Grantville Gazette Volume 27 Read online

  "Yeah. You take a musical theme, then try to make music out of it with variations and stuff."

  "Sounds hard."

  "It can be. Hey, what was your phone number?"

  "Huh?"

  "What was your phone number in Grantville?"

  "534-3468. Why?"

  Marla picked notes out on the piano keyboard. "G-E-F-E-F-A-C. There. That's the notes for your phone number." She set both hands on the keys and played with the resulting melody, adding chords and rhythms to it. After a minute or so, she brought it to a close.

  "That was cool," Staci smiled.

  "I'm not very good at it, so I work on it as often as I can."

  Staci stepped back from the piano. "I didn't mean to interrupt you," she repeated.

  "No problem. What do you want?"

  Staci turned away and walked over to the window. She stared out for a moment, then she turned to face Marla. "This Johann Bach . . . what do you know about him?"

  Marla leaned over and rested her arms on the music rack of the piano. "Not a lot. A good musician by anyone's standards. Seems to be a nice guy. Probably related to the Bach, but he hasn't heard from the researchers in Grantville to prove it yet."

  Staci turned back to the window. After a moment, she asked, "Is he married?"

  Marla's eyebrows rose in surprise. "No, not that I know of. Down-time men don't wear wedding rings, though, so it's hard to tell for sure."

  "Franz does . . . wear a ring, I mean."

  Marla blushed a little. "Yeah, well, Franz isn't your typical down-timer, either."

  "Yeah." There was a long silence. Marla wasn't sure what Staci was getting at, but she was willing to wait for her to get to it in her own time.

  "Marla . . ."

  "Yeah?"

  "Do you believe in love at first sight?"

  Oh, my. "Um, maybe," she responded with caution. She didn't want to sound too out-in-left-field, here.

  "I mean, when did you first know you loved Franz?"

  Marla wasn't able to suppress the smile she always got when she thought of their first meeting. "Okay, you got me. He had me the night we met and he showed me how his hand had been crippled."

  Staci turned with surprise on her face. "Pity? That's how it started for you?"

  "No," Marla said with heat that surprised her. She calmed down. "No, it wasn't pity or sympathy. Empathy, now, that was probably a large part of it."

  Staci tilted her head to one side. "What do you mean?"

  "Understand that Franz lives for music. He is music, you might say. And that had been ripped away from him. You could see it in his face, in his eyes. There was a raw hole in his soul that he was bleeding from. I could see the pain in him, could feel it. And I knew that pain, because I thought I had lost the music when the Ring fell." She swallowed, reliving that moment. "It wasn't a moment of decision, of thought. I just . . ."

  "You just stayed with him."

  "Yeah." Marla nodded. "I stayed with him after that. Mind you, I don't think he was that fast to recognize it."

  "But he did, eventually."

  "Oh, yeah." Marla smiled a bit at the thought of that night as well.

  There was another long moment of silence. Marla broke it with, "So, are you feeling . . . something . . . for Johann?"

  Staci looked back out the window. "Something, I guess.

  * * *

  "So the wind trunks come up from the wind chest," Antonio Parigi mused, tracing his finger over the rough drawing Johann had just done, "and feed into the small wind chests under the manuals."

  "Right," Johann nodded.

  "Where does the wind go from there?"

  "The player has to open one or more stops to open up passages from the small wind chest to the pipes. Pulling the knob pulls the slider out and aligns holes in the slider with holes in the top of the chest and the bottom of the wind trunks to the pipes."

  "Hmm." The architect pulled on his little spike of a beard. "So the routing of the wind in an organ is not unlike an exercise in fluidics."

  "So I've been told." Johann smiled. "At least if this system springs a leak, nothing floods."

  Parigi chuckled. "True." He tapped a finger on the papers. "So how have you progressed in moving from the concept to the reality?"

  "The carpenters are ready to begin the main wind chest, but that will have to wait until we are closer to the completion of the chamber that will hold it. I still have not found a reliable man to make bellows." Johann frowned at the thought. This was on the verge of becoming a problem, which he did not need this early in the life of the organ design and build.

