The Forging Read online

  As soon as the feeling came back to my legs, I walked to the limo and headed home. My home is as I had left it. My girls gave me kisses hello. We ate dinner, had some quiet time together, and went to bed. As I was drifting off, Moiraine started screaming in her sleep.

  Holding Char back while Mo is dealing with her nightmare, is no easy task. We waited in torment, but she wasn’t resolving her fears. Finally, I let Charlene go, and she woke and comforted Mo. She turned her face to me and threw a look of anger at me. It was brief, but there. With the VCR of my memory, I played the moment back in my thoughts. The freeze-frame of her expression shocked me. In all our disagreements over the years, she had never hurled that face at me. I know how her heart felt when the bullet pierced it. My heart now feels the same pain.

  “Go ahead and go back to sleep, Nathan. I’ve got this. You’re working tomorrow. You need your rest,” she said with her back to me while rocking Mo. With a broken spirit, I did as I was told.

  Even though I slept for the rest of the night, I woke up tired. When Char finally returned to bed, I had no clue, so I let her sleep. Quietly, I exited our bedroom and closed our door. I fixed myself a bowl of something. It had no flavor, and I ate it standing in the kitchen looking at nothing. Do I talk to Charlene about the look she gave me last night? Do I let it be? Did I make the wrong call when it came to my daughter? Welcome to the state of uncertainty. My phone chimed with a text. The driver let me know he is here. No one was up as I departed.

  It was an uneventful drive, and we arrived in due course. Walking into the warehouse, I saw everyone is waiting for me. “Sorry, I am late.”

  The master smiled and said, “You are not late Nathan-san. We are all in the right place at the right time.” After I bowed to him, I grabbed my uniform and quickly dressed.

  Coming out from the bathroom dressed to work, I said to no one in particular, “What I wouldn’t give for a Diet-Pepsi right now.” Without warning, one of the assistants came up to me holding a can of my favorite caffeine fix. “You’ve been holding out on me.” He looked confused as I took the aluminum-can filled with liquid ambrosia and downed it quickly. The charge of satisfaction as I held it high to get every last drop filled me. The trash can beckons, so I went running to it saying, “Dribble dribble fake shoot swish.” I tossed the empty can into the trash. “Nothing but net. The fans go wild.” Mimicking the sounds of a crowd, I turn back to my fellows only to see them stunned at my hijinks. After a beat, laughter broke out.

  Strutting to the master, I lifted my hand, pointing to the shrine, “Shall we?”

  “Hai, yes, Nathan-san.” We all prayed in the shrine for a time. When we were done, we took up our brooms and swept. The routine of it all is calming.

  “Master, with so little dirt on the floor, why do we sweep every morning?” I asked.

  “It is to prepare this place for the work at hand,” Asahara answered for his uncle.

  Mr. Nobuharu broke in and said, “and my master made me sweep when I was an apprentice.” The old man giggled at his jest. After the sweeping, we all gathered in our places. It still hurts trying to sit on my knees. “Knee pads, I should have brought knee pads.” I mentally put a palm to my forehead.

  Everyone took their places, and we began. Mr. Nobuharu picked up the prayer wrapped tamahagane and placed it in the forge. The paper slowly browned on the fire. In a flash of blue-white flames, the prayer was consumed. All which remains is the tamahagane. We sat and waited while the metal heated. No one spoke during the heating. The only thing which can be heard is the bellows going in and out. With each pump of the bellows, the forge spoke in the language of fire renewed. When the tamahagane was ready, the old master pulled it from the forge,

  Mr. Nobuharu placed the ingot on the anvil and nodded to Asahara. He stood and took up a large two-handed sledge. It is also offset like the smaller ones. I stood and took up a large sledge as well. We began.

  Mr. Nobuharu used what I can only describe as a baton to direct us where and how fast he wanted the hammers to fall. Somehow, I knew without knowing where to place the strokes. The baton conveyed how fast to swing and how hard to hit the ingot. As each blow fell, slag leaped from the metal as with the other tamahagane. After a short time, the master would signal to stop, and he would reheat the ingot. This pattern repeated more times than I cared to count.

