Another Governess / The Least Blacksmith: A Diptych (4 page)

To be the Master you must have dogs. You must be surrounded by dogs. Dogs follow the Master. They run ahead of the Master. They feed from his hand. The Master beats his dogs with a stick. They limp. Their legs are straight and stiff. They leak fluid behind. From their jaws, they leak offal. They lick the Master's hand. They come in and out of the house. They go up and down the staircase. They go back and forth across the moat, across the bridge on the moat. They carry offal in their mouths. A Mistress does not allow dogs in the house. Above the Mistress, a marble bench. There is a marble bench. There are pocks in the bench, cysts in the bench. Things wiggle from the cysts. Fat white things. They leave black spots on the bench, black spores on the bench. The garden smells. The dogs chew the grass. They vomit the grass. The garden is slick with the grass that has passed through the dogs. Slick grass piles on the dirt. The gardener has planted lilies on the Mistress. Red lilies. There are red lilies on the Mistress, going brown in the damp. The Master comes in and out of the house. He does not walk to the garden, through the arched gate to the garden, to sit on the marble bench on the Mistress in the garden, to pick the red lilies that grow tall in the garden. The Master crosses the moat. He enters the orchard. He stares back at the house, at the towers of the house. He does not notice the pigs in the orchard, the pigs running from his dogs in the orchard, the dogs with their jaws on the pigs in the orchard. He does not smell the rotting apples. He does not smell the blood of the pigs. He does not smell the offal. He takes down his trousers. He kneels and the dogs come around. He does not cover himself when his dogs come around. He lies back. He puts his hands on the hairs where they thicken. The dogs hang their heads. They pant. Their tongues come close. The Master lies back. I could creep to the Master. He looks back at the house, where I will be someday, near him.

The butcher had a daughter. The butcher worked in the back of the shop and the butcher's daughter worked in the front of the shop. When people passed the shop, it was the butcher's daughter they saw through the window. Everywhere the butcher's daughter went the townspeople recognized her from the butcher shop, but if they saw the butcher they did not know him, except that the butcher's nails were black, because blood had dried beneath the butcher's nails, and the butcher had a thick pad of skin on his thumb from always chopping with the heavy knife. The townspeople did not connect the butcher's face with the butcher shop. Instead, it was the butcher's daughter that they pictured when they thought of the butcher shop. The butcher's daughter was a very black girl, black eyes and hair and she laughed so that the dark inside of her mouth was always visible and her large dark lips covered her white teeth. Men made special trips past the butcher shop to look at the butcher's daughter. Other girls in the town were very black but none of them caused the men to make special trips just to look through the window at the darkness inside their big, wide mouths. One day, an old woman bought a calf's liver from the butcher shop and died. When the townspeople thought about the bad liver that killed the old woman, they pictured the butcher's daughter and they could not be so angry anymore. The butcher's daughter was a very black, very merry girl and the townspeople connected her face with the butcher shop and her dark and full body that the men liked to look at through the butcher shop window, and they were not so angry about the death of the old woman. In the back of the shop, the butcher cut the meat and in the front of the shop, the butcher's daughter stood behind the counter with meat behind her on the hooks. Then a pig-sticker moved to town. He was young and strong and soon the townspeople were bringing him their pigs to stick and cut into good pieces of meat. The townspeople still came to the butcher shop for the heads and livers and hearts and tongues and skirts of cattle and sheep, but they bought their bacon from the pig-sticker. One day, a woman fed a calf's liver from the butcher shop to her young son and he died. The woman came into the butcher shop and slapped and scratched the face of the butcher's daughter. The butcher's daughter walked around the counter. She pushed the woman backwards so hard that the woman fell through the butcher shop window and the glass went into the woman's body and deep into the kidneys and the rump of