The Woman Who Heard Color by Kelly Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

kitchen that morning that the old woman had passed.
     
     
    This was how it began, how Hanna worked herself into the intimacies of the Fleischmann household. After Frau Hirsch’s death, she became the personal maid to Frau Fleischmann. She was not in the least upset at giving up her role as assistant housekeeper, though at first she missed having time to study the paintings as she cleaned.
    On the days when Frau Fleischmann was feeling well, Hanna helped her dress for dinner. She tired easily, ate little, and often left before the meal was finished, particularly when they had guests.
    After dinner, as Hanna helped her prepare for bed, put away her evening gown, and combed through her long golden hair, the mistress told her stories—of those who had come that evening, their places in Munich society, the particular interest of each in the world of art. Sometimes she described the way in which her husband had made a sale on that particular evening. Hanna could see that she loved him dearly—for his kindness, for his skill, and for his ability to entertain, to make his guests comfortable, to put them in the mood to buy a valuable, terribly expensive painting, to convince them that a particular artist could change the world of art and carry them along as an investor to the top. Frau Fleischmann understood this was a business, though she also had a deep respect and love for the work of the artists themselves. And she knew them all, could describe in detail the specifics of their work. She lent Hanna books from her library that told about the art from the past, the classical sculpture of the Romans and Greeks, the lovely paintings from the Italian Renaissance, the Baroque art from Germany, Holland, and Spain.
    Hanna read to her from the latest novels, from books of philosophy and religion, from the fashion magazines that came from Paris. Frau Fleischmann said that when she was feeling better, they would go to Paris with Herr Fleischmann to shop and to visit the galleries, to see the current trends in the very active, everchanging world of art in France where artists were using colors and shapes in innovative ways.
    Frau Fleischmann was delicate and feminine, and yet there was a quality in her that was almost like a man. She took an interest in everything, asking Hanna to read from the newspaper each day, commenting on the political situation. Her interests were not those associated with the kitchen or household but those of the world, which she seemed to embrace even from her small world that was often confined to her bedroom.
    Her name was Helene, she told Hanna, after Helen of Troy in Greek mythology. The most beautiful woman in the world, the daughter of Zeus.
    According to the custom of the day among the wealthy, Frau Fleischmann had her own bedroom. Hanna didn’t know if Herr Fleischmann ever visited the boudoir other than to fetch his spouse and escort her down to dinner. Rumor was that Frau Fleischmann was too delicate for the activities and duties of a wife. There was also gossip that, on occasion, her husband visited the brothels, but Hanna could not imagine a gentleman as refined as Herr Fleischmann doing such a thing.
    When Hanna saw them together, sometimes sitting in the parlor after dinner, she could tell that he loved her. She could see by the way he looked into her eyes, by the softness of his touch when he placed his hand on her shoulder, on the small of her back when he walked her up the stairs, and then kissed her on the lips before she retired to her room, he to his. How did Hanna see all of this? Because she was always on hand to assist her mistress.
    Frau Fleischmann’s moods shifted from day to day. Sometimes she was delighted with the breakfast Hanna brought in on the tray, and she would talk and talk, about the trips she had taken with her husband during the early years of their marriage, how they had visited the art studios in Paris. She told Hanna that the great family wealth had come more from the