Gravity was the least of his problems with the sewer system. Bernie had arrived at the Dacha with complete designs for a toilet and complete designs for a septic system. But it wasn’t working right. The toilet had backed up, the sink had backed up, the bathtub had backed up. Each and every one of them was producing the most awful stinks it had ever been his misfortune to smell. He couldn’t use the indoor bathroom anymore. The room had been closed off and some pretty horrible sounds came from it. Bernie was pretty sure that the problem was in the septic system or in the pipes. He had finally remembered the U-shaped pipes just below the sinks. He had had those installed and that had seemed to fix it for a little while. But then things got worse.
“I don’t know how to fix it.” Bernie groaned. “God, your hands feel good. The bathroom is going to drive me crazy until I figure it out.”
“Princess Natalia Petrovna wishes to speak to you.” Fayina stopped rubbing his temples. She was dark-haired and short, well-padded. He noticed that she was wearing one of those crown-looking headdresses with her hair loose. Customs were different here. Confusing. Single women wore a smaller headdress than married women and left their hair loose. Married women kept their hair covered all the time. “New books have arrived from Grantville.”
* * *
“I have good news for you, at any rate,” Natasha said. “Here. You have letters. I have letters, as well. And more books. Perhaps the answer will be in the new books.”
Bernie took his stack of letters, wondering who had written him. Dad wasn’t much of a letter writer and his sisters were busy. The handwriting on the top one was vaguely familiar. And the envelopes, some of them, were from up-time. Bernie opened the first one carefully and read:
Dear Bernie,
Thanks for recommending me to the Princess Natasha. What’s she look like, by the way?
I just wanted to let you know that I sent her a Victoria’s Secret plus some other stuff. So the consequences to Russian culture are on you. Anything else you want me to send them? I don’t think the library has a copy of the Communist Manifesto, but I’ll see if I can find Mao’s Little Red Book if you like.
Bernie’s reading stuttered to a stop as a sudden vision of Natasha in a black teddy swam before his eyes. With some effort, he brought himself back to the letter.
Also, your whole family is fine but still a bit pissed about your crawling into a bottle and running off to Russia after your mom died. Bernie, I know it was hard on you and your family does too, but, well, the world’s not a nice place sometimes. Deal with it.
Bernie snorted. It was good advice, he knew, but he figured that Brandy Bates ought to be taking it, not just giving it.
I don’t know if you were sober enough to notice but Grantville was turning into a boom town even before you left and you’re not the only guy that got hired away. Folks are getting rich right and left. I don’t know how, but they are. I’m still working at Club 250 which sucks, but what can you do. A lot of the folks that got rich since the Ring of Fire have bought estates in the country with servants and the whole bit. But for every one that moves out, two or three down-timers move in. Then there are the tourists! Grantville is more crowded than ever. There’s talk of people moving factories to Halle because the Saale’s closer to navigable that far down river. Others are talking about going all the way to the Elbe. But people are nervous about getting too far from Grantville.
Anyway, things are happening here even if it does seem it’s all skipping past me and Mom. Write me, and tell me what else I can do to save Russia from male shovanism.
Good Luck.
Brandy.
“Thank God.” It was a relief to read something that wasn’t an encyclopedia, Bernie thought, utterly failing to notice that Brandy had misspelled chauvinism. “Someone who speaks my kind of English. Natasha, when can I send a letter back to Grantville?”
Natasha looked up from her own letters. “The courier will leave tomorrow. You can send a letter with him.” Bernie knew Natasha didn’t approve of his tendency to sit in the kitchen. She was also the reason he was growing a beard, even though it itched. He still wasn’t going to wear some silly robe out in public, though, no matter how much she nagged at him.
“Good. I’ll get right on it and have Gregorii make a drawing as well.” Gregorii Mikhailovich was the artist whose job it was to take Bernie’s descriptions and very rough sketches and turn them into usable drawings. “Brandy can probably find out what I’ve done wrong. It’s a darn good thing your brother stayed in Grantville. When I’ve finished the letter, I’ll take a look through the books and stuff he sent. Maybe I can figure out how to explain gravity.”