'Why, another box, of course,' he replied, which won him a glare from his wife. By then, he'd hauled the crate to the base of the steps. He went back to the barn for a hammer, which he used to pull up the nails holding the crate closed. 'You don't believe me? Here, I'll show you.'
'Show me what?' Magdalena demanded. But then she gave a little gasp, for, just as Rodriguez had planned, the front panel of the crate fell away. She stared at him. 'Is that-?'
He nodded. 'Sн, sweetheart. It's a refrigerator.'
She crossed herself again. She did that several times a day. It was nothing out of the ordinary. Then she started to cry. That made him hurry up the stairs and take her in his arms, because she hardly ever did it. She sobbed on his shoulder for a few seconds. At last, pulling away, she said, 'I never thought we would have electricity. Even when we got electricity, I never thought we would have one of these. And I wanted one. I wanted one so much.' She suddenly looked anxious. 'But can we afford it?'
'It wasn't as much as I thought it would be,' he answered. 'And it isn't supposed to use that much electricity. Look.' He wrestled off the rest of the crate. That done, he opened the refrigerator door. 'In the freezer compartment, it even makes its own ice in little trays.'
'What will they think of next?' Magdalena whispered. 'A few years ago, I don't think there was any ice in all of Baroyeca. Who in the whole town had ever seen ice?'
'Anyone who'd gone north to fight los Estados Unidos.' Rodriguez shivered at the memory. And he'd only been in Texas. The men who'd fought in Kentucky and Tennessee had had it worse. 'I have seen ice, por Dios, and I wish I hadn't.'
'You'd seen God make ice,' Magdalena said with a snort. 'Had you ever seen people making ice?'
'Even the people had it up there,' he said. 'They're richer than we are. But we're gaining. I know we are. I didn't used to think so, not before the Freedom Party won. Now I'm sure of it.'
'Electricity,' his wife said, as if the one word proved everything that needed proving. As far as Rodriguez was concerned, it did.
He went back and closed the refrigerator's door. Then, grunting with effort, he picked up the machine and carried it up the stairs. It wasn't any taller than his navel, but it was plenty heavy. He'd found that out getting the crate into the wagon in the first place. When he set it down on the porch, the boards groaned under the weight. 'Open the door for me, please,' he said, and Magdalena did.
The kitchen wasn't far. A good thing, too, Rodriguez thought. He set the refrigerator against the wall near an outlet and plugged it in. It started to hum: not loudly, but noticeably. He hadn't known it would do that. He cocked his head to one side, listening and wondering how annoying it would be. Would he get used to it, or would it start to drive him crazy? He didn't know, but he expected he'd find out.
Magdalena came in to stare at the new arrival in the kitchen. 'Is it cold yet?'
'I don't know.' Rodriguez opened the door and stuck his hand inside. 'It feels cooler, anyhow, I think.' He took out the ice-cube trays. 'Fill these with water. We'll see how long they take to freeze.'
'All right.' Magdalena did. Carefully, she put the trays back into the freezer compartment, closed its door, and closed the refrigerator door. The hum, which had got louder with the door open, quieted down again. 'Not too bad,' Magdalena murmured, and Hipolito nodded; he'd been thinking the same thing. She went on, 'We have lamps. We have this wonderful refrigerator.' She pronounced the unfamiliar word with care. 'Do you know what I would like next, when we can afford it?'
'No. What?' Rodriguez hadn't begun to think about what might come after the refrigerator.
But Magdalena had. 'A wireless set,' she said at once. 'That has to be the most wonderful invention in the whole world. Music and people talking here inside our own house whenever we want them-what could be more marvelous?'
'I don't know.' Rodriguez hadn't heard the wireless all that often himself. It had brought returns from the last election to Freedom Party headquarters. The cantina had a set, too, one that usually played love songs. He shrugged. 'If you want one, I suppose we can do that one of these days. They aren't too expensive.'
'I do want one,' Magdalena said emphatically. 'If we have a wireless set, we can hear everything that happens as soon as it happens. We wouldn't be on a farm outside a little town in a state most of los Estados Confederados don't care about. We would be in New Orleans or Richmond itself.'
Rodriguez laughed. 'Now I understand,' he said. 'You want the wireless set so you can catch up on gossip all over the world.'
His wife poked him in the ribs. He squirmed. He wasn't usually ticklish, but she'd found a sensitive spot. She said, 'And you never gossip at all when you visit La Culebra Verde.'
'That's different,' he declared. Magdalena didn't say anything, which made him wonder how it was different. He tried his best: 'Men talk about important things.'
Magdalena laughed in his face. Evidently his best wasn't good enough. But she let him down easy, asking, 'Is it ice yet?'
'Let's find out.' He opened the refrigerator door. The air that came out was definitely chilly now. The water in the ice-cube trays was still water, though. He touched it with a fingertip. 'It's getting colder.'
Magdalena touched it, too. She nodded and closed the door. They stood there in front of the refrigerator, listening to the soft hum of the future.
XVII
In the officers' mess on the USS Remembrance, Commander Dan Cressy nodded to Sam Carsten. 'Well, Lieutenant, you called that one,' the exec said.
'Called which one, sir?' Sam asked. The carrier was rolling, but not too badly. He had no trouble staying in his chair.
'There are reports of Confederate soldiers assembling near the borders of Kentucky and Houston,' Cressy answered. 'What do you want to bet they'll be marching in as soon as we finish pulling out, just the way you said they would?'
'Sir, if you think I'm happy to be right, you're wrong,' Sam said. 'What happens if they do go in?'
Commander Cressy shrugged. 'I don't know. I hope President Smith does. He'd better. Somebody had better, anyhow.'
'If they go in, won't it take a war to get them out?' That was Lieutenant Commander Hiram Pottinger, Carsten's superior on the damage-control party.
Nobody in the officers' mess said anything for some little while after that. They knew what war meant. Not many of them besides Sam had served in the Great War, but they'd all been through the inconclusive Pacific War against Japan.
'A lot will depend on what happens in Europe,' Commander Cressy said.
'France is starting to whoop and holler about Alsace and Lorraine,' Sam said meditatively. 'I saw an Action Franзaise riot before those boys came to power. I don't think they'll take no for an answer. They're just as sure they've got God on their side as Jake Featherston is.'
'And the Russians are squawking about Poland, and they're starting to squawk about the Ukraine, too,' Cressy said. 'And the limeys are growling at the micks, and ain't we got fun?'
Sam sighed. He wished for a cigarette, but the smoking lamp was out. 'We're going to hell in a handbasket all over again,' he said. 'Didn't anybody learn anything the last time around?'
'I'll tell you one thing we didn't learn,' the Remembrance's exec said. 'We didn't learn to make sure the sons of bitches who lost took so many lumps, they couldn't get back up on their feet and have another try. And I'm afraid we're going to have to pay for it.'
Lieutenant Commander Pottinger said, 'They've learned something in South America, anyhow. Argentina and the Empire of Brazil are cuddling up, even if Argentina and Chile are yelling again.'
'Sir, that's good news for Britain, not for us,' Carsten said. 'If there is a war, it means Brazil will let Argentina ship food through its territorial waters and then make the short hop across the Atlantic to French West Africa, same as happened the last time.'
'How do you know so much about that?' Commander Cressy asked, as if to say, You're a mustang, so you're
