The Glassblower(64)

Strobel leaned back in his chair. The problem was that he had never been interested in such conventional flirtations. He saw no appeal in charming Johanna with flattery. He had no desire to see her eyes light up as he presented her with a gift. He had no interest in Johanna as a woman with feminine feelings. It was her stubbornness and contrary ways that made her desirable. Her fearlessness, coupled with a natural arrogance that was seldom found in a woman. Of course he knew that part of this arrogance was simply a show. That Johanna wanted to mask her insecurities. But that was quite permissible. More than that, it was precisely what made the whole matter appealing.

His eyes drifted down the hallway toward Johanna’s room.

He stood up abruptly before he could lose himself entirely in such fantasies. On his way back into the shop, he scolded himself for having wasted even a moment on such thoughts.

“Only a fool plays with fire in his own house!”

He had already lost his self-control once, back in his old life—and lost everything else as well. Did he want to risk the same thing happening again? It was not difficult to answer that question—only fools made the same mistake twice.





31

At last the house was empty. Sometimes her sisters could be hard work. Especially Ruth. The way she had been flapping about just now! As though she had some important meeting to attend. Not that it made any difference whether she went out for her stroll with Thomas a few minutes earlier or later. It was still a mystery to Marie what Ruth saw in him—or rather, after the dance and the engagement, it was even more of a mystery. It was lucky that the fistfight hadn’t led to anything worse.

But enough of that, Marie told herself. She didn’t want to waste a valuable evening alone thinking about what happened when people drank too much beer. All the same her thoughts drifted back to the May dance. She couldn’t stop thinking about the way the women’s skirts had swung as they danced. Like bluebells in the breeze. Their layers of petticoats formed waves—sometimes around their knees, sometimes all the way up to their hips, depending on how fast the women spun. There was such grace and joy in that image. Marie chewed on the end of her pencil. There had to be some way to capture those swinging, curving shapes in glass. For a while she let her pencil wander over the paper as if it had a will of its own. The result could sometimes be extraordinary but not today. Neither she nor her pencil knew what the final shape should be. A drinking goblet with a curved rim? A dish made of fused layers of glass, with the pattern carved through from one layer to the next? A compact?

Marie briefly considered going over to visit Peter. When he made one of his glass animals, he didn’t always know at the outset what shape the end result would be. But she didn’t even know how to phrase her question. “How do I capture the shape of swinging?” Marie had to laugh. Shaking her head, she put down her pencil and got up.

A moment later, she was in Father’s workshop. Hesitantly, as though worried she might see a ghost by their light, she lit the lamps. Scolding herself for her overactive imagination, she went over to Joost’s bench and lamp.

The glass rods, tools, and gas burner were still in place. The only indication that his workbench had been abandoned was the dust that lay over everything like a silken cloth. Marie sighed and wiped away the worst of it with the sleeve of her dress. Ever since they had started working for Heimer, there had been simply no time to keep the house clean.

Obeying an impulse, she fetched her sketching things and sat down at Joost’s bench. Straightaway she felt better than she had at her improvised place at the kitchen table.

For a while she simply sat there enjoying the silence. She dearly missed working in this room. How different it was from the Heimer workshop, with the din of the three lamps burning, all the people, Eva’s chatter, the loud singing, the hurrying and scurrying. She shook her head. The work was different too. Heimer had more and more orders coming in. The lists that he handed out to his three sons and the hired hands every morning described what the customers wanted down to the last detail. And in the evenings the old man checked whether it had been done properly, again down to the last detail. If not, they would work late. There was no time left for Marie’s own designs.

Perhaps that was why her imagination was letting her down now? It was like an old door that nobody ever opened; the lock would gradually rust over until it was jammed tight shut. It was up to her to make sure that didn’t happen.

She shut her eyes and let her thoughts roam free.

In the Heimer workshop, everything was aimed at making products. And everything he produced—no matter how ornately decorated the drinking glasses or dishes or goblets were—was expressly made to serve a purpose.