The Grantville Gazette - Volume 6 Part 15

"I," Hortleder's wife said, "would much appreciate seeing this 'small electric organ' that he is said to own. Can you arrange for me to view it? I have trouble visualizing the concept."

They were not surprised when Gary invited them to dinner.

They were very surprised that he cooked it.

"I've gotten better at it," he said cheerfully. "When you have to eat your own cooking, you either get better at it or get indigestion. I eat at the hospital cafeteria sometimes, especially breakfast. Or pick up some carry-out, if I'm in a hurry. But most of the time, I cook."

After dinner, Gary and Hortleder dived into the contents of Gary's grandfather's footlocker.

Where Hortleder discovered many things of interest.

"You're welcome to come and look again any time," Gary said. "I'm glad I've found someone who really appreciates the stuff. Now if you look at this . . ." He picked up a red book. "It's the Concordance to the Lutheran Hymnal. It doesn't just have the words in both the original language and the English translation, but also short biographies of the composers and lyricists."

Hortleder thumbed through. Biographies of composers now well known. And . . . those of boys now young children. Giving, frequently, their birth places and the names of their parents.

Boys whose careers could be furthered, whose development could be enhanced by scholars.h.i.+ps or appointments to cathedral choirs . . . Through the patronage of the dukes of Saxe-Weimar . . .

Who could thus continue to be of great importance in the duchy that the up-timers had slid out from under them on his own watch, while they were away.

"Could I borrow this?" he asked.

"Sure," Gary said. "I hardly ever use it. It's not the kind of thing the state library has any need for, either."

Amberg, Upper Palatinate, December, 1634 "Because it appeals to my sense of humor," Duke Ernst said to his secretary. "A Christmas present for him."

"One for me, too, Your Grace," Johann Heinrich Boecler said. "Doing another full-time job has not been fun. When?"

"After the end of the school year, I'm afraid. In the spring."

"Better than never. What does Mrs. Simpson think of the decision?"

"She doesn't know him, but she doesn't object. Moreover, since I'm paying his salary, it is my decision."

Duke Ernst had a firm grasp on the reality of patronage. Namely that the person who controlled the purse strings controlled the project, no matter how courteously. "I will employ this Muselius and I will notify him by radio. Making sure that the full package of paperwork is there in advance, of course."

Jena, December, 1634 Dean Gerhard and his wife invited Gary Lambert to Jena for Christmas. Gary accepted. It provided him with a graceful excuse to avoid the issue of taking communion at St. Martin's in the fields. Pastor Kastenmayer was, basically, of the Philippist persuasion.

It would also be nice that the Hortleders were permitting Anna Catharina to visit the Gerhards over the holidays.

Very nice, really.

Grantville, December, 1634 "Why now?" Jonas asked wearily. The last thing that he needed on the late afternoon of Christmas Eve, the day when he would need to direct the children's play in the evening, was a summons to the Department of International Affairs to receive a radio message. "Can't someone just transcribe it and send it out here?"

Maria Blandina's eighty, more or less, first and second graders were singing loudly. Not melodically, but loudly.

Errol Mercer had introduced some new melodies for them. Jonas had written more theologically suitable lyrics. "A host of heaven'ly angels" now stood in for "Rudolph the red- nosed reindeer." Combined with the traditional "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her" every child would get to sing a solo line.

That was important to the parents of the littlest ones.

For the older children, of course, the program was more ambitious. A pageant for the third and fourth graders. They were setting that up in the courtyard. It was very convenient for a director that heavenly angels appeared in hosts. It gave a person something to do with the children whose voices did not carry well outdoors.

Then his own upper grades.

He was grateful that Ronella had offered to help with the program.

He really was.

It was kind of her. Especially on top of her own heavy teaching obligations. He kept a.s.suring himself that she was doing this out of kindness.

If it only hadn't caused her to be right here in his cla.s.sroom so much of the time after school for the past two weeks. So visibly, physically, present.

Right here and right now, she was waving the telephone receiver at him. "You can come and talk to them yourself. They want you there when the 'radio window' opens up."

He stood up. "I'll go."

"Catch the trolley both ways," she said. "It's faster. That's an idea. I'll get Daddy to add some money into our special Christmas contribution to cover trolley fares for the Countess Kate staff when they need to go downtown or to Rudolstadt. I'll run the kids through one more rehearsal for you."

Jonas winced. Special contribution. Casually add enough money to cover a year of carfares for the staff. One more reminder of how far she was beyond his reach.

But he took the trolley.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n and blast," Ronella muttered under her breath. She couldn't seem to spend an hour with Jonas without saying something that rolled back against her.

Jonas looked disbelievingly at the radio message as it came in from Amberg.

It had to be a joke.

