If someone had told Flora six months before that she would one day become a passionate reader, she would have laughed out loud. In her family, evenings were spent playing cards or singing together, working on a handicraft, or going to one of the village inns. Seraphine was the only one who read very much, and most of the time it was boring poems that didn’t interest anyone else.
Now, however, Flora spent long hours in the shop working her way enthusiastically through a stack of books from the library. Whenever she found a passage that she really liked, she quickly added it verbatim in her notebook. Poems, wise and witty commentary, unusual flower meanings—with every passing day, she filled more pages of her notebook.
The evenings, too, were reserved for reading. Flora had thought that she and Friedrich would be able to sit on the sofa in their room for that purpose. She would have loved to snuggle in his arms while she read. But Friedrich said that having candles burning in two rooms was a waste of money.
Instead, almost every evening saw all four Sonnenscheins sitting together amiably, each with his or her favorite reading material. Friedrich read books about archaeology and excavations, while Kuno and Ernestine turned to Die Gartenlaube.
In the current issue, the serialized novel that Kuno enjoyed so much concerned a prisoner whose court case was dragging on. Kuno found the story thrilling and took great pleasure in telling Friedrich and Flora the latest developments in lurid detail, but he left out important pieces of information in his retelling: even after several weeks, Flora still had no idea why the man had been locked away in the first place.
Flora had never imagined that she would bore other people with excerpts from her reading material.
“Friedrich, did you know that even in ancient Greece the people decorated rooms with flowers? They believed they could sense the presence of the gods in the scent of the flowers.”
“Ah, hmm,” Friedrich murmured without looking up from his own book.
Flora continued: “Even the Egyptians had an exceptional relationship to flowers. Florists were highly respected among them. Can you imagine? It says so right here.” She tapped on the open page in front of her.
“Now you’ve got those old Egyptians in your head, too . . .” Ernestine shook her head almost disapprovingly, then pointed to a calendar on the wall. “February second. Today is Candlemas. Finally! Now, we will really be able to see the days getting longer. Soon we’ll be able to have dinner in daylight again.”
“Candlemas day, put beans in the clay; put candles and candlesticks away. That’s the old rhyme, isn’t it?” Kuno said, smiling at his wife.
Flora looked from one to the other. “You don’t seem much interested in my discoveries!”
“Oh, child,” Ernestine replied, “when you go on all the time like that, I can’t concentrate on my own reading. To be quite candid, I find the endless flower stories a little tedious after a while.”
Flora looked at her mother-in-law in annoyance. How could anyone have so little sense of poetry?
Friedrich just grinned.
Kuno took off his reading glasses. Barely stifling a yawn, he said good night.
“You’re going up already? I wanted to tell you what I read yesterday,” said Flora.
“And that would be . . . ?” Kuno asked, suppressing a sigh. He glanced toward the stairs as if he could hardly wait to get into bed.
Flora took a deep breath—now or never! “It’s about the language of flowers. Did you know that in the past, especially in Paris, florists gave their customers small booklets with their bouquets, explaining something of the symbolism of the flowers? They did it to avoid misunderstandings. Wouldn’t that be something we could do, too?”
Kuno grimaced. “Are you starting with that again? Honestly, I don’t understand what you see in that old stuff. You’re so progressive otherwise.”
“Romantic sentiments are not ‘old stuff,’” Flora said vehemently.
Kuno waved off her objection. “Call it what you like, but don’t start bringing all of that”—he flailed one hand in the direction of Flora’s books—“into the shop. We want to sell flowers, and that’s all. Our customers have no interest in Goethe and Balzac and all the rest! And you already know what I think of the language of flowers.”
“Yes, but . . .” Flora looked plaintively toward Friedrich, but he only shrugged and said, “Not everyone is as thirsty for knowledge as you are.”
“If we start making the symbolism and the little stories known, we’ll set ourselves apart from the others. Maybe, with the language of flowers, we’ll be able to bring in some new customers in the coming season. Maison Kuttner—”
“Enough!” Kuno interrupted her, his expression suddenly stern. “I’ll say it one last time: I don’t want to hear another word about it. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about. All the invoices, the housekeeping money, taxes, heating, etcetera, etcetera—those are things to worry about. And you come to me with all that fanciful stuff.” He glared at Flora.
“But—” Flora wanted to say that if business were better, all those worries would fall by the wayside, but Kuno cut her off again.
“No buts. And now, good night.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Kuno Sonnenschein went to sleep that night for the last time, and for all time.
Ernestine’s scream the following morning rang through the hallway, and it was not long before all the residents of the house had gathered at Kuno’s bedside. Bewilderment, horror, disbelief. Ernestine shook her husband’s lifeless arm, telling him not to make such undignified jokes. Flora promised that she would never, ever mention the language of flowers around him again if he would please, please wake up.
Only when the doctor that Friedrich sent for confirmed the death of the master of the house—heart failure, nothing unusual in men of Kuno’s age, sadly—did the terrible truth begin to seep into the consciousness of the family.
In the days that followed, the bell over the shop door did not stop ringing. Else Walbusch, Gretel Grün, and many other neighbors came to express their condolences.
Flora’s hands trembled as she tied the wreath for Kuno’s funeral. The winter sun gleamed through the window, its rays falling directly onto the counter where Flora worked. For a moment that went on uncannily long, it seemed to Flora that Kuno was watching her from heaven as she worked. Just as he taught her to do, she checked that every little twig was cleanly tied to the one beside it.
She was in the process of attaching a bouquet of white roses to the wreath when the mailman arrived with the latest issue of Die Gartenlaube. The moment the mailman was gone, Flora broke down sobbing. Kuno would never know what became of the prisoner in his beloved serial.
Sabine stared at the mountain of potatoes she still had to peel. Potatoes for lunch, potatoes for dinner . . . if it went on like this, she’d have potatoes growing out of her ears. But better that than nothing to eat at all. She sighed deeply. As she picked up her knife again, a shadow appeared in the doorway.
“Flora!” A sudden jolt ran through Sabine. Good gracious, was it so late already? She hadn’t even put on the potatoes to boil.
“I closed up early,” said Flora, dropping onto one of the chairs. “There aren’t any customers anyway.”
Sabine gazed at the potatoes. Another one of those days . . .
In the time following Kuno’s death, Flora had felt that the reticence of his old customers was a sign of piety. But now three weeks had passed and still no one came.
“No customers, no income, it’s that simple. And I don’t have any more money to buy flowers.” Flora sighed. “When the first flowers start to bloom, which won’t be all that long now, then I’ll probably have no choice but to sign on at Flumm. I might as well close up the shop now and look for work as a maid somewhere.”