Once she lay down in the sun, Marie realized that she was really quite tired. Her eyelids drooped. How nice to nod off for a while in the middle of the day! Whatever would Johanna say to such a change in her habits? She grinned.
“You look like the cat that got the cream,” Sherlain said, as she sat up to untangle her red hair.
“That’s how I feel,” Marie said, stretching out on her towel. “I was just thinking how much my life has changed since I left Lauscha.” She smiled. But she wasn’t the only one to have blossomed with the change of scenery. Sherlain had recovered astonishingly fast after the botched abortion.
“It’s just as I always say: you have to get out of your rut. If you only want it to be, life can be one huge adventure!” Pandora called over from her tub.
Marie rolled her eyes. Sometimes Pandora rubbed her the wrong way with that worldly manner of hers. But then again, she was often right . . .
There she was, Marie Steinmann, lying stark-naked on a mountainside in Ascona above Lake Maggiore with three other women, none of whom she had known for more than a few weeks. All around her, exotic plants were growing on the rock faces, and waterfalls were tumbling down in an Eden she had never even known existed before now. People were singing wordless melodies, strolling about with flowers in their hair, and moving in ways that even Pandora couldn’t quite fathom. By now Marie and her friends had learned that this kind of dance was called eurhythmy, and Pandora was so carried away by it that she got up hours before her usual time to practice. She and the other dancers could be seen at daybreak, when tendrils of mist still veiled the lake, moving along the shore like a fairy cavalcade.
Everybody here—apart from a few oddballs—was friendly and smiling and loving. Many of them seemed to take “love thy neighbor” quite literally. Love was in the air, and people kissed and hugged and stroked and touched one another whenever they felt inclined to do so. It was a sensual and erotic backdrop for the playground of Monte Verità.
Once Marie had realized just how unconventional relationships were here on the mountain, she began to worry that Sherlain might simply pick up where she had left off in New York. And lo and behold: it took less than a week for Sherlain to go into raptures over Franz Hartmann, one of the founders of the commune, and his “powerful words,” his “sacred devotion to principles,” and his “gaze that drank in the starry skies.” Marie and Franco laughed about the strange words people used here on Monte Verità, but Sherlain was quite intoxicated by the “honey wine of mountain poesy.”
Marie snorted in derision at the idea that Sherlain had fallen for someone who preached morals morning, noon, and night. Just a couple of days before, Franz had walked past their cabin as Marie and Franco were having a pillow fight on the wooden deck. How he had looked down his nose at them!
“Are you off to bring your body and soul into harmony with nature, then, you loon?” Franco called out to him. Franz didn’t react but walked on, his hands folded in prayer and his eyes turned to the sky, whereupon Franco giggled and whispered to Marie, “He’s halfway to Heaven already!”
“Or he’s taking his nourishment from the forest air,” she answered. Then they raced into the cabin and made passionate love.
A shiver ran down Marie’s spine. Even if all the Greek gods of Olympus came down and danced stark-naked, holding hands right here on Monte Verità, Franco was the only man for her. She would never have believed she could find such happiness in a man’s arms. The way he . . .
Someone shook her arm, tearing her away from her daydreams. When she opened her eyes, Susanna was in front of her, an expectant look on her face.
“Sorry, I wasn’t listening. What did you say?”
“I just asked whether you wanted to go and see Katharina von Oy later on.”
“Mmm!” Marie said noncommittally and shut her eyes again. She suddenly felt sick. She opened her mouth and took several big gulps of air to fight the nausea. It seemed the nightmare had really upset her. She hadn’t the least desire to get up from the soft mossy hillside where the sunshine warmed her skin. Quite apart from which, Susanna had already promised several times to take her to see the glassblower who lived up on the slopes above Ascona in a sort of hermitage, but nothing had come of it yet.
Katharina von Oy used to live in the commune with everybody else. However, once the sanatorium had opened up, and more and more visitors came to the mountain, she had left the hubbub and gone to live in a lonely forest shack. She made a living making pictures in glass, which were sold to tourists down in the village. Of course Marie was interested in what kind of glasswork people liked here, and she had not the first idea what pictures in glass might be. Did it mean stained-glass windows, like those found in churches?