by Paul Kater
Aeroparts factory
by Paul Kater
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Contents:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 1
Sweaty, dirty horses pulled carts up and down the street, from where most cobblestones had disappeared. The cobbles had been put to good use over the years, to repair houses or to be thrown at coppers on some raid or other. Someone had done a reasonably good job in making sure that the carts would be able to go through the street despite that: there were two paths in it. Calling them lanes would be overdone, but there was one cobblestone side and one made of sand.
The street was in a neighbourhood that, let's face it, did not belong to the better parts of town. Nor would it fit in the more regular ones. The rows of low buildings on either side of the road, the slate roofs in various states of miserable, were not appealing to the eye, yet there was a lot of business going on in front of some, and inside some others. The few buildings that lay abandoned were unfit for living creatures so much that even rats preferred taking a detour around them.
The street looked raggedy, and not at all cared for. It was perhaps best portrayed by looking at the few people that lay huddled up under motley blankets and other pieces of fabric that were meant to offer some protection against the elements. They had found their refuge in what had been a blacksmith's shop. The blacksmith had long since gone, lacking paying customers. The shop had remained though, and access was made easy through now non-existent windows and the missing door.
Opposite the improvised 'homeless shelter' was Lena's brothel. Business there thrived at the strangest hours. Most of the time nobody was aware of the squeaking and moaning in the rooms of Lena's employees, but on the odd moments that the street was calm, it was easy to determine how many customers were in at the time. The walls of the houses in the street were thicker than folded-up newspapers, but not by much.
The door of Lena's establishment opened and a woman stepped outside, blinking her blue eyes against the light of the setting sun. She had made an attempt to tuck up her blond hair, but half of that had fallen down again. She couldn't care less, it seemed. Her clothes were crumpled and had seen better days. Under a mostly blue cardigan showed a green blouse, its collar worn from too much wear. Her long black skirt had originally been adorned with white flowers along the seam, but like its current owner, the dress had been deflowered long ago.
"Hey, Dotty," a carriage driver in typical dark workman's clothes yelled at her as he passed by, "blown a good job again?"
Dotty raised her hand and showed the driver a finger, in a very unladylike manner. "Fuck you, Tommy."
The man laughed. "Only when it's for free, doll."
Dotty did not pay him more attention. She crossed the busy street and walked along the uneven sidewalk, cursing the pitfalls in it. Dotty did that more out of habit than from being annoyed; it had been like that since too long to get worked up about it, and no complaint had ever done anything. She stepped over a sleeping person who had not made it inside the blacksmith's place and walked the last steps to Bromsky's. The clatter of glasses, the off-tune piano and the laughter brought a smile to Dotty's face. They were the sounds of her second home.
-=-=-
Bromsky's did not look like much on the outside. (Truth be told, it did not look like much on the inside either.) The outer wall consisted mainly of dark, weathered bricks. A considerable number of them were still the same kind. Many places showed repairs however, done with a staggering lack of craftmanship. Chopped-off bricks had been pushed into holes and were kept in place with something that looked suspiciously like newspapers. Behind a rough rectangle of wood had once been a window, but clearly glass had been in short supply at the time of shards.
Dotty pushed the door open. A gust of warm air rushed up to greet her, treating her to a familiar mix of smells. As usual, the smell of beer in all its varieties won. Sweat and smoke were competing for second and third place, and the everpresent fumes of oil lamps and candles that fought the glum darkness inside the place permeated everything without demanding attention.
Bromsky's was filled up nicely already, considering the relatively early hour. Dotty wondered what the reason would be. Usually, if Bromsky's was so full, Lena's place would be more occupied also, like on pay-day. Something special was going on. Determined to learning more, Dotty pushed through the throngs of people in their dull greys and browns, heading for the bar behind which Bromsky was lord and master. As long as his wife Kate was out of sight.
