The Potter's Notebook by Frank Giovinazzi, a historical novel set in 17th century Japan, is available on the Amazon Kindle platform and in paperback.
Sixty-One The boys were so contained in themselves people no longer noticed them. They had ceased being a novelty, having disciplined themselves so intensely, that they moved alongside the daily life of the village as if they weren't even there. In the midst of the crisis, however, it didn't matter. People came running down the trail, screaming about some men attacking the Royal Mother, then guards rushed out of the castle in advance of the Daimyo and several of his aides who galloped out on horses. The first volley of messengers disrupted the entire fief the way a bolt of fear runs through a body; the village was jangled and all activities were suspended as everyone waited for news of what had happened. The boys felt the same grip of fear clench their stomachs and weaken their knees, but they decided to keep rolling their cart toward its destination and let affairs work themselves out as they continued on their task. * * * The Daimyo rushed to his wife's side, having been transferred to the small hut of a villager, laid out on her robes and blankets from the palanque. He had sped past the news from his aides and guards, listening and barking back stock orders, but always intent on his wife. She was laying on her side with her head turned away from the humble entrance to the sleeping area. Several of the village grandmothers and a healer were in attendance, and they quickly moved aside for the Daimyo. He knelt next to his wife. She knew it was him before he entered the hut, his personality always preceded him into a room. Before he reached out to touch her, she curled into a tighter ball toward the wall. He noticed her legs were pulled up against her abdomen, in an unfortunate fetus position. He placed both hands on her side spread apart shoulder length, he only wanted to pick her up in his arms and carry her back to the castle. It was no matter the baby was gone. He loved his wife. She continued to resist. She could curl away from him no more physically, but he could feel her withdrawing emotionally, until he was afraid she would obliterate her feeling self, dragging it into an abyss from which it could never be retrieved. * * * The Princess heard what had happened to her mother, it traveled through the halls of the castle faster than a field rodent, and just as insidiously, as if the news had a life of its own, slinky and sneaky, infesting the household with its ill will. Guards restrained her from going to her mother's side, based on the news that highwaymen had attacked her procession and deliberately beat her. How she longed to be a true samurai now. * * * The boys picked up the news from the screeching gossip making its way through the village. They were saddened by it, but kept working until the end of day bell sounded. If nothing else, they could provide some thread of constancy for the fief, while the fabric of its world unraveled. There was no food for them when they returned from their day's work. Several different families had been providing them with meals, alternating, but today everyone was so preoccupied they had forgotten. So they dined on dried leftovers Shuji had hoarded for just such an occasion. They didn't have joy today; normally they looked forward to this part of the day, but they were as sad as everyone else in the fief. The Royal Mother had been attacked by bandits, and she was beaten to the ground. It was known that she was bleeding, but no one really knew how hurt she was. "Maybe we should not go and work tonight," Hideaki said. "No,” Shuji said. “We work. We started this not just for ourselves but for her. There's no better way to pray for her than to continue work in her honor. Even if she passes away, her spirit will know that we were laboring for her." "A good point, brother. I am with you." "Tonight we fire the kiln." "You have enough?" "I am ready." Hideaki was glad, for Shuji and himself. He had cut all the wood, had gotten new clay, even wedged it for his brother, and performed all the little tasks necessary even in a one man studio, but he was lying idle much of the time. Shuji was the one working. He was relentless, working until his hands cramped and his eyes watered from incessant concentration on the forms underneath his grasp, his back frozen in a crouched posture for hours on end, and that they both laughed would cause him to become like Daruma, the Bodhisattva who meditated in one position so long his legs atrophied and withered away. "But I need one leg to kick the wheel, brother," Shuji said. "Ah, then you will be a one-legged Daruma, bouncing up and down like a stork," Hideaki said, mimicking the effect, and Shuji joined in, both brothers jumping up and down on one leg until they both fell down, relieved for a moment from the gravity of their situation. They agreed Hideaki would fire the kiln while Shuji would spend the time throwing new forms. After weeks of throwing, tonight they were bisque firing a practice batch. Shuji's plan was to fire a series of small batches to verify how his designs worked in the face of the kiln fire. Based on the outcome, he would modify hiss approach as necessary; closer to the end of the indenture, they would manufacture their final gift sets to the Royal Mother and the Shogun. Hideaki and Shuji started hauling the pots over to the kiln site. It was a small moment of triumph for them both as they carried the long boards loaded with the first fruits of Shuji's labor to the kiln so it could be fired hard enough to take glazes. They were taking a grand step toward the fulfillment of their dream, not the final movement, but a significant push forward, like the building waves before the rages of a typhoon hit the beach. It was also a moment of truth. Whatever was weak, of poor design or poor clay, would show up after the firing was complete. And it was a moment of uncertainty. The pots would be subjected to the vagaries of the kiln, where accidents, both disastrous and serendipitous were expected. The fire's flame could spike out, destroying the pots, unruly air currents within the furnace could knock them over, fusing them all together, or any number of other accidents could happen, ruining their entire batch. Hideaki was ready for the challenge of stacking the kiln, and firing it correctly. The kiln was filled with the old-style furniture – stilts, platforms, bricks and boards – used to stack pots in