  "They mentioned using an electric fan," Parigi reminded him.

  Johann sighed. "I know. But I do not know anything about that. I am not certain how to incorporate that into what I do know."

  "A not uncommon problem for those of us born in this time," Parigi chuckled. "The building project has an electrician assigned to it. Talk to her."

  "Her?"

  "Her."

  Johann grimaced and shook his head.

  * * *

  "Excuse me, please? Are you the electrician?" Johann had been pointed toward a table where coils of wire and odd metal fixtures were piled in haphazard towers that leaned in various directions.

  "You're talkin' to her." The head that was bowed over a contraption on the table didn't move.

  "I am Johann Bach."

  The head rose, and eyes blinked at him from behind small rectangular glasses. "Oh. You're the organ guy, right?"

  "Yes."

  "Just a sec." The head bowed back down for a moment; a screwdriver was twisted. "Ah, that's got it." The contraption was pushed aside as she looked up at Johann. "What can I do for you?"

  The woman looked familiar to Johann, but he knew he'd never seen her before. He pushed that thought aside. "I need to move air to fill the wind chest for the organ. In other times I would use bellows, several of them. But now they tell me I should use an electric fan. And . . ."

  "And you need to know what one is, right?"

  "Yes." Johann suppressed the irritation that flared from being interrupted.

  She picked up a flat piece of metal and waved it at Johann. He felt air stirring against his face. "That's a fan, right? It moves air?"

  Johann's irritation flared again, and he had to step on it harder. "I understand that, yes."

  "Sorry, didn't mean to be patronizing." The electrician set the metal piece back on the table. "Okay, now an electric motor can turn very fast." She picked up a tool from the table and squeezed a trigger, which produced a whining sound as the pointed end began to spin rapidly. "Like so."

  "And if one can figure out a way to attach a fan to that motor," Johann pointed to her now-quiet tool, "one can move a lot of air rapidly."

  He was rewarded with a bright smile. "Right."

  "So what would it take to build one, and how much air would it move?"

  "How much air gets moved would depend on the size and speed of the fan. We'd need to talk to an engineer about that. But I can't see that building one would be all that difficult. A medium sized electric motor with a fan blade assembly on it wouldn't be hard."

  "An engineer. You mean like Herr Otto Gericke?"

  "No, I was thinking more along the line of Jere Haygood."

  "Ah, Frau Haygood's husband?" Johann was aware of the oddness of the up-timers, where the wife would take the husband's surname when they married.

  "Right."

  "But who would build this for me?"

  The electrician steepled her fingers. "I can get the motor, once we know what we need to build. Who builds it depends on what you make the fan part out of—wood, sheet metal, even tin."

  Johann nodded. That made sense. And wood would probably be the cheapest material and the quickest to work. He nodded again.

  "So, I need to consult with Herr Haygood."

  "Yep. I can't help you with the calculations for designing it."

  "Good. I will seek him out." Johann
gave a short bow. "Thank you very much for your assistance, Fraulein . . ." He realized he didn't know her name.

  "Matowski. Melanie Matowski." She stood and offered her hand.

  Johann grasped it, to have his own firmly shaken. "Are you related to Fraulein Anastasia Matowski?"

  Another bright grin. "My sister Staci. She's the teacher, I'm the hands-on person."

  Fraulein Melanie was perhaps an inch or two taller than her sister, and her face was somewhat rounder than Fraulein Anastasia's heart-shaped visage, but now that his attention had been drawn to it, he could see the resemblance.

  "My thanks again."

  "No problem."

  Johann glanced back for a moment, to see that Fraulein Matowski had resumed her seat at the table and was again head-down over her work. An . . . interesting young woman, he mused to himself as he walked out of the workspace.

  * * *

  "Hey, Bach!"

  Johann looked up from where he had stooped to enter the Green Horse. He saw a hand being waved and waved back. After collecting a mug of ale, he made his way toward the table.

  "Hey, Johann," Marla said. "Pull up a chair and sit on the floor."

