The Potter's Boy Read online

  “But so is a hero,” Ryo said quickly. “And I should like to be a hero, like you.”

  “Listen,” said the Stranger decisively. “You cannot come with me. Do not even think to try. You know my skill. I can easily outwit you. I can make myself disappear into the undergrowth so you can never find me. I shall go on. And you shall go back to your village. And you will probably never see me again.”

  “But I shall never forget you,” said Ryo certainly. “And when I am older I shall find a way to learn to be like you. Somewhere there must be someone who can teach me such things as you know. I will find them and learn. One day I will be like you.”

  “Well,” said the man. And a sigh entered his voice, a sense of surrender. As if, perhaps, he had heard the note of true earnestness in this young lad. “All right. If you are determined, listen and remember. I will say it once. Give it a year. Until you are beyond thirteen. Then, if your parents permit, pack yourself a traveling bundle with clothes and food. And go to Cold Mountain. Look for the Hermit. If you find him, tell him what you want, if you still want it. If you can’t find him, return home and learn to be a potter, for that would probably be the better way for you. But you will do what you will do. That is for you to decide.

  “Now let me go. I have a journey to make and a promise to keep. I must be on my way. Go back to the village before your people start to worry about you. They have had a shock. You should be with them. Go and be with your family. Go now.”

  The man’s words were so clear, so firm, and his manner was so certain, that Ryo knew he had to obey. As the man turned, they glanced at one another and Ryo felt as if something special passed between them, as if their lives were somehow now linked. It was a strange feeling, an intuition. There was no proof to be had. But Ryo felt that today his life had changed, had turned a corner. It was as if things would never be the same again for him. Was this what they called “growing up”? Or was it something else? Something less usual? Something distinct? He couldn’t know. But it was a different Ryo who turned back to his village from the eager young boy who had run out in pursuit of the Stranger. He had run out desperately, swiftly. His return was slow and thoughtful. When he got home, his people were relieved to see him safe. But they saw no difference in him.

  As time passed, Ryo’s parents did, however, note a difference in his behavior, in his demeanor. His mother found him less childish, slower and more thoughtful. Moody at times. His father found he seemed distracted, less eager to learn the ways of the clay and the kiln. And often daydreaming when he should have been attending to the tasks at hand in the pottery.

  “I am a little worried about Ryo,” said Emi to her husband. “He seems sad, dreamy, not himself. It’s since the brigands came to the village that day. Perhaps the fright has unbalanced him. Perhaps he is haunted by fear now. This can happen to people after a bad scare.”

  “He is growing,” said Takumi. “When young boys grow into men, it takes time. Their bodies change, their minds change. There is much happening to them. Sometimes it drives them inward. They can be moody. Let him be. Things will improve as time passes. Time will do the job that we cannot do by interfering.”

  Emi nodded. “Yes, in a few years our little Hana will grow into a woman. And that too will bring changes and not be easy. Good parents take things one day at a time. We must be patient and steady.”

  But one day Ryo lost his temper in the workshop. A pot he was drawing up between finger and thumb, while working the wheel with his foot, went askew. He snatched it up and hurled it out of the open doorway in his rage. “Oh, bloody, bloody, bloody pots and clay,” he yelled and stamped. “Oh, bloody damn them all …”

  His father was across the workshop and upon him in a trice. He grabbed Ryo’s wrist with one hand to stop him doing further damage and placed his other hand firmly on Ryo’s shoulder. He looked down intensely into Ryo’s eyes as if searching for an explanation.

  “What’s this?” he demanded. “What is this all about? Have you taken leave of your senses? This is our workplace. This is our livelihood. You do not take your anger out on what brings us our living. What are you thinking of?”

  “It’s just, it’s just …” muttered Ryo helplessly. But his words dried up on him, and his anger blocked him from expressing himself. So he fell silent and looked at the floor, feeling his cheeks grow hot and his eyes blur with tears he did not wish to allow to fall.

