he couldn’t do it anymore. Maybe it was the judgement of the Herr Gott for what he’d done, killing a mother and her child.
He made it to the chamber pot and puked. He crouched there shaking. I’ve got to get myself together, he thought. After a few moments, he thought he could stand up, so he slowly got to his feet.
“I’ve got to get a new job,” he said to himself. He took a few half-hearted swipes at his grimy, smelly clothes, and walked out the door.
There was a makeshift labor hall near the old moat where they were rebuilding the city walls. Georg stood in line until he was called to the table where the job broker sat. The broker looked him up and down, and handed him a piece of paper with a number on it. Georg looked at it. It was 351.
“This is your number,” the broker said. “As soon as we have some labor for you to do, your number will be called. If you don’t come when it is called, the next number will be called and you will lose your place.”
“ Ja, Ich verstehe,” Georg said.
The broker pointed to a big group of men standing at one end of the hall. “Go there. You will be called. People are busy. You shouldn’t have much of a wait.”
Georg walked over to the group. He looked the men over, just as they were looking him over. They mostly looked like him. Dirty, down on their luck, ragged and poor. Just like him.
At first, nobody said much. A little fat man came bustling importantly over and called out, “ Nummer zwei hundert sechs, sieben, acht, neuen, mit gekomm, schnell!”
Georg turned to the man closest and said, “Two hundred nine! And I am three hundred fifty one! Will there be work for my number?”
“Probably, maybe,” the man said. “It is still early. If you want a low number, you have to get here when the hall opens at dawn. I come an hour before usually, but I had a problem last night.”
“Ah!” Georg said, noncommittal.
“A problem I think you may have had,” the man said. “I got drunk and didn’t wake up.”
“Yes,” Georg said. “I’ve been known to do that. Last night, in fact. And the night before.
“ Ich heisse Georg,” he said. “Georg Schuler.”
“Pieter,” said the man. “Pieter Doorn.”
“Ah, a Hollander!” Georg said.
“Yes, but I have not been home for many years. And you, where are you from?”
“Originally, Bavaria,” Georg said, “but I’ve been around here a few years now.”
Just then, the officious man returned and called out quite a few more numbers.
“Ah, that’s me,” Doorn said, “Good luck!”
“Thanks,” Georg replied.
Doorn moved off with the group of men whose numbers had been called.
It got later. More numbers were called. But they were nowhere near 351. It got later still, and still no work for Georg. Finally, the little fat man returned and said, “That’s it. No more work today. Come back tomorrow.”
Georg crumpled the piece of paper and threw it on the floor. He thought he should feel disappointed, but in truth, he wasn’t feeling much of anything. It was just the way things kept happening to him. Ever since the army. Ever since that day.
He headed home. Ha, he thought. A little rented closet in a rickety fast built house is home. He put his hand in his purse, but it was empty. He’d spent all his coin getting drunk after being fired. He couldn’t even get a beer.
The next day, not being hung over, he woke before dawn. The small window high in the wall of his room was not quite dark. It was that time before dawn that sentries slept, and surprise attacks were made. His eyes went wide at the thought. Ah, you can take the man out of the army, but you can’t take the soldier out of the man.
He rose and put on his smelly jacket and his broken-down shoes. Then he headed off to the hiring hall.
This time, his number was lower. Even though he’d gotten there before dawn, there was still a line of men outside the hall waiting for it to open. Somehow, he was unsurprised to see Pieter Doorn standing a few places ahead of him in the line. Doorn turned, and nodded at him. They both got called at the same time.
“What are we going to be doing?” Georg said to Doorn.
“Probably moving rocks. They are rebuilding the city walls.”
“Why are they doing that?” Georg asked.
“The burghers have contracts with the people who live about and around the city to shelter behind the city walls in the event of danger. No walls, no contracts,” Doorn said, shrugging.
“That certainly didn’t happen in ’thirty-one,” Georg said. “It didn’t protect anybody.”
“That’s true,” Doorn said, “but now this is the new capital, and the Swedish king has new weapons and allies.”
“Ah, so…” Georg said.
Doorn proved right. The group was taken a short distance away, and was put to work loading stones into carts. The work wasn’t that hard, and the sun was out. Pretty soon, Georg was feeling better than he had in a while. It was like the sun and the work were sweating the alcohol out of him.
“Oh, yes,” she said, “my husband is one of the supervisors on the project to rebuild the walls, and also is helping to design the new water system.”
“And where did you come to Magdeburg from, Frau…?” The woman was clearly one of the new elite and it showed in her clothing. She was wearing over her dress a jacket of the new up-timer material called blue jean that was probably worth a year’s pay to her husband.
“Schuesslerin, Katerina Schuesslerin. My husband is Friedrich Wahlberg, who works for Herr Gericke.”
“Otto von Gericke is my husband, Frau Schuesslerin.”
“ von Gericke? Oh, my!” Frau Schuesslerin turned bright red and lowered her eyes. “My deepest apologies, there was no intent to offend!”
“No offense taken. It is still very new. So new in fact, you must not have heard. His Imperial Highness has read in the encyclopedias that in the future, the Holy Roman Emperor would ennoble my husband, and since that is not likely to happen now, His Highness decided to make my husband a noble now, in honor of his work rebuilding His Highness’ new capital.”
“Ah. My felicitations to both you and to Herr von Gericke,” Katerina said.
She paused, and then she said in a rush, “This is the first time I have been invited to a ‘movie’ and I don’t really know what they are.”
“It is an up-time thing. They had the ability to record things like plays so we can watch them long after the performance was done with. They call these recordings movies, and what we will see tonight is a movie that is from what they call ‘musical theater.’ It is much like a masque. This one is called Guys and Dolls.”
Katerina said, “They are starting to go in, now. Thank you for your help, Madame von Gericke.”
“Not at all.”
“Oh, Friedrich, it was wonderful!” Katerina said, “I could not believe that the people in the ‘movie’ weren’t alive right there in the theater with us all!”
“Um…hmmm.”
“The story appeared to be about a group of men who were interested in a gambling game, and one man, Nathan Detroit, trying to avoid marrying his mistress.”
“Um…hmmm.”
“There were some excellent songs, too. There was one that was sung by a men’s chorus and one of the main actors called ‘Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat.’ It was very good. It had a refrain that stuck in my head.”
“Um?”
“It went, ‘and the devil will drag you under by the sharp lapels on your checkered coat…sit down you’re rocking the boat.”
“Ah?”
“But a very interesting part was the Save-a-Soul mission. It seems that there was an army dedicated to saving souls.”
