After a while, nothing felt real to me anymore. My mind had stopped working, and if my body was still dragging me along, it was only because it didn’t know any better. When I saw the faint glow of light in the distance, it scarcely registered with me. I staggered toward it, no more conscious of what I was doing than a moth is when it zeroes in on a candle. At most I took it for a dream, an illusion cast before me by the shadows of death, and even though I kept it in front of me the whole time, I sensed it would be gone before I got there.
I don’t remember crawling up the steps of the house or standing on the front porch, but I can still see my hand reaching out for the white porcelain doorknob, and I recall my surprise when I felt the knob turn and the latch clicked open. I stepped into the hallway, and everything was so bright in there, so intolerably radiant, that I was forced to shut my eyes. When I opened them again, a woman was standing in front of me—a beautiful woman with red hair. She was wearing a long white dress, and her blue eyes were looking at me with such wonder, such an expression of alarm, that I almost burst into tears. For a second or two, it crossed my mind that she was my mother, and then, when I remembered that my mother was dead, I realized that I must be dead myself and had just walked through the pearly gates.
“Look at you,” the woman said. “You poor boy. Just look at you.”
“Forgive the intrusion, ma’am,” I said. “My name is Walter Rawley, and I’m nine years old. I know this might sound strange, but I’d appreciate it if you told me where I am. I have a feeling this is heaven, and that don’t seem right to me. After all the rotten things I done, I always figured I’d wind up in hell.”
“Oh dear,” the woman said. “Just look at you. You’re half frozen to death. Come into the parlor and warm yourself by the fire.”
Before I could repeat my question, she took me by the hand and led me around the staircase to the front room. Just as she opened the door, I heard her say, “Darling, get this boy’s clothes off him and sit him by the fire. I’m going upstairs to fetch some blankets.”
So I crossed the threshold by myself, stepping into the warmth of the parlor as clumps of snow dropped off me and started melting at my feet. A man was sitting at a small table in the corner, drinking coffee from a delicate china cup. He was nattily dressed in a pearl-gray suit, and his hair was slicked back with no part, glistening with brilliantine in the yellow lamplight. I was about to say something to him when he looked up and smiled, and right then and there I knew that I was dead and had gone straight to hell. Of all the shocks I’ve suffered in my long career, none was greater than the electrocution I received that night.
“Now you know,” the master said. “Wherever you turn, that’s where I’m going to be. However far you run, I’ll always be waiting for you at the other end. Master Yehudi is everywhere, Walt, and it isn’t possible to escape him.”
“You goddamn son-of-a-bitch,” I said. “You double-crossing skunk. You shit-faced bag of garbage.”
“Watch your tongue, boy. This is Mrs. Witherspoon’s house, and she won’t countenance any swearing here. If you don’t want to get turned out into that storm, you’ll strip off those clothes and behave yourself.”
“Make me, you big Jew turd,” I spat back at him. “Just try and make me.”
But the master didn’t have to do anything. A second after I gave him that answer, I felt a flood of hot, salty tears gush down my cheeks. I took a deep breath, gathering as much air into my lungs as I could, and then I let loose with a howl, a scream of pure, unbridled wretchedness. By the time it was halfway out of me, my throat felt all hoarse and choked up, and my head began to spin. I stopped to take another breath, and then, before I knew what was happening, I blacked out and fell to the floor.
I was sick for a long time after that. My body had caught fire, and as the fever burned within me, it looked more and more as though my next mailing address was going to be a wooden box. I spent the first days in Mrs. Witherspoon’s house, languishing in the upstairs guest room, but I remember none of that. Nor do I remember being taken back home, nor anything else for that matter until several weeks had passed. According to what they told me, I would have been a goner if not for Mother Sue—or Mother Sioux, as I eventually came to think of her. She sat by my bed around the clock, changing compresses and pouring spoonfuls of liquid down my throat, and three times a day she would get up from her chair and do a dance around my bed, beating out a special rhythm on her Oglala drum as she chanted prayers to the Great Spirit, imploring him to look down on me with sympathy and make me well again. I don’t suppose it could have hurt the cause, for no professional doctor was ever called in to examine me, and considering that I did come round and make a full recovery, it’s possible that her magic was what did the trick.