  “Go and sit by the stream, in the quiet place,” said his father in a calmer voice. “Go and collect yourself. When you have gathered your thoughts and your feelings we will talk. Maybe then you can tell me what the matter is.”

  The stream that ran through the village passed below the potter’s hut where a small tree grew, giving shade. There was a large, flat stone there where Ryo’s father, Takumi, often went to sit quietly to watch the waters as they passed. He had taught Ryo as a little child how soothing it could be to do just that. To sit and gaze at the swirling, twirling waters as they flowed by in their silvery way, making patterns that formed and dissolved as you watched. If you watched long enough, sometimes the same patterns would re-form before disappearing once again. Once or twice, when he was still quite young, he had heard his father murmuring to himself. What was he saying? “It is like time, like life …” Or something like that. Ryo had never understood what that meant, but he often remembered the words when he found himself near the rock and the water.

  Now Ryo was here again. This time angry, trembling, frustrated, and ashamed. No longer a child, but not yet a man. In between. And feeling vexed and strange. He was tired of the pots, the clay, this quiet village where little happened. The brigands coming had been frightening, it was true. But at least it had been an event. At least it had shaken up the dull, old place a bit. And it had introduced him to the thrill and excitement of seeing the Stranger in action, weaving rings of invisible confusion around the clumsy brigands with their awkward weapons. Ah, yes, the Stranger. He was never far from Ryo’s imagination. Ryo even dreamed of him at times. In his dreams the two of them would be dealing with a whole band of brigands, ducking, dodging, disarming, and confusing the slow, baffled, heavy men weighed down with their armor and weaponry. The two of them would perform their brave dance together, and the dream would end with their both flying through the air onto a rooftop to laugh at their defeated opponents.

  But that was a dream. Whereas this was real life. And now he had upset his father by behaving badly. He was ashamed. He knew this was not the way to do things. But he had been battling with himself, bottling up his feelings because he knew he might not be able to have his way. The Stranger had tried to dissuade him. And he feared his father would do the same. But he did not want to hear his father’s words on the matter, because while he thought his father would oppose and prevent him, he knew he would be unable to give up the fantasy of going off to become one of the Hidden Ones.

  He would have to talk to his father now. For he had shown his rage and behaved badly, so he would have to account for himself somehow. Better to tell the truth, thought Ryo. To pretend or conceal would just make things more difficult for him as time passed. Now that he had let his feelings burst out, it would be better to speak from his heart, to tell things as they truly were for him. At least he would then find out where he stood.

  I want to be like the Stranger,” said Ryo. “I want to learn to be one of the Hidden Ones …” He could hardly believe it. As the words came out of his mouth, it was as if someone else were speaking and he were simply hearing the words form in the air. Was he actually saying this to his father? Was this another of his dreams? No, this was reality, sure enough. His father had sat down quietly with him, just the two of them, under the tree by the stream. And Takumi had not been aggressive or punitive in any way. True, Ryo had behaved badly and broken one of the basic rules of the workshop, never to move or act in any way likely to cause damage to the delicate or fragile things being made there. But Ryo’s outburst had been so extreme and out of character that
this was clearly an unusual situation, a situation beyond the normal rules. And therefore a situation in which standard discipline should not apply.

  He expected his father to stop him there. He expected him to interrupt, to tell him that this was some crazy notion or childish dream. He paused, waiting to hear his father tell him about the pleasures and virtues of pottery, of ceramic work, of all the skills and joys to be worked for and won in that fine and honorable trade. But he did not. He just nodded thoughtfully.

  “Go on,” he said. “Tell me more.”

