The Grantville Gazette Volumn VI Read online

  Then what looked like a rough customer carrying a short quarterstaff walked in. He tapped on Herr Jenkins' shoulder, said something into his ear and Herr Jenkins followed the man out the door. Since two or three other young men, all dressed like the local students followed, Georg did too.

  Out on the dark street, a young man who'd obviously had too much to drink was singing loudly and off-key. He wasn't dressed like most of the local workmen but rather like one of the university students. Herr Jenkins walked over to the young man. Facing him, he put his hands on the student's shoulders. He softly talked for a short while before hugging the student to his chest and then putting his arm around the student's shoulders. The two young men walked away towards the city gate.

  "What was that all about?" Georg asked the student next to him.

  "One of Chip's old students just found out today that he's come into his inheritance," the young man said blandly. "Kurt was happy to be his own master but on the other hand, he didn't want his father to die. Besides, this means he'll have to leave the university and go home to manage his late father's estate. So he was very drunk."

  "Oh . . . I didn't know Herr Jenkins was a professor."

  "He's not. He's a docent, a teacher at the university, but all of his students are close to him," the other man said and turned to go back to the tavern.

  Half an hour later, the same young man stood up at the end of the tavern. "We're going to start a meeting of the sanitation subcommittee shortly, so those of you who don't want to learn about why you should keep flies off your food may leave." Georg looked around him as several workmen grimaced and finished their meals quickly before leaving. Most of the women on the other hand, took places at the tables nearest the young man.

  Just as Georg stepped into the street behind the departing workmen, Herr Jenkins approached the tavern. "Uh, Herr Jenkins?" Georg asked, taking off his hat, holding it nervously between his hands.

  "Yes?"

  "Uh, Herr Jenkins, I, uh, was wondering. I mean, my name is Georg Bauer and I, uh, just started working here in Jena, uh, digging the ditch for the sewer . . ."

  "Go on."

  "Uh, Herr Jenkins, I, uh, wanted to know about Grantville. Is it true what they say?" he blurted out. "I mean, witch . . . no, uh, by some means and uh, lights that . . ."

  "Probably," Chip answered humorously. "No streets of silver, though. It would be easier for you to just go there for a few days than for you to believe what I'd tell you. Not everyone who goes there wants to stay because of our different customs. It is very different from Jena. If you want to work and are prepared to change, there are jobs that will pay much more than what you're making now."

  "Uh, thank you, Herr Jenkins," Georg answered quickly. "Uh, I hate to ask but, uh . . ."

  "If you want to leave the work here to go to Grantville, I can probably persuade your boss to hire you back on. In fact, come on inside and I'll write you a note of recommendation to someone I know."

  Georg couldn't believe his luck. Herr Jenkins was going to recommend him? After just meeting him? Fantastic!

  Chip got a piece of paper from Jan, the tavern keeper and scrawled a quick note. He folded and was about to seal it when he looked at Georg. "I assume you don't read or speak English. This is a note to the head man at one of the businesses my father owns. It gives your name and says you've been working here as a ditchdigger." Chip used the wax from a candle to seal the note. "Follow the Saale down to Rudolstadt. When the river bends to the south, follow the road that goes west. Ask anyone on that road where Grantville is. When you get to Grantville, ask anyone where the Laughing Laundress Company is. Do you have all that?"

  "Oh, yes, sir. Thank you, Herr Jenkins." Georg tucked the note in his pouch. "Thank you. Thank you," he repeated and practically ran out the door.

  "Who was that?" Jan asked.

  "One of the ditchdiggers." Chip sighed. "Give you two to one odds that he'll be back in Jena in less than a week."

  "I don't make sucker bets," Jan said, chuckling.

  * * *

  As soon as Georg saw the macadam road, he knew Grantville was definitely different. He tried to imagine how many men it must have taken to build such a wide, flat, smooth road and shook his head. He also had no idea what was the purpose of the double yellow stripe in the middle of the road. Guards had stopped him shortly after he'd turned west. After answering a few questions and having a medic look at him, he was free to proceed to Grantville.

