Well, it’s been one of those weeks. My friend Keith got back to me on the Nussbaum family and if it weren’t for all the problems we’ve had with copying and mailing the letters I’d think he was nuts.
Keith went about using a series of online services and research libraries to find what he could on the Nussbaum’s. He even but his interns on the project after initial searches were proving fruitless. At one point he called in some favors from both the Guttenberg Library and the Library of Congress. I may not have emphasized how good a researcher Keith is and the types of people who have come to him for help in the past. Sufficed to say, Keith is probably one of the best people in the field at what he does, check a reference book and your likely to find him in the acknowledgements.
That aside, Keith found practically nothing on the Nussbaum family until he came across a reference in an old British history book. A small footnote mentioned the Nussbaum name in conjunction with a British historian who has been discredited. The family name has been discounted by modern historians as a figment of fiction. While no one can seem to agree on when the historian lived, most agree this nameless man was a member of the Royal Historians Guild. The RHG is a group of men used by the crown heads of Great Britain to record the important events of history. At some point in his tenure as a Royal Historian our nameless historian began inserting the name Nussbaum into the legends of Great Britain; all of these additions are called the Nussbaum Histories.
The Nussbaum Histories are a collection of stories that are a mixture of historic events and legends. It took some doing but Keith was able to locate several tales featuring the Nussbaum’s. In each of the stories included in the collection is a reference to a member of the Nussbaum family, or the participation of a single person named Nussbaum.
It was a difficult series to find because after the RHG discovered the addition of Nussbaum the historian was removed from his position in disgrace. Historians then went about fixing the stories and removing the offending Nussbaum’s and replacing them with someone more appropriate or simply adjusting the name of the person. An example of this practice is Robin Hoods merry man Little John. In the version we all know and love Little John has no family name in the Nussbaum Histories he is Jonathan Nussbaum. Something similar happens in the legends of King Arthur’s court where Sir Percival is listed as a Nussbaum.
This wasn’t just limited to British history and folklore. In the Nussbaum Histories Saint Patrick of Ireland is listed as a Nussbaum. In the United States, Johnny Appleseed was a Nussbaum first and became an Appleseed as the legend grew. This continues through out history: in the French Revolution, during the Spanish invasion of the British Isles, and even in the Crusades. The Nussbaum is never the leader, they are an aid or agent, some supporting personality. There are even mentions of a Nussbaum as a traveling companion for Baron Munchausen, the Monkey King, and some doctor that Keith has been unable to find a name for.
Two months ago I wouldn’t have believed any of it, but after the events of the past few weeks I‘m no longer certain. With everything that has gone on, with all the events that have happened, with every problem I’ve had copying this letter these stories may be true.
Keith still has a little research left to do. He keeps seeing references to the ancestral family lands gifted to them by Charlemagne, “until no Nussbaum still draws breath.“ He wants to see if he can figure out where they are and thinks maybe that could give us a clue to the origin of the stories.
Until then, I post this weeks letter in hopes that…I honestly don’t know anymore.
Dearest Mother,
I write with a heavy heart, some of my team has died. As I said last week, we were to meet this week at a designated central location. Christina and I waited for several hours before we were joined by Franco, he was the only one to show. If you will recall Franco and Antonio were sent off as a team, we learned from Franco that Antonio is dead. In the first day they were set upon. To ensure accuracy I am handing the duty of reporting the event to Franco so you will get the report of his experience first hand.
Greetings,
Antonio and I were sent to the southern part of Maria’s travel plans. I had chosen a nice Maserati Quattroporte from my garage to take us to our destination. Good mileage, spectacular handling, and I had one of my guys work it over for better shocks and speed. I realize this may seem trivial now, but it does become important later.
We visited our town and found very little on the first day. It wasn’t until day two that a problem arose. We were leaving the town headed North in an effort to arrive at our next location. That was when four black Panamera Turbos came roaring up the road behind us. Not wanting to draw attention I pulled over slightly to let them pass. I wasn’t positive something strange was going on since Italian drivers tend towards speed, a crime I myself am often guilty of. Had they been a little bit more patient, we would probably both be dead. One of the Turbo’s pulled up along side of us and a man in the back seat started firing on us.
As a standard feature on all my teams cars they are armored which is usually enough. Whatever these men were firing must have been a heavy caliber as it was cracking the windows. I floored it to get out ahead of them and try and put some distance between us. This might have worked except the road we were on was heading towards a mountainous region and the twists and turns were going to make it difficult to maintain a top speed.
They had some pretty decent engines in their cars and while not able to match us in the straights we weren’t pulling away as quickly as I wanted. We hit the first turn pretty quick and it was a monster, on the outside of the curve was a seaside cliff with very little hangover. I managed to drift through it though even still, I could still feel the rear wheels clip the lip of the cliff. The first two Turbos made the turn as well, the third one would have made it but the rear car misjudged the turn and clipped it sending it over the side.
From this point forward we were up in the mountains and the twists and turns had us constantly doubling back in such a way that is was easy for the rear two cars to keep firing on us as we passed. Occasionally one of them would get close enough to tap us or try and force us off the road. This went on for a while until we came to a short gully with a bridge over it, the driver of the lead car was spending so much time focusing on me that he missed the oncoming single car width bridge. We made the bridge and they sailed off into the gully.
We got rid of the second car on a decent straight away, when he managed to get even with us and tried and put us in the ditch. I let him get a bit upfront of us and when he tried to clip over I braked, up shifted, and nudged the wheel pushing us into his rear quarter panel. This spun their car and let me put my grill into the door between his tires. As we were moving, I shimmied the car and watched as they pushed forward into the ditch and rolled their car. It helped that the last driver rear-ended us giving us enough bump to jiggle the other car loose.
We were able to lose the last driver as we rounded a curve into a much more even spot of road. As we approached however, the fire from their guns finally broke through the rear window on the car. When I got my chance I hit it and we shot forward down a nice two mile straight. He tried to keep up, and would have done fine except he wasn’t able to maintain speed on the loose gravel and old blacktop. He spun the wheels, lost control and ate the ditch.
It wasn’t for a few more miles that I realized Antonio had taken a hit, probably when the window blew. By the time I noticed he was already gone. I’ve dropped him and his ID at a near by hospital and went out on my own. I stayed close to the timeline we were supposed to follow but I used alternate routes and went in a different order.
Mother, it’s me again. After the meeting, Franco told us he almost didn’t show up at the meeting, he was afraid that if everyone had been betrayed the final meeting might be a trap. We hope this is why Giorgio never showed. If he was ambushed like Franco, then…
Other than that I have nothing new to report. We have delivered the laptop to Christina’s contact and now must wait his call and hope for good news.
As always, my love.
Your youngest son
J. P. Nussbaum
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