What the River Washed Away

Muriel Mharie Macleod

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781780742359
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

'I ain't know nothing except he's a bad man Mambo.' Inspired by real-life events, this is the remarkable and uncompromising story of one young woman's refusal to accept her fate in 1920s Louisiana Jobs and Jesus from the big town don't ever seem to make it out here. Not down through the hackberry woods to the shack where I live with my Mambo. Not now Pappy's gone. No, here's where the old ways squat, where devil's work heals and some say harms.That don't mean the big town don't visit though – white folks with their shirt sleeves, liquor stink, and nasty ways. More dark in them than even Mambo can hold off.But I got me a friend now, fierce and vengeful, and we got a powerful secret that's gonna change everything.

Five

Mambo gave up thinking I’m ever gonna be following her ways.

‘Ya ain’t got it girl.’

Simple as that, she reckons. Too much schooling put paid to it, she says. Ruins the gut, takes away what she calls instinct. All that reading up on other folks’ instinct sure as hell kills ya own, she says.

‘I knows it, and ya grandma knew it too, when she was living here in this world.’

She blames Pappy. That he taught me different, did it to spite her and grandma, so that I ain’t ever gonna be mambo. He always said he was gonna do it, and ain’t it just what come about. That was Pappy all over, she moaned.

I tell her she’s sore ’cause she ain’t never get no proper schooling herself.

‘I ain’t ever want no schooling. Schooling get folks thinking too much about stuff ain’t nobody’s business to be thinking. White folks’ business. A mambo need her gut.’

‘Most folks need reason.’

Days past, I’d be sure on getting a thwack for my cheek and answering Mambo back like that. Last time she thwacked me I could see she knew it ain’t right, and ain’t working neither. Seems me starting to learn took the whole wind of thwacking right out of her.

I got my period round that time too, and she laid a power on it.

‘Blood gives a woman power,’ she says, giving me my rags and telling me to be private about them and never find cause to use them for anything else.

‘And don’t ever let nobody get a hold of ya rags honey. I’m warning ya and ya best listen good. Them rags holding ya own blood, ain’t nobody else’s. Blood from outta ya belly and that ain’t nothing. That’s life.

‘There’s some woman over Pawnee way and I hear she’s counting on taking up being a mambo. Going round asking folks to call her Queen Something-or-other, priestess, or some damn rubbish. Lord Almighty. That kinda stuff going on, Arletta. And that half-bake shit is bad stuff. I’m telling ya that.’

‘What’s that got do with my rags?’

‘That’s what I call it. Half-bake shit.’

‘Ain’t nothing to do with me.’

Well, that start her off about how I ain’t never learn nothing and telling me to listen good. A woman gets power in her moon-time and all that power is able to be turned back on her if she goes getting careless. Course I know that’s just Mambo’s crazy old stuff talking.

‘Ain’t no crazy stuff. Ya just ain’t got it, ya ain’t never got it. That’s exactly what I’m telling ya. And that Pawnee woman is going after some of my folks too. I ain’t wanting her finding no way of getting nothing over on me, so always go minding what I’m saying and watch ya rags.’

Then she laughs right out loud and says, ‘Hey, y’all grown up now girl. Ya need to be getting on out there and find y’self a young man for popping that cherry.’

Anybody would think that was the funniest thing she ever said. The way she set to laughing all over our cabin about popping my cherry. Well, I tried telling her about that one time and got me nothing but a mouthful. And none of it was anything to laugh about, or worth a mouthful neither.

Madame Bonnet is just about as flighty a person as I ever saw in my life, and a right sight for sore eyes too. The first time she comes flouncing, and that’s the word for it, down our track with a bunch of pink feathers round her neck and a pair of dainty slippers on her tiny feet, she’s cursing the good earth she’s walking on for having the affront to be dusty.

‘Mon Dieu, c’est un désastre! Je vais devoir en faire quelque chose tout de suite.’

She rolls up the gov’ment road sitting up front of a fancy wagon ain’t nobody ever seen the likes of, with a set of red covers on the seats and a black box to rest her dinky li’l feet on. She calls the driver – ain’t much outta being a boy – ‘Tout de suite’, and he’s about as plain and quiet as to say he’s probably dumb. The sight of them on that road picks up a trail of nosy kids thinking who the hell coming to see Mambo and Po’bean now.

With all the giggling going on later, I find out that box under Madame’s feet is just the right size for a heap of real French wine. Tout de suite fetches two fine glasses outta it, them’s so thin I wonder they don’t snap in half, and gives them a right good polishing before he fills them up with dark red wine. It’s plain to see he’s doing that every day of his life. Then he says, ‘Excusez-moi,’ because he ain’t dumb at all, and ain’t no Creole neither. That’s the first time I ever hear proper French spoke. He starts picking up all them feathers Madame let fly down our track, he don’t look this way or that way, and when he’s done picking up feathers, he stands guard over Madame’s fancy wagon.

Course I don’t learn anything at all that first time. Well, no French to speak of anyways. I learn what it is to be drinking fine wine and get to giggling about nothing. And I learn what it is to be real nice to them that’s serving on you, ’cause Madame sure treats Tout de suite like he’s somebody worth something. Matter of fact, that’s exactly what she says.

