Roots (58 page)

Kunta resented this deepening intimacy between the two girls even more intensely than when he saw it coming in Kizzy’s crib. Part of him, he had to admit, was pleased that Kizzy was enjoying her girlhood so much, and he had come to agree with Bell that even being a toubob’s pet was better than having to spend her life in the fields. But he was sure that every now and then he could sense even in Bell a certain uneasiness when she was watching the girls romping and playing so closely together. He would dare to think that at least some of those times, Bell must have felt and feared the same things he did. Some nights in their cabin, as he watched her caressing Kizzy in her lap and humming one of her “Jesus” songs, he would have the feeling, as she looked down at the sleepy face, that she was afraid for her, that she wanted to warn her child about caring too much for any toubob, no matter how mutual the affection seemed. Kizzy was too young to understand such things, but Bell knew all too well what wrenching anguish could result from trusting toubob; had they not sold her away from her first two babies? There was no way even to guess at what might lie ahead for Kizzy, but also for him and Bell. But he knew one thing: Allah would wreak terrible vengeance on any toubob who ever harmed their Kizzy.

T
wo Sundays every month, Kunta drove the massa to church at the Waller Meetinghouse about five miles from the plantation. The fiddler had told him that not only the Wallers but also several other important white families had built their own meetinghouses around the county. Kunta had been surprised to discover that the services also were attended by some of the neighboring lesser white families and even some of the area’s “po’ crackers,” whom the buggy had often passed as they came and went on foot, carrying their shoes by the strings over their shoulders. Neither the massa nor any of the other “quality folk,” as Bell called them, ever stopped to offer “po’ crackers” a ride, and Kunta was glad of it.

There would always be a long, droning sermon between a lot of equally listless singing and praying, and when it was finally over, everybody would come trailing outside one by one and shake hands with the preacher, and Kunta would notice with amusement how both the “po’ crackers” and those of the massa’s class would smile and tip their hats at one another, acting as if their both being white made them both the same. But then when they would spread their picnic lunches under the trees, it was always with the two classes on opposite sides of the churchyard—as if they had just happened to sit apart.

While he was waiting and watching this solemn rite with the other drivers one Sunday, Roosby said under his breath, just loud enough for the others to hear, “Seem like white folks don’ ’joy dey eatin’ no more’n dey worshipin’.” Kunta thought to himself that in all the years he had known Bell, he had always managed to claim some urgent chore whenever the time came for one of her “Jesus” meetings in slave row, but all the way from the barn he had heard enough of the black ones’ caterwauling and carrying on to convince him that one of the few things about the toubob that he found worthy of admiration was their preference for quieter worship.

It was only a week or so later that Bell reminded Kunta about the “big camp meetin’” she planned to go to in late July. It had been the blacks’ big summer event every year since he’d come to the plantation, and since every previous year he had found an excuse not to go along, he was amazed that she would still have the nerve to ask him. He knew little about what went on at these huge gatherings, beyond that they had to do with Bell’s heathen religion, and he wanted no part of it. But Bell once more insisted. “I knows how bad you always wants to go,” she said in her voice heavy with sarcasm. “Jes’ thought I’d tell you far ’nough ahead so’s you can work it into yo’ plans.”

Kunta couldn’t think of a smart answer, and he didn’t want to start an argument anyway, so he just said, “I think about it,” though he had no intention of going.

By the day before the meeting, when he pulled up at the big-house front door after a trip to the county seat, the massa said, “I won’t be needing the buggy tomorrow, Toby. But I’ve given Bell and the other women permission to go to that camp meeting tomorrow, and I said it would be all right for you to drive them over in the wagon.”

Churning with anger, positive that Bell had plotted this, Kunta tied up the horses behind the barn and without taking the time to
unhitch them, headed straight for the cabin. Bell took one look at him standing in the doorway and said, “Couldn’t think up no other way to git you dere when Kizzy git christened.”

“Git what?”

“Christened. Dat mean she jine de church.”

“What church? Dat ‘O Lawd’ religion o’ your’n?”

“Don’ let’s start dat again. Ain’t nothin’ to do wid me. Missy Anne done ax her folks to take Kizzy to dey meetin’house on Sundays an’ set in de back whilst dey prays up front. But she can’t go to no white folks’ church less’n she christened.”

