The Glassblower(20)
“Well anyway, Pa said that if there was going to be another baby he’d give it away at birth. Ma didn’t even know whether she was pregnant yet, and she burst into tears and . . .”
Marie frowned a little. Eva had been gabbing away ever since they sat down at the workbench that morning. Marie was glad that Sebastian’s wife was friendly, but now she just wished that the woman would keep her mouth shut for a minute or two.
“And then Ma said that she would do whatever it took to make sure she didn’t have another brat, but . . .”
She had no shame at all about revealing even the most intimate family secrets! Marie looked around in alarm, but nobody seemed to be paying any attention to Eva’s chatter. Johanna and the Widow Grün were busy unrolling some kind of glittering thread from a thick reel and snipping it into equal lengths, and the Heimer brothers were bent low over their lamps and could hardly hear anything anyway. Ruth didn’t seem to have noticed Eva, or indeed anything around her. She looked . . . lost in thought. Was the work here becoming too much for her?
“There we go!” Eva flicked the paintbrush across the glass in a great flourish that seemed to come all the way from her wrist, linking the last swirls back into the start of the pattern. She didn’t much seem to care that her lines swooped up and down all over the place. She beamed at Marie. “Now we put on the green leaves and white flowers.” She pointed to two jars of paint that sat unopened. “Before you change paint you have to clean the brush thoroughly. My father-in-law’s an angel really, but if he sees you treating the tools carelessly he can be the very devil. Wilhelm!”
Marie followed Eva’s glance; from the look in that woman’s eyes, Marie would almost have thought she was in love. Wilhelm Heimer was standing in the doorway, leafing through a sheaf of crumpled notepaper and cursing a blue streak as he did so. As soon as he looked up and saw Eva, however, his face softened.
“My Ma always says that if you can find what you’re looking for straightaway, then you don’t have enough to do!” Eva called over to him, grinning.
Marie could hardly agree that Heimer was an angel. Just then, he looked furious. Hoping that his bad mood had nothing to do with them, she turned hastily back to her work. Whenever Father had been ill-tempered, the best thing had been just to leave him alone. None of the sisters would ever have dreamed of teasing him the way Eva teased her father-in-law.
Painting the leaves onto the stem was a quick job. Marie didn’t like this mossy-green color as much as the ultramarine, which was a lovely blue the color of a bright clear sky. But once she got around to painting the white flowers, she began to enjoy the work again. They were a simple five-petal design, the kind of flower that a child might paint, but the white paint was so translucent that if she laid it on just a little thinner, it looked as though a shadow were falling on the blossom. Perhaps she could try making them a little bit longer—just a tiny bit of course. Yes, didn’t the flowers look more elegant that way? She recalled the wild lilies that blossomed up at the edge of the forest in late summer. Their petals turned outward just a touch, as though they were inviting the passing bees to stop and sip. Marie traced that same shape with her brush as she painted the next flower.
“Well then?” A booming voice called out behind her, and something soft and warm pressed up against her back. Wilhelm Heimer was standing so close behind her that his belly was touching her. She was so taken aback that the brush twitched in her hand, smearing the petal that she had just been painting. She quickly covered it with her hand to hide the mistake.
Heimer beamed down at Eva without even glancing at Marie’s work. “Has my favorite daughter-in-law been showing our new girl what painting’s all about?”
Was Heimer talking just to her, or to both of them? Marie nodded, just in case.
“Favorite daughter-in-law!” Eva laughed. “You’ve only got one, so why even call me that?” She turned around coquettishly. “Did you hear that, Sebastian? It seems your father is still pleased with your choice of bride. What do you say?”
Sebastian grunted something, though Marie couldn’t quite hear what.
Wilhelm shook his head. “You young lads are very sparing with your words! When I think of the sweet nothings I used to whisper into your mother’s ear, God rest her soul!”
“And how do you know that Sebastian doesn’t do that?” Thomas Heimer asked over his shoulder. “At night, when you’re asleep? They make enough noise in their room . . .”
The others laughed, and Eva gave her father-in-law a playful nudge. “See what you’ve started?” she said, feigning anger. Her eyes gleamed with amusement.