A Single Shard Read online

  He tore his gaze away from the duck to examine the next piece, a tall jug with ribbed lines that imitated the shape of a melon. The lines were perfectly symmetrical, curving so gracefully from top to bottom that Tree-ear longed to run his finger along the smooth shallow grooves. The melon's stem and leaves were cleverly shaped to form the lid of the jug.

  The last piece on the shelf was the least interesting—a rectangular lidded box as large as his two hands. It was completely undecorated. Disappointed in its plainness, Tree-ear was ready to turn away when a thought struck him. Outside, the box was plain, but perhaps inside...

  Holding his breath, he reached out, gently lifted the lid, and looked inside. He grinned in double delight at his own correct guess and at Min's skill. The plain box held five smaller boxes—a small round one in the center and four curved boxes that fit around it perfectly. The small boxes appeared to completely fill the larger container, but Min had left exactly the right amount of space to allow any of them to be lifted out.

  Tree-ear put the lid of the large box down on the shelf and picked up one of the curved containers. On the underside of its lid was a lip of clay that held the lid in place. Tree-ear's eyes flickered back and forth between the small pieces in his hand and the larger container, his brow furrowed in thought.

  How did Min fit them together so perfectly? Perhaps he made the large box, then a second one to fit inside, and cut the smaller boxes from that? Or did he make an inside box first and fit the larger box around it? Maybe he began with the small central box, then the curved ones, then—

  Someone shouted. The chickens squawked noisily and Tree-ear dropped what he was holding. He stood there, paralyzed for a moment, then threw his hands up in front of his face to protect himself from the blows that were raining down on his head and shoulders.

  It was the old potter. "Thief!" he screamed. "How dare you come here! How dare you touch my work!"

  Tree-ear did the only thing he could think of. He dropped to his knees and cowered in a deep formal bow.

  "Please! Please, honorable sir, I was not stealing your work—I came only to admire it."

  Min's cane halted in mid-blow. The potter stood over the boy with the cane still poised for another strike.

  "Have you been here before, beggar-boy?"

  Tree-ear's thoughts scrambled about as he tried to think what to answer. The truth seemed easiest.

  "Yes, honorable sir. I come often to watch you work."

  "Ah!"

  Tree-ear was still doubled over in his bow, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see the tip of the cane as it was lowered to the ground. He allowed himself a single sigh of relief.

  "So is it you who breaks the twigs and bruises the leaves of the paulownia tree just beyond?"

  Tree-ear nodded, feeling his face flush. He had thought he was covering his tracks well.

  "Not to steal, you say? How do I know you do not watch just to see when I have made something of extra value?"

  Now Tree-ear raised his head and looked at Min. He kept his voice respectful, but his words were proud.

  "I would not steal. Stealing and begging make a man no better than a dog."

  The potter stared at the boy for a long moment. At last, Min seemed to make up his mind about something, and when he spoke again, his voice had lost the sharpest edge of its anger.

  "So you were not stealing. It is the same thing to me—with one part damaged, the rest is of no use." He gestured at the misshapen pottery box on the ground, badly dented from its fall. "Get on your way, then. I know better than to ask for payment for what you have ruined."

  Tree-ear stood slowly, shame hot in his breast. It was true. He could never hope to pay Min for the damaged box.

  Min picked it up and tossed it on the rubbish heap at the side of the yard. He continued to mutter crossly. "Ai, three days' work, and for what? For nothing. I am behind now. The order will be late..."

  Tree-ear had taken a few dragging steps out of the yard. But on hearing the old potter's mutterings, he lifted his head and turned back toward him.

  "Honorable potter? Sir? Could I not work for you, as payment? Perhaps my help could save you some time..."

  Min shook his head impatiently. "What could you do, an untrained child? I have no time to teach you—you would be more trouble than help."

  Tree-ear stepped forward eagerly. "You would not need to teach so much as you think, sir. I have been watching you for many months now. I know how you mix the clay, and turn the wheel—I have watched you make many things..."

  The potter waved one hand to cut off the boy's words and spoke with derision. "Turn the wheel! Ha! He thinks he can sit and make a pot—just like that!"

