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Sleep had almost overtaken him when his uncle’s voice rose, just a little.
“I met two men that have come from far away. They’re from warm places, but they have come all this way here to talk with us about our holy man,” his uncle said.
Lopahin did not move, lest they see he was still awake and stop talking altogether. But he listened, for he loved to hear stories of the Holy Man, the shaman.
“I told them of our shaman, how we call him when someone is sick or dying. I said that life was like a tree—the roots are underground, in the world of the dead, and the branches reach the heavens. The trunk in between is the earth. Sometimes, if we need to connect with the heavens, the shaman can help.”
Lopahin loved that story. His grandmother had told it to him, while his father carved notches in the big pole in the center of the house to show Lopahin the way life was like a tree.
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