The Woman Who Heard Color (9 page)

“You like children?” Josef asked.

“Yes, of course. I come from a big family.” Hanna thought of how resentful she’d felt over her stepmother’s demands that she watch after the younger children, but she missed Leni, and she especially missed little Peter. It had been fun having a child in the house during the Kaufmanns’ visit. Frau Fleischmann, and thus Hanna, had spent as much time with Little Jakob as Young Helene would allow. Hanna could see her mistress would have loved a child of her own.

Everything about this visit—the potential of tension between stepmother and stepdaughter, the little boy—made Hanna think all the more about her impending return home for Christmas.

“I’m rather nervous about going home,” she confessed to Josef. He was an attentive listener and he offered good advice when she had a problem. “I haven’t written my father,” she explained. “He sent a letter addressed to Käthe, and his biggest concern appeared to be my lack of consideration in leaving during the busiest time of the year, right before the harvest, before the cattle were brought down from the highlands. And Gerta, my stepmother—she’s a witch,” Hanna added with a shaky laugh. “So, I’m not sure how it will all go when Käthe and I return home. I’m not even sure that I should go. Sometimes I feel more at home here in Munich with the Fleischmanns. Maybe I should just stay here.”

“What?” Josef squealed. “And celebrate the birth of Christ with your new Jewish family? No, no, no, little girl, you must go home.” Hanna knew that Josef was Jewish, too, that he didn’t celebrate Christmas, and she knew he was right—she had to go.

“And gifts!” he said, raising his arms in the air dramatically. “You must take gifts for everyone.”

Hanna laughed. “Do you think this will make everything fine with Father?”

“It couldn’t make things worse,” he said with a sympathetic smile. “Take the old witch a pretty gift from the city. Show your father how well you are doing.”

Hanna had tucked away the money she’d earned at the studio, because she didn’t want anyone to know what she was doing. Even Käthe was unaware of how Hanna passed her afternoons while Frau Fleischmann napped. She certainly had money for gifts.

“You’ve been to the Christmas market?” Josef asked. He pulled paper from his desk, drew a map, and handed it to Hanna, then placed several marks to show her where to find the best stalls.

The following afternoon, she took off as soon as Frau Fleischmann was asleep and, based on Josef’s instructions, as well as her nose, she easily found the market. The air was thick with the sweet perfume of pines, decorated lavishly with candles, cranberry strings, cookies, popcorn, and handmade ornaments. The scent of gingerbread mingled with the smell of the woods brought into the city to celebrate the holidays and reminded her of home. Hanna wandered through rows and rows of merchants’ booths, selecting a colorful marionette for Peter, a china doll for Dora, musical boxes for Leni, Käthe, and their stepmother. For her older brothers and father she found finely crafted tobacco pouches.

On the way home she purchased a beautiful silver-framed mirror for Frau Fleischmann that she found in a shop on Maximilianstrasse. She would wrap and leave it on the side table in her bedroom the morning of her departure for home. The Fleischmanns did not celebrate Christmas, but she would leave it as a gift of thanks for her mistress’s many kindnesses.

 

 

One evening, just days before Hanna was to return to the farm for the holiday, Herr Fleischmann left word that he wished to see her in his room. Hanna knew he kept an office just off the bedroom, but she couldn’t imagine why he would call her in any official capacity as an employee of the household. As a housekeeper she had reported to Frau Metzger, and then as Frau Fleischmann’s assistant she took instructions only from her mistress. She’d had no real conversations with Herr Fleischmann, other than those when their paths crossed as she stood entranced before a painting or sculpture. Strangely, this had given Hanna an unspoken intimacy with her employer. Perhaps he wished to speak to her of Frau Fleischmann. Her health was still irregular, alternating good days with bad. Yes, she decided, he wished to have a conversation about his wife, as Hanna was the one who looked after her every need.

She sat in the kitchen, munching on a slice of apple as she visited with Käthe, who was preparing dessert for that evening, giddy with excitement about their return home. She spoke about the plans she and Hans had made for the big day. Hanna told her sister about her scheduled meeting with Herr Fleischmann, and Käthe suggested that he was going to give her additional duties, as her position now allowed too much idle time.

