The American Lady(22)

Most of the time Ruth asked questions and Marie answered at length. Ruth was mostly interested in Johanna and Peter and the twins, of course.

“Anna looks terribly solemn in all the photographs Johanna sends me—is she really like that?” Ruth wanted to know.

“Solemn? I don’t know . . .” Marie shrugged. “I don’t think I would call her solemn. Obstinate perhaps. In fact Anna’s even more obstinate than I was as a girl—if that’s possible. Sometimes I’ll come into the workshop in the morning and find her sitting there after she’s worked all night on one of her designs!”

Ruth looked rather taken aback; she had never really understood anyone who poured herself into her work like that. Then she asked after Magnus. Did he still follow Marie around like a faithful dog? Ruth had never had a very high opinion of the man in Marie’s life. She also wanted to know who did which jobs in the workshop, how they all approached their work, whether the new warehouse in Sonneberg was really such a great step forward, and so on and so forth. “Do you remember our first commission for Woolworth? The whole house was full of boxes stacked up to the ceiling! We could hardly move.” She laughed.

Marie answered all the questions as well as she could, but she sometimes had to admit that she simply didn’t know—whether the question was about actual business matters or just village gossip.

“You’re still my little sister Marie. Nothing in your head but glassblowing,” Ruth said, smiling sadly at her sister. Then she reached out and stroked Marie’s hair in a gesture of rare tenderness. “Which makes me even happier that you’ve come to visit. I had expected that Johanna might come someday. But you . . .”

“I haven’t been feeling myself lately,” Marie murmured. “I needed a change of scenery, as they say.”

She could see the question in Ruth’s eyes but said nothing more about it. What could she have said? That she felt dried up, like a fruit that had withered on the vine? That she was scared even to think of her workbench back home? Her sister was one of her greatest admirers, but they had never been able to talk about glassblowing and artistic matters.

Instead she said, “By the way, your ex-father-in-law isn’t doing too well. They say he’s on his deathbed.”

Ruth’s face clouded over for a moment.

“Are you even a little bit interested in how Thomas and his family are?” Marie asked after a while, when the silence had stretched out too long.

“If you really must know, no I’m not,” Ruth said, standing up suddenly. “To tell you the truth I would rather that you never mention them again. As far as I’m concerned the whole pack of them could up and die tomorrow—I couldn’t care less!”

Marie looked up in confusion. “But Ruth—they’re a part of your life as well! And Thomas is Wanda’s father.”

Ruth grabbed her wrist hard. “Even if that’s true a thousand times over, you will never say that again, do you hear me? Especially not when Wanda is anywhere near. Steven is the only father Wanda has.”

“All right, all right . . .” Marie waved a hand. “I’ll make sure I never mention the past again,” she said, stung.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Ruth pleaded. “It’s only the Heimers I don’t want to hear about. It may have been a long time ago, but I can’t forget the pain they caused me. You do understand that, don’t you?”

Marie didn’t want to make it too easy for her sister. “Well, all right—but I have to say I find it odd that you never told Wanda who her father really is. She has a right to know where she comes from, doesn’t she? It’s not as though she would love Steven any less because of it.”

If she were in Wanda’s shoes, she would want to know that she was the daughter of one of the best glassblowers in all of Lauscha!

“Or are you still ashamed of the divorce? Getting divorced is really not that uncommon these days. Even the Baroness of Thuringia . . .”

Ruth shook her head vehemently. “It’s not about that. If Wanda knew that Steven wasn’t her biological father that would just make everything more complicated than it already is, believe me. Never you mind having a right to know—that would all be grist to Wanda’s mill!” She heaved a deep sigh. “Sometimes I just don’t know what to do with her. My daughter insists fiercely on what she sees as her rights, but woe betide me if I ever ask her to recognize that she has duties as well! She won’t even hear of it! She’s a great deal like her father in that respect, if nothing else.”