What the River Washed Away

by Muriel Mharie Macleod

  Mambo’s voice is full of hope, and doubt.

  ‘I think we all need to be getting right behind her on it,’ I say. ‘Find a way of helping her get a good life. Only thing going to stop Rochelle is money Mambo.’

  Same old story for us folks. A pot of free paint to brighten up the cabin is one thing, paying for a college education is something else. I see the older kids at Sunday school going up for scholarships and some are not as smart as our Rochelle. That’s what Red got so he could go to California, though in truth he was smart enough. Plenty of coloureds are getting scholarships for Grambling, and other places, too. They’ve got black colleges starting up all over.

  ‘The other thing is letting Rochelle go, Mambo. Setting her free of the old ways. Maybe she doesn’t want to be a mambo.’

  Mambo stays quiet for a while before she speaks again.

  ‘Maybe she don’t want free of the old ways.’

  I leave it right there.

  Safi’s little girl is called Martha. I see her as much as I can and every time gets me thinking about Safi’s secrets. Ainsley moves away. He doesn’t come to say goodbye, but I hear he met somebody and got married. The following Christmas I come across him when he’s back seeing his folks.

  ‘Things ain’t the same, Arletta. Just ain’t the same.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that, Ainsley.’

  I tell him about Martha, and how she’s growing, how she looks just like Safi. He’s been wondering if what Safi did caused the child harm and I have to say it has, for sure. Martha is the sweetest, loving little child, but she’s going to be slow, no question about it, everybody can see that. She stays on in her cot long past the time she should be walking, but when she finally takes her first step, a mighty fuss is rightly made of it. Mambo says it’s just as well she turned out good-natured, because trying to get rid of a child with poison leaves no telling how they’re going to grow up.

  Even when she’s still a toddler, she likes being with Mambo.

  ‘She likes to be mucky in the soil with Mambo,’ Safi’s ma says.

  ‘Ain’t slow with that sort of thing at all, she sure got it,’ says Mambo.

  Mambo still keeps her herbs out front and vegetables out back, so when Rochelle starts getting marked top of her class, and Mambo says she’s gotten too precious for getting her fingernails into the good earth, little Martha is already keeping the weeds down. When she’s talking, she starts telling Mambo when things need picking and pruning.

  ‘Mambo, need a pick dis. Long time growin’ ain’t good, ’erbs get old an’ hard get in ’em.’

  ‘Soil needs rest,’ she tells me one day. ‘Soil needs rest to get strong, jus’ like us when we sleepin’.’

  Sitting on our porch watching little Martha get mucky, I tell Mambo Safi is still on my mind all the time. I know she’s not at rest, and I know I’m dwelling on it too much, but I still miss her. I look at little Martha, glad she’s going to be okay, she’s just going to be slow. ‘Ain’t nothing,’ says Mambo. She wants to be over here at our cabin with Mambo all the time, in and out of the pots and herbs.

  ‘She’s got it, Arletta, she got her gut.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re thinking she’s going to be Mambo!’

  ‘That’s for her and her spirit, and y’all gonna stay right outta it. Might be Safi’s watching over her child and she’s gonna find something for her to be doing in this life. I’m watchin’ for it. Right now I only tell her what she wants to know, then I watch that she goes about it the right way.’

  ‘I’m not angry Mambo. I’m glad you’ve got Martha. I’m real glad about it.’

  I’m deep down happy for Mambo. She lost me and Rochelle from learning the old ways – we wanted to be learning something else – but one thing I know by now is these old ways will always want to be staying alive in this world. Mambo is always saying this world needs these ways real bad and they’ll always find a way to be here.

  ‘But I’m wishing y’all could meet somebody else since Red gone, Arletta. Somebody nice, maybe have children of ya own to care for. Ain’t nobody ya liking?’

  ‘I don’t want to get married.’

  ‘Don’t be talkin’ like that, Arletta. Ya need somebody to talk to, ya need company, someone to help out, do things with. That’s just nature’s way. Who wants to be alone for ever? Who wanna be lonely?’

  ‘I don’t feel lonely.’

  ‘Don’t take this the wrong way but, honey, ya starting to look lonely. Ya getting that look.’