  Johann stopped halfway down to the bench, frozen as he untangled that thought in his mind. He decided after a moment that it was more of the ubiquitous but slightly off-pitch up-time humor, and continued his descent to his seat. The others nodded or waved a hand at him, and he nodded back.

  It was Marla's usual crew, the musicians who accompanied her in her singing, plus a couple of extras. Johann's eyes lit upon two familiar faces. At the other end of the table sat the two young women that had accompanied Frau Marla several days ago. He considered them over the rim of his mug. Fraulein Stevenson was laughing, leaning across Franz Sylwester to say something to Frau Marla. Fraulein Matowski—Anastasia Matowski, he reminded himself—sat across the table from them with a slight smile on her face, fingers laced around a coffee cup.

  Something was different. It took Johann a few moments to realize that Fraulein Anastasia's hair was short. Very short. Extremely short. It looked as if someone had cut all her hair to less than finger length.

  Now it was understood that up-time women, among their many freedoms and licenses, were much more casual about the treatment of their hair than the women Johann had known all his life. And outside of Frau Marla, he hadn't seen many of them who wore their hair long. But shorter than Marla's hair left pretty of room for length—which Fraulein Anastasia's hair no longer possessed.

  Johann considered the young woman. Perhaps she had been ill, and they had cut off her hair for some reason to help her heal. Doctors had been known to do stranger things, he knew.

  The other thought that attempted to cross his mind he pushed away. Surely if she had committed some sin that a pastor or congregation had levied this as a punishment she would not be here surrounded by her friends. Perish the thought.

  He let the conversations flow around him, content to sip his ale and look from under lowered lids at the young woman. Whatever the reason for the cutting of her hair, Johann had to admit it gave a certain charm to her.

  Marla raised her head and looked toward the bar. "Woops! Okay, folks, time to do our thing. Let's go." Instruments were pulled from cases and bags, and Marla and Friends trooped to the open spot at the end of the tavern.

  Johann found the evening enjoyable. He still wasn't very familiar with the songs that Marla and the men that clustered around her liked to perform. They were for the most part bright and bouncy songs, many of which would have had people dancing to them had they been done at a town fair or village market. He remembered being told they were mostly from up-time Ireland, which he had some trouble crediting. Irishmen in the here and now weren't exactly common in Wechmar and Erfurt where he grew up, but the few that he'd met here in Magdeburg did not seem to fit with bright and bouncy. A more moody, surly, snarling group of men he'd never met before, and never wished to again.

  Regardless of their origin, by now the songs were familiar to the crowd in the Green Horse, enough so that they were singing along with some of the choruses. Johann hummed instead, foot tapping and fingers wagging in the air.

  The music reached a resting place after the musician's finished Nell Flaherty's Drake with a flourish. Marla was panting from the rapid pace of the song with its intricate lyrics. "Staci!" she called out.

  Johann watched as Fraulein Matowski looked around. Marla beckoned her. She shook her head, and Marla beckoned more energetically. Fraulein Stevenson reached across the table and nudged her. "Go on. You know she won't take no for an answer."

  Fraulein Matowski shrugged, drained her coffee cup and stood. As she walked toward the musicians, Johann picked up his mug and slid down the bench to sit closer to Fraulein Stevenson. She looked over at him and smiled, then returned her gaze to her friends.

  Marla waved for quiet. "We're going to do an old song from up-time America," she said. "Leastways, it was old for us, before the Ring fell—close to two hundred years, anyway. Listen to Oh Shenandoah."

  The musicians rearranged themselves, with Franz and Marla stepping forward and placing Fraulein Matowski in the middle. Franz lifted his bow and began playing a haunting melody. It soared and fell, flowed and ebbed, and at length paused for a moment of silence, delicately balanced, as if it stood on the head of a pin.

  Oh Shenandoah,

  I long to hear you,

  Away you rolling river,

  A woman's voice began, and Franz played a descant. Johann was caught by surprise nonetheless, for it was not the voice he expected. It was Fraulein Matowski that he heard, singing in a strong alto.

