What the River Washed Away Read online

  ‘I give ya strength,’ Nellie whispers after he’s gone. ‘Ya gotta use it chile.’

  I don’t care what my Mambo says, Nellie’s got a soothing kinda voice that I like to be hearing and it helps me out fine with all the fear and hurting I’m feeling all the time. I don’t care if Mambo ain’t able to see her, I ain’t ever seen Nellie neither. Don’t mean nothing and I ain’t got no clue why Mambo is making any kinda fuss about it, ’specially since she’s the one got all them spirits from the old country taking a hold on her all the time. Ain’t never seen any of them neither, and them sure as hell ain’t no good at all. Nellie’s right there when they’re doing to me and when I get to fretting real bad after they’re done. I’m sure gonna stick with Safi and Nellie.

  But when Mr Seymour’s gone, I tell Nellie I’m gonna stop coming to Sugarsookie Creek and get on over to the Red River, ’cause it flows so fast and able to take me. I did well at school and I know I’m gonna like it, but I ain’t able to take Mr McIntyre or Mr Seymour doing to me no more.

  ‘Ya don’t need to be thinkin’ that chile. Remember Nellie is giving ya strength all the time. Ya just gotta learn how to use it, that’s all. Learn to use it chile.’

  ‘I ain’t never feel any strength at all when they make me do what I don’t wanna be doing. And it real nasty Nellie, real nasty.’

  I don’t even know how I keep it all to myself. Ain’t right, but I’m just scared, I guess. And it ain’t like I never tried telling Mambo, and she just get on about what’s gonna happen when folks find out and we get a lynching for it. Ain’t right. Sometimes I reckon I oughta tell Safi, but her ma and Mambo are right close and that makes me scared in case they all end up swinging too.

  When I get to thinking about it, I ain’t got no clue how Safi’s ma and my Mambo are good and close as friends can be anyways. They’s both as different as day is from night, but they been together from way back, since knee-high, she says, so I guess that’s all there is to it. Ever since Safi and her folks come back this way, we been visiting with them on the other side of the train crossing. Safi and her ma come over our way one time, but they’s trailing six li’l uns at a time and them kids get on all over the place and ain’t no joy for her ma. She just about went outta her mind. I like it better over their place anyhow, with all them folks talking all the time, seems like they’s always cooking something, and Safi’s grandma puts me in mind of Pappy ’cause she’s real old too. She marches off to prayer meeting like she’s all pepped up for courting the Lord, Mambo says. She’s got an old felt hat just like Pappy had, ’cept she’s got a bunch of spotty chicken feathers stuffed down a hole in the side.

  ‘Must have been the fashion about a hundred years ago,’ laughs Mambo. ‘And all them still wearing it.’

  Safi’s ma says her grandma changes that bunch of chicken feathers about every ten years and reckons that makes it good enough as new for another ten. Mambo and Safi’s ma are bent over laughing.

  ‘Lord ain’t paying no mind, she says, and I reckon she sure gotta be right about that.’ Safi’s ma ain’t able to speak right with laughing over the sight of them feathers.

  ‘Well, I gonna seek out Pappy’s old hat and stick me a bunch of feathers in it too.’

  ‘Chile, ya gonna be the belle of the ball looking like that.’

  ‘Well, that sure suits me girl, long as the Lord ain’t start thinking I’s up for courting his good self too.’

  Safi’s ma and my Mambo laugh all the time and it’s fine to hear, like they’re keeping one another cheerful, trouble or no. We’re always hearing them out front laughing and hollering and drinking moonshine, when they can get a hold of it, and when they think us kids are bedded down for the night.

  I stay awake and listen ’cause I want to hear my Mambo laughing like she’s real happy. That’s when we stay over sleeping at that crowded shack of theirs so Mambo’s able to help with all them kids in the morning. They ain’t feeling so good a lot of the time with all that liquor swilling around and giving them giddy heads when they wake up. Safi’s pa don’t pay them no mind. He’s so flat out building roads round Louisiana for keeping them bellies full that he’s just glad to be left alone with a wrap of baccy and Safi’s ma filling up his moonshine jar till his head nods off and he’s gone. He’s always fine next morning. Gets up bright as a shiny button and takes off for work on the back of the truck passing right by their cabin to pick him up, ’cause they live on the side of the gov’ment road. Seems he breaks rocks as good as he makes babies. Me and Safi swing out back in an old rope hammock, doing what we’re told and looking out for all them kids.

