by Eric Flint
Henry Dreeson nodded. "Sometimes it really is smarter to let sleeping dogs lie. But as for Hedy, specifically. Yep. She's been living here plenty long to meet the residency requirements we put on the books. Get Noelle to give her the little citizenship class. I'll administer the oath of allegiance myself. Take that, John George!"
Henry Dreeson sighed. Thea hadn't made it to the hospital. She'd produced her baby in the back downstairs bedroom of his house, which she and her husband Nicolas were still occupying, not having been able to find an apartment they could afford.
She'd probably dragged her feet deliberately, waiting till it was too late to leave the house even when the hospital was just a few blocks away, not telling anybody. Down-time women didn't like to go to Leahy Medical Center to have their babies. They wanted to have them at home, with midwives. That was probably just as well in a way. Given the size of Grantville these days, if all the women wanted to have their babies in the hospital with up-time physicians officiating, the deliveries would spill over into the parking lot and the town's three doctors would be working nonstop.
It caused a bit of tension, sometimes, between the doctors and the German midwives. Sometimes even between the doctors and the nurse-midwives whom Beulah McDonald was training. Maybe he ought to talk to Kortney Pence, and Beulah the next time she came up from Jena
…
He brought his mind back to the tension right here. Nicolas was hovering next to Dorothea.
On one side of the bed, the Reverend Enoch Wiley for the Calvinists. On the other side of the bed, Father Athanasius Kircher for the Catholics. In this corner, wearing a black suit; in the opposite corner, wearing a clerical collar…
He'd married Nicolas Moser and Dorothea Richter himself, at city hall, to avoid the question of which kind of church ceremony they might have to pick between, so to speak.
He didn't think that even Grantville had a provision for anything you might call civil baptism.
The way things were starting to sound, it might be a useful idea, though. He could suggest it to the county board. Maybe Jenny Maddox could do them at the funeral home. The chapel there was pretty nondenominational.
A sort of generic baptism for those who wanted it, not committing the baby to anything specific in the long run. It could be filed with the birth certificate instead of in a church. That would be convenient, since the Bureau of Vital Statistics was still in the funeral home.
Enoch advanced, defending the ecclesiastical allegiance of the father; Kircher countered, championing the faith of the mother.
The proud parents were doing their best to bury their heads in the sand. Dorothea, literally, her head in the pillow. They didn't deal with problems like this very well.
Maybe it wasn't the sort of thing that he really needed to run by the county board. He left the room, picked up the phone, and called Jenny.
Mike Stearns and the "total separation of church and state" radicals in the CoC might want to haul him in front of a firing squad for this. At a minimum, there would be a lively controversy in the newspapers after it was announced. But Mike was in Magdeburg these days, and the CoC didn't have the responsibility for keeping life in Grantville on an even keel.
"Thea's worn out," he said firmly. "I don't want to be inhospitable, but everybody except Nicol ought to get out of the room. There's coffee and cookies in the living room. Then, the rest of you, go home. She doesn't need this right now."
"He didn't," Chad Jenkins said.
"He did," Ed Piazza answered. "Right after supper, once he'd gotten rid of the rest of them, Henry had Ronnie bring a basin of water in from the kitchen and he baptized the baby himself."
"Oh, Lord."
"It's a valid baptism. I've checked with everyone. Kircher, Kastenmayer, Jones, Wiley. All the ministers agree. Well, not Green, or old Joe Jenkins, of course, but that's only because they don't believe in infant baptism at all and insist on total immersion of adults. She wasn't even a day old and Henry just dribbled some water on her forehead. The rest of them, though, except the Baptists, figure that the kid is now a properly saved Christian until such time as she reaches the age of reason. That gives Nicol and Thea another, oh, seven to ten years to decide which direction she's going, ecclesiastically speaking. He named her, too, while he was at it, since Nicol and Thea couldn't agree on a name, either.
"What did he pick?"
"Anna Elisabetha. For Annalise. He said that Annalise deserved a tribute, the way she bore up under everything last summer."
