The Glassblower(34)

As she sat there, she realized how dry her throat was. When she passed her tongue over her lips, it stuck. A moment later, Peter passed her a flask of apple juice.

“Can you read my mind?” She took a long swallow. The juice was so sweet that it tickled her gums. “You really have thought of everything,” she said, sighing.

He shrugged. “Something to drink, bread and ham—it’s the least I can do. I would do so much more for you if I could!”

Johanna turned and looked at him. As always when he was upset about something, there was a long furrow of worry on his brow, right down to the bridge of his nose.

“Oh, Peter, don’t keep blaming yourself and thinking you’re responsible for us. And as for the food, heaven knows we’re not fussy. You should see the stuff they serve up at the Heimers’ table.”

He was silent.

“You know,” she said after a moment, “the worst of it is that Wilhelm’s workshop could be a tidy little business. All it needs is a bit of care and attention.”

“Johanna,” Peter said suddenly. All at once his face was right next to hers. His normally placid features were like a mountain stream after a rainstorm. “Forget Heimer and that mess he calls a workshop! Come to me! You can see how well we work together! I—”

Before Johanna quite knew what was happening, he had his arms around her and was pressing her to him. “You and me,” he whispered, “wouldn’t that be something?”

Johanna felt her cheek burning where his jacket rubbed against it. Her head was at an awkward angle and her neck hurt. She felt as though the ground had been snatched away from beneath her feet. Peter was her neighbor. Her friend. What should she do?

“Peter . . .” she scolded him.

Luckily he let her go a moment later.

As they sat there against the tree trunk, an awkward silence descended.

“I . . .” Johanna began.

At the same moment Peter said, “I’m sorry . . .”

They both laughed, disconcerted. “You don’t need to say sorry,” Johanna said softly. “I’m fond of you too.”

But not like that, she thought.

She squeezed his arm, overwhelmed by the feeling that somehow she had failed. The question What now? pounded through her head. What could she say or do to let him keep his dignity intact?

As the silence dragged on, Johanna listened with one ear for what was going on down the hill. Why wasn’t Ruth calling to ask where the next bundle of wood was?

“Well then, let’s get on with it before this thin air up here turns my head again,” Peter said, getting up. He took a deep breath to stop himself from smiling awkwardly. “What is it? Are you going to sit there until you put down roots?” He gave her a wry grin, and stretched his hand out to Johanna. She took it.

He pulled her to her feet. “Once we’re finished with this tree here, we’ll deserve a bite to eat. The others must be hungry too,” Peter said as though nothing had happened.

As she leaned into her saw, Johanna cast furtive glances in Peter’s direction. He’d accepted her rebuff so graciously. He didn’t seem the least ashamed that his feelings had gotten the better of him, but somehow just rose above it all. Johanna felt stupid for having ruined someone’s day again.

Before she could look away, his gaze met hers. Peter shrugged. “About just now . . .” A roguish grin spread over his face. “I can’t promise you that something of the kind won’t happen again. Knowing myself the way I do, I reckon that’s not the last time I’ll push my luck.”

She shook her head and smiled. “You’re impossible!”

They worked on, side by side, with not a trace of ill feeling between them. They were friends, and nothing had changed that.





16

The next few weeks flew by in a flurry of work. It was pitch dark when the three sisters left the house in the morning, and had been dark for hours by the time they got home in the evening. Johanna yearned to be able to hang out the laundry in the sunshine, or to be able to dust the house by daylight. But the housework lay unattended, and with good reason. In every house in Lauscha the only job to do so close to Christmas was blowing glass and preparing the wares, until they were all so tired they were fit to drop. It was no different in Heimer’s workshop.

Buyers arrived from all over the country. They may have hemmed and hawed in the fall, but now they thronged the doorways of the Sonneberg wholesalers to be well supplied for the Christmas sales. The haggling now was not over prices but over delivery times and deadlines, for every client wanted his orders delivered as soon as possible. The wholesalers passed on the deadlines to their pieceworkers, pushing them to deliver toys and wood carvings and glass as quickly as they could—all while pocketing the profits themselves.