The Ring Chapter 17, 18

 

 

MARGO LOUD STEINER

“STOP, STOP, STOP.” Margo said. Her tone wasn’t one that said an accident was about to happen. They had already pulled off the Autobahn for the quiet of the national roads to search for a small restaurant, not that the Autobahn didn’t have stops with good food.

Hans-Peter wanted a break from what he called the races.

“Where?”

“There’s a restaurant over there and it’s next to an art supply store.” Although she had loaded up on sketch pads and colored pencils before they’d left Stuttgart, she wanted to check what they would have that she might use while Hans-Peter was off filming at the dig.

He had called ahead to get her into any team meetings and access to any of the discoveries so she could copy the designs. Her reputation had opened doors for her that would have been closed to her when they were a young couple. As a young couple neither had any doors to have opened.

Tomorrow they would meet up with the BBC crew who were filming on spec that this would work into a full series. If not, Hans-Peter was happy with a single documentary. It would boost his book sales.

Hans-Peter helped her into the back of the Dacia where she could stretch out her leg along the seat. This car was bigger than they had when they were married.

Neither were proponents of big cars, but Margo needed space to transport her dishes, and Hans-Peter had books and other materials he used in his lectures including filming equipment.

“When we were young you said, ‘I don’t need to prove my manhood on the road,’ Margo reminded him.” “Still feel that way?”

“More or less. I drove a friend’s Ferrari once about six months ago. Beautiful machine. I’m too cheap to spend the money for something that does the job a used VW which will sit in the garage for weeks at a time will do.”

Margo smiled. She knew Hans-Peter used public transportation most of the time. She would have back home, too, except there was none.

“Art store or restaurant first?” he asked.

“Art store. I don’t want to risk they’ll close while we’re eating and there’s a certain kind of brush that will probably be cheaper here than in the States.”

 

THIS IS ALMOST a vacation which I haven’t had in umpty-ump years and it pours rain, Margo thought as Hans-Peter drove up to the little red house. Despite the weather, she didn’t regret saying yes to coming to Sweden with her ex.

He had a week of shooting for a BBC documentary on the new archeological methods used at the Luppåkra dig and the discoveries they helped find.

The weather could be a problem although interviews with some of the professors involved could be done indoors while waiting for the rain to stop. Shots of Hans-Peter at the site talking about how people had lived since the Iron Age could include weather information of long ago and could be worked into the script if the rain didn’t stop. He told her of two people he could call. “One of them will give me the sentences I need, if I mention his name.”

Margo had been surprised that, unlike during their marriage, their conversation was back and forth about him and her. He asked about her new kiln, the different clay, where she got her design ideas, things he hadn’t done when they were married.

During the drive from Germany, she had loved their conversations which expanded to books, movies and world politics. The 500 miles flew by.

Inside, the first thing she noticed was one bed. “I can take the couch.”

“Or I can. Your cast needs more room.”

As it turned out they would share the bed later that evening.

Almost as soon as they arrived, they left for dinner with an archeological colleague and his translator wife with whom Hans-Peter was filming the next day. “They’re also friends. You’ll like them.” He shut off the car engine in their driveway.

“This is it. I stay here whenever I come to Luppåkra. Johnathan and Walter are staying at another B&B just down the road.” He reached into the back seat for an umbrella and walked around to Margo’s side to help her out of the car and up the three steps to the front door.

“We didn’t bring anything?” she said.

He reached into the back seat and brought out a bottle of German white wine.

1% Viking

 

Sherlock's DNA came back. His mom was a Yorkie, His father was a Jack Russell which explains his personality. There were misc. other breeds DNA running thru his veins.

Since we knew our dog's DNA why not get my husband's and mine, we thought.

I didn't expect many surprises. On my mother's side we went back to 1640 arrival from the England on the Blessing and how ancestor John Sargent fought in the American Revolution. Thanks to my grandmother's  membership in the D.A.R. I had a list of all my ancestors on that side.

