The Baker, 1681
(Oil on canvas)
BY Job Adriaensz Berckheyde
Worcester Art Museum

And there was no question now that he liked working in the bakery; his first medication, he called it. He’d never worked alone before, which required some getting used to. In his first weeks, he’d heard sounds coming from all directions. One night, after eleven, there were fierce noises in the back alley. He’d opened the door, expecting that Eddie — the baker who used to come in at midnight and who had been fired by Harry for being drunk — was out there throwing the garbage cans around. But it was only some sexy cats.

Harry had taught him well and now, with Eddie gone, Harry came in early in the morning to do the baking. Bill’s job was to make sure everything was ready. Cleaning the same 20-quart pots for the Hobart mixer night after night had turned into less of a chore than what he’d first expected. The combination of impenetrable metal and absorbent wood surfaces met him with contradictions and comfort. The stainless steel tables and huge pans became welcome to his touch, even when the tiny thermometer over the sink told him it was cold in the back room. Rising mounds of bread dough were the last thing he looked at every night before he left; they caused him to smile when he first saw them and he’d felt the same sense of pride every night since.

The slicing machines could be troublesome — quiet assassins who could lull you into carelessness with their benign hums. He was also careful with the sharp knives and the chemicals in the cleaning closet. For comfort, after everyone had gone home, he listened to an enormous German-made radio, dusty with flour on top of one of the refrigerators. When Bill had once reached up with a damp sponge to clean the dial face, Harry quietly said, “Better leave well enough alone.”

The Baker, 1681
(Oil on canvas)
BY Job Adriaensz Berckheyde
Museum der Brotkultur

The aluminum proofers could be difficult to scour. A new definition of proof, these sheets browned with daily use. At his last agency in the city, Bill would volunteer for proofreading jobs, take it as a challenge, especially on winter afternoons when there was time to look out at the corner of Broadway and 53rd Street below his window. If not great literature, advertising copy at least contained the same 26 letters and there were certain elements of language in advertising that were not found in print anywhere else. And with a set of proofs on his desk Bill felt lucky at having the power to correct and revise, one last chance to make a better job of it.

He felt now the contradictory emotion that came to him again and again lately — how can it be after all these years — how can I now be in a position to not envy anyone, and how can I learn to accept it?

Darlene and Helen are cleaning the chromium trim around the glass counters with paper towels dipped in seltzer water. The water leaves no streaks on chrome or stainless steel, and Harry brings two-liter bottles of it from the supermarket for this purpose.

Bill has given the two women the nicknames Strange and Charm, the Quark sisters. Strange/Darlene, twenty years older than Charm/Helen, is the least friendly to Bill. She does not acknowledge his arrival into the shop each day, speaks to him only when she has to, and generally takes pains to avoid eye contact. Distrust, Bill thinks, is her strong suit; silence is her armor, and she hugs it close.