by Susan Tabin
“I understand your feeling nervous, Wendy. You are American and you’re also African, not only because you’re black, because you were born in Africa.”
“I remember fishing in a pond with John Mbingo. How old do you think he is now?” she asked.
“John’s the oldest, about five years older than you. I guess nineteen.”
“I don’t remember the Mbingos, I don’t remember Africa.”
“You were little more than a baby, Gregory.”
Our trip never came to pass. A severe outbreak of malaria in Tanzania kept us from going. Instead at Gregory’s urging we went to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Gregory remembered an earlier family trip to Disney World and he very much wanted to return. The first time we went Gregory was seven years old. There’s a framed photo in our living room sitting on top of the baby grand piano, that both children play, of Mickey Mouse, one arm around Wendy who’s clutching a Minnie Mouse doll to her chest, the other arm around Gregory who has a huge toothless smile.
~
Once a neighbor asked, “Don’t you think those kids will have an identity crisis?”
“Probably,” I answered. “I had to cross an ocean and back to find out who I was. With a mother like me I suppose so.”
In actuality they always seemed to know who they were. As a teenager Wendy, who went through ‘hair stages’ having plaited, braided, straightened, relaxed, Afro’d and gone natural, answered my concern with, “Mom, my hair is about style. I’m about making a difference in this world.”
Seeing Gregory’s hair in dreadlocks for the first time, my father asked him, “What are you—a Rasta-Jew...you have yidlocks?” Gregory, guzzling a Pepsi after football, whirled around the kitchen trying to hold in a mouthful of soda until finally he couldn’t contain himself any longer. He sprayed the room with Pepsi and lay down on the floor, delirious with laughter. I knew then that my son would walk through his life in humor and wisdom, hopefully claiming his place in the brotherhood of mankind.
And indeed it looked like Wendy might make a difference in the world. She was a well-rounded girl: A-plus student, marching band, senior class president and still she found time to read to those without sight at The Lighthouse for the Blind.
~
Gregory is his father’s son. Having majored in art he opened a gallery in Soho. He specializes in Caribbean, African-American art. He has a great eye and he’s building quite a following of patrons. His own talent lies in sculpting, with works reminiscent of the extraordinary Makonde carvers who live in Tanzania near the Mozambique border. Gregory was commissioned to do several sculptures for the Broadway show The Lion King. That’s how he met Sandra. “A fine specimen of a young woman if ever I did see one,” is how Kevin describes her. Leggy with a small waist and bubbly as a glass of champagne, Sandra is the consummate showgirl and a welcome addition to our lives.
Wendy always the scholar went on to Yale University School of Medicine.
Gregory’s wedding was a phantasmagoric scene. Most of his wife Sandra’s Broadway co-performers arrived at Tavern on the Green in full Lion King stage makeup and costume. Hakuna Matata was the greeting on everyone’s lips. Everyone from Aisha and Amadou Mbingo, Sandra’s family from the Bahamas, the ‘old money’ DeMornay family from Lexington, the New York Beriman clan to Kevin’s NYU colleagues and the life-long friends he’d made years ago at the Harlem barber shop. In from Europe my brother Michael, and Ere Zeta who officiated the ceremony telling the young couple, “It is the energy of love you recognize in one another that brings you together this day. The purpose of marriage is so that you can learn from each other. So you can come into a higher expression.”
~
Upon completing her residency specializing in contagious diseases, Wendy moved to Africa. Shortly afterward I received the following e-mail:
Mom,
I found out that a bisisi-child is born from your first sexual encounter. Did you have an affair with Amadou? How come you never told me?
Love you,
Wendy
I thought about my omissions and about my father’s long-ago secret, and I imagined that all parents face the dilemma of telling their children either too little or too much.
I replied:
Wendy Doll face,
It was hardly an affair. We were teenagers. Besides, mothers don’t usually tell their daughters things like that.
Love and Light, Mom
Her most recent e-mail was of a more serious nature:
Dear Mom,
I’m having a discouraging day. The AIDS epidemic is staggering here in South Africa and it’s getting worse. Please send lots of Light to this part of the world. We need it. Love to Dad.
Your bisisi girl, Wendy
Twenty-Seven
This past summer Kevin headed up an art restoration project at a Byzantine church near Palaiochora on Crete. It was my first return trip to the Greek Island in forty years. I took Kevin to the writer Nikos Kazanzakis’ gravesite. He asked me if I knew what the inscription on the granite stone read.
I told him, “I am afraid of nothing, I want nothing, I am free.”
He sighed and raised his face to the sun. He was still handsome, my husband, with his head of curly white hair.
