Kris (7 page)

One day, as Gabriella noticed this, she called me aside and handed me a small platter of frosted cookies all my own. Markus was jealous, envious that I received this special attention. Jonas smiled at me. We shared a similar status, and he understood how significant these small joys were. But Noel was furious in his resentment as I took a generous bite and proudly set the platter near my workbench. And how utterly aghast they all were when Sarah entered the room and I proffered her my plate.

“Would you share these with me?”

Sarah looked at me in surprise. I had never before spoken to her. In all this time, and under her subtle attentions, I had never said a word to her. She paused and looked at me to consider my offering.

Somehow I found myself talking: “You brought me bread and honey. Now I would like to share with you.”

Then Sarah smiled. Her eyes sparkled. She reached out and took the frosted cookie I was holding. She was supposed to take one of the cookies from the plate I held out to her. But as she grasped one side of the cookie, I held the other firmly, almost not knowing what to do, and neither of us released our hold. That awkward moment was one of the most wondrously embarrassing of my life. And when I finally snapped out of my delirium, watching her take a bite from the cookie was a fourteen-year-old boy's dream.

Marcus dropped a log on Noel's foot, and his piercing howls made Sarah laugh. I had forgotten how lovely the sound of laughter could be.

“You don't talk much,” was all she said as she turned to leave.

There were always chores for us to do at the carpentry, and we stayed forever busy organizing supplies, cutting wood, sharpening tools, and cleaning up debris. Josef taught us to keep an orderly shop, to value hard work, and to dedicate ourselves to a job well done. He demanded that we put forth our best efforts at all times and increase our skills and productivity. The work was satisfying, and we were well looked after.

I went about my duties each day in silence, though the other boys often bickered or taunted one another as they carried out their tasks. I did not have a need to talk and rarely spoke, as my thoughts were occupied by the projects I worked on and the objects I helped Josef create.

One day, while I was sitting at a worktable eating a delicious and generous lunch that Gabriella had brought us, she surprised me as she placed a crisp, leather-bound journal near my side and set a small piece
of charcoal atop it. “This is for you to practice your letters, dear,” she said to me. “You do know how to read and write, don't you?”

I nodded. My mother had taught me my letters. It had been very important to my father since he could not read.

“You might want to use this to keep notes about your work or drawings of plans, or you may want to write down what you are thinking.”

I knew the value of milled paper. This was a gift of immense worth, a personal treasure beyond any monetary value. It was leather bound, with a cover that wrapped the book once over again and then tied with a leather cord. Books were rare, and it reminded me of the Bibles carried by the traveling holy men who would visit our village church. But this journal was empty, awaiting my life to fill its leafy pages. And as I sat there gently holding it, running my fingers along its rich texture, I gained a friend. When I wrote inside this book, I was speaking to a lifelong confidant, a companion who was always there to listen and who never judged. We explored thoughts and ideas. We spoke about my darkest secrets.

I am not sure Gabriella knew the gift she was giving me. Maybe she did. She and Josef had a wisdom all too often absent from this world.

On one quiet afternoon while taking a short respite for lunch, I sat looking through a window at Josef and Markus outside. They worked together to load a sturdy table into the back of a customer's wagon. Josef had finished the table a short time ago and was delighted with the results. So proud was he of his work that he had described and demonstrated to us the quality of the joints and the ways they fit together almost seamlessly. Josef was never boastful, yet he wanted us to learn and appreciate fine craftsmanship, to take joy in our achievements, and he used examples such as this to illustrate how superior results were
achieved. And although our customers lavished praise and thanks upon all of us for the works we created, it was important to Josef that we learn to evaluate our own results.

“Confidence comes from within,” he would say to us. “A man who places his personal value in the hands of others will find himself begging for approval.”

He inspired me to complete tasks. Not only did a realized project fill me with gratification, it also served to reinforce my feelings of self-worth.

Each day the carpentry tools were responding more easily to my bidding. A technique once taught became a building block as I began to combine them into uses I had yet to learn. I studied the carvings in the legs and arms of the chairs Josef had created and did my best to reproduce them. When time permitted, I cut and assembled sections of a new chair similar to the ones I had broken on my arrival. Frustration! I knew it would be some time before I could match the quality of Josef's work. My failures fueled my dogged tenacity.

But all was not without a cost. Josef might have been caring, but he was a stern taskmaster. When I carved too deep or left a sloppy edge, he would admonish me in front of whoever was there to listen, making me redo entire pieces for the smallest of mistakes. On the rare occasion that I nicked or cut my hand with a tiny slip of the knife, he always seemed to be right behind me with a terse corrective slap on the back of the head, a reminder to take my time and focus. In those fleeting childish moments, I hated him, threw unspoken expletives in his direction. But once the sting to my ego had worn off, I strove twice as hard to earn his respect.

