A Single Shard

  For they knew well that royal commissions were assigned at seemingly random intervals. Potters so chosen worked for as long as their art continued to please the court; for most, a commission would last the rest of their lives. Only when a potter died or his work fell out of favor was a new commission assigned. And often the court waited until the demise of two or three potters before searching out their replacements. It could be many years before such a chance came again.

  Chapter 7

  Min was far more irritable than usual after the emissary's visit. Instead of giving gruff, terse commands, he harangued Tree-ear at every opportunity. Then he would lapse into a sullen silence that lasted until his next bout of shouting.

  Tree-ear worked harder than ever, tense with anticipation. Min was making vases in the melon shape that had so pleased the emissary. It seemed to Tree-ear that the potter had never before rejected so many pieces that came off the wheel; all day long, to the tune of Min's curses he heard the sound of clay being slapped down in disgust.

  At last, after two days of abuse, Min asked the question Tree-ear had been waiting for.

  "So," Min said grumpily, "would you be telling me about it, or must I guess?"

  Min was the only potter who had not visited Kang's display that day. Whether genuine or feigned, his concentration on his own work had never wavered, but Tree-ear knew he could not have failed to notice the gathering of people, the air that had ruffled with interest around Kang's stall.

  "Inlay work," Tree-ear responded at once. Crane-man's words echoed in his mind. The idea belongs to the world now. He continued, "White and red slip that fires to white and black in the finish. Chrysanthemums."

  Min did not reply, so Tree-ear added, "Ugly ones."

  For what Tree-ear guessed was the first time in Min's whole life, the potter threw back his head in a loud guffaw of laughter.

  "Ha!" he spat out, choked, cleared his throat. He looked at Tree-ear with what might have almost been affection. "Ugly ones, you say? Of course! What else could Kang do, that bumble-fingered excuse for a potter?" Suddenly, he clapped his hands once and snapped, "Go, then. White and red clay, drained, as for glaze."

  Tree-ear jumped to his feet. Almost before Min had finished speaking, he was flying down the road with the cart careering crazily before him.

  Days before, Tree-ear had mapped out the best places along the river for colored clay, and now he went directly to the first spot. He dug and loaded, his excitement kept in check by the rhythm of the work. The spade had never felt so light as it did that day.

  Over the next several days, Min sketched what seemed like hundreds of designs. His wife helped by drawing the basic melon shape over and over in charcoal on pieces of wood. Min would add his ideas for the inlay design, reject them angrily, and hand the wood back to her to be wiped and reused.

  Meanwhile, Tree-ear was busy draining the clay. Twice, three times, four—and the fifth time with the white clay, something happened.

  Tree-ear was rubbing the sediment between his fingers, as he always did. Suddenly, his fingertips tingled with a strange feeling. For some odd reason, he thought of a time when he had been on the mountainside, taking a break as he chopped wood. He had been staring into the forest greenery when a deer appeared in abrupt focus. It had been there all along, and he had been looking straight at it. But only at the last moment had he actually seen it.

  It was the same now, only instead of seeing with his eyes, he was feeling with his hands. The clay felt good—fine, pliant, smooth—but not ready yet.

  Tree-ear froze, completely still except for the tips of his fingers in the clay. What was it that made him think so? His mind could not find the right words. The clay had long since lost any feeling of roughness, but somehow he knew. One more draining—perhaps two ...It was like suddenly seeing the deer—a clear vision emerging from a cloudy dream.

  And it was as if he woke from that dream as he drained the clay yet again—a dream in which the words to describe exactly how he knew about the clay would be held secret forever.

  Having finally selected a design, Min began incising it. This was the most detailed part of the work, and he disliked anyone watching. As Tree-ear swept the yard or brought clay to and from the draining site, he tried to catch what glimpses he could. It was always so when Min was incising; now that Tree-ear knew well every aspect of Min's work, he loved seeing the incision work emerge even more than he had once loved watching the vessels grow on the wheel.

