Cion (4 page)

“Floods here are very unpredictable,” he adds.

“Why can’t the people move to better places?” I ask. “What keeps them here?”

“It’s the pull of the ancestors.”

It is my first time to hear an American talk of ancestors. I thought ancestor veneration was our sole preserve. Granted, I only know Americans from soap operas and situation comedies, and they never talk of ancestors there. I do not ask him to elaborate though.

After about two hours the water is beginning to recede, but not enough for any of the cars to risk being swept away by the current that still looks strong. A heavy but unloaded truck approaches and it seems the driver is prepared to brave the water. He stops when he spots Obed and hollers at him to swim across if he “ain’t no pansy.” Obed tells him that he is not suicidal yet. The driver offers us a ride to our destination if we don’t mind getting swept away, since there is no guarantee that he’ll make it to the other side. He is going to die trying though, because he has to spend the night with his children “who ain’t got no mama or nothin’.” Obed says if he is willing to risk it, so are we. When he notices my reluctance he assures me that his friend is an excellent driver. His truck, he adds when he notices I am still reluctant, is safe in this sort of situation because it has a diesel engine. “When the water splashes up on the engine it ain’t gonna short out the ignition because there ain’t no ignition to short out,” he says.

We jump in and the engine roars. He introduces me to the driver as his friend from Africa. The driver’s name is Nathan, he tells me, and he works for a water hauling service in Athens, delivering steel tanks and cisterns to construction sites all over the county. He lives in Cutler, about five miles beyond Kilvert.

After the two men have exchanged a few cuss words about the flood, Obed turns to me and picks up the conversation where it had been interrupted by Nathan’s arrival.

“We don’t move from here,” he says. “Even those who leave to work in Columbus or Chicago, they come back all the time because the darn place pulls them back. You know why? It’s where our race of people was molded.”

He stops when he realizes that I am no longer paying any attention to him. I am holding my breath because the truck is sinking in the water as Nathan slowly forces it forward. It moves on in jerks. He seems to find his way on a road that is completely under water by instinct. We sink deeper when we reach the vicinity of the low and narrow bridge. “The current is strong,” says Nathan. “If the water gets a few inches up on the door we are screwed.” Apparently the vehicle will become too buoyant to maintain traction and the additional force against the door will make it float off the roadway.

Fortunately the monster machine is quite high and Nathan is able to maneuver it very slowly until it reaches the other side. Both Obed and Nathan break into loud laughter when Nathan steps on the accelerator as soon as the vehicle hits the solid black road. I am not laughing at all because I am trying to bring my lungs back to settle at their appointed place in my body after they almost jumped out of my mouth.

In no time we are in Stewart, a pretty little village of white houses and well-trimmed lawns and gigantic trees. We begin a series of sharp bends as the road snakes its way in a forest of elms and sycamores.

“My people call them ghost trees…the sycamores,” says Obed to me. “They’re carriers of memories.”

“Come on,” says Nathan. “It’s just because they’re very light in color and stand out among other trees, especially when the moon is shining.”

“They are carriers of memories still,” insists Obed. “You wouldn’t know nothing about it.”

They argue. I am more concerned with finding the Hocking River. I think we lost it somewhere at Stewart. I ask them where the river went, if only to stop their loud boyish banter about someone called Orpah who is playing hard to get, which is beginning to irritate me. Nathan explains that it took another direction on the outskirts of Stewart toward West Virginia to join the mighty Ohio River.

The monster truck is devouring sharp curves down the hill and then up the slopes and down again. The road is quite bumpy, although thankfully there are no potholes. Very much unlike the roads in the city of Athens, which have more potholes than I have ever seen on any road in all my life. That is one thing that has made an impression on me about roads in this country: potholes. And it is not only in small cities like Athens. On my arrival I was struck by the potholes on the road between the airports in New York and in Newark, New Jersey. Where I come from such potholes would have been the subject of a national news story or even of a commission of inquiry and somebody would have to pay the price for them. Thankfully this county road, though its surface is uneven, is better maintained. And so are the sprawling lawns on the side of the road. They are always so well trimmed in front of the farmhouses and log cabins and corrugated iron structures of different shapes and sizes that are hiding among the trees. And sturdy barns that pay homage to a German heritage. I am able to see them only because of their bright colors. Those that are red or brown manage to blend with the trees in perfect camouflage. Judging by the barns these are farming communities, although I don’t see much farmland on the side of the road. Mostly trees and gullies and lawns. There is, however, tall light brown corn on sporadic patches of land.

About four miles from Stewart we cross the Federal Creek, and there is Kilvert, nestled in the middle of one of the three units of Wayne National Forest. Nathan drops us on the side of the road.

“Tell Orpah Northwest Territory is playing at the Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville on Saturday,” he hollers after us as we walk on a narrower blacktop road that leads into the village.

“She knows that,” Obed hollers back without stopping.

“I’d like for us to go.”

“Ask her yourself.”

Nathan laughs and breaks into the band’s all-time favorite, “The Veteran’s Song”:
If they didn’t sacrifice for us, we would be eating rice and drinking German beer.
Then the engine roars and swallows the rest of the song as he tears away.

I follow Obed as we walk deeper into the village among mostly run-down houses strewn with scrap metal, muddy gardens, broken-down vehicles and rusty trailers. There are however a few buildings that are beautifully painted white and have neat gardens.

Outside most of the houses, near the doors or in the porches, big yellow pumpkins are exhibited, and some of these are jack-o’-lanterns with crudely carved eyes and mouths. Children are trick-or-treating in small groups. Toddlers are accompanied by their mothers, all of whom carry their robust bodies with grace.

“I have never seen so many fat people in my life,” I say with a chuckle. Obed ignores the comment.