  Time goes by and I get to know more folk. Some say Mambo ain’t no good, some say I’m a teacher’s pet ’cause I learn good and ain’t no fun, and Po’bean ain’t got no right learning, neither. I just stick with Safi. She takes the same old hollering for being poorer than anybody else, ’cept maybe me and Mambo, on account of them having too many kids. Them folks just mean; ain’t nobody round here ever got more than a dime at a time.

  ‘Y’all real smart, Arletta. I wish learning was easy for me too, but it just ain’t.’

  I tell Safi I’m gonna help her out as much as I can. Ain’t that she’s not smart enough, it just ain’t easy learning with all her kin running around the place all the time. Them’s coming and going like nobody’s business, and with all kind of things going on, she ain’t got no peace for it. One thing I know for sure is ya gotta set ya mind on learning. That’s hard to do with kids running and scrapping all the time.

  ‘And I got chores,’ she says. ‘I get no rest now ’cause of being the oldest after our boys all head off for work and starting out on their own. All I hear is, “Safi take the li’l uns here, take them there. Rinse this out, shell them peas and crawfish.” Living round here ain’t like down your track. Ya got peace, Arletta, ya got time for it.’

  I don’t tell her what else I got. I just reckon having all that family round the place gotta be nice. That’s worth all the time I got that I rightly don’t know what to be doing with.

  ‘Mambo ain’t stepping out so much now, is she?’ Safi asks.

  ‘No, she ain’t.’

  Glad to say that’s true. I reckon Mambo’s taken to changing her ways and staying home, like she’s getting some of that sense Pappy always said she was gonna get one day. She’s setting down some proper planting too, and it’s growing fine, she’s got that touch with it. She says, “Arletta, ya go on and stick with ya books and I’m gonna stick with the good earth. That’s what my sort do best – always did, always will.” Seems that’s the way it’s gonna be, and it sure suits me fine too.

  Me and Safi got to feeling tired swinging out back of her place, one time I recall. It was a real nice time, with everybody dancing and carrying on. I even seen folks there saying they live out near our cabin, but I ain’t never seen them. Safi’s pa and his pals got a way of smoking hog with jalepeño all day long in the ground before we’re able to stuff our bellies so full of that soft and tasty stuff that we ain’t good for much else.

  I hear Safi’s breathing go deep and even, she’s sleeping already. The moon is just the way I like it, bright and full, and moving slow across the sky. The only sound I hear is Mambo and Safi’s ma talking. Safi’s used to having folk around the place, so she pays it no mind, but I lie awake and feel good about listening to folks’ chattering, and all the coming and going, with a hush now ’cause all them kids don’t need to be wakened. I don’t hear much I don’t need to be hearing, it’s just the sound of life going on in her cabin like it don’t go on in mine, and I like to be lying there thinking how it makes me feel safe.

  I’m just about dropping off myself, with my full belly, when Safi’s pa comes and lifts her outta the hammock. Then Mambo comes to curl up next to me, smelling of moonshine, lime and warm cologne. The night is still, ain’t nothing moving out there at all. Mambo holds me close like she used to when we shared our cot before Pappy passed away.

  ‘Get on off to
sleep Arletta, ain’t no time for li’l uns. Come on now.’

  ‘I’m just listening to the sound of all them babies sleeping. They sure had a lotta babies. G’night Mambo.’

  ‘G’night honey.’

  ‘Ya smell them oranges Mambo? I’m gonna pick some so’s all them babies have a nice fresh juice for breakfast.’

  She pops a kiss on top of my head.

  ‘That gonna be fine. Ya’s a real good girl Arletta, and ya’s my baby.’

  I love my Mambo. Since Safi’s folks come to live with her grandma, Mambo sure has changed. Like she got settled into sense. I reckon Pappy’s looking down right proud, ’cept for all that mumbo-jumbo. That ain’t changed at all.