We rented a furnished bungalow overlooking the sea. A few days into our stay, I arose later than usual. Kevin was gone, off to the Byzantine church to restore fourteenth century icons. A pot of freshly brewed coffee and a sky filled with storm clouds awaited me. I passed on the coffee and pulled on my gray sweats so that I could head on down to the beach before the rain came. As I stood at the edge of the sea an avalanche of frothy waves advanced toward me, the breakers farthest away shooting spray into the sky like a chorus line of a thousand dancing fountains. A colony of whitish-gray, long-billed terns lifted off the sand, headed into a thermal and without flapping their extended wings, they glided gracefully like a band of angels called toward heaven.
A sudden violent gust of cold wind had me turning around and heading back to the bungalow. As I neared the white bungalow the blowing squall became a downpour of rain. I galloped up the steps to the porch, opened the sliding glass door and hurried inside. I was about to pour myself a cup of coffee. The phone rang. I picked up the receiver and panted, “Hello.”
“I’m surprised to hear from you, Michael. What’s up, everything okay?”
Michael spoke slowly articulating each syllable. “Darjeeling, I wanted to let you know that Ere Zeta has passed over.”
I closed my eyes and gulped, “Bless you, Ere Zeta, bless you on your journey.” A vivid image of Ere Zeta surrounded, filled, and protected by white Light appeared to me. My shoulders dropped and my body entered into a deep state of relaxation. I knew that there was nothing for me to do, nothing to fix or to change or to control. I opened my eyelids and said, “I just received a letter from him, Michael. When did he die?”
“Last week, June 27th.”
“That’s impossible, I. . . Michael, hold a minute,” I said quickly and less distinctly. I reached for my pocketbook, groped around inside until I fished out the letter from Ere Zeta and said, “It’s
dated July 2nd and postmarked July 3rd from London.”
Michael chuckled then broke into laughter, which roused an explosion of laughter in me, which in turn provoked him into roaring and snorting. I laughed until my stomach and sides ached.
When the laughing subsided, he said, “Remember Ere Zeta telling us that laughter was a sure sign the spirit was present.”
His voice cracked and we both began to weep. And then to laugh again. We were children, laughing and crying at the same time.
“Michael, I’d like to read the letter to you.”
“Please,” he said.
2nd July
Beloved Darjeeling,
I am with you in your heart and you have known this. It is time to know it in a greater way, for you stand on the threshold of entering into the high country. Whenever you need strength or love
in a greater way turn to your heart. It is there. The love will come through you in your expression. Others will recognize this love and will be lifted and will know the greater reality.
In Light and Loving,
Ere Zeta
“Thanks for sharing that, Darjeeling. It touched me, opened my heart.”
“My heart as well. I love you, Michael. I’ll speak to you soon.
~
A month and a half later I was packing for a week long trip to visit my daughter in South Africa. The bungalow seemed stuffy. I opened the sliding glass door and walked out onto the small porch. As I leaned against the railing and looked at the vast expanse of sea before me I remembered the one who awakened me into the Light and the essence of my own divinity. Though Ere Zeta has passed back into the heart of God, his teachings live on inside of me, in my works, through my children, and I still see him occasionally…in my dreams, in the night travels, in the mystery school.
I looked across the sea toward Africa and I thought about my grandmother. How proud she’d be that I’m fluent in Swahili and even more so that I went in search of the river beneath the river and found out that its name is Love. I understood in that moment that it had been unnecessary for me to cross an ocean to find out who I am. Had I made it a priority and taken the time to look inside for that sacred place of peace, I would have come to know that I am the pure love of Spirit. Love that when it is aware of itself is afraid of nothing, wants nothing, is free.
Reading Group Discussion Questions
1. Despite poverty, loss, family secrets, shame, suffering and injustice, The River Beneath The River is an uplifting story. How does the author accomplish this?
2. What are your feelings about Darci’s behavior. Are you challenged by her candid expression? Are there areas in your life where you can embrace freedom by suspending judgment?
3. Darci tells us that as a child she didn't fit in. Can you relate?
4. Discuss the relationship between Pini and Sela Beriman. What happens to children when they witness their parents’ discord?
5. Were you surprised that Darci’s childhood friend, Natalie did not resurface in the story? What do you think Susan’s motives were?
6. What is the deeper significance of Darci becoming Darjeeling? Have you ever considered changing your name?
7. Through Ere Zeta and the mystery school, Darci connects with her own spirit. How might your life be transformed in knowing an enlightened being?
8. Discuss Darjeeling's path into motherhood. Examine what your place in the world is concerning people who are different than yourself.
9. What are the underlying themes of this story?
10. How does this novel make you look at your life differently than you did before? Discuss how you are more aware of the rivers that flow beneath the surface of your life.
About the Author
Susan Tabin is an avid student of life. From her post-college days in the mid 1960’s as a teacher in the New York City school system, to home schooling her two children in the 70’s, to taking a year off from her endeavors to travel across the US with her family in a motor home, she has met life with a passion and a voracious appetite for learning.
Susan lives with her husband in a lakeside home in southern Florida.