by Eric Flint
"Remind me again why we're here." Tina Marie was impatient.
"I don't want you to be unhappy if you go with me. My first wife was very attached to Wismar. It was her home town. So I left my household there, even though most of my work was in ports farther east and I was not able to return home as often as I would have preferred. You need to see how far you will be from your home."
"One inch. One piddling little inch from Grantville to Wismar if you measure it on this map." She snorted and turned the globe. "Look at this." She put her finger down. "That's Brownsville, Texas. This is just about where Grantville came from in West Virginia. That was four times as far. At least. That doesn't even count crossing the whole ocean and skipping over France for us to get here." Her fingernail traced a path. "What's Wismar like?"
Dietrich Zuehlke emitted a simultaneously hostile and wistful-sounding, "Flat."
Gary Lambert laughed.
"All these hills make me sick. Really sick. Your Doctor Adams said that the word is 'claustrophobic.' Not enough sky; not enough horizon; not enough room, not enough space, not enough flatness."
"Flat?" Tina Maria looked at the globe more closely. "Flat like Brownsville? With a river?"
Sartorius assured her that all the Baltic ports had in common that they were flat, with a river.
She stared at the globe for a minute. "I wonder sometimes if anyone left up-time ever gives me a thought any more.
"Your parents stayed in Texas?" That was Gary Lambert.
"I'd been in foster care a dozen years before I left Brownsville. Which doesn't mean that I don't miss the Rio Grande. Mom came around now and then until I was twelve or thirteen. Then she just sort of dwindled away. I didn't know whether she was still alive or not, even before the Ring of Fire. If she died, nobody told me. Maybe she just left town, looking for something better. Never did know my dad. Mom said that he smashed himself up in a car accident when I was just a baby. Well, drag racing, to tell the truth. He spent a long time in the hospital and then died. I've been gone from there a long time. Never kept in touch. Nobody to keep in touch with." She started singing softly:
Remember me when the candle lights are gleaming,
Remember me at the close of a long, long day.
It would be so sweet when all alone I'm dreaming
Just to know you still remember me.
"Well," she said. " None of the rest of you probably ever heard that old chestnut, anyway."
"I have," Gary Lambert answered, leaning his elbows back against the encyclopedia shelves. "It's a Bob Dylan song, isn't it?"
"He might have sung it, but it's way older than that. Probably ten years older than me, even. I learned it from a Willie Nelson record, I think. T. Texas Tyler sang it, too. I suppose the only person left up-time who might ever give me a thought is John Lafferty. Not that it's likely that he will." Kicking off her flip-flops, she started to waltz by herself in the small open space between the library entrance and the tables:
The sweetest songs belong to lovers in the gloaming,
The sweetest days are days that used to be.
The saddest words I ever heard were words of parting
When you said "Sweetheart, remember me."
You told me once that you were mine alone forever
And I was yours till the end of eternity.
But all those vows are broken now, and we will never
Be the same except in memory.
A brighter face may take my place when we're apart, dear,
A sweeter smile, a love more bold and free.
But in the end, fair weather friends may break your heart, dear.
If they do, sweetheart, remember me.
Remember me when the candle lights are gleaming,
Remember me at the close of a long, long day.
Just to be so sweet when all alone you're dreaming
Just to know you still remember me.
Tina Marie's dance slowed to an end. She rubbed her hands against the back pockets of her black denim jeans. "Scotty Wiseman wrote it, back when the National Barn Dance was broadcast out of WLS in Chicago." She straightened her shoulders. "Wash that all out in the laundry, will you, guys? Just forget about it. I'm really not one bit the sentimental type."
She turned back to the globe, Sartorius looking over her shoulder.
"The point is that Wismar's not that far away."
* * *
"It's a beautiful song," Jonas said to Gary Lambert and Ronella Koch that evening. "A little melancholic, but lovely." He looked rather wistfully at Ronella; then looked away. "I believe that I will translate it into German."
* * *
"They can't mean it." April was horrified. "They can't really mean for her to go off with him and leave us behind."
"Considering that they just told us so," Hans-Fritz said, "they probably mean it. Look, we're not that bad."
"But we've always been able to count on Mom."
"Don't be stupid," Dietrich said. "She's a totally unsuitable wife for my stepfather. It's absolutely shocking for her to plan to leave you here, sharing it with Hans-Fritz and me until Ronnie and his fiancee get married. We aren't even really related."
"If you don't like it, there's nothing to keep you from moving out."
"April, that's rude." Ronnie shook his head.
"Well, then, if he doesn't like it, then I can move out. Live with my boyfriend. Maybe he thinks that's less shocking."
"You don't have a boyfriend," Vance pointed out.
April shot a hostile glance at Dietrich. "If he pushes me, I'll find one. If I need to."
"Mom's not going right away." Carly looked at Anna. "That's right, isn't it?"
