The Waking (36 page)

Tex pats me on the back. “Enjoy your visit.”

“
Thanks for the ride,” I say.

“
No trouble at all,” Tex says, and he leaves.

I stare into the man’s face and see pieces of Mama and Auntie June in his eyes and lips, and even in his ears. “I’m Emmanuel Mann.”

He smiles broadly. “I knew there was a reason for me coming in so early today.”

“
Are you the preacher?” I ask.

“
Oh, no. I just came in to—” He sits up straighter, still staring. “I came in so I could meet you.”

I feel goose bumps crawling up my legs. I look at the hairs on my arms, and they’re all standing at attention.

“
I think I am a relative of yours. I am Maxi Kazula. I am also called Max Lewis, but I prefer to use Maxi.”

“
Most folks call me Manny.”

“
Manny. Yes. And on such a day as this, you … blow in from the rain.”

“
Yeah.”

“
I’m sure you have many questions.”

Too many! “I guess I first need to know … how we’re related.” I feel tears seeping into my eyes, and my nose starts tingling. “I see … I see my mama in your face.”

“
And I see Kazula in yours. You have his eyes and chin without a doubt.”

I wipe a tear that trickles down my nose. “I’m sorry.”

“
No need.” He smiles. “You have never been here before?”

I shake my head. “I have only heard the stories, from my Auntie June.”

“
Tell me what you have heard.”

I tell Maxi all that I can remember, how Kazula and Abassa were taken from their home in Ghana, how Abassa ended up in Ethiopia, how Kazula survived the Middle Passage on the
Clothilde
and arrived in Mobile Bay. “After that, I don’t know. Auntie June probably told me, but I have forgotten. I’m sorry.”

He tents his fingers under his lips. “It is unnecessary to be sorry for not knowing a history denied to you. Your Auntie June, is it?”

“
Yes.”

“
She has told you a great deal. Would you like me to fill in the blanks?”

“
Yes.”

He smiles. “It is a sad story, but it is true, and it ends well. There was a captain by the name of Timothy Meaher, a steam boatman. Some Eastern gentlemen bet him that he couldn’t run the blockade to Africa and return with a boatload of slaves. Thus, we are here because of a bet between white men.” He pauses. “And we weren’t necessarily the prize.”

“
We were just means to an end.”

“
Yes.” He nods. “Pawns in a rich man’s game of chess. On the Sierra Leone River were some quarreling tribes. The King of Dahomey raided a Tarkar village and charged Meaher anywhere from fifty to one hundred dollars for each Tarkar he captured. Fifty to one hundred dollars.”

We were nothing more than a bundle.

“
One hundred and sixty were supposed to get on the
Clothilde
, but the King of Dahomey had second thoughts and took back forty-four.” He smiles. “You have cousins in Benin and Ghana to this day, Emmanuel.”

I can only nod. I’ll have to look those places up on a map. I do belong somewhere, and I have family on two continents. You hear that?

The Voice doesn’t respond.

“
All one hundred and sixteen survived the Middle Passage, which is very rare, but they say the
Clothilde
was a very fast boat. They were unloaded at Twelve Mile Island onto a steamboat, the
Czar
. Then, the
Clothilde
was burned and sunk at Bayou Cane to hide the crime. The
Czar
carried them to the Dabney Plantation up what was then called the Spanish River to where the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers meet near Mount Vernon. They spent eleven days in the swampy wilderness, and they were moved from one swamp to another to keep government agents from finding them. The government even sent a steamboat, the
Eclipse
, to look for them.” He shakes his head. “The government never found them.”

“
They used a steamboat to look for them?”

“
Yes.”

So much for stealth. The government sent a floating birthday cake to the rescue.

“
Most were eventually farmed out to Selma …” His voice trails away. “The government made a case against Meaher, but since the government could produce no slaves, the case was dropped. Then the Civil War started and …” He waves a hand in the air. “Our people were slaves for a short time, it is true, but they were still taken from their homeland against their will.”

“
How did they end up down here in Mobile?”

