by Shira Nayman
“It’s because of how she died,” Darlene said. In the moonlight, I could see that Darlene’s jaw was clamped tight. “It was my mother’s fault.”
Darlene had no idea that I knew the story—of what had happened to Rose. She herself—not as Darlene, but as Grandma—had told me in her elegant home in Australia, far away from here in place and time. She could not know that she had given me Rose’s little pink booties, crocheted by her own mother so many years ago.
A chill ran up my spine; I reached into the pocket of my jacket, trembling with anticipation. The woolen booties were there, having survived another enormous tumble through time, having survived the storm and the changes of clothing and the running from here to there. I let my hand close around the soft yarn, held the booties tight.
“Rose was allergic to cow’s milk … well, it’s a long story, but all you need to know is that my mother ended up giving her cow’s milk on a train journey. The milk had gone bad, which made it even worse. Rose died, and my mother never forgave herself. She’s never said that in so many words, but daughters know their mothers.”
Darlene turned to look at me, her face filled with pain.
“She has no idea that I know these things. My mother, I mean. But I do.”
She reached up and touched the place on the side of her forehead where the wound from her tussle with the blackboard eraser was beginning to scab over. I recognized the gesture—Grandma had touched that place on her forehead in that very same way, that night we sat together in her house in a future far distant from this bright, moonlit night.
“It’s all inside of me. Right here.” Darlene placed her fist on her chest.
How could I not think of that oppressive darkness that sometimes smothered me? That felt as if it belonged—I don’t know, to someone else?
We sat in silence. Something passed between us—something delicate and yet vivid, like a moth with somber markings, making its way in the dark.
Darlene rose and together, we made our way to the gate.
Back on the dirt pathway skirting the field, our feet again flew across the ground—that wonderful, effortless gliding that left me feeling lighthearted and free.
The wide horizon and open fields and huge bowl of sky above me spread out in all directions for what seemed an eternity. As we walked, I realized the village was farther away than it had looked from the cemetery. The feeling of light-heartedness and ease slipped away and I became aware once more of my aching feet and the places on my heel and toes where the ill-fitting shoes painfully rubbed. I looked across to Darlene, walking beside me, her face determined and grim. Her feet must have ached, too; her shoes seemed as badly fitting as my own. I had the feeling that Darlene was used to all kinds of difficulties and discomforts, and to suffering in silence—and alone.
Finally, we turned onto a small dirt roadway and found ourselves among the thatched-roofed mud huts we’d seen from afar. The pleasant, earthy smell of baked dirt and reedy straw mingled with an assortment of animal scents—chickens, perhaps, and pigs—along with the smoky aroma of spent ash. Cooking odors hung in the air: savory meat and the husky sweetness of cooked cornmeal.
Darlene made her way deftly down one pathway and up another. No one was about, but I was aware of the heavy feel of countless sleeping people. Finally, we reached a large hut at the end of a row. Darlene came to a halt. She rapped gently on the rough wooden door in what seemed like a signal: two slow, hard raps followed by three quick, light ones.
Moments later, the door opened to reveal Joel, dressed in a robe made of colorful fabric of the kind I had seen in Brooklyn many years ahead in the future.
“Dear Lord mercy, Do-Do. What in heaven’s name are you doing here?” he asked, casting furtive glances up and down the pathway.
By way of answer, Darlene flung herself into Joel’s arms. For a moment, Joel looked alarmed.
“Do-Do, Do-Do,” he said, shaking his head back and forth. “Come in, before anyone sees you.”
Not once had Darlene cried or expressed any real anger in the long day I’d known her, despite the many affronts and disappointments. On each occasion, she had gritted her teeth, seeming, in fact, to grit her entire being, a steely look fixed in her eyes.
Now, enfolded in Joel’s arms, she wept.
“Come, come,” he said, guiding her into the hut. I followed, closing the door behind me.
