The Glassblower(72)

And all of a sudden Marie had pricked up her ears. She had nodded impatiently at Johanna. Tell me more!

Taking the hint, Johanna had explained, “When Strobel got back from his trip, I asked him how on earth Mr. Woolworth had gotten the idea of ordering glass globes for Christmas trees—whether that was what they usually hung on their trees in America. Strobel said it wasn’t, but that Mr. Woolworth had told him he’d bought a small consignment of clear glass globes from a dealer in Penn . . . Pennsylvania”—she had stumbled over the name a little—“and only because the man had been so insistent about it. If nobody had bought the globes, he’d have sent them back to the dealer. But apparently they sold like hotcakes.

“Woolworth’s a businessman and saw there was a tidy profit to be made. And now Swiss Karl’s working away on them. I’m glad that Strobel picked him for the order. His family can certainly use the work.”

Marie had asked for an exact description of the globes. There really wasn’t much to them, she realized. But the idea itself was fascinating.

When Johanna had gone back to Sonneberg shortly thereafter, she had no idea that her remarks had planted the seed of a new idea in her sister. Marie had tossed and turned sleeplessly in bed that night, fighting to hold back the flood of images in her head: glittering globes, their colors standing out against a green pine. The candlelight playing across the silver sheen. She wanted to get out of bed and put the pictures safely down in her sketchbook. But then she scolded herself for the thought—Wilhelm Heimer would never want to bother with these globes, any more than he did with the rest of her designs.

But she nonetheless came back again and again over the following weeks and months to the thought that Karl Flein’s glass globes would soon be on their way to America to glitter and shine as Christmas tree ornaments. She was full of pride that glass blown in her home village was cherished all over the world.



Once again, Marie couldn’t sleep even though she was dead tired. Christmas was fast approaching, and she didn’t know whether to look forward to it or dread the day. Ruth would spend Christmas Eve with the Heimers, but she had promised to visit Marie and Johanna for a while.

On her last visit, Johanna had said, “I’ve thought up a few nice surprises.” Marie could well imagine what that meant; Johanna would probably come home with a whole trunk full of gifts. But that was hardly unexpected given how much she earned.

If only she could think of something that would really surprise her sisters.

In the end Marie gave up on getting to sleep. She found her socks in the dark, put them on, and went downstairs. She lit the kitchen lamp and sat down at the table with a cup of tea. She hadn’t taken the trouble to light the stove earlier that evening, so it was unpleasantly cold. She went to the window, checking for drafts. Though the pane sat snugly in its frame, the cold seemed to be seeping through the glass all the same. Marie’s gaze fell on the frost flowers that had spread themselves across the window like the finest Plauen lace. She traced their delicate tracery thoughtfully with her finger. Nature still shows us the best designs, she reflected, the most beautiful works of art. And then she thought, There must be some way for me to capture this wintry beauty.

She fetched a shawl and threw it over her shoulders, then hurried into the workshop.

Should she decorate a Christmas tree, the way they used to do when she was a little girl? She could weave some stars out of straw and then paint them white perhaps, to make them look like ice crystals. That was not exactly an original idea though.

But a tree with glass globes like the ones Karl Flein made—that would be a real surprise!

Deep in thought, she began to wipe down Father’s workbench with a damp cloth.

She had gotten into the habit of dusting the abandoned workbench and all his tools once a week, no matter how much other work she had. Her father had worked at this bench all his life, day in and day out. The ritual was important to her, just as Ruth felt it important to clear the moss away from Joost’s gravestone regularly.

Everything was still just as he had left it: the gas pipe to the left with the box of matches that had a picture of an orange flame on the label; the air hose to the right, which connected to the treadle-operated bellows under the table; and in between there were the glass rods, neatly lined up by color and length. Marie carefully picked up each one and wiped the dust away. Then she put aside the cloth and sat down.

She gazed into the darkness for a while. Dusting the bench had just been an excuse, she realized, a pretext for sitting here. She reached for the matchbox and took out a match. Her hand was trembling a little at the audacity of what she was about to do. She hesitated. Then she looked over the workbench, checking that all was in place.