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.
Five
Hideaki knew today he was indeed in a different forest. The magpie lifted off as it arrived, with a heavy flap of purplish-black wings that sent another staccato clump of water to the forest floor. The other birds resumed singing. Hideaki pulled off the trail marker and continued climbing. He didn't know why the bird made him flare with anxiety, except that it had to be connected with the mystery that began unfolding last weekend. He and the rest of the staff were gathered for an innocuous company picnic. As the day wore on and more and more beer and sake were consumed, the discussion inevitably headed toward matters of Japanese culture. Like many middle-aged, educated Japanese, the laboratory head considered himself an expert in several areas. A small group listened to him dispute a porcelain discovery reputed to date from the 17th century. “. . . This is not only impossible from a technological standpoint, but the artistry and minds of the simple potters in the region would not have been able to even imagine such an innovation.” The reluctant audience murmured and nodded in agreement as Hideaki loitered on the way to the rest area. “This is clearly a hoax and not even a good one. The artifact is too fine, too perfect. Whoever thought of perpetrating such a ruse should have had the forethought to make it more coarse.” “What about the scroll painting that was found along with it?” One of the junior department heads offered a straw tiger for the man's ego to devour. “Even more evidence this is fraudulent!” The laboratory head was self-satisfied. “To create false history for such a claim – ingenious, bold – but ridiculous! A too-tidy fantasy.” Hideaki felt warm and uneasy, and not from the beer he had consumed. He was angering at the man's unchallenged pomposity. “So you do not thing the artifact is authentic?” Another junior head currying favor. “No. The anonymous potters of the era were too simple. They could fashion things of sublime beauty, but they were not creative artists.” Hideaki's upper chest tightened. “How do you know what they were like? You assume you know so much about their lives by looking at their pots you scavenge from other collectors.” Hideaki's voice rose as his discomfort cooled. All eyes were on him. “You dismiss them as if they were not people, with ideas and loves and hopes.” “I do not think this . . . ” the laboratory head had never heard words spoken against him like this before. “No. You do not think, you assume. You assume you know about people's inner lives because it fits your notion of what Japanese history is supposed to be like!” Hideaki was seething, though he didn't know why he was so riled. “You are an idiot! Ideas like this are what keep Japanese people docile!” Even though he knew he was lost, he continued: “Obedient to fools like you!” The crowd shrunk away from him and the laboratory head. He knew his job was lost, so he stood his ground against his superior, daring him to speak. There were no further words. Hideaki left the picnic feeling oddly triumphant. Now he was trekking in the mountains above his hometown, a place he had not visited for twenty-five years. Why had he argued like that? He had heard about the discovered artifacts, but it didn't concern him. He found conversations of that nature distasteful. He could not understand people wasting their lives chewing over the accomplishments of others. He was too busy with his work. His division was always at the forefront of new design, and besides his family, there was nothing else he loved more than immersing himself in the challenges of his field. Today he was immersed in the challenges of hiking to the peak. A strong breeze brushed against the layers of sweat. Looking ahead he saw he was nearing the saddle between the three peaks. More light poured into this area than the lower parts of the trail and he heard the playful shrieks of children ahead. * * * When the bell rang the next day, Hideaki was finishing a homework assignment. He didn't want to have to cut his visit with the old man because of schoolwork. Even though it was less interesting to him than a few days ago, now it was easy just to get down to it and do it. He had other things to look forward to. He got his things together without noticing that some of the boys were waiting for him. Just as he didn't notice earlier in the day several of them whispering and pointing back and forth between him to the chubby boy. He put his schoolbag across his back and headed for the gate, now seeing a group swirling ominously like dark grey rainclouds. When he got to the gate, the chubby boy was mixing in the midst of them, an errant thunderhead with the potential to make the others explode. Looking at his face, Hideaki knew he didn't like it that he hadn't run away from him yesterday. The chubby boy was desperate to regain his control. Hideaki's stomach fell. And then recovered. He had won. He was still afraid, was probably going to get beaten up, but he had won. He just had to do today what he did yesterday. He really wasn't sure what it was that he did. Not exactly, because he hadn't thought it out at the time. As he passed the gate the sounds and excitement peeling off the group drowned out his reflection. They were excited at his impending misfortune. He was puzzled by their glee. They were jumping up and down, laughing, like it was the greatest thing in the world. He ignored them, which took away some of their pleasure. Their enjoyment was directly related to his suffering before the event. The chubby boy wasn't easy to miss in the middle of all the hopping, shrieking, laughing boys. He positioned himself in the middle of the path. The