The American Lady (32 page)

The calls flew back and forth between the post office in Sonneberg and Ruth’s apartment in New York. Since she couldn’t make any headway with her mother, Wanda even called Steven at his office. As soon as she heard his voice, she burst into tears. Then she told him at length how sorry she was to have hurt him with her childish behavior before she left New York. Steven did his best to calm her down. At last he managed to bring her around to why she had really called, and she asked whether he could put in a good word for her. There was nothing she wanted so much, she said, as to see Marie again. Steven answered that he understood that Wanda was worried about her aunt, of course, but he wasn’t really sure that he would be acting in her best interests if he let her take this trip.

Whereupon Wanda burst into floods of tears again.

A few days later the postman came to the Steinmann-Maienbaum workshop with a telegram for Wanda. When he didn’t find her there, he cursed under his breath and then climbed the hill all the way to the Heimer workshop.

Wanda’s hands trembled as she took the telegram from him. She held her breath as she opened it. She scanned the lines quickly and only then did she let herself breathe out.

Her cry of joy rang through the whole house.

Despite their reservations, Ruth and Steven had given their permission for Wanda to go to Italy “for Marie’s sake.” They had also sent her a money order for a considerable sum.

25

“The doctor says that your backache could be early contractions,” Patrizia said, smoothing the covers down over Marie. Then she tucked them in at the sides of the bed so tightly that Marie could hardly move. Although Patrizia had pulled the curtains closed, it was still bright in the room and very warm.

Marie blinked in shock.
Early contractions?

“What does that mean?” She looked over at her mother-in-law and then at the doctor, who was standing a discreet distance away from the bed. She was worried. The doctor had examined her by palpating her stomach and then her back through her nightgown—the whole thing hadn’t lasted more than two minutes. Then he had rattled away at Patrizia in Italian from under his mustache, speaking so fast that Marie couldn’t follow him. The only word she caught was
complicazione
.

“What kind of complications is he talking about?” Marie asked when Patrizia didn’t reply.

“He isn’t; you must have misunderstood,” Patrizia answered. She didn’t mention that the doctor was concerned because of Marie’s age. “But Dottore di Tempesta recommends strict bed rest from now on. Otherwise there’s a danger that the child may be born prematurely.”

“But
I—
”

“No buts!” Patrizia interrupted sternly and then nodded to the doctor that his consultation was over.

Marie watched helplessly as the man snapped his medical bag shut and turned to leave the room. She still had so many questions! The baby was due at the end of May. But what if it came earlier? Would there be problems? And wouldn’t it be best to have a doctor present for the birth? After all, he had mentioned complications.

Although Franco’s mother had become a little more approachable in the last few weeks, she still refused to accommodate any such request. “The women of the de Lucca family have given birth without help for centuries. If a birth was difficult we brought in a midwife, but that’s all.” Marie was tired of hearing this little speech every time she mentioned her concerns. Patrizia clearly thought that Marie was lily-livered. All the same she had finally given in to her pleas and called the doctor for a consultation, though not before Marie had sworn on her mother’s grave that she wouldn’t say anything “silly” while he was there. Marie was so grateful that at that moment she would have sworn anything at all. Now, however, she was so worried that something might be wrong that a promise meant nothing. She tore the sheets away and sat up in bed.

“Dottore, uno momento!”
she cried out when the doctor was already halfway out the door.

Patrizia cast her a warning glance.

The doctor turned around.
“Si . . . ?”

“Is my child well?” Marie asked softly.

He hesitated, just for a moment. Then he nodded energetically and vanished into the dark hallway outside.

Marie watched him go.
Thank God!

That was all she had wanted to know. Only that.

“Was that really necessary?” Patrizia asked when she came back into the room. “Hadn’t we agreed that you would keep quiet?” She put a pitcher of milk and a glass on the bedside table.

