Washington, D.C. · June 23, 2230 · Afternoon
The shop clock had no hand for a single hour. Iva had to find hers in Berrit's account book.
There it was, between a bearing delivery and a charge for floor soap: IVA — instruction, one hour, old rate. Berrit had written the number in full. It was a small number beside the machine lease and a large one beside the coal left in her bin.
“You could have sent someone,” he said.
“You could have.”
He looked at the book, then at her. “Fair.”
The new sorting machine breathed softly beyond the counter. It was excellent at breathing; it had no wages to save its breath for. Iva had spent eleven years at the stool it displaced and one hour showing Len how to read the marks that the machine had learned from her drawings. The one hour was agreed. The three-day operator position was still conditional on his trial. She had come for the part that was hers, not to ask Berrit to tell her how the rest of her son's life went.
Nevertheless, she nearly asked.
Berrit counted the money into her palm. He counted it again because he knew she would. The amount was correct.
“May I have the line copied?” she asked.
“The wage line?”
“The packing marks. The ones I showed him.”
He leaned back. Above him hung a rack of collars awaiting collection, each labeled for a customer who would be angry if the wrong size arrived and angrier if the right size arrived after the pump failed.
“Those are shop marks.”
“I know where we use them.”
“The drawings are in the machine now. You want me to copy them out?”
“I want my hand copy. It went in with the books.”
Berrit touched the account page with one finger. “I paid you for those books.”
“You did.”
She did not say and I paid the coal man. They both knew where the money had gone. A debt settled was not a theft committed, even if the settlement left a person with nothing to show but a warm evening two winters ago.
A customer came in with a washhouse pump collar wrapped in a towel. She was the woman who had ordered two extra after the sorting made them cheaper. The upstairs pump was working now, she said, except for the joint where it met the old pipe. Berrit promised to inspect it after noon.
“Can I take this?” she asked, holding up the towel.
“The towel is yours,” he said.
“The pump, I meant.”
“Not before I see the joint.”
She sighed at the delay, but she left the collar. Iva recognized the shop's caution in Berrit's voice. He could economize a great deal and still refuse to put a bad fitting above a stairwell full of wet people.
When the door closed, he took a blank scrap and began drawing the three packing marks from memory.
“That's the old narrow seam,” Iva said.
“I'm drawing it.”
“You're drawing it wide.”
He turned the paper toward himself, then pushed it across to her. “Do it.”
She could have made him ask more kindly. Instead she sat at the counter and drew the shallow curve, the notch beside it, and the short return line that meant a collar had been trimmed but not yet tested under pressure. On the back she wrote what each mark required someone to do before packing. She did not write operator. The instructions belonged to whoever had the doubtful piece in hand.
Berrit brought out her old paper sheet from the file tray to compare them. It had her smudges on it. She had forgotten that the middle mark leaned left. The copied version was neater, but the smudged one had an added arrow where a repair had fooled her once.
“May I keep this?” she asked.
“Which one?”
“The old one.”
He hesitated. If a dispute came over a packing error, he would want the original. The lease man had already made him document every fault that could belong to the machine rather than the shop. Berrit was not hoarding paper for its perfume.
“You can take a copy,” he said. “I keep the sheet.”
“Then write that I'm taking it.”
“Why?”
“Because I may need to show someone I knew this before a cabinet did.”
He looked at her for a long moment. Then he wrote on the copy: Drawn by Iva for shop work; copy given to Iva, June 23. Original retained here. He signed beneath it and held out the pen. She signed too.
The machine clicked. Its red tray was full. Berrit went to it, lifted a doubtful collar, and turned it toward the light. Iva could see the fine line beneath its flange from across the room. It might be a crack or only a dark thread of old sealant. She did not tell him which. He had asked the machine to set doubtful pieces aside for a person, and a person was now looking.
Outside, the coal seller's cart came up the lane. Iva folded her wage around the signed copy, then unfolded it. Paper could travel home against her coat. Coins could be exchanged while the cart was here.
“Iva,” Berrit said, still holding the collar. “If I need the old mark explained—”
“Put an hour in the book.”
He gave the collar another turn. “Even if it's five minutes?”
“You can spend the other fifty-five learning the difference.”
He laughed once, not because the terms were settled but because they were plain. She went out before she could bargain against herself.
At the cart she bought coal, less than she had hoped. The seller tied the sack well enough that she could carry it without reopening her hands on the sharp seam. She still had the copied marks and a few coins. The conditional job remained conditional. Len would tell her what happened when there was something to tell, and she would have to hear it without making him responsible for the wage she had lost.
At home, she took his training certificate down from above the stove. She wiped the soot from the frame and hung her signed sheet beside it, a little lower so the coal sack would not brush either one. Two pieces of paper were not two jobs. For the first time, they named two people who had done work in the same shop.