rest were arrayed about him, waiting for the thunder to strike and the storm to begin. His assailant had stripped off his uniform jacket, revealing a Wacky Racers t-shirt that clung to ripples of muscular fat; he also wore a threatening look that Hideaki supposed was part of the punishment. Without looking to either side or trying to escape, Hideaki walked up to his adversary. This confused the chubby boy, but the screams of teeming spectators kept him focused. Hideaki accepted the backwards push but recovered and continued forward, his eyes on the hills beyond. He gripped his backpack straps with both hands to subdue his quaking fear that threatened to overwhelm him. The chubby boy got the confused look again; the boys' shrieking fell into a lull that propelled itself back into a melee. The chubby boy rushed Hideaki, half-punching, half-grabbing his face and using momentum to push them both to the ground. After the shock ebbed, he jabbed at Hideaki. The shrieks of the crowd reached a crescendo. In the midst of the attack, Hideaki was still puzzled by their behavior. He didn't try to protect himself, only to extricate and get up, which he did on the second attempt. Fear rippled through his body but his mind was clear. The chubby boy was winded and a half step behind Hideaki, who pushed his way through the crowd toward the mountains. He caught up to Hideaki and punched him in the middle of his backpack, pitching him forward. The chubby boy was incensed, some of the crowd was laughing at his incompetence at delivering the thrashing he had vividly described all day. Desperate to regain his preeminence, he rushed Hideaki, knocking him into the ring of spectators that still separated them from the mountains. Hideaki broke his fall onto the gravel path with his hands, now pierced with bits of stone, dirt and blood. The chubby boy had fallen too, cutting both his knees open. He whimpered as he got up, which was all the crowd needed. They jeered him. He impotently kicked at Hideaki, who was halfway off the ground and back on his way toward the mounting. The sound of the crowd turning against him was too much for the chubby boy. He started crying, chuffing, growing less effective with every kick, as the crowd began to howl. Hideaki was brushing himself off as he walked, ignoring the weaker and weaker blows from behind. The chubby boy was flailing his fat arms at several wiry and quick tormentors who took turns running in close, laughing at him and mocking him, before ducking back out before his desperate lunges could do any harm. Hideaki was alone. The crowd was busy feeding on new prey, buzzing and laughing with a dark, joyful energy that made him disconsolate. Not for the chubby boy, but for them. He inspected his hands – they weren't bleeding bad, just throbbing from a hundred points, like the gleeful sound of schoolyard malice behind him. When he passed it on the way to the old man's hut, the cave looked like like just another rocky crevice in the mountain. Yesterday it had some kind of magic. If he wasn't looking for it, he wouldn't have noticed it. The absence of the old man had left it deflated back to its normal status. He continued on, enjoying the solitude. But no, it wasn't solitude he enjoyed so much as the absence of pressure. Out here he could simply be himself, not continually tested, compared and measured against a hundred expectations. The last year had been hard on him. For some reason he seemed to fail at everything. It seemed before he began something, he had already lost. So he had stopped trying, lost interest in everything, doing barely enough to avoid a transfer from his exclusive school. When he was alone like this, though, away from the expectation and the ridicule, he felt he could be good at something, if he could just figure out he was supposed to focus on. He was sweating in his uniform now and stopped to take off his black tunic. As he opened his pack, a Manga fell out. He had even lost interest in these comic books lately, where all the stories are the same, the good guy always winning without explaining how he overcame the odds. They never showed how he does it, how the hero goes from social outcast to total winner in the span of a few drawings. If someone could show him how to do well again! Could show him what he was good at, and how to do it, then maybe he could find peace. He marched hopefully toward the old man's hut, thinking maybe he was the one who was going to help him. He heard a sound like falling branches. On close attention it was too methodical to be the sound of natural decay, so he veered off in the direction of the noise. It was more like chopping than falling. A quiet rustle, followed by a brisk chop hitting hard wood, then a pair of hollow thunks. Then a pause, then rustle, chop, thunk-thunk. He crowned a rise on the serpentine trail and saw the old man busy in a small clearing. From this distance, the old man did not look at all like a natural creature. He was so small from a hundred meters off, in the midst of tall, stately cedars where he was setting up, chopping and piling wood, that he looked like a stop-motion character from an old-fashioned horror movie. Any second a dragon or some other mythical creature would pop out of nowhere and the two would engage in horrible, inevitable combat. Hideaki smiled at the image as he approached. There was something else about him. Even when he was busy there was a spare quality to the way he moved. The sum total of his motion was far less than equal to the result he produced. "And if I were eaten by the dragon, you wouldn't get the answers you seek, would you?" Hideaki was just within earshot of the old man, who set up another log on the old stump he was using