  I try hard to forget what Mr McIntyre and Mr Seymour are doing and take to studying hard at school. Seems throwing all I got into learning takes the ache right out of me. Safi’s over our way sometimes too and that feels fine, like I got somebody of my own. I even see Mr Seymour turn back one time when he sees me and Safi hollering at the pipe ’cause we’re so caught up with laughing. We been cooling off with a splashing and I see he about-turns and moseys off like he was just thinking of coming down our way for nothing at all.

  Mr McIntyre turns up the next day though, and he gets real rough, telling me I need to be keeping my mouth shut or Mambo’s gonna get hurt bad by his people and I ain’t never gonna see the light of day again neither. Then Mr Seymour twists my arm till I think it’s gonna snap right off and tells me he’s taking a mind to be doing to Safi as well.

  ‘She’s a beauty. Looks to me like she’s just right for getting started.’

  ‘No! Leave her alone! She’s got a pa and he sure is gonna be doing a killing if ya start with his li’l girl! I tell ya that for sure.’

  ‘Well, we’ll just need you to be keeping me nice and happy all by yourself then, so I don’t have to go and be “doing” to her.’

  ‘Ya leave her alone, Mr Seymour, ya leave her and ain’t never get to laying a finger on her.’

  Tears pour down my face ’cause of how I’m pleading for him to leave Safi alone. He says he’s finding her growing up pretty and taken a fancy to her. The thought of nasty, dirty-smelling Mr Seymour doing all over my friend Safi makes me feel like I’m gonna kill him myself and save Safi’s pa the trouble.

  ‘Well, Fifty Cents, you know I’m thinking things are real special with you and me. You’re just as good as can be and if you do right, then we’re just as special as it can be. You and me special, that’s for sure.’

  Mambo and Safi are all I got in the world.

  ‘I ain’t gonna say nothing to nobody, Mr Seymour. It’s just like ya say. We real special.’

  Mr Seymour shrugs like he’s simple, and that I reckon he is. Then he starts giggling like we’re some kinda buddies.

  ‘That’s right. It’s just going to be you and me, then. Like you say, we real special.’

  He gets hold of my shoulders and leads me out back. Says he don’t mind Mr McIntyre doing to me because he’s just a little bit of a nobody, what he calls an upstart.

  ‘I hear all about him, just an upstart. You like me better, don’t you? We’re the special ones, eh?’

  My eyes are tight shut. I ain’t saying nothing.

  ‘We’re special? Go on, say we’re special.’

  ‘We’s special’

  ‘You don’t talk much and I’m taking a fancy to hearing you say, “We’re real special, Mr Seymour.” Say it now. You don’t start talking and telling me how much you like it, I’m just going to go get that friend of yours. She’s a talker. I can tell that.’

  He spends more time doing than I ever know before. I start worrying maybe Mambo’s gonna come back and find him. If she ever gets a notion about what they doing to me, she’s gonna find herself swinging in two parts, ain’t no mistaking.

  Nellie tells me I’ve got my strength and I need to be using it. Trouble is, I ain’t feeling strength at all. Seems I don’t know what she’s talking about. I just need to hear her talking to me and singing her sad song. That’s what’s seeing me through.

  When Safi comes over we’re s’posed to be spending time learning, and her folks say they’s happy giving her time for it so she can get on. Truth is, we spend as much time fooling as we do learning. Mambo goes crazy as an old coot when she finds us all done up with her rouge and the new bangles she just picked up in the Brouillette Saturday market stall. She falls about laughing when we show her how we’re learning to wiggle, though.

  Sure is good having Safi over at our cabin.

  When the travelling book wagon starts coming through our parish every two weeks, I get to borrow from it. Pretty soon I’m asking if I can take two instead of just the one we’re s’posed to take. I still got time to fill like nobody else.

  ‘Sure ya can, Arletta. I never saw anybody read as much, I swear. Ya must know everything there is to know about the Civil War, Little Bighorn and General Custer and all.’

  Late one Saturday afternoon Mambo’s dolling herself up for stepping out and I curl up in Pappy’s shabby chair. I wanna see if some of my French is getting good enough for translating The Mulatto, seeing as French is something I took to learning right away. I hear Cajun folk ain’t even allowed to speak French at their school, and that ain’t right, ’cause they ain’t able to speak nothing else. Mr Parker don’t think that’s right at all, though I find out he ain’t s’posed to be teaching it, neither. But he comes by a copy of The Mulatto and says I oughta read it. He gives me that raggedy old book to keep as my own and straight off says I can borrow a French dictionary from him. I’m about as keen as anybody could be to set about practising my French. And The Mulatto is the first book I ever had to call my own.

