Roots (41 page)

It was so totally unexpected—and disarming—that Kunta found himself following the brown one back to his cabin without a word. Obediently, Kunta sat down on the stool the brown one pointed to and watched as his host seated himself on the other stool, still plaiting. Kunta wondered if he knew that he was plaiting much the same as Africans did.

After a while more of reflective silence, the brown one began speaking: “I been hearin’ ’bout you so mad. You lucky dey ain’t kilt you. Dey could of, an’ been inside de law. Jes’ like when dat white man broke my hand ’cause I got tired of fiddlin’. Law say anybody catch you ’scapin’ can kill you and no punishment for him. Dat law gits read out again eve’y six months in white folks’ churches. Looka here, don’t start me on white folks’ laws. Startin’ up a new settlement, dey firs’ builds a courthouse, fo’ passin’ more laws; nex’ build-in’s a church to prove dey’s Christians. I b’lieve all dat Virginia’s House of Burgess do is pass more laws ’gainst niggers. It’s a law niggers can’t carry no gun, even no stick that look like a club. Law say twenty lashes you get caught widdout a travelin’ pass, ten lashes if’n you looks white folks in dey eyes, thirty lashes if’n you raises your hand ’gainst a white Christian. Law say no nigger preachin’ lessen a white man dere to listen; law say can’t be no nigger funeral if dey think it’s a meetin’. Law say cut your ear off if’n white folks swear you lied, both ears if dey claim you lied twice. Law say you
kill
anybody white, you hang; kill ’nother nigger, you jes’ gits whipped. Law say reward a Indian catchin’ a ’scaped nigger wid all de tobacco dat Indian can carry. Law ’gainst teachin’ any nigger to read or write, or givin’ any nigger any book. Dey’s even a law ’gainst niggers beatin’ any drums—any dat African stuff.”

Kunta sensed that the brown one knew he couldn’t understand, but that he both liked to talk and feel that Kunta’s listening might somehow bring him at least closer to comprehension. Looking at the brown one’s face as he spoke, and listening to his tone, Kunta
felt he almost
could
understand. And it made him want to both laugh and cry that someone was actually talking to him as one human being to another.

“’Bout your foot, looka here, it ain’t jes’ foots and arms but dicks an’ nuts gits cut off. I seen plenty ruined niggers like dat still workin’. Seen niggers beat till meat cut off dey bones. Nigger women’s full of baby gits beat layin’ face down over a hole dug for dey bellies. Niggers gits scraped raw, den covered with turpentine or salt, den rubbed wid straw. Niggers caught talkin’ ’bout revolt made to dance on hot embers ’til dey falls. Ain’t hardly nothin’ ain’t done to niggers, an’ if dey die ’cause of it, ain’t no crime long as dey’s owned by whoever done it, or had it done. Dat’s de law. An’ if you thinks dat’s bad, you ought to hear what folks tell gits did to dem niggers dat some slaveboats sells crost the water on dem West Indies sugar plantations.”

Kunta was still there listening—and trying to understand—when a first-kafo-sized boy came in with the brown one’s evening meal. When he saw Kunta there, he dashed out and soon returned with a covered plate for him, too. Kunta and the brown one wordlessly ate together, and then Kunta abruptly rose to leave, knowing that the others would soon be coming to the hut, but the brown one’s gesture signaled Kunta to stay.

As the others began arriving a few minutes later, none were able to mask their surprise at seeing Kunta there—particularly Bell, who was one of the last to show up. Like most of the rest, she simply nodded—but with the trace of a smile, it seemed to Kunta. In the gathering darkness, the brown one proceeded to hold forth for the group as he had done for Kunta, who guessed that he was telling them some kind of stories. Kunta could tell when a story ended, for abruptly they would all laugh—or ask questions. Now and then Kunta recognized some of the words that had become familiar to his ears.

When he went back to his own hut, Kunta was in a turmoil of emotion about mingling with these black ones. Sleepless late that night, his mind still tumbling with conflicts, he recalled something Omoro had said once when Kunta had refused to let go of a choice mango after Lamin begged for a bite: “When you clench your fist, no one can put anything in your hand, nor can your hand pick up anything.”

But he also knew that his father would be in the fullest of agreement with him that, no matter what, he must never become anything like these black people. Yet each night, he felt strangely drawn to go among them at the hut of the brown one. He resisted the temptation, but almost every afternoon now, Kunta would hobble over to visit with the brown one when he was alone.