  Tree-ear crossed his arms stubbornly and did not look away. Min picked up the rest of the box set and tossed it too on the rubbish heap. He muttered under his breath, so Tree-ear could not hear the words.

  Min straightened up and glanced around, first at his shelf, then at the wheel, and finally at Tree-ear.

  "Yes, all right," he said, his voice still rough with annoyance. "Come tomorrow at daybreak, then. Three days it took me to make that box, so you will give me nine days' work in return. I cannot even begin to think how much greater the value of my work is than yours, but we will settle on this for a start."

  Tree-ear bowed in agreement. He walked around the side of the house, then flew off down the road. He could hardly wait to tell Crane-man. For the first time in his life he would have real work to do.

  Upon arriving the next day for work, Tree-ear learned that it was Min's turn to chop wood for the kiln fires. That was why he had not been at home the day before.

  Like most of the potters' villages, Ch'ulp'o had a communal kiln. Set on the hillside just outside the center of the village, it looked like a long, low tunnel made of hardened clay. The potters took turns using the kiln and keeping up the supply of fuel.

  Min handed Tree-ear a small ax and led him around the side of the house to a wheeled cart.

  "Fill the cart with wood," Min barked. "Dry wood, not wet. Do not come back until the cart is full."

  Tree-ear felt as though the sun had suddenly dimmed. The night before, sleep had not come easily. He had imagined himself at the wheel, a beautiful pot growing from the clay before him. Perhaps, he thought now, if he chopped enough wood quickly, there would still be time at the end of the day...

  Min quashed that hope with his next words. "Take care to go well into the mountains," he said. "Far too many trees have been cut too close to the village. You will walk a long way before you find a plentiful stand of trees."

  Tree-ear swallowed a sigh as he placed the ax in the cart. Grasping the two handles, he wheeled the cart onto the road. He turned to wave farewell, but the potter was no longer there. The sound of the throwing song floated out from behind the house.

  Chopping wood for hours without a single bite to eat had been hard enough. But the worst of that day was the long trip back down the mountainside with the cart full of wood.

  The path was rutted and bumpy. The homemade cart was poorly balanced, awkward with its heavy load. At every step Tree-ear had to keep his eyes trained on the path and the cart. In spite of his efforts, whenever the wheels hit a deep rut, the cart tipped precariously and some of the logs spilled out. Then he had to stop to pick up the fallen wood. It was more than annoying, because he had been careful to lay the wood neatly as he chopped, and each bump led to further disarray of the tidy pile.

  After this had happened more times than he could count, Tree-ear neared the end of the mountain path. Soon it would widen and smooth out into the more heavily traveled foothills road. Tree-ear lifted his head for a moment, in eager anticipation of the end of his journey.

  Just then the right-hand wheel caught a stone. The cart handles were wrenched from his hands, and the cart tipped onto its side. The momentum pulled Tree-ear off balance, and he tripped over the cart and tumbled headfirst to the ground.

  He sat up, dazed. For a moment
he didn't know whether to curse or cry. He set his lips together tightly and scrambled to his feet, then pulled the cart upright and began flinging the wood back into it in a frenzy.

  As he heaved a large, rough log, an arrow of pain shot through his right hand. He cried out and clenched it into a fist for a moment until the throbbing eased a little. Then he opened it cautiously and examined the injury.

  The pillow of fluid that had formed on his palm during the long hours of wielding the ax had burst. Blood ran from the wound, mixing with dirt and small bits of bark. Tree-ear stared at it, and he could not stop the tears that pressed hot behind his eyes.

  Angrily, he blinked away the tears and set about tearing a strip of cloth from the bottom of his tunic. There was no water nearby, so he spat on his palm and wiped it as best he could, clenching his teeth against the pain. He used his other hand and his teeth to wrap and tie the cloth into a makeshift bandage.

  From then on he worked slowly and methodically, stacking the wood in neat rows in the cart. The sun was low in the sky when he finished at last and wheeled the cart cautiously down the path to the foothills road.