The sight of it made Marie feel queasy. “You know that milk makes me feel sick these days. I would much rather have a cool glass of lemonade.” She sighed. “And I’d like to go for a walk. It’s so stuffy in here you could cut the air with a knife. If the heat’s this bad already, I hate to think how hot it gets in the summer.”

Patrizia pretended not to have heard that last remark. “Milk never did anybody any harm. It would do the
bambino
good for you to drink it. After all, you’ll have to make your own milk starting in a couple of weeks.” She held the half-full glass out to Marie, urging her to drink.

Marie forced herself to take a sip and tried to fight back the nausea. In the end she needed to stay on Patrizia’s good side if things were not to get any worse in this prison.

“Is there any news?” Marie asked. Patrizia raised her eyebrows and she realized she must have a milk mustache. She wiped her mouth hastily with the back of her hand.

Patrizia shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I spend every day waiting for the lawyer to call and tell us whether he’s managed to make any progress. But so fa
r . . .
nothing.” Her voice failed her. She took a starched handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at invisible drops of sweat on her brow. When she was able to speak again, there was a note of bitterness in her voice. “That man has been taking fat legal fees from us for decades now, but heaven forbid we should ask him to actually go to court!”

“I don’t understand! How can they put Franco in jail when there’s no proof at all that he had anything to do with it?” Marie was genuinely upset. As long as Franco was a prisoner in New York, she was a prisoner here in the palazzo. She had felt a surge of hope when Patrizia told her that the family had sent one of the best lawyers in Italy to America, but that hope was long gone now. Either this lawyer couldn’t make any headway against the American legal system, or there was more evidence against Franco than the testimony of one bribe taker.

O
r . . .
perhaps both were the case.

“If Franco doesn’t come back soo
n . . .
” Marie whispered, her voice choked with tears. Even though she was lying down again her back began to ache. She moaned softly.

Patrizia was following her own train of thought.

“He’ll be back for the birth of his child,” she said. She saw the doubt on Marie’s face and gave her hand a squeeze. “We just have to stick together.
Una famiglia, si?
As I always say.”

Marie didn’t answer.

Patrizia whispered, “We should pray. For our beloved son, for your husband.”

26

After fourteen days of hectic preparation for the journey, the moment had finally come. Richard and Wanda bid their farewells to Lauscha as everyone who was staying behind showered them with words of advice, best wishes for the journey, and even a tear or two. Johannes gazed at his cousin with undisguised envy, having taken her aside earlier to admit that he had always wanted to travel abroad. Anna simply shook Wanda’s hand and muttered something about having a lot of work to do, then turned and fled without saying good-bye to Richard at all.

It showed plainly on Johanna’s face that she still wasn’t convinced about the propriety of letting them travel together, but she forced a smile all the same. Peter hugged Wanda, then Richard, then stuffed some money into Richard’s pocket and told them both to drink a glass of Bavarian beer on him that evening. “Just the one, though!” he chuckled, wagging his finger.

Thomas Heimer had insisted on coming to see them off at Paul Marzen’s house, where they were loading their luggage onto Paul’s horse cart for the trip to Coburg. He shook Wanda’s hand over and over again and then handed her a packet of food that Eva had packed for their journey. Although she could smell the unappetizing scents of Heimer home cooking through the waxed paper, Wanda was so touched by the gesture she could have cried. And then Thomas turned to Johanna and said, “Whoever would have thought we’d be here together, both of us worried silly?”

At that, Wanda couldn’t hold back her tears any longer. Her only consolation was that while she was away Thomas would be kept busy with a large order from Brauninger; an American collector had come to see the dealer and had ordered several dozen vases, each of which involved using a different technique. “A cross section of everything Thuringian glassblowers can do!”—so Brauninger had declared. That was just the thing for Father, Wanda decided happily. At first Thomas hadn’t believed it and had accused Wanda of making a bad joke, but then he had set to work with a vengeance. He was so carried away by the task that Wanda hardly recognized him; he seemed to have become a young man again overnight.

