Grantville Gazette, Volume 67

by Bjorn Hasseler

  Marta gave it back. Alexander reached into a pocket and pulled out another work of art. It was a pipe of some yellowed stone with a black mouthpiece that he stuck into his mouth. The bowl had been carved with a snarling wolf's head. For a moment he patted his pockets, then sighed, taking it back out. "One problem I have is my memory these days. Been out of tobacco for almost a year, but I still carry this damn thing just in case I miraculously find some." He handed it to Marta. "Some of my other work. Used to sell them at the tobacco shops and the local reenactments before the Ring of Fire."

  Marta looked at the carving. She could almost see the fire in the animal's eyes, picture it lunging out of the bowl at her. She handed it back and opened the shoulder bag. "Miracles are for the big things, Herr McIntire. The little ones are something people can do," she spread the array of tobacco out. "I bought these for my fiancé. Will one of them do?"

  "I thought all of the tobacco was sold," he picked up the one with a sailing ship. "Borkum Riff. Haven't had that in a coon's age."

  "These had been knocked down behind a shelf in the drug store. But I was told that one would be stale."

  She reached out, but he jerked it away as if playing keep away with a child. "I liked it back then. How much do you want for it?"

  She cocked her head. "You wished for tobacco, I had it." She shrugged. "Do you think an act of kindness is something that expects payment?"

  "Not the way God works, little girl." He peeled back the tape, opening it and sniffed. "Bourbon blend, that takes me back." He rubbed some of the flakes. "Dry, but beggars can't be choosers. Besides, all I need is a strainer and a pot of boiling water to moisten it up again." He began to load the small bowl. Then he patted his pockets again and came out with a brass tube. "My dad's old trench lighter. Lit my first smoke when I was fifteen with it. Now I can light this one."

  "Papa!" His head spun, and he put his hands in his lap defensively as a stout woman stormed toward him. She stood glaring at him. "Gimme." She began berating him in English, but the old man raised his hand.

  "Not polite to use another language around guests, Bonnie. You may be fifty, but you're still young enough that I can tan your hide." He looked at Marta. "My other daughter; the rude one, Bonnie. This is Marta Karcher, who gave me this tobacco, so mind your manners."

  "Charmed," she said, though her thunderous look belied the statement. "You know it's bad for you, Papa!"

  "At my age so is living. Do you see a major hospital anywhere around here the last few years? When it's my time, I die. It has always been that simple." He lifted the pipe and lighter, igniting the tobacco. "So let me have some fun with the time I have left." He blew smoke at her, causing her to retreat. "Nice young lady gives me a gift, and you have to ruin the Hallmark moment whining about me dying. I fall over tomorrow, you can say I told you so, just won't be here to listen."

  The older woman seemed to deflate. "All right. But when that's gone, no more. Hear me?"

  "Yes, mother," Alexander replied. Bonnie huffed, glared at Marta again, then stalked off.

  "I am sure she's the one who hid my tobacco when we first moved in here." He jerked his thumb at the geriatric home. "Both of her brothers were miners before the Ring of Fire, and she always worried about black lung. Me, I worked at the mine as a driver, so never had that problem."

  A short while later, their conversation was interrupted when an orderly came to take Alexander back to the assisted care center for dinner. By then she had learned three different ways to remoisten the tobacco she had.

  It was a short walk to work, and she arrived in plenty of time for her shift. Richard came in to tell her he was being sent to Suhl. That night as he slept, she left the tobacco for him to find.

  ****

  After Richard had left, Marta found herself at loose ends. She would go to his shack to feed Koča, who seemed to accept her, but that never took long. She spent time talking to Alexander and met his wife and sons. The old man was sinking into depression. He'd had half a dozen of his cameo blanks when the Ring of Fire occurred, but the one he had done for his daughter had been the last.

  Up-timers were so stupid sometimes! In a typical village, everyone had something to do. The children would weed the fields, gather herbs, collect dead wood, and in the right season, find nuts, mushrooms, and fruit in the forests. The adults cooked, helped with the gathering of edible plants, weaving, for them the list was endless. And the aged? They would do everything that can be done sitting down.

