“What do you mean?” Ruth snapped at her. “We worked for this money just the same as you did. So we get to decide as well how we spend it.”
“Will you listen to yourselves?” Johanna said, shaking her head angrily. “Hairbands and colored pencils—I think you both know that there are things we need far more than that! Firewood for the winter, for instance.”
As if on cue, a mouse scurried through the room.
“If the mice are already coming indoors in October, it’ll be a hard winter,” Marie said, her face expressionless.
“Really? Is that all you have to say?” Ruth shot at her. “If you could bestir yourself to put out a few traps from time to time, we wouldn’t have mice in the house at all. But oh no, our princess is much too fine for that sort of thing. After all, I’m here to do the dirty work, aren’t I?”
“Enough of that!” Johanna shouted. She wanted to burst into tears, but what good would that do?
“There’s no point in our arguing like donkeys.” She got up and went to the cupboard. “I’ll make a pot of coffee to celebrate, and then we can calm down and think how to spend our money.” The situation called for a dose of gallows humor. But when Johanna saw the miserable few coffee beans that were left, her heart sank even further. That wouldn’t brew more than colored water! All the same she picked up the coffee grinder and began to turn the handle energetically.
Ruth watched as Johanna ground the coffee. “I’m getting fed up with that horrible stuff the Heimers brew. What does old Edel put in her pot?” She shrugged uncomprehendingly. “Do they just dry out any old root they can grub up in the forest and then boil it up with water?”
Johanna and Marie laughed. Ruth could be funny when she wanted to.
Johanna sighed. “Our dear father was a different kind of man entirely. ‘There’s more to life than just work, you need a little pleasure now and again!’ he told me once. And he was right!” She put the ground beans in the pot and poured boiling water over them.
As soon as the smell filled the room, it had the effect Johanna had hoped for. Ruth’s expression softened a little, but she shook her head helplessly all the same. “I don’t understand all their penny-pinching. Judging by the amount of glass they sell, they must have more money than they need. Do you think he only pays us so badly, or do Sarah and the Widow Grün get just as little?”
“I don’t know,” Johanna replied, biting her lip. “We’re going to have to find out somehow.”
“But how would that help?” Marie asked. While the other two drank their coffee, she was drawing complicated knotwork patterns in a notebook. “We can’t just go to Heimer and demand that he pay us more.” Her tone of voice suggested that she hardly cared.
Johanna bit back a sharp reply. Marie wasn’t being the slightest bit helpful, as usual. Instead she was filling up valuable paper with her sketches. “The problem is,” Johanna said, turning to Ruth, “that the Heimers live so modestly themselves. Have you ever seen them indulge in anything? Fresh herring? A cake? A better cut of meat?”
“Oh, don’t even talk to me about meat! That horrible tripe that was swimming in the soup today was so ghastly that it wasn’t even much of a comfort that we each had our own bowl to eat from.” Ruth stuck out her tongue, revolted at the memory. “But you’re right. Old Heimer wouldn’t care if he were just chewing on a crust of dry bread every day. All the same though, there’s someone in that household who never goes short . . .”
Johanna nodded.
Eva.
Sometimes Johanna wondered which of the Heimers Eva had really married. Sebastian hardly ever seemed to look at his wife, while the old man waited on her hand and foot. Evie this and Evie that. If golden spoons had been for sale, he’d have bought her one long ago.
“Just imagine, she’s the one who gets the box of leftover silver at the end of the year,” Johanna said. “I would have thought that Heimer would split that up among his three sons, but no such thing. Griseldis says the old man spoils Eva because she looks so much like his dead wife. She must be the spitting image of her.”
Over the last few weeks Johanna and the Widow Grün had grown a little closer. Sadly there was never enough time to talk for long while they were working. And in the evenings, she either had housework to do or was too tired to go calling. The most Johanna ever managed to do was go next door to see Peter for a while, but that hardly counted as paying a call.
“Do you really think that’s the only reason?” Ruth asked. “She’s his daughter-in-law after all. Maybe he thinks she’s more likely to give him a grandson if he spoils her?”