He smiles. “For whatever reason, Meaher freed thirty-three of our ancestors, and they settled here. We call them the original thirty-three. And we kept our language and our old names, despite our new names. The simple sound of our language spoken among freed slaves brought others and has kept us together. We settled just north and east of here over one hundred and forty years ago, and we are still here today. If it were not so rainy, I would take you to Plateau Cemetery where Kazula and many others of our family rest, all their headstones facing the rising sun. It is one of our customs. We still have a tribal chieftain, and we still have our own doctor. But mostly, we still have each other.” He stands as we hear doors opening and beautiful voices speaking in a long-forgotten tongue, rapidly and with laughter. “And many still speak our language. Come. Let us go meet some of your relatives.”

I stand. “They just … came to church? On a day like this? Today? It’s Monday, isn’t it?”

“
Perhaps they heard of you on the wind as I did. Come.”

I follow Maxi out of the office and see two tall women. They are dark, so dark, and old, so very old. They smile at me, nodding to each other and speaking that beautiful language.

The taller of the two walks over to me and touches my face. “Hello, my son. Welcome back.”

And then I sob and hold them, and they chatter away laughing, touching my hair, kissing my cheeks, and squeezing my hands.

I’m home, I’m home, I’m finally home.

Maxi makes several phone calls, and the church later fills with … with
my
people. I meet so many people who tell me I’m their first cousin, or their great aunt on my mama’s side, or my second cousin once removed. I can’t keep track of all the names, most of them American followed by African and even a few who use nicknames like “Bug” and “Boo,” but I latch onto the eyes, the smiles, the joy in their laughter. I’m the only one crying, but I’m smiling. And the pictures. I pose with so many people, cameras clicking and flashing all over the place.

I find out that a cousin of Cudjo Lewis married into the Mann family and migrated north at the turn of the century, stopping first in Birmingham to work the steel mills, then traveling further north to the coal fields in West Virginia, then on to Pittsburgh to work the coal and steel there. I also learn that the racial strife that ravaged the rest of Alabama was nearly nonexistent in Mobile.

“
We were already separate,” Maxi explains. “And we preferred it that way. We stayed in our community, and the whites stayed in theirs. We may not have survived otherwise.”

We gather in the basement for a delicious meal of foods I can’t name but can only describe as delicious. We eat something like jambalaya or gumbo, fresh mango and papaya, and drink strong hot juice. And while I eat their food, I eat up their laughter.

“
We are having a meeting in the park today,” an ancient woman, my mama’s great-great aunt, tells me. “You must come.”

“
Today? In this weather?”

Her eyes light up. “There’s weather every day, isn’t there?”

“
Well, of course, but—”

“
You will be there.”

The church thins out leaving only Maxi and me. He hands me a plastic bag full of clothes. “Please accept our gift.”

I open the bag expecting colorful African clothes but find a pair of new blue jeans, packages of T-shirts, socks, and underwear, and a short-sleeved gray Polo shirt. There’s even an umbrella in the bag. “Thank you.”

“
You’re welcome.” He looks down at my mismatched boots. “We should get you some boots, too.”

I stare at my boots. “These are okay. They’ve brought me this far.”

“
Yes. They are good boots.”

I change into my new clothes in Maxi’s office, and though everything’s a little loose, I feel like a new man. I transfer what’s left of my money, the notepads, and the pens that still work to my new jeans, but they all barely fit in the back pockets. I look down at my arms, at the snake and the cross. I wonder if they’ll accept me now that they can see these. But when I leave the office, the church seems empty. I go into the sanctuary and find Maxi down front.

“
Where is everyone?” I ask, self-consciously folding my arms in front of me.

“
Preparing for the meeting.” He hands me a blanket like one I’ve never seen. It has to be handmade, and its reds, oranges, and yellows are so bright. It’s like a tapestry made with golden silk.

“
Thank you. It’s beautiful.” I look up and see Maxi staring at my arms. “They’re, uh …”

His eyes soften, but he says nothing.

“
They’re scars. I used to shoot heroin.”

“
We all have our scars, Emmanuel. Wear them with pride because they are
old
scars.” He points at a pew, a small pillow at one end. “I’m sure you are tired. Please rest here. I will come get you myself before the meeting starts.” He takes the plastic bag with my remaining clothes. “I will take care of these.”

“
But I’m really not that tired.”

“
Rest, Emmanuel. Our meetings tend to be long.” He smiles. “You will need your strength.”

But after Maxi leaves, I can’t sleep. Instead, I pull out a notepad and start writing, and for the first time, I feel that my pen has power, that an unseen hand seems to be guiding it, making it dance: