Rachel's Blue. Zakes Mda

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СКАЧАТЬ a life as an agnostic hippy. He has gone back to the religion of his Michigan-Dutch ancestors – the Reformed Church in America – and has the religious fervour of a new convert that tends to annoy everyone around him. For instance, on Thanksgiving his relatives from Michigan descended like the elders of Zion on Rome Township and turned his home into a revivalist retreat.

      Rachel remembers that Genesis’ origins are traced back to Michigan. His father – Jason’s grandfather, that is – was a pipefitter and welder of Michigan-Dutch stock who came from Grand Rapids to work at the booming coal mines in Rome Township in the 1940s. In the beginning he had stood out as a foreigner because people here have close-knit families with bloodlines that are identifiable from their surnames. But he worked his way into the hearts of the community and soon his strange Michigan-Dutch surname was as native as the Appalachian soil.

      “It can’t be that bad,” says Rachel. “You’re just set in your wild Yellow Springs ways.”

      “Ain’t nothing wild about Yellow Springs. It’s a place of art and culture. Carefree ways, yes, not wild ways. Major carefree! But here I’m like a slave. I’m a grown-ass man but Pa treats me like I’m a kid still.”

      He goes along with the treatment just to please his pa and make his step-ma, whom he adores, happy. As soon as he returned from Yellow Springs they took him to Grand Rapids to be baptised into the church of his ancestors. He went along with that too; it made them happy and saved him from any nagging that was sure to come from his pa.

      He was christened Revelation, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

      “Revelation as in the Book of Revelation?” asks Schuyler, laughing.

      “From Genesis to Revelation,” says Rachel.

      “I hate that name. I am Jason, and I don’t wanna be a cheesemonger. I wanna be a music monger.”

      “Those, my friend, are the lyrics of a new song,” says Rachel.

      “You can play together,” says Schuyler. “You’ll make a great team.”

      “Holy fuck! You got it, Schuyler. Right there, you got it major. Please say yes, Rachel. I heard you play at the farmers’ market the other day. We can make something good.”

      Rachel thinks this is just talk. She doesn’t evince any enthusiasm for the suggestion. In any event, she never had plans to team up with anyone. She is a solo artist. Like her dad. Like her granddad. Okay, her granddad was not solo all the time. He had a band. The Jensen Band. But even then it was Robbie and the Jensen Band.

      “We can do it, Rachel. Me and my conga and my didj. You and your guitar. You don’t need to sing nothing. Just play the guitar. We’ll produce sounds that no one in these parts has ever heard. Think about it, man, think about it.”

      “There’s nothing to think about,” says Schuyler. “You two were meant for each other. She’s going to do it, Jason. I know she will. She’s got too much sense not to do it.”

      After an afternoon of banter and laughter Jason says he won’t need the ride home after all. He wants to go bar-hopping on Court Street. He’s going to celebrate the new partnership that he hopes will come to fruition as soon as Rachel gives a positive answer.

      “You think I don’t see what you’re up to, pushing me at this guy?” says Rachel as she drives on Route 50 taking Schuyler home.

      “For music, Rache. Only for music. Don’t you get any dirty ideas further than that.”

      They agree that Jason has become a very charming and well turned-out man, a far cry from the stinky kid they knew in high school.

      Nana Moira agrees to let Jason work at the Centre as a volunteer. This means he is not earning any wages, but will occasionally get a few dollars as gas money. It took Rachel weeks of cajoling for Nana Moira to finally go along with this arrangement. She did not want to get on the wrong side of Genesis, a man who has donated a lot to the Food Pantry, helping it not to depend solely on the supplies from the food bank in Logan.

      Jason takes to his tasks with gusto. He can be seen with a bucket and a mop cleaning the linoleum floors without anyone asking him to do so. He even dusts the furniture, a thing that no one ever did at the Centre. When Nana Moira needs some ingredients for her culinary masterpieces he volunteers to drive to Wal-Mart in the city in his Pontiac, a distance of more than twenty miles. And he always returns promptly with the right stuff. Soon Nana Moira becomes dependent on him, and misses him on the days he doesn’t come.

      He has no obligation to be at the Centre at all, but he is there on most days of the week. Sometimes there is no work for him, so he just sits at the long tables and gossips with the quilting women. Once in a while Rachel is there and joins in the gossip. Thanks to Jason, the new quilting women are beginning to open up to her, to realise that she is not such a snooty person after all. She, on the other hand, betrays a tinge of jealousy when they hover over Jason and hold on to every word he utters.

      People notice that whenever Genesis stops over at the Centre Jason does not show up. There is some estrangement between the two, and Genesis no longer visits as much as he did because he feels betrayed by Nana Moira. Exactly what she feared. But there is nothing she can do about it because Jason is a grown man who is entitled to make his own decisions. Also, he is a positive presence at the Centre.

      In any event, Nana Moira feels Genesis should not be so pissed off with everyone because the boy still minds the cheese stall at the farmers’ market for him on Saturdays, and even on some Wednesdays. But Genesis expects more than just minding a stall from his son. He wants him to learn the trade and be part of the family business. He thought Jason – whom he insists on calling Revelation – had returned from Yellow Springs precisely because the world had given him a few hard lessons about life, and that now he would be more serious and be an upright citizen; he would not be afraid to face his responsibilities like a man. Especially now that he has been baptised into the church of his ancestors, who are known in history as hard workers who helped to build America into what it is today.

      “But all he does is sit here yap-yapping with the women,” says Genesis on one of his visits to the Centre.

      “He don’t only yap-yap,” says Nana Moira. “He helps a lot here. And he’s learning plenty of stuff.”

      “What can anyone learn yap-yapping with women?”

      “What can anyone learn from women? You talk like you didn’t come from a vagina.”

      This disarms Genesis and he breaks out laughing.

      “I didn’t,” he says. “Caesarean.”

      “Same difference. You lived in some woman’s innards.”

      The quilting women are scandalised. People in these parts don’t call things like that by their names. Plus Genesis is too young to be talking such stuff with Nana Moira. He could easily be the age of Rachel’s late pops. But he is enjoying the exchange with Nana Moira and even forgets that he is angry with his son.

      The original reason Jason took up the volunteer offer was that he was going to be closer to Rachel. He hoped this would give them the opportunity to rehearse and busk together. But now he genuinely loves working here and enjoys the company, not only of the regular quilters, but of a variety of people from Jensen Township and from neighbouring townships such as Rome, Ames, Dover and Canaan. Sometimes storytellers descend from the hills and come out of the Wayne СКАЧАТЬ