Africaville

by Jeffrey Colvin

  “Like I’ve said in the past, I’m not inclined to do that.”

  “I don’t understand you, Great-granny.”

  “Then you have not been listening to me. I already told you that you do not need your granny walking out free, reminding everyone you know that you have a felon in the family.”

  “Everyone I know already knows about you.”

  “Boy, stop the lying.”

  Warner hands Zera another picture. “Here you can see the entire plot where Granddaddy Omar was buried. As you can see, the plot’s been damaged.”

  “Did another airplane crash into the place?”

  “No, ma’am. Sinkholes this time. That hole you see is where Granddaddy Omar’s casket used to be. He’s been moved.”

  “What’s become of him?”

  “He’s at a funeral home in Halifax.”

  “He can’t stay there.”

  Warner reaches into his bag and takes out the clemency papers. “As a free woman, you can choose where you and your son are laid to rest,” he says. “If you leave it to me, I may not do what you want.”

  “I don’t have many days left,” she says. “And maybe there is some virtue in going to the grave because of something I believed in once.”

  “I noticed you said once.”

  Warner lays the form down on the bed in front of Zera and places the pen down next to where Zera should sign. “We should hurry.”

  Zera studies the document, looking even younger. There is strength there alongside the bit of ache, as with a child who has decided today is the first day she will endure the pain of a bruised knee without tears.

  A soon as Zera picks up the pen Warner starts to gather his belongings. She holds the pen to her chest, thinking. “Aren’t you going to wait to see if I sign it?” she asks, as Warner heads out of the room.

  “Nope.”

  Heading down the hallway, Warner is surprised to see an open door. Inside, a body lies in the bed, but no guards or nurses stand nearby. Did the inmate in that bed die? And how many other inmates being tended to on this floor will never see freedom? Was it a mistake to leave Zera alone with her papers, alone to face the governor? Perhaps. But today he had to try something different.

  Zera’s Gift

  Epoch: Canada’s Daily News Magazine Digest

  Thursday, June 4, 1992

  Property-rights advocates all over the province of Nova Scotia rejoiced today when the Appellate Court dismissed the city of Halifax’s appeal of a lower court’s decision to deny the Halifax Community Development Department the right to seize a city parcel known as Tract East 128.

  “Naturally us local folks are also happy with the decision,” says Marcelina Higgins-Pitts, who has relatives in the Africaville village cemetery, which would have been relocated had the city prevailed. “But the fight is not over.”

  Higgins-Pitts was referring to the announcement today by the Halifax City Council that it will meet next week to debate whether to support the mayor’s desire to take the case to the Supreme Court of Canada.

  On the following Tuesday morning, in the annex room at Jameel and Sons Funeral Home on Gottingen Street, shiny caskets stand about the light-filled space like colorful luxury vehicles in an automobile showroom.

  “I have taken a liking to this one,” Warner says, inspecting a model with a burnished oak veneer finish. “What’s your opinion?”

  Warner looks to his right and for a second is astonished at the sight of the woman in a tan-and-green dress heading toward another casket. Since Zera’s release from Peace two months ago, there have been plenty of moments when the sight of his great-grandmother signing her name on a prescription refill form at a drugstore counter or sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office seemed an odd vision—a woman out of place in spaces built for the nonincarcerated. It surprised him earlier at the hotel to see her dressed at seven thirty and eager to visit the breakfast buffet, especially since their flight from Jackson last night was delayed and did not land in Halifax until one in the morning.

  With Jameel and Sons offering significant deals on caskets to families whose deceased relatives were moved out of the cemetery on the bluff, Zera insisted on getting to the showroom early. They arrived promptly at nine, yet most of the models already had large red tags on them that said SOLD. Zera doesn’t seem bothered. Examining a model she passed earlier, she looks like a woman who has no plans to be dissatisfied today. Thank goodness. On the drive here, for a while he feared that she was sinking into the quiet and sullen mood he witnessed during the four days he spent with her in Jackson after her release. In the car he reassured her that today’s visit to the funeral home would be completed quickly. They would have the rest of the day to spend with the Platt relatives who seem eager to meet her.

