My Jim

by Nancy Rawles

  PART THREE

  My Nanna

  Cross

  My nanna give me this story in the days right after my childhood. After Papa Duban cross to the other side and we lone in our sorrow. She tell me bout the loss ones. She show me them things she keep in her jar. And she learn me to make my first quilt.

  Quilt smell like my nanna. Smell like the smoke from her pipe. Like the oil she rub in her hair.

  She tell me we gonna lay a cross in the middle. For my mama. Make it like a window. So you can look down into it. We gonna put a leaf in there. A leaf or a root or a flower. Something for the healing.

  I misses my mama like yesterday. I still looks for her every day. In my dreams I goes west looking for her. I goes north all the way into Canaan looking for her. But every place I looks she one step beyond.

  My nanna close her eyes and feel my face. She move her fingers cross my lips and cheeks. I rubs her hands with a salve made from soapweed and ginger and prickly ash.

  My nanna sing deep river and I feels pain like water in my heart. She sing oh freedom and I hears them slaves in the fields longing for the day. She sing coming for to carry me home and I sees the rivers of belle Congo. She sing sometimes I feels like a motherless child and I cries.

  Nanna piece the quilt and I helps her. She tell me to draw a hat on some fabric. She want the hat her Jim wear. I cuts a knife and a pipe. And a button for my loss sister. We gonna turn the edges under and sew them things onto my quilt. Wherever I goes in this life I gonna have something of my nanna.

  Quilt

  Now we ready to make the back. You go get that apron from the high shelf. Thats the apron your mama wear to school. When she find herself with you she put it away. I keeps it for you to wear when you a big schoolgirl. But the colored school been closed a long time and you dont need a apron.

  You take that apron and rip it long the seam. I needs some strips bout three fingers wide. You take them overalls from Papa Duban. Cut the parts still got color. Make me a little pile. Then we gonna see what we gots.

  Cant piece no quilt without Papa Dubans work clothes. You got you a working man like Papa Duban. Aint scared of work and proud to do it well. Thats the only kind of man worth the price.

  See this white line jumping from place to place. Thats your mama. Cant never sit still your mama. Thats the white of the morning sun your mamas favorite time of day. Time to get up and go off to school. I all the way looking at the back of her. Then one day she disappear into the night. Nobody can never keep her. She gonna come back in the moonlight. You wait and see.

  I believes I knows where your mama gone. She all the way say she gonna run off to Kansas and follow the ghost of John Brown. I cant says for sure she ever made it to Kansas. Maybe she right cross the line in Texas. Maybe you find her out west.

  When you find your mama you still smell that leather on her. Her hands got the dye from the indigo. She got a mole on her chest and one on her cheek. Thats how you know her. She your mama even if she aint know you. You take this quilt and find her. When she see it she know how you suffer for her. You and me both.

  We gonna make some wide strips out the blue. Papa Duban never got a new pair of pants. Then right fore he die he got a new pair from the relief. Thats the last relief we gots. When the troops leave most the Yankees go with them. But a few of them stay to help us.

  We gonna follow that blue with a brown cause we aint got blue to finish the strip. Your eye need to balance on something. The brown be the bridge. What we missing. Go on and stack that red. I likes what you got going there. Just a little flash of red out the blue.

  Might as well puts this old dress to some use. Why I wants to save it. I steals this when a woman aint pay me. I tells her she never give me that dress to wash. It aint on the line and it aint with my ironing. I swears I aint takes it maam. Thats what I tells her. And all the time I wearing it like it mine.

  Thats Papa Dubans favorite dress. Once he realize I aint gots it from another man he tell me how much he like it. At first he think I gots it from a white man.

  You got to know to watch the white mens. Since the war they act like they cant stand us. Like it aint natural having relations with the colored. Fore the war theys all over us. They still be if you let them.

  But you a new kind of gal aint never been used. You still belong to yourself.

  Got that button. When you still a girl you finger it whenever you lonely for your mama. But that button aint from your mama. I tells you that your mamas button so you got something to hold onto. That button from my Lizbeth. Go and get Nanna that button. We gonna sew it on your quilt. Thats where we gonna keep it.

