A Single Shard: Chapters 4–6

He carted clay again for Min, and by midaftemoon 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.

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.

“With cucumber kimchee as well. Truly a felicitous combination. Soft bean curd—crunchy cucumber. Bland bean curd—spicy cucumber. That woman is an artist.”

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

The clay was shoveled into one of the pits and water mixed in to form a thick viscous mud.

The stirring, sieving, settling, and bailing were repeated any number of times, until Min was satisfied with the residue.

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.

The ultimate in drainage work was reserved for the creation of the celadon glaze.

The clay for glaze was mixed in precise proportions with water and wood ash.

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.

Skipping from one rubbish heap to the next, stopping at nearly every house in the village, listening to snatches of conversation along the road—in these ways Tree-ear had come to appreciate his lowly status, for people tended to ignore his presence entirely and on the rare occasions when they did notice him, usually spoke as if he weren’t there.

Gradually, Tree-ear learned that his master had a reputation for slow work, slow and expensive.

Min’s work was renowned for its great beauty, but there were not many who could afford it.

The everyday vessels for the King’s household; the works of art displayed at the palace and its temples; and most of all, the gifts sent abroad as tokens of peace and respect to the greatest nation in the world—China . . . these were considered the worthiest of all toil, and handsomely rewarded.

A royal commission was the dream of all potters, but Tree-ear sensed somehow that it was more than a dream for Min. It was his life’s desire.

On the rare occasions that Min dismissed him early, he would hang around the house, looking for little chores to do—pulling weeds in her vegetable patch or sweeping the yard.

Both the body of a vessel and its glaze changed color when fired; a vessel that went into the kiln a dull mousy color emerged a remarkable translucent green.

Every once in a while an inexperienced potter would try his hand at painting his pieces, but the more accomplished potters, Min and Kang among them, had long ago given up trying the technique.

The flame of hope that burned in him was smaller now, but no less bright or fierce, and he tended it almost daily with visions of the pot he would make.

It would be a prunus vase—the most elegant of all the shapes. Tall and beautifully proportioned, rising from its base to flare gracefully and then round to the mouth, a prunus vase was designed for one purpose—to display a single branch of flowering plum.

The gentle curves of the vase, its mysterious green color. The sharp angles of the plum twigs, their blackness stark amid the airy white blossoms. The work of a human, the work of nature; clay from the earth, a branch from the sky.

It was an arduous, backbreaking task: hours of work to gather mere handfuls of rice.

The other children of Ch’ulp’o had long spurned him, for orphans were considered very bad luck.

Since he had begun working for Min, the other potters’ assistants tolerated his presence, but a friendly greeting was still a rarity.

Min’s work was far superior to Kang’s. Everyone in Ch’ulp’o knew this, and Tree-ear had seen it for himself. Kang’s work was skillful enough, his vessels well-shaped and his glaze a fine color. But he lacked patience.

Firing—the final step in the process that determined the color of the celadon—was handled well by no man. Try as the potters might, the wood in the kiln never burned the same way twice. The length of time a vessel was fired, its position in the kiln, the number of other pieces fired with it, even the way the wind blew that day—a thousand factors could affect the final color of the glaze.

Worst of all, some of the pieces often had brown spots here and there, or even an overall tinge of brown, spoiling the purity of the glaze.

No one knew why this happened, so making several identical pieces was the best safeguard to ensure that at least one would fire to an unflawed celadon green.

Not only was his work slow to begin with, but Min made more replicas than any other potter.

The palace would send only an expert—a true connoisseur—to handle the task of commissioning work.

“If a man is keeping an idea to himself, and that idea is taken by stealth or trickery—I say it is stealing. But once a man has revealed his idea to others, it is no longer his alone. It belongs to the world.”

The emissary would thus be facing the sea when he inspected Min’s work. Though Min did not explain, Tree-ear knew why. It was so the emissary would see how Min’s vessels captured the elusive green and blue and gray hues of the waves.

Min bowed in appreciation of the compliment, and Tree-ear wondered at his master’s calm; he himself had to still the glee that surged through him, lest it make him skip about, shouting.