by Eric Flint
Gary Lambert was finding a lot of reasons to go back and forth to Weimar these days.
The staff at Leahy Medical Center extended its indulgence to its business manager. Beulah had clued them in. There was a general consensus that if anyone deserved a few rays of sunshine in his existence, it was Gary.
So he was talking to Friedrich Hortleder. And his wife. And his daughter. About the problems of his friend Jonas, whom Hortleder had met at Dean Gerhard's dinner.
"So, I thought," he said a little hesitantly. "They haven't hired anyone for the job yet. It's the kind of thing he would be really good at. It would pay enough that he could marry Ronella. And since you were their tutor, maybe Duke Ernst would pay attention to a letter of recommendation from you?"
Hortleder considered.
"I believe," he said, "that I should know more of the situation before writing Duke Ernst. Not that I doubt your assessment of the situation. But, perhaps, I should come to Grantville for a week or two. Observe Muselius for myself, beyond what one can learn at a dinner party. Meet the young woman and her family. Talk to Pastor Kastenmayer in more detail."
He looked briefly at his wife and daughter. "Bring my family with me, so that I may also benefit from their assessments."
Anna Catharina jumped up, yelled "Papa" at the top of her lungs, and hugged him.
Hortleder continued to speak with undisturbed solemnity. "In the meantime, I will write Duke Ernst only to the effect that I have identified a suitable candidate for the position of administrator of the new normal school and beg him to make no other appointment until he hears from me again. In fact, I will request you to send a radio message to him from me. A message to that effect."
Grantville, October, 1634
Salome Piscatora was extremely indignant at the pamphlet that arrived in the mail. It came out of Saxony. It portrayed her in a set of divided skirts in a style she had certainly never worn.
Never would have worn.
Abominable thing. Salacious.
The pamphlet said awful things about Ludwig, who had gone to Rudolstadt today to meet with the consistorial court. Things going all the way back to before he had transferred from Saxony to Ohrdruf in Gleichen. Long before he had come to Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. Whoever wrote it must have connections in Saxony.
Then it said things which accused him of misinterpreting the scriptures in regard to Deuteronomy 22:5.
She looked at it, sputtering.
Stood up. Sat down. Realized that the baby was coming.
St. Martin's in the Fields parsonage had not yet been equipped with a telephone.
Jonas had one installed in the school, though.
Carefully, she crossed the courtyard to the school.
"It's not right," she said to Maria Blandina. "I've had enough children to know. It isn't coming right. There's something wrong."
Jonas called for an ambulance and put the older children on the honor system until he returned.
The pastor's wife had expected to be delivered at home by a midwife, of course. But it was clear that there would not be time.
It was also clear, Jonas thought, that there was nothing an ordinary midwife would be able to do to help her.
* * *
"So you see," Ludwig Kastenmayer said to Friedrich Hortleder, "I was wrong. I refused to pay for a 'telephone' with parish funds. I thought it was a frivolity. We had lived without one for all of our lives, so why should we need one now?
"Jonas paid for it himself. For emergencies, he said. Without it, I would have lost both Salome and the child. Three physicians were called to assist. One revived the child. 'Resuscitation' they call it. The other two performed surgery.
"I don't know what I would do without Salome. I have come to rely on her so much, in every way. We are naming the baby 'Jonas Justinus,' of course. I will hate to lose him if the up-timers find him a different job. He is a wonderful teacher."
Hortleder nodded. He sent a follow-up letter of recommendation to Duke Ernst that evening. One considerably warmer than the first, which he had mailed as a courtesy to Gary.
* * *
Ronella Koch stood on her toes, trying to peek over Gary's shoulder into the hospital nursery.
Gary didn't move out of the way. If he had moved, Ronella would have had no reason to grab onto Jonas' good arm to help her stay balanced on her toes. There were all sorts of ways to be a friend.
She got a good look at the baby. Her fingers tightened on Jonas' arm, so hard that he flinched and stepped forward even with Gary, bringing her with him. She sank back down on her heels, looking at Gary.
"Yeah," he said. "We revived him, of course. That's what we do with babies who can live. Whether they'll thank us for it in the long run is another question. But that's what we do."
Maria Blandina, standing on the other side of Jonas, was frowning. "Papa has baptized other such infants," she said. "They do not often live long. That is in the hands of God. At least my stepmother did not die. Papa would have missed her very much."
The Hortleders had let Anna Catharina come with Gary to see the baby and then go to a student concert at the high school on condition that the two of them remained with Jonas, Ronella, and Maria Blandina. Carol Koch had bribed Herr Hortleder the historian to permit this excursion with the promise of an exclusive interview concerning her perspective on the Rudolstadt Colloquy.
Anna Catharina was frowning in turn. "What is wrong?" she asked Gary.