  Min used sharp tools with points of various sizes. The outline of the design was first etched lightly into the leather-hard clay with the finest point. Then Min would carve out the design a bit at a time. Unlike other potters, who traced a complete pattern with their initial incisions, Min sometimes varied from the sketchy tracing; his work seemed to flow more freely both in the making and in the final result.

  The glaze would collect in the crevices of the design, making it slightly darker than the rest of the surface. Once the piece was fired, the pattern would be so subtle as to be almost invisible in some kinds of light. Min's incision work was meant to provide a second layer of interest, another pleasure for the eye, without detracting in the least from the grace of shape and wonder of color that were a piece's first claims to beauty.

  Min was inscribing lotus blossoms and peonies between the ribbed lines of one of the melon vases. At the end of each day, Tree-ear always tried to check Min's shelves, to see what progress had been made. Because Min was now attempting inlay work, rather than merely incision, some of the petal and leaf spaces were carved out into little depressions. But Tree-ear could already see how much finer and more detailed Min's work was than Kang's. The blossoms had many more petals, each beautifully shaped; the stems and leaves twined and feathered as if alive.

  Tree-ear exulted silently over his master's work. He could hardly wait to see the pieces after they were fired. Surely, the emissary would see that Min's work could both honor tradition and welcome the new in a way that was worthy of a commission.

  Min came to the draining site after a few days to check on Tree-ear's work. Because only small amounts were needed, Tree-ear was working with the red and white clay in bowls instead of in the pits. Min closed his eyes as he touched his fingertips to the contents of one bowl.

  After a brief instant, he opened his eyes and sniffed. "You took long enough," he said dismissively. He walked back to the house carrying both bowls.

  Tree-ear pressed his lips together so as not to grin too widely at the potter's departing back. It was the first time he had prepared the clay to such a fine finish without further prompting from Min.

  Min made five replicas of the melon-shaped vase. To inscribe the design and then inlay each part of it with the colored slip was the work of countless hours, and Tree-ear remained at the house until well after dark to assist Min however he could. After a vase had been inscribed and inlaid, Min removed every bit of excess slip. Finally, the vases were dipped in glaze. Never had Tree-ear taken such care over the draining, and Min himself had done the final drainings and mixing of the glaze.

  Min was like a man with a demon inside him. He ate little, slept less, and whether he worked by daylight or lamplight, his eyes always seemed to glitter with ferocity. Tree-ear felt that the very air in the workspace under the eaves was alive with whispers and hisses of anxiety: the emissary would be returning very soon.

  At last, the day came when they would load the vases into the kiln. Each vase was placed carefully on three seashells set in a triangle atop one of the clay shelves, in a position near the middle of the kiln where Min determined it would fire best. Then the wood was precisely arranged in a complicated crisscross pattern of many layers. The kindling of twigs and pine needles was lit with a spark from a flint stone, and when the fire was well on its way, the door of the kiln was sealed.

  The heat in the kiln was extremely difficult to control. The kiln had to heat up slowly—too rapid a rise in temperature at the start, and the vessels would crack. This
warming process took a full day. Beginning on the second day, more wood was added from time to time through openings in the kiln walls. On the third or fourth day, when a potter hoped that the correct temperature had been reached, the openings were sealed with clay plugs. The fire blazed at its hottest then, until it had eaten all the air within the kiln and began to die. And it took two or three days for the kiln to cool down.

  Min preferred to fire his replicas in at least two different batches whenever possible. But with the emissary's return nearly at hand, there was time for only one firing.

  While Min always stayed at the kiln during the crucial first stages of warming and adding more fuel, he usually went home after the openings had been sealed. This time, however, he remained at the site for the entire period of the firing. Tree-ear laid armfuls of straw on the hillside, and there Min sat, the hollows under his eyes dark with exhaustion. His orders were curt, as usual, but quiet.

