Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [201]
A little while later, Massa Waller came out of the big house carrying his big black Bible and fell in behind the slave-row people as they walked with a peculiar pausing, hitching step behind the body being drawn on a mule cart. They were softly chanting a song Kunta had never heard before: “In de mawnm’, when I gits dere, gwine tell my Jesus hi’dy! Hi’dy! . . . In de mawnin’, gwine to rise up, tell my Jesus hi’dy! Hi’dy! . . . ” They kept on singing all the way to the slave graveyard, which Kunta had noticed everyone avoided in a deep fear of what they called “ghoses” and “haints,” which he felt must bear some resemblance to his Africa’s evil spirits. His people also avoided the burial ground, but out of consideration for the dead whom they didn’t wish to disturb, rather than out of fear.
When Massa Waller stopped on one side of the grave, his slaves on the other, old Aunt Sukey began to pray. Then a young field-hand woman named Pearl sang a sad song, “Hurry home, my weary soul . . . I heared from heab’m today.... Hurry ’long, my weary soul . . . my sin’s forgived, an’ my soul’s set free.... ” And then Massa Waller spoke with his head bowed, “Josephus, you have been a good and faithful servant. May God rest and bless your soul. Amen.” Through his sorrow, Kunta was surprised to hear that the old gardener had been called “Josephus.” He wondered what the gardener’s true name had been—the name of his African forefathers—and to what tribe they had belonged. He wondered if the gardener himself had known. More likely he had died as he had lived—without ever learning who he really was. Through misted eyes, Kunta and the others watched as Cato and his helper lowered the old man into the earth he had spent so many years making things grow in. When the shovelfuls of dirt began to thud down onto his face and chest, Kunta gulped and blinked back the tears as the women around him began to weep and the men to clear their throats and blow their noses.
As they trudged silently back from the graveyard, Kunta thought how the family and close friends of one who had died in Juffure would wail and roll in ashes and dust within their huts while the other villagers danced outside, for most African people believed that there could be no sorrow without happiness, no death without life, in that cycle that his own father had explained to him when his beloved Grandma Yaisa had died. He remembered that Omoro had told him, “Stop weeping now, Kunta,” and explained that Grandma had only joined another of the three peoples in every village—those who had gone to be with Allah, those who were still living, and those who were yet to be born. For a moment, Kunta thought he must try to explain that to Bell, but he knew she wouldn’t understand. His heart sank—until he decided a moment later that this would become another of the many things he would one day tell Kizzy about the homeland she would never see.
CHAPTER 72
The death of the gardener continued to weigh so heavily on Kunta’s mind that Bell finally said something about it one evening after Kizzy went to bed.
“Looka here, Kunta, I knows how you felt ’bout dat gardener, but ain’t it ’bout time you snap out of it an’ jine de livin’?” He just glared at her. “Suit yo’se’f. But ain’t gwine be much of a secon’ birfday fo’ Kizzy nex’ Sunday wid you mopin’ roun’ like dis.”
“I be fine,” said Kunta stiffly, hoping Bell couldn’t tell that he’d forgotten all about it.
He had five days to make Kizzy a present. By Thursday afternoon he had carved a beautiful Mandinka doll out of pine wood, rubbed it with linseed oil and lampblack, then polished it until it shone like the ebony carvings of his homeland. And Bell, who had long since finished making her a dress, was in the kitchen—dipping two tiny pink candles to put on the chocolate cake Aunt Sukey and Sister Mandy were going to help them eat on Sunday evening—when Massa John’s driver Roosby arrived in the buggy.
Bell had to