In going for Canadian citizenship, I traced my family back to Michel Boudreau who left La Rochelle, France. He arrived in Nova Scotia in 1640 and became a General. When he wasn't generaling, he fathered 11 children, populating the area with Boudreaus.

What surprised me was the report that I was 1% Norwegian Viking. 

How did that happen?

Since I am five foot one and Vikings were supposed to be tall, I assumed that the 1% came from a mating with an Anglo woman. 

Was my DNA why, when I visited Iceland, the thing I wanted to see most was the Sagas?  

Did a Viking ancestor sail from Norway, land in what is now England and rape a pretty maiden who was gathering faggots for the fire in a nearby wood? Or was he one of the Vikings that rather than get back on the boat to return to what would become Norway, fall in love and settle down as a farmer maybe in Grimsby or Whitby which are said to have their names rooted in Viking words? Both places had Viking "visits" but Grimsby was said to have some Viking settle there.

Could he have been one of the Vikings to raid a monastery at Lindisfarne in 793 arriving in one of three ships?

I did take an on-line course in Vikings just in case I wanted to do a historical novel on my ancestor Viking hooking up with my Anglo ancestor. It's about eleventh on the writing projects on my list. 

Still, if I visit Norway again, will my heart beat a little faster when I see a tall blond male and imagine him in leggings and tunic, fur boots, and carrying a spear. 

At one point I read about a man in Norway who recreated Viking ships. I looked into apprenticing myself to him but modern reality of a dependent child destroyed that dream. That was before I knew of the 1%.

 

My fascination with the Sagas can be explained by my interest in the medieval period in general not DNA or can it?

I will never know for the names, places, clothing, daily life, dreams of the man who handed my 1% DNA to me.   

 

Flair Fashions

 

Between her divorce and my mother switching careers to become a journalist, she started her own business, Flair Fashions.

She wanted to be free days to take my brother and me to school and be present in general.

Her plan? Flair Fashions.

She would go into Boston's clothing district on Kneeland Street and pick out 30 outfits of various styles and sizes. Then copying the Tupperware party model, she would have house parties. Women would invite friends and they would order from the samples.

Our second living room was her office and stock room. For each party, the samples would be wrapped in green sheets and carried to the car.

She only worked September thru mid December and January thru June. Summer and Christmas were not good for business.

Soon people asked her to do fashion shows. She agreed.

She hired Mrs. Eisenhower (no relation to Ike) to be the moderator. Mrs. Eisenhower with her perfect figure and her hair in a bun oozed attainable style and elegance for the middle class 1950s New England woman. 

It worked well until Mrs. Eisenhower developed laryngitis the night before a big show for a local woman's club. My mother never thought of herself as a public speaker, but the night would be too lucrative to cancel. Also my mother had written all the descriptions and they were brilliant.  Since my mother's other employee was Aunt Helen who could work back stage getting the volunteer models dressed and out on the temporary runway, the evening went without a hitch. 

She discovered sales were higher in less prestigious homes. Women from expensive houses had less disposable income. Pulling into a house with parked expensive new cars she knew again women would think of bills before clothes.

In the 1950s obesity was less of a problem, but my mother grew tired of women swearing they were a size 10 when they could barely get into a 16. She learned to say that this or that dress was made in smaller sizes than normal.

Mother considered me a walking advertisement.  During vacations I would go to Kneeland Street with her. The owners treated me as a princess and my mother, who had excellent taste, made sure I was well clothed. I could go over 20 days without wearing the same outfit. 

At my 30th class reunion a classmate asked if I NOW would reveal where I bought my clothes. I'd always answered, "My mother's business." The class mate thought I was being snobby until I told her that it was truly my mother's business. We laughed about it.

My mother became a journalist for the last 25 years of her life by accident. She did not miss the house parties.  

The Ring Chapter 16

 

BETHANY STEINER

“MY PARENTS WERE always different from my friends’ parents. In both countries. Didn’t matter. U.S. Germany.” Bethany’s head was in Tobias’s lap. They were on her two-seater couch which opened into her bed. Bethany tended to make it up every morning because it was too crowded in her tiny flat when the couch was open. Unless she was going to be out all day and fall into bed when she came home. Then it was too much work.