  ‘I don’t want to fight, Mambo.’

  ‘I know. It’s just there ain’t no joy in ya at all, and that ain’t good, ain’t healthy for no girl. Hell, ya ain’t no girl, ya done with that. Ya come up like a young woman and a beauty, same as always. What’s wrong Arletta? Ya ain’t ever tell me what’s wrong, and I know there’s something. All ya life it seems something ain’t right.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong, I’m happy by myself.’

  ‘That sure ain’t happiness I see in ya face at all, and whatever it is, been goin’ on long before Safi passed away. I knows it honey.’

  I shrug. Being happy never figured in my life. What she doesn’t know, and I’m already sure of, is that I’ll never bear children because of what was done to me as a child. I sometimes get a bleeding, but it won’t show much, and I know I’m not fertile enough for bearing children. My periods are coming less and less anyway. Last time was three months past and hardly showed at all. I don’t need a doctor telling me what I already know, and I’m not going to start telling no husband why he’s never having children of his own. That’s why I’m glad Red found somebody else.

  ‘One of ’em days, Arletta, I want ya telling me what’s wrong. I been waitin’ a long time. I know I ain’t no kinda ma when ya were a child, and I’m real sorry for it too, but Pappy drive me crazy and I did everything to make him crazy back. Ya grandma and me were always close, and I don’t recall she was ever nice to Pappy, I don’t know the cause of that. I reckon he had one helluva life with her; she sure was hard to deal with. And I’m sorry I ain’t never able to give ya what I can give Rochelle.’

  It came years late, that she’s sorry about me, but I’m glad it came anyways. I reach out across our porch and get hold of my Mambo’s hand. When I look up I see she’s wiping tears.

  ‘It’s okay, Mambo. I grew up okay. Don’t cry about it, Mambo.’

  ‘And look at us now, holdin’ hands out on our porch and me all full up of emotion. Ya got plenty to be forgiving me for, Arletta, and I knows it. And I know things take just as long as they take. Just like I always saying.’

  Ten

  Mrs Archer-Laing has a new kitchen put in. The new floor linoleum is nice and bright and there’s a sparkling-clean Corwith sink that makes Errol a happy man.

  ‘“Efficiency kitchens” they call them, Errol,’ she says.

  ‘Suits me whatever they’s callin’ them, ma’am. All sure is easy, ain’t no scrubbin’ wood and bleaching. Just wipin’ easy.’

  Though I’ve never been one for much company, I am glad I’m not living on my own. The way things are set up at Mrs Archer-Laing’s suits me fine. She eats in her posh dining room every night (never seen yardage like the curtains she ran up for that room), three times a week with Monsieur Desnoyers, and if I feel like talking I go eat with Errol instead of on my own, because Agnes isn’t around here much these days.

  ‘Don’t you ever take a night off, Errol?’

  He’s serving up gumbo z’herbes with plenty of tomatoes on account of it being Lent. He only makes that for himself and the boarders; Mrs Archer-Laing eats English food all the time. She tells everybody she taught him, though that raises an eyebrow or two, and says he’s got a knack for it and bakes the best Victoria sponge she’s ever tasted.

  ‘Girl,’ he mumbles, ‘since I give up carpentry I done have the rest of my life off, I tell ya that’s what it feel like. I got church, I got me my grandchildren, and I sees them as often as I’m able, and that’
s me fine, Arletta. That’s life just fine with me.’

  I met his family when Mrs Archer-Laing asked them over one Easter time. They all came, smartly dressed in their best clothes, and had what she called perfect manners. They brought homemade dainties; seems all of them got what it takes in a kitchen. She insisted he take the day off, though he didn’t want that at all. She laid out what she called a ‘buffet’ on a table in the courtyard. We found out why he never wanted to take that day off, and I for one was right grateful when he got himself back into the kitchen.

  I dip my fried cornbread in the steaming gumbo. Errol is studying me over his spoon, like it’s the first time he’s ever noticed I got a face.

  ‘What? What are you looking at? The gumbo tastes fine, if that’s what you want to know. You’re a great cook and you know that fine and well, Mr Errol Simpson.’

  ‘I knows it.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Something I been thinking about a long time. Ain’t like it’s any of my business, mind, but I figure I gonna ask it anyways. Figure I know ya well enough by now for it.’

  ‘I reckon we know one another fine, so be my guest. That’s what they say.’

  ‘Like I says, ain’t my business but …’

  ‘What, Errol?’

  ‘Where ya get all that money ya give Safi’s ma when they come pickin’ up li’l Martha?’

  Well, he’s right about thinking on it a long time and it being none of his business. My taste for gumbo’s gone clean off; in fact, I just about fall over.

  ‘Ain’t none of my business, like I says, but hell …’

  ‘No it ain’t, but that was her savings.’

  ‘Well, that sure is odd Arletta, ’cause I knows she ain’t never had none.’

  ‘What you mean? She was saving to get married, you know she was doing that.’

  ‘And y’all telling them she done overtime. She ain’t never done no overtime for no pay in her life ’cause the mill don’t pay none and plenty men out there lose jobs tryin’ to start a union for it. Tell ya that. I know’s ’em. Plantation sure as hell-shine ain’t never paid no overtime neither. Not in two hundred years.’

  Errol’s spoon is wagging in my face.

  And I’m saying nothing.

  ‘Even if she get herself some of that fanciful overtime of yours, ain’t no way she gonna manage fifty dollars in all the time ya been here, let alone the length of time she been clerking in that office. Hell, Arletta, I ain’t got the time to work out how long it gonna take for her to save that kinda money.’

  ‘Well, maybe it’s none of your business. Like you say.’

  ‘That’s true, like I says. But that’s one big set of cash and I’m sure they found a good use for it.’ He starts spooning gumbo up into his mouth. ‘Right good of ya, givin’ it.’

  We finish eating without another word said.

  That kept me awake all night wondering if Mr Seymour is dead or alive. I know Mr McIntyre left the bank, because since Rochelle started at school Mambo’s been back in there and she’s got a new boss who treats working folks fair and square. One thing I know about Mr McIntyre, wherever he’s gone, is that he’s raping little girls. I’ve never forgotten any of it, not a second of what was done to me, and I’m right upset with Errol asking questions it’s none of his business to be asking. I fret so much my belly churns over like it used to and I end up heaving gumbo all over Mrs Archer-Laing’s bathroom floor.

  ‘Oh, Nellie.’

  I’m down on my knees cleaning up my own mess and back talking to thin air. There’s times I don’t feel any strength at all and this sure is one of them times.

  Mambo’s asking questions, Errol’s asking questions, and here I am remembering the smell of stale sweat and sour liquor. It stays that way till dawn and for good or bad I make up my mind I’m going to tell Errol about Mr Seymour’s wad of money. It’s about time I told somebody, and since Safi’s gone, I’m about as close to Errol as I am to anybody, and I reckon he’s somebody I can trust knowing it.

  Agnes is home the next evening, so he serves up in the small parlour. He nods when I enquire if he’s not busy and free to hear what it is he’d like to know about.

  After we finish eating I wait in the courtyard for him to finish clearing up in the kitchen. Light from the lamp flickers through the leaves; the air smells of oranges and warm jasmine. I breathe it in deep to steady my nerves. He brings two glasses of cold lemonade and sits next to me. There’s no place good to start, so I just tell him right out.

  ‘I was raped when I was a child.’

  He says nothing.

  ‘It started as soon as Pappy, my grandpa, was gone. He died when I was eight years old. It started with Mr McIntyre. He was stepping out with Mambo; not much, only a few times I recall. Well, with him being white and all, I’m not exactly saying they were stepping out, going out properly, he was sneaking down our track is more like it. Mambo said he had a pokey wife someplace, but some white folks are just like that.’

  ‘Black folks like that too, Arletta.’

  ‘That’s how he started coming. Our cabin is right out on its own, so he was able to sneak out there. It’s an easy place to be sneaking in and out of, the bus only came maybe half a mile away around that time. There was no tar road and the nearest cabin to us was well out of sight, at least half a mile away then, too. They’ve taken down a lot of trees out our way now, and folks are putting up more dwellings, but back then trees were growing thick round our cabin. The clearing we live in was made by my Pappy when he settled it.

  ‘Mambo likely picked Mr McIntyre up in one of them dance joints on Mill Cross or Big Sky, she was always hanging out over there when she was young. Running wild all over and couldn’t stay put anyplace. Always out, dancing all night in juke joints mostly, but I know she and her girlfriends sometimes went to dance halls, not that he’d be a white face inside of there, but somebody must have known him. I can’t exactly say how she got familiar with him, but I know he started sneaking out our way, having himself a good time with nobody knowing anything about it. Anyways, he dumped her pretty soon after he saw me all the way out there at the back of no place on my own, and with her out all the time.

  ‘Back then the banks had some scheme going, from what I been told, trying to get us poor black folks paying into something, anything. Anything that was going to part us from our hard-earned cash. Nothing short of stupid, because nobody had a dime, but he was going round on the bus collecting in a black bag and trying to sell insurance for this and insurance for that, talking about pensions. Nonsense, my Pappy always said. As if anybody out our way was ever able to afford it. As if anybody had anything worth any kind of insuring. Most folks out our way didn’t even have floorboards – they were living on packed dirt. I wonder if there ever was any money in that bag at all, not from anybody round us, anyway.’

  ‘I remember,’ says Errol, ‘trying to get us signed up for insurance.’ His voice is quiet. ‘Wantin’ money for nothing, that’s all that is. Goin’ on all over, a dime here, a dollar there. Folks gettin’ rich on that.’

  ‘Well, we sure never had insurance, we never had nothing. Everybody out our way was living hand to mouth, out of the bayou and root crops, rice and okra, and the only thing they ever bought was rice, flour, maybe a bit of oil and soap, running up bills at the Brouillette commissary when it was still standing. Anyway, he got to know when Mambo was going out some place, what time she was getting on the bus or the back of Bobby-Rob’s cart. If you knew Mambo back then, that was nearly all the time. Every day, near enough.’

  ‘I know Mambo. I tell ya that already.’ Errol smiles, seems he’s kinda fond of my Mambo.

  ‘The first time he came I was feeling mournful, real sad about Pappy dying. Mambo had left me all alone and, like I said, there was no other cabin out our way. Only folks I ever saw were coming to see Mambo for something, and folks at the pipe, or the washhouse. He told me not to make any noise, that he was going to make me feel better, comfort me for l
osing Pappy. I knew right away something was wrong, couldn’t have said exactly what then, being the child I was, but I knew it was wrong. So when I pushed him away he got rough and said, since I lost Pappy, how did I feel about losing Mambo too? I got scared then, wasn’t able to say anything at all, like my throat dried up and I was struck dumb. But I got away from him, ran out back to hide in the trees.

  ‘I was no match for him, though, and he got a hold of me in seconds. That was the first time. It happened every week on his rounds after that. He knew what Mambo was doing, where she going and when. He seemed to know where she was enough of the time and there was nothing I was ever able to do about it.’

  ‘Ya ain’t never tell her?’

  ‘I tried, but she thought I heard it from somebody else and I was trying to get her attention, seeing as that was something I didn’t get enough of. I only tried telling her one time, because she said I was making it up and we were likely going to get lynched if anybody heard me talking that way about white folks. He was always so polite to her, and downright charming, and maybe she can’t see past a white man working in a bank flirting and having time for her. Don’t know, but she was young then.’

  ‘I seen ’nough of that foolishness in my time,’ says Errol.

  ‘One time Mr McIntyre brought somebody else and I screamed so loud this other fella got cold feet in case anybody heard it. They left that day, but the next time Mr McIntyre pitched up he got real nasty, telling me I had to do it with this other guy too. If I don’t then Mambo was going to get hurt bad round the back of one of those juke joints, or on her way home. Said he’d see to it. The other guy’s name was Mr Seymour, and he said Mr Seymour was going to pay me for it. Like both of them were doing me a favour or something, and I ought be grateful.’

  The cool wind rustles in the leaves of Mrs Archer-Laing’s potted plants. Telling Errol has got me choked up. I close my eyes and keep my face out of the lamplight. Errol says nothing, just keeps his head bent low.