  Tree-ear dragged himself home to the bridge that evening. Crane-man's normally placid expression was replaced with a frown of worry when Tree-ear stumbled into the space under the struts and collapsed in a heap on the ground.

  Crane-man said nothing. He merely held out a bowl in which he had placed a small mound of rice and a little pile of boiled greens. Too exhausted to eat, Tree-ear waved the food away. But Crane-man hobbled to his side and used his crutch for support as he eased himself down to sit next to Tree-ear. Crane-man picked up a little rice in his fingers, and insistently, but still without a word, began feeding Tree-ear as if he were a baby.

  Tree-ear did not remember finishing the meal, but he awoke the next morning to see Crane-man swing himself down under the bridge by holding one of the struts, as he always did. Small and slight and who knew how old, Crane-man still moved his upper body with the ease of a young man; many were the times that Tree-ear forgot completely about the useless leg. Where had Crane-man been, so early?

  Tree-ear sat up stiffly and began to rub his eyes. As he brought his right hand up to his face, he caught sight of the crude bandage. It was stiff with dried blood.

  "Yes, that is what I have been about," said Crane-man. "Now, let us see what we can see."

  Tree-ear held out his hand. Crane-man untied the bandage and began to unwrap it.

  "Sssst!" Tree-ear hissed sharply in pain and snatched his hand away. The final layer of cloth clung stubbornly to the wound, and Crane-man had been trying to pull it off.

  "Come now, my monkey friend," said Crane-man, kindly but firmly. "It must be removed so we can clean the wound. The demons of sickness are no doubt already scheming to enter your body through such a door."

  Tree-ear rose and shuffled to the water's edge. He crouched and dipped his hand in the water. Its coolness soothed the throb, and its wetness loosened the cloth's grip on the wound. Wincing, he eased the bandage away.

  While Tree-ear cleaned his wound, Crane-man took the strip of cloth and washed it thoroughly with water from the gourd bowl, scrubbing it against a flat stone at the river's edge. Then he wrung it out and handed it to Tree-ear, who scrambled up the bank and hung it on a strut to dry in the sun.

  From his waist pouch Crane-man took a handful of green herbs he had gathered in the woods earlier that morning. He ground them to a paste between two stones, then scooped up some of the paste with two fingers and applied it to Tree-ear's hand.

  "Close your hand," Crane-man ordered. "Squeeze, so the healing juices may enter the wound."

  The two friends ate the last of the rice-treasure for breakfast, Tree-ear holding the paste as he ate with his other hand. Then Crane-man tied the now-dry strip of cloth back into a bandage.

  "There," he said. "A few days' rest will see that hand good as new." He looked at Tree-ear sternly.

  Tree-ear said nothing. He knew that Crane-man had already guessed there would be no rest that day. There was still eight days' work to be done for Min.

  Chapter 3

  Tree-ear trotted up the road toward Min's house. But he slowed a little when he heard the potter scolding him even before he arrived.

  What kind of useless boy was he, coming back so late the day before and leaving the cart without a word? That wood should have been taken to the kiln and unloaded. Min had done it himself at dusk, and had nearly injured himself stumbling home in the darkness. Such help was worse than no help at all! Now, did Tree-ear really intend to make himself useful? If not, it would be better for him to forget their whole arrangement...

  Finally, Min paused to draw breath. Tree-ear dared not look up. He felt like a beast with two heads, one ashamed, the other resentful. Ashamed that he had not finished the work properly, resentful that Min had not given him complete instructions. "Fill the cart"—that had been the order, and he had done it. Was he expected to read Min's mind as well?

  But the shame won out in Tree-ear. He feared being sent away before he could learn to make a pot.

  "I am sorry that I displeased the honorable potter," Tree-ear said. "If he would be so good as to give me another chance, he will not be disappointed."

  "Hmph." Min turned and walked toward the side of the house. Tree-ear stood still for a moment, unsure of what to do.

  "Well?" Min turned back impatiently. "Are you coming, beggar-boy, or are you a statue with your feet frozen to the ground?"