Bromsky was his normal self. The threadbare bowler hat he wore kept itself together out of sheer determination, not reaching the short grey crown that circled the man's head. Forty eight years of life had taken all colour from his hair, and most colour from his face. His deep-lying eyes missed nothing that went on in his establishment. The everpresent stubbly beard on his meaty face hung beneath fat lips that held a stump of cigar. Bromsky was busy: the cigar had gone out and he had not taken the time to relight it. Only the fact that he was behind the bar was evidence that Bromsky was the bartender. He was dressed in the same uncheering greys and black and browns as his customers.
"Hi Bromsky," Dotty said loudly, to be heard over the sea of voices in the pub, "what's the big commotion today?"
"Summin' bad at the airship plant," the barman muttered, "they all talk and hardly drink."
Dotty stared at the used glasses on the counter for a moment. It couldn't be so bad as Bromsky painted the situation. "Give me a beer, and write it up, will you," Dotty then said.
"Write it up, write it up," Bromsky started his litany. "You all gonna be the death of me." He grabbed the small worn blackboard under the counter, produced a smudgy piece of chalk from somewhere and scribbled something down. Then he pulled her a beer and hawk-eyed the crowd again.
As Dotty made her way through the crowd, her bum was groped many times. Somehow the mob always had time for that, no matter how pressing the subject of their talks was. Dotty didn't mind. As long as they groped, they were potential customers. After all, she thought, you also squeezed a tomato before you bought one.
At one of the overloaded tables, men were loudly discussing the problems at 'the factory'. Dotty knew that they were talking about the place that made part for airships. It was the one of the few factories around where the common people were allowed to work, and this one was the main source of employment for the neighbourhood. Actually they were needed there. There were machine men there, but these things could not do all the work. That's where the men came in.
"I'm telling you, there's more than six blokes dead there," said Martin, one of the drinkers. "The load that came down was humongous. Devil knows why so many were in the pit too." Clearly he had been there when it happened, whatever 'it' was. "The coppers were there real fast and they told us all to bugger off for the day. Masterson was mighty pissed off by that, but nothing he could do about it."
Another man, known as Bass, snorted. "You won't find that half day in your pay, mate."
Martin fell silent, his face turning pale. Then he uttered a few unfriendly words addressed to Masterson and the coppers.
Another person entered Bromsky's then. At first the man went unnoticed, but that changed rapidly as he pushed himself through the pub, carrying a large bag that made many a curse heard as it banged into people. The owner of the bag, rather thin and dressed in a black suit that revealed nothing about him, seemed to look for someone. His bag hit Dotty in a hip very hard. "H
ey, watch out mister!" she yelled after him, but the man was oblivious to any of the comments that were thrown at him. "Bloody idiot," she muttered, rubbing her hip. It felt as if she'd been poked with a piece of metal. The man was lost from her view mere seconds later.
The man in black made a few rounds through Bromsky's. As he did so, he made an increasing number of people feel hostile towards him, while his bag was to blame. Far in the gloomy back of the pub where hardly a light burnt, he stopped at a table. As most of the commotion in the place was centered around the speakers in the front, hardly anyone was here. There was only one man sitting at the table. Although... he had been sitting. Now he lay slumped over the table. A glass had fallen over and its contents had spilled over the table and the floor. "No desire to go to work today, eh?" the man in black mumbled to himself.
He placed the big leather bag on one of the wobbly chairs. He worked the brass clasp that held the bag closed and took a few gloves and some goggles from it. He put the goggles on his nose, slipped the gloves on and carefully prodded the man on the table.
"Oy, what'cha doing there?" The question came from a sturdy man, tall enough to paint the ceiling of Bromsky's without using a ladder. The man spoke loud enough to attract the attention of several others, and soon the table in the far corner became the new centre of attention.
The man with the goggles stared at the sturdy speaker. The glass in his eyewear made his pupils so large that they seemed to fill the entire frame. "I was looking for this man," he said in a gentle voice, "and it appears that I was too late. Now if you please let me do what I came here for..."
"And what are you here for?" Sturdy wanted to know, putting a ham of a hand on the thin man's shoulder. More voices made it clear that they wanted to know what was going on there, especially the voices from people whose view on the corner was obstructed by big men with broad shoulders.