She could have used her alcove for her bed, but that contained bookcases and a desk. Her kitchen had a camp-sized refrigerator, a microwave and a small counter dominated by a small oven.

She loved her apartment. Maybe it was her mother’s genes that she was happy with “just enough.” From her father she inherited a desire to delve into a subject and dig, dig, dig until she discovered every atom, which is why her work wasn’t work but a passion.

Until she lived with her mother and fell in love with the garden behind her mother’s tiny house, city living meant no plants.

It was in the lab where she met Tobias Becker, an older lab assistant. Together they worked under Dr. Johan Müller who treated the two of them as his professional children.

As close as Bethany was to both her parents, she hadn’t wanted to tell them about her growing relationship with Tobias, not that they would disapprove.

Tobias kept pressing her for an introduction. She kept postponing it.

“I tell you what. When they’re back from Sweden, I’ll have us go out for a meal together. Before Mutti goes back to the States.”

That her parents went on a trip together was weird. Sure, her mother wanted to check out Viking designs she could use on her dishes. Sure, her father was working on a new documentary. If her mother hadn’t broken her ankle she would have gone back to the U.S. right after her vernissage.

Bethany wondered if her parents might, just might, get back together. She certainly hadn’t liked her stepmother and was relieved when her father saw his second wife for being wrong for him. None of this had she shared with Tobias.

In their work they shared everything, maybe it was time to start sharing her inner feelings.

“I can’t believe my parents went to Sweden together. When I was over there for Chinese food last time you would think they were dating or something. He actually used chopsticks and fed her the last shrimp with them. Like a movie scene or something.”

Tobias stroked the hair strand that had fallen on Bethany’s forehead and adjusted the pillow between her head and his lap. “They scare me.”

“Why?”

“They are so accomplished. I mean your mother has art shows all over the world, your father does documentaries and writes books while still teaching.”

“When you meet them, just imagine how they look in the morning, needing showers, combing hair, brushing teeth.”

American Refugees

 

I've often heard Americans say over the years, "If (fill in the name) is elected, I'm leaving the United States. Very rarely do they.

Not after 2024. People didn't just say it. They did it.

This past week we've hosted a couple who have sold everything to move to Europe. They call themselves American refugees.

After they left we were having morning coffee with a couple of Brits who were just back from lunch in Spain. When you live near the border, it's easy to border hop for anything as simple as a cup of coffee.

They reported sitting next to a table full of Americans who also called themselves American refugees.  

They knew they were Americans, they said, because they were speaking loudly. Americans have the reputation of speaking loudly. 

There is a difference between American refugees and those that have been bombed out of their homes, attack by armies, ridden in small boats that could dump them into seas, displaced by gangs, lost everything, walked hundreds, maybe thousands of miles and suffered like none of us can imagine. 

American refugees often have resources such as sales from property, savings, skills and talents that might land them a better job if an employer is not already waiting for them.

That does not mean that American refugees aren't suffering emotionally. Leaving family, friends for an unknown future can  be scary. Reactions may vary with generation. A person who leaves because they can get a free or inexpensive degree is very different from people with pensions and social security. 

American refugees report moments of overwhelming sadness at what is happening in the United States. The excitement of a new life helps but it is does not erase the sadness of what is lost.  

They don't think of themselves as the huddled masses described  on the Statue of Liberty. Nor do they think of themselves as those being snatched by ICE and held in primitive conditions. Most of those who think of themselves as American refugees may be surprised at the number of hoops they have to jump thru to settle in a new country and the learning curve to adjust to a new culture and language. 

Many who call themselves refugees talk about missing family, especially grandchildren whose special occasions they will miss. Some express fear of reentering the U.S. with border officials looking at phones and laptops where they criticized the government. And stories of people like themselves being detained at the border does little to reassure them. "I'll wait for a new administration, they tell themselves" and hope they won't have to stand at a dying parent's bedside before then.

In the past Americans who moved to other countries might call themselves expats. The term refugee is new and scary.