Anna nodded. "Not until some time in the spring."
"So we don't have to panic right away, do we?"
Ronnie hugged her. "We don't need to panic at all. Someone will think of something. If Mr. Know-It-All there would just stop sticking his oar into the water."
"If Grandma hadn't sold her house after Grandpa died," Garret said, "we could move in with her."
April's expression was sour. "You and Carly could. The odds that she would have me are zero percent."
"Well, she did sell her house," Hans-Fritz said. "So that's not one of the things that you need to worry about."
"Easy for you to say."
"Well. If nothing else works, I guess I could find somebody and get married myself. I'm the oldest, after all."
Carly stared at him. "But Hans-Fritz, you're not in love. You're not even dating."
"No. But I have a government job and live in a house with indoor plumbing. Trust me, Carly. In a pinch, I can put out word that I'm looking for a wife and have one in a month."
Garrett stared at him. "Would you really do that for us?"
"Hey, kids. I may not be as conscientious as Dietrich here, but I'm not all bad. I'm about the age I should be thinking of getting married. Lucas was good to us. If he needs a favor from me, I'm willing to pay him back."
* * *
"Yes. It is quite true. All that remains is to set a date for the wedding." Salome Piscatora nodded her head firmly.
"I can't believe that she's even thinking of marrying him." Mildred Baumgardner pointed at Lucas Sartorius with her fork. "Or that he's thinking of marrying her, for that matter. She's a horrible woman. An unfit mother. But if she takes off with this, this—this German, Garrett and Carly will have no mother at all."
"She isn't an unfit mother." Kitty Chaffin gestured with her cup. "She never was. She fed them. She kept them clean and sent them to school looking neat. She never once left them without a sitter. And you know that yourself. If it was otherwise, you'd have brought it up in court when you were trying to take them away from her."
"You. What do you think?" Mildred turned to look at Salome.
The heavily pregnant wife of the Lutheran minister took a sip of the boiled milk in her cup. "It is not my place to have an opinion. I do know that under the laws of the church, her first hus
band was left up-time and will be considered dead. Her divorce from the second husband is valid, since he both abandoned her—that is desertion—and committed adultery. Those are Biblical grounds. We do not have as many divorces now as you up-timers have, and only those two grounds exist. But Frau Hollister's divorce from your son, gracious lady, is valid under our laws."
Kitty wasn't ready to let go of Mildred's other allegation. "She's always kept a close eye on all her kids, and they've all turned out just fine. Ray and Ronnie are in the military. Doing well. Ray's still up north and Ronnie's been detailed to the Mechanical Support Division. Ray's married. Ronnie's dating Megan Collins, who is a real nice girl. Vance is military too—a radio operator up in Erfurt. April's out at the mine, apprenticing to be an electrician. They all got their high school diplomas. Garrett will graduate from high school next year and go into the military, too. Carly's grade are good. What more could anyone ask?"
"Custody of the kids," Mildred said. "Considering that they're the only grandchildren I have."
"You're in the assisted living center," Kitty pointed out. "Because of the walker and all. It took three of us to get you down to the café this morning. Salome and him and me. It was one thing back when Horace was alive, but how could you possibly take custody of those kids now?"
Sartorius listened to them talk, twisting his goatee.
* * *
"It won't be hot on the Baltic coast," Lucas Sartorius said. "Not in the way you describe this Brownsville. I'm afraid that you will find it cold. Cold and damp."
"You do have fireplaces, don't you?"
"Yes. But mostly they burn peat rather than wood or coal."
"Anna will go back with us. She says that in spite of all Grantville's attractions, she would rather be with you than with her half-brothers, 'given how stultifying they are.'" Tina Marie laughed. "That seems to be her favorite word right now."
"But not your daughters."
"April says that she can take care of herself."
"Can she?"
"Why not? She'll have my house to live in. Megan can move in too, once she and Ronnie get married. Vance and Garrett will be home most of the time. In a pinch, we could ask Ronnie and Megan to move up the wedding a few months. Have it before we leave. There's no reason they can't."
"So?"
"No matter what, she's staying to finish her apprenticeship. I sort of doubt that there are many jobs for electricians in Wismar anyway."
"Which leaves the question of whether Carly goes or stays."
Tina Marie bit her lip. "She stays. I want her to finish high school here."
"Can April take care of her? Does she have the time? Or the will?"
"I don't really want to risk that. April doesn't have the time. Or the patience."
"Her father?"
"Impossible."
"So?"
"If Dietrich tries to come all fatherly on her, she'll just fight it. Rebel. She wasn't even three when Zane left. She's never had a father telling her what to do and she's not used to it. I cry every time I try to think about leaving her behind."
"Perhaps there is a solution."
Tina Marie raised here eyebrows.