Chad picked up his notebook. "Well, let's start laying out how we're going to play it as far as the campaign is concerned. Annalise was a good idea for a name, because we can bring in Hans… At least Henry doesn't have any significant opposition. The Crown Loyalists, the few we have locally, thought they ought to run someone. Their caucus picked a down-timer, a guy named Hartmuth Frisch. He's a friend of Tino Nobili and already on the county board, but he's mostly known in town as Count August von Sommersburg's factor. Henry should win in a walk, even if he has introduced 'civil baptism' sort of off the top of his head."
Henry Dreeson pursed his lips and wished for the nine hundred ninety-ninth time in the past five hours-which was how long this county board meeting had been dragging on-that sixteen fewer people had voted for Tino Nobili. Or seventeen more people had come to the polls and voted for Orval McIntire. Or some combination of the above that would have kept Tino out of office.
Henry was still the mayor, but it wasn't a city council, any more. It was a county board, now. When the SoTF went to the county system, they'd decided that the make-do of a slightly expanded Grantville city council being the governing body of the whole RoF circle plus everything it had annexed since 1631 had to be scrapped. So they'd scrapped it and turned the whole area into an urban county. He was still the mayor. Partly because he'd been the mayor to start with. Partly because the down-timers had a good grasp on what a mayor did and hanging on to the familiar, when you could, wasn't a bad idea. So instead of mayor/council or chairman/board, they had a mayor/board system now.
For which Tino ran. And won. And just at this moment sat in a chair at the other end of the table. Bringing as many complications with him as the vain little Maizie bird in Dr. Seuss had stuck artificial feathers in her tail to make herself prettier. Till she had so many that they overbalanced her.
The time when Tino's pretensions overbalanced him and he fell flat on his face couldn't come too soon. Right now… Well, it got complicated. What happened to having a world in which you could tell your players if you did have a scorecard. It was getting to the point that a man needed a cat's cradle with diagrams on it to figure out the way things worked.
Some ways, Tino was a good guy. A family man. Hospitable. The daughter of that Italian artist woman who'd come into town with Simon Jones and the Stone boys had been staying with them for quite a while, and the girl was going to marry Pete McDougal's son.
Pete was Fourth of July Party, of course. Good friend of Mike Stearns. Which you'd think might tilt things one way.
But politically, on the board, Tino had hooked up with Hartmuth Frisch, who was running for mayor.
Now Frisch, you'd think, wouldn't be running on the other ticket. Not in a logical world. He came from the Palatinate-the one over by the Rhine, not the one over by Bohemia. A pretty reasonable man. He'd come into town at the end of a long, long, trip that had taken him all over the northern half of Germany, following the trail of his dead brother and trying to track his kids. Found them here, adopted by Orval and Karin McIntire a couple years before he caught up with them. Hadn't made a fuss-Orv and Karin were Presbyterian, Calvinists like Frisch was, and the kids were happy. A lot happier than they would have been spending those years in an orphanage, somewhere. Frisch was a widower; he was happy just to be an uncle. He'd taken a job as a factor for Count August von Sommersburg's slate quarries. Good businessman. Ed's friend Cavriani had brought his daughter Idelette to town; she was living with Enoch and Inez Wiley and working f
or the guy.
Sommersburg was Mike's ally; Orv was Mike's ally; Cavriani… well, he was friends with Ed Piazza and Ronnie liked him fine.
So you'd think maybe that Frisch would join the Fourth of July Party.
Naaaah!
Frisch didn't usually say much, himself. He didn't need to. He had Tino, who was willing to say it all. Tino was a really conservative sort of Catholic. He thought that what Henry had done when he baptized Thea's baby was an awful thing. Frisch was a really conservative sort of Calvinist. He thought that what Henry had done when he baptized Nicol's baby was an awful thing.
It was the same baby, of course. They seemed to forget that, from time to time.
The only thing that ever shut Tino up was an emergency at the pharmacy. Then he forgot all about strutting in his artificial peacock plumage and dashed off to do what he did best.
That was probably why Henry hadn't ever strangled him.