‘’E worth ees weight een gold. Le garçon d’or.’

Before she comes flouncing down our track again, two young fellows help Tout de suite lay wood planks down so Madame and her satin slippers don’t get friendly with dirt. Mambo says it’s just on account of her being from Paris, and I guess they probably ain’t got no dirt tracks over that way at all.

I ask Safi to come on over ’cause she could do with the learning too, and we set to translating the Paris newspapers Madame brings. She and Mambo just get tipsy on her fine French wine, ain’t no kinda real teaching going on at all. Madame rocks to and fro in Pappy’s rocking chair with Mambo sitting on our front step listening to her talk about what happened to her before she came to Louisiana. She ain’t never known no family of her own on account of her being passed through a hole in the wall as soon as she come into this world, with nothing more than a piece of cloth they said was worked by her ma, so she was going to know her when she came back. She ain’t never come back, though. Madame’s still got that piece of linen and says she carries it with her all the time.

‘Look, I show you. Ees ’ere.’

That got Mambo all choke up.

Safi and me get out there to take a look at that piece of old linen, gone turned yellow with all the time of Madame’s life. We feel right sorry for her ’cause she ain’t got nobody, she just got a piece of cloth. It’s worked up fine with coloured threads and all, but it ain’t family and it ain’t real folks. I guess there’s some on this earth got it worse than me.

Like I always say, one thing I know about is good teaching and Madame ain’t got that at all. She got patience and she’s real kind, what with all our asking, but truth to tell, the most we learn is how they talk in Paris and we start wondering if folks down in New Orleans gonna be caring anything about that. I s’pose I got myself a nice French accent and I know more than anybody else about the Great War and all the trouble going on in Europe. Knowing all that goes down well in school, though, so I guess that’s something.

When Madame finds out I like cocoa and ain’t never hardly had it, she brings a tin of it done up in shiny paper I can see my face in. Tout de suite ain’t used to ever saying much, but when I bring him hot frothy cocoa, like Mambo’s real good at, he’s right pleased.

‘That’s very nice of you, Miss Arletta. Merci beaucoup.’

‘Ya ain’t go calling me no Miss.’

‘Well I surely must, on account of you ees working with Madame Bonnet.’

‘She’s teaching me French is all. Well, she s’posed to be teaching me French, but her and Mambo just getting on all the time. It’s going okay I guess though.’

Tout de suite takes to whittling sticks when he’s waiting for Madame and the kids hereabouts are all right tickled with it. I get outta there as soon as them kids show up for fear they start calling me Po’bean and he starts calling me Miss.

Then Safi stops coming for French lessons ’cause of her grandma saying Madame needs to come to Jesus, and I gotta ask her what that means.

‘Well, I don’t rightly know, Arletta, but that’s what she says, and he’d be right forgiving of her too.’

Her grandma and my Pappy, them’s the same kinda folks, all for Jesus, and that ain’t ever go down well with my Mambo. It’s about that, I guess. I see Mambo’s always mixing and pounding up before Madame gets here, so something’s going on all right. She fixes up some kinda gri-gri and Madame takes a bag of it away with her every time she’s over here. Safi’s grandma is big with the church and all, like Pappy was, so maybe she just don’t like Safi round Mambo’s stuff no more.

So I just carry on by myself. Madame reckons she’s teaching me French and Mambo gets a taste for fine French wine. I keep up with all my studies though, so I do well at school. Mr Parker was teaching me for a couple of years before Mrs Lee Hem took over ’cause he ain’t able. He says he’s just getting old and wanting to see more sunsets ’fore he ain’t able to see no more of them at all.

English gets to be my best subject but I love geography too, and start daydreaming about going travelling to the new Republic of China Mrs Lee Hem is fond of talking about. She’s from north China someplace, says it took her two weeks to get all the way over here, and a firm down in New Orleans has published a diary she wrote about the Chinese Boxer Uprising. I borrow it, on account of it being something to read, and she seems pleased ’cause nobody else ever asks her anything about it. Then she takes to standing up on an old soapbox over in Brouillette shouting about a revolution in Russia. I find out what a Communist is and Mrs Lee Hem gets minded on being one. Mr Lee Hem takes himself right on off to Georgia and she’s left shouting about all us black folks taking up as Commies. I ain’t rightly see much wrong with it, but Mambo goes mad about that.

‘Keep ya big mouth shut on it Arletta,’ she screams, like she hit the roof and it gone and blow right off. ‘One time girl! Do as I says and keep outta it.’

‘Well, I’m just saying I think it’s all right to be sharing out among folks …’

‘Goddammit, Arletta! I swear I gonna take to thwacking ya outta them big ideas! This Commie shit is just the next big trouble and ya gonna leave them white folks to sort it out among themselves. Ain’t gonna let ya even think on it. Ya hear Mambo girl?’

‘Okay Mambo, I was only saying …’

‘One more word and I’ll ...

Table of contents

• Copyright Page
• What the River Washed Away
• One
• Two
• Three
• Four
• Five
• Six
• Seven
• Eight
• Nine
• Ten
• Eleven
• Twelve
• Thirteen
• Fourteen
• Fifteen
• Epilogue
• Afterword
• Acknowledgements