What the River Washed Away

by Muriel Mharie Macleod

  ‘Je suis très bien. Ce n’est rien. I know the family from church, and Errol, he does for Mrs Archer-Laing, that’s where I have my boarding. That’s all. Eveline, the little girl, she asked for me, she wanted to see me, isn’t that right, Monsieur Albert?’

  Madame doesn’t look like she believes me at all, and Albert’s awkward assurance that he knows me from church sure doesn’t leave her convinced, either. Her eyelashes flutter.

  ‘I will tell nobody that you came ’ere, m’sieur. Now go. Allez, vite, so no one can see you are ’ere. I will tell my girls to say nothing.’

  ‘Madame Bonnet, I will tell everyone that I came here, and I will tell everyone of your kind gift to my daughter. Thank you.’

  ‘No, m’sieur, there is no need, l’enfant keep the puppy and you, you keep your reputation.’

  Albert wags his finger at her.

  ‘I will keep my reputation, Madame, and make sure you gain one. Thank you. Goodbye to you.’

  Madame looks right bashful, like I’ve never seen her, when Albert kisses her cheek. We get a shaking of more perfume.

  ‘I will pray for ’er. Au revoir, m’sieur, and thank you. Merci, merci beaucoup. You come to me, I do something to help, merci. Merci.’

  She takes hold of my hand.

  ‘Je t’aime, Arletta. Nous aurons reparlé demain …’

  ‘Non, Madame, I will come back.’ I lower my voice right down and plead with her to say nothing to Mambo until I have had the chance to tell her what’s happened, and why I’m here with the law. Then I’ll come back. I promise her everything is fine.

  ‘Let me tell Mambo,’ I whisper, ‘please, then we can talk. Everything is fine. Really, I promise. I must speak to her first.’

  My head is spinning. Madame is no fool: she knows for sure I’m not there because I know them from church, and I never had any idea that she was running a whorehouse, either. I never thought, even when Mambo was at her worst, that she was ever tied up with that kind of business at all. I think about Pappy and how his heart would be broken if he knew that about my Mambo.

  I ask Albert if I can keep the puppy for the night.

  ‘Anything you want, Arletta. I’m going to drop you and Errol and that new pup home right now and I’m going to pick you up in the morning to take little Nellie here to meet her new mistress.’ He smiles and ruffles the puppy’s ears.

  ‘Thank you. Errol, you think Mrs Archer-Laing is going to mind? We don’t really need to be telling her, do we?’

  ‘No, we don’t, but I’m sure gonna, ’cause I know this li’l mite’s gonna be yelpin’ and pining all night. Don’t go worrying none about it. I gonna fix that. Ya sure done all right here, Arletta. Ya done good today.’

  It’s just as well Mrs Archer-Laing and Sadie are told about little Nellie, because she yelps and skids across that floor making the kind of racket that house has never heard before. She gets chewing on my shoes, sofa cushions, pillows, my only hat, anything she’s able to get her tiny mouth around. Errol leaves a bowl of milk and finely minced pork and she eats the whole lot in between racing round that room like trouble.

  When I get myself off to bed she whimpers from the blanket on the floor. I figure this is her first night far from her ma, so I lift her up into the bed. We both fall asleep right away.

  Eveline holds her hands out as soon as she sees the little pup next morning. I reckon Nellie’s already taking care of her fine, because she looks like she’s got what I call Nellie’s strength in her.

  ‘Oh I love her, thank you! Merci beaucoup! Merci! Merci!’

  The pup is licking at her face and making Eveline laugh; her eyes are sparkling.

  ‘I love her! Look Papa, she loves me too!’

  I reckon she’s found a moment to forget what happened to her, and Albert’s face is wet at the sight of it.

  ‘Nellie told me she would be a nice puppy, and she said she would always be my strength. I’m so happy, and Arletta, come, come.’

  She beckons me close. I put my head right next to her and stroke her curls. She’s going to be fine. That much I know, even after all she’s been through she’ll find a way to be fine. Like I have.

  ‘Nellie says she will help you.’

  Her little face is real serious. Our eyes lock on one another.

  ‘Help me? Help me how? To do what?’ I whisper.

  ‘Nellie will help you, that’s what she says.’

