Grantville Gazette 46 gg-46

by Paula Goodlett

  Barnes stood there, seemingly shocked that Tipton had the nerve to go against his wishes. Then he said, "But I paid him for a painting! I want my money back!"

  Tipton shook his head. "It looks to me like Block did the work you paid him for, even if it wasn't what you were expecting. Of course, you can always take him to court if you don't mind seeing this painting displayed in public."

  Barnes shook his head vigorously. "Like hell!"

  "Well, all right then." Tipton opened the door and called for Schultz, asking him to escort the Barneses out.

  The door closed, and they were all quiet for a moment.

  "Mrs. O'Meara," Tipton said, "I thank you for your time, and I apologize for Barnes shouting at you like that."

  "Oh, don't worry about that. I've been shouted at a time or two before." She shook Tipton's hand, patting it before releasing it. "Daniel? I'd like to talk to you about this more, when you have time? We might want to have a chat about up-timers' attitudes about nudity, for starters."

  "Of course," Daniel said, noticing the smile she and Tipton exchanged as she left.

  "Mr. Block," Tipton said, when they were alone again, "let me ask you. Why not just do, you know, the usual kind of portrait?"

  "Because in your timeline, there is no record that I ever existed. For a painter, there is nothing worse. It's as if every brush stroke I ever made was condemned as mediocre. Uninteresting. Every portrait, lacking in power and life. I left no mark on your world. I cannot bear that thought." He smiled toward the painting. "Now? Well, perhaps now, I won't have to."

  "Can you fix it?"

  "No. But I can paint others. Many others."

  Tipton smiled. "Have that conversation with Mrs. O'Meara first."

  "Yes, of course," Daniel said.

  Tipton helped Daniel cover the painting again and walked him to the reception area.

  Clyde stood as they entered. "Is everything all right?"

  Tipton said, "I consider this matter closed. Give your mother my regards. She's one tough lady."

  Clyde smiled. "That she is."

  The pair walked back to the house through the darkness in silence, Clyde allowing Daniel his thoughts. So deep was his concentration that he was amazed when they reached the door to the house. "How on earth did we get here so quickly?"

  Clyde chuckled. "Had to keep you from wandering in front of wagons twice."

  Daniel was about to explain the plans he'd made for his next painting when Clyde opened the door and they heard wailing.

  It was Benjamin, his son.

  Both men rushed into the living room, afraid of what they'd find.

  Little Benjamin clung to his mother, sobbing.

  "Sofia?" Daniel said.

  She shook her head. "Poor boy. His friend, Bethany Anne, isn't allowed to play with him anymore."

  "He's not hurt, though?" Clyde said.

  "No, no, nothing like that. But Bethany's mother Stacey wouldn't even let him in her yard. Yelled at him that his father was a-" she looked down at her son and mouthed the word, "pervert."

  Daniel growled. "That awful woman. What right does she have?"

  Daniel turned angrily toward the door, but Clyde stopped him. "Noooo. No sir. There is nothing to be gained by that."

  "But-"

  "Yes, I know. And you may be completely right, but going over and yelling at her isn't going to do anything but get the police on my mother's doorstep for a second time in one day, and I know you don't want that again."

  Daniel flushed, remembering how much trouble he had already brought-however unintentionally-to Frau Rice's home. No, he did not want to risk that.

  Instead, he sat beside his wife and child, rubbing Benjamin's back and speaking soothingly to him. "It won't matter," he said. "You have many other friends. All your friends from church, and from the daycare."

  Gradually, as he and Sofia sat with him, Benjamin's tears began to ease. After a time, Stefan came and asked Benjamin if he wanted to play with the wooden cars that they'd both received for Christmas, and the boys went into the next room.

  Sofia and Daniel joined Clyde and Ella Lou in the kitchen, taking chairs at the table as Nina served light sugar cookies. Daniel tried to smile as he took a few bites. She was always ready with a treat in times of distress.

  After their cookies were gone and each had a fresh cup of coffee, Ella Lou asked, "What happened at the station?"

  Daniel explained in detail, and everyone expressed their relief.

  "It's over, then?" Sofia asked.

  There was an awkward pause. "Well," Clyde said, "that's difficult to say."

  "But if the police say he's innocent?"

  Another awkward pause was interrupted by the boys joining them, looking for entertainment, and the topic was dropped for the time.

  As Clyde was preparing to leave, the phone rang. Sofia went to answer it as Daniel and Clyde finished discussing his latest plans for opening a self-storage facility in Bamberg. When Sofia returned, the look on her face silenced both men.

  Sofia shook her head. "The daycare said our Benjamin couldn't come back. Some of the parents objected."

  "Oh, for God's sake!" Daniel said. "This is madness!"

  Ella Lou heard him, and came into the room trailed by the boys. "What is it now?"

  Sofia explained and Ella Lou said, "Oh, I'm so sorry. That poor child."

  Clyde shook his head. "That fool Barnes must be burning up the phone lines, trying to make trouble."

  Daniel threw up his hands. "He's telling everyone in town that I'm a monster. What am I to do?"

  "Honestly?" Clyde said. "Not much."

  "That damn idiot," Ella Lou said. "Only an act of God can explain why that man ever amounted to anything more than a junior supervisor at a widget factory."

  "Widget?" Daniel said.

  Clyde shook his head.

  It was something else that Daniel would let pass and never understand. But one thing he did understand was how upset Benjamin would be at this latest setback. "Perhaps," Daniel said, "it really is time for us to go."

  Everyone fell silent, even Sofia. Daniel stood there listening to the muffled laughter of his son and Stefan as they played in a back room of the house.

  "That's ridiculous, Daniel," Ella Lou said. "Don't pay any attention to what Barnes says. This will all blow over."

  "This isn't just about Barnes, Frau Rice," Daniel said, shaking his head. "I never intended Grantville to be our permanent home." He turned and smiled at his host. "I came here to learn up-time painting techniques, and I have. I've not learned everything, and I'm sure if I-if we-stayed, I could learn a lot more. But I'm not an up-timer. I was born in Stettin, in Pomerania. My life is not here." He pointed to the window. "It's out there somewhere. I'm in my fifties. To you up-timers, that's nothing, middle aged. But here. . I need to get out there and take care of some things, do some things, before it's too late."

  Clyde was about to speak, but Daniel continued. "Did you know that I have two other sons from a previous marriage? They're in their twenties now. One lives in Magdeburg. Perhaps the other does as well, I do not know. But I'd like to see them again, to share with them what I have learned. And Benjamin needs to know who his brothers are. I understand that Gustavus Adolphus is in Magdeburg as well. Perhaps he'll let me paint him again if he is well enough. . using newer, more daring, techniques."

  The room was very quiet, and Sophia moved to her husband and gave him a hug. Daniel liked that. He appreciated her youthful softness, her casual, effortless displays of affection. It was something he wasn't used to, but he had learned a lot since coming to Grantville. He was learning more and more each day.

  Tears welling in her eyes, Ella Lou Rice finally said, "So, when will you all be leaving, then?"

  Daniel exchanged a look of understanding with his wife, then said, "By the end of the week."

  After he closed and locked his trunk, all of his clothing packed, Daniel stepped over to the window and twitched aside the curtain jus
t enough to look out on the town. He would miss it-far more deeply than he'd expected when they first began talking of leaving. Most of all, he would miss Frau Rice. Or. . perhaps he would most miss watching Stefan and Benjamin play in the yard.

  He sighed and started to turn away, when he noticed Stacey Rowland Duvall, Bethany Anne's mother, standing in her yard, staring toward the house. He glared at her, wishing Clyde hadn't stopped him when he'd wanted to yell at her after she was cruel to his boy. It might well not have accomplished anything, but he would have felt better, at least.

  And then he realized what she was staring at: the painting. That painting, sitting propped against the trash by the curb, still torn and warped, damp from the morning dew, awaiting collection. He'd studied it until he felt he could glean no more, before asking Nina to dispose of it. He'd expected it to be burned, forgetting how tenacious these up-timers were about saving everything, recycling everything.

