The Viennese Waltz(123)

Then Judy kneed Archduke Leopold in the balls and by the next Friday, it was pretty clear that no one was going to be dragged away in chains. At that point, the requests for reich money had decreased markedly.

The tables were set up, the whistle blew, and the money started changing hands. Millicent noted a name. It was one of the men who had always been most insistent that he get “real” money. She reached for the reich money box without even asking and he said, “I’ll take barbies.”

“Are you sure?” Millicent asked. “It’s no trouble to pay you in . . .”

“I’ll take barbies,” he insisted rather belligerently.

Millicent shrugged and paid the man in barbies. Half an hour later, they ran out of barbies. Just in case, they had had enough reich money to pay off all the workers every payday, always hoping that they wouldn’t use too much of it. But they hadn’t expected this many of their employees to want barbies and they hadn’t brought enough. The last twenty-five people were told that they were out of barbies and would have to take reich money for their pay.

Millicent knew the policy, “Always be willing to give reich money and whenever possible make it seem you would rather take barbies.” So when a worker asked, she refused to promise that he could exchange his reich money for barbies. Instead she said, “I’m sorry, but we only print the barbies when we have enough product to back them.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, it’s all very technical, but what it comes down to is we’ll always give you reich money for barbies, but we won’t always be able to give you barbies for reich money.” Millicent tried to sound regretful, but it was hard because inside she was dancing around and capering like a monkey. This was the precise phrase that Sarah had explained meant they were in. And before she finished the pay parade, she had repeated it at least fifteen times.

* * *

All the way back to Race Track City, Millicent Ann Barnes hummed—but carefully did not sing.





Where have all the barbies gone? Pink notes passing.

Where have all the barbies gone? Green notes they go.

Where have all the barbies gone? Gone to lock boxes every one.

When will they ever learn?

When will they evverr learn?





It was almost a shame, because Millicent had a decent voice. But then, those last lines might not have gone over all that well. Besides, she knew that not all, or probably even most, of the barbie money was going into lock boxes or other hiding places. But barbies were now being taken in favor of reich money. Gresham’s law was coming into play. The barbies would start being saved, while the reich money was spent. The next thing they would see would be people charging a surcharge to take reich money in exchange for barbies. She could feel it.

Fortney House, Race Track City

“No,” Sarah said flatly.

“But, Sarah . . .” Judy whined.

“You agreed,” Sarah said, looking around the room. “When I agreed to this you all agreed that I would set the amount of BarbieCo issued. We all agreed that the amount would be limited by two factors. First, not so many barbies that it would disrupt the economy. And second, no more barbies than the goods and services that BarbieCo could supply to support them. I grant that with the barbies going into lock boxes, the threat of inflation is shifted to the reich money. But that doesn’t mean that Liechtenstein Tower or the other projects have suddenly become twice as valuable.”

In truth, Judy wasn’t arguing for herself. Judy had been able to afford just about anything you could buy with money since she was fourteen. But unemployment in and around Vienna was still hovering around twenty percent.

“What about the Liechtenstein railroad?” Karl asked. “The Vienna-Cieszyn line is a decent road most of the way, even if it only has the rail over about ten percent of it.”

The railroad Sonny Fortney was building was a thoroughly hybridized mishmash of technologies. The rail, where it had a rail at all, was a single wooden rail that went right down the center of the roadway. The train that ran on it had outrigger wheels that ran on hard track next to the rail—packed dirt would do, although macadam was better—which maintained the vehicle’s balance while most of the weight was carried on the rail. That rail was low enough that with a bit of effort the normal wagon wheels could roll over it in order to move over to the side and let others pass. The tricky bit was the rail wagons, which had a set of rail wheels that could be cranked down onto that center rail and take up most of the weight of the wagon. While they were down, the wagon acted like a rail car. While the rail wheel was cranked up, the wagon acted like a wagon on a good road.