The new understanding with Arthur was a fragile, brittle thing. They worked side-by-side, the rhythm of their labor restored, but the silence between them was now filled with the unspoken. Arthur no longer asked probing questions. His instructions were clear, his praise sparing but genuine. Yet, his eyes would sometimes linger on Robert with a look of profound, unsettling wonder, as if he were working alongside a ghost who had somehow learned to plane wood.
Robert, in turn, became a master of self-censorship. He policed his every thought before it could become a word, filtering his perceptions through a lens of what a man in 1935 could reasonably know. It was an exhausting, constant vigilance. He felt his mind, once a vibrant repository of future knowledge, beginning to atrophy, its edges sanded down to fit the small, safe box of his new existence.
The only place his mind felt free was in the workshop, lost in the pure geometry of a dovetail joint or the smooth curve of a chair leg. Here, the problems were finite, the solutions tangible. He found a strange, melancholic peace in the scent of sawdust and linseed oil, a world where his only responsibility was to make two pieces of wood fit together perfectly.
This fragile peace was shattered one afternoon by the sound of a car door slamming outside. It wasn't the familiar putter of a Model A or the rumble of a delivery truck. This engine had a deeper, more authoritative thrum.
Arthur wiped his hands on his apron and peered out the workshop window. His posture stiffened. "It's Thompson. From the city council."
A moment later, a portly, well-dressed man with a serious expression appeared at the workshop door, followed by a younger, thinner man carrying a notepad. "Arthur," the portly man, Thompson, said with a politician's cordial smile. "Hope we're not interrupting."
"Not at all, Councilman," Arthur said, his voice carefully neutral. "What can I do for you?"
"It's about the bridge, actually," Thompson said, his eyes flicking curiously around the workshop before landing on Robert. "The revised pier design. The engineers are quite impressed. Said it was an 'elegant solution.' They mentioned the suggestion came through you."
Arthur didn't even glance at Robert. "Just passed along an idea I had, is all. Been working with wood and stress my whole life. Seemed like common sense."
"Common sense that's saved the county a fair bit of money and trouble," Thompson said, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. "This is Mr. Albright, from the State Tribune. He's doing a piece on innovative local solutions to public works projects. Wanted to ask you a few questions."
The journalist, Albright, stepped forward, his eyes sharp and intelligent. "It's quite a leap, Mr. Henderson, from building cabinets to solving structural engineering problems. Were you inspired by any particular texts? Or perhaps you have correspondence with engineers from out of state?"
Robert felt a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck. This was it. The attention he had feared. He kept his head down, pretending to be utterly absorbed in sanding a drawer front, but every sense was screaming.
Arthur, however, was a rock. He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "No correspondence. Just saw the problem, thought about it. It's like a chair leg. If the ground's soft, you need a wider foot. Same principle, just bigger." He delivered the line with such folksy, unassailable simplicity that both Thompson and the journalist were momentarily disarmed.
"I see," Albright said, scribbling in his notepad. He looked up, and his gaze swept the workshop again, lingering on the tools, the finished pieces, and then, for a fraction of a second too long, on Robert. "And is this your son? An apprentice?"
"My assistant," Arthur said firmly, a note of finality in his voice. "Robert."
Robert forced himself to look up and give a small, deferential nod before returning to his sanding, his heart hammering.
The men asked a few more perfunctory questions, which Arthur parried with the same blend of humility and folksy wisdom. Soon enough, they were leaving, their car engine fading into the distance.
The moment they were gone, the air in the workshop changed. Arthur let out a long, slow breath, his shoulders slumping. He walked over to the workbench and picked up a hammer, his grip tightening on the handle until his knuckles were white.
He didn't look at Robert. He stared at the tool in his hand as if it were the only real thing in the world.
"They smelled a story," Arthur said, his voice low and grim. "Men like that, they're like hounds. They don't know what they're chasing, but they know the scent of something different." He finally turned his head, and his eyes were full of a cold, hard fear Robert had never seen before. "It's not enough to be quiet, Robert. It's not enough to just blend in. We have to be… boring. We have to be forgettable. Or the next time men like that come knocking, they won't be so easily satisfied with talk of chair legs."
He set the hammer down with a definitive thud.
"The storm's coming, son. I can feel it. And it's not just the one in Europe." He looked out the window, towards the quiet street. "We built a bridge that drew attention. We fixed a radio that brought the outside world in. Every time we do something that stands out, we're nailing another shingle to the roof, telling the wind where to find us."
He turned back to Robert, his expression one of grim resolve. "No more. No more ideas. No more fixes. From now on, we are just carpenters. We build tables and chairs and fences. Nothing more. Do you understand?"
Robert nodded, the full weight of Arthur's fear settling onto him. He had thought his prison was the past itself. He now realized it was the attention his knowledge could draw. He was not just a man out of time; he was a spark in a tinder-dry forest.
He looked down at the smoothly sanded drawer in his hands. It was perfect, seamless, and utterly anonymous. It would hold someone's socks and linens, and no one would ever look at it twice. That was to be his life's work from now on. To create things that were functional, beautiful in their way, and completely, utterly forgettable.
The storm was indeed coming. And their only hope was to become so small, so ordinary, that when it finally broke, it would pass right over them, leaving them untouched and unseen in its wake.