A Single Shard

by Linda Sue Park

  Now he bowed his head as he stood before her. "Is the master home?" he asked.

  "He is at his breakfast," she answered. "You may wait at the back of the house."

  Tree-ear nodded his thanks and stepped away, but the woman spoke again, quietly. "A good thing, your chopping the wood. He is not as young as he once was..." Her voice trailed off.

  Tree-ear glanced up at her, and their eyes met. Hers were bright and soft, set in a small face netted with fine wrinkles. He dropped his gaze at once, not wishing to be considered impolite. Like Crane-man's eyes, he thought, and wondered why.

  Min was washing his hands in a basin under the eaves when Tree-ear reached the back yard.

  "What are you doing here?" Min's voice was cross, and he did not look up. "It has been nine days and your debt is discharged. If you came to hear me say it, you can go now."

  Tree-ear bowed. "I beg the honorable potter to pardon my insolence," he said. "I wish to express my gratitude—"

  "Yes, yes," Min said impatiently. "What is it?"

  "It would be a great honor for me to continue working for the potter." Tree-ear began the speech he had planned so carefully. "If he would consider—"

  "I cannot pay you." Min's interruption could hardly have been more abrupt, but the curt words swept over Tree-ear like cool rain over a parched field. I cannot pay you was the same as "Yes." A surge of joy lifted Tree-ear's heart into his throat, so that he had to cough politely before speaking again.

  "To work for such a master is payment enough," he murmured.

  "Temple bell until sundown, every day," said Min.

  Tree-ear found himself on the ground, collapsed in a full bow of gratitude. It was all he could do to keep himself from running all the way back to the bridge to tell Crane-man the good news.

  "Clay today, not wood." Those were Min's orders for the tenth day.

  Once again Tree-ear trundled the cart, this time along the river road, until he reached the digging area. Here the clay had been cut away in neat slabs, leaving a pattern of staggered rectangles in the riverbank.

  Tree-ear paused for a moment when he reached the clay pits. He had passed by the pits many times before and had always liked looking at the scene there; the geometric pattern of the clay bank pleased him. But today he felt as though he were seeing the men and boys working there for the first time.

  Using spades, they slashed at the clay with movements almost too swift to follow. When a slab of clay had been outlined with the spade, it was cut away from the bank and heaved into a nearby cart or basket.

  Tree-ear watched for a while, the spade Min had given him on his shoulder. Then he slid down the muddy bank to stand in the shallow water. Raising the spade high over his shoulder, he brought it down with a dull thunk. It sliced into the wet clay, and Tree-ear noted with satisfaction the clean line made by the spade's edge. He tugged at the spade's handle, ready to make his next cut.

  The spade did not budge. Tree-ear frowned, and pulled again. The head of the spade was well and truly buried. Tree-ear tried using both hands down low on the handle. The clay made squelching, sucking noises, as if it were trying to swallow the spade.

  Finally, Tree-ear was forced to claw away the clay around the spade head in order to free it. His arms and legs were already covered with mud. He paused to brush away a mosquito and rubbed a swash of mud across one side of his face. At last, he stood up and swung the spade again.

  It took him all morning to fill the cart with clay. The other diggers were long gone, having cut their clay with a swift skill that left Tree-ear alone and in despair. Heavy! The wet clay was far heavier than he had ever imagined. He could not begin to lift a slab with the spade; he had to cut each slab into several pieces and lift them one at a time into the cart. Tree-ear scowled to see the misshapen masses of clay in his cart, so different from the neat rectangles of the other workers.

  Moreover, the spadework had torn open his blistered hand again. But it was not so painful as it had been on the mountainside, for here he could apply handfuls of cooling, soothing mud to the wound.

  By the time the cart was loaded, Tree-ear wore mud like a second skin. Even raising his eyebrows was difficult, for his forehead was stiff with dried clay. And he was so exhausted that he could hardly bear the thought of wheeling the now-heavy cart back to Min's house.

