The American Lady (29 page)

20

By the time they got to Sonneberg, Wanda was so exhausted that she insisted they stop at one of the taverns first thing. She ordered a grilled sausage and Eva persuaded her to have a beer with it, then they discussed their plans: Eva would begin by taking her to the wholesalers who had dealt with the Heimers in the past. Then, if Wanda wanted to meet with some more, Eva would take her to others. Even though they had gotten a little closer during the walk, Eva could still not be persuaded to go in with Wanda on her visits. So Wanda put on fresh lipstick, squared her shoulders, and set off to be of some help to her family.

It took a while before she found anyone who seemed likely to help.

“Of course I am aware that I am almost the only one left who thinks so—in an age where the slogan of ‘Art for All’ seems to be on everyone’s lips. And they make money with it to
o . . .
” Karl-Heinz Brauninger folded his hands and stretched his arms out as though he felt a twinge of rheumatism. “All the same I am not ready to jump on the bandwagon of mass production just so that anyone can fill his living room with all sorts of ornaments that will simply gather dust! Others are quite welcome to sell figurines of ladies dancing—I will have no such gewgaws in my catalog!” His expression indicated his distaste.

“So what do you have in your samples books?” Wanda asked curiously.

“Samples books—now there is another symptom of the mass-production mania. Believe me, if I showed any such thing to my clients, they would jump like a scalded cat! My wares are all one of a kind. They are poems in glass; they are delicate and fragile works, and each one reflects the feelings of the artist who made it. Every glass is a cornucopia of inspiration; every bowl is an expression of humanity’s infinite creative potential and boundless soul! These pieces are the very essence of one moment in the artist’s life—and who can ever repeat such a moment?”

Wanda heaved a sigh of genuine agreement. “You have no idea how pleased I am to hear you say so. So far my market survey has only turned up wholesalers who want cheap wares at rock-bottom prices—which is exactly what we wish to set ourselves apart from, in our workshop.”

Wanda treated Brauninger to one of the smiles that had always gotten her another drink in Mickey’s bar in Brooklyn no matter how deep the crowds. She sat forward on her chair and spoke to him in hushed tones.

“Do you know what I simply don’t understand? That these wholesalers put on airs and proclaim that their products are the very peak of the modern artistic style! When really, let’s be honest, they’re just production-line goods, aren’t they?” Wanda watched for the gleam of agreement in the man’s eyes and congratulated herself silently as it appeared. Perhaps she’d come to the right place?

If Eva had had any say in the matter, Wanda wouldn’t even be visiting Brauninger; the Heimers had never dealt with him directly, though they had done some work for his father years ago. After that, there hadn’t been any more commissions. “The old man was an arrogant pig, and his son won’t be any better!” Eva had said. But Wanda hadn’t budged from her plan—she didn’t want to go back home feeling that she had left even a single stone unturned. And it seemed her stubbornness had not been entirely in vain.

“Their dishonesty is precisely what I hate so much, my dear young lady!” Brauninger replied. “They call themselves revolutionaries, friends of the proletariat, and they take money from the poor worker’s pocket for gimcrack that has no real value! Whereas I come straight out and say that I sell art, and that not everyone will be able to afford it.”

Where many people would have been put off by such arrogance, Wanda felt that this was her chanc
e . . .
now she just had to take it!

She cocked her head and said, “Did you know that such a forthright approach is a very American way of doing business? I mean that as a compliment,” she added hastily.

“Well now, I can’t really be the judge of that, but if you say so, young lady, the
n . . .
” He was blushing! Although Wanda hadn’t asked for it, he poured some water into a tall, elegant glass for her.

Wanda batted her eyelids demurely and thanked him. As she did, thoughts raced around in her head. Karl-Heinz Brauninger’s dislike of mass production could be just the chance she was looking for. The only question was how to start doing business with him. Wanda took a sip of water.

