Joanna Ruocco - Another Governess / The Least Blacksmith - A Diptych

Without iron to work, we have nothing to do in the forge. My brother and I sit on the hill watching the ships. My brother says the ships come from the ports of distant cities. He says I cannot possibly imagine the foreigners' cities. There are many more girls in these cities and they are nothing like the girls in town. My brother asks me to describe the girls in town. When I was our father's helper, I went into town more often for the meat and the bread. I must have passed many girls. Girls must walk on the streets in town. They wear uniforms that are all one piece, like the monks. I do not remember if I saw girls or monks on my trips into town. Girls and monks wear their hair very long, but the monks have long beards. The uniforms of the girls are shorter than the uniforms of the monks. This is not the description that my brother wants to hear. I pluck at the grass with my fingers. The sun is hot and the ground buzzes with insects. The buzzing is almost like the vibrations that pass through the ground from the forge when my brother or our father is hard at work.

I tell my brother that I talked to girls in town. We talked many times. The girls were impressed to hear that I worked in the forge. They have great admiration for the blacksmith. The girls asked me to describe the blacksmith using physical detail. I told the girls every physical detail I could remember but the girls were not satisfied. They kept asking for more. My brother does not believe me. He knows I did not talk to any girls in town. He asks me to describe the girls using physical details. I try to think of physical details. My brother leans back on the hill with his hands folded behind his head. I could say that the girls have long hair like the monks. Their uniforms are too short. Girls must grow quickly. My brother has shut his eyes, waiting. I do not know what to say. I touch my brother through his pants but he rolls over. He tightens his buttocks and rubs himself on the earth. He gets on his knees and opens his pants. He opens his eyes and looks at me. He is angry that I am still there. I go into the house and sit on my bed but there is a bad smell so I sit in the doorway. I cannot see my brother or the bay. I look at the back of the forge. Mice live in the scrap metal piled behind the forge. They must be mice, gray flickers in the curving darkness between the prongs.

I do not know the physical details of the girls in town but I know the physical details of my brother. He is the same size as our father. Our father was shorter than my brother but our father had a great chest like a barrel. My brother is taller than our father but his chest is like a slab, flatter and not as big around as our father's. I think their slightly different shapes make them just the same size. My brother has the same swing as our father. The anvil is mounted at the perfect height for both our father and my brother. My brother has dark hair on his backside. His toenails grow in mounds. Everywhere on my brother's body there are red marks where the skin stretched because my brother grew so quickly. His big muscles made marks on his skin as they grew. My brother grew more quickly than the girls in town. Not one of them is big enough to bear his son. If my brother had had a son when my father died, that son would already be big enough to work as my brother's striker. My brother's son could replace me at the anvil. It would not take my brother's son years to grow. He would grow even more quickly than my brother. It would take no time at all for my brother's son to stand at the anvil. He would crawl from his mother's legs to the anvil and rise, holding the sledge in his hand.

My brother eats looking over our father's ledgers. He does not notice that I have not emptied my dish. I try to empty my dish but my throat has narrowed. Even the smallest bites of meat lodge in my throat. I leave the table and sit on my bed with my dish. I push the meat off my dish onto the floor. I pull the pallet over the meat. I slide the pallet beneath the bed. Now my dish is empty. I put the empty dish on the floor. I lie down on the bed. I am tired but I cannot fall asleep. I will go outside. I take the saltcellar from the table. My brother does not look up from the ledgers. I leave the house and walk around the hill in the moonlight. I sit down on the hill. The moon illuminates the ships in the bay. Dark figures are moving on the decks of the ships. The foreigners like to dance on the decks of their ships. Their ships are taller than any of the buildings in town. The foreigners are building hotels in their district that will be as tall as the ships. Soon the view of the bay will be blocked by hotels. Only the foreigners who stay at hotels will see the foreigners who dance on the ships.

I lie back. I balance the saltcellar on my stomach so it points up from my stomach at the moon. I rock from side to side by flexing each buttock. I want to see how far I can rock before the saltcellar topples. The saltcellar topples. Now I can flex each buttock with all of my strength. The burning I feel in my buttocks makes my legs tighten, my stomach tighten. I curl my fingers and toes. I relax my buttocks. I pick up the saltcellar and pour salt on the earth where my brother rubbed. I do not turn over like my brother. I stay on my back. I move my eyes toward the outside corners and look through the disc of the moon to see the bigger, brighter light it hides from my view.

This is the first time I have slept outside. I wake up when the sun is rising. The grass is wet. My body is wet. I feel cold. The bay is covered with mist. I have grown so much in the night that I cannot fit through the door of the house. I cannot fit through the double doors of the forge. I lift the roof off the forge and look inside. My brother is working in his leather apron. I see the bellows and the hearth and my brother at the anvil and the workbenches and the metalwork stacked against the walls. My brother passes up a sledge. He wants me to work at the anvil, but I am too large. I crush the sledge in my fist. Fragments fall. The head of the sledge cracks the brick of the hearth. I reach my arm into the forge. I take the horn of the anvil between my fingertips. I pluck anvil and post from the floor of the forge. I look at the bay. The mist is burning off and I see that the ships in the bay are anvils, gray anvils mounted on the muddy verge of the bay. Instead of civil ensigns, the anvils fly flags that bear the name of the forge. I shout down to my brother. I describe the anvils on the bay and their different colored flags. Each flag bears the same name. It is the proudest moment of my life. We have expanded the forge.

My buttocks tighten with joy. I rock. My buttocks burn. I feel hard irregularities beneath my buttocks. I am standing up, looking out at the bay, but I am also lying down, feeling hard irregularities with my buttocks. Suddenly I am dizzy, sensing myself upright, then supine, upright then supine. My breathing comes in gasps. I roll over and heave, but only air comes out of my throat. The air is hard as rock and hurts me as it pushes from my cavity. I push the rocks of air from my throat. When I am finished, I stumble to the house. The air is gray and damp. I hesitate at the door of the house because I remember having grown. I fit easily through the door. My brother is sitting at the table. He has been sitting there all through the night. I cannot tell if his eyes are opened or closed. As I climb into bed my heart hammers in threes, three quick hammers, the blacksmith's signal that the striker must stop. I realize I am holding a rock in my hand.

In case customers come while my brother is down at the bank, I stay at the forge. I do not mind. It is a good opportunity to repair the champion's knife. Often at night my brother leaves the fire alive in the hearth, banked under ashes. This morning the fire is out. I shovel coal on the old fire, two shovelfuls of the good wet coal my brother uses so sparingly. I mix pine twigs with the coal. I light the fire and pump the bellows. The fire is dark and big. The smell is strong. The fire is unwell. The smell fills the forge. I have forgotten the champion's knife. I run to the house. The door is closed, the windows are closed. The air inside the house smells bad.