  ‘Why don’t ya just get on down to Mamou and have y’self a real good time ’stead of all that goddammed reading,’ is what Mambo has to say about it. ‘Learn some of them Cajun songs and ya gonna be all right with French, and have a fine time to boot with it. Ya know what having a fine time is, Arletta? That’s what the rest of the world is doing when ya got that head on ya shoulders stuck inside of books. Time ya started getting y’self about, find out what having a life is all about, honey.’

  ‘I’m happy reading.’

  ‘How the hell is anybody happy reading?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Well, I gotta real good friend, she’s French, and I’m gonna see if she’s able to come on over, because I see ya serious about it. Like I said, she’s real French. Madame Bonnet came right on over here from Paris. Imagine that? All the way from Paris, France. Lord, she sure knows how to throw a party. Real French style.’

  My head’s taken up with the first page of my very own first book, ain’t thinking about no party.

  ‘Madame’s able to teach ya proper French, Arletta, instead of spending time sitting there and ain’t even talking it. Honey, sometimes I don’t understand ya at all. If I ain’t sure as hell that I bring my child into this world right here in this room … and with us looking like we sharing the same pea-pod … like two peas in a pod we are …’

  ‘Have a nice time, Mambo, I like learning, that’s all. Ain’t wanna be going to no party with no Madame.’

  She’s gonna talk to Madame Bonnet about it anyways, she says. Then she’s wiggling down our track and I don’t expect to see her for the rest of the weekend. I don’t expect to be seeing Madame Bonnet at all.

  ‘Don’t go burning oil with all that reading after dark. Ya hear, Arletta? I marked that oil. Ya hear me?’

  Somebody’s whistling from the end of the road and Mambo’s off for her lift into Brouillette, or Mamou, or wherever she’s going for her good time. She only does that at weekends these days, and I gotta say, I’m glad of the peace and quiet. The day feels still and quiet after she’s gone, ain’t a breath of wind, and I settle in, happy spending it just the way I please, reading and learning. Me and Mambo just different, I guess.

  It don’t last long. In a little while I hear a noise outside on our trac
k and my stomach turns right over. I shove The Mulatto outta sight under my cot and run out back to hide in the corn patch. I peep back at our cabin, sure I’m gonna see Mr McIntyre side-step over Pappy’s fence like always.

  ‘Don’t let him touch ya chile. Ya has ya strength now. This about time ya need to be using it.’

  ‘Nellie?’

  Nellie is sounding different, like she just rushed here from someplace else. She’s right up close in my ear.

  ‘Use ya strength Arletta. Use ya strength. Don’t let him touch ya at all. He’s a-comin’ chile, and don’t let him be touching ya at all. Ya hearing Nellie chile? Ya hear?’

  ‘I hear. What do I do, Nellie?’

  ‘Ya’s able chile, ya’s able.’

  Nellie’s always telling me about my strength but that’s something I ain’t ever feel. I close my eyes and sink to the ground ’cause all I have is fear.

  ‘This time he’s gone, and y’all need to be listening to me. Don’t let him lay a hand on ya nowhere. I’m right here. He’s gone chile. He’s gone …’

  Mr Seymour is out on our porch, drunk and jiggling his coins.

  ‘Hey Fifty Cents, where are you?’

  ‘Use ya strength Arletta, this time he’s real gone.’

  I creep flat on my belly along the ground between the rows of our corn and catch sight of Mambo’s fish knife, sharp as a razor, sticking up out of the can by our washtub out back. I dash outta the corn, grab it and hide it behind my back. Then I take the biggest breath I reckon I’m ever gonna take and climb the back step up into our cabin. Mr Seymour hears me coming and pokes his silly head round our front door.

  ‘There you are, Fifty Cents. Here, come and get it.’

  He’s jiggling coins in his podgy hand.

  ‘I want a dollar.’

  ‘Oooh,’ he says, puckering up his lips. I can tell he’s right pleased with himself. ‘A dollar? What are we going to have for a dollar then?’