"Yoo hoo! Manuel!"
When Emmanuel Onofrio heard Verlinda Fritz yoohooing down the hall, his mind yelled, "Run!" He was looking forward to a quiet, restful lunch in the teacher's lounge. Keeping the rowdy kids in line so the others could learn seemed to get harder year by year and week by week. He gritted his teeth. "Santo Luigi Gonzaga protect me from pestilence."
She used the same shrill yoohoo to demand attention as she had used on the playground fifty years before. Since Verlinda was without a brain in her head and three grades younger, he'd ignored her then as he tried to now.
"Manuel!"
Any hope she might be stalking game other than her favorite Onofrio ended. Emmanuel disliked being called Manuel almost as much as he disliked being called Manny, since one sounded like it should be followed by the word "labor" in a bad accent. The second sounded like either nanny or mammy.
"Manuel!"
There was nothing to do but face the charging cow. He knew from experience if you out ran it, she would just keep coming. "Yes, Mrs. Fritz?"
She put her hands on her hips. "Well! Emmanuel Onofrio! Just what are you getting all uppity about?"
Emmanuel hid the flinch. "What can I do for you, Verlinda?" He still he hoped to cut his losses.
"Oh, Mann! We've know each other for a coon's age. When did I stop being Linda?"
Oddly enough, Emmanuel didn't mind being called Mann. He didn't speak, so she continued. "Do you know enough Italian to translate engineering texts?"
Emmanuel shook his head. "No."
"Who would?"
"Well, the Renato kids still use it at home." The Renatos were a large extended family of emigrants who left the Grisons of northern Italy for Grantville, where the word heretic was an insult not a legal accusation.
She frowned. "I really need to find one of us. Half the time someone has to translate for the translator because they don't really know English."
Emmanuel sighed. He knew what she meant. A great many books assumed a vocabulary now uncommon. In time, perhaps, that vocabulary would be common again, but it wasn't yet. Still, he found her separation of the world into "us" and "them" troubling. "I am sorry, Verlinda. I can't think of a single up-timer who would be of any use to you." Several possibilities came to mind, if they had the time, but he didn't feel like getting into it.
"Well, think of someone!"
"Why?"
"Because it's our job! I have a young man in the library. He spent the whole morning with a book on architecture and a dictionary and barely turned a page. He's a nice boy. He needs help. He's Italian, Carlo Rainyday, or something like that."
"Carlo Rainaldi?" Emmanuel forgot about lunch. Mrs. Fritz called for him to slow down. He ignored her.
When he pushed through the library doors, it was clear who Verlinda was referring to. Emmanuel addressed him in Latin, hoping it might be enough like his dialect to be of some use. The young man responded in excellent Latin. Emmanuel smiled. He knew several men with Latin. For a Rainaldi, they would make time. Then his smile became a smirk. He knew who would have the time.
Verlinda caught up with him in the library where she needed to be quiet. It didn't stop her. "Emmanuel Onofrio, how dare you run off and leave me?"
Emmanuel remembered those exact words from the playground fifty plus years ago.
"Shhh! Come here." He went to the encyclopedias, shoved a volume into her hands, pointed at an article and walked off. She followed him reading as she walked.
"Rainaldi Carlo, 1611–91, Italian architect of the high baroque. He followed in the steps of—"
"Come, my friend. Let us go find lunch." Switching to English, Emmanuel said, "Mrs. Fritz, please inform the office they need a sub for my afternoon classes. Then call Joseph Jenkins and ask him to come to the library."
That startled her. "Old Joe! That dumb hillbilly? Why?"
"He's the only one who knows Latin and has the time."
"When did Joe Jenkins ever learn Latin?"
Emmanuel enjoyed Verlinda's consternation. "He taught himself Latin a year ago."
"Then how good could his Latin be?"
"As good as mine." Emmanuel was exaggerating a bit. He was sure he could write better Latin than Joseph. He was also sure Joseph was a better Latin conversationalist than he was, which really did puzzle him.
Emmanuel smirked. "One dumb hillbilly, isn't he?"
