Kris (5 page)

“Josef, what were you thinking? Now I know that you think those horses are more important than your worrying old wife. But they could have waited.”

“Gabby,” Josef began.

She shot Josef the meanest, cutest, angriest look. The girl and I laughed out loud.

“This is not funny. This poor child needs attention,” she said to the girl, who shared a small smile with me over the absurd cuteness of Gabriella's vehemence.

“I mean you, dear,” Gabby said to me, cupping my face. “You are, of course, welcome to laugh, and I hope you do.”

“Gabby,” Josef tried to interject again.

“No offense, dear, but you need a warm bath.” Gabby whispered to me. “Josef, warm up some water for a bath.”

“At this time of night?” he asked.

Another stern look from Gabriella and Josef gave up the losing battle. Shaking his head, he exited the door. Gabriella took my old tattered coat and looked closely at it and then at me. She placed the coat on a hook next to the door.

Again she took my icy hands and began to massage them.

“Dear child,” she exclaimed, “you are nearly frozen. We'll warm you up soon enough, and I am sure you will feel better.”

Again the angelic girl stepped out from nowhere, this time holding a basket. Inside were the most glorious golden loaves of bread. I could smell them from where I sat, and my mouth watered as my stomach made a series of embarrassing rumbling sounds.

“Go ahead,” the girl encouraged, speaking for the first time. “These are for you. Eat until you are full.”

“Right you are, Sarah,” Gabby said. “We must get you some food and something warm to drink. Sarah, bring some honey for the bread. And I'll get you a tureen of hot soup to accompany it.”

Her name was Sarah. She was fourteen and the baker's girl. She visited the carpentry each day to bring Josef and Gabriella and their apprentices delicious baked goods and to enjoy Gabriella's motherly company and loving friendship. Her family frequently used these baked goods in barter for Josef's carpentry services, and he had helped them by building baking racks, cabinets, and tables for their bakery. Sarah would often stay with Gabriella if Josef was away to keep her company and make sure she was safe in case of any crisis. She and Gabby were the best of friends, and although not their daughter, she was more than family.

Sarah seemed to glide across the room as she retrieved the bucket of honey and the honey dipper and brought them to where I sat.

“Water is on,” Josef announced as he reentered the room and sat at the table.

“Sold most of the chairs,” Josef said again, “not all, but most.”

The women ignored him and went about their work.

Sarah selected a small loaf of bread from my basket, tore it in half, and coated it with honey oozing off the dipper. As the bread overflowed with
the sweet nectar, Sarah licked her fingers and then handed the dripping bread to me. I had never tasted anything so glorious, so sweet.

Sarah watched me with delight as I ravenously ate the bread and started in on the hearty soup, which Gabriella set beside me in a steaming bowl. As I continued to eat and revel in their kindnesses and generosity, Gabriella and Sarah brought trays of meat and cheese and still more food until I could not eat another morsel, having consumed a magnificent feast that I would remember for all my years.

They had rescued me.

They had taken me in when I had no place else to turn. Josef realized this when he looked into my eyes. Gabriella and Sarah were equally wise.

I didn't know it then, but I was still in shock. That night I was more alive than I would be for most of the coming year. Even with love, these things take time.

Josef began to gather bedding from a lower cupboard. “You'll get a bed in the carpentry,” he said. “The mornings are early. I expect you working by first light.”

Gabriella stepped in front of Josef, cutting him off as he piled up the blankets and grabbed a lumpy pillow. “There's time enough for that,” she said. “How about we begin with a name?”

“KRIS!”

Trees loomed in the darkness. Small feet ran through the snow. Through the trees my brother Owen slowly walked up the steps of the roadhouse. People poured out of the roadhouse, standing at the door.

“Who's he?”

“Sniveling brat!”

“Abandoned!”

“I don't want him.”

“I'm not taking care of him.”

“He's from the sickness!”

Owen stepped onto the porch. The roadhouse giant stepped forward from the crowd, placed his foot on the chest of my brother, and gave him a mighty push.

“Leave him to die!”

Owen turned his head and looked straight at me. His violet eyes pleaded for help. Silently, his mouth called my name.

“KRIS!”

I jolted awake. Another morning had dawned.

Light poured through the doorway of my makeshift room. At Gabriella's bidding Josef had boxed in my cot at the back of the shop with standing shelves so that I might have some place of solitude.

I poked my head out and could see across the room to the windows. The storm had broken and departed. Josef was busy examining a piece of lumber. Silently I set about organizing my sleeping space and putting it back in order, folding my bedding and stacking it in a corner so that it would not be an obstacle.

“KRIS!” Josef yelled as he began sawing into the lumber.

I moved in front of him to gain a better view and watch him work, unsure what else to do.

Markus, Jonas, and Noel, who were busy with various tasks, eyed me with disdain. I felt embarrassed for having slept so long, vulnerable. This would be the first and last day I overslept. I only hoped I hadn't spoken
in my sleep. Their eyes were upon me as I helped Josef anchor the piece of lumber at his instruction while he continued to finish off a clean cut.

