|
|
| (같은 사용자의 중간 판 41개는 보이지 않습니다) |
| 1번째 줄: |
1번째 줄: |
| {{namucat|김찬/연습장}}{{DISPLAYTITLE:김찬 연습장}}{{css|김찬}} | | {{namucat|DISPLAYTITLE=김찬 연습장|김찬/연습장}}{{css|김찬}}{{댓글 금지}} |
| {{상위 문서2|김찬}} | | {{하위 문서2|메모|낙서|노트|연구|팁|공부|모듈}} |
| {{하위 문서2|메모|낙서|노트|연구|팁|공부}} | | {{김찬}} |
| {{김찬 연습장}} | | {{김찬 연습장}} |
| {{MT|align=center|style=border: 2px solid black; text-align: center;}} | | {{MT|align=center|style=border: 2px solid black; text-align: center;}} |
| 7번째 줄: |
7번째 줄: |
| !style="background: black;"|{{c|white|빈칸 편집 바로가기}} | | !style="background: black;"|{{c|white|빈칸 편집 바로가기}} |
| |- | | |- |
| |<span class="plainlinks" title="빈칸 편집 바로가기">[https://jwiki.kr/wiki/index.php?title=연습장:Kimchan&action=edit§ion=1 이 구간은 문법 연습 등의 목적으로 사용됩니다.]</span> | | |<span class="plainlinks" title="빈칸 편집 바로가기">[https://jwiki.kr/wiki/index.php?title=연습장:Kimchan&action=edit§ion=1 <div style="display: inline-block;">이 구간은 문법 연습 등의 목적으로 사용됩니다.</div>]</span> |
| {{MT끝}} | | {{MT끝}} |
| == 빈칸 == | | == 빈칸 == |
| Sixty million and more
| | <div style="display: none;">{{namucat|DISPLAYTITLE=김찬 연습장}}{{css|김찬}}</div> |
| I will call them my people, which were not my people;
| |
| and her beloved, which was not beloved.
| |
| ROMANS 9: 25
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 2 of 525
| |
| 124 WAS SPITEFUL.
| |
| Full of a baby's venom. The women in the house
| |
| knew it and so did the children. For years each
| |
| put up with the spite in his own way, but by 1873
| |
| Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only
| |
| victims. The grandmother, Baby Suggs, was
| |
| dead, and the sons, Howard and Buglar, had run
| |
| away by the time they were thirteen years
| |
| old--as soon as merely looking in a mirror
| |
| shattered it (that was the signal for Buglar); as
| |
| soon as two tiny hand prints appeared in the
| |
| cake (that was it for Howard). Neither
| |
| boy waited to see more; another kettleful of
| |
| chickpeas smoking in a heap on the floor; soda
| |
| crackers crumbled and strewn in a line next to
| |
| the door sill. Nor did they wait for one of the
| |
| relief periods: the weeks, months even, when
| |
| nothing was disturbed. No. Each one fled at
| |
| once--the moment the house committed what
| |
| was for him the one insult not to be borne or
| |
| witnessed a second time. Within two months,
| |
| in the dead of winter, leaving their
| |
| grandmother, Baby Suggs; Sethe, their
| |
| mother; and their little sister, Denver, all by
| |
| themselves in the gray and white house on
| |
| Bluestone Road. It didn't have a number then,
| |
| because Cincinnati didn't stretch that far. In
| |
| fact, Ohio had been calling itself a state only
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 3 of 525
| |
| seventy years when first one brother and then
| |
| the next stuffed quilt packing into his hat,
| |
| snatched up his shoes, and crept away from
| |
| the lively spite the house felt for them.
| |
| Baby Suggs didn't even raise her head.
| |
| From her sickbed she heard them go but that
| |
| wasn't the reason she lay still. It was a wonder to
| |
| her that her grandsons had taken so long to
| |
| realize that every house wasn't like the one on
| |
| Bluestone Road. Suspended between the nas
| |
| tiness of life and the meanness of the dead, she
| |
| couldn't get interested in leaving life or living it,
| |
| let alone the fright of two creeping-off boys. Her
| |
| past had been like her present--intolerable--and
| |
| since she knew death was anything but
| |
| forgetfulness, she used the little energy left her
| |
| for pondering color.
| |
| "Bring a little lavender in, if you got any. Pink, if you don't."
| |
| And Sethe would oblige her with anything
| |
| from fabric to her own tongue. Winter in Ohio
| |
| was especially rough if you had an appetite for
| |
| color. Sky provided the only drama, and
| |
| counting on a Cincinnati horizon for life's
| |
| principal joy was reckless indeed. So Sethe and
| |
| the girl Denver did what they could, and what the
| |
| house permitted, for her. Together they waged a
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 4 of 525
| |
| perfunctory battle against the outrageous
| |
| behavior of that place; against turned-over slop
| |
| jars, smacks on the behind, and gusts of sour air.
| |
| For they understood the source of the outrage as
| |
| well as they knew the source of light.
| |
| Baby Suggs died shortly after the brothers
| |
| left, with no interest whatsoever in their
| |
| leave-taking or hers, and right afterward Sethe
| |
| and Denver decided to end the persecution by
| |
| calling forth the ghost that tried them so.
| |
| Perhaps a conversation, they thought, an
| |
| exchange of views or something would help. So
| |
| they held hands and said, "Come on. Come on.
| |
| You may as well just come on."
| |
| The sideboard took a step forward but nothing else did.
| |
| "Grandma Baby must be stopping it," said Denver. She was ten and still mad at Baby Suggs
| |
| for
| |
| dying.
| |
| Sethe opened her eyes. "I doubt that," she
| |
| said.
| |
| "Then why don't it come?"
| |
| "You forgetting how little it is," said her
| |
| mother. "She wasn't even two years old when
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 5 of 525
| |
| she died. Too little to understand. Too little to
| |
| talk much even."
| |
| "Maybe she don't want to understand," said Denver.
| |
| "Maybe. But if she'd only come, I could make it clear to her."
| |
| Sethe released her daughter's hand and
| |
| together they pushed the sideboard back
| |
| against the wall. Outside a driver whipped his
| |
| horse into the gallop local people felt
| |
| necessary when they passed 124.
| |
| "For a baby she throws a powerful spell," said Denver.
| |
| "No more powerful than the way I loved
| |
| her," Sethe answered and there it was again.
| |
| The welcoming cool of unchiseled headstones;
| |
| the one she selected to lean against on tiptoe,
| |
| her knees wide open as any grave. Pink as a
| |
| fingernail it was, and sprinkled with glittering
| |
| chips. Ten minutes, he said. You got ten minutes
| |
| I'll do it for free.
| |
| Ten minutes for seven letters. With
| |
| another ten could she have gotten "Dearly"
| |
| too? She had not thought to ask him and it
| |
| bothered her still that it might have been
| |
| possible--that for twenty minutes, a half hour,
| |
| say, she could have had the whole thing,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 6 of 525
| |
| every word she heard the preacher say at the
| |
| funeral (and all there was to say, surely)
| |
| engraved on her baby's headstone: Dearly
| |
| Beloved. But what she got, settled for, was the
| |
| one word that mattered. She thought it would
| |
| be enough, rutting among the headstones
| |
| with the engraver, his young son looking on,
| |
| the anger in his face so old; the appetite in it
| |
| quite new. That should certainly be enough.
| |
| Enough to answer one more preacher, one
| |
| more abolitionist and a town full of disgust.
| |
| Counting on the stillness of her own soul,
| |
| she had forgotten the other one: the soul of her
| |
| baby girl. Who would have thought that a little
| |
| old baby could harbor so much rage? Rutting
| |
| among the stones under the eyes of the
| |
| engraver's son was not enough. Not only did she
| |
| have to live out her years in a house palsied by
| |
| the baby's fury at having its throat cut, but those
| |
| ten minutes she spent pressed up against
| |
| dawn-colored stone studded with star chips, her
| |
| knees wide open as the grave, were longer than
| |
| life, more alive, more pulsating than the baby
| |
| blood that soaked her fingers like oil.
| |
| "We could move," she suggested once to her mother-in-law.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 7 of 525
| |
| "What'd be the point?" asked Baby Suggs.
| |
| "Not a house in the country ain't packed to its
| |
| rafters with some dead Negro's grief. We lucky
| |
| this ghost is a baby. My husband's spirit was to
| |
| come back in here? or yours? Don't talk to me.
| |
| You lucky. You got three left.
| |
| Three pulling at your skirts and just one
| |
| raising hell from the other side. Be thankful, why
| |
| don't you? I had eight. Every one of them gone
| |
| away from me. Four taken, four chased, and all,
| |
| I expect, worrying somebody's house into evil."
| |
| Baby Suggs rubbed her eyebrows.
| |
| "My first-born. All I can remember of her is
| |
| how she loved the burned bottom of bread. Can
| |
| you beat that? Eight children and that's all I
| |
| remember."
| |
| "That's all you let yourself remember,"
| |
| Sethe had told her, but she was down to one
| |
| herself-- one alive, that is--the boys chased off
| |
| by the dead one, and her memory of Buglar was
| |
| fading fast. Howard at least had a head shape
| |
| nobody could forget. As for the rest, she worked
| |
| hard to remember as
| |
| close to nothing as was safe. Unfortunately her
| |
| brain was devious. She might be hurrying
| |
| across a field, running practically, to get to the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 8 of 525
| |
| pump quickly and rinse the chamomile sap from
| |
| her legs. Nothing else would be in her mind. The
| |
| picture of the men coming to nurse her was as
| |
| lifeless as the nerves in her back where the skin
| |
| buckled like a washboard. Nor was there the
| |
| faintest scent of ink or the cherry gum and oak
| |
| bark from which it was made. Nothing. Just the
| |
| breeze cooling her face as she rushed toward
| |
| water. And then sopping the chamomile away
| |
| with pump water and rags, her mind fixed on
| |
| getting every last bit of sap off--on her
| |
| carelessness in taking a shortcut across the
| |
| field just to save a half mile, and not noticing
| |
| how high the weeds had grown until the itching
| |
| was all the way to her knees. Then something.
| |
| The plash of water, the sight of her shoes and
| |
| stockings awry on the path where she had flung
| |
| them; or Here Boy lapping in the puddle near
| |
| her feet, and suddenly there was Sweet Home
| |
| rolling, rolling, rolling out before her eyes, and
| |
| although there was not a leaf on that farm that
| |
| did not make her want to scream, it rolled itself
| |
| out before her in shameless beauty. It never
| |
| looked as terrible as it was and it made her
| |
| wonder if hell was a pretty place too. Fire and
| |
| brimstone all right, but hidden in lacy groves.