Joseph Jenkins spent almost every waking hour, six days a week, tutoring and translating for the young architect. Carlo impressed Joe with his aptitude for study. The boy obsessed on two things. His every thought was in service of one or the other. He loved buildings and wanted to build. He loved a girl and wanted to marry. If forced to choose, he would truly regret not marrying.
Carlo inspected all of Grantville, from half of a log cabin perched on a cliff, to post and beam barns, which he found ordinary. Stud-built houses covered in vinyl revealed little. Carlo found cinder blocks briefly interesting, but they were only lighter blocks or larger bricks, after all. Brick was brick and Carlo thought he knew what there was to know about brick. Pole barns, a steel framed structure, and even a Quonset hut had their day.
Prefabs, modulars and trailers fascinated him. He crawled under every trailer he could get permission to crawl under. Sometimes he would call questions out to Joe who resolutely refused to get under there with him.
When he dusted himself off it was always the same. His face beamed, dust and cobwebs flew, "Joseph, what you people did with steel and wood is incredible. The quality of the plywood is amazing. You do not worry about it coming apart even if it is dropped on its end or gets wet. Why can't you still make plywood?" He would shake his head. "And chip board, turning scrap into material better than planks, genius, pure genius. What my father could do if he knew the weight-to-span ratios I have at my fingertips boggles my mind!"
Carlo talked of nothing but buildings. Every attempt to talk of other things, such as religion or politics, was met with a polite but uninterested response, except for the topic of love. When anything related was brought up, Carlo would sigh like a desert wind, shake his head gently as if trying to shake an idea out of his thoughts while being very careful not to succeed. He would end the sigh with the drawn out word, "Angelina." Then he would say nothing else.
He stayed in Grantville until he had been through every book on building and any related engineering text in the library at least once. Along the way, he interrogated anyone of interest Joe could track down. He examined every bridge within the Ring of Fire. The new covered bridge enthralled him. That a light weight wooden lattice could handle any vehicle in Grantville amazed him. He spent a morning watching traffic from the bank and the afternoon watching the bridge from underneath.
After three months, the well was plumbed to its depth. "Joseph, I'm going back to Magdeburg," Carlo said. "Come with me."
"Thanks for the invite. But the only way to get these old bones down there is by river boat and I don't do boats."
"But, Joseph," Carlo wheedled, "I need you."
"Hog wash. You want me there in lieu of your father but you don't need me."
A few weeks later in Magdeburg
The merchant/shipper Amadi was back with more colored glass for the windows and letters of credit for the project manager, Carlo, and a few others.
Thomas, the muleskinner, had a letter from Bologna. "Hey, Carlo." Thomas yelled and waved.
Carlo looked up.
"Hey, Carlo. You got the money you owe me?"
"What money?"
"The money for bringing a letter from Bologna. You only paid me to deliver one. Now I need to be paid for bringing one back." Thomas decided not to mention that he had been paid in Bologna.
"Give me the letter!" Carlo shouted.
Thomas held it up out of his reach. "Say the words I want to hear."
"Please, please, please?"
"Not those words."
"I'll pay, I'll pay!"
Thomas grinned and handed Carlo the folded and sealed paper.
Carlo broke the seal and read as fast as he could. He let out a whoop of joy. "She is on her way. Thomas, celebrate with me. She is coming to Magdeburg. We can go to Grantville and get married. My father and her father will have nothing to say about it."
Carlo insisted on buying a drink for anyone he knew while he told them his news. Every time he bought a drink for someone else, he also bought one for Thomas. Thomas moved with Carlo like a shadow.
After a bit, they leaned against the bar. Carlo jabbered away with an Americani whose interest centered on getting Carlo to sign on for a tour of duty. The admiral would pay a signing bonus.
The solitary drinker on Thomas' right ranted in German. Thomas eavesdropped out of boredom and habit.
The man muttered away to the wall or the world. "Damned Papists. This is a Lutheran city. What God damned right have they got telling a German Lutheran he hasn't got a job so they can give it to an Italian Cath-o-lick?"
The speaker was a stone cutter. Thomas learned he'd been working on the new cathedral until a few hours ago. Three stone cutters, carrying a sizable letter of donation, had arrived in late morning. Preferment went to Catholic workers, so his services were no longer needed. They gave him a full day's pay, with complete assurances that his work was fully acceptable.
The cutter was a large man, a head above average and as broad as an ox through the shoulders as well as between the ears. Thomas listened to the man snarl.
"The stinking animals! They pray to statues and think they can buy their way into heaven. Their priests are perverts. Half the cardinals in Rome have mistresses and the rest like boys. A man should have a wife! Luther said so."
Thomas heard the whole tirade. Bored, he addressed the man. "So a man should have a wife?" Thomas waited for the drunk to focus. "Is it wrong to have two or three?"
"Of course it is."
Thomas happily provoked a fight. The cutter was a big man. Thomas didn't mind. Big men are slow. He liked the solid thud a big man made when he hit the floor. "Then you think Luther was wrong."
"What are you talking about?"
Thomas knew he had the man completely puzzled. "Luther approved of polygamy."
"Poly gamy? What's that got to do with anything? Is it some kind of bird?"
"It's having more than one wife at a time," Thomas said, "and Luther said it was all right."
The cutter roared. "You lying piece of Italian shit." He leaned over the bar, grabbed a wine bottle and made a round house swing.
Thomas, expecting it, ducked.
Carlo turned at the commotion. The wine bottle connected solidly across his nose. The impact threw him back even as the bottle broke, slicing his cheek to the bone, leaving a large flap of skin hanging and teeth showing. His eye collapsed like an empty wine skin. He hit the floor with a sharp crack.
The city guards arrived shortly. They demanded the stone cutter cease fighting in the name of peace. He charged. They clubbed him into submission and dragged him off.
Carlo lay on the floor, face bleeding into the filth, still as a statue.
The Americani bent over him. "He's still breathing." The up-timer looked at the wound. He let out a string of words Thomas didn't know and covered the wound with a handkerchief. "Help me get him to the infirmary."
Thomas grabbed Carlo's knees, the Americani took his armpits. They headed for the naval yard as quickly as they could. Admiral Simpson was coming out the gate as they arrived, and when he heard the name Rainaldi he turned about and followed them to the sick bay.
The corpsman pulled the handkerchief away.
"What are you doing?" Thomas demanded when Carlo started screaming.
"I've got to treat the wound. Now get your ass out of here. You, too, Admiral."
"Keep me posted," was all the admiral said as he left. The order went unacknowledged.
Dorrman turned to a corpsman. "Get the ether and a surgical kit."
Dorrman went to the headquarters building fully cognizant that he had just rudely thrown his boss, an admiral, out of the infirmary without even acknowledging an order. "Senior Chief Petty Officer Dorrman reporting as ordered, Admiral." Dorrman came to attention in front of the admiral's desk.
"At ease."
Relief swept over Dorrman. The admiral was not going to stand on technicalities.
"What is the prognosis?"
"Admiral, it doesn't look good. He's lost an eye and will be horribly scarred at the very least. I've done all I can. If we had penicillin I'd be a lot happier. I've cleaned the wound and treated it with chroralphenicol. It's good, but. . . . Sir, he'll live if it doesn't get infected or if he can throw it off. Even up-time in a hospital, losing him to an infection that close to the brain would be a real worry.
"He's still out from the ether. When he comes to, he'll be in a lot of pain. I'll have to break out some of the opiates." Opium was imported at some expense and Carlo was not in the military. Chief Dorrman had to account for the clinic's budget.
The admiral nodded. "Carlo went to work for the yard as of this morning. Log his care as a civilian employee.
Chief Doorman was taken aback a bit. He wondered if Carlo really had signed on but, he couldn't see Admiral Simpson bending the rules. "Aye, aye, sir. If there is anyone he needs to see, send for them. Tomorrow he could be out of his head."
"I don't know of anyone," the admiral said. "I'm sure you'll do everything you can. See to it that I'm kept abreast of his progress."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Carlo's wound festered. Dorrman and his staff kept the wound drained, the patient warm and hydrated and the pain under control. Then they waited.
For days he tossed and turned and drifted in and out of fever dreams. Often, when he was out of it, he asked for Angelina. No one knew who Angelina was. This went on for a week and a half. Dorrman shook his head over Carlo's condition at least twice a day.
The admiral stopped in daily for an update. The news went from bad to worse. "I think his kidneys are shutting down," Dorrman reported. "When he's alert he's complaining about numbness in his legs and feet. He may have hurt his spine when he fell. That could cause the kidney failure. The infection could do it, too. If the kidney's are failing, that is. I've never seen it but the symptoms match what we were told to look for. There's nothing I can do for it anyway."
Angelina went straight to the building site. From there she was delivered with all practical haste to the front gate of the shipyard.
A young American guard barred her way. "Whoa there, little lady! You can't just come bargin' in here."
Angelina didn't understand him. Her escort from the building site didn't either. In a loud, demanding voice he started explaining just who it was the guard was holding up. At the same time Angelina, in Italian, at full volume, using very un-ladylike vocabulary, making threats and promises she had no way of keeping, demanded immediate entrance.
The guard picked up on just one word. He put two fingers in his mouth and let out a three-tone "I want a taxi" whistle. Angelina and her escort were startled into silence. Tom, the guard, filled it with a bellow of his own. "Angelina's here! I need some help!"
No one needed to ask "Angelina who?" Someone walked her to the infirmary. Someone else took the news to the main office. Without preamble, he announced "Angelina's here . . . and, boy, is she pregnant."
A staff member interrupted a conference. "Admiral Simpson, sir, Angelina has arrived."
"Gentlemen, you have just been reprieved. Get your numbers straightened out and be back here at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. Dismissed."
Carlo was fading fast. Angelina wept quietly, tears running down her face while she kept holding his hand. From time to time she kissed his dry, hot cheek.
The Catholic and Lutheran chaplains were talking quietly in a corner of the room when the admiral entered. "Have you married them yet?" he demanded.
"No," the Catholic answered.
"Why not?"
The chaplain visibly flinched at the tone of the admiral's voice. "I can't."
The admiral's tone, against all odds, somehow became colder and harder. "Why not?"
"The banns—"
A normally polite man who conscientiously got all the information before he spoke cut the priest off. "Waive them!"
The chaplain cringed. "I can't." When Admiral Simpson glared at him, the man bucked up and explained. "She is not a member of this parish. I do not have the right to waive the banns for anyone who is not of my parish. I can perform the rite, Admiral, but the church is unlikely to recognize the marriage."
Simpson turned to the Lutheran chaplain. "Will you marry these two?"
"He's right," the chaplain said, nodding at the Catholic chaplain, "and they're Catholic. I don't think the Lutheran church will recognize . . ."
"This is bull shit!" Everyone in the room was shocked. Admiral Simpson never used foul language. "How old is she?"
"Nineteen."
The admiral turned to the assistant corpsman. "Go to the recruiting office and get an enlistment form on the double." He addressed another corpsman. "Go get the notary."
The men answered, "Aye, aye, Admiral," and left at a run.
The admiral stood and stared at the chaplains. The only sound was Angelina's soft sobbing. No one dared move. The four and a half minutes it took the first corpsman to return were the longest minutes of the chaplains' lives.
The assistant handed the paper to the admiral. "Angelina, I need you to sign this." She looked up at her name but did not respond.
The Catholic chaplain explained. "She doesn't know German."
"Well, try Latin. Or Italian, if you know it. Whatever. Just get her signature on this form. Now!" Simpson barked.
The chaplain took the form and spoke softly to the girl. Dorrman dipped a brass-nibbed pen and handed it to her. She looked at him. He pointed to the right line. She signed it with a shaky hand, then the chaplain handed the form to the Admiral.
"She is now a recruit in the USE—" he looked down at the form "—Marine Corps?" He glanced at the assistant corpsman. The man turned beet red. "That makes her a legal resident. If she is a legal resident then she is a member of this parish. Carlo has been here long enough to establish residency." No one was going to dispute the point with the admiral. He turned to the Catholic chaplain. "Marry them!"
The chaplain smiled at a beautifully split hair. It established instant residency. True, it broke recruitment guidelines, but an admiral can do that.
The chaplain spoke so loudly the corpsmen later swore they heard echoes. "Carlo, Carlo?" The lad's eye left his lover and focused on the voice. "Do you, Carlo, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"
Carlo whispered something inaudible to anyone but Angelina.
"He said yes." Tears ran down her face. "He said yes."
"Do you, Angelina, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"
"The banns?"
The priest glared. "Answer the question, child."
"Ye-yes."
"Having given themselves to each other by the joining of hands and the exchange of vows, I pronounce them husband and wife. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder."
Angelina whispered. "Is this legal?"
The chaplain nodded at the admiral. "If he says it's legal, it's legal."
Angelina turned to the admiral. Her eyes pleading as the tears doubled in strength. "Can you do this?" The chaplain translated the question.
The admiral told the chaplain, "As soon as we've drawn up a writ of marriage and you've signed it as the officiating clergyman along with two witnesses—" he looked at the Lutheran chaplain "—you and me, then it's legal. Tell her that. Then help her fill out the enlistment form. I'll sign to cover the irregularities. The marriage will hold up in West Virginia. They'll see things our way here in Magdeburg, too."
He handed the form back to Angelina.
"What is this?" she asked.
"An enlistment application, my child. For the American military."
Baffled, Angelina asked, "I am in the army?"
The amused priest replied, "No. This is a Marine Corps application. And, no, you are not a Marine. Not yet. You must first finish boot camp. For now, you are a boot."
"And if I don't want to be a piece of footwear?"
"Then you are not a resident of the base, the banns are not waived and you are not married."
Angelina scrambled to fill out the paper work.
Before the writ was dry, Carlo quit breathing. Angelina cut loose with a wail that was loud enough to frighten a banshee. She was startled by the reaction brought on by her anguished cry. The men in the corner began to pray; the priest had given her lover, no, her husband, the last rites earlier. The physician stuck something in both his ears and put the other end on the breast of her beloved. Then he barked one harsh guttural word and started pounding on Carlo's chest. Why was he beating the dead? He left off and went to kissing and then back to the beating. Carlo's dead body gasped and then went back to breathing. Carlo was alive. Angelina almost swooned; she had often read of miracles but . . . to see one was something else again.
When he stepped back from a quietly-breathing patient, Dorrman found himself wondering why he was doing CPR. The man was done for. Five seconds later, Angelina let out a shriek of pain and fear far different from any previous weeping.
Dorrman looked at her. "Damn. Her water just broke. If she's seven months along, I'm the pope." He turned to the assistant corpsman. "Go get my wife!"
His assistant was completely baffled. "What?"
"She's a midwife. I need her."
The assistant corpsman took off at a run yet again and almost collided with a man who had walked in the door. The man was carrying a red chest with a white lid. On the top were three lines. The first was three words long "RUSH NAVAL YARD." The second line held two, "Carlo Rainaldi." The third said, "Open Immediately." There was no return address.
Dorrman recognized the picnic cooler before it was through the door. "What have you got there, sailor?"
"Sir, this arrived with the mail. The bargeman who brought it told me it was waiting at the post office in Grantville when they opened up. There was enough money to cover postage left with it, so here it is."
"What is it?" Dorrman asked.
"Mail. It's heavy and it sloshes is all I can tell you."
"Well, set it down."
Dorrman opened it with a dozen curious eyes peering over his shoulder. The cooler was full of melting ice. It held one tin box which read, "For Veterinary uses only." Inside were six little bottle-shaped holes formed in thin plastic. Three held little glass bottles. The other three were empty, but the box held a syringe. He shuddered at the thought of using a dirty needle, then looked at the date on the penicillin. Someone had been hoarding it on the very edge of freezing. He found himself praying. It should have been thrown out long ago.
Up-time he could and should go to jail for what he was about to do.