He gassed it again and continued driving.
“Anyway, the first is easy. I’m Bernard Erik Garrels. My initials are BEG. How’s that for a lousy monogram?”
She laughed. “Not the best. Though mine is hardly better. Mabel Elizabeth Hartley. MEH.”
He returned her good spirits, his own laugh reaching down to his shoulders, which were shaking. “We’re an unfortunate pair, if you go by our names. Beg and Meh. Not the most inspiring. We can do better than that. What would your ideal initials be if you could name yourself?”
Mabel had never considered such a question, but it was a great game to even think of the possibilities. After rejecting a few, including FUN which sounded far more suggestive than she would have meant by it, she settled on one that suited her best.
“SUN. I think those would be nice initials. We never get enough of it in Baltimore and I crave it.”
“You’ll get your fill of it in Texas, I promise you that. I like it. SUN.”
“How about you?”
“ACE.”
“ACE? Why that one?”
“Well, this will sound silly. Like in a deck of cards. My dad is a gambler. I like the ace because in Twenty-One, it can be either the top card or the bottom card, whatever it needs to be for a particular hand. I’d like to think that I can be what I need to be, no matter what I’m dealt.”
Mabel let out a breath, impressed by the explanation.
“I never gamble, in case you were worried,” he said quickly. “I only know about it because of him.”
Erik grew quiet, seemingly lost in thought. He’d alluded at dinner to never making a wager, so it was clearly a sore point for him. If his father was a gambler and hers was a drunk, they’d no doubt experienced similar woes and would have stories to tell should their friendship ever grow deep enough to share the secrets that children of such troubled paternity kept.
She knew all too well that the first symptoms of that kind of upbringing were to pretend, always, that things were better than they were. To keep up a façade of happy family life even as it was cracking to the point of breaking. And to avoid the offending vice at all costs. One might presume cowardice in those choices, but she knew them to be the baselines of survival when one was wounded by the very person who was supposed to protect you.
“But,” he continued, changing his tone. “That really didn’t answer your question. Why did I introduce myself as Erik? I wish I had a more exciting story for you, but it’s simply that I’ve always preferred it. Auntie Emma insists on using my name as it was given to me and no one dares to cross the great Queen of the Pearl.”
“And the other part?” Mabel could now see the smokestacks and knew that their drive would soon be cut short. “The part where you didn’t mention that you work at the brewery?”
He shrugged. “More wishful thinking. The brewery is something I do because there is no one in the world I admire more than Auntie Emma. She pulled me out of a tough situation at home to come work for her and I don’t ever plan to let her down. It’s a good way to make a living. But it’s not what I love the most. She took me once to see a play at the Little Theater and I was immediately enraptured. Not only by the acting. It was the hows of it: how the lighting came together. How they scrolled through backdrops for the different scenes. All of it. So I try to volunteer on several shows a year. It sustains me. Do you have any hobbies?”
Mama had tried to teach her the art of lacemaking when she was younger, but it was already a dying practice and a difficult one for little fingers. And after she died, it was too painful a memory for Mabel to continue with that work. Mama’s shuttles and threaders had remained in the upper drawer of her bureau until Mabel moved to Texas and cleaned everything out of the apartment.
Her interests had not rested in handiwork, even if that’s what her friends did.
“I’m almost embarrassed to say,” she told him, “because it’s not supposed to be a girl’s hobby.”
The corner of Erik’s mouth wrinkled. “I don’t believe in that kind of thinking. A girl—a woman—should be interested in anything she likes.”
She smiled. Artie had never said things like that. He’d told her he wanted her to improve her cooking by the time he came back from the war. She’d mastered a perfect chicken soup since then—her secret was lemongrass—but the kitchen was not her natural domain.
Mabel looked out the window. “I like baseball.”
She felt Erik’s eyes on her. They’d reached another stop sign and the shadow of the smokestacks sent a line of dark gray across the car. They were at Pearl, but he seemed to be in no rush to get her there.
“Baseball?” He grinned.
“I told you it’s not a girl’s hobby.”
“Playing or watching?”
“Both.”
“I like that, Mabel. You shouldn’t be ashamed of it.”
She turned back to him and read the sincerity in his face. “My dad used to take my brothers and me to Oriole Park. My mother came sometimes, too, and those were the best days. The five of us, cheering them on. My parents first met at a baseball game. Babe Ruth was playing.”
“I thought he was with the Red Sox. I’m sorry—I haven’t followed much of the sport, though many of Auntie Emma’s other family members go way back as St. Louis Browns fans.”
Mabel felt the animation of her voice. Talking about baseball opened up a place in her that had long been closed off because after the boys went off to war, they’d never been to a game since.
“Most people know Babe from the Red Sox, but he’s actually from Baltimore. I even have a 1914 baseball card. Signed. It was my dad’s most prized possession.”
It sat in her suitcase in a small pocket, safely in Koehler Mansion. She would not have left it at Mrs. Molling’s for anything.
“Show me how to play some time?”
Mabel’s smile widened. “I’d love to.”