| |
| Boys hanging from the most beautiful
| |
| sycamores in the world. It shamed her--
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 9 of 525
| |
| remembering the wonderful soughing trees
| |
| rather than the boys. Try as she might to make
| |
| it otherwise, the sycamores beat out the
| |
| children every time and she could not forgive
| |
| her memory for that.
| |
| When the last of the chamomile was
| |
| gone, she went around to the front of the
| |
| house, collecting her shoes and stockings on
| |
| the way.
| |
| As if to punish her further for her terrible
| |
| memory, sitting on the porch not forty feet
| |
| away was Paul D, the last of the Sweet Home
| |
| men. And although she she said, "Is that you?"
| |
| "What's left." He stood up and smiled. "How
| |
| you been, girl, besides barefoot?"
| |
| When she laughed it came out loose and
| |
| young. "Messed up my legs back yonder.
| |
| Chamomile."
| |
| He made a face as though tasting a teaspoon
| |
| of something bitter.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 10 of 525
| |
| "I don't want to even hear 'bout it. Always
| |
| did hate that stuff."
| |
| Sethe balled up her stockings and jammed
| |
| them into her pocket.
| |
| "Come on in."
| |
| "Porch is fine, Sethe. Cool out here." He
| |
| sat back down and looked at the meadow on the
| |
| other side of the road, knowing the eagerness
| |
| he felt would be in his eyes.
| |
| "Eighteen years," she said softly.
| |
| "Eighteen," he repeated. "And I swear I
| |
| been walking every one of em. Mind if I join
| |
| you?" He nodded toward her feet and began
| |
| unlacing his shoes.
| |
| "You want to soak them? Let me get you a basin of water." She moved closer to him to enter
| |
| the
| |
| house.
| |
| "No, uh uh. Can't baby feet. A whole lot more
| |
| tramping they got to do yet."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 11 of 525
| |
| "You can't leave right away, Paul D. You got
| |
| to stay awhile."
| |
| "Well, long enough to see Baby Suggs,
| |
| anyway. Where is she?"
| |
| "Dead."
| |
| "Aw no. When?"
| |
| "Eight years now. Almost nine."
| |
| "Was it hard? I hope she didn't die hard."
| |
| Sethe shook her head. "Soft as cream.
| |
| Being alive was the hard part. Sorry you
| |
| missed her though. Is that what you came by
| |
| for?"
| |
| "That's some of what I came for. The
| |
| rest is you. But if all the truth be known, I go
| |
| anywhere these days. Anywhere they let me
| |
| sit down."
| |
| "You looking good."
| |
| "Devil's confusion. He lets me look good
| |
| long as I feel bad." He looked at her and the
| |
| word "bad" took on another meaning.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 12 of 525
| |
| Sethe smiled. This is the way they
| |
| were--had been. All of the Sweet Home men,
| |
| before and after Halle, treated her to a mild
| |
| brotherly flirtation, so subtle you had to scratch
| |
| for it.
| |
| Except for a heap more hair and some
| |
| waiting in his eyes, he looked the way he had in
| |
| Kentucky. Peachstone skin; straight-backed.
| |
| For a man with an immobile face it was
| |
| amazing how ready it was to smile, or blaze or
| |
| be sorry with you. As though all you had to do
| |
| was get his attention and right away he
| |
| produced the feeling you were feeling. With less
| |
| than a blink, his face seemed to
| |
| change--underneath it lay the activity.
| |
| "I wouldn't have to ask about him, would
| |
| I? You'd tell me if there was anything to tell,
| |
| wouldn't you?" Sethe looked down at her feet
| |
| and saw again the sycamores.
| |
| "I'd tell you. Sure I'd tell you. I don't know
| |
| any more now than I did then." Except for the
| |
| churn, he thought, and you don't need to know
| |
| that. "You must think he's still alive."
| |
| "No. I think he's dead. It's not being sure that keeps him alive."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 13 of 525
| |
| "What did Baby Suggs think?"
| |
| "Same, but to listen to her, all her children
| |
| is dead. Claimed she felt each one go the very
| |
| day and hour."
| |
| "When she say Halle went?"
| |
| "Eighteen fifty-five. The day my baby was
| |
| born."
| |
| "You had that baby, did you? Never thought
| |
| you'd make it."
| |
| He chuckled. "Running off pregnant."
| |
| "Had to. Couldn't be no waiting." She
| |
| lowered her head and thought, as he did, how
| |
| unlikely it was that she had made it. And if it
| |
| hadn't been for that girl looking for velvet, she
| |
| never would have.
| |
| "All by yourself too." He was proud of her
| |
| and annoyed by her.
| |
| Proud she had done it; annoyed that she had
| |
| not needed Halle or him in the doing.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 14 of 525
| |
| "Almost by myself. Not all by myself. A
| |
| whitegirl helped me."
| |
| "Then she helped herself too, God bless her."
| |
| "You could stay the night, Paul D."
| |
| "You don't sound too steady in the offer."
| |
| Sethe glanced beyond his shoulder
| |
| toward the closed door. "Oh it's truly meant. I
| |
| just hope you'll pardon my house. Come on in.
| |
| Talk to Denver while I cook you something."
| |
| Paul D tied his shoes together, hung them
| |
| over his shoulder and followed her through the
| |
| door straight into a pool of red and undulating
| |
| light that locked him where he stood.
| |
| "You got company?" he whispered, frowning.
| |
| "Off and on," said Sethe.
| |
| "Good God." He backed out the door onto the
| |
| porch. "What kind of evil you got in here?"
| |
| "It's not evil, just sad. Come on. Just step
| |
| through."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 15 of 525
| |
| He looked at her then, closely. Closer
| |
| than he had when she first rounded the house
| |
| on wet and shining legs, holding her shoes and
| |
| stockings up in one hand, her skirts in the
| |
| other. Halle's girl--the one with iron eyes and
| |
| backbone to match. He had never seen her hair
| |
| in Kentucky. And though her face was eighteen
| |
| years older than when last he saw her, it was
| |
| softer now. Because of the hair. A face too still
| |
| for comfort; irises the same color as her skin,
| |
| which, in that still face, used to make him think
| |
| of a mask with mercifully punched out eyes.
| |
| Halle's woman. Pregnant every year including
| |
| the year she sat by the fire telling him she was
| |
| going to run. Her three children she had already
| |
| packed into a wagonload of others in a caravan
| |
| of Negroes crossing the river. They were to be
| |
| left with Halle's mother near Cincinnati. Even in
| |
| that tiny shack, leaning so close to the fire you
| |
| could smell the heat in her dress, her
| |
| eyes did not pick up a flicker of light. They were
| |
| like two wells into which he had trouble gazing.
| |
| Even punched out they needed to be covered,
| |
| lidded, marked with some sign to warn folks of
| |
| what that emptiness held. So he looked instead
| |
| at the fire while she told him, because her
| |
| husband was not there for the telling. Mr. Garner
| |
| was dead and his wife had a lump in her neck the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 16 of 525
| |
| size of a sweet potato and unable to speak to
| |
| anyone. She leaned as close to the fire as her
| |
| pregnant belly allowed and told him, Paul D, the
| |
| last of the Sweet Home men.
| |
| There had been six of them who belonged
| |
| to the farm, Sethe the only female. Mrs. Garner,
| |
| crying like a baby, had sold his brother to pay off
| |
| the debts that surfaced the minute she was
| |
| widowed. Then schoolteacher arrived to put
| |
| things in order. But what he did broke three
| |
| more Sweet Home men and punched the
| |
| glittering iron out of Sethe's eyes, leaving two
| |
| open wells that did not reflect firelight.
| |
| Now the iron was back but the face,
| |
| softened by hair, made him trust her enough to
| |
| step inside her door smack into a pool of pulsing
| |
| red light.
| |
| She was right. It was sad. Walking through
| |
| it, a wave of grief soaked him so thoroughly he
| |
| wanted to cry. It seemed a long way to the
| |
| normal light surrounding the table, but he made
| |
| it--dry-eyed and lucky.
| |
| "You said she died soft. Soft as cream," he
| |
| reminded her.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 17 of 525
| |
| "That's not Baby Suggs," she said.
| |
| "Who then?"
| |
| "My daughter. The one I sent ahead with the
| |
| boys."
| |
| "She didn't live?"
| |
| "No. The one I was carrying when I run away
| |
| is all I got left.
| |
| Boys gone too. Both of em walked off just
| |
| before Baby Suggs died."
| |
| Paul D looked at the spot where the grief
| |
| had soaked him. The red was gone but a kind of
| |
| weeping clung to the air where it had been.
| |
| Probably best, he thought. If a Negro got
| |
| legs he ought to use them. Sit down too long,
| |
| somebody will figure out a way to tie them up.
| |
| Still... if her boys were gone...
| |
| "No man? You here by yourself?"
| |
| "Me and Denver," she said.
| |
| "That all right by you?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 18 of 525
| |
| "That's all right by me."
| |
| She saw his skepticism and went on. "I cook at a restaurant in town. And I sew a little on the
| |
| sly."
| |
| Paul D smiled then, remembering the
| |
| bedding dress. Sethe was thirteen when she
| |
| came to Sweet Home and already iron-eyed.
| |
| She was a timely present for Mrs. Garner who
| |
| had lost Baby Suggs to her husband's high
| |
| principles. The five Sweet Home men looked at
| |
| the new girl and decided to let her be. They
| |
| were young and so sick with the absence of
| |
| women they had taken to calves. Yet they let
| |
| the iron-eyed girl be, so she could choose in
| |
| spite of the fact that each one would have
| |
| beaten the others to mush to have her. It took
| |
| her a year to choose--a long, tough year of
| |
| thrashing on pallets eaten up with dreams of
| |
| her. A year of yearning, when rape seemed the
| |
| solitary gift of life. The restraint they had
| |
| exercised possible only because they were
| |
| Sweet Home men--the ones Mr. Garner
| |
| bragged about while other farmers shook their
| |
| heads in warning at the phrase.
| |
| "Y'all got boys," he told them. "Young
| |
| boys, old boys, picky boys, stroppin boys. Now
| |
| at Sweet Home, my niggers is men every one of
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 19 of 525
| |
| em. Bought em thataway, raised em thataway.
| |
| Men every one."
| |
| "Beg to differ, Garner. Ain't no nigger men."
| |
| "Not if you scared, they ain't." Garner's
| |
| smile was wide. "But if you a man yourself,
| |
| you'll want your niggers to be men too."
| |
| "I wouldn't have no nigger men round my wife."
