Another Governess / The Least Blacksmith: A Diptych

Chapter 14

128 JOANNA RUOCCO 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. The champion’s knife is changed when I pull it from between the bed mat and frame. It is not a knife at all. It is a broken file. There is no cutting edge on the file. I am certain the champion’s knife was a knife. It has changed. My brother must have taken 14 129 THE LEAST BLACKSMITH the champion’s knife and replaced it with a broken file. I should be able to make the file into the champion’s knife. I have never been in the forge without my brother or our father. I like the way the fire smells, strong and unwell. I grind both sides of the file. I put the file in the fire. When the file is red, I take the file from the fire. I drop it in the tub. Maybe I should have bent the file over the horn of the anvil and hammered the file. The file is not shaped exactly like a knife. It is better than a knife because it does not have a handle. I will carve and paint the handle for the champion’s knife. I will paint the handle yellow or blue. Standing at the double doors of the forge, I see the doctor coming up the hill. The doctor moves quickly as though he is in a great hurry. The doctor is thin but he moves quickly. Doctors must be thin and quick. They are summoned in the early morning or late at night and they always respond quickly to the summons. The doctor is busier and busier in town. The town is prosperous and the doctor’s practice is thriving. I remember leading the doctor to the forge. I remember following the doctor through the streets between the bakery and the doctor’s office. I had difficulty keeping up. The doctor was almost running , his black doctor’s bag in one hand, the white baker’s bag of seeded rolls in the other. The doctor’s face is beaded with sweat. There is no shade on the hill and the path is steep. The doctor comes right up to the double doors. He wipes his face with a white cloth from his vest pocket. He is looking for my brother. He peers around me into the forge. The ground does not vibrate, the air does not vibrate, no sounds come from the forge, but the doctor expects to see my brother. He does not know my brother at all. Even using his medical equipment, the doctor will never know anything about my brother if he does not know to listen as he approaches the forge. 130 JOANNA RUOCCO When I tell the doctor that my brother has gone to town to buy iron, the doctor shakes his head. My brother should not go to town without making an appointment to see the doctor. If my brother made an appointment, he could buy iron and also stop by the doctor’s office for tests. Even though the doctor is thriving and has expanded his practice by opening a new office in the foreign district, he would most like to have my brother for a patient. Only then would he feel challenged, as though he were growing as a doctor. A doctor wants the best possible patients. That is how a doctor grows. The doctor lowers his voice so I step closer to the doctor. I cough. The doctor laughs. He has been cleaning his medical equipment with a powerful solvent. He tells me that the smell of the solvent makes some people cough. He sniffs...