Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [170]
But for the next two months, into the spring of 1788, it seemed to Kunta that the massa visited every patient, relative, and friend within five counties—except for his own parents at Enfield. Once he considered asking him for a traveling pass, which he had never done before, but he knew that would involve questions about where he intended to go and why. He could say he was going to see Liza, the cook at Enfield, but that would let the massa think there was something between them; and he might mention it to his parents, and they might mention it to Liza, and then he’d never hear the end of it, because he knew she had her eye on him and the feeling was definitely not mutual, so Kunta dropped the idea.
In his impatience to get back to Enfield, he had begun to grow irritable with Bell—the more so because he couldn’t talk with her about it—or so he told himself, knowing all too well her aversion toward anything African. Thinking about confiding in the fiddler and the old gardener, he had finally decided, that although they wouldn’t tell anyone else, they wouldn’t be able to appreciate the magnitude of meeting someone to talk to from one’s native land after twenty rains.
Then one Sunday after lunch, without any notice at all, the massa sent out to have him hitch up the team: He was going to Enfield. Kunta almost leaped from his seat and out the door, Bell staring after him in amazement.
Liza was busy among her pots when he entered the kitchen at Enfield. He asked how she was, adding quickly that he wasn’t hungry. She looked warmly at him. “Ain’t seen you in a time,” she said, her voice soft. Then her face became somber. “Heared ’bout you an’ dat African we done got. Massa heared, too. Some dem niggers tol’’im, but he ain’t said nothin’, so I wouldn’ worry ’bout it.” She grasped and squeezed Kunta’s hand. “You jes’ wait a minute.”
Kunta felt ready to explode with impatience, but Liza was deftly making and wrapping two thick beef sandwiches. She gave them to him, again pressing his hand within hers. Then she walked him toward the kitchen door, where she hesitated. “Sump’n you ain’t never ax me, so I ain’t tol’ you—my mammy was an African nigger. Reckon dat’s how come I likes you so much.”
Seeing Kunta’s anxiety to leave, she turned abruptly and pointed, “Dat hut wid de broke chimney his’n. Most de niggers massa’s let go off today. Dey won’t git back fo’ dark. You jes’ be sho’ you at yo’ buggy fo’ your massa come out!”
Limping quickly down slave row, Kunta knocked at the door of the ramshackle one-room hut.
“Who dat?” said the voice he remembered.
“Ah-salakium-salaam!” said Kunta. He heard a quick muffled movement within, and the door swung open wide.
CHAPTER 61
Since they were Africans, neither man showed how much this moment had been awaited by both of them. The older man offered Kunta his only chair, but when he saw that his guest preferred to squat on the dirt floor as he would have done in a village back home, the qua-qua player grunted with satisfaction, lighted the candle on his leaning table, and squatted down himself.
“I comes from Ghana, an’ mine is de Akan peoples. De white folks gimme de name Pompey, but my real one’s Boteng Bediako. I’s been a long time here. Six white folks’ plantations, an’ I hopes dis de las’ one. How ’bout you?”
Trying to copy the Ghanaian’s terse way of speaking, Kunta told him of The Gambia, of Juffure, of being Mandinka, of his family, of his capture and escapes, his foot, doing gardening, and now driving the buggy.
The Ghanaian listened intently, and when Kunta finished, the Ghanaian sat thinking awhile before he spoke again. “We’s all sufferin’. A man wise, he try to learn from it.” He paused and looked appraisingly at Kunta. “How ol’ you is?” Kunta said thirty-seven rains.
“You ain’t look it. I’s sixty-six.”
“You ain’t look dat neither,” said Kunta.