Another Governess / The Least Blacksmith: A Diptych

Chapter 17

138 JOANNA RUOCCO When I go into the forge in the morning, my brother is holding the champion’s knife. He is looking at the champion’s knife. I make a noise and he notices that I am standing in the double doors. My brother smiles. He asks me if I want to play mumblety -peg. My brother has never asked me to play mumbletypeg . The children play mumblety-peg down by the wharves. Even as a small boy my brother did not throw knives at the mud. He wielded the sledge. He struck the iron wherever our father indicated. My brother’s voice is not friendly as he asks me if I want to play mumblety-peg. I do not answer. My brother throws the knife at the anvil. It flips once in the air and breaks apart against the horn of the anvil. I do not move. My brother picks up the largest piece of the champion’s knife. The fracturing of the champion’s knife has caused my brother pain. He shakes his head. He does not understand how it is possible that I failed to make something as simple as a knife. My 17 139 THE LEAST BLACKSMITH brother tosses the piece onto the hearth. The fire on the hearth is already hot. The champion’s knife lands in the center of the coals. My brother shovels more coals on top, burying it. That is the end of the champion’s knife. It is difficult to work. I cannot look at the iron on the anvil without seeing my hands on the anvil, my hands where the doctor put them on the anvil. My brother taps. He taps. He turns the iron. I need to concentrate on the iron my brother turns. I need to concentrate on sending blood to my hands as I swing with the sledge. My hands need blood to grow. My muscles need blood. It is difficult to think about the iron and the blood at the same time. They have the same taste, but the iron is hard on the anvil and blood is fluid, like iron that has melted on the hearth, remaining too long beneath the coals. The champion’s knife will melt beneath the coals. The champion’s knife could run through my veins. If it cooled inside my veins, my veins would harden. My body would be hard and strong. It could be shaped with a few quick blows of the sledge. My body could be sharpened. I look at my brother’s throat above the apron. His throat is big and dark. It shines with my brother’s sweat. I could press my sharpened arm against his throat and the skin would part. The darkness inside his throat would spill out. It would run over my arm. My brother’s head would fall from his shoulders and land on the floor of the forge. I do not want to see my brother without his head. I am surprised that I can think of such a terrible thing. My brother’s head is filled with blood and if his head were not attached to his body, the blood would cool. It would harden. My brother’s head would be heavy and would yield too many nails to count. I would make his head into all kinds of nails and sell them for a good price. My brother would be proud. It is easy to think about blood and iron 140 JOANNA RUOCCO when I remember that there is no difference between them. A person’s heart is the hearth that heats the blood. There is no difference between heart and hearth. 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...