She need not have worried so much—her elegant outfit and the fact that she was from America had ensured that wherever she went, she was welcomed most civilly and politely. She had always made quite sure to say that she was not there to represent Miles Enterprises, rather she was inquiring on behalf of a new and very modern glass workshop that was just setting up in Lauscha. The wholesalers offered her a seat and listened to what she had to say about a market survey to find out what the customers wanted these days. However what they told her was anything but encouraging. Most of the wholesalers got their goods from factories, and the rest already had plenty of pieceworkers under contract.

“Is it fair to assume that most of your clients are galleries?” Wanda asked once she had drunk half the water.

“It’s true that I have a handful of gallery owners who buy from me, but even they seem to pay more attention to price than to originality or quality these days.” Brauninger waved his hand. “I do most of my business at the large art fairs. I know that my esteemed colleagues here in town find that rather ludicrous; they think that I am nothing more than a common salesman. But what do they know? Paris, Madrid, Oslo—there are art lovers all over the world who are ready to pay money for luxury goods. Indian maharajas, opera singers, bankers: the crème de la crème
buy from me, and—” Brauninger broke off as he suddenly realized that he had said a great deal more than he intended.

Wanda swallowed. Maharajas and opera singers—she could hardly imagine that they would want Heimer’s warty glass bowls, or the goblets with pictures of dee
r . . .

“My dear Mr. Brauninger, you have not merely impressed me; I might almost say you have dismayed me,” she confessed with a disarming smile. “The workshop I represent in my market survey has some artistic items to offer, it’s true, bu
t . . .
” She paused for effect. “If you will allow me an indiscreet question: Who do you buy from? Or to ask a little less directly, do you have any glassblowers from Lauscha among your suppliers?”

“You will understand of course that I cannot name names,” Brauninger said in a rush, as though regretting having given away so much already. “But, yes there are one or two Lauscha glassblowers who work for me. Our working relationship, however, i
s . . .
how shall I put thi
s . . .
difficult.”

Wanda frowned. “Are they not able to meet your high standards?”

“Quite the opposite. They really know their glass up there!” He nodded vaguely in the direction of Lauscha. “But they’re such a tight-lipped crowd! Whenever I ask them what they were thinking of as they made this or that piece, it’s like pulling teeth! Just recently one of them brought me a set of four bowls in blue glass. Excellent work, that goes without saying! I realized immediately that if I nest the four bowls one inside the other, the whole assembly looks like a forget-me-not flower. The viewer is drawn into the blossom the way a bee is drawn to nectar. The effect is all the more powerful because the bottoms of the bowls are a pale yellow.”

Wanda nodded, delighted. “I can just see it! An allegory, a description in glass of how we were tempted in Eden!”
Monique Desmoines and all those well-heeled customers at Dittmer’s would be blown away by the idea,
she thought mischievously. She would never have imagined that she would have cause to be grateful to New York’s high society.

Brauninger nodded, impressed. “A splendid comparison, dear lady! What do you imagine the artist told me when I asked what had been his inspiration as he worked? He told me that it was very practical to be able to stack the bowls one inside the other so that they took up less room in the cupboard!”

Wanda had to laugh. Her father could quite easily have said that very thing!

Brauninger joined in her laughter. Then he said, “How much more sensuous the French artists are! They understand the emotions so well! Perhaps you know the name Émile Gallé?”

Wanda nodded. “My mother admires the French glassworkers enormously. Being a New Yorker, she likes Tiffany as well, of course,” she added, to show him again that she knew a thing or two about art. “And what opinion do you have of Venetian glasswork?” she asked as innocently as she could manage.

Brauninger smirked. “I know that the whole world raves about Murano, but to be perfectly honest the work they do there is a littl
e . . .
insincere for my tastes.” He flapped his hand dismissively.

Wanda nodded wisely. “The backward-looking style, I know.” She waved her hand as well, as though to suggest that she had considered the question of Murano glass closely and come to precisely the same conclusion.