Inside, it was so dim I could make out only vague charcoal shadows, nothing but the suggestion of things. Joel stood and held Darlene, who continued her silent crying, her thin shoulders heaving pitifully. He stroked her hair, whispering in Zulu.
After some minutes, Darlene’s tears were spent. She withdrew from Joel’s arms and when she turned to me, I saw that her face was puffy and red. She reached into her pocket, drew out her frayed handkerchief, and discreetly blew her nose.
“Let me heat up some milk,” Joel said. “How you managed to make it here all by yourselves, I’ll never know.”
Joel lit a candle and the inside of the hut sprang to view: a simple, bare room with clay walls and a dirt floor, swept clean. Joel crossed to the far corner, where I saw that a wood-burning stove was built into the hard-baked wall. He lit the tinder that was under a black pot then took a jug from the shelf and poured in some milk.
Across from the stove, on a large woven mat, five little children lay sleeping, all lined up neatly together. I watched the slow rise and fall of their chests. In the far corner was a wooden table with four chairs.
“How is your grandson?” Darlene asked Joel.
“His fever broke an hour ago,” Joel said, nodding in the direction of the sleeping children. “Now, he’s cool and sleeping with his cousins.”
The children cuddled together, an arm curled here and there in embrace.
We sat at the table and Joel brought us each a mug of milk and a cornmeal biscuit. The milk was frothy and slightly sweet, the biscuit dense and delicious.
“Now, Do-Do,” Joel said, “tell me what this is about.”
Darlene’s face took on a pointy look of determination. “I woke up feeling I just couldn’t stand to live there anymore. I’ve felt this way before but somehow—” Now she glanced over at me. “I don’t know. It just seemed different this time. Like I wanted to do something about it. Maybe because Camellia is with me—I had the courage to leave them, once and for all.”
Darlene looked from Joel to me and then back again to Joel. Her lips trembled. “So, I decided to run away.”
“You decided to run away,” Joel said.
“Yes,” Darlene said, trying to muster the steeliness that she seemed suddenly to have lost.
“Do-Do, you know you can’t stay here.”
“But Joel, you’re my family!” Darlene glanced over to the children asleep on the mat. A fresh tear formed at the corner of her eye and slipped down her cheek. “Why can’t you be my grandfather, too?”
Joel’s face was kindly and sad. He shook his head.
“I can’t take you from your own people,” he said. “You belong with them. Besides, you know very well it would be impossible, even if I wanted to keep you here.”
He pointed first to his own face and then to Darlene’s. “Black. White,” he said.
Darlene nodded.
“It’s against the law. I’d be put in jail. Then where would they be?” Joel glanced over to his sleeping grandchildren. “They are my responsibility.”
When he uttered the word responsibility, he drew out each syllable, making the word sound velvety with love.
Darlene looked down at her shoes. “Am I not your responsibility, too?”
“You are. But I can best help you in your own home.”
Darlene said nothing; she only continued to look down at the ground.
“Your mother can be harsh,” Joel said. “It is true. But she’s not a bad woman.”
Darlene’s eyes burned. “Well, she’s not very nice. Not to me.”
“Perhaps not. But she loves you in her way.
And she is your mother.”
“I wish she weren’t.” Darlene’s voice was rock-hard. “But she is. What point is there in wishing the impossible? It’s like a bird wishing it were a snake.”
Joel looked down at his own arm and then held it up. In the flickering candlelight, I could see his roughened palm.
“Do you think I wish I were born white? That my children and grandchildren were born white? In a country where you know what it means to be born black—could such a thought not have crossed my mind? I am a man, like any other. A man who wanted his children to have opportunities and hope. A man who wishes more than a man can wish anything that his grandchildren might live a life of dignity.”
Joel’s rich voice made the word dignity sound like the most beautiful word in the English language—which perhaps, after all, it was.
“What choice do I have?” Now, he pointed to his chest. “I am who I am. I was given this life, in this body, in this time, in this place. What can I do but make the best of where I landed?”
