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what, and what could I do about it at the moment?
With a snort, I walked back to the kitchen, wondering what I would fix for
dinner. I hadn't really given it the faintest thought.
13
FRIDAY'S ice storm turned to snow, more than a foot, which was followed by
rain and then a hard freeze that turned everything to ice on Monday. Tuesday,
the wind changed, and by Wednesday morning the temperature was springlike
again, not at all like the last days of October, and foggy, but not bad for
running. I went all the way to the top of the hill and out into the old woods
a ways, my boots crunching through the crusty snow.
After breakfast, a shower, and dressing, I made my way to the car barn to
light off the Stanley. Although the day had gotten foggy with the sunlight and
warm, moist air, the glare was intense even through the intermittent fog.
Standing outside the car barn, I glanced to the south, across the glittering
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iced snow and through the leafless trees of the orchard. Between the drifting
patches of white, I could see a gray Spazi steamer on the back road. Jerome
was certainly keeping his promise about surveillance.
I shook my head and opened the car barn door, then unplugged the heater,
before starting the steamer and backing out. I'd closed up the barn, turned
the steamer avoiding Marie's old black deSoto and even had the Stanley warm
inside before Llysette struggled out of the house and into the seat beside me,
clutching her bags of music and books.
"Winter, for this I am not prepared." Llysette shivered.
"It's warmer than yesterday." I eased the Stanley onto Deacon's Lane and
headed downhill toward the river and Vanderbraak Centre.
"That is like comparing the icebox and the freezer."
"Wait until it really gets cold."
"I cannot believe I leave the stove to beat notes to dunderheads." Llysette
half-sniffed, half-shivered in her heavy coat. "Even to the good ones."
"You will. You'll just complain more." I laughed.
"You mock me."
I could feel the pout. "I wasn't mocking you, just stating what I thought
would happen." When I stopped at the bridge, I bent sideways and kissed her
cheek.
She raised her eyebrows, and I knew what she was thinking.
How did I get out of being condescending when I had been? By not opening my
mouth in the first place. "Lunch?"
"Mais non ... auditions we have for the festival. Did I not tell you?"
"You did. I didn't remember that was today."
"Johan...." She shook her head but then spoiled it by smiling shyly, as if to
ask how I ever could have been anything other than an absentminded professor.
Maybe she was right.
After dropping Llysette off at the Music Building I made my morning pilgrimage
to Samaha's for the paper, before heading back to my office to scan it and
prepare for my classes. There was little enough in the Asten Post-Courier,
except a tiny blurb about the Austrian ambassador being recalled to Vienna for
consultations. I wondered why, but the story was just a wire blurb without
details.
The big story was the latest revelation about the Asten midtrupp ring and the
turbo-dirigible controversy. One of the trupp chiefs had invested heavily in
the governor's brother's construction business, and lo and behold, the
business had been awarded the contract to extend the obsolete aeroplane
runways to accommodate turbojets.
After shaking my head, I surveyed the environmental economics papers I had to
hand back not really terrible, but methodically mediocre. They'd all realized
that I wanted facts and analysis, and most had gone through the exercise, but
without either insight or inspiration. I picked up one.
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"... taxes raise the price payed for fuels, like steamer kerosene so when
Speaker Aspinall pushed through the excuse taxes ..." I couldn't read any
farther again after "excuse taxes," not without wanting to add comments about
proofreading, assuming Miss Lyyker knew the difference. So I set it aside
before I lowered her grade more.
Eleven o'clock came and went, and environmental economics was about as I
feared multiple hidden groans over the grades, followed by sullen glances
when they thought I wasn't looking.
The class discussion was subdued, because it had begun to dawn on them that
they weren't getting A's or, in many cases even Bs clearly my fault, in their
minds. After all, I was there to teach them, to spoon-feed them what they
needed to know, if necessary, so that they could obtain the magic diploma and
entrance to the occupation or graduate school of their choice.
Did I feel cynical?
The frightening part was that I believed my analyses were objective. So I
plunged into trying to ignite some interest.
"Mister Deventer, would you rather be a north woods logger or a New Bruges
fishing boat captain?"
"Ah ... sir?"
"You heard me. A north woods logger or a fishing boat captain?"
"But, sir ... I would prefer not "
"To be either? I can understand that. Humor me, Mister Deventer. If you only
had those choices, which would you choose?" I smiled and waited, ignoring the
sigh. If you don't ignore such sighs, you go slightly mad.
Mister Deventer surprised me. "If I had to choose, Doktor, I'd try to be a
fishing boat captain...." He went on to explain in logical terms how he could
invest more in equipment to seek out fish while as a logger he would be
limited in what he could log and where.
"Very good. Now what about the impact of the Blue Water Laws?"
Mister Deventer knew that, too, explaining how the combination of the water
and wetlands laws retained the quality and quantity of marshland breeding
areas for various species in the food chain and thus increased his putative
profitability as a fishing captain.
Somehow, ignoring the handful of sighs and focusing on those students who
appeared interested, I struggled through the examples of how environmental
issues and changes impact basic economics and even society's structures.
Water from the melting ice and snow covered the stone walks outside Smythe by
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