On Grandmothers

It began when Mrs. Huang asked to visit her grandchildren.  She had been on board the Schöneluft a year and a half, she and Mrs. Wang and Mrs. Wei, ever since the terrible flooding in Shandong.  During the summer of the flooding, the vonHedwig family had been visiting Father’s old school friends in the German administrative capital of Qindao, and of course, they volunteered to search for survivors from the sky.

It was Adolphus who spotted the parasol, and under it, three ancient ladies playing mah jong on a rapidly disappearing hillock, formerly the highest point of the village, now a tiny island.  They came on board, communicating primarily by smiling and nodding, and pinching Bettina’s cheeks.  The vonHedwigs, in turn, communicated by speaking loudly and slowly in German, then English, French, Latin, Greek, Welsh, and Saami, and then by nodding and smiling.

Anxious to reunite them with their grieving families, they returned to Qindao only to learn that, considered too slow to evacuate, these venerable grandmothers had been abandoned by their families, left to succumb to the raging Yellow River!

Madame vonHedwig appealed to the translator, a learned man of Peking.  “What shall become of these august old persons, cruelly abandoned by their loved ones?”

Surprisingly, it was Mrs. Huang who answered.  “Stay on boat,” she said.

“I beg your pardon, Madame,”asked Herr vonHedwig, “do you mean our boat? The airship?”

Mrs. Huang and her friends nodded and smiled, and so the Chinese Grandmothers came aboard the Schöneluft to stay.  They eschewed the proffered cabins and made a dwelling place amid the catwalks and maintenance platforms of the envelope.

It has been a beneficial relationship for both parties, as Claire has learned enough Mandarin to ensure that Mrs. Huang and her friends have all they need for their comfort, Philomena learned to play Mah Jong, and Madame planted mulberry trees in the Greenhouse for the benefit of the Grandmothers’ silk worms.

It came as a surprise, therefore, when the Grandmothers requested to return to China.

“But my dear Mrs. Huang,” Madame vonHedwig reasoned, “surely your motherly obligations are somewhat diminished by your children surrendering you to a watery grave?”

“Not babies,” she replied.  “Babies good.”

There was certainly no arguing with that, so Herr vonHedwig was prevailed upon to arrange a return to northern China.  By the time they had concluded their business in Caracas and made the crossing, it was early June.  Claire, negotiating with Mrs. Huang, arranged to return for the Grandmothers in a month’s time.

During that month, the vonHedwig family experienced a most peculiar adventure…

This story is continued With a Bang.