  ‘Okay, Eveline. Thank you.’ I stroke her fine curls and smile because I think she’s a kind, quaint sort of a child. But I’m not ready for what she says next.

  ‘Then you will have to go far away. As far away as you can get, where nobody can find you. Ask your friend where she can send you. She will know.’

  ‘What did Nellie say? I don’t understand, Eveline. What should I do? Did she say?’

  ‘She says she will give you the strength for it, like she did before, but you must go far away after it, to be safe after it, she says. She says she will help you get it done again. Don’t worry, she says you must not worry, it will be all right. But you must do it and go far away once it’s done.’

  Then she laughs at her new pup. Albert’s face lights up every time he sees her laughing. The sparkle is back in his baby’s eyes and they’re both laughing over that little mite of a half-poodle pup like Mr Seymour never happened. That’s one of the nicest things I ever saw.

  Errol nods me out of the room.

  ‘What was that, Arletta? What she say?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Errol. She said Nellie is going to help me. Then she said I was going to have to go away where nobody would ever find me.’

  ‘I ain’t liking the sound of this at all, Arletta.’

  ‘Well, she heard it from Nellie. She said.’

  ‘Nellie ain’t real, Arletta.’

  ‘Not to you, Errol.’

  ‘Arletta, I wish ya’d come to the church.’

  ‘I know I’m going to stop them, Errol. That I know. I just don’t know how. With these men in there or without them. I’m going to stop it.’

  Errol shakes his head.

  ‘Just take care. Take care, y’hear?’

  After we leave the hospital, Albert looks straight ahead and speaks very softly.

  ‘Be sensible, Arletta, this is best left to the law. There’s no doubting your feelings, I have them myself …’

  ‘It’s all right, Albert, I’m going to help you find Seymour like I said, that’s all I’m going to do. I know what he looks like and I know where that scar is. I put it there.’

  ‘That’s what worries me, Arletta. That’s what worries me.’

  Twelve

  I open my trunk. It’s stacked full of the journals and pamphlets I’ve been collecting, and what I call my real treasures, half-a-dozen shabby, spineless books. I lift the King of England into the first light of day he’s seen since Safi passed away. His ermine robe is trimmed with light rust now, from all those years underground, and his once brightly coloured medals look like a milky magnolia has been poured over them, bleeding the colour.

  I open the tin. It still smells of dirty money. The comforting aroma of Pappy’s baccy is a long time gone. My own savings come to just $22. That’s the paltry sum of all my years of working, but Seymour’s $355 are still there. Except for what I gave Safi’s ma, that money has never been touched. This is the first time I ever looked at it and didn’t feel like I’m going to keel over.

  At the very bottom, Pappy’s old papers are still there too, tied up with the same old twine. I feel heartsick about Mambo and glad he never found out what she was doing with Madame Bonnet. I lift his papers out and hold them close to my cheek. These old papers, the King of England and his pipe are all I have left of his that I can call my own. The old twine is brittle and falls apart with handling. The contents drop to the floor. Inside the outer newspaper wrapping there’s an envelope, foxed with rusty-coloured spots and smelling musty. I feel happy right away seeing my name written in the clear beautiful hand-scripting h
e was so proud of. That’s how he taught me to write too; folks are always talking about my fine hand. The envelope glue has crystallized and I see the folded papers inside. I never knew they were there. He never said anything about it at all. He just said his old pal Jeremiah had to be there opening the tin with me, but of course he passed away too.

  Dear Arletta,

  This is for the day that’s coming. I will be gone and you’re going to need a help. Maybe that you will study; I hope so because you are a clever girl and the day will come when coloreds are lawyers, and more of us sitting in Congress even. I know you will make me proud in Heaven.

  When I was young and working on the cotton, I saved the life of the master’s only son from drowning. Your mother and grandma sure never know that I own our land for that day. All the land from the track to the trees, you can see from the deeds, belongs to me, nobody can argue it. When I got to be a free man, the master gave me the land for something to start out with and I was lucky because not everybody round here got a piece of land like some did in other parts. I’d never seen a dollar till after I leave the plantation, but I got the land.

  The land and what little we have on it is yours, Arletta. The legal deeds are put right and proper in your name with Mr Roy Herbert’s law firm in Baton Rouge. Don’t never put Mambo off the land, she just been young and got no proper direction yet from the Lord, but He will answer my prayers because I been praying for Mambo since the day she’s born. But the land is yours alone.

