Then: “Nowhere. Not the Ottomans, even. We have done well in the empire, of course. Very well. But we still exist only on the sultan’s sufferance.” He snapped his fingers. “A new sultan—”
He left the words unspoken. There was no need. “There is a time for boldness, too,” he stated. “This is such a time.”
He turned to Moses, who had proven to be the most hesitant of the representatives. That was not surprising, of course.
His
branch of the family lived in the heart of the Habsburg beast.
“You may stay in the shadows,” Francisco stated. “The Americans are not seeking material goods from the Catholic domains anyway. Just a loan—which you can easily supply in secret.”
“They insist on absurdly low interest,” grumbled Moses.
Rebecca began to speak, but her father stilled her with a quick hand on her arm and a cautioning glance.
Let Francisco handle it. Your interests are compromised.
Francisco finished his coffee, and shrugged. “So? Take advantage of their offer, then.
Invest.
I intend to do so myself. We have been moneylenders long enough.”
Moses and Samuel exchanged a hesitant glance. “It is—not customary,” complained Samuel.
“No, it isn’t,” replied Francisco. Harshly: “What is
customary
is for Jews to lend money to princes, or serve the Christian aristocracy as their rent collectors. Then, when the princes are done with their wars—or the peasants rise up in rebellion—it is the Jews who burn.”
He placed the cup down so forcefully that it almost broke the saucer. “Enough, I say! I have the full backing of Turkey’s Abrabanels.” He was polite enough not to add:
who are the largest and richest branch of the family.
“Whatever your decision, I have made ours. We will take all necessary precautions, of course. No reason to publicly tweak the noses of the Christian rulers. But we
will
provide the Americans with the support they ask. Hard currency, loans, trade, investment.”
Francisco paused, and made his own final decision. “
More.
We will begin to immigrate here. I will stay myself.”
That announcement froze everyone. Francisco was the rising star in the Abrabanel firmament. Guaranteed, if he stayed in Istanbul, a life of power and luxury and splendor.
Perhaps he read their minds. He smiled. “Until the next sultan . . .”
The smile vanished, replaced by a look so stern it seemed quite out of place on his young face. His eyes moved back to Rebecca.
“There is a condition,” he stated stiffly.
Rebecca inhaled so sharply it was almost a hiss. She knew full well Francisco’s other purpose in coming to Thuringia. It would have taken no genius to deduce it, even if her father had not been notified in advance.
She found herself struggling fiercely to keep anger out of her own stiff face. She was almost shocked, then, to realize how much she had internalized the American way of looking at things.
If this man thinks he can demand—
Francisco, as if realizing her thoughts, shook his head. “When is your marriage to Michael Stearns to take place?” he asked.
The question caught Rebecca off guard. “I—we—” she fumbled. Then, quietly: “We have not set a date.”
“Set it, then,”
commanded Francisco. “That is my condition.”
Rebecca stared at him. For one of the few times in her life, she was quite at a loss for words.
Francisco’s stern expression softened. “Please, Rebecca. Do it now. For all of us.” He spread his hands, as if to explain the obvious. “I believe in ties of blood.”
Moses and Samuel, true to their cautious instincts and training, made no final pronouncements that night. But it was obvious to all that Francisco had settled the matter.
The meeting broke up soon thereafter. Rebecca had to leave. Her roundtable discussion show was on the air again that night. Francisco walked her to the door, and offered to accompany her to the school.
Rebecca hesitated. She had no desire—none at all—to offend Francisco. Or to bruise his sentiments further. So, for a moment, she fumbled with the explanation that Michael always walked her—
Again, Francisco was a mind reader. “He seems a magnificent man,” he said gently. “We Turkish Sephardim, you know, are quite accustomed to marrying outside the faith.”
Rebecca’s smile lost its shy hesitance. “Thank you, Francisco. For whatever it may be worth, had the circumstances been otherwise, I would have been quite happy to become your wife. I think you are quite magnificent yourself.”
He nodded, with all the aplomb of a courtier raised in the formalities of the Ottoman court. “I thank you for that, Rebecca Abrabanel.”
Rebecca cast hesitation aside. “But I have a cousin in Amsterdam. She is very pretty—very intelligent, too—her name is—”
Francisco held up his hand. “Please! Allow me a day or two to wallow in my heartbreak.” A chuckle took all the sting out of the words. Then a thoughtful expression came to his face.
“Besides,” he mused, “it would be best to leave that aside, for the moment. I am here now, to stay. Perhaps I should give some thought to following your own example. Ties of blood.”
Hesitation—to the winds!
“Even better!” exclaimed Rebecca. “There is a young schoolteacher—Gina Mastroianni—very good family, as Americans count such things—a good friend of mine, she has become—she is even prettier than my cousin—smarter, too, in all honesty—and—”
Francisco was laughing aloud, now. “Be off!” he commanded. “Later!”
