I Am the Clay Read Free Page A

his hands and face the pulsing heat of the flames and on the back of his head the glacial air of the night. Beneath him the riverbank had softened in the heat and was oozing mud. He watched as the woman prepared their portions of rice. She squatted near the shack, cooking on the small fire she had made of wood heaped upon three stones. There would be three portions. One for the boy.
    Earlier she had bartered a handful of rice for a place in a shack put up by two starving old men from the city. She had spread their pads and quilts and then had left the old man behind to guard their belongings and had taken the boy in her arms across the frozen river. The old man had squatted near the fire outside the shack, and waited.
    She was gone a long time. He grew wild with hunger and began to rage within himself. Does she still not know after all these years who comes first?
First
the husband,
then
the stranger. No children from her, no loyalty from her. A curse of a woman.
    Years of bitterness woke within him, working like slow poison.
    Still she did not return.
    After many hours the anger yielded to anxiety and fear. He could not imagine a life without her. Who would prepare food and wash clothes and work with him in the fields? Alone in old age. The curse of evil spirits.
    He squatted near the burning oil drum, scanning the dark-red body of the river, and finally he saw her emerge from the shadows with the boy in her arms. His heart leaped and trembled with joy, but he said nothing.
    Hours before, she had carried the boy across the frozen river, light, light as a flying squirrel. Icy air in her eyes. The boy’s face beneath the shielding quilt. Will the dragon consume this one too? A double feast for his scaly belly. How he burns with fever! Another death in my arms. Where will we bury him? The first lies on the hill. His milk-name of no help: Long Life. The spirits took him to their world, leaving behind the clay of his body. But this one not yet dead. Dragon, be the dragon of courage in this one. Be the dragon that befits the jacket he wears, not the dragon of fire and death. Grandfather would fish the rivers with his net and rod, long-stemmed pipe in his mouth, straw basket on his shoulder. Why do they not fish this river? Frozen too far down? Or the river deadwith poison from the war? Grandfather in the forest gathering pine brushwood for fire. No brushwood here. We will die on this riverbank. The boy will surely die. If I had a breast to give him. I am an old woman and still the spirits play with me. One son, one death. A strange boy, another death. Fire in my arms, ice beneath my feet. Play with me, pitiless spirits. An old woman. Shame, shame, you evil spirits, where is your shame? And where is the—ah, there, the shore, the riverbank. And the tent of help, where? The place of doctors and hospital medicine for our soldiers. The breathing stopped? No. Does such a fever not leave an incurable hurt? Shacks here more than on the other side. Is no one left in the villages? Our soldiers, where? The tent of doctors, where? Ah, the cross of red. What does the soldier say? No? Does he say no? Am I a cow, then, that he says no to me? Is the boy a dog? No? And the other? From the other also no? He points the weapon at me. They are here only for the soldiers? No and no? But see the boy! See the wound. He will die. Remove the fragment, seal the wound. A child. Surely. See.
Then I remove it!
Let him die here! The blood. Weak old fingers. Ah. Now. Here. See. Another death. I am a woman made for the dying of children. An earlier death punishes me. A grave wrongly placed? An ancestor poorly worshipped? But who? A long time inside the tent. They have forgotten me. Why do you still play with me, you vile and vicious spirits? I am an old woman who has been played with enough for two lifetimes. Am I outside your realm of mercy? What? What? What does he say? He shouts. Angry! The boy. They give him back to me. New bandage. Bleeding?No. His fire