The carpentry was filled with the tools of Josef's trade, a wide assortment of unusual saws, knives, chisels, punches, hammers, mallets, gougers, planes, wood-turning lathes, and various other implements used to measure and hold wood, including a collection of ingenious grips and vices, which Josef had no doubt devised and fabricated, along with drafting tables, cutting tables, storage bins, and shelves that contained scrolls of drawings and plans, sawdust-covered books, and small carved cornices.

The carpentry itself was shaped like a large, open barn, twice the length of its width. At the far end were two swinging doors that opened to the outside, which allowed room for the larger finished pieces to be carried out. To the left of the barn doors were stacks of raw, uncut wood and scraps. To the right lived a very organized system of separating wood based on size and shape. Along the length of the rest of the right wall, above a working counter, hung most of the tools of the shop. On the counter, a grouping of small baskets was filled with screws and pegs of varying lengths and sizes. The space itself was broken up by three long tables. Just to the left of the counter, two tables ran end-to-end. I could tell by the mess that this was where the apprentices worked. To the left of the length of tables set the third workspace. This table was neat and organized. I could almost tell the logic of the intended undertaking for the day. These pegs, these pieces, would become an arm. These screws, these pieces, would become the back of a chair. I could see how they would be assembled and where the worker would position his body from one task to the next. Josef had set out his day's work.

On the right wall, in the back of the carpentry, sat a large furnace surrounded by neat stacks of split logs. Just to the left were the shelves
that framed my sleeping area, a cot with just enough room to walk around. In the back corner, opposite the furnace, was the doorway into that glorious kitchen with its delicious smells, promising breakfast. High along the left wall ran a series of windows that cast light throughout the carpentry. Beneath the windows sat a few large lathes with dowels in various stages of crafting and completion. A single door split the wall to the outside.

Markus stood at a small table by the stack of raw wood, sanding boards. His sanding created a fine dust that he occasionally blew at Noel as Noel walked by, carrying bundles of wood cut into standard shapes and sizes.

Jonas was sweeping up the sawdust and debris in a constant state of frustration due to the new piles of sawdust Markus made each time Jonas got closer to completing his task. Markus seemed to hesitate and hold each new release of the pilings until just after Jonas had swept up a hefty batch and dumped it in an old wooden barrel by the scrap heap.

Throughout the day I watched with fascination as Josef transformed pieces of raw wood into strong and useful objects, both functional and beautiful expressions of his craftsmanship and artistry. His instructions to me were filled with depth and life—words which, throughout my training, would shape and hone my being.

This was the solution to reuniting my family. If I could learn this trade, I could take care of my brothers and sisters. And in that moment I decided I was going to master this craft. One year, I gave myself. If they could only survive this one year, I could save them. This was the pact I made with myself on my first day as an apprentice.

I studied each of the boys as they engaged in their tasks and every move Josef made as he sliced and trimmed pieces of lumber or sawed
massive boards into sections or shaved the bark off thick logs that might soon become pieces of elegant chairs or sturdy tables.

Josef wedged his saw into a log and then instructed me. “Remember. Measure twice, cut once. Now, two-foot lengths until I tell you otherwise.”

The other boys had stopped working and were watching me and waiting to see how well I would proceed, snickering among themselves in hopes I would miss a mark or rudely cut a piece of fine lumber.

“None of that,” Josef barked at his apprentices. “You each have many tasks ahead, and I am watching your work.”

Josef turned to me and poked me in the chest with a T-square. “Think you can handle that?” he asked.

I took the tool in hand and began measuring the logs and marking them. I measured each of them again and again and again, until any doubt of error was erased. And I began to cut with slow, meticulous strokes of the saw. The backward cut was easiest. It seemed the direction the teeth cut into the wood with less difficulty. Once a deep enough groove was made, the forward motion was less jumpy, more even. With greater confidence I began leaning into the work, pulling and pushing, a slow and continuous movement working the saw steadily through the wood.

Markus was beveling the edges of a table with some kind of cylindrical knife. He giggled to the other boys over the simplicity of my task. They responded in kind to his prompting and distracted me from my efforts.

It wasn't that their teasing affected me. I was too deep in a world filled with greater issues for me to be aware or care about such things. I was looking to their actions as examples from which to learn. I was hungry for knowledge, and I wanted to understand how the knife in Marcus's hands functioned.

“Focus, boy! Keep your eye on the wood,” Josef snapped. “It'll be months before I put a knife in your hand. I've no patience for mistakes.”

I did as Josef directed.

“A carpenter is useless if he doesn't cut his own wood,” Josef said to me intently. “Start by knowing the saw. You must use it like an extension of yourself, and guide it with a dedicated focus that will bring you mastery over the raw and wild nature of the wood.”

Josef's powerful words would remain with me throughout my life. “Use it like an extension of yourself.” That was his first instruction to me on my road to becoming a master. The tool responds to your thought without the mental distraction of figuring out how to make it function. The truth of this I have seen again and again throughout my life, from great musicians to gifted cooks and bakers. Art, I have come to believe, means the excellence of a thing. It is also, I imagine, how we were made in God's image. The creator gave us the great ability to create with the talents bestowed upon us and with craftsmanship earned from learning and hard work. It is in our small creations that we resonate the power of God.