Brauninger cleared his throat. “I do not wish to be impolite, my dear lad
y . . .
But sadly I have an appointment in a few minutes.” He blinked in embarrassment. “And though I have found our conversation most pleasant, I am not really sure how I can help you.”

Wanda gathered her skirts. “You have already helped me far more than you will ever know, my dear Mr. Brauninger,” she said as she rose to her feet. Then she opened her eyes a fraction wider and said, “Now that I know there are still connoisseur dealers such as yourself, I am all the more determined to make Lauscha glass a byword for the most refined achievements of the glassblower’s art. You might easily say that you have restored my faith in mankind!”

Brauninger frowned, and she realized that she had gone a bit too far. She did her best to look businesslike. She put out her hand and took a deep breath.

“If it should happen that in the next few weeks or months I am shown a piece of glass that I feel might satisfy your high standards—may I bring it to show you?”

Karl-Heinz Brauninger beamed. “Anytime, dear lady, anytime! I am already looking forward to our first transaction.”

Dusk was falling by the time Wanda went back out onto the street. The snow was glittering in the twilight—a sure sign that it would be another ice-cold night.

“There you are at last! I was beginning to think you’d decided to spend the night in there!” Eva’s shadow detached itself from a doorway across the street. “If we don’t hurry, we’ll miss the last train back to Lauscha!”

“I’m sorry. I never even noticed the time passing,” Wanda answered guiltily as they hurried off to the railway station.

Eva peered over at her. “You’ve got such a look on your fac
e . . .
Was it worth my freezing my backside off out there? Go on, tell me, do we have a contract?” Eva’s eyes shone as if she were a young girl again.

Wanda put her arm through hers and this time met no resistance. “Not yet, but I’ve got something much more valuable, and it’s going to change our whole future!”

The light in Eva’s eyes died away. Wanda was twinkling like a Christmas tree, however. She stopped and turned to face Eva. Wanda was shivering from head to toe—she wasn’t sure whether from the cold or excitement.

“These days it isn’t enough just to make beautiful glass. There are too many people doing exactly that. If you want to be a success, you have to do something else as well.”

“And what may that be, if you please?” Eva’s face was blue with cold and deeply skeptical.

Wanda shut her eyes and enjoyed the moment. When she spoke, the words melted like cotton candy on her tongue. “The real art is in selling stories!”

21

The first few days were the worst. The hole that had opened up in Marie’s life gaped so wide that she didn’t know how she would ever be able to close it again.

Franco was in America, and she was a prisoner in the house. It was all very simple, but even after several weeks had passed, her mind simply refused to accept the facts. So most of the time she thought of nothing at all. That was the only way she could bear it all. The silence. The loneliness. The confinement. The dagger in her heart.

Marie stood at the glass door, leaning her forehead against the glass. The door was still firmly bolted. A gentle breeze ruffled the blossoms on the almond trees, and the petals drifted down like pink snow, scattering across the garden and the paths. That was the only thing that told her that spring had come—that, and the height of the sun in the sky. The seasons flowed together in Patrizia’s garden like dabs of watercolor paint on damp paper.

Lauscha was still firmly in the grip of winter, she was sure—the thought was there before Marie had a chance to chase it away. Perhaps the villagers could occasionally hear the birds of spring and draw strength from their song, but otherwise every day would be spent just as all the days had been for months now: shoveling snow, scattering ashes on the icy paths, and waiting. And waiting.

A hot tear ran down Marie’s face and splashed on the floor.

Snow. Would she ever feel the crunch of frozen snow under her feet again?

She rubbed at her face so vigorously that it hurt. She mustn’t cry. She mustn’t startle the child. She had to hold on; it couldn’t last much longer now. She was expecting Franco back any day now. And the
n . . .

Then she wouldn’t stay here a minute longer!

She had made her decision. It was her lifeline, leading her to what came next: she would leave Franco and take her child with her.

No more discussion, no more asking why. There could be no answer to that. And no more feelings for Franco. Whatever she still felt for him was banished to the furthest corner of her mind, and she had forbidden herself to look there. Didn’t they say that time heals all wounds?