tightly, in order to get as much use out of the space as possible. He worked in the final, smallest domed room, feeling like a giant. The sloping, glassy smooth walls of the kiln's looked like the great hall of a tiny kingdom, flickering in the candle light. He stacked the pots, from back to front, looking to him as if they were all waiting to be tested before a tribunal that would assess their merit. He also felt as if he was handling a sacred part of his brother's life, and through him the lineage of a long line of craftsman who had dedicated themselves to the clay. When he was finished, each of the three rooms was bristling with the fragile rows of pots, bowls, cups and dishes, he started to brick up the sides of each section, and as he did it looked like he was getting a last glimpse of a city of pottery that would be transformed the next time he looked upon it. Slabbing rough over the bricked entrances to ensure a tighter seal, he returned to the front of the kiln where the firebox extended like an awkward proboscis off the body of the dragon. His wood was set up like ammunition, in order of size. Worried about the effect of wet, immature wood on the firing process, he had created a special smoking pit on the other side of the peak that he fired every night in order to cure the wood as best he could. In the spirit of everything they had done, he had made do with what they had and improvised along the way. The morning would prove their efforts. Inside the firebox he built a small clump of dried grass and twigs, assembling them like a nest for the creature that lived and breathed fire, and lit them with the tip of his candle. When it began roaring, he started adding intermediate sticks and soon the box looked like a miniature inferno. He watched the fire fold in on itself, consuming its own life as it reached out for more fuel. It was hot enough to start accepting full size logs, and added them as the furnace reached a frenzy of self-immolation. Soon it was so hot the clay on the outside of the sealed entrances started to give off steam, creating a wavy disturbance in the air, radiant flutterings of the dragon's wings as it stirred to life once more. Hideaki took a break from loading and saw the tail end of the kiln was sending forth its dark smoke signals into the sky, as the flames and exhaust extended their reach through the belly of the beast. The dragon was breathing fire and relieving smoke. In the midst of the organic process of combustion, raw earth was being digested into pottery and the boy felt as if he was in control of an elemental furnace, manipulating the basic forces of the universe and becoming a creator in his own right. He stood and watched the dragon he had brought to life under the nearly full moon. Now he felt like a protective parent, kneeling back down to feed the firebox, to make sure the dragon continued to consume, combust and create. He stayed in close to the firebox, closer than he had to. He relished the feeling of the flames licking the pores of his face and chest. He felt the fire god was communicating its thoughts with him, manifest in each and every flame. And he fed the god, mesmerized by its tiny roar that surely sounded as the furnace of the sun itself, right here on the mountain side. So close was their communion, each time he picked up a stick of wood he felt the flames reaching out to it, through his mind, calling it to their dance of glory. His face was streaming in sweat, the front of his robe was soaked even as the chill of the night cooled his back. Now the entire body of the dragon was radiating steam, creating the same wavy effect that now looked as if it would lift the dragon into the sky. He fed another barrage of ammunition into the firebox, ensuring the temperature would peak high enough to vitrify the clay bodies, and then laid down to nap it, the way a child rests in the shadow of its mother's womb long after its release from the incubator that gave it life. The fire roared; the dragon was happy to be alive once more and pressed into service, voraciously feeding on the sustenance Hideaki provided. Hideaki was indeed sleepy, the fire had given him much but also drawn a great deal of energy out of him, so he curled in front of its roaring snout, reassuring himself he would awaken at intervals to keep the fire burning. As he dozed, he heard conversations coming from the mouth and the belly of the dragon, a dialogue between the fire and the pots, carried on the superheated air currents that created the everlasting bond between them. He heard the pots singing songs of praise and thanks, grateful to the flames for bringing them to life, in return the flames roared a chorus of glory, in fiery unison, 'We are the lifegivers, yield to our fury.' The pots rejoined, 'We are the elements, glad to be forged into life by your eminence.' On and on, the singing raged in a hundred variations as the sublime dance whirled itself around, sweeping up everything that was in its path, forever changing everything that dared to be subjugated by its power. The boy listened to this conversation in his dream, knowing in some other part of his mind this dramatic interplay between forces was a reenactment of all of creation. He rose at intervals to feed the inferno. Near dawn, as the last of the fire rose in defiance of the end of its brief reign, he woke again and rose from his curled position in front of the firebox. The early pre-dawn light suffused itself through the dew and the darkness that were battling to hold onto their nightly supremacy in the hills. He saw past the smooth curvature of the dragon's body, into the city of pots within the beast, drinking in the last waves of heat from the lifegiver, and suddenly he saw the old man standing among them. Not the old samurai, the old man of this mountain, but the old man that Shuji was once destined to become – had become in some future that had been erased – and Hideaki saw his spirit within the roiling waves of heated air still raging in the cavity of the beast. He was smiling at Hideaki. The broadest, most unrestrained smile the boy had ever seen. He was talking to Hideaki, though no words were ever heard. Hideaki was crying. In the act of saving his friend the old potter, he had ensured he would never see him again. The fire he had enjoined himself to had saved Shuji from that fate. The image of the old man faded from Hideaki's sight for the last time. Read Chapter 62 of The Potter's Notebook.
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