Oh!" and she pushed him away, hard. His head banged against the wall.
"Little idiot!" she shouted; and then, suddenly, she began to slap him.
Slap, slap ...
"Linda," he cried out.
"Oh, mother, don't!"
"I'm not your mother.
I won't be your mother."
"But, Linda ... Oh!" She slapped him on the cheek.
"Turned into a savage," she shouted.
"Having young ones like an animal ... If it hadn't been for you, I might have gone to the Inspector, I might have got away.
But not with a baby.
That would have been too shameful."
He saw that she was going to hit him again, and lifted his arm to guard his face.
"Oh, don't, Linda, please don't."
"Little beast!"
She pulled down his arm; his face was uncovered.
"Don't, Linda."
He shut his eyes, expecting the blow.
But she didn't hit him.
After a little time, he opened his eyes again and saw that she was looking at him.
He tried to smile at her.
Suddenly she put her arms round him and kissed him again and again.
Sometimes, for several days, Linda didn't get up at all.
She lay in bed and was sad.
Or else she drank the stuff that Pope brought and laughed a great deal and went to sleep.
Sometimes she was sick.
Often she forgot to wash him, and there was nothing to eat except cold tortillas.
He remembered the first time she found those little animals in his hair, how she screamed and screamed.
The happiest times were when she told him about the Other Place.
"And you really can go flying, whenever you like?"
"Whenever you like."
And she would tell him about the lovely music that came out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the wall, and the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see, and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever sad or angry, and every one belonging to every one else, and the boxes where you could see and hear what was happening at the other side of the world, and babies in lovely clean bottles-everything so clean, and no nasty smells, no dirt at all-and people never lonely, but living together and being so jolly and happy, like the summer dances here in Malpais, but much happier, and the happiness being there every day, every day. ... He listened by the hour.
And sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing, one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War and Chance; of Jesus and Pookong; of Mary and Etsanat-lehi, the woman who makes herself young again; of the Black Stone at Laguna and the Great Eagle and Our Lady of Acoma.
Strange stories, all the more wonderful to him for being told in the other words and so not fully understood.
Lying in bed, he would think of Heaven and London and Our Lady of Acoma and the rows and rows of babies in clean bottles and Jesus flying up and Linda flying up and the great Director of World Hatcheries and Awonawilona.
Lots of men came to see Linda.
The boys began to point their fingers at him.
In the strange other words they said that Linda was bad; they called her names he did not understand, but that he knew were bad names.
One day they sang a song about her, again and again.
He threw stones at them.
They threw back; a sharp stone cut his cheek.
The blood wouldn't stop; he was covered with blood.
Linda taught him to read.
With a piece of charcoal she drew pictures on the wall-an animal sitting down, a baby inside a bottle; then she wrote letters. THE CAT IS ON THE MAT THE TOT IS IN THE POT He learned quickly and easily.
When he knew how to read all the words she wrote on the wall, Linda opened her big wooden box and pulled out from under those funny little red trousers she never wore a thin little book.
He had often seen it before.
"When you're bigger," she had said, "you can read it."
Well, now he was big enough. He was proud.
"I'm afraid you won't find it very exciting," she said.
"But it's the only thing I have."