Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [202]
When Bell broke the news to Kunta—adding that the cake she was going to make would have to be served in the big house instead of their cabin, and that Kizzy was going to be so busy partying with Missy Anne that they wouldn’t be able to have a party of their own—Kunta was so angry that he couldn’t speak or even look at her. Stomping outside, he went straight to the barn, where he’d hidden the doll under a pile of straw, and pulled it out.
He had vowed to Allah that this kind of thing would never happen to his Kizzy—but what could he do? He felt such a sickening sense of frustration that he could almost begin to understand why these blacks finally came to believe that resisting the toubob was as useless as a flower trying to keep its head above the falling snow. But then, staring at the doll, he thought of the black mother he’d heard about who had bashed out her infant’s brains against the auction block, screaming, “Ain’t gon’ do to her what you done to me!” And he raised the doll over his head to dash it against the wall, then lowered it. No, he could never do that to her. But what about escape? Bell herself had mentioned it once. Would she really go? And if she would, could they ever make it—at their age, with his half foot, with a child barely old enough to walk? He hadn’t seriously considered the idea for many years, but he did know the region by now as well as he did the plantation itself. Maybe ...
Dropping the doll, he got up and walked back to the cabin. But Bell started talking before he got the chance to. “Kunta, I feels de same as you, but listen to me! I ruther dis dan her growin’ up a fiel’-han’ young’un like dat l’il ol’ Noah. He ain’t but two years older’n Kizzy, an’ awready dey done started takin’ him out dere to pullin’ weeds an’ totin’ water. Don’ care how else you feels, seem like you got to ’gree wid dat.” As usual, Kunta said nothing, but he had seen and done enough during his quarter-century years as a slave to know that the life of a field hand was the life of a farm animal, and he would rather die than be responsible for sentencing his daughter to such a fate.
Then one evening a few weeks later, he arrived home to find Bell waiting at the door with the cup of cold milk he always looked forward to after a long drive. When he sat down in his rocking chair to wait for supper, she came up behind him and—without even being asked—rubbed his back in just the spot where she knew it always hurt after a day at the reins. When she set a plate of his favorite African stew in front of him, he knew she must be trying to soften him up for something, but he knew enough not to ask her what. All the way through supper she chattered even more than usual about things that mattered even less than usual, and he was beginning to wonder if she’d ever get around to it when, about an hour after supper, as they were getting ready to go to bed, she stopped talking for a long moment, took a deep breath, and put her hand on his arm. He knew this was it.
“Kunta, I don’ know how to tell you this, so I’ll jes’ spit it out. Massa done tol’ me he promise Missy Anne to drop Kizzy off at Massa John’s to spen’ de day wid her when he pass by dere on his roun’s tomorra.”
This was too much. It was outrageous enough to have to sit by and watch while Kizzy was turned slowly into a well-mannered lap dog, but now that she’d been housebroken, they wanted him to deliver the animal to its new keeper. Kunta shut his eyes, struggling