“How do I look?” She did a little pirouette. When Johanna didn’t answer straightaway, she felt her self-confidence wilt. Then she saw the admiration in Johanna’s eyes.
“You look lovely. Any man who sees you will be enchanted, believe me,” her sister said at last. She sounded absolutely convinced—and convincing.
Ruth, who had been discreetly holding her breath, heaved a sigh of relief. With any luck, what Johanna had just said would hold true for American businessmen.
“She hasn’t had anything to eat yet,” she said, nodding toward her daughter. “Can I ask you to take care of her? Marie can give you a hand this evening.”
“Of course I’ll look after her. What a question,” Johanna said. She tickled Wanda’s tummy, and the baby began to giggle.
Ruth had to bite back an unkind reply. There had been precious little “of course” from Johanna these past few days. She cleared her throat.
“I don’t like to ask, but . . . could you lend me a little money?”
Johanna frowned. “Why do you need money if you’re seeing Thomas?”
“I . . . umm, I have . . . an idea,” Ruth stuttered. “So what do you say? Can you?”
“Help yourself. No need to get worked up.” Johanna raised her hands in an appeasing gesture. “You know where my purse is. Just take what you need.”
A smile played across Ruth’s lips. If only it could all be as easy as this . . .
She suddenly felt bold and fearless. She stopped in the doorway and turned around.
“Wish me luck!” Grinning, she blew them both a kiss.
She could feel Johanna’s surprised glance following her down the stairs.
She had just reached the outskirts of Steinach when the slate-maker who always used to pick up Johanna came around the corner with his old nag and rickety cart. Seeing Ruth, he drew up alongside her and let her climb on. Instead of putting the basket full of Marie’s Christmas globes in the back of the cart with his crates of slates and pencils, she put it down between her legs. As they clip-clopped along the road, they passed several of the village women who were on their way to town to run errands. Ruth looked at their wicker carrying packs and was reminded of the ants she had seen on the forest floor when she had met Thomas there. Unlike the busy little ants, however, these women were clearly marked by hard work. They crept along the path, many of them with pain showing on their faces, their backs bent under their loads and their hands wiping away sweat or brushing away flies. Ruth knew how heavy a pack like that could be when it was filled with glass, and she wouldn’t have traded places with them for anything in the world. Suddenly, she felt terribly important sitting up there in the slate cart.
Once they reached Sonneberg, she shouldered her pack and marched off. Nobody paid any attention to her; the town was full of women like her delivering wares. The narrow streets were heaving with activity: mail coaches, carriages, people on foot—all trying to get wherever they were going faster than anyone else. More than once Ruth was roughly shoved aside and had to struggle to recover her balance. She was so worried that her fragile wares might break that she ended up walking close to the houses. Her eyes darted around the streets all the while. The air was thick with the sound of voices speaking in Saxon and Thuringian dialects, as well as foreign languages. Ruth began to feel that her fears had been justified; it would be a small miracle if she actually met the American tycoon in this crowd. The only sensible thing to do was to track him down at his hotel.
Though she was parched with thirst and desperately wanted a glass of fresh lemonade or at least some cold water, she headed straight to the photographer’s studio, where the pictures of Wanda were still waiting to be collected.
The photographer was much less polite than he had been during her first visit, and she wondered whether he too had heard the rumors that Johanna was a thief. He muttered angrily to himself as he slowly searched through a box for the envelope with her photographs. As Ruth stood there, her face expressionless, she felt her chances of getting any useful information from him dwindling. But as soon as she saw the pictures of Wanda, she couldn’t help chuckling with delight. Her daughter looked like a little princess!
Her enthusiasm had an infectious quality, and the photographer smiled as well.
“I knew that these pictures would turn out to be something special! All très, très chic!” he remarked, with undisguised pride in his artistic achievement. “Look at the lighting! And how clear the lines are!”
Ruth beamed at him. “They are the most beautiful photographs I have seen in my life!” she said truthfully. He didn’t need to know that they were also the only ones she had ever seen. She paid him the price they had agreed.