Grantville Gazette, Volume 72

by Bjorn Hasseler

  Ella began to cry.

  Fritz broke jagged glass remnants from the window's edge so he could lean out and look directly up. Bette leaned out too, pressing against him to get room and putting one arm across his back for balance. They looked out at thousands of passenger pigeons wheeling beneath the slate grey sky or settling into the leafless trees. People were spilling out of buildings pointing in amazement. Bette turned to Fritz, her large dark eyes intent. "What's it like where you're from? What was the transition like? Sudden, instant, like the birds? Please! Tell me everything!"

  Fritz shook his head. He withdrew from the window and from her touch.

  Ella snuffled back her tears and slapped Alex's hand away as he reached to poke at a nasty rip at the corner of his eye. "Don't touch that! You'll make it worse!" He'd received the injury protecting her. "Where's the first aid kit?"

  Charles already had it. "Sit, Alex. Let me see. You okay, Ella?"

  "I'm fine, just reflexive tears. But my newly adopted son Fritz Roberts and I are going home. Now. Please do not mention Fritz. Life is crazy enough without the attention of–" She left the sentence dangling, hugged both men, shook hands again with Bette, and left. To hell with the aftermath they left behind and the questions that chased them out the door.

  They argued all the way home. That is, Fritz argued. Ella held her tongue, and wasn't that an ironic turn of phrase. But she was deathly tired. The work, persistence, finagling, money, bullshit interviews, and hoop jumping necessary to adopt Fritz had taken its toll, but had been necessary to get him admitted for treatment.

  Growing a new tongue, they had learned, is done by initializing the dormant DNA sequences responsible for growing the original tongue then supporting the process with enzymes, hormones, and tailored drugs. They drained Fritz of blood, tailored it to fit and pumped it back in. "You'll be surprised at how fast it'll happen," The doctor told them. The rest could be done at home, "but irritability, irrational feelings, and heat flashes are likely."

  Ella had given her share of blood, too, and listened to more than her share of advice, options, and optimistic lectures. Removal of the malignant tumor under her breast and follow-up treatment could extend her life.

  Chapter Six

  "I refuse to believe everything is possible; it screws up the physicists. But everything possible is probable. In an infinite universe it's a statistical certainty. The Hubble discoveries made this understanding a punch in the gut."–John Roberts

  Bru sucked exasperation through her teeth. Twice she'd gone down to ring the bell but Van Meer never showed. Of course not. Only Ella ever saw him. Or Fritz. "Lot of nonsense the way they coddle him," she murmured, removing her apron. "Needs a proper talking to, he does." And what business of hers to walk out on a day like this? But here she was for the third time since Ella and Fritz had left, trying to deliver painting supplies to Van Meer. "An investment," Ella called them: tube paints, linseed oil, gesso, pen nibs, and a little glass bottle of ink. Bru couldn't leave the supplies to the mercy of the brutal cold. She had to hand them directly to Van Meer. Night arrived suddenly this time of year, but she still had time if she hurried.

  Bru hardened her heart to life long ago. She'd raised three strong sons, kissed them goodbye, and lost them to war. At the news, her husband Henri withered up and died like season's end. The war reached the farm, destroying everything, and Bru became a refugee ranting and railing against man and God, but she soon stopped. Survival demanded all her attention. Her heart crusted over, and she became resigned to the brutal truth: God is uncaring, life is what it is, keep moving till it's over. Life got even harder.

  At death's door she somehow took a left turn, and Ella Roberts found her and nursed her back to health. Now she had a safe berth as Missus Ella's cook and took her satisfaction in keeping a well-run kitchen. She did not end her day till all was impeccable, went to bed tired every night, and never dared to dream.

  When she reached the head of the path she rang the bell and sat impatiently upon the box to wait, fidgeting in the cold. She rang again and soon after started down the trail. In her annoyance, she did not notice the gathering dark.

  ****

  Van Meer's axe had twisted on a hidden knot, bounced off, and met up with his foot, slicing neatly through the toe of his boot. He removed the axe with shaking hands and hobbled into the cabin. The shock of the blow numbed the pain but it blossomed when he took off his boot. The blade had cleaved into the meat between the ring toe and his little toe, breaking the little toe. A massive purpling bruise was already forming. Van Meer pursed his lips and made no sound. Blood still flowed. He stoppered it with the sock.