Darlene’s expression had softened; she listened as if in a trance.
“And you, Darlene, were given to this life in your body, your time, your place. You cannot change the family you were given into. It is up to you to make the best of what life has handed you. To make the best of who you are.”
Joel rose from the wooden stool and motioned for us, also, to rise. We stepped out into the night. He seemed to have forgotten his earlier concern, as if something of greater importance had overtaken the worry that we might be seen. The bright half-moon hung above the village, a thick crescent of otherworldliness, smiling sideways at our earthly plights. We walked away from the other huts, veering off the dirt pathway and out into an open field. I drank in the cool country air. The field inclined; on the downward slope, we came to a halt.
“Look,” Joel said, and he pointed to the horizon. “Do you see that?”
I squinted into the distance; there, a shimmering stroke on the landscape in the far distance.
“Bloedrivier,” Joel said.
I understood the Afrikaans at once: Blood River. But what did Joel mean?
“You know the story, from school,” he said.
Darlene nodded; she turned to me as if intuiting that I had no idea what Joel was talking about. And there it was again—that now-familiar, inscrutable look in Darlene’s face.
“Camellia, Joel is talking about the Voortrekkers, the pioneers who crossed the veldt in their wagons. They fought back when they were attacked by Zulu warriors. It was suicide—five hundred Boers against more than five thousand Zulus. But they won—such slaughter, the blood of the Zulus turned the river red.”
Now, Joel spoke. “My great-great-great-grandfather was taken from his mother’s arms soon after his birth by one of those Boers. Raised as a slave in their household. They say he was a sweet boy, a cheerful boy. His master favored him. He was already a young man when the master decided to join the wagon Voortrekkers and cross into the veldt to escape from the British.”
“The British,” Darlene said, as if for my benefit, “who ruled over the Boers.”
Joel picked up the thread of his story. “The Afrikaners were the only family my great-great-great-grandfather had ever known. Yes, they were his masters and he was a slave. But that was his life.
“When the Zulus attacked, I imagine he didn’t think about it. He did what his brave, loyal heart told him to do. He fought for the people he called his own—his Boer masters. He fought bravely against the Zulu warriors that were attacking the wagon trains. He was defending his master and his own livelihood. Those were his loyalties.”
Joel gazed off into the distance. The moon was losing the power of its glow in the glaze of early daylight, spreading across the sky.
“This is the story my mother told me when I was a child, younger than you,” he said, turning to face Darlene. “I often used to think about that ancestor of mine, when I was a boy. I would see him sitting on the banks of the river, after the battle was over, his spear in his hand. I would picture this brave warrior crying into the river of blood.”
“Joel, that’s awful!” Darlene said, looking at Joel in horror. “Why are you telling us this?”
Joel continued to look off at the horizon. “Camellia asked about the river.”
“Did she? I don’t remember her asking.”
“She may not have voiced the words, but I felt the question.” As he said this, Joel placed his hand on his heart. Then, he turned to me, with eyes I recognized. My heart was thumping so loudly in my chest, the others must surely have heard it. Jimmy! That’s where I’d seen the look in Joel’s eyes!
“Your friend. She’s very interested in rivers, I think,” Joel said. “Water. The source. We all come from the sea, isn’t that so?
“We must travel the river we’re thrown into. Every river has its story. Their sources reach far, far away—and their destinations, well, those are the greatest mysteries of all.”
Joel was trying to tell me something, I could feel it: to communicate an important secret. But I couldn’t grab hold of it. It seemed to slip right through my fingers like—well, like water.
“We do not choose the river we are thrown into. All we can do is ride the current as best we can.”
Joel shook his head slowly. “Do-Do, the older I grow, the less I understand about the heart of man. But I do know this. You cannot run away.”
I felt so confused. I did not understand why Joel had told us that terrible story about his ancestor. What was he trying to say? I could see that Darlene, too, was struggling to make sense of what Joel was telling us.
