A Single Shard (8 page)

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.

Min began work on another set of inlaid vases. But before the throwing was complete, the emissary's ship docked. Emissary Kim sent a messenger to ask if any of the potters had anything new to show. Min waved the messenger away without a word.

The next morning the news blew through the village like a sudden sea breeze: The emissary had visited Kang's house. Kang had been chosen for a commission.

Later that morning Tree-ear swept up the remains of the destroyed vases in Min's yard. It was as he had guessed—all of the pieces bore traces of brown clouded glaze. Tree-ear felt numb with disappointment; he wondered how much worse it must be for Min.

The potter had still not come out of the house with instructions for the day, so Tree-ear turned to the vegetable patch. He squatted down and began to pull the first of a thousand noxious shoots that threatened the cucumber plants so precious to Min's wife.

Someone called out from the front of the house; Tree-ear recognized the voice of the government official Yee.

"Potter Min! The emissary is here. He wishes to speak with you."

Tree-ear dropped the ragged weed he was holding and stole around to the window at the side of the house. He could see little but heard everything. Min welcomed Yee, Emissary Kim, and the men of the royal cortege into his home. They sat around a low table in silence. Tree-ear heard the clink of pottery as Min's wife served tea.

Then Emissary Kim began to speak. "This inlay work of your colleague's. It is something new, and will be of great interest to the court."

There was a pause; Tree-ear imagined Min nodding in polite agreement.

"I will speak with no veil over my thoughts, Potter Min. Other aspects of Potter Kang's work are—how can I say it?—not as much to my taste. Kang has been given what I will call a limited commission. He will produce work for the court for a year, to see if it pleases His Majesty."

Kim hesitated, then continued. "I would far rather have given you the honor of a royal commission. But I would be remiss in my responsibilities if I were to ignore this new technique. It must be presented to the court.

"I will now return to Songdo. But if you were to produce something using this inlay style, and bring it to me in Songdo, I would guarantee a careful consideration of the work."

Tree-ear could barely contain his excitement.
The shards!
he wanted to shout.
Show him the pieces from the rubbish heap! He is an expert—he will understand about the firing.

But Min was speaking now. "The royal emissary honors me with his words, and I wish to disappoint no one. But I am an old man now. I could not possibly make the journey to Songdo. I thank the emissary for his consideration and beg his understanding for my failure."