“Customers are like whores,” he told her once. “They’re there to be taken. And if you don’t take them, then someone else will come along and do so.” He peered at Johanna as he spoke. “You can do whatever you like with a customer, anything at all—except one thing: never let him leave without closing a deal.” He spoke the words so vehemently that Johanna didn’t dare ask what would happen if she ever did such a thing. It wasn’t that she never asked questions. Quite the opposite in fact: whenever something struck her as out of the ordinary in his sales talk, she always asked Strobel about it afterward.
“If Mr. Hallweger liked those carved wooden spoons so much, why did you just put them aside? Wouldn’t he have bought at least two dozen of those without needing to be talked into it?” she asked when a merchant from Konstanz had just left the shop. Strobel seemed pleased by her question and said, “Salesmanship is a constant give and”—he paused dramatically—“take!” Johanna looked baffled, so he added, “A customer must never get the impression we’re only waiting for him to come spend his money.” He grinned. “If I can make him think that my wares are worth more than his money, then he’s like a batch of dough in my hands: I can knead and shape him at will.” He gave her a sly look. “Why should I sell him those silly wooden spoons when he’ll just as happily spend more on the more expensive model with the mother-of-pearl inlay?”
Whores! A batch of dough! Brrr! Johanna couldn’t help but wish that Strobel wouldn’t always use such horrid analogies. She didn’t know whether it was the result of his expert salesmanship or his coarse comparisons, but from then on she always tried to size up a customer as soon as he walked through the door. Would he make up his mind quickly? Or was he more the dithering type? Did he want cheap goods or costly one-offs? Would he include her in the conversation or snobbishly ignore her? The longer she played the game, the more often she was right in her judgments.
Though the work was not physically demanding, in the evenings Johanna was as tired as if she had been hauling stones all day long. They generally shut up shop at seven o’clock and then ate supper together in the kitchen. Sybille Stein served up a meal before she left the house. Cold dishes, bread, and wine. At first Johanna always declined whenever Friedhelm Strobel tipped the wine carafe toward her glass. She wasn’t used to drinking wine and was worried about getting tipsy. But since he kept on offering it, one evening she eventually let him pour her half a glass.
“So? How do you like it?” Strobel asked as soon as she had taken the first sip.
“It’s sour,” Johanna said, deciding that honesty was the best policy. When Strobel reacted with neither anger nor scorn, she added, “And it somehow tastes of wood.” She took another sip. “Other than that, it’s a good wine,” she said lamely, hoping that she had not offended him.
Strobel bit at a hangnail. “The only way to appreciate some things, my dear Johanna, is to try them over and over again.” He passed the carafe of water across the table to her.
Johanna took it gratefully. She didn’t believe that she would come to like the wine any better if she kept on drinking it, but she kept this to herself.
From then on, Strobel made a habit of pouring her half a glass of red wine every day. And indeed: without even noticing it, Johanna got used to the taste of it.
The wine was not the only new taste. Instead of the simple fare she had eaten at home—bread and drippings or potatoes in all their variations—she was served unfamiliar pâtés and cheeses that looked anything but appetizing. Although Strobel explained that there were truffles in the liver pâté and that the goat’s milk cheese looked like it did because of the blue mold, that hardly helped. What on earth were truffles? And why would she want to eat moldy cheese? More than once she was reminded of the grubby platters at Wilhelm Heimer’s table, where everyone had to dig in with their own spoon. She had managed to overcome her misgivings about the food there, and she would do the same here. The surprise was all the greater whenever she found she liked the unfamiliar dishes.
“The wine goes well with this game terrine,” she remarked one evening. “The woody notes suit the way the meat’s been marinated. It tastes of the forest! Of wild berries and herbs, if you see what I mean . . .” She trailed off uncertainly.
Strobel smiled. “Those woody notes, my dear Johanna, come from the oak barrels that the wine is aged in before it is fit to be drunk. But yes, you’re quite right, taken together they do taste of the forest.”