But it wasn't. The final line was a statement that the paperwork was in Herr Jenkins' office and he should pick it up before he returned to the school. Reply requested within one week.

He went into Wes Jenkins' office. Consular Affairs. The packet was there.

He put it in his apartment when he got back to the school and turned his attention to last minute rehearsals.

Maria Blandina and the ladies of the congregation were feeding the children supper here. It just took too long for them to go home from rehearsals and return again for the evening. St.

Martin's in the Fields parish covered too large a geographical area for comfort. Not like a village church nestled snugly in the middle of the houses, or a town church drawing paris.h.i.+oners from one district of the city or one suburb outside the walls.

Adapting, always adapting.

If he left, who would do his work here?

If he left, he would miss the friends he had made since the day he brought the remains of Quittelsdorf among these strangers.

If he left, he wouldn't have to be here when Ronella married someone else. As she must do, some day.

At Chancellor Hortleder's personal recommendation to Duke Ernst. But how come?

Gary. Yes, Gary, of course. If he left, he would miss the friends he had made here.

A normal school. To administer a normal school, to shape it in accordance with his vision of up-timers and down-timers working together.

He had done these programs so often. He moved through it as though he were aware of what he was doing.

Then the midnight service.

Finally, back in his own rooms, he lit a candle and opened the packet to find out what the exact terms of employment would be.

Ron Koch said good-night to Pastor Kastenmayer and his wife. He looked around. Carol was standing behind him, a determined gleam in her eye.

"That way," she said. "Those are Jonas' rooms, at the back of the courtyard. The apartment with a candle lit. This is your very last chance, my dearest darling. Either you go talk to him or I do. You have all your talking points in your pocket if you need them. We've talked to Count Ludwig Guenther. There's a scholars.h.i.+p for Jonas if he wants to take it. Ronella would like to know if there's any light at the end of the tunnel. If there is, she's willing to wait. If not-well, then, not. You know. Just go do it."

Feeling remarkably like a lamb led to the slaughter, Ron went off to perform his paternal duty.

Pastor Kastenmayer headed for the parsonage, muttering under his breath about the fact that an up-time girl named Denise Beasley, who had come to the service-she called it a "play"- with Gerry Stone who was now studying in Rudolstadt with the intent of becoming a Lutheran pastor, had been wearing jeans at the Christmas Eve service. Her best jeans. With a coat over them. But still, jeans.

He was beginning to suspect that the more up-timers became Lutheran, the more women wearing jeans there would be in his parish. Theology was one thing. Trousers on women might be adiaphoral, but he would still prefer to see women wearing skirts. Even divided ones.

Carol wiped the slush and snow off the church steps with an old piece of paper and sat down.

The stone was cold, but this was likely to take a while.

What was an old newspaper doing here on the church steps? She looked at it, as well as she could, in the light reflecting off the snow. Not a newspaper. It was another of those horrid pamphlets about Deuteronomy 22:5.

Looking more carefully, it was a new horrid pamphlet about Deuteronomy 22:5. There were stacks of them at each end of the church steps, waiting to be picked up by paris.h.i.+oners coming out of Christmas Eve services and coming in for Christmas morning services. Merry Christmas from Santa Claus. Who in h.e.l.l in Saxony would care enough about St. Martin's in the Fields to keep them coming? And why? One more irritant out of Saxony. Why did the Saxons care?

The stone was really cold. She grabbed a stack of the pamphlets and sat on them. Someone might as well get some good from the things, even though she realized that she might end up with printers' ink on the back of her skirt, which would be a real pain to get out.

"Carol," Salome said softly behind her. "What is the matter? Don't you want to go inside?

Ronella went in with Maria Blandina to stay warm until you are ready to leave."

Carol looked around. Salome was cuddling baby Jonas in a blanket and trying to lock the church doors at the same time.

"I thought you went back to the parsonage with Pastor Kastenmayer."

Salome shook her head. "I wanted to show little Jonas the manger once more. Before I took him home. I'm so glad he lived to see Christmas. I don't think he will live much longer. Each time we take him to the hospital with breathing problems, he comes home weaker. But now, by the faith his baptism worked in him, he knows that he will get to go to heaven and play with the baby Jesus there."

Carol hopped up off the steps, took the huge key, and turned it, using both hands. "How does that work, since Jesus grew up and was crucified?"

"Oh," Salome said. "Eternity isn't time that goes on forever. It is a place without time, where everything is all at once. Everyone knows that. It's the main reason that purgatory was such a stupid idea, theologically. You can't have souls doing penance for certain amounts of time in eternity."

Carol blinked.

"'He the alpha and omega, he the source, the ending, he.' It would be nice if the baby could see Easter, but at least he has seen Christmas. Now," Salome said briskly. What's the matter. Why were you sitting on the steps?"