| |
| It was the reaction Garner loved and
| |
| waited for. "Neither would I," he said. "Neither
| |
| would I," and there was always a pause before
| |
| the neighbor, or stranger, or peddler, or
| |
| brother-in-law or whoever it was got the
| |
| meaning. Then a fierce argument, sometimes a
| |
| fight, and Garner came home bruised and
| |
| pleased, having demonstrated one more time
| |
| what a real Kentuckian was: one tough enough
| |
| and smart enough to make and call his own
| |
| niggers men.
| |
| And so they were: Paul D Garner, Paul F
| |
| Garner, Paul A Garner, Halle Suggs and Sixo,
| |
| the wild man. All in their twenties, minus
| |
| women, fucking cows, dreaming of rape,
| |
| thrashing on pallets, rubbing their thighs and
| |
| waiting for the new girl--the one who took Baby
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 20 of 525
| |
| Suggs' place after Halle bought her with five
| |
| years of Sundays.
| |
| Maybe that was why she chose him. A
| |
| twenty-year-old man so in love with his mother
| |
| he gave up five years of Sabbaths just to see
| |
| her sit down for a change was a serious
| |
| recommendation.
| |
| She waited a year. And the Sweet Home
| |
| men abused cows while they waited with her.
| |
| She chose Halle and for their first bedding she
| |
| sewed herself a dress on the sly.
| |
| "Won't you stay on awhile? Can't nobody catch up on eighteen years in a day."
| |
| Out of the dimness of the room in which
| |
| they sat, a white staircase climbed toward the
| |
| blue- and-white wallpaper of the second floor.
| |
| Paul D could see just the beginning of the
| |
| paper; discreet flecks of yellow sprinkled among
| |
| a blizzard of snowdrops all backed by blue.
| |
| The luminous white of the railing and steps
| |
| kept him glancing toward it. Every sense he had
| |
| told him the air above the stairwell was charmed
| |
| and very thin. But the girl who walked down out
| |
| of that air was round and brown with the face of
| |
| an alert doll.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 21 of 525
| |
| Paul D looked at the girl and then at Sethe
| |
| who smiled saying, "Here she is my Denver. This
| |
| is Paul D, honey, from Sweet Home."
| |
| "Good morning, Mr. D."
| |
| "Garner, baby. Paul D Garner."
| |
| "Yes sir."
| |
| "Glad to get a look at you. Last time I saw
| |
| your mama, you were pushing out the front of her
| |
| dress."
| |
| "Still is," Sethe smiled, "provided she can get
| |
| in it."
| |
| Denver stood on the bottom step and was
| |
| suddenly hot and shy.
| |
| It had been a long time since anybody
| |
| (good-willed whitewoman, preacher, speaker or
| |
| newspaperman) sat at their table, their
| |
| sympathetic voices called liar by the revulsion in
| |
| their eyes. For twelve years, long before
| |
| Grandma Baby died, there had been no visitors
| |
| of any sort and certainly no friends. No
| |
| coloredpeople. Certainly no hazelnut man with
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 22 of 525
| |
| too long hair and no notebook, no charcoal, no
| |
| oranges, no questions. Someone her mother
| |
| wanted to talk to and would even consider
| |
| talking to while barefoot. Looking, in fact acting,
| |
| like a girl instead of the quiet, queenly woman
| |
| Denver had known all her life. The one who
| |
| never looked away, who when a man got
| |
| stomped to death by a mare right in front of
| |
| Sawyer's restaurant did not look away; and
| |
| when a sow began eating her own litter did not
| |
| look away then either. And when the baby's
| |
| spirit picked up Here Boy and slammed him into
| |
| the wall hard enough to break two of his legs and
| |
| dislocate his eye, so hard he went into
| |
| convulsions and chewed up his tongue, still her
| |
| mother had not looked away. She had taken a
| |
| hammer, knocked the dog unconscious, wiped
| |
| away the blood and saliva, pushed his eye back
| |
| in his head and set his leg bones. He recovered,
| |
| mute and off-balance, more because of his
| |
| untrustworthy eye than his bent legs, and
| |
| winter, summer, drizzle or dry, nothing could
| |
| persuade him to enter the house again.
| |
| Now here was this woman with the
| |
| presence of mind to repair a dog gone savage
| |
| with pain rocking her crossed ankles and looking
| |
| away from her own daughter's body. As though
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 23 of 525
| |
| the size of it was more than vision could bear.
| |
| And neither she nor he had on shoes.
| |
| Hot, shy, now Denver was lonely. All that
| |
| leaving: first her brothers, then her
| |
| grandmother- serious losses since there were no
| |
| children willing to circle her in a game or hang by
| |
| their knees from her porch railing. None of that
| |
| had mattered as long as her mother did not look
| |
| away as she was doing now, making Denver
| |
| long, downright long, for a sign of spite from the
| |
| baby ghost.
| |
| "She's a fine-looking young lady," said Paul
| |
| D. "Fine-looking.
| |
| Got her daddy's sweet face."
| |
| "You know my father?"
| |
| "Knew him. Knew him well."
| |
| "Did he, Ma'am?" Denver fought an urge to
| |
| realign her affection.
| |
| "Of course he knew your daddy. I told you,
| |
| he's from Sweet Home."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 24 of 525
| |
| Denver sat down on the bottom step.
| |
| There was nowhere else gracefully to go. They
| |
| were a twosome, saying "Your daddy" and
| |
| "Sweet Home" in a way that made it clear both
| |
| belonged to them and not to her. That her own
| |
| father's absence was not hers. Once the absence
| |
| had belonged to Grandma Baby--a son, deeply
| |
| mourned because he was the one who had
| |
| bought her out of there. Then it was her
| |
| mother's absent husband. Now it was this
| |
| hazelnut stranger's absent friend. Only those
| |
| who knew him ("knew him well") could claim his
| |
| absence for themselves. Just as only those who
| |
| lived in Sweet Home could remember it, whisper
| |
| it and glance sideways at one another while they
| |
| did. Again she wished for the baby ghost--its
| |
| anger thrilling her now where it used to wear her
| |
| out. Wear her out.
| |
| "We have a ghost in here," she said, and it
| |
| worked. They were not a twosome anymore. Her
| |
| mother left off swinging her feet and being
| |
| girlish. Memory of Sweet Home dropped away
| |
| from the eyes of the man she was being girlish
| |
| for. He looked quickly up the lightning-white
| |
| stairs behind her.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 25 of 525
| |
| "So I hear," he said. "But sad, your mama
| |
| said. Not evil."
| |
| "No sir," said Denver, "not evil. But not sad
| |
| either."
| |
| "What then?"
| |
| "Rebuked. Lonely and rebuked."
| |
| "Is that right?" Paul D turned to Sethe.
| |
| "I don't know about lonely," said Denver's
| |
| mother. "Mad, maybe, but I don't see how it
| |
| could be lonely spending every minute with us
| |
| like it does."
| |
| "Must be something you got it wants."
| |
| Sethe shrugged. "It's just a baby."
| |
| "My sister," said Denver. "She died in this house."
| |
| Paul D scratched the hair under his jaw.
| |
| "Reminds me of that headless bride back behind
| |
| Sweet Home. Remember that, Sethe? Used to
| |
| roam them woods regular."
| |
| "How could I forget? Worrisome..."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 26 of 525
| |
| "How come everybody run off from Sweet
| |
| Home can't stop talking about it? Look like if it
| |
| was so sweet you would have stayed."
| |
| "Girl, who you talking to?"
| |
| Paul D laughed. "True, true. She's
| |
| right, Sethe. It wasn't sweet and it sure
| |
| wasn't home." He shook his head.
| |
| "But it's where we were," said Sethe. "All
| |
| together. Comes back whether we want it to or
| |
| not." She shivered a little. A light ripple of skin
| |
| on her arm, which she caressed back into sleep.
| |
| "Denver," she said, "start up that stove. Can't
| |
| have a friend stop by and don't feed him."
| |
| "Don't go to any trouble on my account,"
| |
| Paul D said.
| |
| "Bread ain't trouble. The rest I brought back
| |
| from where I work.
| |
| Least I can do, cooking from dawn to noon, is
| |
| bring dinner home.
| |
| You got any objections to pike?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 27 of 525
| |
| "If he don't object to me I don't object to
| |
| him."
| |
| At it again, thought Denver. Her back to
| |
| them, she jostled the kindlin and almost lost the
| |
| fire. "Why don't you spend the night, Mr.
| |
| Garner? You and Ma'am can talk about Sweet
| |
| Home all night long."
| |
| Sethe took two swift steps to the stove,
| |
| but before she could yank Denver's collar, the
| |
| girl leaned forward and began to cry.
| |
| "What is the matter with you? I never knew you to behave this way."
| |
| "Leave her be," said Paul D. "I'm a stranger to her."
| |
| "That's just it. She got no cause to act
| |
| up with a stranger. Oh baby, what is it? Did
| |
| something happen?"
| |
| But Denver was shaking now and sobbing so
| |
| she could not speak.
| |
| The tears she had not shed for nine years
| |
| wetting her far too womanly breasts.
| |
| "I can't no more. I can't no more."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 28 of 525
| |
| "Can't what? What can't you?"
| |
| "I can't live here. I don't know where to go
| |
| or what to do, but I can't live here. Nobody
| |
| speaks to us. Nobody comes by. Boys don't like
| |
| me. Girls don't either."
| |
| "Honey, honey."
| |
| "What's she talking 'bout nobody speaks to
| |
| you?" asked Paul D.
| |
| "It's the house. People don't--"
| |
| "It's not! It's not the house. It's us! And it's
| |
| you!"
| |
| "Denver!"
| |
| "Leave off, Sethe. It's hard for a young girl
| |
| living in a haunted house. That can't be easy."
| |
| "It's easier than some other things."
| |
| "Think, Sethe. I'm a grown man with
| |
| nothing new left to see or do and I'm telling you
| |
| it ain't easy. Maybe you all ought to move.
| |
| Who owns this house?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 29 of 525
| |
| Over Denver's shoulder Sethe shot Paul D a
| |
| look of snow. "What you care?"
| |
| "They won't let you leave?"
| |
| "No."
| |
| "Sethe."
| |
| "No moving. No leaving. It's all right the way
| |
| it is."
| |
| "You going to tell me it's all right with this
| |
| child half out of her mind?"
| |
| Something in the house braced, and in the
| |
| listening quiet that followed Sethe spoke.
| |
| "I got a tree on my back and a haint in my
| |
| house, and nothing in between but the daughter
| |
| I am holding in my arms. No more running--from
| |
| nothing. I will never run from another thing on
| |
| this earth. I took one journey and I paid for the
| |
| ticket, but let me tell you something, Paul D
| |
| Garner: it cost too much! Do you hear me?