Wanda wanted to set about finding more clients when she got back. Secretly of course she was hoping she could make new contacts for the Heimer workshop in Venice as well.

It was so hard to say good-bye to Lauscha!

“Hey, Wanda, are you planning to stay here after all?” Richard asked, reaching out to her impatiently.

Wanda sighed and then let him pull her up onto the hard wooden bench of the cart.

“It’s only for two weeks,” Richard whispered in her ear when he saw how miserable she looked. She nodded.

They were off.

When they arrived at the railway station in Coburg, their train had already pulled up to the platform. As soon as Richard spotted it, he began to run, worried that they wouldn’t be able to board. Wanda giggled and pointed out that the stokers were still shoveling coal into the tender up front—the train wouldn’t be leaving quite yet!

The train was to take them from Coburg via Nuremberg to Munich, where they would spend the night in a boarding house near the station. The next day they would cross the Austrian border to Bozen, and there they would part ways.

Although Wanda had bought her own ticket at the Lauscha station, Richard’s had been issued in Weimar—Gotthilf
Täuber had sent it to him along with his reservation for a
pensione
in Venice and a ticket for the art fair. At the sight of the Weimar-issued ticket, the conductor raised his bushy eyebrows and looked long and hard, paying no attention to the murmuring queue of passengers that was forming behind Richard and Wanda. When he finally let them board, they found that they were in luck; the compartment was only half full so they were able to sit down and have a free bench across from them. Wanda put some of her luggage there, even though it ought to have traveled in the luggage compartment. She had a whole suitcase full of things for Marie’s baby and presents for Marie herself. Richard had brought his own suitcase into the compartment as well, which looked pitiful next to Wanda’s elegant luggage. Richard seemed to notice the discrepancy, and he draped his jacket over the case as though to hide it.

It was a bright sunny day, and the spring air blew in through the train windows as a pleasant breeze. The whole world seemed to be in bloom outside. Wherever they looked, they saw the gleaming white of apple and cherry blossoms.

At first Wanda took Richard’s hand and savored the idea that this journey was a dream come true for her. Even two weeks ago she would never have believed it could happen. But with every curve of the tracks, reality became more wonderful than any dream. There was something new to look at every few minutes, and Wanda simply couldn’t sit still. She waved her hands in excitement, pointing first at dark forests, then at orchards stretching up the hillsides, then at the little villages with their red-tiled rooftops—she hadn’t seen slate since they left Thuringia. They also passed several lakes where the water gleamed a rich dark-sapphire blue.

It took Wanda some time to notice that Richard did not share her excitement but was instead staring ahead, lost in thought. When she asked him what the matter was, he said, “Did you notice how it was only my ticket the conductor checked? He didn’t even ask the other passengers to show theirs.”

At first Wanda didn’t understand what Richard was driving at. She had long forgotten their little delay in boarding.

“It’s typical, though!” Richard went on. “People think they can treat us hillbillies any way they like. If that’s the way it’s going to be, then I’ve already had enough!”

And with every mile they traveled away from Lauscha, he grew more and more taciturn. Wanda knew that Richard’s bad mood had nothing to do with her, that he was simply feeling nervous. Secretly she was even a little amused that her own dear Richard had lost his self-assurance as soon as he left Lauscha behin
d . . .
She decided to leave him alone, however, and instead buried herself in the guidebook on Italy that she had bought a few days before from Marie’s friend Alois Sawatzky.

Richard didn’t relax until that afternoon, but then he was happy to talk. And by the time their train reached Munich toward evening, he was almost his old self again.

