As if she had only just noticed him, Flora turned to Friedrich. “He’s a good customer. Didn’t you see the enormous bouquet of daffodils he bought for the princess?” Her eyes were shining, and her cheeks were as red as if she’d just been out for a brisk walk in the fresh March air. My wife is so beautiful, Friedrich suddenly thought.
Then he screwed up his nose again. “In the past, someone like him would have been called un gigolo. Letting an old, sick woman keep him . . .” A small porcelain butterfly sitting on the edge of the counter caught his eye. “What’s that?”
“Konstantin Sokerov gave it to me as a mark of gratitude . . . because the bouquets I tie for him are always so beautiful.”
“A mark of gratitude, uh-huh . . .” Friedrich found the gift excessive. But what did he care about the man? “I’m on my way to the station and came in to say adieu—”
Flora threw herself so unexpectedly at his chest that he had to stagger back a step.
“Flora!”
“Why can’t I come with you? We haven’t been away together anywhere since our wedding in G?nningen. I’m sure I would like Bad Ems. And it would be wonderful if we finally had some time alone together again. Just you and me—”
“What do you mean? With my schedule, I wouldn’t have any time for you at all.”
“But we’d still have the evenings. We could go out for dinner and . . .” She shrugged helplessly. “I just feel that it isn’t good if you go away, and I’m left behind all alone. Just the thought of it almost scares me.”
“Oh, Flora.” He released himself gently from her embrace. “I would like nothing more than to have you at my side. But what about Alexander? And the shop? Is Mother supposed to look after everything by herself? She would not manage that.”
Friedrich sighed and took out his pocket watch. He was late. The train would leave in just under an hour. He also had to make sure that he got his visit to Bad Ems over with as quickly as possible—the Baden-Baden season would open again in just a few weeks. He had mud and water samples to deliver and results to wait for, but he did not expect to learn anything particularly new on his trip to Bad Ems, unlike the bigwigs in the Spa and Bath Administration. He was certainly interested in the inhalation regime that had been introduced in Bad Ems some twenty years earlier. At least there the people had not set everything on the casino and had promoted the region’s curative advantages far earlier.
“It’s only for a week,” Flora pleaded. “We can just take Alexander along with us. I’d be so happy to see something new for a change. For inspiration . . .”
Friedrich put his watch away in his pocket, took out his train ticket, and glanced absently at it. “You’re talking as if I am off on a pleasure cruise,” he said.
Flora turned away from him. “Your objections are justified, I know,” she said softly. “But how many times have you told me that I can’t think of anything but the shop? Now here I am thinking about both of us, and that doesn’t suit you, either. I just think a little time together would do us both good.”
“Yes. No.” Friedrich gave an agonized sigh. “If you’d said all this earlier, we might have been able to think about it, but like this?” He saw Flora’s disappointment and felt a silent anger rise inside him. He had come to get a kiss goodbye and good wishes for his journey. Instead, he now felt queasy about going at all. “Why are you making it so hard for me?” he blurted. “Can’t you be content with what you have for once? Can’t you just be a . . . a normal, everyday woman, and not always looking for whatever comes next?”
Flora stepped away sharply, as if he had slapped her.
Friedrich wanted to take back his words instantly, to find appeasing words to make up for the hurt he’d caused. He did not want their farewell to end on a discordant note, not like this. But nothing came to him.
The watch in his pocket ticked.
“Adieu,” he finally said, and left.
“Püppi was overjoyed at the daffodils. She even recited a poem by a German poet—Goethe, I think,” Konstantin said to Flora as they strode along Lichtenthaler Allee in the damp, misty morning air.
Then his companion, in a dramatic voice, began to recite:
Thus the early sprung narcissi,
Bloom in trim rows in the garden
Well may one imagine that they
Know for whom they wait so smartly.
“That’s exactly the poem! Where do you know that from?” As they walked, Konstantin took a bundle of twigs from her. They were not blooming like the other bundle that Flora carried, but their leaves had a silvery sheen. With his free hand, he wiped away the droplets of morning dew.
The bundle soon grew heavy in his arms. What did Flora want with all the greenery? And what was he thinking, coming out with her on one of her early-morning wanderings? She was a pretty thing, admittedly, and there was something in her passion for flowers that he found entertaining. And her admiration of him felt good. In the last few weeks, he had caught himself often imagining her as his lover. Just once to trace the lines of her slender neck with his finger, to feel her young, tender skin beneath his, to probe beneath the many layers of fabric of her skirt for the most feminine part of her body . . . maybe then he would better ride out the times with Püppi. My God, a little pleasure ought to be granted to him!
His train of thought was abruptly interrupted as he stepped in a puddle with his right foot. Damn it! Hadn’t he promised himself to stay away from married women? What was he doing out here at the crack of dawn?
Flora beamed at him. “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Every child in Germany learns his poems.” She scratched her nose. “There’s another verse, something about lilies, but I’ve forgotten how it goes, I’m sorry.” With her hand holding her gardening shears already reaching out toward a blooming almond tree, she paused. “How nice to hear that the princess liked them. Some people would be a little put out, because in the language of flowers, the daffodil, or narcissus, stands for self-centeredness.”
Konstantin waved it off. “I sometimes wonder how much of any of it she really understands. She lives almost entirely in the past these days. Flora, if it weren’t for you, I think I would already have gone mad.” He realized as he said it that it was no glib compliment, but the truth, and the thought frightened him. He hoped he was not falling in love with the girl. It could not just be physical desire that kept him going back to her shop, because their meetings with one another were invariably demure. And in that respect, he was not suffering much. He was almost always able to find a chambermaid somewhere who was willing to give herself to him in a dark corner.
“I do wonder what could be so exciting about a stroll through wet fields, but if I can keep your boredom at bay for a while like this, then I’m happy.” She laid a second bundle of blooming branches in his arms, then put the shears away and crouched down.
“It’s strange, somehow,” she murmured to herself. “Wherever there are cowslips, cuckooflowers are not far away. But daisies are usually to be found in the company of violets and forget-me-nots. White, purple, and that beautiful blue . . . everything in nature grows in complete harmony.” She straightened up with her head tilted to one side and one hand shielding her eyes from the morning sun. As they walked on, she looked at Konstantin. “And then I come along and mess everything up.”
Konstantin shook his head vehemently. “That isn’t true. Your bouquets show a wonderful harmony themselves.”
Instead of responding to his compliment, she cleared her throat. “Konstantin, what I wanted to say to you . . . I look forward to you coming to the flower shop, truly, every time. But you can’t come out picking flowers with me again. And you can’t give me anything else. I know you only mean well, but I’m a married woman, and the people around here love to work things out for themselves. Do you understand?”