“We’ll soon find out.” Magnus put his hand on the handle and opened the door with a flourish. When the shop bell rang, Marie nearly jumped. Hesitantly, she followed Magnus inside.
It was not especially bright inside the shop, and Marie had to let her eyes adjust to the dim light. The smell—old, stale air with a sour note to it—took some getting used to as well. She had had no idea that books could smell so unpleasant.
“Is there anybody there? Mr. . . . Sawatzky? Hello!” Magnus called.
Marie was awestruck. Towering piles of books were stacked wherever she looked. The stacks in front of the windows were heaped so high that the daylight only came through the chinks in between.
“And there we were complaining about a few cardboard boxes in the house,” she murmured.
“Good day, Sir, Miss, how can I help you?”
Marie spotted a man standing in the half dark between several piles of books.
“We’re looking for a few books,” Magnus replied. “My companion here can tell you more.” He pointed to Marie.
Alois Sawatzky was much younger than she had imagined a bookseller would be. She would have felt rather less foolish telling her wishes to an old man.
“I’m looking for books on art.”
“On art . . .” The man ran a finger through his beard. “What, in particular, do you have in mind?”
Marie breathed out slowly. “In particular? Well, what do you have in stock?”
“My dear young lady, my stock is so extensive that bibliophiles come from as far afield as Weimar to buy from me. I’ll need you to give me one or two ideas as to what you want. Otherwise we could be here till tomorrow morning.” He coughed.
“Well, you see . . .” Magnus began, about to come to her aid, but one look at Marie’s face told him that she could cope with this arrogant young man quite well on her own. She took a deep breath and raised her chin.
“I would be most interested in a treatise on modern artistic styles. Everything that is en mode, so to speak.” She fixed him with a gaze that Johanna would have been proud to see. En mode—if he could use fancy words, then so could she. “I would also be interested in any works you have on older traditions. The old masters and such.” She waved her hand dismissively. “And if you happen to have anything on the history of glassblowing, that would be good as well. And then, I don’t know whether any such book has ever been written, but something about drawing techniques—a drawing course, so to speak—for charcoal sketches in particular would be useful. And if there is any such thing for color drawing as well, then all the better. Apart from that, I would also be interested in . . . What is it?” She stopped, frowning.
The man’s eyes had been growing wider and wider as she ran through her list.
“Could it be that your stock is not quite so extensive after all?” she asked in a gently mocking tone.
“Quite the opposite, my dear young lady.” It wouldn’t have taken much more, and he would be bowing and scraping in front of her. “I am certain that we can turn up a few treasures for you. If you would care to follow me? Allow me to lead the way.” He pointed toward the back of the shop.
Marie smiled at him. Once he had turned his back, she winked at Magnus. They made their way together through the heaps of books until the man stopped.
“So, here we are! Perhaps the gracious lady would like to look at one or another book, with no obligation to buy of course?”
He pointed behind himself. Marie’s worldly airs and graces fell away at once.
“Are these all books about art?”
The bookseller’s smile grew wider.
“But of course! Or do you happen to know of any subject—with the exception of love—that has been written about more extensively than art?”
When she left the shop two hours later, Marie’s cheeks were aglow. She was flushed all over as though she had a fever—and not just because she had spent all her savings. She hesitated when Magnus invited her for a beer—in part because she could hardly wait to get home and cut the string on the parcel of books and because she didn’t know whether Magnus could afford to visit a tavern. She accepted all the same.
“But only on one condition: we don’t run into Ruth!”
As they walked through Sonneberg, Magnus pointed out every shop they passed and had a tale to tell about each of them.
“Given that you’ve been running mail and messages between Lauscha and Sonneberg for only a few months, you certainly know your way around,” Marie said admiringly. “I don’t think I’d have even found my way back to the marketplace without you.”
Magnus led them to a tavern that was tucked away off the main street. “Well, at least I’m good for something.” Once they were settled at a table, he ordered two glasses of beer and two plates of bread and cheese.
Though Marie was about to protest, she realized that looking for art books had made her quite hungry. No sooner had the waitress put down the platter in front of her than Marie picked up a slice of bread and took a hearty bite.
“I keep my ears open when I’m running errands, that’s all,” Magnus said, picking up the thread of their conversation. “But God knows, it’s hardly a job to be proud of. The way you work with your hands and your imagination, the way you mix craft and art—that’s really something. Do you know that I almost envy that?”
Marie laughed. “Lots of people have ideas,” she muttered, a touch embarrassed.
“But not as good as yours! Many glassblowers don’t even do Christmas decorations. And the ones who make them . . . well, you should see the plain designs they use. No extra details, maybe a layer of mirror finish on the inside, and that’s that. They’re downright boring compared to your works of art.”
“I don’t know whether to even believe you,” Marie said. Magnus’s words were music to her ears but she felt self-conscious at his outspoken admiration.
“Believe away! After all, I’m the one who carries everybody’s samples here and back again. But let’s not talk about everyone else.” He leaned across the table toward her. “Do you want to know what I really admire about you?” He didn’t wait for an answer but kept straight on. “Your single-mindedness. You’re so sure about everything you do. Whenever you . . .”