  Zera has laid a hand on a silver model with a two-piece lid. “I like the color on this one,” she tells Warner.

  “Likewise,” Warner says.

  “The shade of gray matches my son’s eyes,” Zera says. “At least as I remember them.”

  Zera rubs the brass handle on the model and then presses on the pillowy-white lining inside. She closes her eyes as if imagining a sleep of unimaginable eons. “I’ve decided to bury my son in this one.”

  One of the Jameel family granddaughters, who has been waiting by the door, approaches swiftly in a light-green pantsuit. At the casket she drops to a knee and shines a penlight at its underside.

  “I understand that you want your son returned to the cemetery over there on the bluff,” the young woman says.

  “I do if the city will permit it,” Zera says.

  “I hope the ground does not give way again,” the granddaughter says.

  “If you mean the sinkholes,” Warner says, “the underground stream that caused the trouble has dried up. Even the old well near the church no longer gives water. I believe we have seen the last of the sinkholes.”

  After making notes in a pad, the young woman places a hand on Zera’s shoulder. Her hair, pulled into a bun at the back of her head, glistens under the fluorescent lights. The smile she wore earlier is gone. “Mrs. Platt, would you like to see the remains?”

  This trip to Halifax is not the only journey Zera has made to visit family remains. Last April, on the day she left Peace Correctional, the moment she saw the road marker for the city of Jackson, she told Warner to drive her directly to the cemetery behind Farish Street Methodist Church. Near the grave of her dead husband, Matthew, she tried to recall a few happy days of her marriage into the Platt family. But all she could recall was the cool reception she got the day she met her future in-laws. Adelle and Stetson Platt chatted with her in their fussy parlor with tilted heads, not yet convinced that she would be good enough for their son. It was not a surprise when the two refused to take in their grandson Omar. That memory did not bother Zera at the cemetery as much as the jealousy she felt about the Platt family member who had been buried in the plot next to her husband. That was her place.

  Zera’s mood was better a month later, when she rode with Warner to visit the graves of her family, the Bradenburgs. She gave a chuckle as she looked out the side window of the car at the houses on the road leading into Sunflower, Mississippi. She remembered houses of unpainted pine plank, but these were covered in nicely painted particleboard siding. Only weeds and brush grew on the site of her old homestead, but the Baptist church still stood. It looked smaller than she remembered. The front door was locked, but a young man tending the grounds climbed in through a window and opened the church for them.

  Inside, Zera sat with Warner in a rear pew, telling amusing stories about family she had not talked of in decades. They laughed about the letter she had gotten recently from her great-nephew Byron Edgecomb, who lives in France. He wrote that he had run through most of his tennis earnings, but he could send a little money if need be. Zera had only to let him know.

  Zera didn’t need her great-nephew’s money. The state of Mississippi paid her rent. Volunteers did her laundry a
nd brought in meals. Twice a week, she and several other residents at the Saint Agnes Senior Housing Facility in Jackson ordered delivery dinners: chicken, fried shrimp, spaghetti with meat sauce, or her favorite—ham with mustard greens. A patron sent her dresses that were plain enough to wear when she sat on the concrete porch of her apartment without the neighbors thinking she was living too comfortably. The walk to the cemetery was easy in the nice pair of wedge-heeled shoes sent to her by a female advertising executive from Chicago.

  But Zera was not prepared for the pain she felt as she walked past the graves of her grandparents, Althea and Henry, and the grave of her father, Floyd. At the grave of her mother, Patience, she stood for several minutes racked with the same grief that plagued her as a child, a heavy guilt about the fact that her mother had died bringing her into the world. The only comfort came from the gratitude she felt that the family buried there were all resting peacefully.