No one ever gave a medical name to my illness. My own thought was that it had been brought on by the hours I’d spent in the storm, but the master dismissed that explanation as of no account. It was the Ache of Being, he said, and it was bound to strike me down sooner or later. The poisons had to be purged from my system before I could advance to the next plateau of my training, and what might have dragged on for another six or nine months (with countless skirmishes between us) had been cut short by our fortuitious encounter in Wichita. I had been jolted into submission, he said, crushed by the knowledge that I would never triumph against him, and that mental blow had been the spark that triggered off the illness. After that, the rancor was cleansed out of me, and when I woke from the nightmare of my near death, the hatred festering inside me had been transformed into love.
I don’t want to contradict the master’s opinion, but it seems to me that my turnaround was a good deal simpler than that. It might have started just after my fever went down, when I woke up and saw Mother Sioux sitting beside me with one of those rapturous, beatific smiles on her face. “Fancy that,” she said. “My little Walnut’s back in the land of the living.” There was such gladness in her voice, such an obvious concern for my well-being, that something inside me started to melt. “No sweat, Sister Ma,” I said, barely conscious of what I was saying. “I’ve just been snoozing is all.” I immediately shut my eyes and sank back into my torpor, but just as I was drifting off, I distinctly felt Mother Sioux’s lips brush against my cheek. It was the first kiss anyone had given me since my mother died, and it brought on such a warm and welcoming glow, I realized that I didn’t care where it had come from. If that chubby Indian squaw wanted to nuzzle with me like that, then by God let her, I wasn’t going to stand in her way.
That was the first step, I think, but there were other incidents as well, not the least of which occurred a few days later, at a moment when my fever had shot back up again. I awoke in the early afternoon to find the room empty. I was about to crawl out of bed to make a stab at using the chamber pot, but once I disentangled my ears from the pillow, I heard whispering outside my door. Master Yehudi and Aesop were standing in the hall, engaged in a hushed conversation, and though I couldn’t make out everything they said, I caught enough to determine the gist. Aesop was out there giving it to the master, standing up to the big man and telling him not to be so hard on me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. After all the trouble and unpleasantness I had caused him, I felt mortally ashamed of myself to know that Aesop was on my side. “You’ve crushed the soul out of him,” he whispered, “and now he’s in there lying on his deathbed. It’s not fair, master. I know he’s a hell-raiser and a scamp, but there’s more than just rebellion in his heart. I’ve felt it, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. And even if I’m wrong, he still wouldn’t deserve the kind of treatment you’ve given him. No one does.”
It felt extraordinary to have someone speak up for me like that, but even more extraordinary was that Aesop’s harangue did not fall on deaf ears. That very night, as I lay tossing and turning in the dark, Master Yehudi himself crept into my room, sat down on the sweat-soaked bed, and took hold of my hand in his. I kept my eyes shut and didn’t make a sound, pretending to be as
leep the whole time he was there. “Don’t die on me, Walt,” he said softly, as if speaking to himself. “You’re a tough little bugger, and the time hasn’t come for you to give up the ghost. We have great things in store for us, wondrous things you can’t even imagine. You might think I’m against you, but I’m not. It’s just that I know who you are, and I know you can handle the pressure. You’ve got the gift, son, and I’m going to take you farther than anyone has ever gone before. Do you hear me, Walt? I’m telling you not to die. I’m telling you I need you and that you mustn’t die on me yet.”
I heard him all right. He was coming through to me loud and clear, and tempted as I was to say something in response, I beat back the urge and held my tongue. A long silence followed. Master Yehudi sat there in the darkness stroking my hand, and after a while, if I’m not mistaken, if I didn’t doze off and dream what happened next, I heard, or at least I thought I heard, a series of broken-off sobs, an almost indiscernible rumbling that spilled out from the large man’s chest and pierced the quiet of the room—once, twice, a dozen times.
