The American Lady(65)

“It may not have happened yet, but there’s still time,” Wanda said stubbornly. Harold had been dropping clumsy hints lately about the changes that were about to happen in his life. Changes that would affect her too. Wanda had changed the subject every time. “And what if being a banker’s wife is my mission in life?” The very idea was unbearable!

“Some women can fill up their whole life by loving a man. You may think they’re few and far between, but your mother is one of them,” Marie answered, grinning. “Personally, I couldn’t imagine a life like that. As much as I love Franco, I don’t think I’d be going with him if he hadn’t promised me that I’d be able to carry on working. But he’s very loving and generous as well. He’s only going to Monte Verità because of me, can you imagine!”

Wanda frowned. “I thought that you were going to Switzerland because of Sherlain?” Pandora had said something about a chronic illness from which the poet had to convalesce.

Then Marie explained that the trip to Lake Maggiore was supposed to kill two—or even three—birds with one stone. First it would get Sherlain into healthier surroundings, far from the pernicious influences of the big city. Marie was also excited at the thought of meeting artists from all over Europe on Monte Verità—which had swayed Pandora into deciding to join them. Marie could hardly wait to find inspiration in Europe after all the ideas she’d come up with in America. Wanda wasn’t quite sure how that was going to happen, given that Marie’s sketchpad was already spilling over. Finally—and Marie hesitated a little here before she went on—a short stay in Ascona would put off the moment when she arrived in Genoa with Franco.

“I feel quite queasy at the thought of meeting Franco’s father and the countess for the first time,” she confessed to Wanda. “I can’t imagine being apart from Franco even for a day, but sometimes I’m frightened of what the future may bring. And I haven’t the first idea how I’m going to explain all this to Johanna . . .”

Wanda smiled. They were already in an uproar in Lauscha at the thought that Marie would be coming back home later than planned. She didn’t even want to imagine what Johanna would say when she heard that Marie had followed her handsome Italian all the way to Genoa.

Wanda heaved a heartfelt sigh. Marie had such a colorful, exciting life. She had a wonderful job, she had Pandora for a friend, she had a handsome lover, and she had many exciting plans for the future.

She, Wanda, had nothing. She didn’t even have a dance teacher anymore, let alone a passionate lover—when Harold embraced her, he did so like a big brother, and his kisses were just dry pecks on the cheek. And it looked as though she wouldn’t be going to Germany anytime soon either. She had pleaded with her parents dozens of times to be allowed to go, but to no avail so far.

Wanda shut her eyes and took a deep breath. What does the air smell like in Germany? she wondered.

She tried again and again to imagine all the scenes that Marie had described to her. She remembered what her aunt had said about the weekly market in Sonneberg, the nearest big town. Did it smell sweet, like cotton candy? Or did it smell of fish, like down at the harbor? And the people: Wanda tried to imagine a group of women like her Aunt Johanna, doing their weekly shopping at the market. How were they dressed? Did they all know one another? Did they laugh at one another’s jokes? Would Eva Heimer be there too?

Wanda opened her eyes. Come to think of it, was this Eva her aunt or her . . . grandmother? Since she had been married to Sebastian but lived with Wilhelm Heimer as his . . . She wondered what her father had had to say about it when the whole scandal took place.

What did he even look like? Wanda couldn’t conjure a picture of the man in her mind’s eye. Marie had described him in such vague terms that she could have been talking about almost any man. Wanda had looked through her mother’s photograph albums in secret, but she hadn’t found a single picture of Thomas Heimer. There wasn’t even a wedding portrait. If there had ever even been such a picture, her mother had certainly destroyed it long ago. She had covered her tracks, as they say. And now that Marie had gone it was near impossible to find out anything more about where she really came from. There would be no more German bread, no more stories.



That night Wanda lay awake for hours.

“Everybody has a mission in life”—Marie’s words hammered in her brain like mischievous goblins, set on tormenting her. Gradually Wanda’s sadness vanished, to be replaced by stubborn resentment. Ha! She wasn’t going to give up just because she hadn’t found her own mission yet! Everything had to happen right here, right now—at least that’s how she had lived her life so far. Harold always said rather condescendingly that her spontaneous ideas were just castles in the air. Empty air. Meaningless air.