| |
| It cost too much. Now sit down and eat with
| |
| us or leave us be."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 30 of 525
| |
| Paul D fished in his vest for a little pouch of
| |
| tobacco--concentrating on its contents and the
| |
| knot of its string while Sethe led Denver into the
| |
| keeping room that opened off the large room he
| |
| was sitting in. He had no smoking papers, so he
| |
| fiddled with the pouch and listened through the
| |
| open door to Sethe quieting her daughter. When
| |
| she came back she avoided his look and went
| |
| straight to a small table next
| |
| to the stove. Her back was to him and he could
| |
| see all the hair he wanted without the
| |
| distraction of her face.
| |
| "What tree on your back?"
| |
| "Huh." Sethe put a bowl on the table and
| |
| reached under it for flour.
| |
| "What tree on your back? Is something
| |
| growing on your back?
| |
| I don't see nothing growing on your back."
| |
| "It's there all the same."
| |
| "Who told you that?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 31 of 525
| |
| "Whitegirl. That's what she called it. I've
| |
| never seen it and never will. But that's what she
| |
| said it looked like. A chokecherry tree.
| |
| Trunk, branches, and even leaves. Tiny
| |
| little chokecherry leaves. But that was eighteen
| |
| years ago. Could have cherries too now for all I
| |
| know."
| |
| Sethe took a little spit from the tip of her tongue with her forefinger.
| |
| Quickly, lightly she touched the stove.
| |
| Then she trailed her fingers through the flour,
| |
| parting, separating small hills and ridges of it,
| |
| looking for mites. Finding none, she poured
| |
| soda and salt into the crease of her folded hand
| |
| and tossed both into the flour. Then she
| |
| reached into a can and scooped half a handful of
| |
| lard. Deftly she squeezed the flour through it,
| |
| then with her left hand sprinkling water, she
| |
| formed the dough.
| |
| "I had milk," she said. "I was pregnant
| |
| with Denver but I had milk for my baby girl. I
| |
| hadn't stopped nursing her when I sent her on
| |
| ahead with Howard and Buglar."
| |
| Now she rolled the dough out with a
| |
| wooden pin. "Anybody could smell me long
| |
| before he saw me. And when he saw me he'd
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 32 of 525
| |
| see the drops of it on the front of my dress.
| |
| Nothing I could do about that. All I knew was I
| |
| had to get my milk to my baby girl. Nobody was
| |
| going to nurse her like me. Nobody was going to
| |
| get it to her fast enough, or take it away when
| |
| she had enough and didn't know it. Nobody
| |
| knew that she couldn't pass her air if you held
| |
| her up on your shoulder, only if she was lying on
| |
| my knees. Nobody knew that but me and
| |
| nobody had her milk but me. I told that to the
| |
| women in the wagon. Told them to put sugar
| |
| water in cloth to suck from so when I got there
| |
| in a few days she wouldn't have forgot me. The
| |
| milk would be there and I would be there with
| |
| it."
| |
| "Men don't know nothing much," said Paul
| |
| D, tucking his pouch back into his vest pocket,
| |
| "but they do know a suckling can't be away from
| |
| its mother for long."
| |
| "Then they know what it's like to send your children off when your breasts are full."
| |
| "We was talking 'bout a tree, Sethe."
| |
| "After I left you, those boys came in there and took my milk.
| |
| That's what they came in there for. Held
| |
| me down and took it. I told Mrs. Garner on em.
| |
| She had that lump and couldn't speak but her
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 33 of 525
| |
| eyes rolled out tears. Them boys found out I told
| |
| on em. Schoolteacher made one open up my
| |
| back, and when it closed it made a tree. It grows
| |
| there still."
| |
| "They used cowhide on you?"
| |
| "And they took my milk."
| |
| "They beat you and you was pregnant?"
| |
| "And they took my milk!"
| |
| The fat white circles of dough lined the
| |
| pan in rows. Once more Sethe touched a wet
| |
| forefinger to the stove. She opened the oven
| |
| door and slid the pan of biscuits in. As she raised
| |
| up from the heat she felt Paul D behind her and
| |
| his hands under her breasts. She straightened
| |
| up and knew, but could not feel, that his cheek
| |
| was pressing into the branches of her
| |
| chokecherry tree.
| |
| Not even trying, he had become the kind
| |
| of man who could walk into a house and make
| |
| the women cry. Because with him, in his
| |
| presence, they could. There was something
| |
| blessed in his manner.
| |
| Women saw him and wanted to weep--to
| |
| tell him that their chest hurt and their knees did
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 34 of 525
| |
| too. Strong women and wise saw him and told
| |
| him things they only told each other: that way
| |
| past the Change of Life, desire in them had
| |
| suddenly become enormous, greedy, more
| |
| savage than when they were fifteen, and that it
| |
| embarrassed them and made them sad; that
| |
| secretly they longed to die--to be quit of it--that
| |
| sleep was more precious to them than any
| |
| waking day. Young girls sidled up to him to
| |
| confess or describe how well-dressed the
| |
| visitations were that had followed them straight
| |
| from their dreams.
| |
| Therefore, although he did not understand
| |
| why this was so, he was not surprised when
| |
| Denver dripped tears into the stovefire. Nor,
| |
| fifteen minutes later, after telling him about her
| |
| stolen milk, her mother wept as well. Behind
| |
| her, bending down, his body an arc of kindness,
| |
| he held her breasts in the palms of his hands. He
| |
| rubbed his cheek on her back and learned that
| |
| way her sorrow, the roots of it; its wide trunk
| |
| and intricate branches. Raising his fingers to the
| |
| hooks of her dress, he knew without seeing
| |
| them or hearing any sigh that the tears were
| |
| coming fast. And when the top of her dress was
| |
| around her hips and he saw the sculpture her
| |
| back had become, like the decorative work of an
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 35 of 525
| |
| ironsmith too passionate for display, he could
| |
| think but not say, "Aw, Lord, girl." And he would
| |
| tolerate no peace until he had touched every
| |
| ridge and leaf of it with his mouth, none of which
| |
| Sethe could feel because her back skin had been
| |
| dead for years. What she knew was that the
| |
| responsibility for her breasts, at last, was in
| |
| somebody else's hands.
| |
| Would there be a little space, she
| |
| wondered, a little time, some way to hold off
| |
| eventfulness, to push busyness into the corners
| |
| of the room and just stand there a minute or
| |
| two, naked from shoulder blade to waist,
| |
| relieved of the weight of her breasts, smelling
| |
| the stolen milk again and the pleasure of
| |
| baking bread? Maybe this one time she could
| |
| stop dead still in the middle of a cooking
| |
| meal--not even leave the stove--and feel the
| |
| hurt her back ought to. Trust things and
| |
| remember things because the last of the Sweet
| |
| Home men was there to catch her if she sank?
| |
| The stove didn't shudder as it adjusted to
| |
| its heat. Denver wasn't stirring in the next
| |
| room. The pulse of red light hadn't come back
| |
| and Paul D had not trembled since 1856 and
| |
| then for eighty-three days in a row. Locked up
| |
| and chained down, his hands shook so bad he
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 36 of 525
| |
| couldn't smoke or even scratch properly. Now
| |
| he was trembling again but in the legs this
| |
| time. It took him a while to realize that his legs
| |
| were not shaking because of worry, but
| |
| because the floorboards were and the grinding,
| |
| shoving floor was only part of it. The house
| |
| itself was pitching. Sethe slid to the floor and
| |
| struggled to get back into her dress. While
| |
| down on all fours, as though she were holding
| |
| her house down on the ground, Denver burst
| |
| from the keeping room, terror in her eyes, a
| |
| vague smile on her lips.
| |
| "God damn it! Hush up!" Paul D was
| |
| shouting, falling, reaching for anchor. "Leave the
| |
| place alone! Get the hell out!" A table rushed
| |
| toward him and he grabbed its leg. Somehow he
| |
| managed to stand at an angle and, holding the
| |
| table by two legs, he bashed it about, wrecking
| |
| everything, screaming back at the screaming
| |
| house. "You want to fight, come on! God damn it!
| |
| She got enough without you.
| |
| She got enough!"
| |
| The quaking slowed to an occasional lurch,
| |
| but Paul D did not stop whipping the table around
| |
| until everything was rock quiet.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 37 of 525
| |
| Sweating and breathing hard, he leaned
| |
| against the wall in the space the sideboard left.
| |
| Sethe was still crouched next to the stove,
| |
| clutching her salvaged shoes to her chest. The
| |
| three of them, Sethe, Denver, and Paul D,
| |
| breathed to the same beat, like one tired person.
| |
| Another breathing was just as tired.
| |
| It was gone. Denver wandered through the silence to the stove.
| |
| She ashed over the fire and pulled the pan of biscuits from the oven.
| |
| The jelly cupboard was on its back, its
| |
| contents lying in a heap in the corner of the
| |
| bottom shelf. She took out a jar, and, looking
| |
| around for a plate, found half of one by the door.
| |
| These things she carried out to the porch steps,
| |
| where she sat down.
| |
| The two of them had gone up there.
| |
| Stepping lightly, easy-footed, they had climbed
| |
| the white stairs, leaving her down below. She
| |
| pried the wire from the top of the jar and then
| |
| the lid. Under it was cloth and under that a thin
| |
| cake of wax. She removed it all and coaxed the
| |
| jelly onto one half of the half a plate. She took a
| |
| biscuit and pulled off its black top. Smoke curled
| |
| from the soft white insides.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 38 of 525
| |
| She missed her brothers. Buglar and
| |
| Howard would be twenty two and twenty-three
| |
| now. Although they had been polite to her during
| |
| the quiet time and gave her the whole top of the
| |
| bed, she remembered how it was before: the
| |
| pleasure they had sitting clustered on the white
| |
| stairs--she between the knees of Howard or
| |
| Buglar--while they made up die-witch! stories
| |
| with proven ways of killing her dead. And Baby
| |
| Suggs telling her things in the keeping room.
| |
| She smelled like bark in the day and
| |
| leaves at night, for Denver would not sleep in
| |
| her old room after her brothers ran away.
| |
| Now her mother was upstairs with the
| |
| man who had gotten rid of the only other
| |
| company she had. Denver dipped a bit of bread
| |
| into the jelly. Slowly, methodically, miserably
| |
| she ate it.
| |
| NOT QUITE in a hurry, but losing no time, Sethe
| |
| and Paul D climbed the white stairs.