  And now her son must be returned to a proper resting place. Her desire to help make that happen had been the reason she signed the paperwork petitioning the governor to grant her a pardon. She left the cemetery recalling the day she heard about the accident that killed her son in Halifax. To live with that grief she had contrived the circumstances under which she might see her son again. If they met in Canada there would be a cool wind, and the sun would be a pale silvery blue.

  Those whimsical dreams about her son were on Zera’s mind again yesterday when she boarded the plane in Jackson for Halifax. She arrived at the showroom in the funeral home this morning, not wanting to believe that the bones being kept here were the remains of her son—far better to believe that her son had not died, that he had survived the truck accident. Perhaps he walks the earth with a scrambled mind, not knowing who he is? She might well run into him here in Simms Corner, or on the bluff. Seeing her, he will regain his senses, surely. What son does not recognize his mother?

  “I don’t want to see my son’s remains quite yet,” Zera tells the young woman in the funeral home. “I don’t want to see them until I know where he will be buried.”

  “When will you know?”

  When Zera hesitates, Warner takes her hand. “If the city council supports the mayor tomorrow,” he says to Zera in a low voice. “You do recognize that the case could drag on for months.”

  Zera turns to the young woman. “If that happens, Warner and I might make sooner arrangements.”

  “What do you mean?” she asks.

  “We might return my son’s remains to Mississippi, where he was born.”

  Warner helps Zera onto the front seat of the rental car, feeling out of sorts. Zera looks tired, but moments ago in the funeral home, a local woman reminded him and Zera about the Friends of the Cemetery meeting this morning at ten o’clock. He had been certain the meeting was scheduled for tomorrow, but of course that makes no sense. Members of the city council are meeting tomorrow, June 10. The Friends of the Cemetery have to meet today to prepare for that.

  Warner had promised Marcelina Higgins-Pitts he would bring Zera to the meeting to decide who will speak on behalf of the Friends of the Cemetery at the council meeting. He steers the car down Gottingen Street, still surprised that Zera accepted Marcelina’s invitation to attend the meeting. Perhaps Zera had been swayed by Marcelina’s opinion that the council will lend a sympathetic ear to their cause if Zera is in the chamber tomorrow. Marcelina added that the arrogant young mayor had so alienated the councillors that none seemed inclined to back his plan to take the cemetery fight to the Supreme Court of Canada. “Zera is an elderly woman who was unjustly imprisoned down in the States,” Marcelina said. “Elderly and not in the best of health, she will have traveled far to return her son’s remains to the cemetery where he was buried. Her presence at the council meeting will be a big help.”

  The group assembled in the reading room at the Simms Corner Library is about the same size as the one that attended the deliberations by the appeals court of Nova Scotia last week, barely twenty people.

  “We have got to have a better turnout at city hall tomorrow,” Marcelina says. She wears a dark-blue jacket with a colorful blouse and skirt. The corner of an African-print handkerchief peeks out of the pocket of her jacket. Seated nearby at one of the long study tables is Eva Cannon.

  “Eva is going to bring a few of the people who used to live in the trailers to the council meeting,” Marcelina says, gesturing for Eva to stand. “That will help fill up the room with our supporters.”

  “You and Eva have gotten awfully chummy lately,” a man near the front tells Marcelina. “Are the two of you paying those Trailerheads to come to the meeting?”

  “We are not paying anybody,” Marcelina says.

  “Well, then, those people are coming only because you and Eva found them somewhere to live when they got kicked off the bluff. Do they really give two hoots about the cemetery, about Africaville?”

  Heads nod around the room.

  “Let’s not get into any of the old fights,” Marcelina says, raising her hands.

  “Nobody’s fighting,” the man says. “We’re just saying what we think. That’s how you get someplace.”

  “To get someplace we needs bodies downtown tomorrow,” Marcelina says. She points at a table in the back of the room where Zera sits beside Warner. “We have a few visitors who have come a long way to be with us. We will be adding their names to the list of aggrieved parties in the lawsuit.”

  “Will the city vote to appeal the ruling?” a woman asks.