  The woman looked both ways, and across to the house. Apparently she saw no one, because she passed through her gate, crossed the street, and stopped before his ragged canvas. As she reached down to pick it up, he felt a brief impulse to run down and snatch it away from her, but he made himself wait and watch, curious to see her reaction.

  She turned the painting around, propping it up to let the light fall on its surface, and simply stood there and stared at it. After a moment, she slid her right hand up, pressing it against her chest. It was a move Daniel had made himself, perhaps a half dozen times in his life: when he'd first set eyes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, El Greco's The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, Titian's Assunta, and Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. It was a gesture that came of pure emotion, of being moved beyond words by an inspired work of art. Daniel found that his hand, too, was pressed to his chest, moved beyond words that his work had touched someone so deeply.

  The woman reached down and picked up the painting, took it back across the street to her home, and closed the door. At last, his heart lightened, Daniel smiled. My first fan, he thought.

  Many more to go.

  He picked up his trunk and went out back to join the others, who were saying their goodbyes.

  After hugs all around, Clyde slapped Daniel on the shoulder with his big, generous hand. "It's not too late to change your mind, my friend. You could stay and we could open up that art gallery right here in Grantville that we talked about. Barnes will tire of his nonsense soon enough."

  Daniel smiled but shook his head. "I appreciate your offer, Clyde, but it's not just about Barnes as I stated before. This is for the best, I think. I have come to realize just how much the Ring of Fire took away from all of you West Virginians-family, friends, your whole way of living. Sure, you and many like you have flourished, have really made a name and life for yourselves here. But ultimately, I think the Ring of Fire was not for you. It was for us, for down-timers like me, so that we may dream anew, discover new freedoms, avoid the mistakes we once made. I've been given a second chance, Clyde, and I must take it."

  Clyde nodded and they shook hands. "I wish you and your family the best of luck, then. I'm sure I'll see you in Magdeburg before the year is out."

  Clyde and Daniel stowed the last trunk in the wagon, and Daniel joined Sophia and Benjamin on the wagon's broad seat. The boy was sad as he waved goodbye to Stefan. "Will there be other children for me to play with where we're going, Daddy?" Benjamin asked.

  Daniel reached over and ruffled the locks of Benjamin's messy dark hair. "Well, of course!" he said, and guided the horses into the road. "And you will finally have a chance to meet your brother."

  Soon, Benjamin and Sofia were chatting animatedly about all the things they would do in their new home-and Daniel, as the horses pulled them along the road out of town, was already imagining new paintings, new styles, new combinations of color and light, even new tools and media. Perhaps there would be a new role for art in the world-art for everyone. Art that could change the world. And Daniel himself would be at the center of it all.

  The Things We Do for Love

  Timothy Roesch, Sam Hidaka

  Bamberg, April 1636

  "You look like a bloated corpse," Logan Sebastian muttered at the bag of hot air floating before her, "but an honest corpse."

  Logan stood on the closely cropped grass of the Bamberg airfield, shouldering an overstuffed backpack with a lacrosse stick slung to it, a carefully rolled poster clutched in one hand, and her other hand jammed into a pocket of her light coat. "God, you're ugly. But you're not pretentious. I guess I can handle that. You don't pretend to be something you're not."

  The engine attached to the motorized "balloon" hummed in an appropriately subdued manner. They didn't whine and complain like those monstrosities all these down-timers, and quite a few up-timers, marveled at.

  Had everyone forgotten the F-14 that quickly? Were 747s really just dreams now?

  "At least they're not calling this place an aerodrome." Logan shook her head to free her ponytail, which had gotten pinched between her back and her pack. "Okay Logan, you've come this far. So it's time to go all the way. It's either these gas bags pretending to be dirigibles or. . flying lawn mowers pretending to be real airplanes.

  "God, I hate the seventeenth century. And it's hating me straight back."

  A heavily accented, but largely intelligible, voice interrupted her musings. "Can I help you?"

