The Glassblower(33)

“Timber!” she heard from above.

Before she knew it, half a dozen branches crashed down right by her.

“Watch what you’re doing! I can’t manage this on my own! Why can’t one of you come down here and help!” she called, tucking back a strand of hair. This was another fine mess that Johanna had gotten them into. She was quite sure there must have been a simpler way of getting firewood for the winter.

Neither Peter nor Johanna said a word. Instead Marie called up, “What was that you said?”

Ruth cast a sullen glance downhill. “I wasn’t talking to you! Don’t worry!” When it came to carrying heavy loads, they really couldn’t ask much of Marie; she was simply too delicate. Ruth found herself thinking of Eva. She was a slim little thing as well, but her forearms were corded with muscle, and her whole body was as tough and lean as that of a boy who spent his days climbing trees. Born into a family that worked with slate, she had gotten used to hard work even as a little girl, and her fingers were strong and bony from all the filing, slicing, and sharpening that it took to make a stylus. Ruth would never want to trade places with someone in that line of work. But Eva’s life these days more than made up for her difficult childhood: she may have been on a bed of thorns before, but her life was certainly a bed of roses now. Ruth rubbed her sore back and asked herself for the umpteenth time how the woman had managed that particular trick.



As soon as they had reached the forest, Peter had set Johanna to work gathering the branches that he cut and tying the smaller ones into handy bundles. But Johanna soon grew tired of waiting for the branches to fall. Without being too obvious about it, she peered over his shoulder. Then she picked up a saw of her own.

The handle sat snugly in her hand as she set the saw blade against a branch. Instead of sinking smoothly all the way through the way it did when Peter cut though, the blade’s teeth snagged in the wood.

She expected him to burst out laughing. Or to tell her to put the saw down. But Peter just kept on working, as though what she did was no concern of his. She watched, and saw that he pulled his arm back farther than she had. And he kept his wrist quite still, while hers had wobbled from side to side like a cow flapping its tail. She tried again. This time she managed five strokes of the saw before the blade got snagged again. Peter looked over at her as she cursed softly, but said nothing. She stared at the crooked line her blade had made. She had to saw straighter. When she got to work on the next branch, she steered the blade a little with the thumb of her other hand. And there it was! “It’s working! I can do it!” she announced, beaming with pride.

Peter nodded at her. “You should only saw branches that are at least an inch thick. I’ll do the rest later with the shears.” Then he fell quiet again.

For the first time in ages, Johanna felt that she could breathe freely. It wasn’t just the air up in the forest that smelled of herbs; it was because there was nobody telling her how to go about doing her job.

She set the saw blade onto another branch, placed the thumb of her other hand against it, then started to saw in smooth, even strokes. Soon she had taken the branch clear off the fallen trunk and set it on top of the heap with the others. Then she moved on to the next one. The rasp of the saw reminded her a little of the hissing of the gas flame, and the rhythmic sound of the blade was soothing.

They worked in silence for a while. Once they had gathered a little heap of branches, Peter threw it downhill to Ruth with a practiced swing of his arm. It would have been impossible to drag all the wood downhill, but even throwing it took effort. Johanna tried to throw down the branches that she had sawed, and it wasn’t long before she was bathed in her own sweat. Saw, throw, saw, throw; soon she had worked out the rhythm that worked best for her.

She was so absorbed in her work that she jumped when she unexpectedly felt Peter’s hand on her shoulder. The saw blade wobbled, snagged in the sappy heartwood of the branch, and got stuck.

“Sorry!” He gave her a wry grin. “But I called you three times already. Are you looking to set a record here?”

Johanna tugged the blade free of the branch. Only then did she realize that her forearms were trembling. “I thought we came here to work,” she said stubbornly and was just about to resume sawing when Peter put a hand on her arm and stopped her.

“Haven’t you looked down the hill? Ruth and Marie can’t keep up with gathering all that wood.” He led her over to a tree trunk that was already cleared of all its branches, and gently pushed her until she sat down.

Johanna admitted to herself that it was good to sit and rest for a few minutes.