“Me, sure of myself?” Marie interrupted. “You’ve really gotten the wrong idea. I’m besieged by doubt the moment I sit down with my sketchpad or at the lamp. I’m always asking myself whether I’ll be able to blow the shape. Or whether my designs can even work in glass.” She shook her head. “I’m plagued by doubt most of the time in fact. Then I convince myself that I don’t have the skills to create what I’ve pictured in my mind’s eye. How could I? I mean, what little I do know I taught myself.” She sighed.
“Have you never considered enrolling in the glassblowers’ trade school in Lauscha?”
She gaped at him. “You mean where they teach technical drawing and modeling? But that’s for the sons of glassblowers! Not for their daughters!”
“They might take you all the same. The way I hear it, they’re not exactly oversubscribed . . .”
“That’s the worst thing about it,” Marie chimed in. “Either the boys don’t want to learn anything or their fathers force them to sit down at the lamp just as soon as they’re done with ordinary school!” She shrugged. “One way or another, that school’s not for me. And as for the doubts I have . . . when it comes down to it, I don’t think there ever can be any such thing as certainty in art. Oh, I don’t know . . .” Even talking about it brought back all the helpless loneliness she had felt during the long nights at the lamp.
She had never talked about any of this, not even to Peter. In the end she was just a woman who was trying to persuade herself she could hold her own against the men in their trade. Who wanted not solely to understand the most difficult material any craftsman could work with but to master it.
&nbs
p; “Which is why you bought all those books, isn’t it?”
Marie laughed, embarrassed. “There won’t be anything about Christmas tree decorations in any of them, but I’m bound to find something I can use. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
Magnus considered this for a moment.
“More than that,” he answered, his voice ringing with conviction. “Perhaps you should spend a certain amount of time each day with your books from now on. Be your own tutor, so to speak.”
Marie looked at him in astonishment. “That’s just what I was going to do. Can you read my mind?”
Magnus grinned. “Perhaps I’m just good at knowing what an artist might be thinking. But joking aside”—he reached for her hand—“if you want my honest opinion, given how important your art is to you, you’re not giving it nearly enough of your time.”
“How can you say such a thing?” Marie protested, pulling her hand away. “Who spent night after night sitting at the lamp blowing glass these last six weeks? That was me, wasn’t it?”
Magnus smiled. “That’s exactly what I mean.” When she frowned, he continued. “You were working to earn your living. Now you should take some time to develop your gifts as an artist. I can’t imagine that the old masters like Rembrandt and Rubens would ever have become so famous if they had to paint night and day to make money.”
“What you forget to mention is that many of the old masters reportedly starved to death,” Marie said dryly. “You’re also forgetting that neither Ruth nor Johanna has a job . . .”
Magnus nodded. “I know. You have a great deal resting on your shoulders. But all the same—whenever you have a moment free from working for Heimer, you should make some sketches, read your books, have a look at the illustrations. Oh, I envy you what’s ahead.”
Marie felt her excitement grow. Magnus was right! She could hardly wait to resume her studies, which she had neglected ever since Johanna and Ruth had moved in. All the same she cocked her head and looked at him critically.
“The way you talk, anyone might think you gave advice to self-proclaimed artists every day of the week. Why do you think you know so much about what’s right for me?”
He beamed back at her. “Didn’t you just say yourself that there are no certainties in art? But there’s one thing I do know for sure: there’s more to you than you even know yourself. You just have to bring it out.”
Tears pricked at the inside of Marie’s eyelids, and she had to swallow hard. “That’s the first time anyone’s had so much faith in me,” she whispered. “You know what everyone else in the village says about a woman blowing glass.”
“It makes sense that people need time to get used to something new,” Magnus responded. “You and your sisters are a good way ahead of our time. But I’ll tell you this: in a few years there’ll be a great many more women blowing glass. And who knows—perhaps they’ll even be allowed to enroll in the trade school.”
Marie sighed. It did her good to hear Magnus’s words. “That would be wonderful! Then at last I’d have somebody I could talk to about . . . all this.”
“What do you mean? You’ve got me,” he answered boldly.
She looked at Magnus as though seeing him for the first time: his even features; his dark brown eyes that seemed slightly lost; his dark eyebrows, just a shade too close together; his long, rather unkempt hair. Griseldis’s son wasn’t much to look at. His eyes didn’t twinkle roguishly; his lips were rather narrow and didn’t seem sensual or invite kisses.
And for all that Magnus was unusual. The way he had taken care of Johanna after her . . . misfortune had proved then and there that he was trustworthy. And he was a helpful soul with a gift for knowing what others were thinking . . .
Marie smiled at him. “I still think that most of your compliments are nothing but flattery, but they do me good all the same. Thank you,” she added softly. “Do you know what? My first attempts at blowing glass were hard work, but now I’m ready to spread my wings. I’d like to make the most beautiful Christmas ornaments imaginable! I want children’s eyes to light up with happiness when they see my Saint Nicholas on their trees. I want my baubles to bring a glow to even the poorest parlor. I want them to catch the light and cast it back a thousandfold; I want them to glitter like the stars on a clear night sky. Old and young, man and woman—I’d like everyone to find their own little paradise in my baubles!”