It no longer even mattered to her whether he knew that they were keeping her under lock and key like a criminal. Maybe he had no idea. She had read his farewell note a thousand times, weighing every word.
I beg you to wait for me—
he wouldn’t have written that if he knew she was to be a prisoner, would he?
I will make sure that you have everything you need while I am away—
then again, perhaps he did know. Patrizia told her nothing at all. Whenever Marie asked anything, she always received the same answer. “Franco is in America, and you are here.” Somehow Marie had come to accept it. Just as she had accepted that there was no chance of escape. There was no need for bars on this prison; all it needed was locked doors, locked windows, and prying eyes and ears everywhere.

“Soon it will be over, soon, soo
n . . .
” she prayed over and over. If only Patrizia would tell her which ship Franco would be coming back o
n . . .

Her hand drifted down to her swollen belly. If it weren’t for the child in her womb, she would have gone mad long ago. The baby was the only reason Marie could stand the passing of time, even when the days crept by as slowly as a snail through dry grass, leaving nothing in their wake but a trail of dull slime.

“Soon it will be over, soon, soo
n . . .
” Marie turned away from the glass door and sat down at the dainty little desk that hardly had room for a single sheet of paper.

She had begun to write in a little notebook. That helped too. Eventually, she would give her child this diary to read. At first she had found it painful to write. It had been hard to look back and remember the young girl who had begun to blow glass in the dead of night. But that was when her story really began, after all. So Marie began the diary back then.

It hurt to have nobody here to talk to, nobody who could help her remember times past. How she and her sisters had built up the workshop together. And then her great journey to New York. Seeing Ruth again, so elegant, so different but still a sister whom she adored. Then the grand new feelings when she met Franco! The memories were mingled with pain, with the knowledge that she was now more alone than she had ever been—but the pain told Marie that even here in prison she had not lost her ability to feel.

Once all the old stories were in the pages of the notebook, Marie slowed down a little. It was enough to write a line or two every day for her unborn child. She didn’t write about how she was, how she felt. Her child must never learn how unhappy she had been during the pregnancy. Instead she wrote about the new beginning that they would make together as soon as Franco was back, once he had let her out of this prison.

She and her child. A new beginning, like a sheet of blank paper. She didn’t know where yet. Perhaps she would settle on Monte Verità for a while. And then? It didn’t matte
r . . .
as long as it was away from here.

Marie sighed and hid the book under her bedstead again. Then she looked at the pendant watch that hung around her neck. Four o’clock in the afternoon.

She went into the workshop. Just that morning the glowing colors of her work had granted her a few hours of blessed relief from prison. She felt better when her head was filled with colorful images. The mosaic pictures that she had made over the past few weeks were propped up all around the walls—bizarre, almost abstract compositions that not even Marie herself could explain. It was as though the pictures had created themselves. Now she ran her fingers through the bowls where she kept the pieces of colored glass and felt nothing. Just so that she had something to do, she began to arrange pieces of glass in various shades of green, putting them together to make leaves.

These afternoon hours were the worst. When her strength from the morning had left her but she had not yet grown tired with the approach of night. As the weeks had gone by, something like a routine had developed, a semblance of normality that lent shape to her days. She got up around nine o’clock when Carla came in with breakfast—it was always Carla, never one of the other maids. Two slices of white bread, butter, honey and some fruit. Then Marie washed. Carla took the pitcher and basin away along with the breakfast tray around ten o’clock. Marie had been very pleased to discover on her arrival that there were five toilets with running water scattered throughout the palazzo, but now Patrizia wouldn’t even let her leave her room to use the toilet. “It’s not good for you to walk so far,” she said primly. “You have to save your strength for the
bambino
.” What hypocrisy!