“Git my fingers back to workin’ right to fiddle again,” he said while weaving his cornshucks one day. “Any kin’ of luck, dis massa here go ’head an’ buy me an’ hire me out. I done fiddled all over Virginia, make good money for him an’ me both. Ain’t much I ain’t seen an’ done, even if’n you don’t know what I’m talkin” bout. White folks says all Africans knows is livin’ in grass huts an’ runnin’’roun’ killin’ an’ eatin’ one ’nother.”

He paused in his monologue, as if expecting some kind of reaction, but Kunta just sat there watching and listening impassively and fingering his saphie charm.

“See what I means? You got to put away all dat stuff,” said the brown one, pointing to the charm. “Give it up. You ain’t goin’ nowheres, so you might’s well face facks an’ start fittin’ in, Toby, you hear?”

Kunta’s face flashed with anger. “Kunta Kinte!” he blurted, astonished at himself.

The brown one was equally amazed. “Looka here, he can talk! But I’m tellin’ you, boy, you got to forgit all dat African talk. Make white folks mad an’ scare niggers. Yo’ name Toby. Dey calls me
Fiddler.” He pointed to himself. “Say dat. Fiddler!” Kunta looked at him blankly, though he understood exactly what he meant. “Fiddler! I’s a fiddler. Understan’—fiddler?” He made a sawing motion across his left arm with the other hand. This time Kunta wasn’t pretending when he looked blank.

Exasperated, the brown one got up and brought from a corner the oddly shaped box that Kunta had seen him arrive with. Opening it, he lifted out an even more oddly shaped light brown wooden thing with a slender black neck and four taut, thin strings running almost its length. It was the same musical instrument he had heard the old man play at the other farm.

“Fiddle!” exclaimed the brown one.

Since they were alone, Kunta decided to say it. He repeated the sound: “Fiddle.”

Looking pleased, the brown one put the fiddle away and closed the case. Then, glancing around, he pointed. “Bucket!” Kunta repeated it, fixing in his head what that thing was. “Now, water!” Kunta repeated it.

After they had gone through a score or more of new words, the brown one pointed silently at the fiddle, the bucket, water, chair, cornshucks, and other objects, his face a question mark for Kunta to repeat the right word for all of them. A few of the names he promptly repeated; he fumbled with a few others and was corrected ; and some sounds he was unable to say at all. The brown one refreshed him on those, then reviewed him on them all. “You ain’t dumb as you looks,” he grunted by suppertime.

The lessons continued through the following days and stretched into weeks. To Kunta’s astonishment, he began to discover that he was becoming able not only to understand but also to make himself understood to the brown one in a rudimentary way. And the main thing he wanted him to understand was why he refused to surrender his name or his heritage, and why he
would rather die a free man on the run than live out his life as a slave. He didn’t have the words to tell it as he wished, but he knew the brown one understood, for he frowned and shook his head. One afternoon not long afterward, arriving at the brown one’s hut, Kunta found another visitor already there. It was the old man he’d seen now and then hoeing in the flower garden near the big house. With a glance at the brown one’s affirming nod, Kunta sat down.

The old man began to speak. “Fiddler here tell me you run away four times. You see what it got you. Jes’ hopes you done learned your lesson like I done. ’Cause you ain’t done nothin’ new. My young days, I run off so much dey near ’bout tore my hide off ’fore I got it in my head ain’t nowhere to run to. Run two states away, dey jes’ tell about it in dey papers an’ sooner later you gits cotched an’ nearly kilt, an’ win’ up right back where you come from. Ain’t hardly nobody ain’t thought about runnin’. De grinnin’est niggers thinks about it. But ain’t nobody I ever knowed ever got away. Time you settled down and made de best of things de way dey is,’stead of wastin’ yo’ young years, like I did, plottin’ what cain’t be done. I done got ol’ an’ wore out now. Reckon since you been born I been actin’ like de no-good, lazy, shiftless, head-scratchin’ nigger white folks says us is. Only reason massa keep me here, he know I ain’t got no good auction value, an’ he git more out of me jes’ halfway doin’ de gardenin’. But I hears tell from Bell massa gwine put you to workin’ wid me tomorrow.”