  Tree-ear could hardly believe it; he would almost rather have Min shouting at him. The quiet was alarming. Tree-ear brought food from the house, but Min left most of his untouched. He sent Tree-ear back and forth between the house and the kiln on various errands. At the end of each day Tree-ear crept away on tiptoe, as if any noise might disrupt Min's concentration and somehow ruin the firing.

  Tree-ear had never figured out if it was his footfalls that woke Crane-man, or if Crane-man simply did not sleep until Tree-ear came home. But no matter how late it was, his friend never failed to greet him when he arrived under the bridge. Nor was his voice ever weighed down with sleep.

  Tree-ear's long hours of work for Min left the two friends no time or light for walks or other activities; instead, Crane-man had taken to telling stories. He had often told folktales—of foolish donkeys or brave tigers—when Tree-ear was a youngster. But that had been some years ago, and Tree-ear welcomed the chance to hear the old yarns again. There were new ones, too, sagas about the heroes and heroines of Korea. The stories were a much-needed distraction; after listening to Crane-man's voice for a while, Tree-ear was able to relax and fall into a dreamless sleep.

  On the last day, Min told Tree-ear to spend the afternoon at the house, tidying the yard. He was to return to the site after sundown. The pieces would be removed from the kiln under cover of darkness.

  A misted half-moon had risen to the height of its arc by the time Tree-ear had swept the kiln entrance clear of ashes. Holding a lamp, he stood aside as Min crawled in. Min used a pair of special wooden tongs to carry out the still-hot vases one by one, and placed them carefully into the cart, where Tree-ear had prepared a bed of straw. The moon did not give enough light for Tree-ear to see clearly, but when the last vase had been removed, Tree-ear crawled back into the kiln to fetch the lamp.

  The flame in the small lamp flickered treacherously; it was difficult to inspect the vases closely. The inlay work stood out even in the deceptive light. But Min sighed and shook his head. They would have to wait until morning to see the results.

  Together they packed more straw between the vases. Then Min held the lamp while Tree-ear cautiously rolled the cart back to the house, the night quiet except for the single-minded singing of the frogs by the river and, once, the plaintive call of a night bird.

  "You are late tonight, my friend," Crane-man called, lighting the lamp as Tree-ear slid down the embankment.

  "Unloading the kiln," Tree-ear replied. "I am sorry you had to wait so long for your supper."

  Crane-man waved his crutch as if brushing away the apology. "I eat too well these days. Fat and lazy, that's what I have become," he joked.

  Tree-ear should have been nearly dead with fatigue, but he was too tense to lie down. Instead, he sat up and watched his friend eat. As the light flickered around the little den formed by the bridge overhead and the riverbank walls, Tree-ear suddenly had the sense of seeing clearly the things that had always been there. Like the deer with his eyes, or the clay with his fingers...

  The few cooking pots and bowls were stacked on a little shelf formed by the rocks, with chopsticks, a single spoon, and Crane-man's knife in a neat row. Tree-ear's sleeping mat was rolled up and set to one side. There were two baskets Crane-man had woven. One held a few wild mushrooms; the other, bits and pieces that might come in handy one day—scraps of cloth, twine, flint stone. Everything was so familiar to Tree-ear. Crane-man having lived under the bridge so many more years, it must be nearly invisible to him by now.

  Tree-ear spoke almost before he thought. "Crane-man—how is it that when you lost your home and your family, you did not go to the temple?"

  Those with nowhere else to go always went to the temple. The monks took them in, fed them, gave them work to do. Eventually, many of them became monks themselves. This would have been the usual course for someone who met with misfortune as Crane-man had, and Tree-ear wondered why he had never asked the question before.

  Crane-man looked almost displeased for an instant; then his lips curled into a sheepish smile. "Ah. There is a reason, but it is a foolish one, and would become more so in the telling."

  Tree-ear waited.

  "Psshh," Crane-man said at last. "It is a worse foolishness to do something foolish and then to be unable to laugh at it later! A fox, then. It was a fox that kept me from the temple."

  "A fox?"