Erik looked up and Mabel’s gaze followed. The brewery towered in front of them, more stunning in person than she could have imagined when it was a mere dot in the distance. Golden bricks set in intricate patterns. White arched windows that looked like the eyebrows of an old soul. A black cupola sat nine stories above like a pointed cap piercing the sky.
“We’re here,” he said. There was a tone of apology in his voice. If he was sorry that their ride had been so brief, she had to agree. The Ford had served as their own private world for all of ten minutes.
Mabel felt goose bumps run up her arms as if the ghosts of all the people who’d worked here before were passing by. But it was more likely the sensation of coming face to face with the place that was the very reason she was in San Antonio. The heart of her newfound mission.
This was the progeny of Emma Koehler. The one whose story she had only begun to learn.
She turned back to Erik, and he smiled as he swept his arm out.
“Welcome to Pearl.”
.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
UNEVEN PAVERS WERE laced with old metal train tracks but Erik seemed familiar with each divot and imperfection. He placed his hand on Mabel’s elbow, guiding her across the path of the vast grounds.
She knew it was just a gesture of chivalry and reminded herself not to lose her head.
He pointed ahead to a dump truck whose contents were spilling over.
“We’re tearing up the old road, as you can see. When Auntie Emma was in charge, she was loath to spend money that didn’t have to do with production. She’s a sentimental one underneath that stodgy façade. But our trucks were getting too many blown tires. Life changes and we must change with it.”
Mabel understood that well enough.
She pulled away and turned toward him. “Erik, I’m worried about something.”
His eyes held the same jovial look that they’d had since she first met him, but they grew serious when he saw her face.
“Are you all right? Are you too cold? I’m afraid it won’t be too much better in there. We have to keep it pretty chilly.�
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“It’s not that. It’s….”
She sighed. This was a more difficult admission than she’d anticipated.
“I’ve never tasted a beer before. Or wine for that matter. But I didn’t know if that would be expected of me here.”
She waited for a flicker in his eye. The one that would tell her that he thought it was funny. Artie had called her a child when she ordered a Coke instead of a beer when they went out.
But Erik’s face remained serious, and his voice dropped. “I would never ask you to do something you didn’t want to.”
He looked down and she saw a sincerity in his expression that made her face tingle with the onset of tears. She pursed her lips and held them back.
“If you will satisfy my curiosity, though, is it a religious belief?” he asked. “I’ve heard of that, of course. Just not in my family circles. Germans have a long history of drinking the stuff like it’s water.”
Mabel shook her head. She’d never told anyone about her father’s problems with alcohol. Not even Ginger or Artie. Though Ginger had certainly seen the Hartley family shatter. Some secrets weren’t easy to keep.
But she didn’t want it assumed that she was some kind of teetotaler on moral or even political grounds. The Koehlers had surely seen enough of that during Prohibition.
Her worry was that she was afraid that whatever weakness made her father depend on it so greatly might lay dormant in her. Waiting for her to succumb to its lure. Could even one sip awaken that kind of monster?
She took a deep breath. He’d told her that his father was a gambler so perhaps he would understand. “My father—he ruined his life through drinking. I’m afraid of turning into what he became.”
He folded his arms and looked down at his feet before glancing back at her.
“I am so sorry,” he whispered. “I’ve known people like that. They fall on hard times and blot it out with alcohol. I can’t imagine the pain they must feel. But like anything, it’s how you use it that matters. Water quenches your thirst, or you can drown in it. Fire warms you, or can rage through a forest and kill everything in its path. Alcohol has medicinal and social benefits, but can ruin lives if misused.”
Mabel had never considered the comparisons to water and fire, two substances that anyone alive used frequently. Perhaps there was nothing to be frightened of, but she wasn’t ready to start now. She’d endured too much from its poisonous side. Cleaned up too many times after her father, sick from overuse.
“Thank you for understanding, Erik.”
His voice lifted. “Tell you what. There is plenty you can learn from smelling the brews or from crumbling the hops and barley in your hands. Taste is only one scent but there are four others. And, if you wish,” at this he smiled, “you can try some of our La Perla. It’s our non-intoxicating brew. The one we ship to the army. That way, our soldiers get all of the taste and none of the effects.”
If only Pops had known about something like that! A beer with no alcohol. But she suspected that it was not the taste he was after. It was the very sensation of washing away problems with drunkenness. The numbing of heartbreak.
They’d reached the door to the main building and Erik held it out for her and followed her in. “We ferment the yeast, which releases the sugars in the wort, which converts it to ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide.”
“So to make something like La Perla, do you stop the process before fermenting the yeast?”
Erik had been right. The temperature inside the building was quite cold. She flexed her fingers, already feeling stiff.
“No. That would be a lot less costly. In fact, to make nearbeer, as we call it, we have to take it through the entire process. But while the regular Pearl gets bottled, the near-beer gets reheated, burning off everything that would give it that intoxicating feature. Then, it’s chilled again and bottled.”
“So,” she offered, wrapping her arms around herself to stay warm, “if I try La Perla, it will taste almost the same as the Pearl brew since it went through the same process?” She hoped so. She wanted to understand Emma Koehler’s story and that meant understanding the brew that was so beloved by her.