“Den she ain’t gwine no church!”

“You still don’ unnerstan’, does you, African? It a
priv’lege
to be axed to dey church. You say no, de nex’ thing you an me both out pickin’ cotton.”

As they set out the next morning, Kunta sat rigidly staring straight ahead from his high driver’s seat, refusing to look back even at his laughing, excited daughter as she sat on her mother’s lap, between the other women and their picnic baskets. For a while, they simply chattered among themselves, then they began singing: “We-uh climbin’ Jacob’s ladder.... We-uh climbin’ Jacob’s ladder. . . . We-uh climbin’ Jacob’s ladder. . . . soldiers of de Cross. . . . ” Kunta was so disgusted that he began slapping the reins across the mules’ rumps, making the buggy lurch forward and jostling his passengers—but he couldn’t seem to do it hard enough or often enough to shut them up. He could even hear Kizzy’s piping little voice among the others. The toubob didn’t need to steal his child, he thought bitterly, if his own wife was willing to give her away.

Similarly crowded wagons were coming out of other plantations’ side roads, and with every happy wave and greeting as they rode along, Kunta became more and more indignant. By the time they reached the campground—in a flowered, rolling meadow—
he had worked himself into such a state that he hardly noticed the dozen or more wagons that were already there and the others that were arriving from all directions. As each wagon pulled to a halt, the occupants would pile noisily out, hooting and hallooing, soon joining Bell and the others who were kissing and hugging each other in the milling crowd. Slowly it dawned on Kunta that he had never seen so many black people together in one place in toubob land, and he began to pay attention.

While the women assembled their baskets of food in a grove of trees, the men began to drift toward a small knoll in the middle of a meadow. Kunta tethered the mules to a stake that he drove into the ground, and then sat down behind the wagon—but in such a way that he could see everything that went on. After a while, all of the men had taken seats close to one another on the ground near the top of the knoll—all excepting four who appeared to be the oldest among them; they remained standing. And then, as if by some prearranged signal, the man who seemed to be the oldest of the four—he was very black and stooped and thin, with a white beard—suddenly reared back his head and shouted loudly toward where the women were, “I say, chilluns of JESUS!”

Unable to believe his eyes or ears, Kunta watched as the women swiftly turned and shouted as one, “Yes, Lawd!” then came hurrying and jostling to sit behind the gathered men. Kunta was astonished at how much it reminded him of the way the people of Juffure sat at the Council of Elders’ meetings once each moon.

The old man shouted again: “I say—is y’all chilluns of JESUS?”

“Yes, Lawd!”

Now, the three other old men stepped out in front of the oldest one, and one after another, they cried out:

“Gon’ come a time we be jes’ GAWD’s slaves!”

“Yes, Lawd!” shouted all who sat on the ground.

“You make youse’f ready, Jesus STAY ready!”

“Yes, Lawd!”

“Know what de Holy Father said to me jes’ now? He say, ‘Ain’t NOBODY strangers!’”

A massed shouting rose, all but drowning out what the oldest of the four had begun to say. In a strange way even Kunta felt some of the excitement. Finally the crowd quieted enough for him to hear what the graybeard was saying.

“Chilluns o’ Gawd, dey is a PROMISE lan’! Dat’s where ev’y-body b’lieve in Him gon’ go! An’ dem dat b’lieve, dat’s where dey gon’ LIVE—for all e-terni-ty! . . . ”

Soon the old man was sweating profusely, his arms flailing the air, his body quivering with the intensity of his singsong exclamations, his voice rasping with emotion. “It tell us in de Bible dat de lamb an’ de lion gwine lay down TOGETHER!” The old man threw his head backward, flinging his hands toward the sky. “Ain’t gon’ be no massas an’ slaves NO MO’! Jes’ gon’ be all GAWD’s CHILLUNS!”

Then, suddenly, some woman leaped up and began shrieking, “O Jesus! O Jesus! O Jesus! O Jesus!” It set off others around her, and within minutes two dozen or more women were screaming and jerking themselves about. It flashed into Kunta’s mind how the fiddler had once told him that on some plantations where the massas forbade slaves to worship, they concealed a large iron pot in the woods nearby, where those who felt the spirit move them would stick their heads inside and shout, the pot muffling the noise sufficiently for it not to be heard by the massa or the overseer.

