Unlike the funerals back home, no one takes it upon himself or herself to narrate the death of the child. No one even whispers that the child was killed by his own mother and her boyfriend; that the very pious Sister Naomi of Brother Michael’s church was a meth cook on the side; that she used her SUV, one of those I saw parked outside the little chocolate church, as a mobile meth lab; that the fertilizers and chemicals in the concoction exploded one evening, killing the little boy who was playing near the vehicle; that Sister Naomi had sent this little boy and her other children to smurf for her — buying two packets of Sudafed, then moving to the next store to do the same to circumvent the law.
At the funerals back home The Nurse — a person designated by the family of the deceased to narrate the death of the deceased, and that was given that title because in the olden days it would have been the person who had nursed the deceased during the sickness that led to death — would have made meat of this scandalous story. The kind of Nurse who saw himself or herself as a moral guardian of the community would have gone on to give lessons about the dangers of the crystal meth or super-speed that is devastating the rural communities of America, and can be made from the common cold remedies that have ephedrine as an ingredient. He or she would have gone to town blaming the mother and the boyfriend, especially because this was not the first time she had been in trouble with the law. The people of Kilvert do remember, after all, that Sister Naomi was once in the pokey for child endangerment and was released after a strong warning. The Nurse would have uttered all these things in a sad sanctimonious voice under the guise of warning the people against such practices that were destructive to the very soul of the community. But none of these things were even whispered here. To these people a funeral is not a place for recrimination.
After the funeral Sister Naomi’s relatives pay me a few banknotes, mostly singles, and coins, since it was impressed upon them that it is absolutely essential to pay the mourner some money for the mourning to have any effect, even if it is a token fee. Professional mourning without a fee is not professional mourning but just downright pedestrian mourning. They shake my hand and some say: “Thank you, Brother African Shaman,” while others repeat: “Thank you, Son of Egypt.”
I meet Ruth on Monday — the morning after the funeral. She is sitting at her workstation contemplating pieces of fabric, maybe planning where each will go in the grand scheme of cut pieces that are neatly arranged on the table.
“Brother African Shaman, hey?” she says without looking at me. “You know you can’t serve God and be a shaman at the same time?”
“I have never called myself a shaman, Ruth,” I protest.
I cannot be blamed for the labels that people give me. In fact, her son was to blame for my shaman title, which I don’t relish at all. It was of his invention. He is the one who propagated it. Now everyone thinks that I am indeed a shaman. Even the kids hollered when they saw me in my sacred costume after the funeraclass="underline" “Hey, Brother African Shaman! Give us one of them yells, my man.”
“Yeah, that’s what they called you yesterday,” she says, rubbing it in. “Brother African Shaman. Son of Egypt.”
She looks at me and smiles. She seems to have warmed to me a bit. I suspect it is the result of the biblical justification of my profession. Or perhaps my pharaonic connections — again manufactured by her son — have something to do with it. I return her smile uneasily. I need to tread lightly here. She invites me for a cup of sassafras tea.
“Know what sassafras tea is, Son of Egypt?”
Sarcasm does not suit her.
“This ain’t the one you buy from Kroger,” she says. “That one ain’t no good ’cause it’s made from shaven bark. Bet you never tasted the one I am gonna give you.”
“Never tasted any sassafras tea whatsoever.”
It’s brewed already on the stove. She asks me to bring it and two coffee mugs. The steaming liquid is dark red and the taste is good, especially with sugar and cream.
“You can take it as iced tea as well,” Ruth tells me. “Without cream or sugar…or maybe just a li’l sugar.”
The tea is made from the roots of a young sassafras tree, I learn. Every year at the end of February Mahlon Quigley digs out the roots in the woods, which are then preserved to last for the whole year. It is important to remember that one can only dig out the roots from the end of February to about March 20. After that date the sap goes up to the bark and to the branches and leaves, and the roots lose their wonderful taste.
“The best tea,” says Ruth as she sips with much satisfaction, “is when the sap is still in them roots…when they’re still red like blood. Then you boil it good. You ain’t gonna see none of us buy sassafras tea from stores. Here we dig the root ’cause it gives a much better flavor.”
It cleans the blood, she adds. She takes four cups a day to keep her blood pure. It is not like her red slate, which she eats for the joy of it, in memory of her childhood, and of the slaves who were forced to eat mud to ease the pangs of hunger. Sassafras tea is medicinal in addition to its tasty pleasures.
The taste takes her back to the period people here refer to as “back in the day,” to the log house in which she was raised. Her mother used to brew the tea on a stove. The fascinating thing about the stove was that it had a water tank on the side to warm water while the food was cooking on the top. “There was no water heaters in them days,” she says with satisfaction. “We slept in one room measuring about twenty by twenty.” I did not see the connection between the lack of hot water heaters and the sleeping arrangements.
Many things have changed since then. Even the name changed from Tabler Town to Kilvert. The new name came with coal mining.
“Back in the day there was coal mines here,” Ruth says. “There was a mine from Irene’s place to the cemetery next to the church. Not strip mining. Them miners went down.”
There used to be many houses in Kilvert in those days, right across the Federal Creek bridge. Kilvert was a thriving community during its coal mining days. The railroad to Cincinnati went through here near Cutler. You could catch a train to Cincy right here. There was even a post office in the village. Now the nearest post office is in Stewart, a world away if you have to walk. There was a saloon also; though it’s a good thing that there is no saloon anymore. Men used to drink themselves silly and everyone forgot about God. There was money to waste, that’s why. The coal mine bosses were locals: the Jenkins family, for instance. When the mines went out of coal it was the downfall of Kilvert. People left to get jobs elsewhere. They went as far as Chicago to work in the factories. Those who had coal in their blood left for the coal mines of West Virginia. There are now only about seventy families remaining in Kilvert. But those who left always come back to visit those who remained. Or to get old and die in the bosom of their ancestors. For example, the wealthy Jenkinses moved to Kenton, but the rest of the Jenkins family is still here.
Oh, yes, things have changed in Kilvert. But one thing has remained the same. They listen to weather reports and store food when there are predictions of rain. The floods have always been a constant through the generations.
Ruth accepts my professional mourning with grace, but if the Kilverters thought she would be impressed by my grand Egyptian connections they were soon proven wrong. It turns out she has no regard for the pharaohs because in the Bible they are villains. They oppressed the children of Israel and tried to stop Moses from leading them to freedom. Ruth identifies with the children of Israel. The pharaohs are therefore cast in the same mold as the slaveholders who kept her people in bondage in the South. But she is generous enough to tell me that she does not hold the actions of my ancestors against me. I try to put the record straight that nothing is pharaonic about me and my ancestry is totally South African but she dismisses that as an attempt at denying my roots because of the shame I must be feeling for the pharaohs’ repressive actions. She had seen from the day I arrived that my complexion was too “yella” for an African. One only had to take a walk down Court Street in Athens during the Africa Day Street Fair to see that Africans are much darker-skinned. Now, thanks to her Obed, she understands why my complexion is different: I am an Egyptian rather than an African. Once more she generously assures me that she does not hold it against me and therefore I must relax.