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

the small brush,

the even strokes: every line the same thickness.

When she finished, she gave me the brush.

“Take that and wash it for me, will you?

And take the bowl of slip back to the shop

and seal it with wax.

Tell the others it’s time for supper.

I traded a jar for duck eggs.

We’ll have duck eggs, olives, and new bread.”

She was always excited about food,

and while the rest of us ate,

she talked. Her words splashed over us

like water from the fountain:

women’s gossip, mostly:

how the chickens were laying

and who was getting married,

who might have seen a ghost.

I didn’t understand why Phaistus

never told her to shut up.

I didn’t understand why she seemed so happy.

Except that sometimes, she wasn’t.

Every now and then there’d come a day

when she’d be quiet. She’d stop mid-task

and place her hand on her belly,

a strained joy in her face.

Then, the next day

she’d be short-tempered

and she’d smell: a powerful odor

that I didn’t like

but one that reminded me of my mother;

of burying my face in her skirt.

I saw her once in the courtyard, weaving —

She dropped the shuttle,

lost her temper.

She snatched the loom as if it were a slave

and beat it against the house wall

cracking the frame;

the loom weights tangled and clanked —

it was as if some god

cursed her with madness.

I told Kranaos,

and he said: “Boy, you know nothing.

It’s one of her woman-times. She’s bleeding.

Don’t you know about that?

A woman’s body is a sickly thing. Not like a man’s.

Every month, they have to bleed,”

and he flicked away from his crotch

as if shooing a mosquito;

so I knew where women bled.

I hadn’t known before. How would I know?

With horses, it’s different.

A mare comes into heat,

but only once a year.

“Every month, they bleed,

unless there’s a baby on the way.

That’s what galls her. She wants a child,

and every month, until the blood comes,

she thinks there’ll be a child.

She’s a fool. She’s been married eight years.

And not so much as a miscarriage.

The master could divorce her.

She’s no good as a wife.”

I said, “She’s good to you,”

which surprised me.

It was almost as if I were taking up for her,

which I wouldn’t

because I didn’t like her.

After that, I could predict the pattern.

First the hoping

then tears

and the smell of blood. I saw

what she wanted from me.

She wanted a child,

and until she got one

she wanted to pretend I was hers.

I didn’t want a mother.

I’d had my own mother.

There was no one I’d loved more,

and there never will be,

but the last time I saw her

she cut me with a knife.

Is it any wonder

that I hardened my heart?

5. SOKRATES

Twice a week I dug clay. Phaistus showed me how.

He took me to the banks of the Kefissos River

and showed me scales and ridges in the earth.

He taught me to moisten the dirt,

roll a tiny snake, and wrap it round my thumb.

Clay needs to be sticky, but not too sticky;

grainy, but not brittle.

I filled Phoibe’s saddlebags with clay.

Sometimes it wasn’t good enough.

Kranaos said, “The boy knows nothing.”

Phaistus said, “He has to learn.”

That was my master.

That was Kranaos.

That was my life.

To tell you the truth,

I didn’t mind digging clay.

If I wanted to take a few minutes

to ride Phoibe by the river,

or draw a horse,

there was no one to tell on me.

It was getting to be spring;

the willows were leafing out;

the oak trees scabby with buds;

I was leading Phoibe back home,

her saddlebags full.

Then: a curve in the riverbank

a grove of willows

an old man sitting on a rock

barefoot

a loaf in his hand.

I knew him at once.

I called out “Sokrates!”

I can’t believe I yelled like that.

“Sokrates!”

He looked up. I saw in his face

the struggle to place me.

“Why, you’re Menon’s boy!”

“Not anymore. I live in Athens now.

I work for a potter, Phaistus.”

Sokrates nodded.

“I believe I know your master.

A good potter and a good painter.

But I don’t know your name.”

“It’s Rhaskos. That’s what my mother named me,

but the potter calls me Pyrrhos.

I remember the day when you drew that square

and asked me to double it. Remember?

You talked about how my soul had knowledge.

I’ve thought about that a lot. I like thinking about it.”

I sounded like a little boy

asking another boy to play with him.

“Then you have a taste for philosophy?

Strong meat for a young mind!”

He was grinning,

that grin I remembered that had no sneer in it.

“Children are like puppy dogs. They’ll rip an idea to shreds

just to work their teeth!

But it’s not always a bad thing,

to let puppies teethe —

I gave you a taste of meat and you liked it, didn’t you?”

“I did. I did!

I haven’t forgotten what you said —

I mean, what I understood.

I didn’t understand the whole thing.

But everyone says you’re the wisest man in Athens — ”

Sokrates wagged his hand to shut me up.

“Then everyone is wrong.

They think they’re quoting the Oracle at Delphi,

but what the priestess said

is that there was no man in Athens wiser than I am.

That’s not the same thing.

The priestess might have meant

that Athens is the home

of other men just as foolish —

or, the gods forbid, more foolish, than I am.

In which case Athens is in peril, don’t you think?”

I laughed out loud.

“Or perhaps the priestess meant to praise me

for knowing I know nothing.

I’m wise enough to know that I’m not wise.

Even small things confuse me.

One and one making two, for example!

Isn’t that a strange thing, Rhaskos?

Which of the ones turns into a two?”

I thought he was teasing me, but

there was a funny knot in my mind, because

when I thought about it,

I didn’t know which one turned into a two.

I didn’t want him to think I was stupid.

“I never thought about that, Sokrates.

I think they both turn into two.

I mean, there have to be two ones,

or there can’t be a two.

Isn’t that the point about numbers?

You can’t make two out of one.”

“Can’t you?”

He broke his loaf in half

and held out half to me.

“Join me on the riverbank, Rhaskos!

I believe you want to be friends,

and that’s fine with me.

I tell myself I am a man who desires little,

but I’m greedy for friendship.

I’d rather have a new friend than a new horse. Eat!

When I was your age, I was always hungry.”

I sat down. I felt giddy.

The wisest