"Move the grandmother into the house with Carly and April. With them, plus the boys, plus Ronnie and Megan, she does not need an assisted living center to take care of her. They can easily carry her up and down the steps to the street. Shop for her."
"That means that Mildred wins, I guess."
"You are giving them up to go with me. Can you tell me honestly that you would not feel better to have their grandmother with them?"
"I can't. But I sure wish that I could."
"Perhaps she will be so demanding of attention and keep Dietrich so busy that he will not have the time to exasperate April and Carly."
Tina Marie finally smiled. "If Mildred has to be wished off on somebody . . . Well, Dietrich deserves her if anybody does."
* * *
"I'm giving her custody. For a year. Carly's willing. So is Garrett. If they can't get along, all of them together in the house, we'll know by the end of the year. If they don't, I'll have to think again. I had a long talk with the child welfare people."
Sartorius smiled. "I have a feeling—an omen perhaps—that the plan will succeed."
Tina Marie turned to him. "I have a feeling—an omen perhaps—about marrying you. I'm not one bit the superstitious type, but they do say that the third time's the charm."
Grantville, February 1635
"Pastor Kastenmayer could have done more to prevent this marriage," Dietrich Zuehlke complained to Kitty Chaffin.
"Well, maybe. But after I got to know your stepfather a bit, I figured the two of them were a pretty even match. Maybe the preacher thought so, too."
"It all worked out pretty well, I thought," Hans-Fritz said with his usual amiability. "At least, I didn't have to get married right away. Although now that I have the idea in my head, I may do something about it fairly soon."
Kitty grinned. "Who's the lucky girl?"
"I don't know yet. But what April said about a boyfriend sort of got under my skin. That if she was pushed, she could find one. I can probably find some pretty girl who's interested in me." He smirked at Dietrich.
"Go to work, guys." Kitty threatened them with her paperclip holder.
* * *
"I sort of doubt that anyone at the city hall could tell you how to get there," Ronella Koch said. "Why don't you try the post office. All the people who deliver mail have to know their routes and there's one that goes out that way, into the holler."
So Pastor Kastenmayer made his way to the post office and requested a favor. Bernita Walsh obligingly agreed to get the mailman on the route to write out directions, even though she just had to ask why anyone in his right mind would want to talk to Zane Baumgardner, given that he'd devoted the last dozen years to drinking his life away.
Kastenmayer looked embarrassed. "Not only is he a lost soul, but a lost soul with a German surname."
"What difference does that make?"
"It is obvious. Some time between 1630 and 2000, some place between Germany and your West Virginia, the Lutheran church, as Gary Lambert would put it, 'dropped the ball' in regard to this family. Until now, I have let my parishioners go out and gather in freshly cut sheaves, as in the case of the young men who will be confirmed in April."
"Oh," Bernita said. "Yeah, I'll be there. One of them's my brother."
"Ah. Which one?"
"Lew Jenkins."
"Sabina Ottmar is a fine woman."
Bernita pushed her hair back from her face. She was so tired all the time these days. "I sure hope so. That's what I'm counting on."
"I have limited myself to instructing the candidates for confirmation when they were brought to me. I have merely placed the grain in storage, if that is the correct way to phrase it. I have not acted as an evangelist. But perhaps I should be a missionary. Although I may not succeed in restoring this man Baumgardner to faith and sobriety, at least I will try."
Bernita looked at him. "Good luck," she said. "From everything I know about Zane, he's not at all the religious type."
CONTINUING SERIALS
The Dr. Gribbleflotz Chronicles, Part 2
Dr. Phil's Amazing Essence Of Fire Tablets
By Kerryn Offord and Rick Boatright
1633, Jena, Dr. Gribbleflotz's office
Dr. Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz took another look at the bill. He was spending that much on candles? Surely not. "Frau Mittelhausen. This bill for candles. Who has been using wax candles so wastefully?"
Frau Mittelhausen sighed heavily before looking Dr. Gribbleflotz straight in the eye. "You have been, Herr Doctor. You use the good wax candles to heat your beakers. Why you can't use that alcohol burner the up-timers provided, I don't know."
Phillip paused to digest Frau Mittelhausen's statement. Well, yes, he did use candles to heat the beakers sometimes. Especially when he didn't want a big fire. The proble
m was that the tallow candles didn't give anything like the same heat. And they produced too much soot. Even wax candles, which burned cleaner and hotter, made a lot of soot. He often needed to use several candles at once.
He knew what he needed. Something like the "Bunsen burners" at the up-timer high school. However, that would have to wait until he had access to gas. He knew there had been talk of producing "propane," but for now that was as far off as his much-needed aluminum. As for the alcohol burner the Kubiak Country people had given him, it was very clever. But he could never see the flame, and the alcohol was always evaporating, and it always ran out at the most inconvenient moment. At least with candles he could easily add more, and the heat they put out was greater than that of the single alcohol burner.