| |
| Overwhelmed as much by the downright luck of
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 39 of 525
| |
| finding her house and her in it as by the certainty
| |
| of giving her his sex, Paul D dropped twenty-five
| |
| years from his recent memory. A stair step
| |
| before him was Baby Suggs' replacement, the
| |
| new girl they dreamed of at night and fucked
| |
| cows for at dawn while waiting for her to choose.
| |
| Merely kissing the wrought iron on her back had
| |
| shook the house, had made it necessary for him
| |
| to beat it to pieces.
| |
| Now he would do more.
| |
| She led him to the top of the stairs, where
| |
| light came straight from the sky because the
| |
| second- story windows of that house had been
| |
| placed in the pitched ceiling and not the walls.
| |
| There were two rooms and she took him into
| |
| one of them, hoping he wouldn't mind the fact
| |
| that she was not prepared; that though she
| |
| could remember desire, she had forgotten how
| |
| it worked; the clutch and helplessness that
| |
| resided in the hands; how blindness was altered
| |
| so that what leapt to the eye were places to lie
| |
| down, and all else--door knobs, straps, hooks,
| |
| the sadness that crouched in corners, and the
| |
| passing of time--was interference.
| |
| It was over before they could get their
| |
| clothes off. Half-dressed and short of breath,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 40 of 525
| |
| they lay side by side resentful of one another
| |
| and the skylight above them. His dreaming of
| |
| her had been too long and too long ago. Her
| |
| deprivation had been not having any dreams
| |
| of her own at all. Now they were sorry and too
| |
| shy to make talk.
| |
| Sethe lay on her back, her head turned
| |
| from him. Out of the corner of his eye, Paul D saw
| |
| the float of her breasts and disliked it, the
| |
| spread-away, flat roundness of them that he
| |
| could definitely live without, never mind that
| |
| downstairs he had held them as though they
| |
| were the most expensive part of himself. And the
| |
| wrought-iron maze he had explored in the
| |
| kitchen like a gold miner pawing through pay dirt
| |
| was in fact a revolting clump of scars. Not a tree,
| |
| as she said. Maybe shaped like one, but nothing
| |
| like any tree he knew because trees were
| |
| inviting; things you could trust and be near; talk
| |
| to if you wanted to as he frequently did since way
| |
| back when he took the midday meal in the fields
| |
| of Sweet Home. Always in the same place if he
| |
| could, and choosing the place had been hard
| |
| because Sweet Home
| |
| had more pretty trees than any farm around. His
| |
| choice he called Brother, and sat under it, alone
| |
| sometimes, sometimes with Halle or the other
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 41 of 525
| |
| Pauls, but more often with Sixo, who was gentle
| |
| then and still speaking English. Indigo with a
| |
| flame-red tongue, Sixo experimented with
| |
| night-cooked potatoes, trying to pin down exactly
| |
| when to put smoking-hot rocks in a hole, potatoes
| |
| on top, and cover the whole thing with twigs so
| |
| that by the time they broke for the meal, hitched
| |
| the animals, left the field and got to Brother, the
| |
| potatoes would be at the peak of perfection. He
| |
| might get up in the middle of the night, go all the
| |
| way out there, start the earth-over by starlight; or
| |
| he would make the stones less hot and put the next
| |
| day's potatoes on them right after the meal. He
| |
| never got it right, but they ate those undercooked,
| |
| overcooked, dried-out or raw potatoes anyway,
| |
| laughing, spitting and giving him advice.
| |
| Time never worked the way Sixo thought, so
| |
| of course he never got it right. Once he plotted
| |
| down to the minute a thirty-mile trip to see a
| |
| woman. He left on a Saturday when the moon was
| |
| in the place he wanted it to be, arrived at her cabin
| |
| before church on Sunday and had just enough time
| |
| to say good morning before he had to start back
| |
| again so he'd make the field call on time Monday
| |
| morning. He had walked for seventeen hours, sat
| |
| down for one, turned around and walked
| |
| seventeen more. Halle and the Pauls spent the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 42 of 525
| |
| whole day covering Sixo's fatigue from Mr. Garner.
| |
| They ate no potatoes that day, sweet or white.
| |
| Sprawled near Brother, his flame-red tongue
| |
| hidden from them, his indigo face closed, Sixo
| |
| slept through dinner like a corpse. Now there was a
| |
| man, and that was a tree. Himself lying in the bed
| |
| and the "tree" lying next to him didn't compare.
| |
| Paul D looked through the window above his
| |
| feet and folded his hands behind his head. An
| |
| elbow grazed Sethe's shoulder. The touch of cloth
| |
| on her skin startled her. She had forgotten he had
| |
| not taken off his shirt. Dog, she thought, and then
| |
| remembered that she had not allowed him the time
| |
| for taking it off. Nor herself time to take off her
| |
| petticoat, and considering she had begun
| |
| undressing before she saw him on the porch, that
| |
| her shoes and stockings were already in her hand
| |
| and she had never put them back on; that he had
| |
| looked at her wet bare feet and asked to join her;
| |
| that when she rose to cook he had undressed her
| |
| further; considering how quickly they had started
| |
| getting naked, you'd think by now they would be.
| |
| But maybe a man was nothing but a man, which is
| |
| what Baby Suggs always said. They encouraged
| |
| you to put some of your weight in their hands and
| |
| soon as you felt how light and lovely that was, they
| |
| studied your scars and tribulations, after which
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 43 of 525
| |
| they did what he had done: ran her children out
| |
| and tore up the house.
| |
| She needed to get up from there, go
| |
| downstairs and piece it all back together. This
| |
| house he told her to leave as though a house was a
| |
| little thing--a shirtwaist or a sewing basket you
| |
| could walk off from or give away any old time. She
| |
| who had never had one but this one; she who left a
| |
| dirt floor to come to this one; she who had to bring
| |
| a fistful of salsify into Mrs. Garner's kitchen every
| |
| day just to be able to work in it, feel like some part
| |
| of it was hers, because she wanted to love the
| |
| work she did, to take the ugly out of it, and the only
| |
| way she could feel at home on Sweet Home was if
| |
| she picked some pretty growing thing and took it
| |
| with her. The day she forgot was the day butter
| |
| wouldn't come or the brine in the barrel blistered
| |
| her arms.
| |
| At least it seemed so. A few yellow flowers
| |
| on the table, some myrtle tied around the handle
| |
| of the flatiron holding the door open for a breeze
| |
| calmed her, and when Mrs. Garner and she sat
| |
| down to sort bristle, or make ink, she felt fine.
| |
| Fine. Not scared of the men beyond. The five who
| |
| slept in quarters near her, but never came in the
| |
| night. Just touched their raggedy hats when they
| |
| saw her and stared. And if she brought food to
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 44 of 525
| |
| them in the fields, bacon and bread wrapped in a
| |
| piece of clean sheeting, they never took it from
| |
| her hands. They stood back and waited for her to
| |
| put it on the ground (at the foot of a tree) and
| |
| leave. Either they did not want to take anything
| |
| from her, or did not want her to see them eat.
| |
| Twice or three times she lingered. Hidden behind
| |
| honeysuckle she watched them. How different
| |
| they were without her, how they laughed and
| |
| played and urinated and sang. All but Sixo, who
| |
| laughed once--at the very end. Halle, of course,
| |
| was the nicest. Baby Suggs' eighth and last child,
| |
| who rented himself out all over the county to buy
| |
| her away from there. But he too, as it turned out,
| |
| was nothing but a man.
| |
| "A man ain't nothing but a man," said Baby Suggs. "But a son?
| |
| Well now, that's somebody."
| |
| It made sense for a lot of reasons because
| |
| in all of Baby's life, as well as Sethe's own, men
| |
| and women were moved around like checkers.
| |
| Anybody Baby Suggs knew, let alone
| |
| loved, who hadn't run off or been hanged, got
| |
| rented out, loaned out, bought up, brought back,
| |
| stored up, mortgaged, won, stolen or seized. So
| |
| Baby's eight children had six fathers. What she
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 45 of 525
| |
| called the nastiness of life was the shock she
| |
| received upon learning that nobody stopped
| |
| playing checkers just because the pieces
| |
| included her children. Halle she was able to keep
| |
| the longest. Twenty years. A lifetime. Given to
| |
| her, no doubt, to make up for hearing that her
| |
| two girls, neither of whom had their adult teeth,
| |
| were sold and gone and she had not been able to
| |
| wave goodbye. To make up for coupling with a
| |
| straw boss for four months in exchange for
| |
| keeping her third child, a boy, with her--only to
| |
| have him traded for lumber in the spring of the
| |
| next year and to find herself pregnant by the man
| |
| who promised not to and did. That child she could
| |
| not love and the rest she would not. "God take
| |
| what He would," she said. And He did, and He
| |
| did, and He did and then gave her Halle who gave
| |
| her freedom when it didn't mean a thing.
| |
| Sethe had the amazing luck of six whole
| |
| years of marriage to that "somebody" son who
| |
| had fathered every one of her children.
| |
| A blessing she was reckless enough to take
| |
| for granted, lean on, as though Sweet Home
| |
| really was one. As though a handful of myrtle
| |
| stuck in the handle of a pressing iron propped
| |
| against the door in a whitewoman's kitchen could
| |
| make it hers. As though mint sprig in the mouth
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 46 of 525
| |
| changed the breath as well as its odor. A bigger
| |
| fool never lived.
| |
| Sethe started to turn over on her stomach
| |
| but changed her mind.
| |
| She did not want to call Paul D's attention
| |
| back to her, so she settled for crossing her ankles.
| |
| But Paul D noticed the movement as well
| |
| as the change in her breathing. He felt obliged to
| |
| try again, slower this time, but the appetite was
| |
| gone. Actually it was a good feeling--not wanting
| |
| her.
| |
| Twenty-five years and blip! The kind of
| |
| thing Sixo would do--like the time he arranged a
| |
| meeting with Patsy the Thirty-Mile Woman.
| |
| It took three months and two
| |
| thirty-four-mile round trips to do it.
| |
| To persuade her to walk one-third of the
| |
| way toward him, to a place he knew. A deserted
| |
| stone structure that Redmen used way back
| |
| when they thought the land was theirs. Sixo
| |
| discovered it on one of his night creeps, and
| |
| asked its permission to enter. Inside, having felt
| |
| what it felt like, he asked the Redmen's Presence
| |
| if he could bring his woman there. It said yes and
| |
| Sixo painstakingly instructed her how to get
| |
| there, exactly when to start out, how his
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 47 of 525
| |
| welcoming or warning whistles would sound.
