Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [192]
Abruptly, without a word, he turned and left. With the sky just beginning to show the traces of early dawn, he went outside and started walking down along the fence row where he and Bell had shared their courtship. He had to think. Remembering what she had told him about her life’s greatest grief—having been sold away from her two infant girlchildren—he searched his mind for a name, some Mandinka word, that would have as its meaning Bell’s deepest wish never to suffer such a loss again, a name that would protect its owner from ever losing her. Suddenly he had it! Turning the word over and over in his mind, he resisted the temptation to speak it aloud, even just for himself, for that would have been improper. Yes, that had to be it! Exhilarated with his good luck in such a short while, Kunta hurried back along the fencerow to the cabin.
But when he told Bell that he was prepared for his child to be named, she protested far more strongly than he would have thought her capable of in her condition. “What’s sich a rush to name ’er? Name ’er what? We ain’t talked ’bout no name nohow!” Kunta knew well how stubborn Bell could be once she got her back up, so there was anguish as well as anger in his voice as he searched for the right words to explain that there were certain traditions that must be honored, certain precedures that must be followed in the naming of a child; chief among them was the selection of that name by the father alone, who was permitted to tell no one what it was until he had revealed it to the child, and that this was only right. He went on to say that haste was essential lest their child hear first some name that the massa might decide upon for her.
“Now I sees!” said Bell. “Dese Africanisms you so full of ain’t gon’ do nothin’ but make trouble. An’ dey ain’t gon’ be none of dem heathen ways, an’ names, neither, for dis chile!”
In a fury, Kunta stormed out of the cabin—and nearly bumped into Aunt Sukey and Sister Mandy on their way in with armloads of towels and steaming pots of water.
“’Gratulations, Br’er Toby, we comin’ to look in on Bell.”
But Kunta scarcely grunted at them as he passed. A field hand named Cato was headed out to ring the first bell of the morning, signaling the others out of their cabins for buckets of water from the well to wash up with before breakfast. Kunta quickly turned off slave row to take the back path that led to the barn, wanting as much distance as he could get between him and those heathen blacks whom the toubob had trained to shrink away in fear from anything smacking of the Africa that had been their very source-place.
In the sanctuary of the barn, Kunta angrily fed, watered, and then rubbed down the horses. When he knew that it was time for the massa to have his breakfast, he took the long way around again on his way to the big-house kitchen door, where he asked Aunt Sukey, who was filling in for Bell, if the massa was going to need the buggy. Refusing to speak or even turn around, she shook her head and left the room without even offering him any food. Limping back to the barn, Kunta wondered what Bell had told Aunt Sukey and Sister Mandy for them to go gossiping through slave row; then he told himself that he couldn’t care less.
He had to do something with himself; he couldn’t just idle away more hours around the barn. Moving outside with the buggy harnesses, he set about his familiar task of killing time by oiling them unnecessarily, as he had just done only two weeks before. He wanted to go back to the cabin to see the baby—and even Bell—but anger rose every time he thought of what a disgrace it was that the wife of a Kinte could want her child to bear some toubob name, which would be nothing but the first step toward