  Foxes were dreaded animals. They were not large or fierce, like the bears and tigers that roamed the mountains, but they were known to be fiendishly clever. Some people even believed that foxes possessed evil magic. It was said that a fox could lure a man to his doom, tricking him into coming to its den, where somehow he would be fed to its offspring.

  Even to say the word made a trickle of fear run down Tree-ear's spine.

  "The house had been sold," Crane-man said. "I gathered up my few things and made ready to go to the temple. It was a fine day, I remember, and I made a long time of it, walking up the mountainside.

  "So it was dusk, and I was still a good distance away. Suddenly, a fox appeared before me. It stopped there, right in the middle of the path, grinning with all its teeth shining white, licking its lips, its eyes glowing, its broad tail swishing back and forth slowly, back and forth—"

  "Enough!" Tree-ear's eyes were wide with horror. "What happened?"

  Crane-man picked up the last morsel of rice with his chopsticks and popped it into his mouth. "Nothing," he said. "I have come to believe that foxes could not possibly be as clever as we think them. There I was, close enough to touch one, with a bad leg as well—and here I still am today.

  "But that night, of course, I could not continue on my journey. I walked all the way down the mountain again, looking over my shoulder nearly the whole time. The fox did not follow me; indeed, it disappeared as quickly as it had come. That night I stayed under the bridge, although you can be sure that I found no sleep.

  "It was many days before I could even think about making the journey again, and by that time, this"—Crane-man waved his chopsticks at the little space—"had begun to seem like home. Days became months, months grew into years. Then you came along." Crane-man smiled as he finished his story. "Between the fox and you, I was destined never to become a monk!"

  Tree-ear unrolled his sleeping mat and lay down. But a few moments later he rose to his knees and peered at the darkness beyond the bridge. Were those two eyes glowing—or just reflections of starlight on the river?

  As always, Crane-man seemed to know what Tree-ear was doing even in the dark. "Go to sleep!" he ordered, sounding almost like Min. "Or are you trying to make me feel an even bigger fool for planting foolishness in you?"

  Tree-ear shook his head, smiling, and settled down at last.

  To Tree-ear's surprise, Min's wife was waiting for him out on the road in front of the house the next morning. Beside her were the cart and spade. Although her face was as placid and kind as always, Tree-ear saw in her eyes some great worry that even her gentle smile of greeting could not hide.

  "More clay, Tree-ear," she said quietly. "Both
plain and colored."

  Tree-ear bowed in reply, and she turned back to the house. He trotted down the road a few paces, until he was sure she had gone inside. Then he left the cart by the side of the road and crept around to the back of the house.

  Tree-ear felt the blood drain from his face at the terrible sight that greeted his eyes. The yard was covered with pieces of shattered pottery—hundreds of them, it seemed.

  Tree-ear knew at once what had happened—the face of Min's wife had told him. She was neither angry nor fearful; instead, she had seemed deeply, quietly, sad. It could mean only one thing. Min had smashed the vases himself.

  Tree-ear counted on his fingers—five piles of shards, all five of the melon-shaped vases. One of them had been hurled so far that pieces of it lay just a few paces short of where he stood peeping from behind the corner of the house. Tree-ear glanced about quickly, then tiptoed a few steps into the yard and gathered up some of the larger pieces. He tucked them hastily into his waist pouch and darted back to the cart.

  At the riverbank Tree-ear lowered the cart handles and reached inside his waist pouch for the shards of pottery. The inlay work was flawless, the floral design intricate and graceful even on the incomplete pieces he held. But the glaze ... Tree-ear frowned and squinted.

  The dreaded brown tint suffused the glaze of every piece; some of them were marred with brown spots as well. They were fragments of the same vase, but the destruction of all five meant that every vase was flawed. Min had done the mixing of the glaze himself, so the mistake could only have been in the firing—the part of the work over which not even Min had complete control.

  Tree-ear gripped the shards tightly. He cried out as he flung them into the river, not even noticing that one of them had cut his palm.

  There was no time left. Even now the emissary's boat might be in the harbor.