“Perhaps,” she said with a grin, as she arranged the sliced apples in a baking pan, “you will take over my duties here in the kitchen.” Hanna knew this was preposterous, as did Käthe, for Frau Stadler supervised the kitchen help, and Herr Fleischmann couldn’t care less about who did what as long as there was bread on the table. Käthe covered the apples with fresh dough, pricked it with a fork, and slid the pan into the oven. “What should I wear?” she said. “Hans will meet me at the train station in Kempton.” Ah, Käthe had other things on her mind.

Hanna paced in the downstairs hall and then climbed the stairs, arriving a few minutes before the designated time, eager and nervous to know why Herr Fleischmann wished to see her. It was just before dinner, and he had returned early from the gallery. When Hanna knocked, he called her in. He stood before a mirror, his face half-lathered as he scraped a blade across his face with a smooth gesture, and then wiped it on a towel. He had a heavy beard and Hanna guessed that he shaved twice a day, as he often returned with a shadow darkening his chin in the late afternoon, and then appeared for dinner with a smooth, clean-shaven jaw. A basin of water sat on the vanity. She should have waited until the appointed time, but she feared being late, which resulted in her being early.

He was wearing no jacket or tie, his shirt unbuttoned with a thatch of heavy black hair clearly visible, a towel wrapped around his neck. Hanna felt terribly uncomfortable.

“Please sit,” he said, motioning her to a chair from which she had a full view of his face in the mirror. She felt herself blush, yet the intimacy of the encounter seemed lessened by the fact that she was not staring at him face-on. “I have something . . .” He motioned to the office, just off his bedroom. Hanna knew about the office because she had dusted the bookshelves and the desk and swept the carpet when she was a housekeeper.

“Sit while I finish,” he said.

Hanna folded her hands in her lap and stared down. Waiting. For what seemed like a very long time, neither of them said anything. He cleared his throat and patted his face dry with the towel, then his neck. He buttoned his shirt as he turned and reached for a tie on the bed, put it around his neck, and deftly looped it into a knot, straightening and pulling here and there, gazing in the mirror.

“Tell me, Hanna, are you happy here?”

“Here, sir?” The question struck her as strange, and then she realized he meant working here in the Fleischmann home. He surely didn’t mean sitting here in his bedroom.

He smoothed the tie into place, and turned back to her as if she had hesitated because she wished to consider his question, rather than because she hadn’t understood what he was asking. Hanna felt her palms grow damp, as they often did when she was in Herr Fleischmann’s presence. She longed for opportunities to speak with him, to catch him as he stood studying a work of art, to hear the exquisite color of his voice. And, yet, at the same time, when she found herself in his company, she felt silly and girlish. And now, here she sat in the privacy of his bedroom, stuttering over her words.

“Yes, Herr Fleischmann,” she finally answered. “I’m very happy here.”

“Frau Fleischmann tells me that Käthe will not return after Christmas?” He looked as if he were asking if Hanna, too, would fail to return after their visit home.

“She’s getting married,” she said, then wished she hadn’t. Even their father did not know yet about Hans’ intention to ask for Käthe’s hand.

“A local boy from your village?”

“The cheesemaker’s son from Kempton.”

He nodded as though this were pleasing news. “Käthe is very happy?”

“She is floating in happiness.”

“Your father is pleased?”

Hanna didn’t want to explain that their father didn’t yet know. “Yes, very pleased.”

“Good news for a father when his daughter makes an agreeable match.”

She wondered if he was thinking of his own daughter, covered with jewels, gifts from her husband.

“You enjoy your work here, then?” he asked, and she guessed their conversation about Käthe’s future was nothing more than a politeness and had nothing to do with the reason for which he had called her.

“Yes, sometimes it barely feels like work at all,” she answered without hesitation.

“Very good, then. You find the pay adequate?”

She wondered now if he had called her to negotiate an increase in pay, and immediately regretted admitting how much she enjoyed the work. In truth she would have done it for nothing more than food and a bed. It was much better than working for a small part of the egg money at home.