  Tree-ear's joy at being forgiven was like a wisp of smoke; Min's orders for the day blew it into nothingness. His task was the same as the previous day's—to fill the cart with wood, and this time unload it at the kiln site.

  Each day, Tree-ear appeared at Min's door eagerly. Each day, Min sent him up the mountain with the cart to chop more wood. At night, with Crane-man's careful ministrations, the wound on Tree-ear's hand would begin to heal, the tender pink layer toughening slightly. But at the start of the next day's work it would split and bleed again. Tree-ear came to expect the pain; the throbbing was like an unwelcome companion who appeared daily after the first few strokes of the ax.

  On the third day, Crane-man had offered to come with him. Tree-ear's mind raced to think of a polite refusal. He knew what would happen: Crane-man would want to spare Tree-ear's blistered hand and would take up the ax himself. Tree-ear shuddered, picturing Crane-man trying to chop wood while leaning on his crutch. He might well injure his good leg.

  "Your offer of help is kindness itself," Tree-ear answered. "But if it is all the same to you, it is far better for me to return to a meal already prepared. I could not imagine greater assistance than this."

  Crane-man was satisfied. It seemed to Tree-ear that his friend spent the entire day figuring out how to transform a handful of weeds and bones into something that resembled a meal.

  Over the days Tree-ear developed a routine of work and rest. A period of diligent chopping and loading, then a break; this was better than several hours of frenzied chopping that left him with a vast, untidy pile of wood, which took much time to load and left him exhausted.

  In the brief periods of rest he was sometimes able to gather a little food—a few wild mushrooms here, a handful of fern sprouts there. Crane-man had taught him well on their many walks through these mountains together. Tree-ear knew which mushrooms were tasty and which deadly. He knew the birds by their songs, and how a mountain lion's spoor looked different from that of a deer. And he never lost his way, for he knew where the streams ran, pointing sure as an arrow back down the mountain toward the road.

  Besides his quiet times reading the mountain, Tree-ear's favorite part of the day was unloading the wood at the kiln site. The kiln was located at the far end of the village from Min's house. Nearby was a large, roughly built shed. Tree-ear wheeled the cart to the shed's entry, then carried armfuls of wood inside, where it would stay dry. The wood was stacked as high as a man could reach, in orderly piles on either side of a central a
isle. Tree-ear liked arranging his wood neatly so the potters could take what they needed without the whole of the stack collapsing.

  At the kiln site he often saw potters whose turn it was to use the kiln. They would greet him with a nod when he arrived. On the fourth day one of them spoke to him. "You are Min's new boy, are you not?"

  Tree-ear knew the potter who spoke; his name was Kang. He was old enough for gray to streak his hair, but younger than Min, with a keen eye and a restless manner. Tree-ear lowered the handles of the cart to the ground and bowed his head.

  "High time the old man got himself some help." Kang spoke with what seemed like an edge to his voice. "The last few times he did not bring anywhere near his proper share of wood."

  Then Kang stepped forward and began to help unload the cart, so Tree-ears work was finished earlier than usual. He was left with time enough to rifle through a rubbish dump on his way home; the cabbage core that he found would add to Crane-man's culinary efforts for dinner.

  It was the morning of the tenth day. The evening before, Tree-ear had returned the cart to its usual spot next to Min's house and had lingered about for a few moments. But Min did not emerge from the house, so Tree-ear had departed at last, his debt of work paid in full.

  Awake for most of the night, Tree-ear had considered over and over how best to approach Min. In the nine days of work, Tree-ear had not once touched clay. He would never be able to make a pot unless he could continue his relationship with the potter.

  Tree-ear rehearsed his words one last time as he neared Min's house. He drew in a breath and held it for a moment to steady himself, then called out, "Master Potter?"

  To Tree-ear's surprise, Min's wife opened the door. He knew, of course, that Min was married. On the days that he had spied on Min, Tree-ear had occasionally glimpsed the wife coming out to the yard to scatter grain for the chickens or to fetch water. But because she had nothing to do with the pottery work, Tree-ear had ignored her. And in the past several days of woodcutting he had not seen or thought of her at all.