Roots: The Saga of an American Family

  CHAPTER 29

  Nearly every day, it seemed to Kunta, Binta would irritate him about something. It wasn’t anything she would do or say, but in other ways—little looks, certain tones of voice—Kunta could tell she disapproved of something about him. It was worst when Kunta added to his possessions new things that Binta hadn’t obtained for him herself. One morning, arriving to serve his breakfast, Binta nearly dropped the steaming couscous upon Kunta when she saw he was wearing his first dundiko not sewn with her own hands. Feeling guilty for having traded a cured hyena hide to get it, Kunta angrily offered her no explanation, though he could feel that his mother was deeply hurt.

  From that morning on, he knew that Binta never brought his meals without her eyes raking every item in his hut to see if there was anything else—a stool, a mat, a bucket, a plate, or a pot—that she’d had nothing to do with. If something new had appeared, Binta’s sharp eyes would never miss it. Kunta would sit there fuming while she put on that look of not caring and not noticing that he had seen her wear so many times around Omoro, who knew as well as Kunta did that Binta could hardly wait to get to the village well among her women friends so that she could loudly bemoan her troubles—which was what all Mandinka women did when they disagreed with their husbands.

  One day, before his mother arrived with the morning meal, Kunta picked up a beautifully woven basket that Jinna M’Baki, one of Juffure’s several widows, had given him as a gift, and he set it just inside the door of his hut, where his mother would be sure to all but stumble over it. The widow was actually a little younger than Binta, it occurred to him. While Kunta was still a second-kafo goatherd, her husband had gone away to hunt and never returned. She lived quite near Nyo Boto, whom Kunta often visited, and that was how he and the widow had seen each other and come to speak to each other as Kunta had grown older. It had annoyed Kunta when the widow’s gift caused some of Kunta’s friends to tease him about her reason for giving him a valuable bamboo basket. When Binta arrived at his hut and saw it—recognizing the widow’s style of weaving—she flinched as if the basket were a scorpion before managing to compose herself.

  She didn’t say a word about it, of course, but Kunta knew he had made his point. He was no longer a boy, and it was time for her to stop acting like his mother. He felt it was his own responsibility to change her in that regard. It wasn’t something to speak to Omoro about, for Kunta knew he couldn’t put himself into the ridiculous position of asking Omoro’s advice on how to make Binta respect her son the same as she did her husband. Kunta thought about discussing his problem with Nyo Boto, but changed his mind when he recalled how peculiarly she had acted toward him upon his return from manhood training.

  So Kunta kept his own counsel, and before long he decided not to go any more into Binta’s hut, where he had lived most of his life. And when Binta brought his meals, he would sit stiffly silent while she set his food on the mat before him and left without speaking or even looking at him. Kunta finally began thinking seriously of seeking out some new eating arrangement. Most of the other new young men still ate from their mothers’ kitchens, but some were cooked for by an older sister or a sister-in-law. If Binta got any worse, Kunta told himself, he was going to find some other woman to cook for him—perhaps the widow who had given him the woven basket. He knew without asking that she would gladly cook for him—and yet Kunta didn’t want to let her know that he was even considering such a thing. In the meantime, he and his mother continued to meet at mealtimes—and to act as if they didn’t even see each other.

  Early one morning, returning from a night of sentry duty out in the groundnut fields, Kunta saw hurrying along the trail some distance ahead of him three young men whom he could tell were about his own age, and whom he knew had to be travelers from somewhere else. Shouting until they turned around, he went running to meet and greet them. They told Kunta they were from the village of Barra, a day and a night of walking from Juffure, and they were on their way to hunt for gold. They were of the Feloop tribe, which was a branch of Mandinka, but he had to listen carefully to understand them, as they did to understand him. It made Kunta remember his visit with his father to his uncle’s new village, where he couldn’t understand what some people were saying, although they lived only two or three days away from Juffure.