  Then a sudden thought came to him—dinner! He had forgotten in the toil of the morning. Apprentices, assistants, the lowliest workers in every trade—no matter what their status, it was the masters duty to provide a meal for them in the middle of the workday. Now that Tree-ear was no longer working off a debt, Min was obliged to feed him. The thought broke through Tree-ear's fatigue like a shaft of sunlight piercing a cloud.

  He left the cart on the road and bounded into the river. He scrubbed and splashed and ducked under the water completely to get rid of as much grime as he possibly could. It would never do to appear for his first working meal dressed in mud.

  Min glanced briefly at the clay-filled cart. "You were long enough in returning," he said with a sniff. "I will not be able to do any more work until after my midday meal."

  He walked into the house, having said nothing about Tree-ear's food. But Tree-ear barely had time to wonder before Min's wife appeared in the doorway. She held out a parcel tied up in cloth.

  Tree-ear trotted to the door, resisting the impulse to snatch the parcel from her. He bowed his head and held out his hands, palms up and together, as was proper when accepting something.

  Min's wife placed the cloth package in his hands. "Eat well, work well," she said.

  A hot lump rose in Tree-ear's throat. He raised his head and saw in her eyes that she heard his thanks even though he could not speak the words.

  Tree-ear sat on a stone under the paulownia tree and untied the corners of the cloth. It held a gourd bowl filled with rice, whose whiteness was accented by a few dark shreds of savory dried fish and a little pile of kimchee— pickled cabbage vivid with seasonings of red pepper, green onions, and garlic. A pair of chopsticks was laid neatly across the top of the bowl.

  Tree-ear picked up the chopsticks and stared for a moment. Of one thing he was certain: The feast-day banquets in the palace of the King could never better the modest meal before him, for he had earned it.

  Tree-ear carted another load of clay for Min that afternoon, then returned to the bridge where Crane-man had stewed some wild mushrooms for their supper. Tree-ear spoke eagerly about his work that day. It was not until Crane-man rose to gather the supper bowls that Tree-ear noticed something was missing.

  The crutch. Sure enough, after handing Tree-ear the bowls to wash, Crane-man sat down with his knife and a sturdy straight branch and began to whittle a new crutch. Tree-ear wiped out the bowls, stacked them neatly on their rock shelf, and finally asked, "What happened to the old one?"

  Crane-man paused in his work, then waved his knife impatiently. "Stupidity happened," he answered. "There was a run of flounder today."

  That was all he said, but Tree-ear heard much more. Although Ch'ulp'o was on the sea, it was a potters' village, not a fishing village. The men and boys seldom took time from their work to fish. Still, they all knew the useful skill of fishing, and the women and girls often gathered shellfish at low tide.

  A run of flounder meant that a school of the tasty fish had come into shore far closer than usual; the waves even tossed fish right up on the beach. Such news sent many scrambling for their bamboo poles. But one had to be among the first to run from the village down to the shore. The flounder found their way back out to sea soon enough, and the fish flopping about on the sand were scooped up only by the quickest.

  It had always been Tree-ear who skipped out to the beach at the first word of a flounder run, and he had never returned without a fat fish or two for a rare feast. Now he knew without asking that Crane-man had hobbled down to the beach and lurched about on the sand, so treacherous to his crutch, only to come away empty-handed.

  Crane-man sha
ved another curl of wood, then held the crutch up to his eye, squinting to check that its lines were true. "I was angry about not getting any fish," he said as he returned to his whittling, "so I struck my crutch against a rock. It broke, of course."

  A little pile of shavings had grown at Crane-man's feet. Tree-ear crouched and stirred the pile with his finger, too ashamed to look up. In his mind he saw Crane-man making his slow, painful way back from the beach, with only a broken crutch to help him. And no fish for his trouble. How was it that in enjoying his noontime meal Tree-ear had forgotten his friend? He should have saved some of the food for Crane-man. If it had been the other way around, Crane-man would never have forgotten.

  Tree-ear swept the shavings into his palm, then threw them into the river. As he watched the current carry them away, he mumbled, "I am sorry about the flounder."