  The metal began to take shape. It stretched out and flattened. Its mass diminished with each stroke of the hammer. We stopped, and the master placed a chisel on the flattened ingot. Asahara struck the tool three times with his sledge. The master moved the ingot and motioned me to strike the end. The tamahagane bent to a ninety-degree angle. The master flipped the metal, and Asahara struck it. The metal was folding back on itself. We pounded the metal for a time then it was placed back in the fire.

  Mr. Nobuharu removed the metal from the forge once more. We set to beat the crap out of it again. This time once the metal was ready to be folded again, the master said, “Nathan-san, please show me your right palm.” I showed him my hand, and faster than I thought this man could move, he drew a small knife from inside his white uniform and slashed me across my palm. Instinctively I tried to pull my hand away, but the grip he had on me was unbreakable. Blood dripped down from my hand onto the hot metal. The hiss of my boiling blood filled the air.

  “What the Hell? Why did you do that?” I yelled.

  “So sorry, Nathan-san, but it is necessary.” Mr. Nobuharu bowed and released my hand.

  Asahara immediately wrapped my hand in a bandage. He did a proper job of it too. I wondered if he had any medical training? After he was done, he once again picked up the sledge. Then, I guess the not so frail, old man had the chisel in place. Asahara struck the chisel as before. Once the metal was bent over to the ninety, I raised my sledge and folded the metal over. The first few swings of the hammer caused my hand to ache. Slowly as the day went on, my hand felt less and less pain.

  Everything began to speed up in my perception. Heat the metal. Pound the metal. Fold the metal. Reheat the metal. Lather, rinse and repeat. Each time my hammer fell during our work, I poured a part of myself into the metal. I poured my frustration, my anger, my resolve, and finally, I poured my will. We folded the metal twelve to fourteen times. Weird how I can’t remember the exact number of times we folded the metal. We finished the folding. We started in on the dark pieces of tamahagane. We fused the flat dark metal together by heat and hammer. We started folding that metal as well.

  We ended our task for the day when we were done with folding the dark tamahagane. I feel drained. My uniform is soaked with my sweat and blood. We all looked drained. Mr. Nobuhara looked as weary as the rest of us combined. Worry filled me. Bowing to the master, I said, “I know this is a great adventure, but it should not take your life. I wish you would rest until you have recovered. The work can wait.”

  “Nathan-san, I am touched by your concern for me. I promise you this adventure will not, as you say, take my life. But tomorrow we work. With luck this next day will see an end to your part, and you can return to your life.” We bowed, and I went home.

  After I arrived home, I checked the thermostat because the way Char is treating me, it feels a few degrees cooler than usual. We had dinner. It was nothing special. Charlene didn’t say more than a dozen words to me the whole night. It is bedtime for the family. I started to take Mo to bed, but Char stopped me. She had a glass of water in one hand and a pill in the other. “Come on, Moiraine. Take your medicine.” She gave Mo the pill and water and made sure Mo took them. Disbelief struck me, and I gave Char a quizzical look. She paid no mind to me and marched Mo off to bed.

  After I made ready for bed, I slipped under the coverers. Charlene didn’t come to bed. Ten minutes passed when I got up out of bed and walked into the living room. Charlene is reading. “We need to talk. I was waiting for you to come to bed, but I guess we can talk out here.” Sitting down on the other end of the couch, I asked, “What’s up with the med you gave Mo? She didn’
t say anything about being sick.”

  Char kept reading her book and said, “I took her to her doctor today. He gave me a prescription to help her sleep.” She turned a page and kept reading.

  “I thought we were going to give my dream visit a chance.”

  “Nathan, we did give it a chance, and it didn’t work.” She never even turned her head to look at me as she spoke.

  “It worked one night.”

  Charlene put her book down but without looking at me, and said, “She needs restful sleep every night. The doctor says these pills will do the trick until we can get her into therapy.”

  “We don’t need to give her drugs to alter her mind. I can visit her dreams again and reinforce in her the knowledge she has the power to control her dreams.”