It would be an exaggeration to say that I abandoned my suspicions all at once, but there’s no question that my attitude started to change. I’d learned that escape was pointless, and now that I was stuck there whether I liked it or not, I decided to make the most of what I’d been given. Perhaps my brush with death had something to do with it, I don’t know, but once I climbed out of my sickbed and got back on my feet, the chip I’d been carrying around on my shoulder was no longer there. I was so glad to be well again, it no longer bothered me that I was living with the outcasts of the universe. They were a curious, unsavory lot, but in spite of my constant grumbling and bad behavior, each one of them had developed a certain affection for me, and I would have been a lout to ignore that. Perhaps it all boiled down to the fact that I was finally getting used to them. If you look into someone’s face long enough, eventually you’re going to feel that you’re looking at yourself.
All that said, I don’t mean to imply that my life became any easier. In the short run, it proved to be even rougher than before, and just because I’d throttled my resistance somewhat, that didn’t make me any less of a wisenheimer, any less of the pugnacious little punk I’d always been. Spring was upon us, and within a week of my recovery I was out in the fields plowing up the ground and planting seeds, breaking my back like some grubby, bird-brained hick. I abhorred manual labor, and given that I had no knack for it whatsoever, I looked upon those days as a penance, an unending trial of blisters, bloody fingers, and stubbed toes. But at least I wasn’t out there alone. The four of us worked together for approximately a month, suspending all other business as we hastened to get the crops in on time (corn, wheat, oats, alfalfa) and to prepare the soil for Mother Sioux’s vegetable garden, which would keep our stomachs full throughout the summer. The work was too hard for us to stand around and chat, but I had an audience for my complaints now, and whenever I let forth with one of my caustic asides, I always managed to get a laugh out of someone. That was the big difference between the days before and after I fell sick. My mouth never stopped working, but whereas previously my comments had been construed as vicious, ungrateful barbs, they were now looked upon as jokes, the rambunctious patter of a clever little clown.
Master Yehudi toiled like an ox, slogging away at his tasks as if he had been born to the land, and he never failed to accomplish more than the rest of us put together. Mother Sioux was steady, diligent, silent, advancing in a constant crouch as her vast rear end jutted up into the sky. She came from a race of hunters and warriors, and farming was as unnatural to her as it was to me. Inept as I might have been, however, Aesop was even worse, and it comforted me to know that he was not one bit more enthusiastic about wasting his time on that drudgery than I was. He wanted to be indoors reading his books, to be dreaming his dreams and hatching his ideas, and while he never openly confronted the master with his grievances, he was particularly responsive to my cracks, interrupting my jags of whimsy with spontaneous guffaws, and each time he laughed it was as if he were exhaling a loud amen, reassuring me that I’d hit the nail on the head. I had always thought of Aesop as a goody-goody, an inoffensive killjoy who never broke the rules, but after listening to his laughter out there in the fields, I began to form a new opinion of him. There was more spice in those crooked bones than I had imagined, and in spite of his earnestness and uppity ways, he was as much on the lookout for fun as any other fifteen-year-old. What I did was to provide him with some comic relief. My sharp tongue tickled him, my sass and pluck buoyed his spirits, and as time went on I understood that he was no longer a nuisance or a rival. He was a friend—the first real friend I’d ever had.
I don’t mean to wax sentimental, but this is my childhood I’m talking about, the quiltwork of my earliest memories, and with so few attachments to talk about from later years, my friendship with Aesop deserves to be noted. As much as Master Yehudi himself, he marked me in ways that altered who I was, that changed the course and substance of my life. I’m not just referring to my prejudices, the old witchcraft of never looking past the color of a person’s skin, but to the fact of friendship itself, to the bond that grew between us. Aesop became my comrade, my anchor in a sea of undifferentiated sky, and without him there to buck me up, I never would have found the courage to withstand the torments that engulfed me over the next twelve or fourteen months. The master had wept in the darkness of my sickroom, but once I was well again, he turned into a slave driver, subjecting me to agonies that no living soul should have to endure. When I look back on those days now, I’m astonished that I didn’t die, that I’m actually still here to talk about them.
Once the planting season was over and our food was in the ground, the real work began. It was just after my tenth birthday, a pretty morning at the end of May. The master pulled me aside after breakfast and whispered into my ear, “Brace yourself, kid. The fun is about to start.”