  He piled his blankets on the end of his cot and put a frying pan filled with snow on top, hopped back to the door for another double handful and finally stretched out on the cot with his foot in the frying pan, elevated and numbing in snow. When the bell pealed, he did not respond. It was hardly a wonder he did not sense someone approach. "Hello the hut!" a voice called from just beyond the door. "Van Meer! Are you in there?"

  He bounded to his feet in reflexive action, exactly the wrong thing to do. His foot was inspired to new and greater excruciation. He mewed and fell back on the cot, which collapsed. He slammed to the ground. The pan doused him with melt water cold as a salamander's heart. Van Meer yelped like a kicked puppy. A rapid knocking shook the door. "Van Meer? You okay? Are you alright? I work for Missus Ella. I've got your ink and paint stuff."

  Ella. Ella had been a frequent visitor, at first. She brought books, and together they sat reading and drawing, quiet companions. Van Meer soon knew she was ill. It made the hours and days dreary for him until he realized there are miracles everywhere. He wondered if she, too, walked a bent path. The voice at the door called again. "Hello? I've got your painting supplies. I can't just leave them in the snow." The door creaked open. With his current concern Van Meer had failed to latch it.

  Bru poked her head cautiously into the gloom. When her eyes adjusted, she saw Van Meer on the dirt floor, bleeding, wet, and tangled with blanket and cot. He had a frying pan in his lap. She pushed the door fully open, took a breath to gather her courage and stepped inside to help. Van Meer rather meekly let her and it was a measure of how far he had come and how much he had healed. Together they got him untangled, righted the campaign cot and ensconced him properly upon it, leg elevated, with fresh snow to help the swelling and the frying pan to catch the melt. The mix of blood and snow made for a lovely delicate pink that did not disturb either of them much. The only conflict was momentary when she started to remove his soaked pants. He declined the offer and wore them wet.

  When all was finally settled, they looked at each other. Van Meer looked quickly away and reached for his Comfort, his oilskin collection of overdrawn pages. In his current predicament, it was a bit beyond his stretch. Bru reached to help. Van Meer nearly panicked. "No!" he said, the first word he'd spoken in days. It seemed very loud in the tiny space of the cabin.

  Bru retreated, and remembering Ella's instructions, turned her face to the wall. "I've got things for you. Paint and ink." She felt stupid showing a jar of ink to the wall so she turned again to face Van Meer. He was struggling to his feet, overturning the cot again. Bru felt a rush of fear. Her knees weakened, and she plunked down upon a debarked stump, Van Meer's stool. She looked at her trembling hands, still holding the bottle out for inspection.

  Van Meer lurched past Bru, ignoring the jumble behind him and the blood and pain that trailed him. He busied himself at a rickety shelf while Bru sat, entirely unsure about the situation. But Van Meer finished his preparations, picked up paper, and reached for the ink bottle Bru still held out. Only then did he remember his injured foot. A heavy grunt forced its way out of him. He looked at Bru as if he'd been caught with his hands in his pants. His face went gray and drained to white. More blood seeped onto the floor. Van Meer's eyes rolled back and he slumped to the ground.

  Bru helped him back to the cot. They repeated their earlier exerc
ise, including the remove-the-wet-pants one. Again, Van Meer declined. Bru held her tongue and helped position him so he could draw with his foot elevated. Only then did she tend to the wound.

  She brought wood in, stoked the fire, and prepared to leave. "I'll be back in the morning. You stay abed and off that foot. You'll not give me trouble and do what you're told." Her fear of Van Meer had ebbed, replaced by a fear for him. "You'll come up to the house. You can't be left alone like this."

  But Van Meer was busy drawing and never heard a word. When she opened the door to leave he did not look up but said, "Wait. For the moon."

  Bru considered, closed the door, and sat by the fire. She looked about for something to straighten up, but knew from Ella what a bad idea that was. She was gazing at the fire in one of those timeless moments that open flames inspire when Van Meer said, "Now." Bru shook herself and stood to re-button her coat. Van Meer removed a page from the drawing pad. "Peek out the door." She looked frankly at him, puzzled, but Van Meer offered no clue. He still did not look up.

