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

At midday my brother lays his hammer on the workbench. He eats a heel of bread on the grass outside the double doors. I want to rest on my stomach so the sun does not shine on my face but my brother does not want me to rest. I sit upright with back against an open door and my legs straight out. My brother wants to share his idea and it is important that I am not resting when I hear it. The idea came to my brother in the night. It was a vision of his walk to the bank along the wharves. Walking to the bank along the wharves, my brother had noticed the chains that moored the ships in the bay. Up close, the chains were big, bigger than he had imagined. They were the biggest chains that existed. My brother had noticed rust on the chains. In the vision, my brother saw the rust growing, moving rapidly over the links of the chain. The iron curded all over with rust. The chains crumbled. The waves in the bay were orange with rust. My brother is thankful for the vision. It means the chains will need to be repaired soon. My brother will get a contract from the foreigners. The contract will ensure that my brother repairs the chains for the ships. It should not be impossible to secure such a contract. The draper is not the only man in the town who has the right to a contract.

Repairing hardware for such large ships will be a bigger job than ever before. Even our father would not have dreamed of such a job. When my brother gets a contract to forge hardware for the foreigners' ships, the forge will thrive. My brother will expand the forge. He will double the forge. My brother cannot be responsible for two forges, not if he is the only blacksmith. It is good to have a brother. Two brothers can be blacksmiths at two forges, two forges that have the same name. The forges are two halves of the same forge. The way my brother is talking, the foreigners' contract will double the forge in a very short period of time. I will be a blacksmith soon. My brother is happy talking about his contract. He looks toward the bay while he talks, toward the ships moored in the bay. The draper is a happy man thanks to his contract with the agency responsible for providing uniforms to soldiers and my brother will be a happy man thanks to his contract with the foreigners.

My brother cannot fulfill the terms of his contract alone. He needs a striker who can soon become a blacksmith in the other half of the doubled forge. Suddenly my brother cries out, a hoarse yell, and he throws his body against me so that I am slammed hard against the open door. The hoarse yell dies quickly into the soundless air on the top of the hill. The door bangs against the forge and the hinges creak. My brother's hands grip my arms. His fingers completely encircle my arms. My arms are the same size around as the grips on the handles of my brother's tools. I could be a tool for my brother but I cannot be his striker. I am too small. I do not fight my brother. I go limp. My brother's body is hot and wet with sweat and it presses against my body. He puts his forehead on my forehead. His breath makes my face drip. My brother releases my arms and pushes my head with his hands. He is smoothing and tugging the hair on my head with his wet forehead hard on the ridges of my brows. My face drips. It is hard to move my mouth and speak into my brother's face, but I speak. I tell my brother that the doctor came to visit. He examined me and made me his patient. Under the doctor's care I will grow quickly. I will soon have what it takes to be a blacksmith. My brother flops to the side and the hot, bright air goes between our bodies. I draw up my knees. My face is dripping with fluids. My brother wipes his nose with the back of his hand. He touches my arm with his knuckles. He wants to believe that I will grow quickly. So far nothing has helped me to grow quickly. Maybe the doctor will help. My brother does not want me to cry. He squeezes my shoulder with his gentlest grip, a grip that is much stronger than the doctor's.

In town, there is a lawyer who can draw up contracts. His office is next to the bank. Before my brother leaves to see the lawyer, he eats the last of the onions fried in butter. It is a bad breakfast, onions fried in butter. I use a lot of butter because the onion is small. My brother's lips are covered with grease, and his fingers. He pretends to be angry that his fingers are covered with so much grease. As he goes out the door of the house, he wipes his fingers clean on the front of my pants. He laughs. His touch is rough and I feel it through my pants. The blood goes to where he touches.

Alone in the forge, I stir the cold ashes on the hearth with the tongs. I feel a hard shape. I think it is the live coals beneath the ashes, but the shape is not coal. It is the champion's knife. I take hold of the champion's knife with the tongs. The metal has melted into a twisted lump, like the boll of a tree. I trim two handspans of apron string from the leather apron and make a cord to hang the lump around my neck. No blacksmith has ever forged such a lump. It is an entirely unfamiliar talisman. Even the children on the wharf would not recognize this talisman for what it was.

My brother returns with two other men who beat the ass that walks between them. The ass pulls a lorry of bar iron. My brother and the men are having a fine conversation, laughing and winking. I watch them from the top of the hill. When they arrive at the even ground in front of the forge I run behind to the house. It is cooler in the house and I throw myself on my stomach on the bed. There is a bad smell but I do not mind. I would rather smell the bad smell from beneath the bed than hear the jokes of my brother and the men. My brother does not miss my help unloading the iron. He does not shout for me. I had expected him to shout and so I let the door of the house stand open. I wanted to be sure to hear my brother's shout, to respond slowly to my brother's shout, to make him wait for my help. He does not shout. Finally I go to the forge. I step over the ass dung on the grass. The men are gone. The bar iron is stacked against the walls inside the forge. My brother is arranging tools on the workbench. He gives me a piece of bread from the white bag on the workbench. I will need to be strong for the job, the job on which the future of the forge depends.

In exchange for the help with the contract, the lawyer wants my brother to make bars to protect his windows. Thieves have been tampering with the lawyer's windows. The lawyer advanced my brother the iron to make bars. My brother is excited. He will not make any money from this job for the lawyer, but the lawyer will be impressed by the quality of my brother's work. The lawyer will become a customer. Someday the lawyer will expand his practice and open offices in another building. The windows in that building will need bars, and my brother will make the bars for a good price.

We begin work immediately. It is late in the day to begin work. My brother works so fast that my arms begin to tremble. My brother works on and on. It is deafening in the forge. I begin to listen to the tapping and the clanging as though they are separate from our motions. They are sounds that come from the forge. My arms burn. They burn as though I have laid them on the hearth. I fall forward and put my face on the hearth. I see myself fall forward. I see myself fall past my brother. I see my brother's face as I fall past. My brother looks like our father, but then our father's face changed. He put his face on the hearth. On the hearth, coals burn through my nose. The fat in my lips bubbles out through the cracks. My eyelids puff out from my eyes. My brother drags me from the hearth. He lays me on my back on the floor. He douses my face with water from the slack tub. The water turns to steam. My eyes cook, my tongue cooks. I scream. I waver on my feet. The arm that holds the sledge falls down and the sledge misses the anvil. I take a step toward the hearth. I see myself fall forward. My brother catches me easily. I do not fall on the hearth. My brother catches me. He carries me through the double doors.