  But up-timers? They gathered their aged in homes. Paid others to watch and care for them, and only visited when they were in the mood. Oh, they had some things they still did, but it was all for their amusement, and usually not productive. That she had decided was why Alexander was bored. Sure he could play one of the games they had, read, listen to music, or watch television at night. But he wanted to use his hands, not sit doing nothing, to his mind. So she went in search of something to carve.

  A few days later she came back to the Bowers facility, her bag stretching from the weight.

  "Good day, Herr McIntire, Frau McIntire!"

  "How many times have I told you, friends call me Alex?" He was smoking his pipe, sitting beside Mary Sue, a woman who reminded Marta of a sparrow, thin and flighty when she talked. "Someone says Mr. McIntire to me, and I look for my daddy, God rest his soul."

  "Ignore the old coot, Marta. Up-time they ain't raised kids right in decades, so they are too familiar. Never taught them to respect their elders. Nice to hear old-time manners from young mouths. Any word from your young man?"

  "I know the men arrived in Suhl two days ago, so they are busy." At Mary Sue's raised eyebrow Marta shrugged. "I work at the Gardens, and I listen. Men talk."

  "Loose lips sink ships." At Marta's confused look he just shook his head. "Old saying from the war I fought in."

  "Fought?" Mary Sue asked snidely. "Most you fought during the war was at the EM club on a Saturday night."

  "Thursday night. I was off Thursdays."

  Knowing how they would bicker though it reminded her more of jays squabbling, Marta put the bag on the table and began to empty it. Newly-made knitting needles and crochet hooks from Kacere Knitware Kompany, yarn, and string to go with them followed by embroidery thread from Lothlorien Farbenwerk. "We find people with things to do will never get bored," Marta told them. "You said some of the women wanted to learn to knit and crochet, but the up-time tools are rare. I found a place that makes them. I found women who were making yarn among those who have come since and bought that. And for you, my friend—" she pulled out the last of her treasure.

  Fantastisches Plastik had supplied a small pile of casein discs layered in three colors. She had found the last of the knife blades (called X-Acto) at the hardware store and a stone to sharpen them. If nothing else, she could teach him or one of his grandchildren how to keep them sharp as long as possible. Most materials were too hard for the small blades, so she also found a set of gouges used for wood carving at a garage sale. When she told the woman running it that it was for a patient at Bowers, she got a good price rather than the usual what the market will bear as a down-timer.

  "You are too kind to us, Marta," Mary Sue murmured. "I will spread these around. Some of the resident women have wished for replacements."

  "Oh I am not kind," she replied impishly. "My grandmother used to make quilts and knitted sweaters. She would sell the quilts or sweaters." She sighed. "Though the last quilt she made was taken by soldiers before she died. If there is a market for them here…"

  "For quilts and warm clothes in the middle of a little ice age?" Mary Sue laughed. "And made by up-timers?"

  "That was my thought. I have heard of the expense of your care here and in the other two centers. Those who can work can supply money for that."

  "Then we'll have to spread it around to them as well," Alexander said. He nudged the discs, "And I think you liked that cameo I was making when we met. So you want me to do those as well? But who would buy them?"r />
  "Honestly, Alexander," Marta said tartly, "have you seen what the adel have been paying for those 'Flintstone' glasses? These are made of plastic, something we have never seen before, and while there are older cameos, most were made in Italy and Rome. None in Germany that I have seen or heard of. So yours will be made in Germany, of something unique, and made by you."

  He nodded, feeling the material. "At least, it's the soft kind from when I was a kid before they made it harder. Should carve well."

  Sumner Day came out of the building to stand nearby. "Lunchtime, people."

  Marta stood. "I will push his chair if you will push hers." They got them into the building and to the dining room.

  "Join us, Marta," Alexander said, waving.

  "No, thank you," Marta replied. "I must go to the Talkirche in Schwarzenberg."

  "But isn't the Schlosskirche closer?" someone asked. Marta looked up. A man stood there, smiling gently at her.

  "You haven't met. Reverend Wiley, this is Marta Karcher, Marta, Reverend Enoch Wiley. He's the minister of our church, the Free Independent Presbyterian Church."

  "Presbyterian. That is a Calvinist sect, is it not?" He nodded. "I must ask the pastor a question. However, the one in the Schlosskirche is very narrow-minded. I wish an answer that does not automatically condemn."

  "From what I know of this time, it might be hard," Wiley commented. "But perhaps I can help."

  Marta looked down at her hands, clutching the bag. "It is about the man I am seeing, to whom I am affianced. He never speaks of God or prays that I know of. I do know from talks we have had that he thinks God actively hates him."

  "Why does he think that?" Wiley pulled out a chair to sit, then leaned forward.

  "When the war began, his family farm was attacked by some of Tilly's men. His father and older brother slaughtered. His mother raped and died from it that night, and his younger brother died of illness on the march to White Mountain. Worse yet, he died on Richard's birthday. Then, as he fought his first battle, his sister died.

  "He became a soldier in the hopes that his brother and sister would get better care. You know how camp followers are treated." He nodded. "Instead, he was left alone, and now with blood on his hands. But he feels God took away his family for other reasons, and that he was left alive to suffer. I do not think the priest who was with the army then helped."

  Wiley leaned back. "The terms I would use to explain his actions weren't coined in this era. Does he feel God is evil and doing this out of spite? Or hate God for this?"

  She looked up shocked. "Oh, no! Richard believes in God. He accepts that God exists and believes he is good. He just feels that perhaps God does not care for him."

  "Ah. In the late nineteenth century they coined two words. The first doesn't apply, which is dystheism, the idea that God is evil. The other, misotheism, means that God for one reason or another harbors animosity to someone on Earth."

  "Odysseus." The orderly putting down the meals for the residents commented.

  "Excuse me, Adina?" Wiley looked up.

  Caught in the crosshairs, she rallied. "Well he was the guy who thought of the Trojan horse, wasn't he? Spent ten years fighting Troy, then ten years getting home because one of the gods was mad at him?"

  "I thought that was Ulysses. They made a movie about him with Kirk Douglas," Alexander said.

  "Same guy," Wiley corrected him. "The Romans pretty much stole the Greek gods, filed off the serial numbers, and claimed them."

  Adina grinned. "Douglas is way too old for me, Reverend. But I had a thing for Armand Assante." She pushed her small cart to the next table.

  Wiley shook his head, then turned to Marta again. "Is your man a Lutheran?"

  "No, Herr Wiley. He is a Catholic."

  "Then give me a few days. I'll talk to Father Mazarre over at the Catholic Church and see what he can do."

  "Thank you." She stood and left.

  ****

  The Croat raid began as sheer terror for Marta. The ending was, at first, joyous that they had survived, then backbreaking as the necessary cleanup began. Anyone still alive that showed the slightest resistance was shot out of hand, as were any horses that had been too severely injured. Then the grisly task of moving the bodies of both. Where possible, they moved the wounded first, but with so many bodies jammed in such a small area, it wasn't always possible. A pair of flatbed trucks had been brought along with an engine hoist to lift the large carcasses. Pickups were carrying the pitiful remnants of the enemy charge away as quickly as they could be gathered.

  Marta had offered to help and been assigned to gather gear, saddle rolls and bags, tack and loosening saddle girths for removal when the dead horses were taken for slaughter. If their rider was dead, the gear went into one pickup truck; the few still alive had theirs in another.

  She lifted an armful of saddle rolls and walked to the truck holding the dead men's gear. There was a tinkling sound, and she looked down. A clay pipe. One of the bundles was only partly tied, a bullet had cut the other thong. A pouch of some soft leather fell out on top of the broken pipe, and she bent to pick it up. She looked at the leaves inside it and smelled it. Tobacco? Where would they have gotten tobacco? She put the pouch in her apron pocket and forgot about it. After her shift, she trudged over to the library to ask.