"Nothing's the matter. I'm just waiting for Ron. Who is, I hope, telling Jonas that Ronella wants to marry him. Or something of the sort. If we're lucky, he'll manage to get the idea across."

"Well, then," Salome said practically, "it's just as well that they have found Jonas this new job. Chancellor Hortleder told Ludwig that he would receive the formal offer today. He would never have been able to afford her, teaching here."

"What new job?" Carol asked.

Live Free

by Karen Bergstrahl

Tom Musgrove peered carefully around the door. This close to midnight few of the staff should be around. Down at the end of the hallway he could hear moaning. "That's the way, Stan, get the nurses' attention," Tom muttered under his breath before he remembered that Stan Zaleski had been dead a year or so. Whoever had Stan's old room was making enough of a fuss to bring the head nurse galloping by. Tom stood still, or as still as an eighty-three year old man with arthritis and pneumonia could. The nurse never noticed him at his door; she was gesturing to a pair of aides coming from the side hallway. When the trio disappeared into the far room Tom waited. He wanted their full attention on the patient in that room and not on him.

Cautiously Tom stuck first one cane out and then the other and dragging his reluctant legs after them. "Can't fall now. Got too far to go." He murmured curses at his creaky old joints. A cough bubbled up and he leaned against the wall until it was finished wringing him out. d.a.m.ned pneumonia. The "old man's friend" it was called when he was a kid. Eased a man out of life when he was too old and too weak to do useful work. Then antibiotics and all the other medicines came along, letting a man outlive his usefulness without half trying. Well, the Ring of Fire had changed that. Pneumonia was back along with a bunch of other diseases from Musgrove's childhood.

Dying, he thought, as he made his way one shambling step after another, wasn't hard. He'd never wanted to lie on a bed with tubes sprouting like weeds from every part of his body, his mouth hanging open, and his eyes staring at the ceiling. His father had lain that way for six months until the doctors couldn't find a vein strong enough to run another IV and the old man was allowed to die. It had cost the old man his dignity, his savings, and his house. Tom's mother lasted another five years before it was her turn to go. She'd come back to Grantville where her doctor knew her well enough not to stick her full of tubes. She'd pa.s.sed on in possession of her wits and with her grandkids around her.

Nope, dying wasn't the problem. It was what you had to go through to die that bothered him.

At least back here in this Year of Our Lord 1635 the doctors had a harder time keeping you from checking out quickly. A man had a chance to die with his dignity still intact.

The door at the end of the hall was open and he could see through it to the front entrance. A single lamp dimly lit the area. To Tom's relief the little red light over the front door was out. He'd heard from one of the cleaning crew that the alarm system was broken. It was that tossed off comment that made him think that his plan might work. With the alarm system down no loud siren would go off when the front door was opened at night.

The sofa and overstuffed chairs beckoned him, seducing him with thoughts of easing his aching bones in the depths of their cus.h.i.+ons. "Sit down now and I'm never getting up," he hissed, surprised by how attractive the idea of sc.r.a.pping his plan in return for a comfortable chair was.

Grimly he clomped, right cane, left cane, right foot, left foot, over to the front door. Bracing against the left cane he pushed the door open. No siren. No sound, just crisp fresh air.

The cold air brought another coughing spell, this one short but painful. Tom looked back along the hallway, afraid the cold air might alert some staff member. He wasn't worried about the coughing-half the patients in the nursing home coughed long and loud throughout the night.

One more thing he hated about the nursing home. He hadn't had a good night's sleep since coming here.

He tottered through the open door, painfully turning to gently close it behind him. Free at last! Now, should he take the ramp or the steps? Better the ramp. He'd fallen on the steps at Christmas and his hip still ached. Now that he was outside he didn't have to worry so much about noise and the farther he got along the driveway the less chance there was of some busybody seeing him.

Turning, he eased on down the ramp, pausing at the bottom to catch his breath and to cough again. This time it was deep coughs, the kind that wracked his whole body. By clutching the handrail Tom kept standing. When the coughing ended he slowly and painfully finished inching off the ramp.

Finally his feet were on the blacktop of the drive. The only light came faintly up the street from a gas lamp at the corner. It was, he decided, a curse and a blessing. No one in the nursing home would be able to see him on the driveway but he wasn't able to see any stones or potholes in his path. Firmly on the plus side was that he was on the driveway and there was no sign of any pursuit.

Forty-five minutes and several coughing sessions later he stood on another blacktop driveway. This one was down the block and across the street from the nursing home. At one end was a garage that had been converted into a two-horse stable. Actually the old two-story garage had been converted back to a stable. It pre-dated cars and had still held horses and a buggy when he was a kid. Funny how things in town had gotten twisted and turned inside out by the Ring of Fire. Or, in the case of this garage, returned to their beginnings.