

  Strobel nodded. He had the look of a cat that’d gotten into the herring tub on the sly.

  “Here’s his order. It must be dealt with today.”

  Johanna reached unsuspectingly for the list, a standard form that detailed the articles a client wanted, the suppliers, prices, and delivery deadlines. She found herself holding not one sheet of paper but three, and one more had dropped to the floor.

  There was no way that all this could be just one order.

  She picked up the sheet that had fallen and gazed at the pages incredulously. Dolls, toys, glassware, wood carvings—this man Woolworth seemed to want everything they had to offer. She swallowed when she saw what was written on one line.

  “Five hundred Parisian dolls?”

  Strobel grinned in response to her astonishment.

  Johanna leafed through the list, reading each item silently to herself. When she looked up again, her face showed a whole range of conflicting emotions; she was speechless at the quantities involved, baffled by some of the wares on the list, and shocked at the final cost. She had to check three times before she could accept the sum involved. Holding the sheets in her hand, she went across to the catalog table and sat down.

  Strobel followed her and sat down too.

  For a moment Johanna struggled to collect herself. When she looked up and said, “Why wasn’t I here? Woolworth must really be a man of great standing. Who else could be sure of selling such quantities?” She pointed quite at random at a line of the order.

  “Two hundred Sonneberg dolls, the ‘babe-in-arms’ model. Heinrich Stier will weep tears of joy when we give him the order.”

  “I told him from the start that he’d score a success with that style of doll,” Strobel said dismissively. “Where else in the world do dolls have that same rosy glow on their little faces? Nowhere!” he said, answering his own question.

  “His visit must have lasted for hours. Did Sybille Stein manage to come by and look after you? And his assistant? Did he . . .” She flushed at the thought that it should have been her job to make coffee for the American customers.

  Strobel interrupted her with that odd laugh of his. “If I were to tell you every detail of my client’s visit, which I will grant you was certainly quite remarkable, then we would be sitting here just as long as Woolworth and I sat together.” He took her hand with his bony one.

  She was just about ready to let him call her “My dearest Johanna,” thinking that she would get to hear one or two anecdotes, but then Strobel said, “You never get a second chance in life!” He sighed, then clapped his hands together theatrically. “If I had not considered your presence in Sonneberg . . .”

  Johanna wished fleetingly that Strobel had simply ordered her to stay, rather than letting her take the time off. Then she scolded herself for such childish thoughts. She had no choice but to sit there and hear him preach about missed opportunities and making the wrong decision. But she consoled herself with the fact that at least he had let go of her hand.

  “Oh and by the way, I will be gone for two weeks at the beginning of June—that is, if my travel plans do not conflict with your own calendar,” he added, with more than just a touch of sarcasm. “You will deputize for me while I am away. We will discuss all further details when the time comes.”

  Johanna’s first impulse was to say, “I can’t. I don’t know nearly enough about the business. And besides, I don’t dare!” Instead she nodded obediently. She wouldn’t be so quick to refuse any more of the chances he offered.

  While Strobel welcomed new clients and helped them with their orders, Johanna was busy all day with the Woolworth order. All of the pieceworkers and suppliers whose articles Woolworth wanted had to be notified. Strobel had a system for this, and Johanna entered how many pieces of every style each supplier had to deliver with the prices and the deadlines. She had to be absolutely sure not to mix up any names or item numbers. To her, this work was pleasure rather than business. Every form she filled came with a name, a family, a story of its own. By the time she had finished, she had written out one hundred and thirty individual commission sheets. That would give a lot of families work for the next few months, she told herself happily. She could hardly wait to give the sheets to the messenger women to take round to the villages.

  While almost every household in Lauscha made money by blowing glass, in Sonneberg they earned their daily bread by making dolls. And just as with the glassblowing, here, too, there were specialists for every step in the process: One man would spend his days fitting the glass eyes into dolls, though the eyes themselves were made in Lauscha. The next man painted lips in just the right shade, while another painted eyelashes and eyebrows on the bare faces. There were also seamstresses, knitters, shoemakers, and handbag makers—all for the dolls. Though Strobel insisted that Sonneberg dolls were world famous, the doll-makers hadn’t had an easy time of it in recent years. The French were pushing their way into the market by ordering porcelain heads from Sonneberg and then having female convicts finish the dolls for no wages. The foreign competition made an order of this size all the more important for the local doll-makers.

  There was plenty of Lauscha glassware in the Woolworth order too. Not for the first time, Johanna thought what might happen if only she could persuade Peter to put his glass animals into Friedhelm Strobel’s hands. They would very likely be setting off for America as well. But no, Peter had dug in his heels. “Your Mr. Strobel is far too fine for a raw beginner like me. No, no, I’ll take them to another wholesaler,” he had answered, ignoring Johanna’s argument that Strobel had already helped more than one unknown artisan get his start in the business.

  But then she realized that there was another name missing from the list. Johanna’s mood brightened. “At least old Heimer won’t be cluttering up foreign shelves with his gimcrack,” she muttered to herself somewhat spitefully.

  The day’s customers had brought him a good deal more business, and Strobel was in an expansive mood at supper. He had ordered the housekeeper to serve fish in a green herb sauce. Then he opened a bottle of champagne to go with it. If he were to be believed, rich people all over the world drank practically nothing else. He had sent Johanna down to the cellar on occasion to fetch a bottle when there were important clients visiting, but she herself had never tasted this luxury before.

  Cheered by her long day’s work and relieved that Strobel was not angry at her, she took a long sip. The champagne tasted a lot like wh
ite wine, though much . . . bubblier. Feeling the thousands of bubbles bursting on her tongue, she laughed.

  “Ruth would certainly like this! She’s always had a taste for the out of the ordinary.”

  Strobel laughed too, but a moment later, he said, “My dear Johanna, you really must stop comparing yourself to your sisters all the time. You are not like them. I am quite sure that this past weekend was ample proof of that.” And with that, he went about skillfully filleting his fish.

  Embarrassed, Johanna took another sip, but the bubbly suddenly tasted sour. Had Strobel already heard rumors about the fistfight? Or was he perhaps clairvoyant?

  Strobel lifted the backbone out of the fish and set it on the side of his plate, then went on, paying no attention to her evident disquiet. “Often enough we allow a sense of obligation to force us to do things we have no desire to do on our own. In your case, I am of the opinion that you should gradually stop playing nursemaid to Ruth and Marie.”

  Johanna looked up. What would Peter say if he ever found out that he and Strobel actually agreed on something?

  “But who’s to say that isn’t my purpose in life? I’m the eldest, after all, and that means I am responsible for my younger sisters.”

  “There are other ways to accept responsibility,” Strobel retorted, raising his eyebrows. As always when he wanted to make a point, he leaned over the table. His breath smelled of fish and parsley sauce.

  “Your purpose in life is not to serve others. Your purpose is to lead. You should not run around after your sisters all the time—rather they should run after you! Just look at yourself: you are a strong woman. But if you jump to attention every time Ruth or Marie or anyone else whistles for your help, you simply make yourself ridiculous.”

  What did Strobel think he was doing, shoving his nose into her affairs like this? She didn’t like the way he talked about her sisters either. But if she were honest with herself, she often felt silly for scurrying faithfully off to Lauscha every weekend. She said, “Perhaps you find it ridiculous that I love my family. But I can’t change that. After all, I’m just a simple village girl. And I’m not as strong as you say. If I were, your clients wouldn’t like it. Men prefer women who smile nicely and agree to everything, do they not?”