THE NEW PEOPLE PUT HIM IN THE BIG HOUSE behind the church.
Caleb didn’t know why Miss Leiah and Jason had to leave, but he was sure that they did. He also knew that Father Nikolous was very different from Dadda.
And Dadda was gone. That’s what Jason had told Leiah yesterday, and he knew it was true.
Caleb sat on his haunches in the room and rocked back and forth, trying to decide what to do with the feelings that ran through his chest when he thought about Dadda. He knew that he was with God; he did know that. But he didn’t know why that made him sad.
His father’s brown face floated through his mind. “Remember, Caleb, words are weak instruments of love. They can do many things, but they do not carry the truth like your hands do. People need to be shown, not told.”
“Then why don’t we go show them, Dadda?”
“But you will. You will. And I am showing you, am I not?”
Caleb swallowed and stood. The woman that the other children called Auntie Martha had left him in this large room a long time ago, and it was now dark outside. Maybe they would bring the other children in to see him soon. He’d seen five in the yard as they were walking here, and they had seen him too. It had made his heart run very fast.
Let the little children come to me. Jesus had said that, and Caleb had always wondered what it would be like to jump on his lap with other children. A song he learned from Dadda ran through his mind.
You must be a child;
You must always be a child
If you want to see,
If you want to walk in the kingdom.
Caleb walked to the window and looked out to the dark yard. Lights blazed in a window across the grass. A figure walked past it and Caleb’s pulse jumped. It was one of the boys! He walked out of view.
Hello, child. My name is Caleb. Maybe it was Samuel, from the church. The one who had seen the cross with him.
Caleb rolled away from the window and stood with his back to the wall, swallowing. The cross in the church was the first he’d seen since leaving the monastery, and it had nearly stopped his heart. They had killed God on that cross. Not that one, but one like it. The worlds had collided on those beams, Dadda used to say, and standing there this morning, it had felt like his worlds were colliding.
He’d seen some things then.
And then he’d helped the boy Samuel see some things too.
The door suddenly opened and Caleb started. It was Martha. “Hello, boy. Did you miss me?”
She had a plate of food, which she put on the table. “Eat up. We can’t have you goin’ hungry.”
Caleb shifted on his feet, shy of her.
“Well, come on, boy. You may be special to everybody else, but not to me. To me you’re just another boy, and the sooner you learn that the sooner you and I will get along.”
What did she mean by that? Her voice made him feel funny, and although he knew that she wanted him to go over to the food, he was having a hard time moving his feet.
She suddenly slammed the table with her hand, and he jumped a foot off the ground. “Eat!”
Caleb walked forward on wobbly legs. She was dark; he could see it as much as feel it. Not in her long black hair or her dirty brown eyes, but in her heart.
“And I don’t want you whining, you hear? Nikolous may insist I give you special treatment, but that doesn’t mean better treatment! You’ll receive no favors. If you’re going to grow up and become a man, you’ll need no special favors.”
He sat at the table and bowed his head. The food looked like a heap of earthworms, but it smelled like cheese. Cheesy worms. He didn’t want to eat.
She humphed and walked for the door. Her hips were large, and the brown dress she wore looked as though it might split. The black shoes on her feet appeared too small, so that the straps pressed deep into her ankles. They clacked loudly on the wooden floor.
At the door, she turned around and looked at him crossly. “I’ll be back in one hour to turn the lights out. Your room is down the hall on the left.” She motioned to the dark opening that led to the rest of the quarters. “That food had better be gone when I get back. If I ever catch you outside of this building, I will whip you. And don’t pretend that you don’t understand; Nikolous told me that you speak English.”
She stepped out and shut the door.
Somewhere a cricket sang in the night. He didn’t know what she meant by whip, but it did not sound like a good thing. Surely it couldn’t mean she actually intended to strike him.
Caleb stared at his food and wondered at the feelings that hurt his chest. He began to bob his head. He bobbed his head, and he began to sing in a high, quiet voice. It was a song in Ge’ez, a chant that he and Dadda often sang, thanking God for his love.
A warmth settled over his shoulders, and he remembered that cross in the church. The cross.
“What does it mean to die, Dadda?”
“It means to find life fully. To be with God.”
“And when will we die?”
“As soon as we are done showing his love here, my son.”
Caleb nodded and smiled. He picked up his fork and stuck it in the food. He was a child and Dadda was dead. Both were good, he thought. Both allowed access to the kingdom.