  Bru opened the door. A glorious full moon was well up, tree shadows on the snow sharp and strong. The air, smelling as if just arrived from paradise, cleared her clouded mind. The shadows were a deep inviting purple and the snow on the meadow a translucent blue, as luminescent as nothing else but moonlit snow can be. The world's breath was caught by the moon, her own breath caught in her throat. Everything was perfectly still. A moment later all across the meadow, darting from shadow to light out into the middle of the clearing where the moon's mistress could clearly see, rabbits hopped. They leaped in abandon and aimless, helpless joy. Everywhere across the meadow, rabbits danced.

  Bru watched, still as a sane rabbit, as mad ones in multitude threw themselves at the moon with unreasoning passion. Rabbits flooded the meadow with a tide of tumbling, twisting inspired celebration. Then it was over. It was impossible to say which rabbit left first and which was the last, leaving only trampled snow as testament. They were gone. Bru, the meadow, the moon and the night all once more began to breathe.

  Bru slipped the paper Van Meer gave her beneath her coat. She did not think to look at it and did not want to look at him. She left with admonitions to Van Meer about keeping his foot up and walked home alone in the surreal, ephemeral moonlight. As she moved through the trees light and shadow made a flickering strobe that confused her senses and haunted her waking mind even more than the sight of rabbits worshipping the moon.

  Back in the kitchen Bru placed the drawing on the table and turned to hang up her coat but turned back to stare at the picture. She saw herself peering out Van Meer's cabin door, the reflection of magic in her eyes. About her feet rabbits danced. It was a wondrous illustration, illustrating wonder. She left the picture on the kitchen table and hurried away to bed. That night she slept the deep sleep of a child and her dreams were all enchanted. She could not recall, in the glow of a brand-new morning, if there were rabbits involved.

  Chapter Seven

  "Of course I believe in God. The evidence is everywhere. I'm a physicist, I study miracles. Inconsequential miracles are rampant. Don't you play golf?"–John Roberts

  It was impossible for Van Meer to keep his foot above his head in a frying pan. There were biological imperatives for one thing and he needed to empty the melt water and refill the pan. And there were the paint supplies. So some time after Bru's departure Van Meer got up, slowly, carefully, with a hand and eye on the frying pan. Blood rushed to his foot but did not leak out. The pain was bearable for a short time. He set his teeth and hobbled outside to do what was necessary with heroic determination, until he was once more supine, his foot elevated and the little bottle of oil in his hand. With curious pleasure, he unscrewed the top and raised it to his nose. The scent of linseed oil went directly to his memory lobes.

  He was a toddler crawling on a cool tile floor. Someone yelled, anger and concern in his voice, but Van Meer could not make out the words. He was immersed in a world of smell and color. Across the black and white squares of the floor ran ocher and umber, yellow and blue mixing into green, spreading into red and becoming rich brown and purple, a source of circus wonder. The smells mixed; oil paint, gum Arabic, pine tree turpentine and linseed oil. He lifted sticky wet hands to his face to breath deep of this wonder too. A large dark mass rushed towards him.

  Someone washed his face with a rough wet cloth. He struggled against it, still a toddler until life in the present came stuttering back. Rex the dog licked his face. Van Meer pushed him away.

  Daylight speared his eyes. He was crawling up the road to the farmhouse, his bare hands and wrists swollen and red and burning with cold. He punched them down through snow to firm footing, and the pun made him laugh as he crawled. Or he would have laughed, but his teeth were shaking in his jaw. Behind him trailed the spotted crimson evidence of his passing.

  The last thing Van Meer remembered before God took him was the little bottle of linseed oil. He could still smell it; the front of his shirt was stiff with oil though he could not remember spilling it or crawling out to the road. He dropped flat, face first into a bed of soft, thick, enveloping white. In a bit, he began to feel warmer and pain receded. He grinned through chattering teeth into the snow and a light in his skull grew brilliant. The wonder of his existence struck deeply and profoundly at every part of him. God's path is full of glory, he had heard them say. But they had no idea, no idea at all. Rex began to bark.

