The Glassblower(86)

To her mind, the globes were the perfect shape. The ideal form by which all her designs must be judged. If an image could not be painted onto a globe, it was no good to her.

She set the book aside, her mind made up. She wasn’t getting anywhere like this. She had to talk to someone who knew about glass. And who knew about globes.

The problem was: there was no such person.

There was no point even trying to approach old Heimer with new designs anymore. His sons were busy morning till night finishing orders for the wholesalers. And Marie very much doubted anyway that he would share her love of glass globes.

And Ruth and Johanna thought that her drawing was nothing more than a pleasant hobby. Besides, they were both so busy with their own lives that they had no time to see what strides Marie had made with her art. Even if they had been peering over her shoulder at every new bauble she created, Marie wouldn’t have been happy. If anyone was going to watch her, it needed to be someone who really understood art.

Apart from them, there was only Peter. He had kept his promise from Christmas and told her, “If it will help, the two of us can spend one evening a week together at the bench and lamp. I make eyes, of course, so I only know about that one little area of glassblowing, but I’ll gladly share whatever I know. And I can give you one or two practical bits of advice as well. I didn’t start blowing glass yesterday, after all.”

It took some time before Marie noticed just how helpful Peter’s lessons were. It wasn’t just the practical advice he gave but above all the feeling that he took her seriously.

But even after serving this “apprenticeship” with Peter for the past six months, Marie still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was still a mere amateur at her craft. Would she ever become a skilled glassblower? How was such a thing even possible when she didn’t even have enough rods of raw glass to practice properly? Johanna earned enough to be generous when it came to buying her sketchbooks and pencils, but she couldn’t just conjure up rods of glass out of nowhere. They were only on sale at the foundry. Although Johanna would probably have thought nothing of walking into the foundry and buying them if her sister had asked her to, Marie didn’t want to even think of the gossip that would go round the village if she did. She had no choice but to ask Peter to bring her some rods from time to time.

Once Johanna had offered to get some oil paint for her—“Don’t all the great artists paint in oils?” she had asked, which was probably meant as a compliment—but Marie had thanked her for the offer and declined. Oil paints were not her medium; they were too sluggish. They didn’t flow. Glass was what she wanted to work with. It was a hard taskmaster, for sure: it could burst or dribble away or crack into a thousand shards. A glassblower could cut himself or be burned—and Marie had faced all these dangers by now. But the more she worked with glass, the more obsessed she became.

Marie looked up at the clock. It would be eight o’clock soon. Peter’s patient would have left by now, and it was almost time for her lesson. She gathered up her latest designs in a sheaf, put on a light jacket, and left the house.

He was scowling as he opened the door. “I have work to do,” he said instead of welcoming her.

Hesitantly, Marie took her jacket off all the same. Work? She couldn’t see any work waiting for him on the table, though there was a glass and a bottle of schnapps.

“If today’s not good, I’ll leave,” she said, trying to hide the sketches behind her back. But Peter waved her over to the table.

“You’re here now. Perhaps it would do me good to take my mind off things.”

“I’d like to try something new. It’s still Christmas decorations, but it’s nothing that I’ve ever tried before,” she said, spreading out the drawings on the table.

“Walnuts, hazelnuts, acorns. And pinecones.” Peter looked at her. “I don’t understand. This isn’t new. Practically everyone gathers them in the woods and gilds them to hang on their Christmas tree.”

Marie grinned. “But not everyone has nuts made of glass hanging on their tree.”

“Nuts made of glass?” He looked at her appraisingly.

She grew more excited as she explained her idea to him. She could see every detail in her mind’s eye, could feel the nuts’ smooth curves in the palm of her hand, could run her fingertips over the pinecones. She looked at Peter, expecting him to be just as enthusiastic.

But he merely shrugged. “If you want to do more than free-blowing, if balls aren’t enough, then you’ll have to go to Strupp and have him cast you some molds.”