Aggie continued to frown at Midas when he stopped by the cabin, but she began to look forward to seeing him. From eavesdropping on his talks with Pop George, one Sunday evening, she learned that Midas’s mother had been stolen over the water. Though Midas had been sold away from her at the age of ten or eleven—he didn’t rightly know his age—he remembered that his mother had wanted hot peppers with every meal, even breakfast, and Aggie hid a smile, for Pop George could never get enough of hot and spicy meals. And Midas knew from his mother’s stories that her father had been a man whose job it was to remember the history of a single family in their village, going back for hundreds of years. Midas didn’t know what that kind of man was called, until Pop George chimed in, saying, over in Africa, they called that a “griot.” And such a man shole was mighty and great. As Aggie sat there, listening to Midas and Pop George talk, she remembered that her mother’s grandfather had been called a “marabout,” which Kiné had told her was somebody who had power of Spirit. More than a preacher. A man who knew about medicines and roots and plants and things in the air that couldn’t be seen, but still existed. An important man. A man with power, and now she knew that one of Midas’s folks had been important and powerful, too.
That was the evening that she tapped Midas on his shoulder to alert him, do not be startled, and then, as he continued talking, Aggie began to drip almond oil from the bottle Lady had given her as a gift. Aggie rubbed the oil into Midas’s scalp, gently separating the clumps of his hair, while he halted talking, attempting to remember his thoughts. Pop George laughed and told him, take his time, lil’ brother, and the next Sunday, Pop George said he was an old man. He needed his rest, so he was gwan lay down. Midas turned to leave, but Aggie called, sit on back down. She pointed to the braided rug that covered the dirt floor. She pulled out a chair and settled behind Midas, until his head was between her knees. She rubbed more oil into his hair. Then, with her nails, she carefully traced patterns and braided his hair like rows of corn.
Two more Sundays: each of those visits, Pop George said his rheumatism was acting up. He would lie down some more, though he walked to the next room as smoothly as before. On the third Sunday, Aggie was no longer present at the cabin, as it was her woman’s seclusion in the moon house. Yet on the fourth Sunday, Midas did not remark on her absence, and she was glad that he knew that matters of the moon house were not to be discussed with men. Eleven Sundays went by, and on the twelfth, Midas appeared at the cabin with a battered hat on his neatly braided head. He pulled off the hat and asked Aggie to marry him, and Pop George clapped his hands, saying it was about time. He was ready for some grandbabies.
“Ain’t gwan be none of that,” Aggie said. “I’ont want no chirren.”
Her frown was deep, though it softened when Midas told her whatever she wanted was fine by him. She and Pop George was all the family he needed. And he shole wanted her to braid his hair and scratch his dander, too. He smiled, offering his hand, and when Aggie took it, Midas lifted her fingers to his lips.
Bad Dreams in the Night
Midas was a good listener to Aggie, after he moved into the two-room cabin she shared with Pop George. Even when she did not talk, Midas listened to her body, as they slept on the corn-shuck-filled mattress ticking in the front room. On her sad days, when she thought of her mother and father, Aggie’s feelings would wash over her. She would reach out to Midas to keep from heeding the call of the knife she used to cut vegetables and salt pork, to avoid unsealing the seams of her body. Midas seemed to know when these times came upon her. After they jumped the broom, he tolerated her lack of outward affection. He told her he knew how she felt inside.
Yet even Midas’s goodness could not keep the truth of the plantation from showing its evil side.
It is said that someplace on this earth there is a god whose face is made of the sun and the moon, and that this god can see everything during the light and everything during the dark. Humans are not like gods, all-seeing and all-understanding. They do not see what others see. A human has a side that is blind. But the purpose of a god is benevolence. And at times, a divine being will share knowledge with a human, out of mercy or sheer whimsy. The night the Ninki Nanka revealed itself to Aggie was one of these times, when the moon was a mere slice in the sky. When a voice woke her from her sleep.
It was her mother’s voice, and whenever a well-behaved child hears her mother’s voice, she must answer, so Aggie did.