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113 THE LEAST BLACKSMITH My brother does not know why there are no customers. He dresses three axes. He forges hoe after hoe. He paces to the double doors of the forge. It is a clear day. On clear days, you can see the peninsula across the bay, the faint gray outline of the mountains. My brother calls to me. He can see the peninsula . I join him at the double doors. The day is exceptionally clear. I can see the stone monasteries set high on the mountains . The peninsula is long and thin. It stretches across the horizon. I do not know where the peninsula attaches to the coast. It must attach some place far away, in the wilderness to the south. The peninsula is not continuous. There are breaks in the peninsula through which ships enter the bay. The ships in the bay fly bright civil ensigns. They have come from far away, across the ocean. They move very quickly through the waters of the bay. The foreigners like to cross the bay at alarming speeds. The speeding ships make crossing from the peninsula 9 114 JOANNA RUOCCO to the town dangerous for the monks. The boats of the monks are crudely built, with low sides, and they take on water when they cross the rough waves of the bay. The monks build laughable boats. It is a miracle that their boats stay afloat on the bay. The foreigners play a game with the monks. The captains of the ships try to drive their ships over the boats of the monks. The foreigners gather on the decks of the ships. They laugh. They look down to the water to see if there are small boats tossing in the wakes of the ships. Monks wash up by the wharves of the town. The doctor’s practice is thriving. He has more and more opportunities to use his medical equipment. It is too bad all of the monks died in the same way. It must not be challenging for the doctor. I am sure that the monks do not produce big packets of paper like our father. The monks do not even receive obituaries in the newspaper. Instead there is a tally, a tally of the monks who have washed up by the wharves. This is how the foreigners keep score. Games with the monks keep the captains of the ships from becoming bored in a town as small as ours. I tell my brother about the monk I saw by the wharves. The monk had not washed up by the wharves. He was lucky and had not lost the game to a captain. He had arrived alive by the wharves of the town. He did not lie face down. He crouched by his boat on the mud. I describe the iron talisman. My brother is not surprised by my description. He says the monks make their own talismans. There is a forge on the peninsula. A long time ago, the man who sold our father’s father the forge left the town for the peninsula. He became a monk. He built a new forge on the peninsula. He taught the monks to forge talismans . The monks know how to work iron thanks to the man who sold our father’s father the forge. ...

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