It was in the middle of this thought that Kunta saw, with profound shock and embarrassment, that Bell was among the women who were staggering and screeching. Just then one of them shouted, “I’se GAWD’s chile!” toppled to the ground as if felled by a blow, and lay there quivering. Others joined her and began writhing and moaning on the grass. Another woman who had
been flinging herself violently about now went as rigid as a post, screaming out, “O Lawd! Jes’ you, Jesus!”

Kunta could tell that none of them had planned whatever they were doing. It was just happening as they felt it—the way his own people danced to the spirits back at home, acting out what they felt inside. As the shouting and the twitching began to subside, it occurred to Kunta that this was the way the dancings in Juffure had ended—seemingly in exhaustion. And he could see that in some way, these people, too, seemed to be both spent and at peace with themselves.

Then, one after another, they began to get up from the ground and shout out to the others:

“My back pained me so bad till I talked to my Lawd. He say to me, ‘You stan’ up straight,’ an’ I ain’t hurt since.”

“Didn’t meet my Lawd Jesus till He saved my soul, an’ now I puts my love for Him up against anybody’s!”

There were others. Then, finally, one of the old men led a prayer, and when it was over everybody shouted “A-MEN!” and began to sing loudly and with tremendous spirit: “I got shoes, you got shoes, all Gawd’s chilluns got shoes! When-uh gits to Heab’m, gon’ put on mah shoes, gon’ walk all ovah Gawd’s Heab’m! Heab’m! Ev’body tellin’ ’bout Heab’m ain’t gwine dere! Heab’m! Heab’m! I’m gon’ walk all ovah Gawd’s Heab’m!”

As they sang the song, they had gotten up from the ground, one by one, and began to walk very slowly, following the gray-haired preacher, down from the knoll and across the meadow. By the time the song ended, they had reached the banks of a pond on the other side, where the preacher turned to face them, flanked by the other three elders, and held up his arms.

“An’ now, brothers an’ sisters, de time is come fo’ yo’ sinners what ain’t been cleansed to wash away yo’ sins in de River JORDAN!”

“O yeah!” shouted a woman on the bank.

“It’s time to squench out de fires o’ Hell in de holy waters o’ de Promise LAN’!”

“Say it!” came another shout.

“All dose ready to dive down fo’ dey almighty soul an’ rise up ag’in wid de Lawd, remain standin’. Res’ o’ you what done been baptize or ain’t ready fo’ Jesus yet, seddown!”

As Kunta watched in astonishment, all but twelve or fifteen of them sat down. While the others lined up at the water’s edge, the preacher and the strongest of the four elders marched right into the pond, stopping and turning when they were immersed up to their hips.

Addressing himself to the teen-age girl who was first in line, the preacher spoke. “Is you ready, chile?” She nodded. “Den come ahead!”

Grasping both of her arms, the two remaining elders led her into the pond, stumbling, to meet the others in the middle. Placing his right hand on the girl’s forehead while the biggest elder grabbed her shoulders with both hands from behind and the other two men tightened their grip on her arms, the preacher said, “O Lawd, let dis chile be wash clean,” and then he pushed her backward while the man behind pulled her shoulders back and down until she was completely under water.

As the bubbles rose to the surface and her limbs began to thrash the water, they turned their gaze heavenward and held on tight. Soon she started kicking wildly and heaving her body violently; it was all they could do to hold her under. “ALMOST!” the preacher shouted, over the churning commotion beneath his arms. “NOW!” They pulled her upward from the water, gasping for breath, spewing water, struggling frantically as they half carried her back to shore—and into the arms of her waiting mother.

Then they turned to the next in line—a boy in his early twenties who stood staring at them, too terrified to move. They practically had to drag him in. Kunta watched with his mouth open wider as each person—next a middle-aged man, then another young girl around twelve, then an elderly woman who could barely walk—were led one by one into the pond and subjected to the same incredible ordeal. Why did they do it? What sort of cruel “Gawd” demanded such suffering for those who wished to believe in him? How could half drowning someone wash away his evil? Kunta’s mind teemed with questions—none of which he could answer—until finally the last one had been pulled spluttering from the water.