  She is still not looking at me as she talked. “So many bizarre things are happening. I want our boring old lives back. I want my life back.”

  “Then take your life back. Leave the bizarre stuff to me. You can handle the boring.”

  She turned and looked at me after I spoke. She had the same angry look on her face, and this time, she let loose her voice. “I used to feel safe with you, but now … I don’t know. I don’t like feeling afraid. I want things to be as they were. How do we go back, Nathan? Tell me! How do we go back?”

  “We can’t go back. We can only go forward.” Charlene stood from the couch and walked out of the room. She came back with a pillow and blanket. She put them on the couch. “You’re kicking me out of our bed?”

  “No. I never liked the idea of one partner kicking the other out of bed. These are for me. I need to sleep alone tonight. If Moiraine has another nightmare tonight, I’ll handle it. Don’t bother.” Stunned and speechless, how can this be? For a moment, I sat there trying to process it all. After about a minute, Char said, “I would like to go to sleep now. Please leave,” so I went to bed in a cloud of disbelief.

  Moiraine screamed, and I sat up in bed instantly. Looking through the open bedroom door, I saw Charlene as she entered our daughter’s room. It tore at my heart to respect Char’s wishes and stay out. My heart has been assaulted a great deal lately. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” My heart must be the strongest in the world.

  When I rose from my restless sleep, Charlene and Moiraine had already left the house. There is a note saying nothing more than, “We will be back in time for dinner.” She didn’t even sign it. What to do about the widening gap between Charlene and myself? One of my usual romantic gestures won’t win me any play. If I try one, I’m sure Char would show me some gestures of her own.

  As I am getting ready for the day, I checked my wounded hand. Opening the bandage, I am amazed at how fast it healed. I have always been a quick healer but never this quick. There is nothing more than a raised welt where a gash had once been. Cool, I’ll be able to save the $50 co-pay on stitches.

  Back at the forge, everyone is in their place. This day we are shaping the metals to form the katana. The master placed both types of tamahagane into the forge. We sat in silence as the fire did its work. The shiny tamahagane was ready. The frail master pulled the hot metal from the fire and placed it on the anvil. Asahara and I began working the metal. We started flattening it out. Once the metal was broad enough, Mr. Nobuhara placed it in the forge. As the metal is reheating, he instructed an assistant. The man brought a tool and gave it to his master. It is a long and round piece of hardened metal. We waited. The fire burned, the bellows pumped, and energy grew around us.

  The master removed the flattened tamahagane out of the forge. He placed it on top of the round tool. He nodded and Asahara, and I began shaping the metal around the circular tool. We formed it into a “U” shape. Once we completed the shaping, the master reheated the metal. He pulled both parts out of the forge and carefully inserted the darker tamahagane into the open end of the bright tamahagane. Asahara tapped it into place, so there is no gap between the two pieces. Again, the metal is heated.

  Mr. Nobuhara removed the metal once more. He placed it on the anvil and with his baton directed us to hammer again. Slowly the sword took shape straight and true. It is done. Mr. Nobuhara returned the newly formed sword to the fire. He barked out some instructions to his apprentices, and they jumped to work. They brought over an empty trough and began filling it with water. Once the trough was full, the master took over the bellows and pulled out the glowing katana. He was unsatisfied with it and returned it to the fire.

  “I have questions. I thought katanas had a curved blade?” I asked Asahara.

  “The curve comes when the metal is pleased with the working. The blade will smile when it is done,” Asahara answered.

  Mr. Nobuhara is working intently. He paid no mind to the goings-on around him. In short bursts, he pumped the bellows as he removed the glowing blade. The color of the hot blade is unlike any shade it had been before. Quickly in one smooth motion, the master plunged the katana into the trough of water. Steam erupted from the water as the katana was quenched. The sizzling sound from the water ceased. Mr. Nobuhara then pulled the katana from the water. The blade is happy; you could see the curve of its smile. The master examined his work. The expression of awe at what his craft had wrought filled his face.