Obediently, Rebecca skipped down the steps. But, by the time she reached the bottom, a new enthusiasm had come. She turned around.
“Be sure to watch the show tonight, Francisco! There will be a great opportunity to invest! Watch!”
“How does she get away with it?” grumbled Piazza. As usual, he was attending the roundtable discussion as part of the live audience in the recording studio.
Sitting next to him, Mike grinned. “What’s the matter?” he whispered. “Think the TV executives we left behind—not to mention the sponsors—would have choked on this show? Not suitable for a popular audience?”
Piazza grunted sarcastically. He started to reply, but fell silent. The show was starting.
“Welcome to tonight’s roundtable discussion,” began Rebecca. She was practically bouncing in her chair from enthusiasm. “Tonight’s show, I think, will be grand!”
She introduced the participants with a quick pointing finger. “Most of you, of course, already know Greg Ferrara from his many appearances on the show. Next to him is Ollie Reardon, the owner of one of Grantville’s machine shops. And next to him is Jerry Trainer. Jerry is Quentin Underwood’s son-in-law and was studying for a degree in chemical engineering before the Ring of Fire—ah—
interrupted
his education.”
A little laugh went up from the audience. “But he finished enough, I’m quite sure!” said Rebecca firmly. She broke off for a moment, translating the introductions into German. When she resumed in English, her enthusiasm seemed to rise.
“Tonight we’re going to discuss their proposal for building a chemical factory, and they will explain the importance of it for our future.” Bouncing like a puppy, now: “Especially sulfuric acid! Isn’t that grand?”
“How does she get away with it?” demanded Piazza. “The worst of it is—don’t take this bet!—she’ll keep the whole damned audience.”
And, indeed, she did. The German audience, anyway. Some of the Americans turned away from their TV sets. But not one German.
A half hour into the show, watching Greg Ferrara at his blackboard explaining the critical importance of sulfuric acid to practically all industrial chemical processes, a German farmer turned his head to the man sitting next to him in the Thuringen Gardens. His neighbor at the table, a German coal miner, had his eyes glued to one of the elevated TV sets scattered throughout the huge tavern.
“Sounds dangerous,” commented the farmer.
The miner snorted. “More dangerous than a coal mine? And with the wages they’re talking about?” He emptied the pitcher into his mug and looked around for a barmaid. “Besides—”
He spotted the woman he was looking for. “Gesine—
bitte!
” He waved the empty pitcher. “
Und
a telephone!”
A minute or so later, Gesine appeared with a fresh pitcher and a cordless telephone. The coal miner accepted the second as easily as the first. He was an “old America hand” himself, now. Telephones were easy.
When the call-in section of the show started, the coal miner was the first one to be sent through. In the studio, Rebecca listened carefully to the man’s question, carried over the loudspeakers. Since most of the question had been asked in German, she translated.
“He wants to know if you’ll be offering employees the option to purchase stock.”
“Oh, sure,” came Ollie Reardon’s immediate response. “Got to do that, these days, or you can’t hire anybody.” The machine-shop owner spotted Mike in the audience and grinned. “And we’re not even going to try to stop the UMWA from organizing the place. Don’t need any extra wars.”
The audience laughed.
“And she’s getting away with it again,” muttered Piazza. But he was laughing himself.
Later that night, Mike wasn’t amused in the least.
“You don’t have to let anyone tell you what to do, Rebecca,” he growled. Sitting on the armchair across from her, he began to clench his fists. “Especially not about
this
.”
On the couch, Rebecca shook her head. “I am not concerned about that, Michael. Only about you. How do you feel—
yourself
?”
He looked away. For a moment, his eyes roamed the interior of the living room of his family’s house. After the show, they had come here—at Rebecca’s request—rather than the Roths’ house. Mike’s mother, sister and brother-in-law had already gone to bed. So had the German family which occupied what had once been Mike’s bedroom. Not needing the space, Mike had set himself up in the small room which had once served his mother for her sewing.
He brought his eyes back to her. “It was your desire to wait, sweetheart. You wanted time.”
“Yourself,”
she commanded.
The half-clenched fists opened. “Oh, hell,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t have waited a day.”
She smiled. “Good. It is settled, then. We will get married as soon as possible.” Half-eagerly; half-timidly: “Tomorrow?”
He was still frowning. Rebecca made a little fluttering motion with her hand. “Enough time!” She almost giggled. “Even for me!” Then, seriously: “And Francisco is right, Michael. I also have a responsibility to my family. They will be risking much. I know it is hard, sometimes, for you to understand this. But we have survived, in part, because we can also be cold-blooded when necessary.”
The term “cold-blooded” went very poorly with the warmth—the heat—in her voice. “Tomorrow,” she whispered.