“Perhaps an increase in your wages would be in order after your return,” he said before she could formulate a reply.

Hanna grinned. Herr Fleischmann smiled with approval. She felt very important, that he found her so valuable he would offer more pay.

“Frau Fleischmann has been talking about a trip to Paris in the spring. She’d like you to accompany us. You’ve been a great help to her, Hanna.”

“
Danke
, sir.” She now felt ready to burst with joy. Paris! She could have leapt off the chair and bounced to the ceiling. “Oh, thank you, Herr Fleischmann.”

Abruptly now, he walked to the desk in the adjoining room, which Hanna could see from where she sat. She didn’t move.

“I have something for you, Hanna,” he said, returning with a rolled paper in his hand, tied with a string.

He handed it to her. “
Danke
, Herr Fleischmann.” What was this? A Christmas gift? As far as she knew he had given no one else in the household a gift, and Hanna knew he didn’t celebrate the holiday.

She turned the rolled paper over in her hands. They felt damp from her nervousness, and she didn’t want to stain the paper. Her curiosity, along with the excitement of the announcement about Paris, made her shake with excitement and anticipation. Was she to open it now?

“Perhaps with the raise in pay,” he said, “you will no longer find it necessary to take on additional work.”

What did he mean? He looked her directly in the eyes now, and Hanna forced herself not to look down. “Additional work?” she asked innocently, and wished again she had said nothing. He knew. He had seen her that day at the Academy. She couldn’t dare ask. “Thank you, Herr Fleischmann,” she said, still turning the paper over in her hands, wishing not to continue the conversation regarding additional work. “This is very kind of you.”

“Then it is agreed,” he said, the inflection in his voice requiring no answer. “If you are bored during the afternoons when Frau Fleischmann naps, Hanna,” he added with a warm smile, “perhaps we can find additional duties for you.”

“Then the raise in pay is contingent on my performing additional duties?” What was he asking? There was something almost seductive in his smile now, and she thought of what Freda had said, the gossip about Herr Fleischmann frequenting the brothels, and now the possibility that he knew she had worked at the Academy as a model. No, surely he did not think that because she would take off her clothes . . . Without thinking, she glanced at the bed.

“Oh, no, no.” He shook his head, as if he were reading her thoughts. He laughed, not unkindly, but it made her feel ridiculous that she was thinking of herself as a woman, that he would have such thoughts about her. That she would have such thoughts about herself. Hanna wondered if her entire body was now the color of her hair.

“Something that will be very good for you, for your future, I assure you, Hanna. We’ll speak more of this when you return.”

He reached over to the wooden valet for his coat and put it on. “I must go down for dinner now.”

She took it this was her invitation to leave, her dismissal. She stood, did a small curtsy, and left the room, gift in hand, hoping that her natural color returned before she ran into anyone else. What would they think if they saw her coming from Herr Fleischmann’s bedroom, all flushed and nervous?

Hanna carried the gift down to the servants’ quarters. No one was present. The kitchen help was all busy making preparations for dinner, and the housekeeping girls were in the dining room, setting the silver and china. She entered her room and sat on the bed. Carefully, she slipped the string from the paper, wondering if it might be a gift from the gallery, a drawing, perhaps a watercolor or print. As she unrolled the paper, she took in a deep breath, which she held until it was completely smoothed out and visible.

Hanna gasped.

It was a drawing. She knew it was done by a student at the Academy. She had longed to see one of the drawings; now here it was. What a strange sensation to gaze upon an artist’s vision of oneself. Hanna could feel herself positioning her arms, her legs, forcing herself to sit still and steady, maintaining the same pose for almost an hour per sitting. And she could feel herself shiver—she was in fact shivering at this very moment, feeling again as if she had removed every piece of clothing, as if she were bare. Herr Fleischmann did know; he knew about Hanna’s going to the Academy, about her posing naked for the students. Was this not a gift, but his way of saying, fine, but no more? No more posing at the Academy of Fine Arts.

Or was his gift more?

CHAPTER SIX