  Kunta was intrigued by the trip the young men were taking. He thought it might also interest some of his friends, so he asked the young men to stop in his village for a day of hospitality before they went on. But they graciously refused the invitation, saying that they had to reach the place where the gold could be panned by the third afternoon of travel. “But why don’t you come along with us?” one of the young men asked Kunta.

  Never having dreamed of such a thing, Kunta was so taken aback that he found himself saying no, telling them that as much as he appreciated the offer, he had much work to do on his farm, as well as other duties. And the three young men expressed their regret. “If you should change your mind, please join us,” one said. And they got down on their knees and drew in the dust to show Kunta where the gold-hunting place was located—about two days and nights of travel beyond Juffure. The father of one of the boys, a traveling musician, had told them where it was.

  Kunta walked along talking with his newfound friends until they came to where the travelers’ trail forked. After the three men took the fork that led on past Juffure—and turned to wave back at him—Kunta walked slowly home. He was thinking hard as he entered his hut and lay down on his bed, and though he had been awake all night, he still couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Perhaps he might go to hunt gold after all if he could find a friend to tend his farm plot. And he knew that someone of his mates would take over his sentry duties if they were only asked—as he would gladly do if they asked him.

  Kunta’s next thought hit him so hard it made him leap right up out of bed: As a man now, he could take Lamin along, as his father had once taken him. For the next hour Kunta paced the dirt floor of his hut, his mind wrestling with the questions raised by this exciting thought. First of all, would Omoro permit such a trip for Lamin, who was yet a boy and thus required his father’s approval? It galled Kunta enough, as a man, to have to ask permission for anything, but suppose Omoro said no? And how would his three new friends feel about it if he showed up with his little brother?

  Come to think of it, Kunta wondered why he was pacing the floor, and risking serious embarrassment, just to do a favor for Lamin. After all, ever since he had returned from manhood training, Lamin hadn’t even been that close to him any more. But Kunta knew that this wasn’t something that either of them wanted. They had really enjoyed each other before Kunta went away. But now Lamin’s time was taken up by Suwadu, who was always hanging around his bigger brother in the same way that Lamin used to hang around Kunta, full of pride and admiration. But Kunta felt that Lamin had never quit feeling that way about him. If anything, he felt that Lamin admired his big brother even more than before. It was just that some kind of distance had come between them because of his having become a man. Men simply spent no great deal of time with boys; and even if that wasn’t as he and Lamin wanted it, there just seemed no way for either of them to crack through it—until Kunta thought of taking Lamin along on his gold-hunting trip.

  “Lamin is a good boy. He displays his home training well. And he takes good care of my goats,” was Kunta’s opening comment to Omoro, for Kunta knew that men almost never began conversations directly with what they meant to discuss. Omoro, of course, knew this, too. He nodded slowly and replied: “Yes, I would say that is true.” As calmly as he could, Kunta then told his father of meeting his three new friends and of their invitation to join them in hunting for gold. Taking a deep breath, Kunta said finally, “I’ve been thinking that Lamin might enjoy the trip.”

  Omoro’s face showed not a flicker of expression. A long moment passed before he spoke. “For a boy to travel is good,” he said—and Kunta knew that his father was at least not going to say no absolutely. In
some way, Kunta could feel his father’s trust in him, but also his concern, which he knew Omoro didn’t want to express any more strongly than he had to. “It has been rains since I’ve had any travel in that area. I seem not to remember that trail’s route very well,” said Omoro, as casually as if they were merely discussing the weather. Kunta knew that his father—whom Kunta had never known to forget anything—was trying to find out if he knew the route to the gold-hunting place.

  Dropping onto his knees in the dust, Kunta drew the trail with a stick as if he had known it for years. He drew circles to show the villages that were both near the trail and at some distance from it along the way. Omoro got down onto his knees as well, and when Kunta had finished drawing the trail, said, “I would go so as to pass close by the most villages. It will take a little longer, but it will be the safest.”