The group adjourned to one of Leahy's many cubicles to discuss Down's Syndrome.
* * *
Jonas thought that he ought to excuse himself from the remainder of the evening in order to be available to assist Pastor Kastenmayer and his wife if he was needed. At least, that was what he said. In fact, he found proximity to Ronella increasingly uncomfortable.
"You can't," Gary said firmly. "You can't just duck out on the rest of the evening, because having you here was one reason the Hortleders let Anna Catharina come with us." He managed to make it Jonas' duty to remain. Jonas had a strong sense of duty. Unfortunately, the only way Gary could think of to persuade him that he had a duty to marry Ronella—wouldn't work. Not given his conscientious avoidance of proximity.
Jonas was going to be as proximate to Ronella as Gary and Maria Blandina could maneuver him all evening. No having Ronella on one end, the other three of them in the center, and Jonas on the far end. Which he would try to manage if nobody watched him carefully.
"Conspirators 'R' Us," Gary had said to Anna Catharina. Then he had to explain the context. It had taken quite a while, but neither of them minded. She said that she was quite willing to help with the maneuvers.
Grantville, November, 1634
Ron Koch was feeling acutely uncomfortable.
Not that Pastor Kastenmayer didn't understand the problem.
"What Jonas needs, if this is to occur," Ludwig Kastenmayer said, "is a better job. Not that I wouldn't hate to lose him at the school here. He is an excellent teacher. But the fact is, he is in no position to support your daughter. He's perfectly right about that. He would have been an acceptable match for Maria Blandina, since she is used to being just as poor as he is. But . . ."
"I was afraid of something of the sort."
"He left his studies at Jena after two years to take the job teaching at Quittelsdorf because he was out of money. If he should return to the university now, it would be at least five years before he would be in a position to marry," Pastor Kastenmayer continued. "Even if he received a plum job offer immediately upon completing his degree. There is no family to provide him with a subsidy. Consider the proverb 'poor as church mice' and apply it to his case."
"Should we factor in that Ronella would be perfectly willing to wait?" Ron asked. "Not happy, but willing. She has a bad case of wanting to marry Jonas and no other."
Pastor Kastenmayer fingered his goatee.
"The other possibility might be for Grantville or the State of Thuringia-Franconia to hire him in some sort of an
administrative capacity. Someone such as Herr Adducci. Or, perhaps, Herr Chehab in the Department of the Interior. Many of your leaders do not have university degrees. Jonas is very capable. He would make an excellent chief of staff or personal assistant. He would be a loss to our school, of course. A great loss. He is an excellent teacher. A truly outstanding teacher. And because of his friendship with Gary Lambert, he has learned more about working with you up-timers, perhaps, than anyone else among us."
"What the USE doesn't need right now," Ron Koch said, "is to lose any more of its good teachers."
* * *
"Daddy," Ronella asked. "Have you talked to Jonas?"
"Ah," Ron Koch said. "Well, I've talked to Pastor Kastenmayer. We're trying another tactic. Trying to find Jonas a job that pays more. I'll talk to the SoTF personnel office to see what they have for openings. Your mother is going to talk to Count Ludwig Guenther about a scholarship so he can finish his degree and get a job that pays more later on. If he has that, maybe he'll, ah, take care of the rest of the project himself."
"You really don't want to talk to him about it for me, do you?"
"Honestly," her father said. "Not one little bit."
"If you don't do something pretty soon . . ." she wailed. "Daddy, you're just going to have to adapt."
"What still bothers me," Carol said afterwards, "is that we don't really know whether or not he wants to marry her. Noble renunciation doesn't usually last this long. Maybe he's just not interested."
"According to Gary, he's interested," Ron said.
"Well, that's a relief."
"It's a relief, but it doesn't seem to simplify matters any. The general consensus among the sensible and pragmatic members of down-time society seems to be that he can't even afford to court her, much less marry her."
* * *
Friedrich Hortleder was finding more reasons to travel to Grantville to consult with other members of the administration of the State of Thuringia-Franconia these days. Frequently, he brought his family.
"I'll show you the outside of the 'trailer' where Gary lives," Pastor Kastenmayer said to him. "I've gotten to know quite a few of the people who live in this 'trailer court' now. More and more of the 'units' are occupied by Germans. It is not by any means a fine house, but what more does a bachelor need? I feel sure that he is in a position to afford better now, should he chose to marry again."
"I," Hortleder's wife said, "would much appreciate seeing this 'small electric organ' that he is said to own. Can you arrange for me to view it? I have trouble visualizing the concept."
They were not surprised when Gary invited them to dinner.
They were very surprised that he cooked it.
"I've gotten better at it," he said cheerfully. "When you have to eat your own cooking, you either get better at it or get indigestion. I eat at the hospital cafeteria sometimes, especially breakfast. Or pick up some carry-out, if I'm in a hurry. But most of the time, I cook."