  "Ah, friend," Crane-man said. "You must mean, 'I am sorry about your leg.' Because that is the reason for our fishless supper today. But I think it a waste for either of us to spend too much time in sorrow over something we cannot change." Crane-man grunted as he stood, then leaned on the new crutch to test it.

  Satisfied, he nodded at Tree-ear. "Besides, when I leave this world, I will have two good legs and no need for such as this." And he tapped the crutch with his free hand.

  Still cross with himself, Tree-ear grumbled half under his breath, "Some of us will have four good legs."

  Crane-man batted at him with the new crutch. "What are you saying, impudent boy? That I will be a beast in the next life?"

  Tree-ear began to protest. "No, not you—" Then he stopped and grinned. "Well, maybe," he said, putting his hand on his chin in an attitude of deep thought. "A rabbit, I think. Very clever and quick—"

  "You had better be quick now yourself!" Crane-man bellowed in mock anger, brandishing the crutch sword-fashion. Tree-ear began hopping about their little den like a rabbit, dodging Crane-man's jabs and swipes, his shame forgotten for the moment, as the day ended in laughter.

  Chapter 4

  In the morning Tree-ear presented himself at Min's door before the temple bell rang. As he had hoped, it was Min's wife who answered his call.

  He held out a gourd bowl and bowed his head.

  "I have brought my own bowl today, so as not to inconvenience the honorable potter's wife," he said. Tree-ear's plan was to eat only half his food, leave the bowl hidden somewhere, and take the other half home to Crane-man at the end of the day.

  Min's wife nodded and took the bowl from him, but he could see the puzzled look in her eyes. The day before, he had returned the bowl and chopsticks to her after washing and wiping them; clearly, there had been no need for him to bring his own bowl.

  Tree-ear turned away, feeling guilt like a shadow across his brow, and hoped fervently that he had not offended her. I'm not really deceiving anyone, he argued to himself. And I haven't asked for more food—it should make no difference to her which bowl...

  He carted clay again for Min, and by midafternoon he had grown more accustomed to the work. He was learning the tricky balance of spadework—deep enough to make a clean cut, but not so deep as to bury the spade head in the mire. The work went more quickly now, and the muscles in his back and arms that had been strengthened by the woodcutting did not cry out so loudly anymore.

  Tree-ear brought the final load of clay back to Min's. As usual, the potter was nowhere in sight at the end of the day, so Tree-ear left the cart parked under the eaves and went to retrieve the remaining half of his midday meal.

  Tree-ear caught his breath. The gourd bowl was not beneath the paulownia tree where he had left it. He searched the area around the tree. The bowl had been covered with a cloth weighed down by stones. Here was the cloth, snagged on a shrub—and there, a few paces farther into the brush, the bowl.

  Empty. Not just empty, but polished clean. Some wild animal...

  Disappointment rose inside Tree-ear until he felt he would have to let it escape in a wolf-like howl. Instead, he picked up the bowl and hurled it as far as he could into the brush.

  "Ai!" The startled cry that came from somewhere within the overgrown brush frightened Tree-ear half off his feet. Min's wife emerged from behind a tangled bush, holding the bowl in one hand and a basket in the other. The basket was filled with berries, which she had apparently been gathering on the mountainside.

  She was smiling gently as she handed him the bowl. "This bowl had a great desire to become my hat," she said. "A bowl that flies! Small wonder that you preferred it to my own." Tree-ear could see that she was teasing, but he was too deep in his own embarrassment and disappointment to respond with more than a curt nod. He checked himself in time to turn the nod into a bow of respect, then fled, leaving the scene of his failure but not the knowledge of it.

  Yet again he had failed to share his meal with Crane-man. And on top of that, it seemed that he had nearly hit his master's wife on the head with his bowl.

  It was two full moons now that Tree-ear had been working for Min, but it seemed like a year or even longer. He sometimes felt that he could hardly remember what his life had been like before. The days had acquired a rhythm, a regularity he found comforting and dependable. He woke early, worked for Min, ate half of his dinner, worked again, then returned to the bridge at dusk.