“You mean we ain’t been having fun?” I said. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that Four-H stuff was about the funnest whirl I’ve had since the last time I played Chinese checkers.”
“Working the land is one thing, a dull but necessary chore. But now we’re going to turn our thoughts to the sky.”
“You mean like them birds you told me about?”
“That’s it, Walt, just like the birds.”
“You’re telling me you’re still serious about that plan of yours?”
“Dead serious. We’re about to advance to the thirteenth stage. If you do what I tell you, you’ll be airborne a year from next Christmas.”
“Thirteenth stage? You mean I’ve already gone through twelve of them?”
“That’s right, twelve. And you’ve passed each one with flying colors.”
“Well, shave my tonsils. And I never had no inkling. You’ve been holding out on me, boss.”
“I only tell you what you need to know. The rest is for me to worry about.”
“Twelve stages, huh? And how many more to go?”
“There are thirty-three in all.”
“If I get through the next twelve as fast as the first ones, I’ll already be in the home stretch.”
“You won’t, I promise you. However much you think you’ve suffered so far, it’s nothing compared to what lies ahead.”
“The birds don’t suffer. They just spread their wings and take off. If I got the gift like you say, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be a breeze.”
“Because, my little pumpkin-head, you’re not a bird—you’re a man. In order to lift you off the ground, we have to crack the heavens in two. We have to turn the whole bloody universe inside out.”
Once again, I didn’t understand the tenth part of what the master was saying, but I nodded when he called me a man, feeling in that word a new tone of appreciation, an acknowledgment of the importance I had assumed in his eyes. He put his hand gently on my shoulder and led me out into the May morning. I felt nothing but trust for him at th
at moment, and though his face was set in a grim, inward-looking expression, it never crossed my mind that he would do anything to break that trust. That’s probably how Isaac felt when Abraham took him up that mountain in Genesis, chapter twenty-two. If a man tells you he’s your father, even if you know he’s not, you let down your guard and get all stupid inside. You don’t imagine that he’s been conspiring against you with God, the Lord of Hosts. A boy’s brain doesn’t work that fast; it’s not subtle enough to fathom such chicanery. All you know is that the big guy has placed his hand on your shoulder and given it a friendly squeeze. He tells you, Come with me, and so you turn yourself in that direction and follow him wherever he’s going.
We walked out past the barn to the tool shed, a rickety little structure with a sagging roof and walls made of weathered, unpainted planks. Master Yehudi opened the door and stood there in silence for a long moment, gazing at the dark tangle of metal objects inside. At last he reached in and pulled out a shovel, a rusty lug of a thing that must have weighed fifteen or twenty pounds. He put the shovel in my hands, and I felt proud to be carrying it for him once we started walking again. We passed along the edge of the near cornfield, and it was a splendid morning, I remember, filled with darting robins and bluebirds, and my skin was tingling with a strange sense of aliveness, the blessing of the sun’s warmth as it poured down upon me. By and by we came to a patch of untilled ground, a bare spot at the juncture of two fields, and the master turned to me and said, “This is where we’re going to put the hole. Do you want to do the digging, or would you rather leave it to me?”
I gave it my best shot, but my arms weren’t up to it. I was too small to wield a shovel of that heft, and when the master saw me struggling just to pierce the soil, let alone slide the blade in under it, he told me to sit down and rest, he would finish the job himself. For the next two hours I watched him transform that patch of earth into an immense cavity, a hole as broad and deep as a giant’s grave. He worked so fast that it seemed as if the earth was swallowing him up, and after a time he had burrowed down so low that I couldn’t see his head anymore. I could hear his grunts, the locomotive huff and puff that accompanied each turn of the spade, and then a volley of loose dirt would come soaring up over the surface, hang for a second in midair, and then drop to the pile that was growing around the hole. He kepi at it as if there were ten of him, an army of diggers bent on tunneling to Australia, and when he finally stopped and hoisted himself out of the pit, he was so smudged with filth and sweat that he looked like a man made of coal, a haggard vaudevillian about to die with his blackface on. I had never seen anyone pant so hard, had never witnessed a body so deprived of breath, and when he flung himself to the ground and didn’t stir for the next ten minutes, I felt certain that his heart was about to give out on him.