“Close enough. It’s a little bit lighter. Auntie Emma was one of its pioneers, you know. She and Uncle Otto traveled up to St. Louis a couple of months before he died to visit with Adolphus Busch. They and a few other brewers could see the writing on the wall with Prohibition coming and they had the idea to burn off the alcohol.”
She slipped her hand in her jacket pocket, but she’d forgotten to bring a notebook. She hoped she’d remembered the details when she got back to the mansion. This was her chance to ask the things that Mrs. Koehler might not volunteer.
“Your aunt suggested that there had been some bad feelings between Otto and the Busch family after he left Lone Star to invest in the San Antonio Brewing Association with his lawyer.”
She followed Erik down a red-tiled hallway. He stopped before a door with a glass cutout, and put his hand on the knob.
“Oscar Bergstrom is the man you’re thinking of. He left Otto high and dry not long after that and went to New York City for newer opportunities. Adolphus and Uncle Otto might have grown close again given some time, but Adolphus himself died of dropsy during one of their trips to Missouri.”
“Oh, how terrible!”
“Yes. Auntie Emma said that there were thirty thousand people at his funeral. And another one hundred thousand lining the streets. I think it made her pine for St. Louis again. Seeing how that community came together. I often think how different our lives would all be if she’d left Pearl and gone back to St. Louis after Otto was murdered.”
Murdered. The word was not a surprise to Mabel, but it was still so difficult to imagine that it had happened.
Mrs. Koehler had not nearly gotten to that part of the story.
“Anyway,” Erik continued, despite her hope that he would elaborate on the more sordid details of the Koehler saga. “The Busch family never held Auntie Emma accountable for Uncle Otto’s defection all those years before. Adolphus Busch II carries on quite a nice correspondence with her even to this day.”
Mabel paused to look around her. They were standing on the end of a long corridor with many doors on either side. In the distance—it sounded as if were off to the right—was a steady hum of machinery. The air smelled like a cross between a bakery and a garden shop.
A door to the left opened and the click clack of high heels echoed down the tile floor. A woman walked with determination and as she approached and it was only when she grew close that Mabel recognized her. Her nerves bristled.
Ernestina.
She glanced at Mabel, her eyes assessing her down to her shoes, but turned to Erik.
“I need to speak to you privately,” she told him.
“I’m giving Miss Hartley a tour right now.” Mabel could see his jawline tighten.
“This will only take a minute and we don’t need to bother Miss Hartley with it.”
“She’s here at Auntie Emma’s invitation, so anything that needs to be said can include her.”
“Emma Koehler no longer works here and I don’t need to abide by the dictates of a woman who probably won’t live past Easter.”
Mabel clenched her teeth. Mrs. Koehler’s nepotistic ways had certainly brought some characters into the brewery. She knew it was not Ernestina’s job to be conciliatory. It was her job to look out for the best interests of the company and Mabel could hardly begrudge her that. But it didn’t seem necessary to deliver her words with such animus.
Erik was quick to defend his aunt and Mabel heard a fearsome tone in the voice that had only ever been pleasant when directed toward her. “Pearl wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Auntie Emma. And your family never would have been able to come over here or pay for your schooling if she hadn’t arranged for it. Show her at least that much respect.”
This, oddly, mollified her. She bit her lower lip, on which Mabel had detected the tiniest quiver.
Ernestina sighed and turned to Mabel. Her voice pooled into sweetness like warmed honey. “Of course, he’s right, Miss Hartley.”
She took one step closer to Erik, narrowing the space between them to a hand’s width gap. “It’s nothing urgent. I just need to review an issue I’m having with the congressman from the fourth district. Come by my office later?”
She placed a well-manicured hand on his elbow, but Erik shrugged it off. “I’ll be there at three.”
Ernestina, a half-head taller than Mabel, narrowed her eyes at her. “Sorry to have interrupted, Miss Hartley. I do hope you’ll forgive me.”
“Of course,” Mabel stuttered. But Ernestina had already turned back toward whichever door she’d come in from. When it closed behind her, Erik gestured for Mabel to follow him down the hall. He stopped at a set of stainless-steel doors with rounded glass windows.
He grinned. Are you ready to see where the magic happens?”
.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EVERY SUCCESSIVE ROOM was a wonder.
The first housed the hops. The temperature was near freezing and the green pellets were stored in boxes that reached to the top of the tall ceiling. They were labeled with words like Perle, Hallertau, Mount Hood, and Liberty.
Erik gestured for Mabel to come over and smell the Perle variety. A pungent scent tickled her nose.
“They’re bitter, aren’t they?” he said. “They have to balance the sweetness of the barley malt, or it would be undrinkable.”
“Kind of like life,” Mabel thought. Though in the last few years, it had been far more bitter. It was long overdue to change in her favor. And for the first time, she had reason to hope that it might happen.
“Do you like history?” asked Erik.
It had been one of her best subjects in school.
“I do.”
He smiled and leaned his arm against a stack of boxes, his breath forming wisps as he spoke. “Then you’ll love this. Guess why hops beer became so popular with the Germans. I’ll give you a hint: it has to do with religion.”
The First Emma Page 11
