Another Governess / The Least Blacksmith: A Diptych

Chapter 11

23 ANOTHER GOVERNESS The brickmaker had a daughter. She lived by the beck, hard by the beck. She lived alone by the beck. The brickmaker worked in the brickfield and his daughter lived by the beck. The brickmaker made bricks with refuse and clay. He mixed one part refuse to five parts clay. The beck had a stone bed and between the stones, clay. When the brickmaker’s daughter pried up the stones to scoop the clay, the water clouded. The water clouded gray blue and the clouds thinned in the currents of the beck, carried downstream in the beck, gray blue streaks in the beck stretching down to the village at the bottom of the gorge. The brickmaker’s daughter scooped the clay into a bucket. She carried the bucket to the brickfield. To get to the brickfield, she passed through the village. The brickmaker’s daughter followed the beck through the village and every now and then she clouded the water with a handful of clay. One day the billposter saw the brickmaker’s daughter veer from the beck. She 11 24 JOANNA RUOCCO veered from the beck with her bucket. She crossed through the churchyard. She stopped by the bakery, by the open ditch by the coal heap by the bakery. She put down her bucket. The open ditch was narrow and the brickmaker’s daughter stood with one foot on either side of the ditch. She stood astride the ditch with her skirt hanging down and she made water into the ditch. She picked up her bucket and she returned to the beck, to the black bank of the beck that flowed through the village to the brickfield. She followed the beck. From then on, the billposter watched for the brickmaker’s daughter. The brickmaker’s daughter came down the steep path toward the village with her bucket. She passed through the village. She braced the bucket on her hip, or she tilted the bucket forward so the base of the bucket rested on her thigh. Sometimes she veered. She veered from the beck to the bakery. She made her water, upright, astride the open ditch by the coal heap by the bakery. Finally, the billposter could not contain his curiosity. He came out from behind the tree where he had been pretending to post his bills. Let me carry your heavy bucket, said the billposter. He had a black beard and he smiled through the black beard at the brickmaker’s daughter. He lifted her bucket from where she had set it on the coal heap and he carried her bucket to the beck. He followed the beck to the brickfield and the brickmaker’s daughter followed behind. When they arrived at the ridge overlooking the brickfield, the billposter put down the bucket. He sat on a stone and he pulled the brickmaker’s daughter across his knees. He tickled her ear. He folded up her skirt and inspected her buttocks. Her buttocks bore a mark, two white protuberances, like the paps of a ewe. The billposter struck a tack into the larger protuberance with his long-handled hammer. The skin broke but did not bleed. The brickmaker’s daughter grunted. Struggling, she stretched out her hands. She pulled the rim of the bucket. She tipped the 25 ANOTHER GOVERNESS bucket and her hands sank into the clay in the bucket. The billposter lifted her from his knees and she stood before him, upright, with her gray blue hands hanging down at her sides. Clouds had thickened in the sky. The billposter felt as though he were being pressed into the stone and grew afraid. He rose and moved forward. He pushed the brickmaker’s daughter so that she toppled backwards from the ridge. She landed below on the brickfield. Her impact forced the gray blue moisture up through the earth and the gray blue moisture lay like a stain on the earth around the brickmaker’s daughter. The billposter picked up the bucket. He emptied the bucket onto the brickfield from the ridge so that the brickmaker could mix the clay with the refuse and so fill his wagon with bricks. ...