  An old man with a donkey pulling a small cart loaded with produce was passed through while Georg was being questioned and inspected. Georg quickly overtook him. The man seemed happy for some company.

  "That's the school over there where the older students go," the old man said, waving at a large brick building above them on the hillside a short while later. "Few weeks ago, Gustavus Adolphus himself rode in with his cavalry. Killed a bunch of Croat cavalry who had come to slaughter the children in the school. One was my Martha. She's sixteen now. But between the men, even some women of Grantville and Gustavus Adolphus' men, they killed lots of those bastards."

  "You mean, you let your girl that old go to school rather than making her work at home or somewhere else to earn money? How can you afford it?" Georg asked, surprised.

  "Why not?" the man asked with a twisted smile. "Don't cost me nothing and girls are just as smart as boys. Well, I don't know that for a fact but my Martha's smarter than her two older brothers. Speaks English now and is talking about becoming a bookkeeper, too. I was farming here and we were visiting my brother in Rudolstadt when what they call the Ring of Fire happened. Practically everyone our family knew was gone and this place was here instead. Some call it witchcraft but I don't know. I didn't know of any witches living anywhere near us. There aren't any here in Grantville as far as I can tell."

  As they walked into Grantville, the old man said, "Would have moved, but where to? I don't like Rudolstadt anyway. Besides, Grantville took care of us, gave us a nice house to live in when we came back. I won't say I like not farming, but Grantville's not that bad once you get used to its strange ways. Martha's in school and both my boys are working in jobs that don't require them to be apprentices."

  "Do you know where the Laughing Laundress Company is?" Georg asked, looking at the address on the note.

  "Just over there," the man said, pointing to a sizeable one-story building with large glass windows in the front. "Looks like it's open."

  There were eight Germans sitting on opposite sides of a workbench in the huge room, half of which had been closed off by an eight-foot wall. Each man performed a particular task having to do with two cylinders of wood. Then he'd pass the partial assembly to the next person.

  "Hello?" Georg called.

  An older man wearing light brown trousers which fell to his ankles and a soft green shirt with two buttons below the neck walked stiffly up to him. Georg hadn't noticed the door on the side of the workroom. "Hello," he said softly in an accent more pronounced but like Herr Jenkins'. "What can we do for you?"

  "Hello, sir. I have a message from Herr Chip Jenkins in Jena." Georg held up the note.

  The man glanced at the name on the front and gave a small frown before opening the note. "Hmm. Well, fortunately for you, Johannes decided to move on to where he could make more money. Of course, it's harder work as well, so . . . Bernhard! This is Georg Bauer. Show him what needs to be done and give him the usual rules. Get him settled in town."

  "Ja, Herr Jenkins." Bernhard was in his mid-thirties with a deeply lined face, dressed like an American with a short-sleeved shirt and narrow-legged long trousers made from a material Georg didn't recognize. "Come with me."

  Georg couldn't help but stare at the back of the man who was walking to the glassed-in room. "That is the father of Herr Chip Jenkins? The landowner?" he asked, puzzled.

  Bernhard shrugged. "He is Herr Chad Jenkins. He owns this company and has many properties. His son works with the CoC in Jena." He looked over at Georg, seeing his expr
ession. "Don't look so stupid, standing there with your mouth hanging open. Grantville is different."

  "So everyone keeps telling me," Georg muttered.

  It was midafternoon when Georg arrived. By the time six rolled around, he was hungry. "Where did all those women come from?" he asked, seeing several walk out the exit towards the road ahead of them.

  "They work on the other side of that wall making washboards. You must have heard their squawking," Bernhard said. "This way neither the men nor the women distract or bother one another while they work. We don't see much of them during working hours, even have different lunch times."

  "Speaking of food, where can I go to eat?"

  "There are many places but do not go into the Club 250. They do not like Germans. Besides, they don't have any food except beer and pretzels." Bernhard waved a hand. "But let's get you a bed first. Grab your bag. I'll take you over to the workingman's dormitory. There is no public bath but there are what they call showers."