| |
| Since neither could go anywhere on business of
| |
| their own, and since the Thirty-Mile Woman was
| |
| already fourteen and scheduled for somebody's
| |
| arms, the danger was real.
| |
| When he arrived, she had not. He whistled
| |
| and got no answer. He went into the Redmen's
| |
| deserted lodge. She was not there. He returned
| |
| to the meeting spot. She was not there. He
| |
| waited longer. She still did not come. He grew
| |
| frightened for her and walked down the road in
| |
| the direction she should be coming from. Three
| |
| or four miles, and he stopped. It was hopeless to
| |
| go on that way, so he stood in the wind and
| |
| asked for help. Listening close for some sign, he
| |
| heard a whimper. He turned toward it, waited
| |
| and heard it again. Uncautious now, he hollered
| |
| her name. She answered in a voice that sounded
| |
| like life to him--not death. "Not move!" he
| |
| shouted. "Breathe hard I can find you." He did.
| |
| She believed she was already at the meeting
| |
| place and was crying because she thought he
| |
| had not kept his promise.
| |
| Now it was too late for the rendezvous to
| |
| happen at the Redmen's house, so they dropped
| |
| where they were. Later he punctured her calf to
| |
| simulate snakebite so she could use it in some
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 48 of 525
| |
| way as an excuse for not being on time to shake
| |
| worms from tobacco leaves. He gave her
| |
| detailed directions about following the stream as
| |
| a shortcut back, and saw her off. When he got to
| |
| the road it was very light and he had his clothes
| |
| in his hands. Suddenly from around a bend a
| |
| wagon trundled toward him. Its driver,
| |
| wide-eyed, raised a whip while the woman
| |
| seated beside him covered her face. But Sixo
| |
| had already melted into the woods before the
| |
| lash could unfurl itself on his indigo behind.
| |
| He told the story to Paul F, Halle, Paul A
| |
| and Paul D in the peculiar way that made them
| |
| cry- laugh. Sixo went among trees at night. For
| |
| dancing, he said, to keep his bloodlines open, he
| |
| said.
| |
| Privately, alone, he did it. None of the rest
| |
| of them had seen him at it, but they could
| |
| imagine it, and the picture they pictured made
| |
| them eager to laugh at him--in daylight, that is,
| |
| when it was safe.
| |
| But that was before he stopped speaking
| |
| English because there was no future in it.
| |
| Because of the Thirty-Mile Woman Sixo was the
| |
| only one not paralyzed by yearning for Sethe.
| |
| Nothing could be as good as the sex with her
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 49 of 525
| |
| Paul D had been imagining off and on for
| |
| twenty-five years. His foolishness made him
| |
| smile and think fondly of himself as he turned
| |
| over on his side, facing her. Sethe's eyes were
| |
| closed, her hair a mess. Looked at this way,
| |
| minus the polished eyes, her face was not so
| |
| attractive. So it must have been her eyes that
| |
| kept him both guarded and stirred up. Without
| |
| them her face was manageable--a face he could
| |
| handle. Maybe if she would keep them closed
| |
| like that... But no, there was her mouth. Nice.
| |
| Halle never knew what he had.
| |
| Although her eyes were closed, Sethe
| |
| knew his gaze was on her face, and a paper
| |
| picture of just how bad she must look raised
| |
| itself up before her mind's eye. Still, there was
| |
| no mockery coming from his gaze. Soft. It felt
| |
| soft in a waiting kind of way. He was not judging
| |
| her--or rather he was judging but not comparing
| |
| her. Not since Halle had a man looked at her
| |
| that way: not loving or passionate, but
| |
| interested, as though he were examining an ear
| |
| of corn for quality.
| |
| Halle was more like a brother than a
| |
| husband. His care suggested a family
| |
| relationship rather than a man's laying claim.
| |
| For years they saw each other in full daylight
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 50 of 525
| |
| only on Sundays. The rest of the time they
| |
| spoke or touched or ate in darkness. Predawn
| |
| darkness and the afterlight of sunset. So looking
| |
| at each other intently was a Sunday morning
| |
| pleasure and Halle examined her as though
| |
| storing up what he saw in sunlight for the
| |
| shadow he saw the rest of the week. And he had
| |
| so little time. After his Sweet Home work and on
| |
| Sunday afternoons was the debt work he owed
| |
| for his mother. When he asked her to be his
| |
| wife, Sethe happily agreed and then was stuck
| |
| not knowing the next step. There should be a
| |
| ceremony, shouldn't there? A preacher, some
| |
| dancing, a party, a something. She and Mrs.
| |
| Garner were the only women there, so she
| |
| decided to ask her.
| |
| "Halle and me want to be married, Mrs.
| |
| Garner."
| |
| "So I heard." She smiled. "He talked to Mr.
| |
| Garner about it. Are you already expecting?"
| |
| "No, ma'am."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 51 of 525
| |
| "Well, you will be. You know that, don't
| |
| you?"
| |
| "Yes, ma'am."
| |
| "Halle's nice, Sethe. He'll be good to you."
| |
| "But I mean we want to get married."
| |
| "You just said so. And I said all right."
| |
| "Is there a wedding?"
| |
| Mrs. Garner put down her cooking spoon.
| |
| Laughing a little, she touched Sethe on the
| |
| head, saying, "You are one sweet child." And
| |
| then no more.
| |
| Sethe made a dress on the sly and Halle
| |
| hung his hitching rope from a nail on the wall of
| |
| her cabin. And there on top of a mattress on top
| |
| of the dirt floor of the cabin they coupled for the
| |
| third time, the first two having been in the tiny
| |
| cornfield Mr. Garner kept because it was a crop
| |
| animals could use as well as humans. Both Halle
| |
| and Sethe were under the impression that they
| |
| were hidden.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 52 of 525
| |
| Scrunched down among the stalks they couldn't
| |
| see anything, including the corn tops waving
| |
| over their heads and visible to everyone else.
| |
| Sethe smiled at her and Halle's stupidity.
| |
| Even the crows knew and came to look.
| |
| Uncrossing her ankles, she managed not to
| |
| laugh aloud.
| |
| The jump, thought Paul D, from a calf to a
| |
| girl wasn't all that mighty. Not the leap Halle
| |
| believed it would be. And taking her in the corn
| |
| rather than her quarters, a yard away from the
| |
| cabins of the others who had lost out, was a
| |
| gesture of tenderness. Halle wanted privacy for
| |
| her and got public display. Who could miss a
| |
| ripple in a cornfield on a quiet cloudless day? He,
| |
| Sixo and both of the Pauls sat under Brother
| |
| pouring water from a gourd over their heads,
| |
| and through eyes streaming with well water,
| |
| they watched the confusion of tassels in the field
| |
| below. It had been hard, hard, hard sitting there
| |
| erect as dogs, watching corn stalks dance at
| |
| noon. The water running over their heads made
| |
| it worse.
| |
| Paul D sighed and turned over. Sethe took
| |
| the opportunity afforded by his movement to
| |
| shift as well. Looking at Paul D's back, she
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 53 of 525
| |
| remembered that some of the corn stalks broke,
| |
| folded down over Halle's back, and among the
| |
| things her fingers clutched were husk and
| |
| cornsilk hair.
| |
| How loose the silk. How jailed down the juice.
| |
| The jealous admiration of the watching
| |
| men melted with the feast of new corn they
| |
| allowed themselves that night. Plucked from the
| |
| broken stalks that Mr. Garner could not doubt
| |
| was the fault of the raccoon. Paul F wanted his
| |
| roasted; Paul A wanted his boiled and now Paul D
| |
| couldn't remember how finally they'd cooked
| |
| those ears too young to eat. What he did
| |
| remember was parting the hair to get to the tip,
| |
| the edge of his fingernail just under, so as not to
| |
| graze a single kernel.
| |
| The pulling down of the tight sheath, the ripping sound always convinced her it hurt.
| |
| As soon as one strip of husk was down, the
| |
| rest obeyed and the ear yielded up to him its shy
| |
| rows, exposed at last. How loose the silk. How
| |
| quick the jailed-up flavor ran free.
| |
| No matter what all your teeth and wet
| |
| fingers anticipated, there was no accounting for
| |
| the way that simple joy could shake you.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 54 of 525
| |
| How loose the silk. How fine and loose and
| |
| free.
| |
| DENVER'S SECRETS were sweet. Accompanied
| |
| every time by wild veronica until she discovered
| |
| cologne. The first bottle was a gift, the next she
| |
| stole from her mother and hid among boxwood
| |
| until it froze and cracked. That was the year
| |
| winter came in a hurry at suppertime and stayed
| |
| eight months. One of the
| |
| War years when Miss Bodwin, the whitewoman,
| |
| brought Christmas cologne for her mother and
| |
| herself, oranges for the boys and another good
| |
| wool shawl for Baby Suggs. Talking of a war full of
| |
| dead people, she looked happy--flush-faced, and
| |
| although her voice was heavy as a man's, she
| |
| smelled like a roomful of flowers--excitement that
| |
| Denver could have all for herself in the boxwood.
| |
| Back beyond 1x4 was a narrow field that stopped
| |
| itself at a wood. On the yonder side of these
| |
| woods, a stream.
| |
| In these woods, between the field and the
| |
| stream, hidden by post oaks, five boxwood
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 55 of 525
| |
| bushes, planted in a ring, had started stretching
| |
| toward each other four feet off the ground to
| |
| form a round, empty room seven feet high, its
| |
| walls fifty inches of murmuring leaves.
| |
| Bent low, Denver could crawl into this
| |
| room, and once there she could stand all the
| |
| way up in emerald light.
| |
| It began as a little girl's houseplay, but as
| |
| her desires changed, so did the play. Quiet,
| |
| primate and completely secret except for the
| |
| noisome cologne signal that thrilled the rabbits
| |
| before it confused them. First a playroom (where
| |
| the silence was softer), then a refuge (from her
| |
| brothers' fright), soon the place became the point.
| |
| In that bower, closed off from the hurt of the hurt
| |
| world, Denver's imagination produced its own
| |
| hunger and its own food, which she badly needed
| |
| because loneliness wore her out. Wore her out.
| |
| Veiled and protected by the live green walls, she
| |
| felt ripe and clear, and salvation was as easy as a
| |
| wish.
| |
| Once when she was in the boxwood, an
| |
| autumn long before Paul D moved into the house
| |
| with her mother, she was made suddenly cold by
| |
| a combination of wind and the perfume on her
| |
| skin. She dressed herself, bent down to leave and
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 56 of 525
| |
| stood up in snowfall: a thin and whipping snow
| |
| very like the picture her mother had painted as
| |
| she described the circumstances of Denver's birth
| |
| in a canoe straddled by a whitegirl for whom she
| |
| was named.