The world itself spoke to me of methods and mechanisms, and I began to consider new designs of my own. When I observed a small child playing outside near the wagon, rolling a rusty round iron band
from some discarded barrel by prodding it with a stick, I saw the crank, I saw the lever, and I saw the wheel and pinion that would give life to otherwise inanimate wooden objects. I looked to Garin's wooden bear for inspiration and thought, “What if it could move? What if it could bend, or walk, or dance?” A dancing bear? Perhaps I could make a toy for each of my brothers and sisters and give it to them upon our reunion. If I did this they would surely know that I had never forgotten about them. I grabbed a warped piece of lumber lying on the ground, a handful of pegs, and began creating gears.

When time allowed and I was not with Gerda, I sketched designs for toys I imagined and began the creation of a playful toy bear that would move and dance as its parts were manipulated. Cutting pieces to fit precisely was no easy task, and I practiced on small joints at first to improve my techniques and gain a tighter fit.

Josef saw the bear one day in its earliest form and picked it up to examine it. As he moved the pieces of wood, the little bear came to life. Josef immediately laughed in response and made playful growling noises like a bear cub as he danced with the toy in the workshop. The four of us boys watched, mouths hanging open in surprise at his unexpected playfulness. I suppose that was the day I first realized we are all children at heart. When he was through with his amusement, he looked around at us awestruck boys, set the toy gently on the shelf, and gave me a little wink.

Markus craned his neck to see what Josef had enjoyed so much. Later I caught him carving a poorly formed neck of a wooden duck, which could have doubled for the neck of some misshapen mythical creature. As Markus carved, its over-shaped and malformed head snapped off in
his hands. He violently chopped away the identity of the wooden figurine so no one would see his degree of failure. Looking back, I should have helped him. But I was too young to understand the envy he had over my deepening relationship with Josef or his fear of losing his position as lead apprentice.

Oblivious, I continued developing my new inventions and found myself in love with each new toy. Long hours were spent each day completing the chores Josef would assign to me, and at night I worked by the light of a single lantern to improve my sketches and toy designs. I was not deterred from my mission, no matter how dark or cold the night, or how fiercely the wind might threaten outside. I carried on until I could not work another moment, and when sleep overtook me and demanded I surrender, I drifted off in chaotic dreams upon my cot with the few toys that I had made resting beside me.

Sometimes in the night Gabriella would leave a tiny cake or a freshly made cookie near my cot in case I should awake and choose to return to my efforts. But if I was so fast asleep that even a tempest might not rouse me, she would extinguish the lantern and leave me to my slumber, hands hanging off the edges of my cot, holding my open journal or clutching the beginnings of a wooden snowflake I was making for Nikko. He was going to be a year old and ready for something to shake, so I made a ring with little snowflakes—copies of my mother's pendant for him to rattle and to prove our relation to the old couple with whom I had left him since he would have no recollection of me.

Birds and bears were my inspiration as the other gifts began to represent their intended loved ones. The dancing bear was of course for Garin, a reminder of a connection to an earlier life and a whimsical promise of joys to come. For Tomas, I created a woodpecker that would peck its
way down a wooden pole anchored to a base painted to look like a tree. When placed at the top of the pole, the weight of the bird would create a rocking action as it slid down. For Talia, I made a climbing bear that hung from two separate strings connected to a small horizontal stick attached to a hook. As the strings were pulled first to one side and then the other, the bear climbed from one arm to the other till it reached the top. Jess was still young, so I made her a goose that, pulled with a rope, would waddle behind her as she walked. When it came to Owen, I wanted something that would inspire his imagination. I came up with a wooden carousel of flying swans that carried little boys on their backs. The swans hung from strings attached to a central pole, and as the top of the pole was turned, the birds would fly in a circle.

Kendra, alone and old enough to remember our loss, deserved something special. I drew up plans for a beautiful toy duck whose head and wings would move as a simple lever was pulled and twisted in her fingers. With the exception of the bear, all the other toys relied on tricks. This required real ingenuity. I lost myself in the mechanics of the turning wheels and axles. As I worked assembling the puzzle pieces of the toys, the other apprentices watched with much fascination, though they tried to pretend they were busy with other tasks and had little interest in what I was creating.

Sarah watched me too from a corner of the room, and when I held the duck aloft and made its wings flutter as if to fly, I could hear her gasp behind me.

“It's magnificent, Kris,” she whispered into my ear. Her hand rested on my shoulder. I am not sure what was more thrilling, the triumph of completing the duck or the warmth of breath from her whisper. As I turned to look at her, our noses bumped. I was mortified. In
her embarrassment, she grabbed her breadbasket, skipped out of the carpentry, and closed the door behind her.