Knowing that Kunta had understood hardly any of what the gardener had said, the fiddler spent the next half hour explaining what the old man had told him—only slowly and more simply, in words Kunta was familiar with. He had mixed feelings about nearly everything the gardener had said. He understood that the old man meant well by his advice—and he was beginning to believe that escape was indeed impossible—but even if he never got away, he could never pay the price of giving up who and what he had been
born in order to live out his years without another beating. And the thought of spending them as a crippled gardener filled him with rage and humiliation. But perhaps just for a while, until he got his strength back. And it might be good to get his mind off himself and his hands in the soil again—even if it wasn’t his own.

The next day, the old gardener showed Kunta what to do. As he chopped away at the weeds that seemed to spring up daily among the vegetables, so did Kunta. As he plucked tomato worms and potato bugs from the plants and squashed them underfoot, so did Kunta. They got along well, but apart from working side by side, they didn’t communicate much, either. Usually the old man would only make grunts and gestures whenever Kunta needed to be shown how to do some new task, and Kunta, without responding, simply did as he was told. He didn’t mind the silence; as a matter of fact, his ears needed a few hours’ rest each day between conversations with the fiddler, who ran his mouth every minute they were together.

That night after the evening meal, Kunta was sitting in the doorway of his hut when the man called Gildon—who made the horse and mule collars and also shod the black people—walked up to him and held out a pair of shoes. At the orders of the “massa,” he said he had made them especially for Kunta. Taking them and nodding his thanks, Kunta turned them over and over in his hands before deciding to try them on. It felt strange to have such things on his feet, but they fit perfectly—even though the front half of the right shoe was stuffed with cotton. The shoemaker bent down to tie the lacings, then suggested that Kunta get up and walk around in them to see how they felt. The left shoe was fine, but he felt tiny stinging sensations in his right foot as he walked awkwardly and gingerly around outside his hut without the crutches. Seeing his discomfort, the shoemaker said that was because of the stump, not the shoe, and he would get used to it.

Later that day, Kunta walked a bit farther, testing, but the right foot was still uncomfortable, so he removed a little of the cotton stuffing and put it back on. It felt better, and finally he dared to put his full weight on that foot, and there wasn’t any undue pain. Every now and then he would continue to experience the phantom pain of his right toes aching, as he had nearly every day since he started walking around, and he would glance downward—always with surprise—to find that he didn’t have any. But he kept practicing walking around, and feeling better than he let his face show; he had been afraid that he would always have to walk with crutches.

That same week the massa’s buggy returned from a trip, and the black driver, Luther, hurried to Kunta’s hut, beckoning him down to the fiddler’s, where Kunta watched him say something, grinning broadly. Then with gestures toward the big house and with selected key words, the fiddler made Kunta nod in understanding that Massa William Waller, the toubob who lived in the big house, now owned Kunta. “Luther say he just got a deed to you from his brother who had you at first, so you his now.” As usual, Kunta did not let his face show his feelings. He was angry and ashamed that anyone could “own” him, but he was also deeply relieved, for he had feared that one day he would be taken back to that other “plantation,” as he now knew the toubob farms were called. The fiddler waited until Luther had left before he spoke again—partly to Kunta and partly to himself. “Niggers here say Massa William a good master, an’ I seen worse. But ain’t none of’em no good. Dey all lives off us niggers. Niggers is the biggest thing dey got.”

A
lmost every day now, when work was done, Kunta would return to his hut and after his evening prayer would scratch up the dirt in a littler square on his floor and draw Arabic characters in it with a stick, then sit looking for a long time at what he had written, often until supper. Then he would rub out what he had written, and it would be time to go down and sit among the others as the fiddler talked. Somehow his praying and his studying made it all right to mix with them. That way, it seemed to him he could remain himself without having to remain
by
himself. Anyway, if they had been in Africa, there would have been someone like the fiddler to go to, only he would have been a wandering musician and griot traveling from one village to the next and singing as he played his kora or his balafon in between the telling of fascinating stories drawn from his adventures.

Just as it had been done in Africa, Kunta had also begun to keep track of the passing of time by dropping a small pebble into a gourd on the morning after each new moon. First he had dropped into the gourd 12 rounded, multicolored stones for the 12 moons he guessed he’d spent on the first toubob farm; then he had dropped in six more for the time he’d been here on this new farm; and then he had carefully counted out 204 stones for the 17 rains he’d reached when he was taken from Juffure, and dropped them
into the gourd. Adding them all up, he figured that he was now into his nineteenth rain.