Mike heaved a deep breath, almost clenching his fists again. He did press them very firmly into the armrests.
“No,” he said forcefully. “Not until after the election. The convention is about to take its final vote, and we’re going to win—
hands down
. I’ll call for immediate elections. Give it—say, a month for campaigning. No, six weeks would be better. Then we can get married.”
“Why?” Rebecca demanded. She slid forward to the edge of the couch, her whole posture pleading.
“Why so long?”
Mike’s expression, for all the love so obvious in it, was set like stone. “Because, sweetheart, I will see you—
finally—
elected to office in your own name. Before you take mine.”
Rebecca groped for the logic. When she found it, she burst into tears.
Mike rose and came to the couch, enfolding her in his arms. “Not so long,” he whispered. “Six weeks. Maybe two months.”
But Rebecca was already wiping away the tears. She turned her face into his neck and pressed open lips against him. “I love you,” she whispered. “And we will
not
wait two months. Not for everything.”
She rose and extended her hand to him.
“I have never seen your bedroom. Show me.”
Chapter 44
Everywhere, the whirlwind.
A new nation would be born that winter. Three days later, the convention would ratify the new constitution—without amendments—by a seventy-eight percent majority. Mike would announce new elections with the same blow of the gavel with which he closed the convention. The election “season” would last through December, but it was more in the nature of a triumphal parade than a contest. With the franchise now extended to most of Grantville’s German residents, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. After the way in which he had conducted his campaign against the constitution, Simpson had alienated every German in the area except the pure halfwits. Now, he even lost a large number of his American supporters. Sensing the tide, they bowed to the inevitable.
Mike’s decision to allow weeks for the campaign proved to be a wise one. The conclusion was foregone, true—and had been from the first day. But Mike knew the difference between “winning” an election campaign and forging a political structure. The weeks of constant campaigning allowed him and his supporters time and opportunity to sink real roots in the new nation’s budding growth.
The process proved complicated and contradictory, as these things do in the real world. The Fourth of July Party was really more of a coalition than a political party. Over the weeks, the different underlying factions had time to sort themselves out. Which, from Mike’s point of view, was all to the good. “Unity” is a splendid word, but not when it comes at the price of clarity. That there would be political factions in the new United States, just as there had been in the one left behind in another universe, was as certain as the sunrise. Better to have them out in the open, where the public could gauge their programs, than hidden away in murky shadows.
His own position was somewhat peculiar, and more than a bit awkward. Mike now commanded a personal allegiance—
especially
from the “new” Americans—which would have allowed him, had he so chosen, to force through anything he wanted. Whatever else they disagreed on, Melissa Mailey and Quentin Underwood—the publicly recognized leaders of the Fourth of July Party’s respective “left” and “right” factions—were both heard, on more than one occasion, to grumble about “Bonapartism.” But not even Melissa or Quentin used the term seriously. No one who knew Mike Stearns was really worried about “a whiff of grapeshot.” So, much like George Washington before him, Mike tried as far as possible to stay out of the immediate factional fray. And he accepted compromises, as a prospective president, that his younger persona would have sneered at.
At one point in the campaign, that brought him in serious collision with his own power base. The UMWA, now as always, formed the heart of Mike’s support. Early in the campaign, the union voted overwhelmingly to demand that a law be passed requiring the unionization of all businesses employing more than ten workers—of which there were now quite a few, and obviously more to come.
Mike was initially inclined to agree, but Rebecca convinced him otherwise. “Most of our citizens are now Germans,” she argued. “They do not understand what you mean by a ’trade union.’ They think of it as a
guild.
And a guild is a very different thing altogether. It is very oppressive.”
She was right, and Mike quickly saw the logic. He had noticed himself—and been uneasy about it—that the UMWA’s support was coming entirely from the older, established German craftsmen. The young men—not to mention the young women—were implacably hostile to the proposal.
He tried to explain it to the UMWA at a local meeting. “Guys, our new people think of this idea as a way of imposing master-craftsman rule over the apprentices. That’s why we’ve had so few young people knocking on our door. They want out. They’re not looking at the thing from our perspective, they’re—”
No use. Frank supported him. So, to his surprise, did Harry Lefferts and most of the younger miners. But it should not have surprised him. Unlike the middle-aged miners who formed the majority of the UMWA, Harry and the other young miners had made a lot of friends among young German workers and understood their viewpoint. But the local union was adamant, and Mike’s public refusal to support their proposal produced a considerable strain in relations.
The strain lasted for months, until events proved Mike was right. Soon enough, the arrogance of some of the new “captains of industry” triggered off a rapid change in attitude among young Germans. Once again, the UMWA was back in full swing, organizing new shops like mad—and this time, with Mike’s full support. Which, of course brought him into a clash with Underwood and
his
faction.
