Free I Am the Clay by Chaim Potok Page B

generation upon generation to the time of the Chosen dynasty and perhaps earlier. Grandfather told me. How do they come like a raging river, like a swarm of locusts, like an army of madmen, and kill us and burn us so that not one not one not one remains and if I had not earlier disobeyed my mother, if I had not gone to the pond to watch the fish gliding in their winter sleep beneath the ice, if I had not gone with my dog Badooki whom I sometimes tease with the name Three Four to the pond near the forest outside the village, I would have earth in my mouth and be in that shallow grave because they killed all the children too the friends of my age and even younger and spared only the babies they left the babies crying on the ground amid the flames. How he trembled as hespoke! His fingers scraping at the sores on his face and I took hold of his hands to restrain him because he was making the sores bleed and he cried and then was still and I heard strange sounds inside the cave which I tried desperately to ignore. The spirits stirring in their sleep? I thought the boy had fallen asleep but after a moment he said, Don’t I know how the man feels about me? What have I done that he should hate me even before I have spoken a word? I know he will send me away or give me over to an orphanage. And he cried and I said, Calm yourself, calm yourself, you know nothing of this yet, it has not happened therefore how can you know it, the man is not the only one here with you, there is a woman here too, who cared for you when you were with the piece of metal in your flesh and helped to heal you and will not so quickly let you be abandoned or given over to strangers, calm yourself or you will again be ill. He grew silent and I said after a long moment, If you wish, only if you wish, you may call me Mother. And he said, No, with respect, you are not my mother, how may I call you Amuni?

    The boy woke and remembered his name and where he was. Raising his head and looking about, he felt immediately the pulsing in his chest and chose to disregard it. The wound has healed. How can what has healed become not healed?
    He then realized that the woman was not beside him and, feeling a flutter of alarm, rose from the quilts.
    The cave was bright with sunlight reflected off the snow. On the cart lay the old man, asleep, his face reddish brown from the fever, his lips and eyelids quivering. The boy saw the black craggy walls of the cave and the opening at the far end and the small furry winged creatures clinging to the ceiling and the walls. He shivered at the sight of them and hurried from the cave.
    Where was the woman?
    Snow covered the valley and the mountains; a hushed landscape of gleaming white beneath a morning sun in a brilliant blue sky. The valley, about half a mile in width, ran in length for about three miles until it reached the far range of mountains. With a shock the boy noticed the tracks less than thirty feet from the mouth of the cave. Then he saw other tracks. A dog has been here too. Where is the old woman?
    Nearby sounds startled him and he jumped back into the cave and poked his head out cautiously and saw the woman emerge from behind a clump of tall brush, the A-frame on her back half laden with brushwood. He rushed forward to help her and felt again the odd throbbing of the healed wound in his chest.
    They piled the brushwood near the firepit she had dug the night before outside the mouth of the cave. He asked, “Who made the tracks in the snow?”
    “Soldiers. Can’t you see? Those are tracks made not by rubber shoes but by boots.”
    “And a dog was here too.”
    “Do not let wild dogs come near you.”
    “What are those things on the walls inside the cave?”
    “You must not go near them. They are the spirits of the cave.”
    The boy shivered. After a moment he asked, “Will the man live or die?”
    She said impassively, “He will die.”
    The boy glanced at the cart and then lowered his eyes.
    “There is a small stream