  Kunta nodded, hoping that he appeared more confident than he suddenly felt. The thought hit him that though the three friends he had met, traveling together, could catch each other’s mistakes—if they made any—he, traveling with a younger brother for whom he would be responsible, would have no one to help if something went wrong.

  Then Kunta saw Omoro’s finger circling the last third of the trail. “In this area, few speak Mandinka,” Omoro said. Kunta remembered the lessons of his manhood training and looked into his father’s eyes. “The sun and the stars will tell me the way,” he said.

  A long moment passed, and then Omoro spoke again. “I think I’ll go by your mother’s house.” Kunta’s heart leaped. He knew it was his father’s way of saying that his permission was given, and he felt it best that he personally make his decision known to Binta.

  Omoro wasn’t long in Binta’s hut. He had hardly left to return to his own when she burst out her door, hands pressed tightly to her shaking head. “Madi! Suwadu!” she shrieked, and they came rushing to her from among the other children.

  Now other mothers came from their huts, and unmarried girls, all rushing behind Binta as she began hollering and pulling the two boys alongside her toward the well. Once there, all of the women crowded about her as she wept and moaned that now she had only two children left, that her others certainly would soon be lost to toubob.

  A second-kafo girl, unable to contain the news of Kunta’s trip with Lamin, raced all the way out to where the boys of her kafo were grazing the goats. A short time later, back in the village, heads jerked around with smiles on their faces as a deliriously joyful boy came whooping into the village in a manner fit to wake the ancestors. Catching up with his mother just outside her hut, Lamin—though still a hand’s span shorter than her—bearhugged Binta, planted big kisses on her forehead and swept her whirling up off her feet as she shouted to be put down. Once back on the ground, she ran to pick up a nearby piece of wood and struck Lamin with it. She would have done it again, but he dashed away—feeling no pain—toward Kunta’s hut. He didn’t even knock as he burst inside. It was an unthinkable intrusion into a man’s house—but after a glimpse at his brother’s face, Kunta had to overlook it. Lamin just stood there, looking up into the face of his big brother. The boy’s mouth was trying to say something; indeed, his whole body was trembling, and Kunta had to catch himself to keep from grabbing and hugging Lamin in the rush of love he felt passing between them in that moment.

  Kunta heard himself speaking, his tone almost gruff. “I see you’ve already heard. We’ll leave tomorrow after first prayer.”

  Man or not, Kunta took care to walk nowhere near Binta as he made several quick calls to see friends about caring for his farm and filling in for him on sentry duty. Kunta could tell where Binta was from the sound of her wailing as she marched around the village holding Madi and Suwadu by the hand. “These two only I have left!” she cried, as loudly as she could. But like everyone else in Juffure, she knew that no matter what she felt or said or did, Omoro had spoken.

  CHAPTER 30

  At the travelers’ tree, Kunta prayed for their journey to be a safe one. So that it would be a prosperous one as well, he tied the chicken he had brought along to a lower branch by one of its legs, leaving it flapping and squawking there as he and Lamin set forth on the trail. Though he didn’t turn back to look, Kunta knew Lamin was trying very hard to keep pace with him, and to keep his headload balanced—and to keep Kunta from noticing either.

  After an hour, the trail took them by a low, spreading tree strung thickly with beads. Kunta wanted to explain to Lamin how such a tree meant that living nearby were some of the few Mandinkas who were kafirs, pagan unbelievers who used snuff and smoked tobacco in pipes made of wood with earthen bowls, and also drank a beer they made of mead. But more important than that knowledge was for Lamin to learn the discipline of silent marching. By noontime, Kunta knew that Lamin’s feet and legs would be hurting him badly, and also his neck under the heavy headload. But it was only by keeping on despite pain that a boy could toughen his body and his spirit. At the same time, Kunta knew that Lamin must stop for rest before he collapsed, which would hurt his pride.