We walk past a little church with a red roof. It looks like a toy. Or like a confectionary creation of dark brown and light brown chocolate bricks arranged in symmetric patterns. I can see, to my great relief, a beautiful graveyard between the church and a wooded area, the few headstones peeping on a sprawling green lawn. It looks very inviting. Whereas the grass grows high on the side of the road, the lawn in the graveyard is trimmed. All the graves have fresh flowers on them. The people here obviously care for their dead.

The house has a wrap-around porch. Like all the houses here it is built of timber, painted white. Peeling in places. But from the ground to the porch it is built of brown bricks. The porch is quite high, which makes it look more like an Iberian balcony; you climb a number of steps to get to the front door. Under the porch is the brick part of the building with a door and small basement-type windows. A rusty brown GMC pickup is parked in the shade under the balcony.

A man is sitting on a white swing in the porch. He is looking fixedly at some spot in the garden. His lips are smiling. But none of that smile has crept to his eyes. They are deep-set and sorrowful. He is quite big, with a gigantic handlebar mustache that is gray with streaks of black. His skin is golden brown and his thinning silver hair is tied in a humble ponytail. He is in faded blue jeans and a T-shirt that used to be white. It has a number of small holes and smudges of what looks like mud and ketchup. The jeans are kept in place by a slim belt and a pair of broad suspenders.

When he does not return my greeting my eyes follow his to the garden. Nothing grows here but a solitary shrub decorated with foil strips of different colors. Next to it are a birdfeeder and a spinning wheel with small golden bells hanging on it. And then all over the garden there are gnomes and other figures of varying sizes and colors made of cast plaster. There is a cupid with his bow and arrow aimed to the sky, there are birds and angels in frozen flight on the ground and there are swans and flamingos. The dogs and deer are made of water-stained stone. There is a Jesus in red and white robes, his hand raised in benediction. From the cracks on his flowing garments I can see that he is made of painted wood. There are a number of miniature American flags planted among these figures.

“Mr. Quigley used to be a flower man,” says Obed. “As you can see he don’t care for flowers no more. He grows gnomes.”

Mr. Quigley does not even blink. It is as if he is not there. The wind chimes that are hanging in line on the ceiling of the porch fill the air with notes of different tones and pitches. They blend with a haunting music that leaks out of one of the windows. It would be bluegrass if it were not for the strange-sounding instrument that I cannot place.

We walk through a living room cluttered with motley furniture, including vinyl car seats and a metal table on which there is a sewing machine and bits of fabric and pairs of scissors, into the kitchen. The air is suffused with a delicious aroma of spices and simmering beans. A gloriously obese woman with fluffy three-tone hair—silver, brown and black streaks that frizzle from her round head down to her nape—is slicing tomatoes with an old Ginsu knife.

“Still making relish, Mama,” moans Obed in a voice that has become that of a spoiled little boy. “You’ve been doing it for hours now, haven’t you? Couldn’t pick me up because of the darn relish.”

She turns around to glare at Obed. She moves with difficulty and is out of breath. Her faded navy blue tracksuit is very tight on her body emphasizing tiers of fat on her waist and the stomach that hangs like an apron. It is even bigger than the sciolist’s. Now I am really ashamed of my offhand remark about Kilvert’s fat mothers.

She is not particularly beautiful. Her face is round and bronze and smooth, except for a few expression lines on the brow and at the corners of the mouth. She is obviously going to lash out at her son. But before she can do so she lays her eyes on me, and her face breaks into a puzzled smile.

“I like your costume,” she says. “Who might you be?”

“I am Toloki the Professional Mourner, ma’am.”

“A professional mourner. That’s an original.”

“I thought so too, but now I know better.”

“And what’s with the funny accent?”

“He’s from Africa, Mama,” says Obed helpfully.

“From South Africa,” I correct him. “Remember?”

“From Africa? I’ll be damned!” she says. “You got into the spirit of things well and good for a stranger.”

“She’s Ruth,” says Obed. “She’s my mama. The mama who don’t bring me home because of relish.”

“Grow up, boy,” says Ruth sharply. “If you get yourself drunk out there in Athens all night long you don’t expect your mama to come to your rescue all the darn time. And with them floods, too!”

“That’s another thing, Mama, you didn’t tell me nothing ’bout them floods.”

She decides he is not worth the effort and returns to her tomatoes, and to me.

“How come you don’t look like Africans?” she asks. “You’re yella.”

“Africans come in all colors of humanity, ma’am.”

“I’ll be damned,” she says.

Perhaps it is necessary to account for myself for having what she considers an unusual complexion for an African. I try to explain to her that there are strong possibilities that my ancestry is a Khoikhoi one, which is the case for many Southern Sotho and Nguni people in South Africa. I am aware that I may well be speaking gibberish; this will not make sense at all to either mother or son. At least I have offered an explanation. “I’ll be damned,” is Ruth’s only response.

After running her eyes up and down Obed’s height she declares that he smells and looks like a dead cat and orders him to take a bath and change into clean clothes immediately. He protests, claiming that he is famished and will clean up after he has had a bite to eat. Ruth only has to glare at him and he scurries out. She says I can wait for my friend right there in the kitchen if I like and watch her make the relish.

“Or you wanna sit with Mr. Quigley on the porch?”

“I’ll be fine here, ma’am,” I say as I pull a tall bar stool next to her table.

She is very fast with her fingers. She chops the vegetables, mixing green tomatoes with red bell peppers and jalapeños and mangoes and pickles and brown sugar and vinegar and Hungarian wax peppers. “Them honky peppers,” she says, and goes on to tell me about the art of making great relish. Her tone is conspiratorial, as if she is revealing a secret recipe that will make her millions one day.