“Now that there’s no more casino, the Trinkhalle falls under the auspices of the Spa and Bath Administration, which makes them my employer now.”
“Flora mentioned that there were a lot of changes happening in Baden-Baden right now. Just yesterday, on the way to Flumm’s Nursery, I passed a large construction site. What are they building out there?”
The sparkling wine tickled Hannah’s tongue. She leaned back luxuriously in her armchair and looked expectantly at her son-in-law.
“You must mean the Friedrichsbad. They say it’s going to be quite grand when it’s finished. The site you’re talking about is exactly where the Romans once had their thermal baths, and the old Trinkhalle used to be there, too. Fascinating, isn’t it?”
“So they’re naming a bathhouse after you!” said Hannah.
“Now that would be something, wouldn’t it?” said Ernestine. “With all the hard work he’s done, he deserves it. But the bathhouse is to honor Grand Duke Friedrich.”
“A magnificent thermal bath. That will really be a dream come true for Baden-Baden.” Friedrich took a deep breath and straightened up in his seat. “There’s something else that’s rather exciting: in March, I will be taking water and mud samples to Bad Ems, to the best chemists in the entire empire for a detailed analysis. Me, personally!”
A courier’s job, then. Hannah did her best to look impressed. “Well, you’ve always had an interest in the curative waters, haven’t you?”
“I feel deeply honored to have been asked. On the other hand, I don’t have much travel experience at all. I’ll probably end up on the wrong train.” Friedrich had meant it as a joke, but there was a degree of uncertainty in his voice.
“My poor boy. The things they burden you with,” said Ernestine, crumpling the handkerchief in distress.
“My goodness, it’s not as if Friedrich is off to Tierra del Fuego! Everyone in the German Empire can speak the German language, so . . .” Flora shrugged as if to say, Why all the fuss?
Hannah cleared her throat. “We G?nningers are used to traveling, but I can imagine that it’s a fearsome prospect for other people,” she said to Flora. Turning to Friedrich, she added, “You’ll manage it just fine. There is a reason that they have chosen you for this important task.” It was really Flora’s job to bolster her husband ahead of a journey like that, Hannah thought. Still, her words seemed to have an effect.
More confidently, Friedrich said, “Our waters here were tested many years ago, but the science has advanced, and we are hoping for more precise results from the new tests. And then there’s the mud. I am convinced that it can be extremely beneficial for treating the sick. In the war, they used it to treat wounded soldiers, and it did them good. All that’s missing is the scientific proof.”
“There you are, Mother,” said Flora. “Around here, the main subject is water, water, water. My husband can’t think of anything else, although I prefer a glass of wine or champagne myself.” Flora laughed, but Hannah clearly heard the tinge of criticism.
Friedrich looked across at his wife. “You and your rude remarks. These are serious matters. When we have people coming to Baden-Baden for the spas instead of the casino, then the shop will benefit, too.” His eyes gleamed fervidly. He slid forward to the edge of his chair. “The changes we are going through in Baden-Baden are naturally making a lot of people anxious. Some hoteliers are even considering closing their doors, but if you ask me, that would be utterly the wrong thing to do.”
Flora yawned.
Hannah looked from Flora to Friedrich to Ernestine and back. The Sonnenscheins made a strange family. None of them seemed to have much interest in the others at all. Friedrich had no head for Flora’s love of flowers, and she did not understand his fascination with medicinal waters and belittled him for his interests and his fear of traveling. With her crumpled handkerchief, Ernestine stood somewhere in between.
Flora and Friedrich, because of their enthusiasm for their own work, seemed to have lost sight of each other.
In Hannah’s mind appeared an image of two floating logs, drifting side by side in a swift current—that was how she saw Friedrich and Flora in that moment. With no log driver to make sure they did not drift too far apart . . .
Chapter Forty-Three
“If Candlemas be fair and bright, winter has another flight. If Candlemas brings snow and rain, winter will not come again.” Flora turned around to her mother. “Isn’t that how the old rhyme goes?”
It was February 2, and although it had been snowing since the evening before, Flora and Hannah had paid Kuno’s grave a visit that morning, the anniversary of his death, and were on their way back to the shop. They had left an arrangement of fir sprigs for him. Ernestine wanted to wait until Friedrich was free in the afternoon before going out herself, hoping the weather would improve.
“Let’s hope that old rhyme holds—you wouldn’t wish this weather on a dog. I’ll tell you this much: if Sabine hasn’t got the fire going in the stove in the shop, I’m going straight back to the house. I can stand and watch you decorate a window display another time,” said Hannah grumpily.
Flora laughed. “I never knew you to be so lily-livered, Mama. Whoops, I almost fell!” She latched on to her mother and held tight. It was certainly for the best that she had left Alexander with Sabine. The thought of slipping on the ice and falling with her Alexander, her one-and-only, in her arms . . .
In the iron stove in the shop, however, a crackling fire welcomed them. Sabine, who had looked after the shop and Alexander well, disappeared to the kitchen to make tea.
“The windows are completely fogged up again,” said Flora. Still wearing her coat, she wiped briskly at the glass to clear it.
“Why go to the trouble? No one’s going to be out on a day like today to look at your decorations anyway,” said Hannah. “Maybe it would be better to shovel the snow off the footpath. If you’ve got a snow shovel here, I could—”
“Forget it. You sit in here with Alexander, and when Sabine comes back with the tea, you can make yourself as comfortable as you like,” Flora said, interrupting her mother. As far as she was concerned, her mother already did far too much. In the end, they’d say that Flora would never have been able to stay on top of things by herself! Now that Hannah had visited all Baden-Baden’s gardeners and her order book was full, she could focus on spending time with her grandson, nothing else.
Hannah sighed. “You really won’t let anyone help you, child. Friedrich was right. You—”
Flora cut her off with a kiss to the cheek. “It is so lovely to have you here! If it were up to me, you could stay forever.”
“Well, I think your father would have something to say about—” Hannah broke off when a shrill cry sounded just outside the shop door. Flora dropped the rag she was using on the window and ran out.
“That certainly could have been worse! Take my arm . . . and if I may be so bold, dear lady, you are as light as a feather.”
Flora watched in disbelief as Konstantin Sokerov brushed snow from Gretel Grün’s rear. For a moment, she thought he was some illusion caused by the driving snow, but it really was him.
His hair was longer than it had been in autumn, and he was tan. He wore a black fur coat, the likes of which Flora had never seen before. It was probably the fashion abroad right now. And he looked good in it. Dashing, somehow.
Konstantin was back! And she had feared that she would never see him again.
What was he doing here in the middle of winter?
Still speechless with shock and joy, Flora finally held the door open for them.