  Oh Shenandoah,

  I long to hear you,

  Away, I'm bound away

  'Cross the wide Missouri

  Marla's friend was not a vocalist to be a peer with Marla, Johann pursed his lips. Still, he nodded. Very few singers would equal Marla, and one could be less than Marla and still be very good. Fraulein Matowski was good—maybe even very good. He relaxed and listened to the song.

  Oh Shenandoah,

  I love your daughter,

  Away you rolling river,

  When the second verse began, the other instruments joined Franz in providing a musical platform to lift Fraulein Matowski's voice to a new level. Marla came in as well, singing now the descant that Franz had played in the first verse.

  I'll take her 'cross

  Your rolling water,

  Away, I'm bound away

  'Cross the wide Missouri.

  Johann closed his eyes to avert distractions and listened with concentration. This was not a bravura performance; this was not something that he would take to the courts of the Emperor or the Hoch-Adel. Still and all, it was beautiful, presented with no affectation by the musicians, and he drank it in.

  The remaining verses followed the pattern of the second.

  'Tis seven years,

  I've been a rover,

  Away you rolling river,

  When I return,

  I'll be your lover,

  Away, I'm bound away

  'Cross the wide Missouri.

  Oh Shenandoah,

  I'm bound to leave you.

  Away you rolling river,

  Oh Shenandoah,

  I'll not deceive you.

  Away, I'm bound away

  'Cross the wide Missouri.

  Away, I'm bound away

  'Cross the wide Missouri.

  After the last verse, Rudolf Tuchman's flute carried the melody again as a solo line, rising and falling, falling and rising, to fade away on the final note. Johann—indeed, the whole audience—sat in silence for a long moment, until applause broke out from the back of the room.

  Johann leaned toward Fraulein Stevenson under the cover of the applause. "That was well done."

  She nodded vigorously. "Marla and Staci did that as a duet for choir contest their senior year in high school." She counted her fingers. "That was three years ago, I think. Hard
to tell exactly with the Ring of Fire in the middle of it." She flipped her hand in the air. "Anyway, they got the highest rank possible from the judges." Her shoulders heaved in a sigh. "I wish I could sing half that good."

  "Are you not a musician, then, Fraulein Stevenson?"

  "Call me Casey. Fraulein makes me feel like an old maid aunt. And no, I'm not a musician. I mean, my mother taught me some piano, but the real talent skipped me and went to my brother, I think. I'm just a school teacher." She paused for a moment. "Although I think I'm pretty good at that."

  "And is Fraulein Matowski a musician or a school teacher?" Johann was intrigued.

  "Neither one." Casey gave a wicked grin. "She's a dancer, she is, and everything else is just what she has to do to be able to dance."

  "Dancer?" Johann wasn't sure what to make of that.

  "Sure. Didn't you see the performance of A Falcon Falls back in July? I think you were in town then, maybe."

  Johann thought back, then shook his head. "No, I heard about it, but I did not see it. Some kind of big staged thing with many set dances, is what I gathered. Was it an opera?"

  "No, it was a ballet of sorts, a production consisting solely of dances. Staci danced one of the lead roles in it. Staci's mother Bitty produced it. She's taught dance in Grantville since forever. Everybody who's studied dance started with her, including me."

  Johann's eyes drifted back to Fraulein Matowski—Staci. She was smiling and singing along, clapping her hands as the musicians played another fast song. "She looks so young."

  Casey followed his glance. "Yeah, I know what you mean. She looks like she's a pixie, about twelve or thirteen years old, especially since she got her hair cut. She's younger than I am, but she's actually older than Marla, by at least a couple of months." She counted her fingers again. "Yep. She's twenty-three now."

  Johann watched as the song dissolved into laughter. His gaze narrowed until his vision was filled only with the shining face of the smallest performer. His mouth curved in a small smile.

  * * *

  The evening came to a close, and Marla's friends packed up their instruments, laughing and talking loudly to each other. Johann watched with a smile. They reminded him so much of his younger brothers; full of enthusiasm and energy, one moment boasting of how well they performed, and in the next pointing to a friend and claiming that he was the root of all musical evil because he bobbled a note. Of course, the friend responded in like kind, and laughter arose from around them.