  Taking the bypass trail to miss the first village they passed, they soon shook off the naked little first-kafo children who raced out to inspect them. Kunta still didn’t look back, but he knew that Lamin would have quickened his pace and straightened his back for the children’s benefit. But as they left the children and the village behind, Kunta’s mind drifted off Lamin to other things. He thought again of the drum he was going to make for himself—making it first in his mind, as the men did who carved out masks and figures. For the drum’s head, he had a young goat’s skin already scraped and curing in his hut, and he knew just the place—only a short trot beyond the women’s rice fields—where he could find the tough wood he needed for a strong drumframe. Kunta could almost hear how his drum was going to sound.

  As the trail took them into a grove of trees close by the path, Kunta tightened his grip on the spear he carried, as he had been taught to do. Cautiously, he continued walking—then stopped and listened very quietly. Lamin stood wide-eyed behind him, afraid to breathe. A moment later, however, his big brother relaxed and began walking again, toward what Kunta recognized—with relief—as the sound of several men singing a working song. Soon he and Lamin came into a clearing and saw twelve men dragging a dugout canoe with ropes. They had felled a tree and burned and chopped it out, and now they were starting to move it the long way to the river. After each haul on the ropes, they sang the next line of the song, each one ending “All together!,” then again, straining hard, as they moved the dugout about another arm’s length. Waving to the men, who waved back, Kunta passed them and made a mental note to tell Lamin later who these men were and why they had made the canoe from a tree that grew here in the forest rather than near the riverbank: They were from the village of Kerewan, where they made the best Mandinka dugouts; and they knew that only forest trees would float.

  Kunta thought with a rush of warmth about the three young men from Barra whom they were traveling to meet. It was strange that though they never had seen each other before, they seemed as brothers. Perhaps it was because they too were Mandinkas. They said things differently than he did, but they weren’t different inside. Like them, he had decided to leave his village to seek his fortune—and a little excitement—before returning to their homes ahead of the next big rains.

  When the time neared for the alansaro prayer in midafternoon, Kunta stepped off the trail where a small stream ran among trees. Not looking at Lamin, he slipped off his headload, flexed himself, and bent to scoop up handfuls of water in order to splash his face. He drank sparingly, then, in the midst of his prayer, he heard Lamin’s headload thud to the earth. Springing up at the end of the prayer intending to rebuke him, he saw how painfully his brother was crawling toward the water. But Kunta still made his voice hard: “Sip a little at a time!” As Lamin drank, Kunta decided that an hour’s resting here would be long enough. After eating a few bites of food, he thought, Lamin should be able to keep walking until time for the fitiro prayer
, at about dusk, when a fuller meal and a night’s rest would be welcomed by them both.

  But Lamin was too tired even to eat. He lay where he had drunk from the stream, face down with his arms flung out, palms up. Kunta stepped over quietly to look at the soles of his feet; they weren’t bleeding yet. Then Kunta himself catnapped, and when he got up he took from his headload enough dried meat for two. Shaking Lamin awake, he gave him his meat and ate his own. Soon they were back on the trail, which made all the turns and passed all the landmarks the young men from Barra had drawn for Kunta. Near one village, they saw two old grandmothers and two young girls with some first-kafo children busily catching crabs, darting their hands into a little stream and snatching out their prey.

  Near dusk, as Lamin began to grab more and more often at his headload, Kunta saw ahead a flock of large bushfowl circling down to land. Abruptly he stopped, concealing himself, as Lamin sank onto his knees behind a bush nearby. Kunta pursed his lips, making the male bushfowl mating call, and shortly several fat, fine hens came flapping and waddling over. They were cocking their heads and looking around when Kunta’s arrow went straight through one. Jerking its head off, he let the blood drain out, and while the bird roasted he built a rough bush shelter, then prayed. He also roasted some ears of wild corn that he had plucked along the way before awakening Lamin, who had fallen asleep again the moment they put their headloads down. Hardly had Lamin wolfed down his meal before he flopped back down onto the soft moss under a slanting roof of leafy boughs and went back to sleep without a murmur.