  In an attempt to discourage wild animals from eating the other half of his food while he worked, Tree-ear had taken to hiding it closer to the house. At a far corner of Min's yard he had dug a hollow just big enough to hold the bowl, and had found a large flat rock nearby to use as a cover. It looked quite unobtrusive, and he had been pleased to find the food untouched the first time he hid it there. Since then, he had been able to bring Crane-man supper every night.

  This was his greatest satisfaction. The meals provided by Min's wife were simple, but they never failed to delight his friend, who opened the gourd parcel each evening as if it were a gift of royal jewels.

  "Bean curd tonight," Crane-man would say, his eyes gleaming. "With cucumber kimchee as well. Truly a felicitous combination. Soft bean curd—crunchy cucumber. Bland bean curd—spicy cucumber. That woman is an artist."

  Several days after he had begun using the new hiding place, Tree-ear made an odd discovery. As usual, he had eaten half his meal at midday. On retrieving the bowl after the days work, he unwrapped the cloth as he always did, to check on the bowl's contents.

  The bowl was full again.

  Tree-ear stared in surprise. He looked toward the house, but neither Min nor his wife was in sight. And every evening thereafter he returned to find the bowl full, with enough supper for both Crane-man and himself.

  Tree-ear was learning a new skill now—the draining of the clay. It was a tedious process, but one that held his interest.

  At some distance from the house, near a clear running stream, a series of shallow holes had been dug and lined with several layers of rough grasscloth. The clay was shoveled into one of the pits and water mixed in to form a thick viscous mud. Tree-ear stirred and stirred the mixture with a wooden paddle until the clay and water were uniformly combined.

  Then the sludge was scooped up and poured through a sieve into a neighboring pit. The sieving winnowed out tiny pebbles and other impurities. Finally, the clay was left to settle for a few days until the water at the top either had drained away or could be bailed off.

  Min would squeeze handfuls of the purified clay, or rub it between his fingers. He usually did this with his eyes closed—the better to feel it, Tree-ear supposed.

  He did not ask, for Min preferred to work with as few words as possible. The potter would bark terse commands, which Tree-ear struggled to satisfy by whatever means were available to him—watching Min, watching other potters, experimenting. He did not know why Min did not explain things more fully; Tree-ear's mistakes often cost valuable time or wasted valuable clay. Then Min would shout or scold while Tree-ear stared at his toes in shame and, more often than not, resentment.

  But since that first day when T
ree-ear had damaged the box, Min had never raised a hand against him. Throughout the first few scoldings, Tree-ear had braced himself, ready for the pummeling that would surely follow, like those he had endured when caught raiding a rubbish heap. They had not come, then or ever, even at the height of Min's scorn and rage.

  The stirring, sieving, settling, and bailing were repeated any number of times, until Min was satisfied with the residue. It depended on the job at hand. If the clay was for a sturdy teapot to be used every day, a single draining might suffice. But for a finely wrought incense burner commissioned by a wealthy merchant as a gift to the temple, the clay might be drained twice or even three times. Clay that passed Min's inspection was formed into a large ball, ready to be thrown on the wheel.

  The ultimate in drainage work was reserved for the creation of the celadon glaze. For this, half a dozen drainings might not be enough. Tree-ear sometimes wanted to cry out and beat his fists into the clay in frustration when Min made an abrupt gesture for yet another repetition of the work.

  The clay for glaze was mixed in precise proportions with water and wood ash. This combination must have been the result of a happy accident in the distant past. Perhaps ashes had once fallen on a plain-glazed vase in the kiln and resulted in patches of the clear celadon color. Now potters used wood ash deliberately, each with his own secret formula, to produce the sought-after glaze.

  How proud the potters were of its color! No one had been able to name it satisfactorily, for although it was green, shades of blue and gray and violet whispered beneath it, as in the sea on a cloudy day. Different hues blended into one another where the glaze pooled thickly in the crevices or glossed sheer on the raised surfaces of an incised design. Indeed, a famed Chinese scholar had once named twelve small wonders of the world; eleven of them were Chinese, and the twelfth was the color of Korean celadon pottery! The children of Ch'ulp'o learned this story almost before they could walk.