The American Lady(132)
“I don’t understand! How can they put Franco in jail when there’s no proof at all that he had anything to do with it?” Marie was genuinely upset. As long as Franco was a prisoner in New York, she was a prisoner here in the palazzo. She had felt a surge of hope when Patrizia told her that the family had sent one of the best lawyers in Italy to America, but that hope was long gone now. Either this lawyer couldn’t make any headway against the American legal system, or there was more evidence against Franco than the testimony of one bribe taker.
Or . . . perhaps both were the case.
“If Franco doesn’t come back soon . . .” Marie whispered, her voice choked with tears. Even though she was lying down again her back began to ache. She moaned softly.
Patrizia was following her own train of thought.
“He’ll be back for the birth of his child,” she said. She saw the doubt on Marie’s face and gave her hand a squeeze. “We just have to stick together. Una famiglia, si? As I always say.”
Marie didn’t answer.
Patrizia whispered, “We should pray. For our beloved son, for your husband.”
26
After fourteen days of hectic preparation for the journey, the moment had finally come. Richard and Wanda bid their farewells to Lauscha as everyone who was staying behind showered them with words of advice, best wishes for the journey, and even a tear or two. Johannes gazed at his cousin with undisguised envy, having taken her aside earlier to admit that he had always wanted to travel abroad. Anna simply shook Wanda’s hand and muttered something about having a lot of work to do, then turned and fled without saying good-bye to Richard at all.
It showed plainly on Johanna’s face that she still wasn’t convinced about the propriety of letting them travel together, but she forced a smile all the same. Peter hugged Wanda, then Richard, then stuffed some money into Richard’s pocket and told them both to drink a glass of Bavarian beer on him that evening. “Just the one, though!” he chuckled, wagging his finger.
Thomas Heimer had insisted on coming to see them off at Paul Marzen’s house, where they were loading their luggage onto Paul’s horse cart for the trip to Coburg. He shook Wanda’s hand over and over again and then handed her a packet of food that Eva had packed for their journey. Although she could smell the unappetizing scents of Heimer home cooking through the waxed paper, Wanda was so touched by the gesture she could have cried. And then Thomas turned to Johanna and said, “Whoever would have thought we’d be here together, both of us worried silly?”
At that, Wanda couldn’t hold back her tears any longer. Her only consolation was that while she was away Thomas would be kept busy with a large order from Brauninger; an American collector had come to see the dealer and had ordered several dozen vases, each of which involved using a different technique. “A cross section of everything Thuringian glassblowers can do!”—so Brauninger had declared. That was just the thing for Father, Wanda decided happily. At first Thomas hadn’t believed it and had accused Wanda of making a bad joke, but then he had set to work with a vengeance. He was so carried away by the task that Wanda hardly recognized him; he seemed to have become a young man again overnight.
Wanda wanted to set about finding more clients when she got back. Secretly of course she was hoping she could make new contacts for the Heimer workshop in Venice as well.
It was so hard to say good-bye to Lauscha!
“Hey, Wanda, are you planning to stay here after all?” Richard asked, reaching out to her impatiently.
Wanda sighed and then let him pull her up onto the hard wooden bench of the cart.
“It’s only for two weeks,” Richard whispered in her ear when he saw how miserable she looked. She nodded.
They were off.
When they arrived at the railway station in Coburg, their train had already pulled up to the platform. As soon as Richard spotted it, he began to run, worried that they wouldn’t be able to board. Wanda giggled and pointed out that the stokers were still shoveling coal into the tender up front—the train wouldn’t be leaving quite yet!
The train was to take them from Coburg via Nuremberg to Munich, where they would spend the night in a boarding house near the station. The next day they would cross the Austrian border to Bozen, and there they would part ways.
Although Wanda had bought her own ticket at the Lauscha station, Richard’s had been issued in Weimar—Gotthilf Täuber had sent it to him along with his reservation for a pensione in Venice and a ticket for the art fair. At the sight of the Weimar-issued ticket, the conductor raised his bushy eyebrows and looked long and hard, paying no attention to the murmuring queue of passengers that was forming behind Richard and Wanda. When he finally let them board, they found that they were in luck; the compartment was only half full so they were able to sit down and have a free bench across from them. Wanda put some of her luggage there, even though it ought to have traveled in the luggage compartment. She had a whole suitcase full of things for Marie’s baby and presents for Marie herself. Richard had brought his own suitcase into the compartment as well, which looked pitiful next to Wanda’s elegant luggage. Richard seemed to notice the discrepancy, and he draped his jacket over the case as though to hide it.