Marie suddenly felt slightly dizzy. She got up from the rocking chair and arranged some of the pink velvet cushions on the wicker chaise longue. Then she put her legs up, spread a blanket over herself, and resumed her train of thought.
Richard had once confided in Anna—and she was so much in love that she couldn’t resist passing it on to Marie—that his dearest wish was to have a large workshop of his own. He lived in a shabby little house, and his burner wasn’t even connected to the gas mains—it was all that his parents had left him, but that didn’t stop him from dreaming. “One day I want to have a workshop where high-society clients come to see my wares and buy them,” he had told Anna. “They’ll place orders with me for the finest addresses in the world.” Marie was fairly sure that Richard would make his dream come true one day, and Anna agreed.
If he shared his dreams with her that way, did it mean that the two of them were already planning a life together? Marie didn’t know, and she hadn’t taken Anna’s gushing reports all that seriously. But now that she thought about it, she couldn’t imagine that they had ever kissed. Anna was still like a child, and she didn’t know how to make the best of her admittedly meager womanly charms. But should she write as much to Wanda and encourage her? Or would it be better just to keep out of the whole thing? If Wanda really did have her eye on him, then she could only feel sorry for poor Anna.
Suddenly Marie missed her family so much that it hurt. She began to stroke her belly again, enjoying the closeness she felt to the child in her womb.
“Your mama’s sentimental,” she whispered up at the orange trees. “Instead of enjoying the Italian sunshine, she’s pining for winter in Thuringia.” For a moment she struggled with the impulse to fetch pencil and paper and write to ask Wanda why she had said nothing about any visit to her father. Had they really managed to avoid one another all this time? In Lauscha, that would have been difficult. Or had meeting Thomas Heimer been so bad that Wanda simply didn’t want to write about it? Marie felt tears pricking at her eyes at the thought.
She decided not to write. If she composed a letter now, when she was so tearful, she might end up writing things that she didn’t even mean and that her family would take the wrong way. Better to leave it a few days and think of the best way to tell them of her pregnancy. She would give them the news as a Christmas surprise, so to speak. Marie smiled. Wouldn’t they be surprised to hear that there’d soon be a brand new member of the family!
She flung the blanket aside and stood up. “Never mind dolce far niente—work is the best medicine!” she said loudly, as though trying to convince herself.
A little while later she was sitting at her workbench, annoyed at herself. How could she have let half the day slip through her fingers when she had so much work to do! Her gaze fell on the mosaic that she had started the day before. Her fingers were quite literally itching to get back to work on it, since it would be one more step toward her greater, daringly ambitious plan to open her own gallery in Genoa’s historic city center. She hadn’t dared tell Franco about the idea yet. She still felt she had to protect her plans, nurture them like a young plant that needed plenty of water if it were ever to thrive and grow strong. But she wanted to share her vision with Franco in the new year. Perhaps he could help her look for suitable premises, so that she could begin outfitting the place after their child was born—if not earlier. White walls and plenty of glass, nothing that could distract the visitor from looking at the colorful pictures on show. Marie sighed.
The only thing that was missing here for her to work comfortably was the praise that Johanna’s clients had always given her so unstintingly. Without someone to admire her work, it was like calling out into a void. She was used to hearing other voices echo her own—and though she knew that it was vain of her, an artist needed an echo, she decided. Which was why she could hardly wait to hear what Genoa’s art lovers thought about her new masterpieces.
Instead of opening a jar and picking out the little green beads she would need for the picture in front of her, she got up and went over to the shelves where she kept the rods that Franco had ordered for her weeks ago. Marie had left them to gather dust—too immersed in her new technique of lead seams and mosaic images—but Christmas was creeping inexorably nearer.
Her first Christmas without her family.
Her first Christmas with Franco.
If she was to have her surprise ready for him in time, she had to work fast.
When she took the rod in her hand it felt smooth and cool, the old familiar feeling. A wave of happiness washed over her. Franco and his parents would be so astonished to see a tree full of shining new baubles standing in the dining room on Christmas Eve!