The Glassblower(119)

It would be a hot day; that much was certain.

Ruth tucked back a loose strand of hair from her forehead. She didn’t care if she had to walk over burning coals this morning . . .

They didn’t talk a great deal, at least not at first, though Ruth struggled to think of topics of conversation. Nothing came to mind. Why wasn’t he saying anything? Was he bored by her company? Was the path too steep? Perhaps she shouldn’t have let him insist on carrying her basket? She cast a sidewise glance in his direction and then burst out laughing.

“What’s got into you, Steven? You look like the cat that got the cream!”

“That’s how I feel!” he replied. “What could be better than walking through such a wonderful landscape with you on a day like this?” He grinned boyishly. “To tell the truth, I could just hug the whole world! Don’t try to tell me you feel any different.”

“If you hug the whole world, what’s left over for me?” Ruth asked mischievously.

He stopped for a moment. “Perhaps . . . could I take your hand?” he said hesitantly. When she didn’t answer at once, he continued. “The path is fairly rocky here. You might stumble.”

“That would be very kind of you.” Her hand trembled as she reached out and took his.

It was as though their hands were made for each other. Her hand lay snugly in his the way the glass Marie blew fit inside its form. From time to time he ran his thumb across the back of her hand, without knowing he did so. Tenderly, warmly.

For a while they talked about this and that and nothing at all. Steven asked how she had slept in the hotel, in a strange bed. Whether the little village they could see up ahead had a name. What the white stars blossoming in such profusion at the forest’s edge were called.

“They’re white aster, nothing special!” Ruth laughed. “When we were girls Marie and I plucked them by the armful. Then we’d sit on the bench behind the house and make chaplets for our hair.” She looked at him. “We used to dance together too. We were so happy back then. Happy the way only children can be. In a few years’ time I’ll be making chaplets like that for Wanda.”

Steven stopped. “Why do I hear such pain in your voice?”

Ruth stopped as well. “Do you?”

Their eyes locked on each other.

“I want you to be happy, Ruth.” His voice was hoarse.

Can it be that I love this man? The question struck Ruth like a thunderbolt.

“Why?” she whispered. “You don’t even know me.”

“Why? Because we Americans are inveterate optimists!” Steven said, grinning shyly. He put out a hand and gently lifted her chin. “And because there’s nothing that makes a woman more beautiful than to see her smile!”

The moment passed but the tenderness remained.



They walked on, hand in hand. When they saw the first houses of Steinach, Steven thought that they had reached Lauscha. Ruth laughed as she told him that they had just as far again to go. She didn’t mention that it would also get steeper; he would see that for himself.

As he wiped the sweat from his brow, Steven wondered aloud at the black layer of grime that covered the village and its tiny houses. Ruth told him about the slate that the Steinach villagers dug out of the hillside, day and night, and the meager living that it gave them.

“The slate dust doesn’t just get into every nook and cranny and all over people’s clothes, it gets into their lungs as well,” she explained. She went on to tell him about Eva’s family, in which one of the younger children died every year. “I’m just happy I was born in Lauscha. Marie calls it a paradise of glass. Though if you ask me, it’s not much of one.”

“When I look around, I can see what your sister means,” Steven answered, pointing up the mountain. “I’ve never seen such marvelous landscapes, not all the way from Hamburg to here. Look at the forests! Pine trees as thick as the hair on a bear’s rump!”

“Yes, and when the sun’s not shining it’s as dark in here as if you were wrapped in a bearskin. But come winter you notice pretty quickly that you’re not. It’s cold enough to freeze your hands and the roads are so covered with snow that you can’t even leave the village. It may look marvelous to you, but we’d all rather live somewhere a bit more ordinary.”

Steven laughed.

“Do you know that you’re quite extraordinary yourself?”

Ruth frowned at him.

“You’re not just clever and beautiful, you’re funny as well!” he said in a tone that suggested he couldn’t quite believe it himself.

Ruth decided to change the subject and insisted that he tell her something about his family. His parents had emigrated years ago after his father and uncle had decided to open a branch of the family business in America as an import-export house. Steven and his three sisters had all been born in America. Ruth was astonished to learn that Sophie, Edna, and Jean, the youngest, all worked for Miles Enterprises. But if his family was as rich as all that . . .