as a pedestal. "No, and that wood wouldn't get chopped either." “You will help me, so when the dragon comes, the wood will still get chopped.” The old man continued, with a short arm and shoulder motion that seemed to go through the wood before the ax head met the log. Hideaki blinked as the two log pieces hit the ground, followed by a matched pair of hollow thunks. The old man added the pieces to the pile and placed another half log on the pedestal. Then another abbreviated motion, followed by the thunk-thunk of the split pieces. "We have enough chat-chat already. Today, you work with me." He handed Hideaki a short-handled ax. The crude handle and odd shape of the head made it look like a museum piece. He started to make a wisecrack, but thought better of it. "Good, ridicule is for small hearts. Take up too much space, not enough room left for work. Work more important than empty remarks." The old man led him to a similar stump pedestal, setting up a small log. Hideaki stood there with the antique hatchet, feeling a little foolish. "No need to feel funny about something you don't know how to do. Watch. I show you, you learn. Then you do." The old man faced the log. "These logs already small. One chop make them smaller." He regaled Hideaki with a mischievous grin. "Most of the work is done by the heart and the eye." He turned to the log, paused, and before his simple motion was complete, the thunk-thunk signaled the arrival of the pieces on the ground. Hideaki was bewildered. The old man smiled again. "Easy. Look at the log, find the line that goes from top to bottom, then trace the line with the blade." He set up another log. All Hideaki heard was thunk-thunk. Demonstration time was over. Hideaki still held the hatchet as if it were an artifact and not a tool. The old man was back at his own pedestal. "Don't watch. Work." Hideaki placed a log on the pedestal. It fell over. Thunk-thunk the pieces fell on the old man's side of the pile. He propped up the log and managed to make it stand upright. He swung the hatchet. The log remained unperturbed. At least I don't have to make it stand up again. Thunk-thunk. "Don't feel sorry for yourself. Work." Hideaki looked from the heavy hatchet to the log. He didn't see a line, but he swung anyway. This time, he glanced the side of the log, sending the blade dangerously close to his leg. That was close. Thunk-thunk. "Don't worry. Work." Hideaki looked at the log again, this time seeing the lines and grain of the wood. Okay, he knew what the old man meant. He looked at the top of the log connecting the ridges to the lines that ran down the log. Ah, the ridge is the entrance to the line that leads to the bottom. Okay, he thought in a burst of understanding mixed with pride. Thunk-thunk. "Don't congratulate yourself before you begin. Work." Hideaki hefted his ax with authority, set his legs, saw the ridges, and swung. He nearly lost his balance but he had connected with the log! He lifted the hatchet, now heavy with the weight of the log on the end of it, smiled, and gleefully starting hammering the end of the log down onto the pedestal, trying to drive the head of the ax through the body of the log. He felt the old man's hand on his arm, halting his hysterical, unfocused banging. Hideaki was giggling at the exertion of trying to smash the log into pieces. He stopped when he saw the old man's face. "Remember how you felt earlier, when the other boys took pleasure in violence for the sake of violence? Attacking the log with gibbering delight is no different." The old man walked back to his station. "Focus on splitting the wood. There should be no emotion in it. Do your work." Hideaki brushed the hair out of his eyes and turned back to the log that the old man had replaced on the pedestal. He took a step back, drew in a breath, eyed the log, swung. And heard the two most satisfying sounds in a long time. Thunk-thunk. "Good. Work." Hideaki set up another log. He split it halfway down the middle. He removed the ax and tried again. He started a different line down the log, but didn't make it through. Thunk-thunk. "One more time. Three tries okay. See the line first. The work is done by the heart and eye." Thunk-thunk. They continued, side by side. Hideaki didn't split many logs, but he learned to split them, the right way, from the beginning. The next day, no crowd of boys waited for him at the gate. He walked into the woods unmolested, meeting the old man who always managed to stay busy and appear unhurried at the same time. Hideaki improved at the end of the second day, to where he could almost split two for every three by the old man. Thunk-thunk. "Why are you counting? Concentrate on work." Thunk-thunk. The pile of logs had grown into a long row. The old man never explained why they were splitting logs. While enjoying another vegetable stew around the smoldering fire, Hideaki asked. The old man continued to eat his stew the same way he did everything. A suffused motion that looked like sleight of hand, but was too authentic to be deceptive. He simply did everything naturally, the way animals exist without self-consciousness and perform the most complex tasks. "Very good. Took you almost two days to ask. Concentration improving. You go now." Hideaki hated nothing about his time
with the old man except when it ended. The moon was showing more of herself,
approaching the time when she was at her fullest and ready to decline. Before he
made his way around the narrow ledge, he looked back at the old man and then
back to the moon. Suddenly, he was filled with sadness. He felt his time with
the old man was coming to an end. He wasn't sure how he knew. But he was
certain there wouldn't be many more days like this. |