  So Ryo told him about what he had felt when he had seen the Stranger move into action before the brigands. He told his father how transfixed he had been by the grace, by the beauty, of the Stranger’s movements. How it had seemed more like dancing than like fighting. How, yes, this was odd, since the brigands were men of violence who were heavily armed and meant him real harm. And yet how he had somehow seemed above all that, so much so that he had not troubled to punish them in any way but had left fear and warning to do their work if they would. But what Ryo wanted to get across to his father was the intense excitement he had felt in seeing what the Stranger could actually do with his body, with his movements, with his timing and skill. He, Ryo, felt that if he started now, when young, he might one day be able to command such skill himself, if only he could find someone to teach him.

  “But,” said Ryo despondently to Takumi, “there is surely no one in the village, nor near it, who could teach me such things. And the Stranger has moved on. It is unlikely he will ever return here. And I am a potter’s son. And it is my destiny to become a potter as you are in due course. Yet I feel somehow cut out to be like the Stranger, not to be a potter as my father is …”

  As his voice trailed away, he gazed down into the swirling waters, and there was a short period of silence as both he and his father looked thoughtfully into the moving stream. Then, slowly, ruminatively, as if searching among the ripples for the right thing, for the truest way, Takumi began to speak. He was speaking to Ryo, but it was also as if he was talking to the waters below them, to the air around them, and to himself too. It was almost, the odd thought occurred to Ryo, as if Takumi was trying to let the truth speak through him, rather than giving his personal opinion.

  “My father was not a potter,” said Takumi. “So, you see, I too chose a different way for myself when I was young. My father was a farmer, as you know. Quite a rich farmer, with land, and with other people working for him. And he expected me to take on the farm from him as he grew older, to take his place when he died. But in my village then, there was a potter, a very fine potter, and as a child I used to watch him at work, and I came to learn the ways of the clay simply by observing him with fascination. He even began to let me play with the clay after a while, and eventually to show me how to shape it with my fingers. I began to dream of being a potter like him one day. The desire in me began to grow to make my own pots and ceramics until that was all I really wanted. The thought of being a farmer filled me with a kind of dull dread and gave me a heavy heart. But I was fortunate. My father was a wise and thoughtful man, a fair man. So, when it was time, he let me have my way. When my sister married, he passed the farm on to her and her husband, leaving me free to take up an apprenticeship with the potter.”

  Takumi paused from his tale, bringing himself back from his past to this present, beside the stream, beneath the tree, sitting on the flat stone with his own son, looking at the turning, twisting waters as they flowed by.

  “So you see, I am honor bound to be with you as he was with me. To listen to the voice of your heart and to respect it if it is truly sincere. And it seems so to me. As you talk about the effect of the Stranger upon your heart and mind, you remind me of the effect the potter had on me, all those years ago, when my own future lay ahead of me like a path untrodden, as yours does for you now.”

  Ryo almost held his breath. He could not quite believe what he was hearing. His father went on.

  “If you truly, deeply feel that what you think you wish is the right way for you, then you must do it. There may be some uncertainty in you. You cannot be sure that you will be great at what you attempt, or even successful. But there comes a point where the best thing is simply to try yourself out, to put yourself as far toward what you intend as you can and to allow fate, chance, or fortune to do the rest. That is the best that any of us can do.”

  Seizing his chance, Ryo cut in. “The Stranger did leave me with a suggestion. He said that when I had passed thirteen—and I am about to do that very soon—I should pack a traveling bundle and go to Cold Mountain to seek the Hermit. That is all he said. But he gave me the name of a place to go and a person to look for. That is a start. Would you allow me to do that? Would you give a father’s permission?”

  “Your mother will find this difficult,” said Takumi. “I shall not find it easy myself, seeing you go off to seek a life of your own, away from the family. And of course your sister will miss you. She looks up to you as her older brother, and I know she admires you. So your leaving will create a hole in the family. We will feel your absence sharply. But we cannot allow that to hold you back from finding your true future. To make you stay with us would just create unhappiness, first for you, and in turn for all of us. So, yes. I grant you a father’s permission to go and choose your own way for the future. Do as you must.”

