“Oh and by the way, I will be gone for two weeks at the beginning of June—that is, if my travel plans do not conflict with your own calendar,” he added, with more than just a touch of sarcasm. “You will deputize for me while I am away. We will discuss all further details when the time comes.”
Johanna’s first impulse was to say, “I can’t. I don’t know nearly enough about the business. And besides, I don’t dare!” Instead she nodded obediently. She wouldn’t be so quick to refuse any more of the chances he offered.
While Strobel welcomed new clients and helped them with their orders, Johanna was busy all day with the Woolworth order. All of the pieceworkers and suppliers whose articles Woolworth wanted had to be notified. Strobel had a system for this, and Johanna entered how many pieces of every style each supplier had to deliver with the prices and the deadlines. She had to be absolutely sure not to mix up any names or item numbers. To her, this work was pleasure rather than business. Every form she filled came with a name, a family, a story of its own. By the time she had finished, she had written out one hundred and thirty individual commission sheets. That would give a lot of families work for the next few months, she told herself happily. She could hardly wait to give the sheets to the messenger women to take round to the villages.
While almost every household in Lauscha made money by blowing glass, in Sonneberg they earned their daily bread by making dolls. And just as with the glassblowing, here, too, there were specialists for every step in the process: One man would spend his days fitting the glass eyes into dolls, though the eyes themselves were made in Lauscha. The next man painted lips in just the right shade, while another painted eyelashes and eyebrows on the bare faces. There were also seamstresses, knitters, shoemakers, and handbag makers—all for the dolls. Though Strobel insisted that Sonneberg dolls were world famous, the doll-makers hadn’t had an easy time of it in recent years. The French were pushing their way into the market by ordering porcelain heads from Sonneberg and then having female convicts finish the dolls for no wages. The foreign competition made an order of this size all the more important for the local doll-makers.
There was plenty of Lauscha glassware in the Woolworth order too. Not for the first time, Johanna thought what might happen if only she could persuade Peter to put his glass animals into Friedhelm Strobel’s hands. They would very likely be setting off for America as well. But no, Peter had dug in his heels. “Your Mr. Strobel is far too fine for a raw beginner like me. No, no, I’ll take them to another wholesaler,” he had answered, ignoring Johanna’s argument that Strobel had already helped more than one unknown artisan get his start in the business.
But then she realized that there was another name missing from the list. Johanna’s mood brightened. “At least old Heimer won’t be cluttering up foreign shelves with his gimcrack,” she muttered to herself somewhat spitefully.
The day’s customers had brought him a good deal more business, and Strobel was in an expansive mood at supper. He had ordered the housekeeper to serve fish in a green herb sauce. Then he opened a bottle of champagne to go with it. If he were to be believed, rich people all over the world drank practically nothing else. He had sent Johanna down to the cellar on occasion to fetch a bottle when there were important clients visiting, but she herself had never tasted this luxury before.
Cheered by her long day’s work and relieved that Strobel was not angry at her, she took a long sip. The champagne tasted a lot like white wine, though much . . . bubblier. Feeling the thousands of bubbles bursting on her tongue, she laughed.
“Ruth would certainly like this! She’s always had a taste for the out of the ordinary.”
Strobel laughed too, but a moment later, he said, “My dear Johanna, you really must stop comparing yourself to your sisters all the time. You are not like them. I am quite sure that this past weekend was ample proof of that.” And with that, he went about skillfully filleting his fish.
Embarrassed, Johanna took another sip, but the bubbly suddenly tasted sour. Had Strobel already heard rumors about the fistfight? Or was he perhaps clairvoyant?
Strobel lifted the backbone out of the fish and set it on the side of his plate, then went on, paying no attention to her evident disquiet. “Often enough we allow a sense of obligation to force us to do things we have no desire to do on our own. In your case, I am of the opinion that you should gradually stop playing nursemaid to Ruth and Marie.”
Johanna looked up. What would Peter say if he ever found out that he and Strobel actually agreed on something?