Marie spent the rest of the morning in her workshop until the door opened again around one o’clock. Sometimes Patrizia brought lunch and stayed for a few minutes. Marie was so lonely that she began to look forward to these moments despite the hatred she felt—after all, Patrizia was her only connection to the outside world. Most of the time it was Carla who brought lunch, though, and she simply stared at Marie as though she were scared of her. Marie had no idea what Patrizia had told the girl—probably that their guest had some infectious disease. Or that she was mad. More likely that, since Carla never responded when Marie begged desperately for help. She just flinched and turned away.

After she ate, she took a nap. How she would have loved to lie down on the wicker chaise longue in the orangery! To smell the scents, to hear the palm leaves rustling around her as they waved in the breeze from the open panes in the roo
f . . .
But Patrizia ignored all her pleas and refused to open the door to the orangery—she was probably afraid that Marie would smash one of the windows and run as fast as her legs would carry her! She would certainly have tried. The panes weren’t as thick in the conservatory as they were in her room or in the workshop, and there were no bars. She would have run like the wind. Away from this prison.

In the first few days she had thought of nothing but escape. Once she had shoved Carla aside, lunch tray and all, and run to the front door of the palazzo as fast as she could—only to discover that this too was locked tight. She had collapsed in floods of tears. How humiliating it had been when Patrizia and the count had led her back to her room like a criminal! Patrizia had cried as they went, acting as though Marie had devised some dreadful insult for her.

She could have simply stopped living, refused to eat even a bite—but for the child in her womb.

Fetch help from outside? No such hope. Whenever the gardeners came past the window, Marie hammered like a madwoman on the glass and tried to show them that she was being held against her will, but not a single one of them reacted. What had Patrizia told them?

Marie swept her hand across her workbench in a rage. Hundreds of tiny pieces of glass flew off the worktop and scattered over the floor like colorful raindrops. They lay there, almost mocking her, beautiful and utterly indifferent to her plight. Marie screamed in pain. For as long as she could remember, glass had been the only material she wanted to work with. Glass revealed even the smallest mistake; glass showed every weakness in the maker’s hand—which was precisely what she found so fascinating. It was a sensitive material. More than once it had driven her into a fury and then brought her back to her senses; it had taught her patience and humility and then urged her on to new heights of ambition. Marie would never have imagined that glass would one day become her enemy.

At five o’clock sharp the key turned in the lock. Marie was sitting on the bed. She noticed with astonishment that Patrizia had brought the tray today, with a cup of mocha coffee and a slice of cake. She certainly hadn’t been expecting
her
, though at lunchtime she had begged her mother-in-law to call a doctor for her backache.

“I swear to you I won’t tell him anything!” she had pleaded, and she had meant every word. Where was she going to run to with her huge belly? If she hadn’t been pregnant, she would have spent all day every day looking for a chance to escape, but she had to think of her unborn child. So she had said, “It worries me that I’m in such pain! What if there’s something wron
g . . .
” But the discussion ended as it always did, with Patrizia leaving the room, her back ramrod straight and her lips pursed. She usually punished Marie for such outbursts by not coming to see her for a few days.

Perhaps she had found out that it was Marie’s birthday?

Without looking at Marie, Patrizia put down the tray on the little table by the bed. Her hands were trembling, and her eyes were rimmed with red as though she had been crying.

“Can you ask Carla to heat some water for the bath?” Marie asked, pointing toward the tub that Patrizia had had brought into her room on the first day. “Perhaps the warm water will do my back some good,” she added.

Patrizia nodded wordlessly. She was already halfway out the door when she turned around and stopped where she was. Then she cleared her throat, almost inaudibly.

“What is it? Have you heard from Franco at last?” The spark of hope leapt up before Marie could smother it. They had been waiting for weeks for him to call.

Patrizia shook her head. “There’s been a problem in New Yor
k . . .
” Her haughty expression crumbled and she whimpered. Quickly she put a hand to her mouth.

Marie felt as though she had been punched in the gut. She leapt to her feet. “And? Tell me!”

“One of the customs agents who knew what was going on has talked.” Patrizia’s lower lip quivered. “They’ve arrested Franco.”