Mortar

“Paul removed his coat and pulled the trowel from his belt. He stood nervously. Old Santos left him. No one watched him now. He reached the trowel down into the mortar. Slice down toward him, edgewise twist in quick short circle and scoop up away from him. The trowel came up half-covered with mortar—but how heavy! He dropped it back into the tub and worked the trowel back and forth in the mortar just as he had seen the bricklayers do. The feel of flexible steel trowel in pliant warm plushy soon-to-be stone. The wet rub of mortar on tender skin…the first fleshly sense of Job, Job who would give living to mother Annunziata and the little ones. He gathered straight unchipped red brick and layed them dry in lengthwise string. Then he went over to the building, studied the bond of a corner, and fixed it in his eye.”—Pietro di Donato, Christ in Concrete