The boarding house by the Munich railway station was modest but well kept. Once Wanda and Richard had taken their luggage up to their rooms, Richard would have been quite content to stay in and order the dish of the day in the dining room—a lentil soup with sausages—but Wanda rolled her eyes. The sun was still shining golden outside and the streets were still full of people out enjoying life. So she persuaded Richard to come out with her and take a walk along the famous Maximilianstrasse, which she had heard about even in New York. The shops were all closed at this hour, but they could still enjoy window-shopping. Wanda put her hand on Richard’s arm, then laughed as she spotted their reflection in a shopwindow. All they needed was a walking stick for him and a parasol for her and they would look like an old married couple. It was only when the streetlamps came on and their feet began aching from walking that they finally decided they’d had enough.

Instead of going back to their boarding house to eat, they ended up at a restaurant in the Schwabing district where two fiddlers were playing lively tunes. Richard kept glancing curiously over at the other diners as though they were from another planet. He pointed discreetly at the man at the next table, who was wearing a black tailcoat and a fiery red scarf, and then at another man whose scalp was shaved completely bald but who had a great bushy beard down to his chest. Then he pointed to two young women who were kissing one another on the lips in front of the whole restaurant. Soon Richard was so embarrassed that he didn’t know where to look next.

Wanda felt right at home however. The atmosphere reminded her of the many evenings she had spent with Marie and Pandora in Greenwich Village.

“They’re artists,” she whispered to Richard, then told him that he had best get used to such eccentric characters since there would be droves of them in Venice. When she saw one of the diners being served a plate of spaghetti, she suggested that they order the same thing—they were headed for Italy after all!

“Women kissing, men whose hair has slipped down to their beards, spaghetti here in Bavaria—well, why not!” Richard commented dryly. At that Wanda kissed him on the lips.

As the evening wore on, the mood among the customers grew ever more cheerful. The music was so loud that it was hard to engage in conversation, but Wanda and Richard were content simply to gaze into one another’s eyes and sway gently in time with the melody.

At last the musicians sat down with a jug of wine and it became a little quieter—aside from the heated political arguments at some of the other tables.

Wanda and Richard could talk now, and as always their conversation roamed far and wide. There was so much they had to say to one another!

Wanda eventually told him about the evening when Marie had let slip that Steven wasn’t her real father.

“All through my childhood I somehow felt that
I . . .
that I didn’t quite belong. Neither fish nor fowl nor good red meat, do you understand? And that’s only changed recently, in these past few weeks. Now I know that Steven is part of my life just as much as Thomas. It feels as though I’m gradually finding my feet in the world.” She looked at Richard, who was listening intently, absorbing all she said.

Wanda went on. “Part of me will always be American, but I’m more and more of a glassblower’s daughter with every passing day! It’s crazy, isn’t it?” Suddenly all the doubts and anxiety she used to feel in the old days were back, so close at hand that Wanda shivered. How many times had she started a new project full of hope, only to see it fail miserably later! She took a generous gulp of wine.

Richard looked at her thoughtfully. “Everything was so much simpler for me. I’ve known ever since I was little that I’m the son of a glassblower. My father was one of the best. My parents made it quite plain to me from the start that they expected me to follow in his footsteps. Or rather, that they expected me to do even more. It’s just a shame that they’re not here to see their wish come true. Father wouldn’t like the idea of my going off to Murano, mind you, but apart from tha
t . . .
” He reached across the table and took Wanda’s hand. “They would be proud to see me marry Heimer’s daughter!”

She didn’t quite understand what he meant by that remark at first, but then she realized that in Richard’s eyes that was what she was, first and foremost—a glassblower’s daughter. He couldn’t see the contradiction that had split her childhood in two, or didn’t want to see it. For him, she wasn’t the little rich girl from Fifth Avenue with a head full of whimsical dreams that needed getting rid of. Richard saw her as a woman who knew how to get things done and who would stand at his side as he made his way in the world. A warm wave of happiness washed over her.

Her eyes sparkled with love as she lifted her glass and drank to their future together.

“And I’m proud to marry a glassblower. How does the saying go? Marry a glassblower and your cup will never run dry!” Marie had told her that once, or something of the sort.

Richard frowned quizzically. “I think the saying is a little bit different, but I like your version too!”