  Your loving Pappy

  I read that letter over and over again. In all those years he never told his family that he owned the land all the way from the pipe to where the track ends and up to the trees behind our cabin. The deeds show it clear as day. Pappy sure did know about keeping secrets. Must be where I get it from. I look at those deeds and what my Pappy gave me that I never saw because I never liked going near that dirty money.

  I have another night sitting at the window long into the darkness, watching a couple of mangy stray dogs scavenge Main Street in the moonlight. The public works have just started laying a sidewalk down our way because of all the automobiles taking to the streets these days, and it looks like workmen’s leftovers must be good pickings. My mind is like it’s on wheels, thinking about Eveline and what Nellie said, thinking about Pappy’s letter, and my own land. I’m going to do something about it all; I just don’t know what.

  Now I find I’m a landowner.

  The following morning I pass by the NAACP office and tell them Mambo has taken ill and I’m going home to help out with Rochelle for a couple of days. I take a few dollars from the King of England and catch the bus south. It crosses over the Mississippi River bridge and into Baton Rouge. Everyone leaves the bus downtown and I ask the driver where I’m likely to find the Louisiana Planters’ Bank. It’s just a few blocks away.

  The doorman outside the Louisiana Planters’ Bank is wearing a uniform, something like Tout de suite, except in green. He looks at me like I’m guilty of something before I even speak.

  ‘Ain’t no beggin’ here, miss. Go on now. Clear off ’fore the law sees ya.’

  That doesn’t exactly give me the confidence to ask who the bank manager is.

  Baton Rouge is another world. Buses, traps, carriages, horses, new automobiles, are all sharing that big thoroughfare and it’s about as noisy a place as I ever heard. A scruffy kid pacing outside the bank is selling oranges and just when the doorman clips him on the ear for it, the blast of a motor-horn takes his mind off doing it again. He opens the door of the shiny black Ford and a woman wearing a fancy coat and high-heel shoes steps out of the plum-coloured leather interior. She walks inside that bank like she owns it. Maybe she does. This world has Marksville ladies, and ladies like the one that steps out of that car in Baton Rouge. I don’t know what to say about her at all, except she’s rich and beautiful and never been down a track like the one leading to our cabin.

  I’ve never been one for getting lucky, but right then, as the doorman opens the outside door for her, and she waits for that, I see a big wooden plaque with shiny brass lettering next to the frosted-glass doors inside the lobby.

  LOUISIANA PLANTERS’ BANK

  MANAGER: MR CHARLES MCINTYRE

  Then I head back to Florida Street, near where the bus let me off, looking for Mr Roy Herbert’s law firm. They don’t want to let me see him till I show them the deeds to my own land.

  ‘That’s some story, Miss Arletta Lilith Johnson,’ he says once I’m inside his office and talking. ‘I sure expected to see you in here a long time ago, but I guess that letter gave you some kinda surprise when you got around to opening it up.’

  ‘Yes, sir. It sure did.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you it’s right. Right above board. Mr Johnson came in here himself to do it. I heard he passed away. Here are the original deeds; what you have is a copy,’

  ‘Is that how it works? You have the real deeds and I have a copy?’

  ‘That’s a safeguard. In case anything happened, you lost the deeds, or they were stolen. We keep the original here in our safe. Mr Johnson was a smart man. And of course you are the legal registered owner …’

  ‘If I want to change, pass the land on, what do I do?’

  ‘Well, Miss Johnson, I hope that you will not be requiring a will for a long time yet, but we would attend to that here …’

  ‘How much would it cost please, Mr Herbert?’

  ‘A few dollars. You want to make a will, Miss Johnson?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  I spend most of the day watching workmen on the new levee and all the bustling down on the riverfront, keeping my eye out so I don’t bump into Quince. I walk one way and then the other, buy steaming hot cornbread and gumbo wrapped in waxed paper, and eat it watching barges drifting up and down the Mississippi River, loading up and loading off. Two steamboats are lined up, sounds like one is throwing a party, and I think about my little upstream creek and the blood it washed away into this mighty flow of water.

  When I make my way back to the bank, the scruffy boy is still hollering, ‘Orangest oranges! Bes’ colour and bes’ taste this side a Mississippi.’