“You must know your own river if you are to rise above its currents and swim your way home. Running away from your family, from the truth of who you are, is not the way.”
Joel hunkered on the ground in front of us, his eyes deep pools of their own.
“I’ve lived with my great-great-great-grandfather all my life; he is here, in my own mind and heart.” Joel pointed gently first to his temple, then to his chest. “He did not choose the circumstances of his birth any more than I did. His fate was a terrible one—far worse than either mine, or yours, Darlene. Nothing can change where you come from. But you can find a way to ride the river away: to travel upon it toward a place that feels more right for you.
“Miss Camellia, tell Miss Darlene to see reason.”
“I can’t go back,” Darlene said, through silent tears.
“Joel’s right,” I said. “You can leave this place—when you’re older, old enough to make your own life.”
Suddenly, there before my eyes: an image of Grandma sitting in her beautifully appointed study, half a world away in Melbourne, Australia, a place my young companion Darlene could hardly have imagined. “Running away now—well, I can’t see how that is going to help things.”
“Your mother is surely very worried about you,” Joel said. “You must go.”
Joel walked us back to the dirt road leading away from the village and gave Darlene a tentative, brief hug. In her face, I saw wonder—to be finally experiencing the gift of his embrace. He turned to me, an enigmatic look in his face, and gave a brief, acknowledging nod.
“I’ll see you on Friday,” Joel said. “Now, Do-Do, be a good girl until then.”
We turned and began the long walk back to Darlene’s farmhouse. My strength had returned and I pushed ahead, trying to ignore the unplastered places on my feet where the skin burned against the tough leather. We walked almost the whole way in silence.
By the time we limped into Darlene’s yard, our legs aching and fresh blisters on our feet, the day had arrived and the household was beginning to stir. A thin spiral of smoke coiled up from the chimney and disappeared into the pale sky. We entered through the front door and hurried to the bathroom, where we washed our hands and faces, brushed our teeth, and tugged combs through our hair. Then, we rushed to Darlene’s bedroom and changed into our school clothes.
By the time we entered the kitch
en, Darlene’s mother was serving up bowls of porridge, apparently unaware that we’d been absent and not worried at all.
“I’ve saved the cream,” she said in her husky voice. She seemed less grim than she’d been the previous day.
Darlene seemed excited at the sight of the thick cream sitting in a green bowl beside the porridge; it was clearly a special treat.
“Thank you, Mother,” she said.
“There’s a second bowl for each of you, if you’d like.”
I followed Darlene’s lead, sprinkling sticky brown sugar onto the oatmeal and watching it darken and melt before scooping a ladleful of cream into the bowl. Hungrily, we ate. The cream was delicious, like nothing I’d ever tasted before—silky smooth with a hint of natural sweetness. I’d have loved that second bowl, but we didn’t seem to have time. We took our empty bowls to the sink, picked up the sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, and retrieved our satchels from where we’d left them by the door.
“Do well in school,” Darlene’s mother said.
“Thank you for breakfast,” I said. Darlene’s mother eyed me and gave me a nod. For the first time, I noted a look of vague curiosity in her face.
We raced out the back door and began the trek to the schoolhouse. The morning cool remained and yet I found myself feeling hot, as if the sun were already high in the sky. I reached a palm to my face and was surprised to find my cheeks burning.
“I expect you’re looking forward to going home,” Darlene said, throwing me a sideways glance.
Of course, I was looking forward to going home, though not to any home that Darlene could have imagined. I wondered, though, which home she meant. At the thought, I found myself feeling faint. My feet suddenly felt extremely heavy and I had to slow down. Darlene adjusted her pace to mine.
We came to the crossroads of the town, but instead of continuing on ahead toward the schoolhouse, Darlene turned left.
“I want to show you something,” she said.
“But what about school?”
“Everyone needs a day off, now and then,” Darlene said, a mischievous look in her eye.