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KATALIN G. KÁLLAY
coat. No wonder that Mrs. Connin’s first remark is: “He ain’t fixed right,”’ to
which Harry’s father answers “Well then for Christ’s sake fix him," though he
is unaware of the terrible possibility that the babysitter will try to do precisely
what he asks of her. To what extent does Harry get “fixed” “for Christ’s sake”?
From the child’s perspective, this day is full of new experiences. He carefully
studies everything he encounters: the flowery handkerchief of Mrs. Connin,
which he can “borry,” the pictures on the wall of Mrs. Connin’s apartment,
the old book about the life of Jesus Christ for readers under twelve, which he
hides in the lining of his coat. He learns that he was made by this carpenter,
whereas earlier he had thought it had been “a doctor named Sladewall,” and
the name Christ “was a word like ‘oh’ or ‘damn,’ or maybe somebody who
had cheated them out of something sometime.”® Before they start out for the
healing, he encounters Mrs. Connin’s four children, Sarah Mildred, “who
had her hair up in so many aluminum curlers that it glared like the roof,"
and the three boys, who play a nasty trick on him by telling him to loosen
the plank of the pigsty to see the pigs, and he is knocked over and chased to
Mrs. Connin by a young, long-legged, humpbacked hog with a distorted ear.
All the more can he appreciate the picture in Mrs. Connin’s old book, in which
he sees Jesus chasing many pigs out of a man. On the way to the river, he is
amazed by nature: as an urban child, he had never been in the woods before.
He takes his steps carefully in the forest, as if he were entering “a strange
country,” and as they get to the clearing by the river, he feels exhilarated
by the sunny landscape. He observes the congregation gathered around the
young preacher standing in the river from the shelter of Mrs. Connin’s coat
and listens to the song and to the repeated words of the faith healer.
“Listen to what I got to say, you people! There ain’t but one river and that’s the
River of Life, made out of Jesus’ Blood. That’s the river you have to lay your pain in,
in the River of Faith, the River of Life, in the River of Love, in the rich red river of
Jesus’ Blood, you people!”
His voice grew soft and musical. “All the rivers come from that one River and go back
to it like it was the ocean sea and if you believe, you can lay your pain in that River
and can get rid of it because that’s the River that was made to carry sin. It’s a River
full of pain itself, pain itself, moving toward the Kingdom of Christ, to be washed
away, Slow, you people, slow as this here old red water river round my feet.”
7 "Ihe River, 157.
8 Ibid.
° "Ihe River, 163.
10 Ibid.
1 Tbid., 165.
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