  “Hard to say,” Marcelina says. “But Zera Platt’s name should be added to the list of respondents if the city does appeal.”

  Marcelina passes around copies of newspaper articles about Zera’s long imprisonment. A man near the front takes a copy with a frown. “I hear you that Mrs. Platt has come a long way,” he says. “I agree that she ought to be in the council chamber tomorrow. But now you’re saying she ought to speak?”

  “None of us has been asked to address the council,” an elderly woman says. “Do you believe what that woman might say is more important than what local folk have to say?”

  “Thomas Eatten will address the council tomorrow,” Marcelina says. “So will a few of the Caulden brothers. And Matilda Green said she would speak.”

  “But where are they?”

  “They will be there tomorrow.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Marcelina drops her shoulders, looking exasperated. “Mrs. Platt isn’t more important than the rest of us,” she says. “But this mayor is determined, even though the appeals court ruled in our favor. Our fight needs new momentum. Zera is someone the council has not heard from before.”

  A rumble of low voices erupts in the crowd. When Zera rises to her feet, the room gets quiet.

  “I did not come to Halifax to right a wrong,” Zera says. “I am old enough to recognize the foolishness in that. I came here to return my son’s remains to the earth. Regardless of what the council decides tomorrow, I intend to do that. I hope the Africaville cemetery survives. I am more than willing to tell the politicians that tomorrow. But do not think for a minute that we all won’t keep on living if it doesn’t.”

  In the evening, the national news runs a segment on Africaville with video narrated by Marcelina Higgins-Pitts. There are pictures of Africaville Elementary and Secondary and of Platt’s Hardware, the rooming houses, and the cemetery. But there are no pictures of houses in New Jamaica, and the only pictures of the Hindquarter are of the two houses Marcelina’s family used to own.

  The next day newspaper reporters and television news crews from as far away as Toronto enter the chamber of the Halifax City Council. Zera’s testimony comes near the end of the hearing, and by the time she is seated before the council the chamber is packed with attendees, many of them standing in the aisles. The councillors do not seem inclined to press Zera on any matter. Most spend their allotted time telling her how grateful they are that she has traveled so far and how pleased they are to welcome her
to Halifax.

  One young councillor, however, sits sternly as she adjusts her rostrum microphone, looking eager to confront Zera. “Why did you agree to add your name to the lawsuit?” the councillor asks.

  “Because I was asked,” Zera says. “And because the plot in the cemetery where my son rested has been bought and paid for.”

  “Not with cash.”

  “No, but with the sweat of the men who cleared the land.”

  “Are you sorry you sent your son to Halifax?”

  “I sent him here to keep him out of danger. And for most of the time he was on this earth, he was.”

  “But he died up here.”

  “My son didn’t die over there in Africaville,” Zera says. “The bluff was kind to him. On the bluff he met the woman he loved.”

  After the council chairwoman announces that the matter will come to a vote, a quiet falls over the chamber. “All those in favor of leaving the cemetery where it is, please say—no, let’s do it different,” the chairwoman says. “All in favor of supporting the mayor in his quest to move the cemetery, raise your hand.”

  The mayor’s chief of staff and the other aides around him stop their conversations to listen. Several photographers in the aisle move in closer and raise their cameras.

  Not a single hand goes up.

  The rectangular container resting on the wide shelf in the back room at Jameel and Sons Funeral Home is made of plywood. The blocky letters stenciled on its lid say MISTER OMAR PLATT.

  The funeral home employee assisting Warner and Zera today is a short, stout, middle-aged man. The dark suit he wears has sharp creases, but looks one size too small. He smells of disinfectant soap, as though he washes his hands too often. He unzips the oilcloth bag inside the container and waits for nearly a minute. But neither Warner nor Zera steps forward to look inside.

  Warner thinks it best to let Zera have the first look. But she does not seem yet inclined to do so. After another moment, Warner walks to the container, takes a glimpse inside, and then steps back.