Wanda felt the fluttering in her stomach intensify. Trained in business, my foot—how could she have known that he would believe every word she told him!
What would Steven say to all this? The answer was obvious. He would say that Richard was right. “Without organization and strategic planning, business is just a waste of time and effort!” How often had she and Mother heard him deliver little speeches like that at the dinner table? Mostly when yet another of his competitors had gone bankrupt. Perhaps she should draw up a plan? With a list of items to work through one after another? There was something comforting about the thought.
Richard nudged up next to her on the narrow bench. “Stop worrying now. Tomorrow is another day. Everything will be all right, believe me.” He kissed her on the crown of her head several times, which scattered her thoughts again.
For a few wonderful minutes Wanda surrendered to Richard’s caresses, but then she broke free. She couldn’t just switch off that way.
She nodded toward his bench and lamp and asked, “How do you make a living, in fact?”
The words puffed out and hung in the cold air as little white clouds.
Richard frowned at the sudden change of mood.
“I blow Venetian-style glass, you know that.”
“That’s all very well, but who buys the glasswork from you?” She knew that it wasn’t appropriate to talk about business so directly—it wasn’t considered ladylike, but ladylike behavior wasn’t getting her anywhere.
“I’ve been lucky. A little while ago I got to know a gallery owner over in Weimar. Gotthilf Täuber. Rather an odd fellow. He thinks he’s the only one in the world who knows anything about art, and he’s not shy about saying so in the most highfalutin terms. You’ll never hear him say ‘I like this one, but I don’t like that one.’ No, he goes on about all those isms. You know, Realism, Impressionism . . .”
Wanda grinned. “Naturalism, Symbolism—oh my, you don’t have to tell me about those! The New York art world juggles those terms like balls. Marie was always caught up in those conversations; she could spend hours going on about all the different schools of art. But continue: How do the two of you work together?” It could hardly be a very lucrative connection, Wanda thought, or Richard wouldn’t be scrambling for every little commission that Johanna gave him. If it made him any real money, surely he’d be able to afford enough firewood to heat the place at least for an hour or two a day . . .
“Well, he buys one or two things off me every now and again—and he pays well too. Either he comes to Lauscha or I go to Weimar if I have something special to show him. The last time I visited he even gave me a present, the catalog of an exhibition in Venice. Have a look at that!” Richard snatched the catalog off a shelf and held it up in the air like a trophy.
Biennale, Wanda read on the binding. It was old and shabby by now but still impressive.
“Täuber says he’d like to help me make my way as an artist. If I manage to find my own way of using Venetian techniques, he says there’s a good chance he can give me a solo exhibition. In his gallery, do you understand? All my own work!” His voice glowed with passion as he spoke. He jumped up and picked up a glass from his bench. “He said that people are crazy for the Italian style. Look, this is one I’ve just finished. The Italians call this technique aurato. We take gold leaf and apply it to the hot bubble of glass. The gold doesn’t expand along with the glass as we keep blowing, so it rips and tears as it goes. That’s the effect we’re after. Not bad, is it?”
“It’s splendid!” Wanda took the glass reverently by its stem and turned it in the light. The flecks of gold glittered strangely as though thousands of tiny sunbeams were shooting up from the stem into the sides of the glass.
Richard took the glass away and handed her a tall goblet. “What do you think of that?”
It was of transparent glass, blown very thin. Streaks of colored glass covered the entire surface, creating the effect of a delicate net. Every shade of blue was there, fading into purple, and light green alternating with darker shades, all of it shot through with pink.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, not even at the New York exhibition I told you about,” Wanda said, shaking her head. She had known right from the start that Richard knew his craft. The glasses that he had shown her the first time she came to visit were something special in their own right. But the pieces standing on the table in front of her now were of an entirely different caliber. She looked lovingly at Richard. He was an artist! She told him as much.