25
The farmer tried several times to start up a conversation with his pretty young passenger, but to no avail. Ruth simply stared straight ahead and smiled absentmindedly. Her mouth was dry, and she was so excited that she felt as if she kept forgetting to breathe. Her stomach was churning, and it took all her concentration to try to calm the collywobbles. All in vain—to her great embarrassment, she had to ask the driver to stop his wagon. Her panic grew when she saw that there was nowhere nearby she could decently take shelter in the woods. At last she scurried behind a little copse of pines, but no sooner had she got there than the churning in her guts suddenly stopped.
When the first houses of Sonneberg came into view, Ruth was a bundle of nerves.
She was about to see Steven again at last!
When the farmer asked where he should direct his wagon, she had trouble concentrating. She swallowed several times and finally managed to tell him to go to the Sonneberg railway station. He shook his head and gave her an odd look.
On the way to the station, Ruth was already looking up and down the road for Steven, but she didn’t see him anywhere. She would have known his head in any crowd, the way his hair sprang up.
Once they reached the station, the farmer turned his horses and brought the wagon up alongside the platform. Instead of dismounting, Ruth sat where she was on the bench.
How were they ever to find each other here?
She couldn’t imagine a worse meeting place than this madhouse. Crates and cartons were piled high, people were coming and going, and men were conducting business, handing over sheaves of money or bills of lading. Tempers were short, and here on the crowded platform patience was not to be had at any price. Their cargo wobbled dangerously as wagons shoved and jockeyed for the best position to unload, and Ruth feared that the farmer’s horses would shy at the loud shouts and crack of whips all around. Fortunately, they stood their ground without getting skittish.
Ruth, however, felt increasingly frazzled and disappointed. Her stomach was giving her trouble again. While the farmer began to untie the lines that held the cardboard boxes in place, Ruth spotted a sign that pointed to the public lavatory. After deliberating for a moment, she mumbled something about having an upset stomach, pointed vaguely toward the main entrance, and dashed off.
“I’ll be back in five minutes,” she called over her shoulder to the farmer.
This time Ruth managed to ease her bowels. When she was washing up and looked into the mirror, she was shocked at what she saw. Her face was dreadfully drawn and tense. She stuck her tongue out at her reflection.
“What a silly cow you are,” she scolded herself. “No man would ever get so worked up.” By the time she left the lavatory she had calmed down a little.
And then she saw him.
Steven!
He was standing there with a black notebook in his hand, counting the cardboard boxes as the farmer unloaded them and stacked them up. Ruth wondered how he had managed to find the right wagon amid all the confusion.
Her heart was in her throat. How should she greet him? She hoped she would be able to speak at all.
But before she could utter a word, Steven looked up. “Ruth!” he exclaimed. Beaming, he lowered the documents in his hands and came toward her.
“How are you? The driver told me that you have an upset stomach. I do hope it’s nothing serious?”
Of course he had to spot her as she came out of the lavatory. Ruth felt her cheeks grow hot. “No, nothing, just a li
ttle chill,” she murmured in embarrassment.
“You look a little pale still, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
His eyes. So full of concern for her, so . . . Ruth had to fight the impulse to fling her arms around his neck.
“I’m sure I do. I wasn’t expecting all this excitement.” She waved her hand in a gesture that took in the whole station.
“That’s why I’m here,” Steven said, seizing her hand and pressing it briefly. “I’ll take care of everything. Marie’s baubles will leave Sonneberg in one piece, and they’ll arrive in New York unharmed.”
His smile and the certainty he radiated could have calmed a herd of stampeding horses. Ruth had trouble keeping her happiness in check.
“Here are the inventories. Just as you asked, we’ve listed every design individually. And the codes on the cardboard boxes are all explained here.” She pointed to the top of the first sheet.
How good he smelled. His face was just a few inches from hers as they bent over the papers together. There were blue shadows under his eyes.
“You look worn out,” Ruth heard herself whisper. She had to resist the impulse to reach out and stroke his cheek until the fatigue vanished.
Steven looked up. “The thought of seeing you again robbed me of my sleep,” he whispered back, not taking his eyes off her. Then he reached out and took the lists from her hand as though forcing himself to get back to business.
“Well then! Let’s make sure we get this show on the road! The sooner the better. When we’re done here, I’d like to invite you for a cup of hot cocoa. Are we agreed?”
Ruth nodded. She would have agreed to anything.
From that moment on, she didn’t have to worry about a thing. Steven beckoned, and three laborers came over. Steven gave one of them a sheaf of papers, and the men began to load the cardboard boxes into several enormous wooden crates. Then the crates were taken away on a handcart. Steven pressed a few coins into the hand of the man who had taken the papers and suddenly it was over. The whole thing took less than a quarter of an hour.
The Glassblower (The Glassblower Trilogy Book 1) Page 36