  She had known tobacco came from the New World, and those who had been smoking before it ran out had waxed lyrical on the tons of it produced annually. Even their state of West Virginia had grown it, but Marion County had not. There was some grown in Spain and France, but it was also grown in Egypt, Syria, Greece, the Balkans which she found had included Croatia—the home of the Raiders, and Turkey, all within the Ottoman Empire.

  Heartened, she began her search for a closer supply.

  ****

  A few days after the Croat raid, Marta came to the center with a man in tow. Alexander was working on a cameo of Marilyn Monroe from Some Like it Hot, so he was alone for the moment. He looked up and hastily hid it. "Alexander, this is Richard Hartmann. Richard, this is Alexander McIntire. While you were gone, I have been spending time visiting him and his wife here."

  "Herr McIntire."

  "Like I told her, friends call me Alex though she is always so formal." He extended his hand, and the young man took it. "Strong grip. She says you are a sergeant?"

  "Yes, Alexander. I am usually a training sergeant, but we needed the reserves in Suhl, so I am assigned there at the moment."

  "Oh, a DI, eh? It means drill instructor. I won't hold it against you. If you're assigned there, what are you doing here?"

  "I arranged to be sent to collect more ammunition. I felt if I came, and asked her swiftly enough, Marta would marry me."

  "And I said yes!" Marta reached into the tote bag and pulled out the form. "We were married at the courthouse as soon as we got this!"

  Alexander grinned. "And ruined our fun in the process," At Marta's confusion, he added, "No big wedding, no reception; no cake! You know Mary Sue would have been hip deep in making it with any warning at all."

  "I am sorry, Alexander."

  "Don't be. Just when he comes home, you can have a proper wedding in a church with all of your friends to see it."

  Hartmann glowered. "I do not see the reason for it. Force one of us to convert? Tell Marta even if she does not, the children must be raised Catholic? I will not have it."

  Alexander saw the pain in the man's eyes. "Well first off, there isn't a Lutheran church in town, second Father Mazzare over at St Mary's would understand that, and third, it isn't against the law for people of different faiths to marry here in Grantville. How much time do you have before you head back?"

  "A little more than an hour. I have time to stop by the bank to put our accounts together, and take Marta to the shack with her key, so she can move her things in."

  "Then you had best hustle. Wait a minute." Alexander looked around, "Andy! Get your butt over here!" The orderly looked up and walked over rapidly. "Quick as you
can, get my digital camera, and bring it here. Scoot!"

  A few moments later, Alexander had four shots of the couple. One together, another with just Hartmann, and two of Marta. For the last, he asked Hartmann to make her laugh, and caught a beautiful picture, her head back, mouth open a little as she laughed, with her eyes slitted.

  As they walked away, Alexander waved to Andy again. "I know Ms. Douglas has a printer and computer. See if she can make me prints of these small enough for these." He looked at the casein discs. All of them were two layers of a cream color with a dark almost black in the center. It would look better in blue."Andy!"

  ****

  Marta clung to her husband, her husband! His arm was around her shoulders, their hips bumping. She stopped as he looked at the door to his shack. "What is that?"

  'That' was a small panel attached to the bottom of the wall beside the door. The walls were just plywood over two-by-fours which he had filled with wattle and daub inside for insulation. "Oh, it is the cat door."

  "You put in a door for Koča?" he asked confused.

  "Well yes. Did you enjoy letting her out every night? I can ask Alexander's son to reseal it. But it will begin to get cold, and she might die."

  He looked down, smiling gently. "You have such a kind heart, and I admit I have grown rather fond of…" his voice died as the door opened. There, right in his path, was a decapitated squirrel. Marta gasped as he caught the corpse by the tail, and flung it into the woods. He came back, stepped in, and stopped again. The two unopened boxes of tobacco had been gnawed open, and Hartmann could see the ripped pouches. He looked around, saw the cat who was blandly cleaning herself. "You, you, Žárlivý žena!" He roared as Marta burst into laughter. Koča ignored him, flirting her tail before vanishing into the woods. "Marta, blast it, this is not funny!"

  She hugged him. "Yes it is. We will have two women in our house, my love. Deal with it," She looked up with a small smile. "How much time do we have before you must go?"

  He looked at the sun. "About thirty minutes."