“Before you start, make sure you have everything you need for the job at hand. The flowers, the greenery, various scissors, raffia for tying. Once you’ve started a bouquet, you won’t want to put it down just because you can’t find the scissors you need or because the binding wire is still in the drawer.” As he spoke, he began placing flowers together.
“A bouquet has to look attractive from every side. And it is important to make sure everything is bound tightly—so better a little more greenery than too little. You start with one flower in the center, you see. Like this. And then you work around it in a circle. Of course, you have to think ahead about how you want to arrange the flowers within the bouquet.”
Enthralled, Flora watched as Kuno combined a variety of flowers and greenery into a perfectly formed bouquet. It certainly looked different from her impulsively picked and assembled bunches.
“Is that bouquet meant for a particular customer?”
“Well, it could be given to someone on their birthday, but it could as easily grace a dinner table for a fine meal. It would be just as good for a young woman as for a more mature lady. Of course, there are special occasions for which a hand-tied bouquet like this really is not what you want. When . . .” Kuno furrowed his brow, as if he was having trouble thinking of a suitable example. “When a man, for example, wants to give flowers to an actress at the theater. After the show, you know? The good lady would not want to be hidden away behind a ball of flowers, of course. She’d much rather use the flowers to complement her own allure! For that, I would tie a sheaf bouquet, which can be carried over the arm.” He plucked a handful of carnations from a bucket and began to arrange them over each other in a staggered pattern. Then he trimmed off the overlong stems and laid the bouquet across the crook of Flora’s arm.
Flora tried to catch her reflection in the window. “It’s amazing. The effect is completely different, isn’t it?”
Kuno nodded appreciatively. “That’s the art of it. You must look at the flowers you have and see what you can do with them and what not. With carnations, you have quite a few options, but with long-stemmed flowers like roses or lilies, for example, you can’t tie them into a perfectly round bouquet. At least, not without using thirty or forty blooms. And who has the money to pay for that?” Kuno stepped in front of the counter and held his hands out toward the buckets. “Flowers for us are like fabric for a seamstress. A seamstress would not even consider sewing a headscarf out of heavy velvet, right? She’d probably choose a light linen.”
Flora beamed at her teacher. Thank you, Mama, Papa. Thank you for letting me come here!
But her smile quickly gave way to horror when Kuno untied the raffia around his bouquet. The flowers and greenery dropped onto the counter, and one of the carnations snapped off at the top of its stem. Why was he destroying his creation?
Kuno pointed to the tangle of flowers on the workbench.
“Your turn. We want your future floristry masters in Reutlingen to be happy with your work, don’t we?”
Chapter Eleven
The training for the day was over by ten in the morning—and Kuno was already at the end of his strength. When Flora’s bouquet looked almost identical to his own, an achievement that seemed to take him by surprise, he opened a newspaper and told Flora to look around the shop and learn where everything was. Flora had not even opened the first drawer when Kuno was racked by an attack of coughing.
“A glass of water,” he gurgled, “and I’ll be fine.” His face had turned as red as fire.
Flora held out the requested glass of water to him, but all Kuno could do was hold on to the counter tightly. His knuckles were white with the strain.
“Mr. Sonnenschein? What’s the matter?” Flora frantically opened the front door and used the newspaper to fan some fresh air over him, but he seemed to be getting worse by the second.
Flora supported him under both arms and pulled him onto a chair.
“I’m coming right back!” she cried, and she ran through the doorway that led into the hallway.
Mrs. Sonnenschein. Or Sabine. They would know what to do. Or should she send for a doctor right away?
In the hallway, she spotted a shadow on the stair landing. “Mrs. Sonnenschein, your husband! He . . . he can’t breathe—” In her excitement, Flora began to cough herself.
Drawn by Flora’s cries, Sabine now appeared at the kitchen door. “It’s probably just the muggy weather,” she said.
“The weather, yes,” said Ernestine, too. “I’m feeling rather queasy myself. Sabine, could you . . . ?
Sabine wiped her hands on a small towel and sighed. “Let’s get the master into the house. Flora, can you give me a hand?”
“Strange, he’s never had a coughing fit like that before,” said Sabine after they had gotten Kuno to the chaise longue in the front room. Small beads of sweat had dotted his brow, and he was as pale as death, but after a while the coughing stopped and his breath came more easily.
“Don’t you think we should go and get his son, just in case?” Flora asked uncertainly.
Sabine laughed at the idea. “The young master would just love it if I went and dragged him out of the Trinkhalle every time his father felt ill. No. I just have to keep an eye on Mr. Sonnenschein, that’s all there is to it.”
She twisted her mouth to one side. “Go now. If that ‘We’ll Be Right Back’ sign hangs on the door permanently, even our last customers will abandon us.”
Flora had not been in the house more than ten minutes altogether, but in all the excitement she had forgotten to close the front door of the shop. When she returned, she was shocked to see two women leaning over the flower buckets in front of the counter. One of them lifted out a large bunch of roses.
“Finally! We were starting to think we’d have to help ourselves,” said the woman with the roses. “I’d like these.” She held the flowers up to Flora.
“Certainly, madam.” Flora hurried behind the counter, opening all the drawers as she went. Was there paper somewhere for wrapping? What did a bunch of roses like that even cost? Where was the money kept? Help! Why did Kuno have to come down ill today of all days, on her very first day?
Flora wrapped the roses in pages from Kuno’s newspaper, then named a price that was clearly far too low, because the woman said, “Then I’ll take twice as many.”
Flora gave her a pained smile.
“You must be the new apprentice, right? From Württemberg? Where is Kuno?”
“Uh, yes. I’m Flora. The master is—” She abruptly stopped herself. What business was it of this nosy woman what was going on with Mr. Sonnenschein?
“I’ll add a little greenery to the bunch, if you like,” she said, and she quickly trimmed off two of the stems of the fragrant plants she had picked that morning. That seemed to please the woman.
“Maybe I can get served sometime today, too?” the other woman said impatiently. “I need flowers for a birthday. Goodness, it takes forever here.”
With a hint of a curtsy, Flora smiled at the second woman. “I’ll be with you in just a moment.”
An hour later, Flora had served four women, and to each of them she had given one of the aromatic stems.
“It’s rare to be given anything, just like that. Normally, all you get for nothing is sorrow and pain,” one woman had murmured. She had bought a single tulip, and Flora watched as her fingers, red and chapped like those of a washerwoman, stroked the petals tenderly. She had to dig in her purse for a long time to find the few kreuzer to pay for it. “I really can’t afford luxuries like flowers anymore. But when I look at the tulips, they make me think of my Berthold. He loved them very much . . .”
Flora had then pressed a few forget-me-nots into the woman’s hand as well. “These flowers mean that someone will carry you in their heart always,” she said, and the woman smiled.
Not all the customers were so poor, but with one or two others, Flora had wondered if anything besides the flower or two they bought would find its way to the table. Flora sighed.