Chapter 32
Grantville
"So that's what we did, Daddy," Denise said.
Buster looked at her, twisting his thin reddish beard around in his fingers.
"Keenan Murphy, you said?"
"He was one of them. Egging the rest of them on, for the first part of it."
"I thought ol' Keenan had been playing the hero lately. Chasing down Francis when he shot at Dennis Stull. Chasing after Noelle when those guys grabbed her."
"He's not a hero, Daddy. He's not a villain, either. Mostly he's just dumb. He chased down Francis because his grandma told him to and chased after Noelle because they have the same mother. But he's dumb. Most of his friends are even dumber."
"Who else was with him? Names?"
"Mitchell Kovacs. Bubba."
"Not a surprise." Buster looked at his daughter. "Out with the rest of it."
"And Jermaine."
"Not a kids' fight, then."
"There were a couple of kids with them, I guess. Not kids the same age as Gerry and Minnie and me, though. Not fifteen or sixteen. More like eighteen or nineteen."
"Names." Buster was starting through his checklist.
"Bill Sanabria. Dustin Acton. I saw those two, at least. I didn't see Nino. He used to run with Bill, but he seems to have straightened out a lot since their mom married Ronnie Bawiec. So has Olivia."
"She's Pat's cousin," her mother Christin inserted into the conversation. "Bill's mom, that is. She's a cousin of Keenan and Noelle's mother. Fitzgeralds, both of them. That's how Bill connects to Keenan."
Buster let that pass, still focusing on Denise. "Arguments?"
"When we came out of Marcantonio's, the usual sort of thing," Denise said. "Gerry's home for a couple of weeks, for the holidays. Gerry Stone. Because he's going to school in Rudolstadt, they said he's 'going native.' Bill and Justin started to hassle him. Were hassling us, I should say, calling Minnie names too. Gordy Fritz and Dane Stevenson, Dane Junior, were with them to start with, but backed off right after it started, so they don't really count. We got out of it clean and wouldn't have bothered anyone else about it, except that Justin said something about 'another job at the fairgrounds' that Jermaine was doing. So we followed them."
"Carefully?"
"They never knew we were there."
"You're a pip."
"Jermaine and the others tried to corner Jarvis and Hedy when they were walking home from the laundry. While they were crossing the fairgrounds, by the community center, going over to the bridge, Jermaine came up to Jarvis and said something about Hedy."
"Tried to?"
"Jarvis had heard about the plan. He still has some friends who hang out at the 250 Club, even though Uncle Ken won't have him there any more since he married Hedy. So he had friends shadowing them, too. Enough to persuade the guys with Jermaine to stay out of it, so just the two of them fought. And that's why Jermaine and Jarvis had a fight last night."
"Who won?"
"A draw, more or less. Jarvis was pretty mad and gave Jermaine as good as he got. Except that in a way, Jarvis won, because Hedy got home okay. That was what they planned to do. Take Jarvis down and then take Hedy away and beat her up good. Try to make her lose the baby. Then they were going to take her back to where she came from, so she could be prosecuted for being a bigamist for marrying Jarvis. And in the election campaign, say that when Mayor Dreeson married the two of them, he knew she was a bigamist."
"So then you went to see your Uncle Ken?"
"Yeah. I thought it was a bit much. After all, Jarvis and Hedy's kid is going to be his grandchild."
"And that's what he said?"
"Ummhmmh. That he wished that they had beat her up. That he'd rather see her and the kid dead than have a half-Kraut grandchild."
"You know," Buster said, "I think Ken is going overboard. I'm going to have to cogitate on all this for a while."
"Okay. Then, after that, we went over to Benny's and wrote up a story about it all and we sent copies to all of the papers. That's what we did. Minnie and me. English and German, both. Naming names. Remains to be seen if they'll publish it. The Freie Presse probably won't, they're so righteous, but the Daily News probably will. And maybe Rodger Rude's column in the Times. I sure hope the National Inquisitor doesn't. That would ruin everything. Nobody else would believe a word of it." She picked up her jacket.
"Where are you going?"