the woman and she bled in a great spout and quickly the blood thickened and turned very black and the woman died. The butcher was cutting meat in the back of the shop. He did not come to the front of the shop. He did want anyone to connect his face with the dead woman who had fallen through the window in the front of the shop. He cut meat in the back of the shop and the butcher's daughter covered the woman with her apron in the front of the shop until the woman's people came and took the woman away. In the evening, the butcher asked his daughter to go away. The butcher loved his daughter. She was a very black, very merry girl and the butcher had no one else to stand in the front of the shop, but the butcher had decided that she had to go away. The butcher's daughter left the shop merrily. The butcher's daughter thought she might marry the pig-sticker, who was young and strong and did a good business and would soon have a shop of his own, but the pig-sticker had decided to marry the steel-grinder's daughter. Everywhere the butcher's daughter went, the townspeople recognized her from the butcher shop and they closed their doors to her. Men pelted her with old black-spotted meat. A washerwoman said she would hire the butcher's daughter. Instead of a bar of soap, the washerwoman gave the butcher's daughter a sponge of old meat. The butcher's daughter squeezed the sponge of old meat and the pink water ran down her wrist and stained her sleeve. The butcher's daughter became thin and her eyes grew a crust and she was grayer and grayer and less merry and black. Men no longer recognized the butcher's daughter except that the butcher's daughter had blood on her sleeve and the butcher's daughter had a very wide, very big, very dark mouth in which the teeth also darkened. The butcher's daughter could not chew the scraps of meat and the husks of old bread that the men threw to hit against her head and her back when she walked through the town. Rather, she sucked a rag that she dipped in what their wives left uncovered.

I gather the crumpled pages from the corner. I put them in the fireplace. The map is stuck to the wall where the food has wetted it. I scrape the map. I peel the map from the wall and put it in the fireplace. There is nothing to make the papers in the fireplace burn. There is no flint and steel. There is no phosphor. It is cold and dim in the nursery. I am tired. I lie down on the carpet in front of the fireplace. Spot lies down. Tamworth lies down. This is where they sleep in the nursery, on the carpet in the nursery. I like to the lie down on the carpet. There is no carpet in the field. I lay in the field. I stood up. I fell down. I lay in the field, the field the farmer chopped from the forest. I lay in the field. I cut a lump on my foot and a worm came out. It was a very black worm. The jackdaws circled me. They pecked my hands, my feet. A fat girl from the dairy passed by me. Good morning Mister Magpie, she said and I tried to strike her with a rock. There were no rocks in the field. There were furrows. I pushed my hands deep in a furrow, but there were no rocks. I threw clods at the milk pail. The clods came apart in the air. Mister Magpie, the fat girl said, but they were jackdaws. The fat girl swung her pail back and forth so that her fat wrist creased. She did not know jackdaws from magpies. I laughed on my back in the furrows, looking up. The fat girl's head was beside the blue sky and she did not know anything at all. In the dairy, Mister Cow, said the fat girl, but it was a wolfhound. I laughed at the fat girl, her fat bottom on the stool and her fat wrists creasing as she tugged at the udders of the wolfhound. The clod did not reach the pail. The clods came apart and the dirt fell onto my face. I wanted to strike the fat girl with a rock. Why weren't there rocks? In the ground, there are rocks. Someone had cleaned the rocks from the furrows, had dragged the rocks away in the sledge. It could not have been the farmer, the man who owned the field and the dairy and two daughters with hats. The farmer did not drag a sledge through the furrows, picking rocks. He rode on a horse, his short legs flapping on the sides of the horse, his short arms flapping the reins on the neck of the horse. Perhaps it was the fat girl from the dairy. She came in the night to the field and filled her pail with rocks so I could not strike her with rocks in the day. But in the ground, the rocks are always rising. The rocks rise up from deep in the ground so that when you pick the rocks from the furrows soon there are more rocks, many more rocks, rocks that float