Bertrand spent his spare time with his film cameras. He had a modest collection based on his meager salary. He married shortly after his promotion to his college sweetheart Emily Siph Gleiss. The Siph Gleiss ran a small family distillery and gained some prominence during the speakeasy days. They bottled several of their own brands of vodka and rum.
They would travel whenever they could afford to and he spent his days taking pictures. In a decade they traveled the full length and breadth of the continent and visited over a hundred cities and townships as far as the coastal provincial. They also went to see his parents in the Artesian cities.
They raised a family and had over eleven children. A habit of the Siph Gleiss who enjoyed large families. He ran out of names and had honored three generations of Knutmudsen's on both sides. They became known as the traveling circus.
Bertrand had died a year before I became an Administrator. I walked past his old office on the corner of the Politiburo and it was three doors down from mine. Many of the older staff knew him and he was described as the typical bureaucrat. They kept many of his old photographs he had hung on the wall of his office and I sometimes glanced at them when I went past.
I sought out one of his daughters Gertrude who worked nearby running one of the Siph Gleiss liquor shops and she graciously met for a drink to share some family photo albums. She had some from their trips to visit her grandparents and they had large group photographs with Greta Knutmudsen and Hugh. Family life was serene and memorable.
Ninya accompanied me as we became frequent patrons and friends of Gertrude and later her older brother Karl. All the regulars teased and called him by his great grandfather's name. The shop was more of a pub with many of the company's wares on display in the front windows and on one half of the establishment. The other area had a dozen tables and room for sixty patrons to sit and pass the time. Many of Bertrand's photographs hung up on the walls and Gertrude had many more in the upstairs rooms they used for storage. She changed them about to match the seasons and special holidays. A favorite of mine became a medium light whisky, Port Charlotte. Ninya would buy me a case every year.
Karl looked more like his mother Emily and took on the Siph Gleiss name. He, like many of his siblings were employed and involved with their maternal grandfather's company along with their numerous other cousins. There was never a need for hired help as each year the Siph Gleiss would say.
The Bertrand and Emily clan were a bit loose on their choice of last names. Some like Gertrude followed their Artesian heritage. Others became Siph Gleiss. None wanted the association with Knutmudsen. They admired and cherished Knut's heritage, but didn't want to bring attention for something they had no hand in and fewer still were adherents of the Neo-Artesians converts. Though many have tried.
Gertrude was the rare exception and attended sermons. She gave me special invitation to see for myself and we went to one of their private gatherings. Ninya was not welcome and she obliged and waited outside in the car. The Artesians had splintered after the betrayal of the sisters and while both claim Karl Knutmudsen, a rift between the Neo-Artesians and the sisters remained.
If they could engage in open warfare, the Neo-Artesians would gladly end the reign of the sisters, but they come to rely on their protection.
An elder welcomed us and shared a few basic house rules. He then brought us into a larger room where fifty individuals had gathered. In the center of the room, they had a small totem and on top of it a fragment of one of the great books of Knut. It was fashioned inside a protective glass box. I imagined a cult with strange rituals and chanting.
The elder took the podium and addressed the room and welcomed several new guests, some who were ready to become initiates. They gathered three young men and a woman and they stood next to the elder. They bowed toward the totem and we all then bowed as he uttered several verses. When they were done, they embraced and he gave them a small round pendant of green stone. They placed them around their necks and each smiled as they were now official.
The round green stone were for initiates who had successfully passed and were ready to become members. Senior members had red stones and elders blue stones the color of Knut's ocean blue ink. There was no other significance and for those who could claim relation to the founder like Gertrude they were given purple stones inlaid in a gold circle.
We joined Ninya and enjoyed a drink at Gertrude's bar. She complained that they could have left her at the bar in the first place and I hadn't thought that far ahead and agreed. We left a short time later and retired at Ninya's apartment.
One of her younger sisters was staying with her in another room and made us some coffee and sandwiches. She had her sit beside me and introduced her as Helen, a girl of nineteen and beginning her own initiation. Helen came from a normal family and middle class life, not the normal origin story for a sister. But Ninya's mentor saw in Helen the makings of a good little sister and assigned her to Ninya to begin her field training.
I would see Helen again at Gertrude's bar and realized when looking more closely she had the green pendant and was the young initiate we saw earlier that evening.
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