  Logan Sebastian closed her eyes. "It depends." Logan opened her eyes and offered a careful smile. "Are you looking for. . pilots?"

  "Well, that is depending on certain things. I am Antonio, Antonio Sorrento. I am the owner, part owner, of this balloon. It is incredible, is it not?"

  "I saw you in Grantville."

  "I see," Antonio said.

  Logan could hear, in the tone of his voice, that he really didn't see. She could tell when adults spoke to her-and when they spoke around her.

  "At least you don't call 'em dirigibles. The Goodyear blimp was a dirigible."

  "We are working on 'dirigibles.' Yes," Antonio said proudly, "this balloon will, one day, be a true dirigible. We are progressing."

  Logan reminded herself to be careful; this man was proud of his toy and would not like her assessment of it-no matter how accurate. She'd have to do something she knew was not among her talents: watch her mouth. "It's too windy up there. See the clouds? You'd have to stay low if you didn't want to fight for every foot of forward distance."

  "I would predict that you could reach an attitude of a thousand feet and be productive." He looked up, as if to confirm what Logan had said. "I was just training the ground crew. So what makes you think I am looking for pilots?"

  Logan tried not to look at the man as if he were a moron. "Do I look stupid to you? Do you think. ."

  Logan closed her eyes and tried to regain her composure.

  Antonio tried to reply, "I did not-"

  "Of course, you're looking for pilots. I'm certain you don't intend to build one or two balloons, and then squat here on the ground and admire them and clean bird poop off them?"

  "No, I most-"

  "You're going to need pilots. And most of the airheads in Grantville are going to go running to those. . those flying catastrophes. And until someone can figure out how to make internal combustion engines with a greater thrust-to-weight ratio than a brick, what are they going to do when they run out of VW and lawnmower engines?"

  "I could use more of these 'lawn mower' engines. And you understand thrust to. ."

  "Understand thrust to weight? Sure. And I understand those, too." She pointed at the tethered balloon. "Why do you think they kicked me out of the Brownies? Those things are as easy as a plastic bag over a campfire. It wasn't my fault the other girls didn't think before they tried it and started that crown fire. None of my plastic bag balloons caught fire and started a forest fire."

  "I see. ."

  "Adults are always saying that," Logan grumbled.

  "Fire is a serious thing with a balloon. One must be c
areful around the burner."

  "Duh. ." Logan clamped her mouth shut. This was not going well.

  Time to bring out the big guns. She let go of her grandmother's revolver, which she had been holding in her jacket pocket the whole time, and unrolled the poster.

  "See? From the first hot air balloon to a jet fighter. See? I know a lot about flying."

  "I can see you have given this much thought but-"

  "Do you? I got my first ride in a Piper J3C-65S. It was this Junior Eagles program. I was supposed to go to their academy when I turned twelve." Logan shook her head in frustration. "Well, guess where I was when I turned twelve? Here."

  "Maybe this is a passing interest-"

  "How can you can say that?" Logan tried to calm herself so she could properly say her favorite quote. "'For once you have tasted flight you will walk around the earth with your eyes turned upwards because there you have been and there you will long to return.' Leonardo DaVinci said that."

  "The Ring of Fire changed a great many things-"

  "Ever since my first ride, I wanted to fly. I had it all planned out. Dad was going to let me join the Civil Air Patrol in Bridgeport and there was that EaglesAcademy, but then this whole Ring of Fire thing happened."

  "Why balloons?"

  "See? You don't see." Logan took a deep breath. "Those stupid planes polluting the skies are jokes, wannabes, pretensions. I bet I could fly one based on my stick time with flight simulators. The problem is I would know what they were and I would probably crash the stupid thing because I would forget I wasn't up there in a real airplane but in something Orville wouldn't let Wilbur even sit in, let alone fly."

  "Flight simulators?" Antonio frowned. "I have heard of those."

  "Dad gave up my computer to the government or I would've been able to show a real flight simulator. I wonder if they dumped the software. I had a patch for a dirigible."