  ****

  The south wall of Ella's sun room sported glass from end to end, knee-high to ceiling. The wan light of a grey day struggled through the windows to pattern the floor. The room had the comfortable aspect of an old pair of jeans. A faded couch did its part to strengthen that impression. Four red bricks elevated one end. The low end had a deep concavity formed over time by a number of dogs in serial possession of the best bed anywhere.

  Van Meer slept. Several blankets and a quilt covered him; hot bottles of water warmed his arm pits. Bru waited on a wooden chair next to the couch, her back as firm and rigid as the chair. A puddle on the floor beneath her boots went unnoticed. An open letter perched on her lap. Bru could not read but she knew its contents.

  Rex curled on the couch with his big block head resting on Van Meer's shins. Every now and again he lifted his head and blew a long slow sigh through his nose. Homely described Rex well but he had large intelligent eyes that could charm the beans off an old man's plate and the crust from around his heart. It made him a great therapy dog. He, too, was waiting.

  Draped across a jury-rigged drying rack Van Meer's clothes dripped water to the floor. Steam rose. Van Meer stirred, drew in a sharp breath and opened his eyes. Bru pursed her lips. "About time. You'd think I had not another thing to do."

  Van Meer blinked. He felt the heat beneath his arms and the weight of blankets upon him. He looked at the sunlight streaming through the big windows. He spotted his pants drying on the rack, looked sideways at Bru and lifted the covers to look beneath. He wore something soft and seamless and dark blue, with a drawstring. His upper body was covered too, in soft, buttonless blue. He dropped the covers.

  "I–my Comfort, my bag." His toes stung. His fingers itched. "My bag."

  "You'll be fine," Bru said, "No white dead patches, no frostbite. Rex found you in time. Again," she added, with evident disapproval of Van Meer's penchant for predicament. Rex flicked his ears and rolled his eyes in her direction but did not lift his head from Van Meer's legs.

  "You crawled nearly all the way here. What were you thinking? I cleaned that nasty gash again but it's going to be bad for a while. Your knees, you'll lose some skin. I've got hot tea with honey, just the thing, and you'll drink it. Soup's simmering, when you're ready."

  Van Meer struggled to get up, frustrated by weakness and the weight of the dog.

  "Now don't you get to fussing 'till I've had my say. Your shirt was stiff with that linseed, it needs cleaning. There's that. You won't be going anywhere for a while, so there's that. I've sent someone for
your things. There's people about the house, but they won't bother you. I said you're a dangerous man, and it might be true." She stood up, the letter in her fist, looked down and noticed the water at her feet. "The Missus wrote to me. To me." She brandished the letter, sounding a little awed. "I'm not to give you the little bottle. But I already did and you spilled it on your shirt."

  The letter said; "There is a bottle of linseed oil with the paint supplies, used for thinning paint. Do not give the bottle to Van Meer. Smell is linked to memory. Linseed oil is distinct and must be familiar to him. I don't want Van Meer hurt by bad memories and my stupidity. Don't give Van Meer the linseed until I get home. Please."

  Bru leaned toward Van Meer and whispered, "Can I have the little bottle back?" She looked worried and a little ashamed. Van Meer did not try to pull away. He had only a vague recollection, but he nodded assent. Bru looked relieved. "I'll bring your things in when they get here." She sat back down and smiled, something she might not have done in years. "You ready for tea?"

  The door eased open and a little voice whispered "Rex? Are you here?" Rex stirred and lifted his head to look over the end of the couch. Van Meer also looked, dreading. He had no paper. Frosty entered, whispering theatrically. "Rex? Oh. There you are!" Frosty won her new name when Rex saved her from death by exposure. She wiggled her fingers at Van Meer. "Hi. Rex likes you." Van Meer lifted a handful of pins and needles fingers and waggled back. Here was a soul undented by life's hard knocks. Relief blurred his vision. Perhaps he could paint portraits again, starting with one, untroubled by God's agenda.

  Frosty grinned like the sun and the moon, and two smiles answered. Bru's heart, which thought itself immune, melted under the radiance of that smile though she gave no outward sign. The clouds parted, brushed by God's hand. Sunbeams speared through the windows. The room turned golden.