  He spoke to Asahara. My partner retrieved a long and slender box. He opened the box and inside is silk cloth. The master wrapped the katana in the cloth and placed it in the box and closed the lid. The master is smiling broadly and bowing to all of his apprentices. I didn’t understand the Japanese he spoke, but the sentiment is obvious. Though he is pleased, I could clearly see the weariness in his face. “Nathan-san, your work here is done, while mine only half so. Soon the katana will be whole and complete.”

  “I would love to see it once it is complete. If I may ask?”

  Mr. Nobuhara chuckled a bit as he said, “Yes, Nathan-san. You will see it once I am finished.”

  We cleaned up the warehouse before we all left for the day. The house was empty when I returned. Only the sound of Blossom’s thumping tail filled the air. Fear struck me. I raced to our bedroom and checked the closet. Charlene’s clothes are still there. Whew, what a relief. I heard keys in the door and the most welcome sound of my family filing in.

  “Nathan, are you home? Moiraine, go play in your room until dinner.”

  “Yes, I am. I just arrived in fact,” I called back.

  “Can you help with the groceries please?” Charlene sounded normal.

  In the kitchen, I started putting away everything. Char did some major shopping. We have enough fixings for two weeks or more.

  As we worked to put everything away, Charlene grumbled, “Never go grocery shopping when you’re hungry.” Among everything she bought today the one thing I took notice of is the huge and opened block of dark chocolate. She had already had a piece of it. I am surprised. She never grazes while she shops. She thinks it’s rude.

  I am for a loss. Life is not hunky or dory as I had hoped it would be. Did I save my wife’s life only to lose my family?

  “Nathan, make yourself scarce while I make dinner,” Char said with no emotion.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “If there were, I would have told you. Now, please leave.”

  I left only to return for dinner. Moiraine is quiet. She is not herself at all. There is no joy about her. She didn’t laugh or joke. She didn’t even want to dance to the Wiggles when I offered to put them on. I felt a stranger in my own home; if this is my home anymore. A cesspool of despair began growing inside me.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  This has been my home life for the last two weeks. Some nights Moiraine could fight her personal demons. Other nights the terror in her mind would win, and she would wake up screaming. My darling little girl is dead inside. The drugs did seem to help but at such a cost. She never smiles or laughs. Though it killed me inside, I did as Charlene asked. I left my daughter alone. Gone are the visits to her dreams, nor did I comfort her at n
ight. Something has to give. My role in their lives was downgraded. No longer am I a husband and a father. All I am is their roommate.

  During those two weeks, I poured myself into the only thing I had left, which gave me any value, work. A permanent position anywhere eluded me. The drug store had warned off all the other pharmacy and sundry stores in town. One interviewer told me I had been “blacked-balled.” I took any kind of work where I could. Whether as a day laborer on a construction site or picking avocadoes for too little money a pound, I did it. Avocadoes, the green slimy things, I loathe them.

  Mrs. Blake helped us by letting me do some minor jobs to reduce the rent. Hustling to getting applications out to any business which had a whisper of a job opening was my focus. There was nothing out there for me.

  One morning the doorbell rang. Charlene answered the door. “Nathan, this gentleman says he wants to talk to you.”

  As I went to the front door, Charlene left to the bedroom to read, I guess. She takes little interest in me anymore. Mr. Masafumi Asahara was standing there patiently waiting for me. One of the apprentices is with him. “Please come in,” I said as I gestured for them to enter. They both bowed to me and walked into the living room. “Please take a seat. How is your uncle, the grandmaster?”

  The gentlemen did not sit. Asahara said, “Thank you, but we cannot stay more than a moment. My uncle has passed.”

  We had only known each other briefly, but my heart grew heavy at the hearing of his passing. Perhaps I will call to his spirit once they have left to say goodbye to the man. “My condolences to you and your family.”

  “Thank you. My uncle died as he finished this,” Asahara reached back to the apprentice behind him and opened the long wooden box his uncle had placed the unfinished katana in. He retrieved the finished sword. He lifted the katana with both hands as if he were offering it to me. He brought it up to about eye level with the back of the blade facing me. He bowed his head but did not raise it until after I took the blade. I grabbed the sword with my right hand in-between his two and bowed in return