| |
| Shivering, Denver approached the house,
| |
| regarding it, as she always did, as a person rather
| |
| than a structure. A person that wept, sighed,
| |
| trembled and fell into fits. Her steps and her gaze
| |
| were the cautious ones of a child approaching a
| |
| nervous, idle relative (someone dependent but
| |
| proud). A breastplate of darkness hid all the
| |
| windows except one. Its dim glow came from
| |
| Baby Suggs' room. When Denver looked in, she
| |
| saw her mother on her knees in prayer, which was
| |
| not unusual. What was unusual (even for a girl
| |
| who had lived all her life in a house peopled by the
| |
| living activity of the dead) was that a white dress
| |
| knelt down next to her mother and had its sleeve
| |
| around her mother's waist. And it was the tender
| |
| embrace of the dress sleeve that made Denver
| |
| remember the details of her birth--that and the
| |
| thin, whipping snow she was standing in, like the
| |
| fruit of common flowers. The dress and her
| |
| mother together looked like two friendly
| |
| grown-up women--one (the dress) helping out the
| |
| other.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 57 of 525
| |
| And the magic of her birth, its miracle in fact, testified to that friendliness as did her own name.
| |
| Easily she stepped into the told story that
| |
| lay before her eyes on the path she followed away
| |
| from the window. There was only one door to the
| |
| house and to get to it from the back you had to
| |
| walk all the way around to the front of 124, past
| |
| the storeroom, past the cold house, the privy, the
| |
| shed, on around to the porch. And to get to the
| |
| part of the story she liked best, she had to start
| |
| way back: hear
| |
| the birds in the thick woods, the crunch of leaves
| |
| underfoot; see her mother making her way up into
| |
| the hills where no houses were likely to be. How
| |
| Sethe was walking on two feet meant for standing
| |
| still. How they were so swollen she could not see
| |
| her arch or feel her ankles. Her leg shaft ended in
| |
| a loaf of flesh scalloped by five toenails. But she
| |
| could not, would not, stop, for when she did the
| |
| little antelope rammed her with horns and pawed
| |
| the ground of her womb with impatient hooves.
| |
| While she was walking, it seemed to graze,
| |
| quietly--so she walked, on two feet meant, in this
| |
| sixth month of pregnancy, for standing still. Still,
| |
| near a kettle; still, at the churn; still, at the tub
| |
| and ironing board. Milk, sticky and sour on her
| |
| dress, attracted every small flying thing from
| |
| gnats to grasshoppers.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 58 of 525
| |
| By the time she reached the hill skirt she
| |
| had long ago stopped waving them off. The
| |
| clanging in her head, begun as a churchbell heard
| |
| from a distance, was by then a tight cap of pealing
| |
| bells around her ears. She sank and had to look
| |
| down to see whether she was in a hole or
| |
| kneeling. Nothing was alive but her nipples and
| |
| the little antelope. Finally, she was horizontal--or
| |
| must have been because blades of wild onion were
| |
| scratching her temple and her cheek. Concerned
| |
| as she was for the life of her children's mother,
| |
| Sethe told Denver, she remembered thinking:
| |
| "Well, at least I don't have to take another step."
| |
| A dying thought if ever there was one, and she
| |
| waited for the little antelope to protest, and why
| |
| she thought of an antelope Sethe could not
| |
| imagine since she had never seen one. She
| |
| guessed it must have been an invention held on to
| |
| from before Sweet Home, when she was very
| |
| young. Of that place where she was born (Carolina
| |
| maybe? or was it Louisiana?) she remembered
| |
| only song and dance. Not even her own mother,
| |
| who was pointed out to her by the eight-year-old
| |
| child who watched over the young ones--pointed
| |
| out as the one among many backs turned away
| |
| from her, stooping in a watery field. Patiently
| |
| Sethe waited for this particular back to gain the
| |
| row's end and stand. What she saw was a cloth hat
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 59 of 525
| |
| as opposed to a straw one, singularity enough in
| |
| that world of cooing women each of whom was
| |
| called Ma'am.
| |
| "Seth--thuh."
| |
| "Ma'am."
| |
| "Hold on to the baby."
| |
| "Yes, Ma'am."
| |
| "Seth--thuh."
| |
| "Ma'am."
| |
| "Get some kindlin in here."
| |
| "Yes, Ma'am."
| |
| Oh but when they sang. And oh but when
| |
| they danced and sometimes they danced the
| |
| antelope. The men as well as the ma'ams, one of
| |
| whom was certainly her own. They shifted shapes
| |
| and became something other. Some unchained,
| |
| demanding other whose feet knew her pulse
| |
| better than she did. Just like this one in her
| |
| stomach.
| |
| "I believe this baby's ma'am is gonna die in
| |
| wild onions on the bloody side of the Ohio River."
| |
| That's what was on her mind and what she told
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 60 of 525
| |
| Denver. Her exact words. And it didn't seem such
| |
| a bad idea, all in all, in view of the step she would
| |
| not have to take, but the thought of herself
| |
| stretched out dead while the little antelope lived
| |
| on--an hour? a day? a day and a night?--in her
| |
| lifeless body grieved her so she made the groan
| |
| that made the person walking on a path not ten
| |
| yards away halt and stand right still. Sethe had
| |
| not heard the walking, but suddenly she heard
| |
| the standing still and then she smelled the hair.
| |
| The voice, saying, "Who's in there?" was all she
| |
| needed to know that she was about to be
| |
| discovered by a white boy. That he too had
| |
| mossy teeth, an appetite. That on a ridge of pine
| |
| near the Ohio River, trying to get to her three
| |
| children, one of whom was starving for the food
| |
| she carried; that after her husband had
| |
| disappeared; that after her milk had been stolen,
| |
| her back pulped, her children orphaned, she was
| |
| not to have an easeful death. No.
| |
| She told Denver that a something came up
| |
| out of the earth into her--like a freezing, but
| |
| moving too, like jaws inside. "Look like I was just
| |
| cold jaws grinding," she said. Suddenly she was
| |
| eager for his eyes, to bite into them; to gnaw his
| |
| cheek.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 61 of 525
| |
| "I was hungry," she told Denver, "just as hungry as I could be for his eyes. I couldn't wait."
| |
| So she raised up on her elbow and dragged
| |
| herself, one pull, two, three, four, toward the
| |
| young white voice talking about "Who that back
| |
| in there?"
| |
| " 'Come see,' I was thinking. 'Be the last
| |
| thing you behold,' and sure enough here come
| |
| the feet so I thought well that's where I'll have to
| |
| start God do what He would, I'm gonna eat his
| |
| feet off. I'm laughing now, but it's true. I wasn't
| |
| just set to do it. I was hungry to do it. Like a
| |
| snake. All jaws and hungry.
| |
| "It wasn't no whiteboy at all. Was a girl.
| |
| The raggediest-looking trash you ever saw
| |
| saying, 'Look there. A nigger. If that don't beat
| |
| all.' "
| |
| And now the part Denver loved the
| |
| best: Her name was Amy and she needed
| |
| beef and pot liquor like nobody in this world.
| |
| Arms like cane stalks and enough hair for
| |
| four or five heads. Slow- moving eyes. She
| |
| didn't look at anything quick.
| |
| Talked so much it wasn't clear how she
| |
| could breathe at the same time. And those
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 62 of 525
| |
| cane-stalk arms, as it turned out, were as strong
| |
| as iron.
| |
| "You 'bout the scariest-looking something I ever seen. What you doing back up in here?"
| |
| Down in the grass, like the snake she
| |
| believed she was, Sethe opened her mouth, and
| |
| instead of fangs and a split tongue, out shot the
| |
| truth.
| |
| "Running," Sethe told her. It was the first
| |
| word she had spoken all day and it came out
| |
| thick because of her tender tongue.
| |
| "Them the feet you running on? My Jesus
| |
| my." She squatted down and stared at Sethe's
| |
| feet. "You got anything on you, gal, pass for
| |
| food?"
| |
| "No." Sethe tried to shift to a sitting position but couldn t.
| |
| "I like to die I'm so hungry." The girl
| |
| moved her eyes slowly, examining the greenery
| |
| around her. "Thought there'd be huckleberries.
| |
| Look like it. That's why I come up in here.
| |
| Didn't expect to find no nigger woman. If they
| |
| was any, birds ate em. You like huckleberries?"
| |
| "I'm having a baby, miss."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 63 of 525
| |
| Amy looked at her. "That mean you don't have no appetite? Well I got to eat me something."
| |
| Combing her hair with her fingers, she
| |
| carefully surveyed the landscape once more.
| |
| Satisfied nothing edible was around, she stood
| |
| up to go and Sethe's heart stood up too at the
| |
| thought of being left alone in the grass without
| |
| a fang in her head.
| |
| "Where you on your way to, miss?"
| |
| She turned and looked at Sethe with
| |
| freshly lit eyes. "Boston. Get me some velvet.
| |
| It's a store there called Wilson. I seen the
| |
| pictures of it and they have the prettiest
| |
| velvet. They don't believe I'm a get it, but I
| |
| am."
| |
| Sethe nodded and shifted her elbow. "Your
| |
| ma'am know you on the lookout for velvet?"
| |
| The girl shook her hair out of her face. "My
| |
| mama worked for these here people to pay for
| |
| her passage. But then she had me and since she
| |
| died right after, well, they said I had to work for
| |
| em to pay it off. I did, but now I want me some
| |
| velvet."
| |
| They did not look directly at each other,
| |
| not straight into the eyes anyway. Yet they
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 64 of 525
| |
| slipped effortlessly into yard chat about nothing
| |
| in particular--except one lay on the ground.
| |
| "Boston," said Sethe. "Is that far?"
| |
| "Ooooh, yeah. A hundred miles. Maybe
| |
| more."
| |
| "Must be velvet closer by."
| |
| "Not like in Boston. Boston got the best. Be
| |
| so pretty on me.
| |
| You ever touch it?"
| |
| "No, miss. I never touched no velvet."
| |
| Sethe didn't know if it was the voice, or Boston or
| |
| velvet, but while the whitegirl talked, the baby
| |
| slept. Not one butt or kick, so she guessed her
| |
| luck had turned.
| |
| "Ever see any?" she asked Sethe. "I bet you never even seen any." "If I did I didn't know it. What's it like, velvet?"
| |
| Amy dragged her eyes over Sethe's face as
| |
| though she would never give out so confidential a
| |
| piece of information as that to a perfect stranger.