to the top of the field. The fat girl could not have taken away all of the rocks in the night. The rocks would come back. She would need to keep picking rocks, walking the furrows, picking rocks, and then when would she milk in the dairy? The farmer's two daughters are great big girls. They must drink great quantities of milk. They must treat their skin with milk below the hats. I have seen the two daughters dipping ladles in stone jugs of milk. At the top of the milk is the cream. The cream rises to the top of the milk and the two daughters drink the cream, great clots of cream. They don't know if the cream is from a cow or a wolfhound. I laughed again in the furrows. I dug harder for rocks and found only clods. I threw clods at the pail. Finally the fat girl was struck by clod. The clod broke apart on her teeth through the open lips as the fat girl said, Mister Magpie, Mister Magpie, and the jackdaws circled all around her. The fat girl dropped her pail and it tilted over in a furrow and loose dirt tumbled from the pail. There was no milk in the pail. There was dirt in the pail. What did the fat girl milk that she should have only dirt in her pail? The fat girl was crying and stumbling. What do you milk? I said to the fat girl. What do you milk in the night? The fat girl was crying. She milked the grave of the farmer's wife. That is what she milked. The farmer pressed her to the ground and her fat wrists creased up and down and the dirt went between her teeth. That is what the fat girl did in the night. Then who picked the rocks? I picked the rocks. That is why the farmer allowed me to sleep in the field, to sleep in the field all day with the rocks rising beneath me while I slept.

Get up, I say. Get up. Open your books. We will study rocks. The children do not move. I move. I pace. The children do not move. I rub my wrists together. I rub my wrists on the back of my neck. The nursery is damp. The walls are made of stone. The stone drips. Along the tops of the walls, women's faces. The faces are gray. They are gray masks of faces, gray masks in the masonry along the tops of the walls. The mouths are open like the mouth of the fireplace. We will study rocks, I say. Geology, says Spot. We study Geology. Tamworth says a word. I do not look at her. Her dress does not cover her thighs. The seams have ripped below her arms and the flesh of her breasts presses through the gaps. Tamworth says the word. She says the word. She says the word. Stop it, I say. Jasper, says Tamworth. Jasper. Jasper. Jasper, said the knife. Jasper. I scraped the bristles off the pigs. I was wet. I breathed hard. The steam burned my hands. The hot water ran over the skins of the pigs, loosening the bristles. I scraped deep. I scraped beneath the bristles and the skin came up in peels. There was no blood. The blood had drained through the necks. The blood had soaked into the straw. The blood had flowed into the road. The blood had filled the ditches in the road. First, the poleax through the skulls. Then the slits in the necks. Then the blood in the straw. Then the blood in the road. I scalded the pigs. I heaved the kettles. My hands burned. I used the knife. I used the candlestick. The knife said, jasper. The candlestick said, jasper. I breathed hard. White hairs clung to my arms, my skirt. I itched. The breath came hard through my teeth. It said, jasper. Jasper. The water was cooking the flesh beneath the skins. I was hungry. The flesh beneath the skins was almost cooked. The bristles were loosening. The skin was loosening. I could smell the hard flesh of the pig beneath the skin. The smell was thick and hot. I vomited into the straw and the dirty white mush lay on top of the blood. I lay down in the straw. It was wet. I heard screaming. The pigs were dead, but I heard screaming. The screaming was loud. I kicked the pigs. The pigs were hard. They were heavy and still. Each kick pushed my body backwards through the straw. My spine scraped through the straw. I kicked again and again. I pushed against the pigs with my heels but the pigs did not move. I slid through the straw. My skin came up in peels. The back of my head rubbed the straw, the dirt beneath the straw. Hot water was pouring on my breasts. I screamed. I could see the man who poured the water through the steam. I tried to crawl through the straw. I tried to hide between the bodies of the pigs, wedged between the pigs, my face pressed to the faces of the pigs. The nooses lashed around the snouts of the pigs burned my cheeks. I put my hands on my cheeks and my knuckles touched the teeth of the pigs through their lips.