  I aint gots much longer to keep these bones warm. Dont needs another quilt. Just a few rags to lay under when winter come. Folks living to a hundred but that aint what I wants. You wont see Mama Sadie carrying on at a hundred. I gonna call it a day while I still remembers where I comes from.

  This quilt for our loss ones. We puts what we gots left of them here. My Jim. My Jonnie. My Lizbeth. They cover you at night and keep you warm. They colors all here. Brown for Jims hat. Gold for Lizbeths button. Black for Jonnies eyes.

  We gots the cross from my mama. Mama Liza. We puts it in a diamond. Thats so you know the Congo cross. Diamond like a circle round it. Different from the cross of Jesus.

  This quilt gonna keep you warm. Wherever you go to look for your freedom you take the warm with you. You wrap yourself in it and remember how the old people love you.

  The light going now. We gots to stop soon. I can feels a straight line but I cant sees the color. Its so hot I cant thinks bout cooking. Gonna wait for the men to make a barbecue. Maybe fries up a little fish.

  Button

  You cant really own nothing less you love it. And cant own no love cause you cant never catch it.

  The wars over long time ago but I still aint tastes my freedom. You meet colored folks living to be a hundred and twelve. White folks say we must gots it good if we living to be a hundred and twelve. But we just trying to live till our freedom thats all.

  I gots from my mama a few things. She give me a bowl belong to her mama and she give me her knife. She learn me how to find roots and leaves in the woods. How to put them in that bowl and crush them up. How to use just the right amount. You aint want to kill folks Sadie. You want to cure folks she say. But times I aint so sure.

  When I cant goes no farther knife call me with her comfort. I helps you any time it say. I helps you escape from this place. But I cant brings myself to answer. Times keep getting worse. And I keeps hoping they gonna get better.

  The worse they get the more I remembers. Too old now to recall all the times from being young. But I remembers what I aint sees no more. I remembers my husband and children. You know how I done prize Papa Duban. But he aint never take the place of my Jim. It make me sad every time I numbers my loss.

  Jim and me we makes our plans. Whoever gets to freedom first gonna find the other. I all the way knows him no matter how he change. I knows him by the scar on his chin. And the drumming in my chest.

  I cant tells you much bout love. I cant tells you where to find it. When we colored gots a price on our heads some white folks treat us better than they do today. Looking to keep us down every chance they get. Specially the colored mens and womens want something better for theyselves.

  After Jim I thinks nobody gonna ever loves me again. But Andrew love me in his way. And Papa Duban love me. And my children love me. And you Marianne Libre.

  I the one who loss how to love. I tries to love Papa Duban. He a good man him. I tries to love my children. Your mama Elise. And all them boys born of the cane. But I never shows nobody my first heart. They never seen the heart I borns with. It die a long time ago back in Missouri. Back in the slave pen in St. Louis. Last time I sees my Jim.

  I aint never knows how Jim find me in Shreveport. Many times I dreams he gonna find me. After the war lots of folks go looking for they kin. But I stays with Duban and tries to make the best o
f things. I aint wants to leave your mama and uncles. I aint never gonna leave no children again. I knows if I stays put my Jim gonna find me.

  One day I comes back to the cabin and he there.

  I looking for Miss Sadie Watson he say. They tell me I can finds her here. He wearing a new hat.

  My heart stop. I barely gots a breath in me.

  He aint sound no different to me. Same big laugh.

  Who come asking bout somebody no longer living I says. I aint smiles or nothing.

  He grab me with his big hands and I starts to cry. I feels for the scar on his chin.

  It me Sadie. Your Jim. Aint you know me. Been twenty years since I holds you. But I never gives you up.

  You come back to me Jim. At last you come. I leans into him. But when he try to kiss me I turns away. I gots a husband now I say. Name of Duban. He working in the foundry. And thats my grandbaby in the corner. She sick with the fever and I comes home to check on her. I needs to get back fore they miss me in the fields.

  How old that little one he say. Cant be no more than two. He take you in his arms and lift you to his cheek.

  She four I says but she aint got no meat on her.

  They tell us we free he say but we still aint gots no meat. He pull a piece of salt pork from a rag in his pocket. He hold it to your mouth and let you suck on it. You aint got strength to bite it. He rock you in his arms.

  I cant leaves her I says. Her mama aint got long here. Me and Duban all she got. I leaves my firstborn child long years ago on Stevens farm. You know what come of her.

  He put you down and hang his head.

  Our Lizbeth gone he say. After they take you away I runs to the territories. It aint safe for me in Hannibal. Them slavers put a bounty on my head. So I runs west. But I comes to find our Lizbeth soon as I hears the Union in Hannibal. She with the refugees. Small and frail and weak. She ask me bout her mama. I aint knows what to say. So I tells her I seen you with my sight. I seen you just like today. And I knows you still alive. But her heart broken and she die in the refugee camp. Next day I comes and she aint there.

  I cries out to hear it. He hold onto me.

  She ask me to give you something he say. He pull that gold button out his pocket. I fingers it and cries. We both gots tears falling everywhere. Ears nose cheeks chin we weeps into each other.

  What bout our Jonnie. I whispers his name.

  I aint never finds what happen to Jonnie he say. Mas Stevens sell him to the slave traders and they carries him off to Mississippi. I talks to a fella from Greenville say he work with a Jonnie in the delta. Over there in Sherard. But I goes there asking round and nobody can call him. Must of been some other Jonnie born Missouri way. I aint knows what name he go under nowaday. He might not remember the Watson place.

  I changes my name but you still finds me.

  Folks know you by your eye he say. Aint Sadie they say. Sallie. Hannibal Sallie.

  I been all kind of people since you seen me last. Aint wants to talk bout that now. Them days on the Watson place a long time gone but seeing you brings them back. Them days when we both young and free with ourselves.

  He look sad when I says that. We marries for all time he say. Aint you remember the day. You say you mine forever. Under a black walnut tree. I walks so far to find you. Now come away with me. We carries that baby girl with us. And settles wherever we wants. I builds you a house with windows. Next to a black walnut tree.

  Jimmy you know I loves you. Loves you from the moment you born. I waits all my nights for the day when you come back to me. But now I gots another. I gots two sons and a daughter living and none of them Dubans. But he father them all and my granbabies too. So him I cant thinks of leaving.

  You break my heart sweet Sadie. I comes across the years to find you. I always waits for you.

  I knows you got a woman waiting. Goodlooking man like you. I believes you seeing a younger gal. Under a black walnut tree.

  Dont tease me now Sadie. I aint gots no woman but you. You say you love another but I cant says the same is true. I gonna take my hat and wanders till I finds another home. When I finds it I writes you a letter so you know where your Jim done gone. So gal dont fry me no fritters dont take me in your arms. I cant stands to think of leaving when we free to do as we wants.

  Only ones free the spirits I says.

  Then I gonna see my Sadie in heaven for sure. He turn real sad to go. I gives him a kiss on the back of his neck. I aint never seen him no more.

  Now that Duban gone I keeps thinking Jim gonna come back my way. I never gets no letter from him. But my heart know he alive. It sing for him.

  Guess I gonna be in heaven fore I sees my Jim. Gonna greet the good Lord fore I holds him again. Guess I gonna be an angel fore the light of his smile touches my face one more time.

  When he leave he take all the light with him. But every time I thinks on him the light come back.

  Lets put up this quilt and look at it. You call off what you see. I believes we gots everybody up there. Thats Papa Duban surrounding everybody protecting us like in life. And your mama close up next to him following him down the road. That red for your daddy. Red what they calls him. And that yellow dress I wears into the ground. How it look now in your quilt. You take Lizbeths button and sew it on there. Black for Jonnies eyes. Brown for Jims hat. All them watching over you. Folks you aint even know wishing you well praying right now for your soul. If you let the spirits near you they guide you along. All them Africans. They spirits never settle till the last of they children come home.

  Everybody who love come back. Sooner or later they come for you. You feel they hand on your shoulder. Or they spirits in the room with you. Some sitting quiet some raging. Settling over you like dust. Sometimes it they voice that come. They fingers pulling your hair in the night.

  I gives you my first heart Marianne. The heart I gots for my mama. And the heart I gots for my Jim. You show me my heart again when you ask me bout my things. Theys spirits in things.

  You take that quilt wherever you go. When you old and wore you think on me and all the others love you. You close your eyes and feel our love coming up behind you. Thats all you got in this world.

  A CONVERSATION WITH NANCY RAWLES

  How did the idea for My Jim emerge?

  For many years I have been interested in the continuing debate over whether or not to teach The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in high schools and middle schools. As with any book we continue to teach more than a century after it was written, there are lessons in it for today. I felt it was time for a literary response to Jim. In Huckleberry Finn, we learn who Jim was and who he later became to Huck, but that’s a limited view. Who was he to his family and community? Who was he to his wife? I wanted to continue to expand the discussion of Jim. As My Jim developed, it became more of the story of Jim’s wife. In many ways, Huckleberry Finn is more about Jim than it is about Huck. And My Jim is more about Sadie, Jim’s wife, than it is about Jim.

  What was the biggest challenge you faced writing My Jim?

  My most difficult task was deciding how to tell the story. I studied many slave narratives and interviews with former slaves. I decided to take from both forms—the harrowing, suspenseful narratives and the spare, heartbreaking oral histories—with two important differences: Mine is a narrative that doesn’t end in escape, and it is told to an intimate as opposed to an interviewer. My Jim is a story told by Sadie, Jim’s wife, to her granddaughter by another marriage, Marianne. The two of them are making a quilt for Marianne to take with her if she decides to go west with her young love, a buffalo soldier named Chas Freeman. Because Marianne was taught her letters by her mother, who had learned in the Reconstruction schools for freedmen, and because she’s picked up additional lessons along the way, she is able to record her grandmother’s story. She makes mistakes in subject and verb agreement and her punctuation is limited, but otherwise her writing is pretty good.

  What are your feelings about the character of Jim and Mark Twain
’s treatment of him?

  I believe Mark Twain wanted to make his story primarily about Jim but didn’t feel he could get away with it. So he wrote the adventures of Huck and Jim, two side-by-side stories of vulnerable and brutalized people escaping a world of man-made violence and cruelty and journeying down a wild and treacherous river. In Huckleberry Finn, when Huck finds Jim crying because he misses his family, he realizes his companion is a loving husband and father. This realization is what leads to Huck’s change of heart and turns him into an unlikely accomplice to Jim’s crime of freedom. It is this freedom that is central to My Jim, a freedom that results in the loss of family, the very loss that Jim is trying to avoid by escaping. Huckleberry Finn is a difficult book because it talks out of both sides of its mouth. I believe Mark Twain was making a strong point about Jim’s humanity at a time—the end of Reconstruction—when racism had reached a level of absurdity so violent and distorted that the humanity of Southern whites was a pressing international question. So Twain is making a case for Huck as well as for Jim. Ultimately, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn can be read many ways; I like to read it for its study of freedom and confinement.

  In My Jim, Sadie tells the story of her early life with Jim, revealing along the way the value of the broken objects she has carried with her from slavery to freedom. Where did you get the inspiration for these objects and for the quilt?

  Several years ago, I attended a symposium about slavery at the University of Washington in which one of the presenters spoke about how slaves owned so little that the little they owned became hugely important to them. The inspiration for the objects did not come to me until several months after the conference, but the conference planted the seed.

  What role does history play in your writing and your life?

  All my writing is deeply rooted in history. From a play about the 1969 assassination of Seattle civil rights leader Edwin T. Pratt to a novel about a family struggling with the legacy of the 1965 Watts riots, my books and plays are steeped in the defining events of their times and places. I believe the past informs the present. My Jim is my first work set in nineteenth-century America. It tells the story of the family left behind when Jim makes his famous run for freedom on the Mississippi River in the company of an impoverished and abused white child. It references passages from that famous story along with events that took place in Missouri before the Civil War, some of which greatly influenced the young Samuel Clemens. In writing about Jim’s story, I wanted to write about life for one family in this pre–Civil War era as well as in post-Reconstruction Louisiana. I also wanted to write about enduring love existing under the most unbearable of circumstances. Though the characters in My Jim are fictional, their stories are inspired by the true stories of countless men, women, and children held captive in a young nation whose leaders had pledged an end to tyranny.