  I pick a couple and toss him a whole dollar.

  ‘Thanksee, Miss, thanksee kindly, Miss.’

  I eat them out of sight in the narrow garbage alley across the thoroughfare and watch the big clock hanging in the bank window. At exactly four o’clock Mr McIntyre comes out and starts walking. I’m out of that garbage alley and mixing with folks on the sidewalk till I see him running for a bus coming his way. I dodge the traffic and jump on board before the doors close. He’s sitting up front with his back to me, but I’ve still got to tell myself that he hasn’t seen me for twelve years and it isn’t likely he’s going to know me at all.

  He shakes out a newspaper and doesn’t even glance up once when the driver starts arguing with some mulatto using the front door of his bus.

  ‘Well, I’s a bit of this and a bit of that and ain’t no door for me.’

  ‘Y’all ain’t be starting no trouble on my bus again or I’m gonna get the law. Ain’t got no place usin’ that door and well ya knows it. Makin’ trouble, that’s all ya doin’. Same as always. That ain’t ya door.’

  ‘That’s what I’m sayin’, massah, ain’t no door for me.’

  The mulatto swaggers up to the back of the bus with everybody laughing except white folk up front tutting and twitching, all tight-lipped over his nerve.

  ‘Well, there sure is a damn law for ya.’

  Seems there’s nothing but law all over Baton Rouge.

  ‘I ain’t black and I ain’t white and that’s ’cause a all ya white folks messin’ wi’ my ma.’

  That gets the back of the bus clapping. Mr McIntyre just pulls his hat down and reads his paper like nothing is happening. I’ve got to keep in mind what kind of man he is, because he sure does look every inch a fine respectable bank manager, with what Mambo used to call a reputation.

  When we get out
of the city centre, he looks up once or twice to check the streets and I figure he’s looking to get off soon. A few minutes later he folds his paper and I get ready to hop off too. I hold back with the folks boarding till he gets ahead a little then, as soon as he turns a corner, I speed up and reach it just in time to see him turn up a tidy path about halfway up the block.

  That whole area looks more well off than I’ve ever seen, with nice neat lawns out front and frilly curtains stuck on the windows. Folks even have carports and across the way I see a garage. It’s hard to think a man like Mr McIntyre is going to be leaving someplace like this to make his way down our dirt track because he needs to be raping a kid in a dingy shack with nothing but newspaper and flour paste up on the walls. Not so long ago thinking about that would have had me baulking.

  I walk about the place, hoping I look like I could be the help inside one of those homes. I’ve never been in the habit of coming across folks who live in tidy streets like these. One thing I get to thinking is that somebody must be brushing inside and out, because there isn’t a leaf out of place on the lawns, hardly a speck of dust on the sidewalk. I come across one of my own kind wearing a crisp blue dress with a white collar and pushing a shiny new cream-coloured pram. She smiles when we pass and I get the feeling she’s looking back at me, wondering whose new help I’m going to be, since she’s never seen me round that way before.

  I keep on walking till dusk is past falling, then I make my way back to Mr McIntyre’s. Except for a dim light from the porch, the garden is in darkness. It’s a single-storey property and I creep round it to get an idea where the rooms are.

  I get a bad feeling right from the start. That house is too quiet, especially since I know there are two kids living in it. I sneak, quiet as a mouse, round the back to what I reckon is the kitchen with the lights on. Must be Mrs McIntyre fixing dinner, and right there, with workbooks on the table, his two kids sit doing homework. Creeping right round, and from where I take my stand underneath the cover of a tree, I see Mr McIntyre in his front room still reading his newspaper. When he gets up, I follow from the outside and see him enter the kitchen. The children move right away and clear their books before setting plates down while he watches from the head of the table. He sits, folds his hands to say grace and they eat with not a word spoken between them at all. They don’t even look up at one another, they just eat. When they finish he gets up and leaves, Mrs McIntyre starts clearing up and these two kids just slide out of their chairs and disappear. I creep back round and see Mr McIntyre turning on a wireless in the front room, like he’s settling down for the evening. He pulls the window drapes across. I shiver, because that family hasn’t spoken one single word to one another the whole time I’ve been watching and I reckon already that I’m right about his daughter. I was hoping he’d be treating her different, being his daughter and all, but I already know he’s crazy enough for it.