The lesson is spoiled. I say, the lesson is spoiled. There will be no more lesson. We will sit on the carpet. Don't move, I say. Don't move. You are a rock. We are rocks in the nursery. We are clods of dirt in the nursery. This is the new lesson, I say. We are very still. We are quiet and still. Yes, says Tamworth. She wiggles. She plays with the threads on Spot's mouth. They are white threads. They stretch from the skin in the corners of his lips. They stretch thin between Tamworth's fingers and the lips. Tamworth rolls a white thread into a ball between her fingers. Spot picks at a piece of skin in the middle of his lip. He picks at a thread in the corner of his lips. He looks at Tamworth's fingers, the motions of her fingers as she rolls the thread. Tamworth is very close to Spot on the carpet. I am very close to Spot on the carpet. We are still, I say. We are quiet and still. Spot breathes out. It is wet. The wet breath wiggles the skin, the threads on his lips. I look at Spot's lips. I hold my hand in front of Spot's lips to feel the thickness of the breath. I don't touch the lips. I hold my hand close. The wet is very thick. It is a clod. Spot pushes the clod from his mouth. He pushes the clod from his mouth. His shoulders go up and down. We are still. Tamworth puts her head on her knees. She is still. She turns her head to the side. Her nostril pulls wide. A squealing noise is coming from the crib. Give it ragbaby, says Tamworth. Ragbaby, says Spot. Ragbaby. You are rocks, I say. Rocks on the carpet. We are heavy and still. We can be hit with a stick. We can be hit with a knife. We do not move. Tamworth's knees are white and round. Her face is white and wet. Her cheek is flat on her knees. Tamworth moves her dull eyes back and forth. I see Spot's fingers dart out fast and twist the flap that hangs from Tamworth's arm. Tamworth makes a sound. Wetness runs from the flattened mouth. The squealing noise is louder. In a grand house, there are rocks on the carpet. There is offal on the staircase. There are hams in the chimney. There are pigs in the crib. I want a hot slice of ham. I am very hungry. The cook must come to the nursery. She must come up the staircase. Do you hear cook? I say. Do you hear cook? In the hall, I hear blows. I hear cries. It is the Master. I will go to him. I will not. He will notice my dark hair, my long face. The dress hangs on me. The loose threads hold the dirt. I shake my dress. I scatter my dirt on the carpet. The carpet is a field. The Master is an old man. When he was young, he was a farmer. He farmed a field. He rode a horse. He had short, fat arms. No, the Master is not a farmer. He gets his milk from the farmer. He gets white milk from the farmer. The girls bring the milk from the dairy. The milk is brown. The milk has turned. The girls walk on the road with the milk. They lie down in the ditches. Flies settle on the milk while the girls lie in the ditches. They are rocks in the ditches. The sun is hot on the milk. The men block the sun for the girls. They block the sun. The girls fill their mouths to keep out the men. They put dirt in their mouths. They are rocks. They are clods. They gag. They spit dirt in the milk. The men cast shade in the ditches. The Master waits for the milk. The cook waits for the milk. The children wait for the cook. They wait for the lesson to end. They are little lambs. They are little ducks. They are little pigs. Dear little pigs. No, they are not pigs. The Mistress did not call them pigs. They are pups. She called them pups. Her own darling pups. In the nursery, I must finish the lesson. Spot pushes with his breath. He pushes. I am wet. I shut my eyes. Spot lies across me. Tamworth lies across me. I feel the hard tips of their fingers through my dress, pulling the buttons on my dress. I wiggle. We must be still. Spot and Tamworth must be still. They lie across me. My teats are wet. My tongue is short and wet. I lap the pups. My tongue is short and wet. I move my wet mouth rapidly against the pups, the wiggling limbs and necks of the pups. My teats give milk. They give no milk. The milk comes from the dairy. The children drink milk. They eat cakes. The governess watches them eat. Her skin shines with grease. Her hair shines with grease. Her skin has spots. She plays with her spots while they eat.