"Over to see Eddie Junker. See how his arm's doing. With Minnie and Gerry. Then we're going to a play at the church-St. Martin's in the Fields." She zipped out the door of the trailer.
Buster looked after her blankly. "Church?"
"Gosh, Mom, sorry I'm late. Let me get a quick shower." Missy headed for the stairs.
"Where have you been?"
"Out at Lothlorien. Christmas Eve. Children's presents. Well, we also sang 'Happy Birthday' to Ron. Do you know that he's never actually had a birthday party in his life?"
The bathroom door slammed behind her.
It opened again. "Uh, he and Gerry are coming to dinner tomorrow, if I forgot to tell you before. I didn't even invite them for tonight. I was afraid that Christmas Eve at Gran's would be a bit much for them. Considering Thanksgiving. Anyway Gerry is going to a children's play out at St. Martin's. With Minnie Hugelmair and Denise Beasley. And Eddie Junker."
Another slam and the sound of rushing water.
Chad put his arm around Debbie. "Experience teaches us that she really can shower and dress in fifteen minutes."
She made it in thirteen, pulling a ski cap over her wet hair as she ran down the stairs. The three of them headed toward the family party.
"Is Ron going with Gerry?" Debbie asked.
"No. He's working evening shift in the lab so that a couple of other people who have kids in the play can go to it."
Then, apparently out of a clear blue sky, Missy added, "Ron looked up his birth certificate out at the high school. His mother's name was Mary Beth Shaw. Otherwise known as Dreamcatcher. It says that she was born in Illinois, for what it's worth."
Just before they got to Gran's, she added, "He says that's going to be it in the way of a family tree. Fairly shallow roots."
"Oh, well," Debbie said. "I'm sure that he actually has as many ancestors as anyone else. Everybody does, after all. It's unavoidable. He may not know who they were, but that's a different question."
"Oh! They are beautiful, Lenore. Really they are. Thank you so much."
Clara was looking at a set of framed drawings.
"I saw you yearning over the photos one day, Clara. It used to be easy to copy old ones, pretty much, but even if someone could figure out how to do it now and get the chemicals, it would probably cost the earth and the sky. But I've always had a knack for sketching, so.. ."
"I didn't even know you could do this, honey child," Wes said.
Lenore glanced over at her grandmother, who was sitting on the other side of the room talking to Uncle Chad and Chandra. They were looking at something else. She wiggled a little uncomfortably. "I got it from Gran, I suppo
se. She knew that I liked to draw, back when I was in school, but she never really encouraged me. Not the way she encouraged Chip to play violin, later on. The reverse, if anything. She sure made a fuss when I said once that I might like to go to a school of design rather than to a regular college. I found out later-a lot later-that she actually went over to the high school and asked my counselor to tell me that it was a bad idea, if I brought it up."
Now Wes looked across toward his mother, frowning.
Lenore didn't notice. "So don't make a big production about these, please. I sneaked over and made the sketches from the photos while she was out doing her Red Cross stuff, on the excuse that I was checking the tops of her cupboards and other stuff she can't really reach any more. She wanted to be sure the maid was cleaning them. 'Trust but verify.' "
"This, though…" Clara drew her index finger along some fine cross-hatching. This is not-not a 'knack' as you say. You have been taught. Did you apprentice with someone?"
"Well, I took college classes at Fairmont State off and on. Over six or seven years, I got about four semesters worth of classes in, I guess. None the first couple of years after I finished high school, but after that, since my schedule at work was pretty flexible, I took a couple of courses every now and then. And if I was on campus anyway for something I should take for work, like retailing or business applications, and there was an art class, or an art history class, available that day, I would take one." She looked a little defiant. "I was working and paying the tuition myself. It isn't as if I was wasting Dad's money."
"I'd have liked you to finish college," Wes said. "In anything. Underwater basket weaving would have been fine. I had a savings account for it in your name, ever since you were tiny." He laughed. "For that matter, it's still there in the bank if you ever need it. One for Chandra, too. I wouldn't have minded if you chose a design school. There were good ones, up-time. It wouldn't have been wasting anything."