  Bernhard led him to the dormitory a short walk away. It was a large three-story brick building. An old German with one arm was sitting behind a desk. He was dressed American-style in a plaid shirt that buttoned down the front. "Name?" he wheezed. He dipped his quill into the ink.

  "Georg Bauer."

  "How long will you be staying?" he asked, looking up from the form he was filling out.

  Georg shrugged. "A week at least. I don't know. I just came from Jena and started work today." The old man wrote down where he came from.

  "Where are you working?"

  "The Laughing Laundress." The old man nodded and wrote that down.

  "Two dollars per night or ten dollars for a week," the old man said, putting down the quill and lifting his palm expectantly. "Won't find a bed anywhere for less. If you have any valuables, I can put them in the cage. No swords, pistols or other weapons in the dormitory. I lock them up here. You can keep your dirk."

  After a short discussion, Georg handed over his money and got some American change. "Brigitta!" the old man called.

  A yawning woman wearing a long skirt and a linen blouse came out of the room behind the desk. A comfortably fleshed dark blonde and not unattractive, Georg noticed. Probably getting a little sleep before working tonight if she's napping now, he smirked.

  "This is Georg Bauer. Put him in room 302. Bunk seven."

  "Come." The woman led him down the hallway to the stairs. "One day they will fix the elevator but until then we use the steps," she grumbled and began climbing. Georg had no idea what an elevator was but following two steps behind her, his mind imagined what lay beneath the skirts not far from his eyes.

  Once on the third floor, Georg walked next to her and smoothly slipped his arm around on her hip. "Will you come see me tonight, darling?" he asked.

  Without commenting, Brigitta reached down, gripped the middle finger of the hand on her hip and bent it back.

  "Aahh!" Georg yelled, going to his knees as she turned towards him, cruelly pressing his finger and hand backward. "Let go! Please!"

  "A lesson to you, good sir," Brigitta said, releasing his finger. "There may be prostitutes in Grantville but let them find you. Never, but never, make an assumption that any woman, no matter how she is dressed or where she works, is a prostitute. Is that clear?"

  Georg's eyes were watering as he worked the finger. "You might have told me before!"

  "Of course." She smiled wickedly. "But you'll remember it so much better this way. You can see the room number above the door. 302. Your bunk is number seven and you can see the number on it from here. Remember its location. If someone finds you sleeping in his bunk, you may lose some teeth. There is a cabinet for each bunk and yours is number seven. The showers are at the middle of the hallway and . . . wait, I'll have to show you. Put your bag in your cabinet and join me down the hall."

  A few minutes later Georg was standing inside a room as large as his own bunk room. There were colored tiles on the walls and it had a strange smooth rock floor. At a level just above his head there were four spaced pipes sticking out from the wall with something bell-shaped at their end. Two knobs were on the wall below each pipe and a square opening was built into the wall above the knobs.

  "This is how you turn on the shower." Brigitta stood to the side and turned one of the knobs. Water sprayed out of the bell-shaped device. "There are two knobs. The one I just turned on, the one on the right, is for cold water. The one on the left is for hot water. You can adjust the temperature of the water coming out to your liking. Clear? When you are finished, be certain no water is coming out of the shower head. We do not waste water here."

  Georg thought he understood but figured he could watch or ask someone else when he took his shower.

  "One more thing," Brigitta said, with that nasty smile of hers. "There are four showers in this room, the only one on this floor. Only one person per shower. Try to share and people will think you're . . ." She gave a sign for a homosexual. "Wait in the hall with a towel around your waist or in your trousers or go back to your room. Use a towel to dry before you leave the shower. People slip on these floors and there's enough dirt on them without making mud. I have enough work to do. Understand?

  "The hallway lights come on at sundown and go off an hour before midnight so everyone can get a good night's sleep. At dawn a bell will be rung so everyone can get to work on time. Any questions?"

  Georg had a thousand but decided he'd try showering now that men were coming into the hallway from where they'd been working.

  Half an hour later, freshly showered, he joined Bernhard at the door of the dormitory.