After dinner, Gary and Hortleder dived into the contents of Gary's grandfather's footlocker. Where Hortleder discovered many things of interest.
"You're welcome to come and look again any time," Gary said. "I'm glad I've found someone who really appreciates the stuff. Now if you look at this . . ." He picked up a red book. "It's the Concordance to the Lutheran Hymnal. It doesn't just have the words in both the original language and the English translation, but also short biographies of the composers and lyricists."
Hortleder thumbed through. Biographies of composers now well known. And . . . those of boys now young children. Giving, frequently, their birth places and the names of their parents. Boys whose careers could be furthered, whose development could be enhanced by scholarships or appointments to cathedral choirs . . . Through the patronage of the dukes of Saxe-Weimar . . . Who could thus continue to be of great importance in the duchy that the up-timers had slid out from under them on his own watch, while they were away.
"Could I borrow this?" he asked.
"Sure," Gary said. "I hardly ever use it. It's not the kind of thing the state library has any need for, either."
Amberg, Upper Palatinate, December, 1634
"Because it appeals to my sense of humor," Duke Ernst said to his secretary. "A Christmas present for him."
"One for me, too, Your Grace," Johann Heinrich Boecler said. "Doing another full-time job has not been fun. When?"
"After the end of the school year, I'm afraid. In the spring."
"Better than never. What does Mrs. Simpson think of the decision?"
"She doesn't know him, but she doesn't object. Moreover, since I'm paying his salary, it is my decision."
Duke Ernst had a firm grasp on the reality of patronage. Namely that the person who controlled the purse strings controlled the project, no matter how courteously.
"I will employ this Muselius and I will notify him by radio. Making sure that the full package of paperwork is there in advance, of course."
Jena, December, 1634
Dean Gerhard and his wife invited Gary Lambert to Jena for Christmas. Gary accepted. It provided him with a graceful excuse to avoid the issue of taking communion at St. Martin's in the fields. Pastor Kastenmayer was, basically, of the Philippist persuasion.
It would also be nice that the Hortleders were permitting Anna Catharina to visit the Gerhards over the holidays.
Very nice, really.
Grantville, December, 1634
"Why now?" Jonas asked wearily. The last thing that he needed on the late afternoon of Christmas Eve, the day when he would need to direct the children's play in the evening, was a summons to the Department of International Affairs to receive a radio message. "Can't someone just transcribe it and send it out here?"
Maria Blandina's eighty, more or less, first and second graders were singing loudly. Not melodically, but loudly.
Errol Mercer had introduced some new melodies for them. Jonas had written more theologically suitable lyrics. "A host of heaven'ly angels" now stood in for "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer." Combined with the traditional "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her" every child would get to sing a solo line.
That was important to the parents of the littlest ones.
For the older children, of course, the program was more ambitious. A pageant for the third and fourth graders. They were setting that up in the courtyard. It was very convenient for a director that heavenly angels appeared in hosts. It gave a person something to do with the children whose voices did not carry well outdoors.
Then his own upper grades.
He was grateful that Ronella had offered to help with the program.
He really was.
It was kind of her. Especially on top of her own heavy teaching obligations. He kept assuring himself that she was doing this out of kindness.
If it only hadn't caused her to be right here in his classroom so much of the time after school for the past two weeks. So visibly, physically, present.
Right here and right now, she was waving the telephone receiver at him. "You can come and talk to them yourself. They want you there when the 'radio window' opens up."
He stood up. "I'll go."
"Catch the trolley both ways," she said. "It's faster. That's an idea. I'll get Daddy to add some money into our special Christmas contribution to cover trolley fares for the Countess Kate staff when they need to go downtown or to Rudolstadt. I'll run the kids through one more rehearsal for you."
Jonas winced. Special contribution. Casually add enough money to cover a year of carfares for the staff. One more reminder of how far she was beyond his reach.
But he took the trolley.
"God damn and blast," Ronella muttered under her breath. She couldn't seem to spend an hour with Jonas without saying something that rolled back against her.
* * *
Jonas looked disbelievingly at the radio message as it came in from Amberg.
It had to be a joke.
But it wasn't. The final line was a statement that the paperwor
k was in Herr Jenkins' office and he should pick it up before he returned to the school. Reply requested within one week.
He went into Wes Jenkins' office. Consular Affairs. The packet was there.
He put it in his apartment when he got back to the school and turned his attention to last minute rehearsals.
Maria Blandina and the ladies of the congregation were feeding the children supper here. It just took too long for them to go home from rehearsals and return again for the evening. St. Martin's in the Fields parish covered too large a geographical area for comfort. Not like a village church nestled snugly in the middle of the houses, or a town church drawing parishioners from one district of the city or one suburb outside the walls.