  They sounded formal, those last words of his father’s. But then they were a formality, of course. To make it bind, Takumi had to state it formally, matter-of-factly. It was, after all, a tradition, the way it had to be done. Back then, in the village, the old ways still held. Now things are different, of course. But back then, things had to be done a certain way. And everyone knew what that way was. There was good and bad to it. But things change. Which brings gains and losses. New ground is found, old ground is lost. It is nearly always so. Sometimes we miss the best of the old ways. Sometimes we are glad of the improvements of the new ways. But time passes and things change. And there is no going back.

  So now it was done. Ryo was to go. And he wanted to. As the time approached he felt misgivings. Uneasiness sometimes clawed at the pit of his stomach. Sometimes his heart stirred with sadness at the thought of leaving his family behind. And he even began to find a certain comfort in the dullness of the old village, and a strong fondness for the place in which he had grown up. But none of that persuaded him to change his mind. He must go to Cold Mountain to seek the Hermit.

  When the day came, it was a quiet departure. Ryo’s bundle was packed and he had a staff to protect himself with, in case of difficulty or danger. His father had asked around the village for directions toward Cold Mountain. One of the old men of the village turned out once to have been there, to help carry some goods to a settlement that lay near its foot. So Ryo now had verbal directions, which should prove enough. A mountain should not be easy to miss, even in an area where there were many.

  Ryo’s mother held him tightly for a moment. Then she kissed his forehead. Ryo in turn kissed Hana’s forehead. And then his father hugged him before looking into his face.

  “Take care,” he said. “And do your best.” He paused. “You are always welcome here. This is your family home. Come and visit us when you get the chance. We will always be glad to see you.”

  They watched his figure walking away down the road and out of the village. Many of the villagers had heard of his departure and stood in the doorways or under their awnings to see him go and to wish him well in the traditional way. Each one murmured the words “Be well and be safe” as they raised a hand in farewell. And soon he was gone from the village and out of sight.

  The journey took him three days of steady walking. For the two nights that he was on the road, he found warm, safe places to wrap himself in his blanket. Screened from view by foliage, he slept well enough, falling asleep with the thickening dusk and waking at first light so as to use maximum daylight for walking. He passed through three villages on his way, one on each day of his journey. He
paused to ask directions, making sure his way was true, and in one of the villages accepted hospitality in the form of tea and hot rice.

  As he sipped the welcome hot tea from the tea bowl, his host asked him where he was bound.

  “I’m headed for Cold Mountain, sir,” he replied simply.

  “Cold Mountain?” said his host with a note of inquiry in his voice, and a slight hint of astonishment. “Why should you wish to go there?”

  “I am going to meet the Hermit,” said Ryo.

  “The Hermit?!” exclaimed his host, unable to conceal his surprise.

  “Yes,” said Ryo. “Do you know him?”

  “Know him?” repeated his host with amusement at what was clearly a fanciful idea. “Well, of course I have heard of him. But no one I know has ever met him, nor even seen him. I rather thought he was more of a legend than a person.”

  “No, I think he is really there. I think he exists,” said Ryo. “I was told to seek him out. So I am now on my way to find him.”

  “Well,” said his host. “If you find him, let me know, should you be passing this way. And good luck to you. If you fail in your search, do call on me on your way back. You are welcome to rest here on your journey again. A boy with a purpose should be encouraged. Your determination is admirable.”

  After a rest and some conversation in which Ryo told his host of his family and his village, he set off, secure in the sense he was headed for Cold Mountain and should be there by the end of the day. He had not told his host of his exact purpose, for he was somehow shy to talk of such a thing. It might sound presumptuous, overambitious, or even overly idealistic. Certainly to another person. But Ryo was not another person. He was himself. And he felt determined to test this ambition he found in himself. It would not go away and he sensed that if he did not deal with it practically, through action, then it would continue to cause him trouble and brew unhappiness in him.