Amber and Clay by Laura Schlitz (easy books to read TXT) 📗

with water

and roll up the clay

to hide what you did.

If you keep that clay moist and supple

and hidden,

a single lump

will hold all the horses you want to draw.

3. PHAISTUS

He could have been worse.

Weeks passed. The swollen moon shrank

and fattened. In all those days,

he never beat me. He threatened to beat me.

He cuffed me:

smacked my arm

or swatted my shoulder, barking, “Wake up!”

“I’m talking to you!”

“Look sharp, Pyrrhos!”

but he never struck hard enough

to leave a mark. He never picked up a stick or a strap,

never aimed at my head

or kicked my feet out from under me.

I kept waiting to find out

what his beatings were like

so I’d know how my life was going to be.

He worked me, dawn to dark.

He kept me sweaty and aching. To make pots is to work hard.

I hauled water. Broke up the dry clay

pounded it

submerged it in water

sieved out pebbles and roots and dead bugs. I wedged clay

until the skin around my fingernails

was cracked and bleeding.

He didn’t starve me, though. When we ate —

Phaistus and Kranaos and Zosima and me —

Phaistus sat on the couch, because he was the master,

but we all ate the same.

Phaistus explained, “We all work. We all get a square meal.”

If it was all right with him,

it was all right with me.

I didn’t say so.

Phaistus didn’t like my mouth.

Just knowing that

made me think of smart-ass things to say.

I kept them inside. I didn’t want to push my luck.

Then I discovered

if I kept my mouth shut

he didn’t like that, either.

I tried saying as little as possible:

Yes, master. No, master.

His eyes would narrow

and he’d glare, suspicious.

It was perfect. I was safe

and getting on his nerves

at the same time.

Every slave knows his master.

Phaistus was thin-skinned —

that’s why he needed all that respect.

When he waited on customers,

he was slavish,

busy and brisk as a flea.

“You’ve chosen well, sir. You’ve an eye for quality.

I never painted a better cup

than the one you chose.”

Then he’d shout for me to bring burlap and straw

to protect the cup. “Look sharp, Pyrrhos!”

Showing he was master, throwing his weight around.

Against my will, I did respect him. Not all the time;

but when he took a brush

to an unbaked pot

he could draw

anything.

Sometimes he drew the background first: a swarthy sky

that fit around red horses

and red heroes. By painting the sky

he shaped

warriors that really fought,

cranes that really flew,

maenads in a frenzy. And when he threw a pot —

I was supposed to spin the wheel —

the clay changed from rank mud

to something alive. It stretched and spun upward

quivering; he hollowed it with his thumbs

reached inside it

made its belly curve

pinched up the rim

and raised a tower

whirling

swaying

glistening

Then: “Not like that!”

He’d start yelling

because I hadn’t spun the wheel right —

I hadn’t been fast enough

or I’d spun it crooked —

and he called me an idiot

a stupid donkey. He smacked the ruined pot

and thumped his feet against the ground

having a tantrum.

He swore I’d never learn.

“He can’t learn.”

That was Zosima, standing in the doorway.

“He’s never seen anyone throw a pot before,

and he can’t take his eyes off the clay.

That’s what’s the matter with him.”

She came forward

and put her hand on my shoulder —

I’d rather Phaistus cuffed me.

“Get up, Pyrrhos.

I’ll show you how it’s done. First watch Phaistus.

Then watch me spin the wheel.”

I got up, my knees aching;

Phaistus grunted, and she took my place,

kneeling at his feet. He cupped his hand,

scooped up water from a bucket,

wet the clay. “Now!”

She spun the wheel

perfectly. She seemed to know exactly what he wanted,

the speed, the steadiness. His fingers opened up

and the clay became

a breathing

swelling

changeable

animal.

I watched. She was skillful with the wheel,

but I didn’t care about that.

I wanted to do what he did.

I wanted to make magic

and spin the clay to life.

4. ZOSIMA

I didn’t trust her.

Right from the start I knew

there was something she wanted from me.

She watched me too closely. She smiled too much.

She’d named me. Like a dog. Pyrrhos. She fed me

as if I were a dog. Slipped me tidbits:

a handful of sticky figs

a crust dipped in honey.

“A growing boy is always hungry,” she’d say.

What did I know about women? Not much.

Georgios used to say that Woman was an evil thing:

a meal-snatcher, a troublemaker,

changeable as the sea.

I didn’t know what the mistress wanted,

but I made up my mind,

I wasn’t going to give it to her.

I wasn’t going to be anyone’s

dog-slave.

Zosima was the first up, before dawn.

I could hear her sandals — she wore them loose —

smacking the soles of her feet:

slap-flap

slap-flap

slap-flap

Her feet were quick and grubby

and looked too small to carry her.

I’d hear her in the courtyard. She’d go out in the dark

to fetch water. She said it was her chance

to see the other women

and the first streaks of dawn in the sky.

She went out by daylight, too,

to bargain for food in the market. She was sunburned,

the mark of a bad woman

or a poor man’s wife.

She bartered with the neighbors:

a platter for a jug of wine

clay beads for dye

wool for dried apples.

At supper she’d boast to her husband

how much money she saved.

I pitied Phaistus. Here was this woman

who squinted when she smiled

and talked too much

and wouldn’t stay in the house.

At least she was a worker.

Her sandals flap-slapped through the house all day.

She kept the fire on the hearth

and made bread and broth and porridge.

She dug the garden

and tended the chickens

and tamed the raw wool over her thigh

and wove thread into cloth.

One day I came inside the house

and saw her sitting,

with a water jar in her lap. It hadn’t been fired,

but it had dried leather-hard,

and she was painting it. She had a tiny brush in one hand,

and she was painting a pattern like this:

She lifted her head and smiled her lopsided smile.

“My father was a potter.

He owned the shop before Phaistus,

and taught me to paint.

I painted borders when I was younger than you.

It’s not as easy as it looks — ”

I took a step nearer. It didn’t look that easy.

“ — because you’re always painting on a curve.

Phaistus paints the stories, the figures,

but I’m better at borders. Even he admits it.

I like keeping my hand in.

He’ll teach you one of these days.”

It was hypnotic: