Brunetti drew closer and looked beyond him and into the flame, where he saw the inferno of his youth, the Hell to which the good sisters had assured him and all his classmates they would be consigned for any infraction, no matter how minor. He saw white, yellow, red, and in the midst of it he saw the plate spinning, changing colour, growing.
The maestro pulled it out, again missing the side by a hair, and this time went back and sat at his banco and resumed spinning the plate. Without needing to look for them, he picked up an enormous pair of pincers, nor did he seem to have to look at the platter as he pressed the point of one blade up to its surface and, spinning, spinning, still spinning, cut a groove in the surface of one side. A sliver of wet glass peeled off the plate and slithered to the floor.
The servente responded to a signal too subtle for Brunetti to see and came over and carried the canna to the furnace while the maestro picked up a bottle that stood under his chair and took a long drink. He set it down one second before the servente came back and passed him the canna with the freshly heated plate suspended from the end. Their motions were as liquid as the glass itself.
Brunetti heard his name and turned to see As-sunta standing at the door. He realized that his shirt was stuck to his body and his face beaded with sweat. He had no idea how long he had stood, transfixed by the beauty of the men at work.
He walked towards her, conscious of the sudden chill of the perspiration on his back. 'I was delayed’ Brunetti said, offering no explanation. 'So I came to look for you in here.'
She smiled and waved this aside. 'It's all right. I was down at the dock. Today's the day they collect the acid and the mud, and I like to be there to see that the numbers and weights are right.'
Brunetti's confusion was no doubt apparent— he had never heard of such things in his father's time—for she explained: 'The laws are clear about what we can use and what we must do with it after we use it. They have to be.' Her smile grew softer and she added, 'I know I must sound like Marco when I say these things, but he's right about them.'
'What acid?' Brunetti asked.
'Nitric and fluoric,' she said. She saw that Brunetti was no less confused and so went on. 'When we make beads, we drill a copper wire through the centre to make the hole, then the copper has to be dissolved in nitric acid. Every now and then, we have to change the acid.' Brunetti did not want to know what had been done with the acid in the past.
'Same with the fluoric. We need it to smooth the surfaces on the big pieces. Well, it's the same in that we have to pay to get rid of it.'
'And mud, did you say?' he asked.
'From the grinding, when they do the final polishing,' she said, then asked, 'Would you like to see?'
'My father worked out here, but that was decades ago’ Brunetti said, in an attempt not to appear completely ignorant. 'Things have changed, I suppose.'
'Less than you'd think’ she answered. She stepped past him and waved an arm at the men who continued undisturbed in their ritual movements in front of the furnaces. 'It's one of the things I love about this’ she said, her voice warmer. 'No one's found a better way to do what we've been doing for hundreds of years.'
She leaned towards Brunetti and put her hand on his arm to capture his attention fully. 'See what he's doing?' she asked, pointing to the second of the maestri, who was just returning from the furnace. He took his place behind a small wooden bucket on the floor. As they watched, he blew into one end of the iron canna, inflating the blob of glass at the other end. Quickly, with the grace of a baton twirler, he swung the glowing mass until it was just above the bucket and squeezed it carefully into the cylindrical tub, moving it up and down and slipping it around until it slid inside. He blew repeatedly into the end of the pipe, each puff forcing a halo of sparks to fly from the top of the tub.
When he pulled the canna out, the blob was a perfect cylinder, now recognizable as the flat-bottomed vase it would become. 'Same raw materials, same tools, same technique as we were using here centuries ago’ she said.
He glanced aside at her and their smiles met, reflecting one another. 'It's wonderful, isn't it, something so permanent?' Brunetti said, not quite certain if that last word was the one he sought, but she nodded, understanding him.
'The only change we've made is to switch to gas’ she said. 'Aside from that, nothing's changed.'
'Except these laws Marco supports?' Brunetti asked.
Her expression changed and became serious. 'Is that meant as a joke?'
He had not intended to offend her. 'No, not at all,' he protested quickly. 'I assure you. I don't know what laws you mean, but what I know about your husband tells me they're probably ecological laws, in which case I'm sure they were necessary and well past time.'
'Marco says it's too little, too late,' she said, but she said it quietly.
This was not the place for a conversation like this, Brunetti knew, so he took a step away from her and closer to the workers, hoping to break the mood created by her last words. He pointed at the men near the furnaces and turned back to ask her, 'How many workers do you have here?'
She seemed relieved by the change of subject and began to count them off on her fingers. 'Two piazze, that's six; then the two men down at the dock and who do the packing and delivery; then three who do the final molatura, that's eleven; and then I'uomo di notte: that makes twelve, I think.'
He watched her tally the men again on her fingers. 'Yes, twelve, and my father and I.'
'Tassini's the uomo di notte, isn't he?'
'You spoke to him?'
'Yes, and he thought there would be no danger unless your husband were to come to the fornace,' Brunetti said, and then at her look of fear, he added, 'But he never comes here, does he?'
'No, not at all,' she said, voice rich with disappointment. Brunetti could well understand this. He had observed her passion for her work and for her husband. To have one excluded from the other, either by choice or decree, was understandably a difficult thing for her to bear.
'Did he once?' he asked.
'Before we were married, yes. He's an engineer, remember, so he's interested in the process of mixing and making glass and working it, everything about it.' As if to remind herself of one of those passions, she looked over at the men, the rhythm of whose work continued undisturbed by their talk: the first one was already working on an entirely different piece. Brunetti looked at them and saw the servente to the first maestro touch a pendulant drop of red glass onto one side of the top of what appeared to be a vase. The maestro's pliers smoothed the tip of the drop onto the vase, then pulled it, as though it were a piece of chewing gum, and attached the other end lower down on the vase. A quick snip, smooth the sides, and the first handle was made.
'They make it look so easy’ Brunetti said, his wonder audible.
'For them, I suppose it is. After all, Gianni's been working glass all his life. He could probably make some pieces in his sleep by now.'