  * * *

  The Thuringen Gardens was busy when Bernhard and Georg walked in. "It's always like this from middle afternoon until late at night," Bernhard explained. The waitress bent forward next to Georg showing a generous cleavage as she set the quart-sized beer mugs before them. Georg was about to slip his arm around the woman's bottom as he often did in taverns but as he reached out, a twinge from his finger reminded him that Grantville was different. He carefully withdrew his arm. Bernhard was sitting across the long table from him. The corner of his mouth curled up slightly.

  "That'll be five dollars," the waitress said. "Would you like to order a meal?"

  Georg did a quick calculation and was horrified. So much for a beer? That was more than triple what it cost in Jena! More! How much had they devalued the money here? Did he even dare to spend his good Jena money?

  "Order what you want, Georg." Bernhard smiled at the look on Georg's face. "I'll buy your meal tonight and you can return the favor after you get your first pay. They have herbed roast chicken, which is very good but that you can buy for yourself. The dish is expensive but the price has been coming down in the past month or two as more people have begun raising chickens."

  Georg ordered first. After Bernhard put in his order for a round of cooked ground beef on a bun and pickled red cabbage, he continued Georg's orientation. "I guess someone must have told you that grabbing the ass of a waitress in Grantville is not a good idea."

  Embarrassed, Georg told the story of his brief encounter with Brigitta to Bernhard's amusement.

  Bernhard grinned and leaned forward with his forearms on the table. "You got off easy. I've met her before and she knew you were new to Grantville. She's attended several unarmed combat classes. Easier than using a knife on someone who wants to get too friendly, you know. If I or most of the other men around us had done that, I might have gotten a look of what's between her legs. Of course, her foot would have been standing across my throat. Not worth it. Not worth it at all." He chuckled and took a large swig of beer.

  Georg shrugged. "Everyone tells me that Grantville is different. How much different?"

  Bernhard looked around for a moment. Then he pointed towards a large table in a back corner where eight people were dressed in American and German clothing. "See that table? The new principal of the school for teenage children, the last having been killed in the Croat raid a few weeks
ago, is sitting there. Another man is the manager of the steel plant in Swarza along with his wife who is also highly educated in physical mechanics. Another is Herr Wesley Jenkins, the brother of our employer and a senior civil servant. There's talk of sending him somewhere else in Germany whenever Herr President Stearns and King Gustavus Adolphus come to an agreement. The woman sitting next to him is a German who's a widow from Badenburg but who has also been working with Herr Wesley. The woman next to her used to be a camp follower but she's with the CoCs now. The last man is a Scottish weaver, specializing in wool.

  "Now name me a place in the world where you can find such a diverse group that isn't traveling or drinking heavily. Each and every one of them is working hard not only for themselves but also to better Germany as a whole. Think about all the people you've ever known. Where else have you ever seen a people like these here?

  "Now I won't say that everyone in Grantville is that way. In fact, there are a lot of Americans who wish they were back where they came from, working for little more than subsistence pay because back there they had so many conveniences. Didn't have to work half as hard for them, either. Which is also why most of those people will never leave Grantville if they can help it.

  "I'd known of your Herr Jenkins before he left here because I was cutting timber for Herr Chad Jenkins. Frankly, he did not have the best reputation. In fact, he . . . well, never mind. Now I can't help but admire him. Of all the Americans who left Grantville, I think he's about the only one who doesn't work closely with other Americans, only Germans."

  "You're German. What makes them different?" Georg asked, as their meals were placed in front of them.

  Bernhard shrugged and had a bite of his sandwich before continuing. "It's something inside them, in their education, that they refuse to be defeated by events. You've already heard how long they were educated. Do you realize that in this city less than one child in ten dies of illness? They claim that number is ridiculously high, that in a few years it will be less than one in a hundred. What medicines they can produce keep many children alive but cleanliness is the single largest reason they say. It's nearly an obsession, the insistence on washing their hands before eating and after using the facilities. The sewer you were building in Jena is part of that insistence.