The Glassblower(50)

Johanna didn’t like the way he looked at her, nor did she like it that he called her “my dear Johanna.” But that was just the way Strobel was.

Supper never took long. Once they had eaten, Johanna put the dishes in the kitchen sink and cleared the food into the pantry, which was a room all to itself. Strobel always protested that the housekeeper would do it the next morning, but Johanna couldn’t bring herself to leave the table cluttered. By the time she went to her room, her eyes were drooping and her feet hurt from standing all day long.

It wasn’t long before she turned out the light and dropped off to sleep. She told herself that she could explore Sonneberg when spring came, and then she would get to know the people and the shops.





25

Strobel was finally the one who made her get out and about. “What do you do every evening after supper?” he asked her one evening.

Johanna looked up from her smoked trout. “Nothing,” she replied, taking another forkful of grated horseradish. She decided that she would buy some smoked fish for Ruth and Marie the following Friday. “Do you have more work for me to do? It would be no problem to—”

Strobel interrupted her. “No, I was asking rather more generally. You have a key to the back door after all. Why not use it every now and then? There’s more to Sonneberg than just my house, as you know,” he added, sweeping his arm around as though showing off the town. “It’s about time you got out to see a little more of the world. Sonneberg is small enough, believe me! Why not go out to the café sometime? Or buy yourself a new dress? Or some other little treat? Some of the shops are still open in the evenings after we close. Or won’t your wages allow that? Oh my, maybe that’s the reason!” He struck his forehead theatrically.

Johanna looked on, perplexed, as Strobel got up and went over to the kitchen cabinet. When he came back, he had a banknote in his hand. “Go on, take it. Half of your probation is already over, so you deserve a little bonus. But only”—he drew back his hand—“if you use it to buy something for yourself and don’t take it straight to your sisters in Lauscha.”



Strobel didn’t stop at insisting she take the money. He also gave her the following Wednesday afternoon off. And so Johanna had no choice but to set out, her heart pounding.

“A good salesman must also know how to shop. It’s only by understanding the customer’s desires that we can satisfy them. Consider this afternoon off to be a continuation of your training.” Strobel’s words echoed in her ears as she left his shop. Straightaway two pedestrians barged right into her, talking heatedly to one another and hardly looking where they were going. It was March and the first foreign buyers of the season were in town. Uncertain where to go, Johanna stopped. Should she go to the grocery that she always went to on Fridays on her way home? No, Strobel wanted her to get to know new shops.

She felt nervous at the very idea of walking into a strange shop. What was she supposed to say? She knew nothing about shopping. She had always bought whatever she and her sisters needed—from groceries to the dark linens they used to sew their own clothes—in Lauscha’s only general store. Mrs. Huber, the shopkeeper, knew that the Steinmann girls had little in the way of money, and she always showed them her bargains, not even bothering to fetch the more expensive goods down from the shelves. Ruth and Johanna had never even thought to ask Mrs. Huber what else she had in the shop.

Strobel had told her to buy herself a dress. Johanna made a face. She didn’t even know how much a dress cost. Although she had made a habit of putting aside some of her earnings, she didn’t want to break into her savings to buy a dress. Every penny saved felt like a measure of safety in a harsh world. She never wanted to be left with nothing again, as they had been after Father died.

Worried that Strobel might be watching from the shopwindow, she set off at last. Once she reached the marketplace, Johanna looked all around. Over on the other side of the square, she spotted a shopwindow with white blouses, skirts, and . . . wasn’t that a blue dress hanging there, the very kind she had always dreamed of? Johanna found herself thinking of Ruth, who surely wouldn’t hold back if she were here. She would go into the shop with her eyes shining, impatient to look at all the lovely things.



A couple of hours later, Johanna had a new blue velvet dress that fit her like a glove, and she also had a new insight: Strobel was right. Salesmanship was fun, but so was shopping. The salesgirl had been so polite!

She had fetched item after item from the stockroom and shown them all to Johanna. And she hadn’t merely helped her try on the dresses, but described the merits and drawbacks of every piece she tried. Johanna was quite certain that she had chosen well in buying the blue dress. She could hardly wait to get back to her room and try it on again. The lady in the perfumer’s had been just as friendly, even though Johanna only bought two little cakes of soap for Ruth and Marie. Only the old gentleman in the stationery shop had been rather rude, which was why she hadn’t bought anything there. Ruefully she thought of how much she’d eaten into her savings in the last couple of hours. On the other hand she certainly wouldn’t go shopping on such a scale very often.