Grantville Gazette VI Read online

  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 expression. "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 G
eorg 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.

  "Next month I will return to my home town to bring my sister and children here. After the Croat attack, I figured if Wallenstein and Richelieu are that afraid of Grantville-educated children, then I'd better get mine here as soon as possible. Can you imagine what an education is worth from the most knowledgeable place in the world?"

  "Interesting." Georg bit into his toasted roll. It was sliced lengthwise and contained sauerkraut and sausage that was slathered with mustard. Expensive but not bad, he thought, letting its sharp and spiced flavors fill his mouth. He put it down and tried some pickled cabbage. It was . . . different, definitely not as good as what his mother used to make but then whose was?

  "Is this place open for breakfast as well?"

  "No. Just keep sniffing when you leave the dormitory tomorrow morning and watch where the other men go. There's a few different places. I live in a house owned by Herr Jenkins with five other men and we have a German woman who cooks for us every morning. Care for another beer?"

  * * *

  When Brigitta walked down the hallway ringing the bell the next morning Georg woke up with a headache. Not his usual headache caused by drinking too much. His head hurt in different places. He opened his eyes or at least tried to. Something was definitely wrong because he couldn't open them more than slits. What was in that beer last night?

  Georg threw back his blanket. He walked stiffly over to his cabinet, got out his clothes and, sitting on the bench, put them on painfully. He hadn't felt this bad since that drunken fight in . . . Checking his pouch before putting on his trousers, he found that he had most of his money. Well, that was good news.

  Slowly, painfully he put his head up and walked out. It was cool for being the just past the middle of summer he thought, taking a deep breath. Ouch. That hurt too. He breathed in through his nostrils and . . . cooking sausage. Breakfast!

  Georg looked around at the other men coming out of the dormitory. "Hey, where's a good place for breakfast?" he called.

  One of them looked at him strangely and then nodded. "This way."

  * * *

  "What the hell happened to you?" Bernhard asked when Georg walked into the shop almost an hour later.

  "I don't know," Georg admitted. "I remember leaving the Gardens. I don't remember much past then. I saw another tavern. I think it was a tavern. I guess it sold food because I remember a sign in English saying, 'No Krauts'. 'No' meaning 'nichts' and 'Krauts' I figure was for 'cabbage.' They didn't have any cooked cabbage for sale. Stupid sign to put up. I'd already had enough to eat anyway. I opened the door and well, that's the last I remember from last night."

  Bernhard sighed. "Kraut is a derogatory term for German. Remember when I told you not to go to the Club 250 yesterday because they don't like Germans? Guess what you did. Somebody, probably a lot of somebody's beat you up. Let me take you over to the restroom. I'll clean you up."

  When Georg looked in the mirror, he was shocked. First of all, he'd never seen himself in a decent mirror. Second, it was no wonder he felt bad. Both eyes were swollen almost shut and his face had been brutalized. There were smears of dried blood from his nose on his chin and cheeks where he'd wiped his face last night. Thank heaven he'd been feeling no pain.

  "I hope you can see well enough to work," Bernhard said. He washed and rinsed Georg's face until it was cleared of all blood. "We've got a shipment going out on Monday. If we don't get enough finished today, we're going to have to work on it tomorrow."

  "Are you all right?" Herr Jenkins asked as soon as he saw Georg.<
br />
  "I feel hurt but it could have been a lot worse," Georg said bravely. As time went on, he was feeling more aches and bruises in various parts of his body. But he still had all his teeth and he'd given worse in fights. "They weren't really trying hard to injure me. Either that or I defended myself well and my knuckles don't look that bad."

  Bernhard brought over two light blue pills with a glass of water. "Here. This will make it hurt less."

  "What kind of pills are these?" Georg asked, putting the pills into his mouth and taking a drink of water to wash them down.

  "Like an essence of willow bark in pill form. They call it aspirin. It relieves pain. There's a doctor in Jena who compounds it for us."

  Fortunately, being the newest member of the assembly crew, Georg's job was the easiest. All he had to do was hammer square-ended metal caps on each end of the cylinders and lightly tap gears with a small hammer onto each cap using a covering piece of wood before passing them to the next position.