| |
| "What they call you?" she asked.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 65 of 525
| |
| However far she was from Sweet Home,
| |
| there was no point in giving out her real name to
| |
| the first person she saw. "Lu," said Sethe.
| |
| "They call me Lu."
| |
| "Well, Lu, velvet is like the world was just
| |
| born. Clean and new and so smooth. The velvet I
| |
| seen was brown, but in Boston they got all colors.
| |
| Carmine. That means red but when you talk
| |
| about velvet you got to say 'carmine.' " She
| |
| raised her eyes to the sky and then, as though
| |
| she had wasted enough time away from Boston,
| |
| she moved off saying, "I gotta go."
| |
| Picking her way through the brush she
| |
| hollered back to Sethe, "What you gonna do, just
| |
| lay there and foal?"
| |
| "I can't get up from here," said Sethe.
| |
| "What?" She stopped and turned to hear.
| |
| "I said I can't get up."
| |
| Amy drew her arm across her nose and
| |
| came slowly back to where Sethe lay. "It's a
| |
| house back yonder," she said.
| |
| "A house?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 66 of 525
| |
| "Mmmmm. I passed it. Ain't no regular house
| |
| with people in it though. A lean-to, kinda."
| |
| "How far?"
| |
| "Make a difference, does it? You stay the
| |
| night here snake get you."
| |
| "Well he may as well come on. I can't stand
| |
| up let alone walk and God help me, miss, I can't
| |
| crawl."
| |
| "Sure you can, Lu. Come on," said Amy
| |
| and, with a toss of hair enough for five heads, she
| |
| moved toward the path.
| |
| So she crawled and Amy walked alongside
| |
| her, and when Sethe needed to rest, Amy
| |
| stopped too and talked some more about Boston
| |
| and velvet and good things to eat. The sound of
| |
| that voice, like a sixteen-year-old boy's, going on
| |
| and on and on, kept the little antelope quiet and
| |
| grazing. During the whole hateful crawl to the
| |
| lean to, it never bucked once.
| |
| Nothing of Sethe's was intact by the time
| |
| they reached it except the cloth that covered her
| |
| hair. Below her bloody knees, there was no
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 67 of 525
| |
| feeling at all; her chest was two cushions of pins.
| |
| It was the voice full of velvet and Boston and
| |
| good things to eat that urged her along and
| |
| made her think that maybe she wasn't, after all,
| |
| just a crawling graveyard for a six-month baby's
| |
| last hours.
| |
| The lean-to was full of leaves, which Amy
| |
| pushed into a pile for Sethe to lie on. Then she
| |
| gathered rocks, covered them with more leaves
| |
| and made Sethe put her feet on them, saying: "I
| |
| know a woman had her feet cut off they was so
| |
| swole." And she made sawing gestures with the
| |
| blade of her hand across Sethe's ankles. "Zzz
| |
| Zzz Zzz Zzz."
| |
| "I used to be a good size. Nice arms and
| |
| everything. Wouldn't think it, would you? That
| |
| was before they put me in the root cellar.
| |
| I was fishing off the Beaver once. Catfish
| |
| in Beaver River sweet as chicken. Well I was just
| |
| fishing there and a nigger floated right by me. I
| |
| don't like drowned people, you? Your feet
| |
| remind me of him.
| |
| All swole like."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 68 of 525
| |
| Then she did the magic: lifted Sethe's feet
| |
| and legs and massaged them until she cried salt
| |
| tears.
| |
| "It's gonna hurt, now," said Amy. "Anything
| |
| dead coming back to life hurts."
| |
| A truth for all times, thought Denver.
| |
| Maybe the white dress holding its arm around
| |
| her mother's waist was in pain. If so, it could
| |
| mean the baby ghost had plans. When she
| |
| opened the door, Sethe was just leaving the
| |
| keeping room.
| |
| "I saw a white dress holding on to you,"
| |
| Denver said.
| |
| "White? Maybe it was my bedding dress.
| |
| Describe it to me."
| |
| "Had a high neck. Whole mess of buttons
| |
| coming down the back."
| |
| "Buttons. Well, that lets out my bedding
| |
| dress. I never had a button on nothing."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 69 of 525
| |
| "Did Grandma Baby?"
| |
| Sethe shook her head. "She couldn't handle
| |
| them. Even on her shoes. What else?"
| |
| "A bunch at the back. On the sit-down part."
| |
| "A bustle? It had a bustle?"
| |
| "I don't know what it's called."
| |
| "Sort of gathered-like? Below the waist in the
| |
| back?"
| |
| "Um hm."
| |
| "A rich lady's dress. Silk?"
| |
| "Cotton, look like."
| |
| "Lisle probably. White cotton lisle. You say it
| |
| was holding on to me. How?"
| |
| "Like you. It looked just like you.
| |
| Kneeling next to you while you were
| |
| praying. Had its arm around your waist."
| |
| "Well, I'll be."
| |
| "What were you praying for, Ma'am?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 70 of 525
| |
| "Not for anything. I don't pray anymore. I
| |
| just talk."
| |
| "What were you talking about?"
| |
| "You won't understand, baby."
| |
| "Yes, I will."
| |
| "I was talking about time. It's so hard for me
| |
| to believe in it.
| |
| Some things go. Pass on. Some things
| |
| just stay. I used to think it was my rememory.
| |
| You know. Some things you forget. Other
| |
| things you never do. But it's not. Places, places
| |
| are still there. If a house burns down, it's gone,
| |
| but the place--the picture of it--stays, and not
| |
| just in my rememory, but out there, in the
| |
| world. What I remember is a picture floating
| |
| around out there outside my head. I mean,
| |
| even if I don't think it, even if I die, the picture
| |
| of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there.
| |
| Right in the place where it happened."
| |
| "Can other people see it?" asked Denver.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 71 of 525
| |
| "Oh, yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Someday you
| |
| be walking down the road and you hear
| |
| something or see something going on. So clear.
| |
| And you think it's you thinking it up. A
| |
| thought picture. But no. It's when you bump
| |
| into a rememory that belongs to somebody
| |
| else.
| |
| Where I was before I came here, that
| |
| place is real. It's never going away. Even if the
| |
| whole farm- -every tree and grass blade of it
| |
| dies.
| |
| The picture is still there and what's more,
| |
| if you go there--you who never was there--if
| |
| you go there and stand in the place where it
| |
| was, it will happen again; it will be there for
| |
| you, waiting for you. So, Denver, you can't
| |
| never go there. Never. Because even though
| |
| it's all over--over and done with--it's going to
| |
| always be there waiting for you. That's how
| |
| come I had to get all my children out. No matter
| |
| what."
| |
| Denver picked at her fingernails. "If it's still there, waiting, that must mean that nothing ever
| |
| dies."
| |
| Sethe looked right in Denver's face. "Nothing ever does," she said.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 72 of 525
| |
| "You never told me all what happened.
| |
| Just that they whipped you and you run off,
| |
| pregnant. With me."
| |
| "Nothing to tell except schoolteacher. He was a little man. Short.
| |
| Always wore a collar, even in the fields. A schoolteacher, she said.
| |
| That made her feel good that her
| |
| husband's sister's husband had book learning
| |
| and was willing to come farm Sweet Home after
| |
| Mr.
| |
| Garner passed. The men could have done it, even with Paul F sold.
| |
| But it was like Halle said. She didn't want
| |
| to be the only white person on the farm and a
| |
| woman too. So she was satisfied when the
| |
| schoolteacher agreed to come. He brought two
| |
| boys with him. Sons or nephews. I don't know.
| |
| They called him Onka and had pretty man ners,
| |
| all of em. Talked soft and spit in handkerchiefs.
| |
| Gentle in a lot of ways. You know, the kind who
| |
| know Jesus by His first name, but out of
| |
| politeness never use it even to His face. A pretty
| |
| good farmer, Halle said. Not strong as Mr.
| |
| Garner but smart enough. He liked the ink I
| |
| made. It was her recipe, but he preferred how I
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 73 of 525
| |
| mixed it and it was important to him because at
| |
| night he sat down to write in his book. It was a
| |
| book about us but we didn't know that right
| |
| away. We just thought it was his manner to ask
| |
| us questions. He commenced to carry round a
| |
| notebook and write down what we said. I still
| |
| think it was them questions that tore Sixo up.
| |
| Tore him up for all time."
| |
| She stopped.
| |
| Denver knew that her mother was
| |
| through with it--for now anyway. The single
| |
| slow blink of her eyes; the bottom lip sliding up
| |
| slowly to cover the top; and then a nostril sigh,
| |
| like the snuff of a candle flame--signs that
| |
| Sethe had reached the point beyond which she
| |
| would not go.
| |
| "Well, I think the baby got plans," said
| |
| Denver.
| |
| "What plans?"
| |
| "I don't know, but the dress holding on to
| |
| you got to mean something."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 74 of 525
| |
| "Maybe," said Sethe. "Maybe it does have
| |
| plans."
| |
| Whatever they were or might have been,
| |
| Paul D messed them up for good. With a table
| |
| and a loud male voice he had rid 124 of its claim
| |
| to local fame. Denver had taught herself to take
| |
| pride in the condemnation Negroes heaped on
| |
| them; the assumption that the haunting was
| |
| done by an evil thing looking for more. None of
| |
| them knew the downright pleasure of
| |
| enchantment, of not suspecting but
| |
| knowing the things behind things. Her brothers
| |
| had known, but it scared them; Grandma Baby
| |
| knew, but it saddened her. None could
| |
| appreciate the safety of ghost company. Even
| |
| Sethe didn't love it.
| |
| She just took it for granted--like a sudden change in the weather.
| |
| But it was gone now. Whooshed away in
| |
| the blast of a hazelnut man's shout, leaving
| |
| Denver's world flat, mostly, with the exception
| |
| of an emerald closet standing seven feet high in
| |
| the woods. Her mother had secrets--things she
| |
| wouldn't tell; things she halfway told.
| |
| Well, Denver had them too. And hers were sweet--sweet as lily-of-the-valley cologne.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 75 of 525
| |
| Sethe had given little thought to the white
| |
| dress until Paul D came, and then she
| |
| remembered Denver's interpretation: plans. The
| |
| morning after the first night with Paul D, Sethe
| |
| smiled just thinking about what the word could
| |
| mean. It was a luxury she had not had in
| |
| eighteen years and only that once. Before and
| |
| since, all her effort was directed not on avoiding
| |
| pain but on getting through it as quickly as
| |
| possible. The one set of plans she had
| |
| made--getting away from Sweet Home--went
| |
| awry so completely she never dared life by
| |
| making more.
| |
| Yet the morning she woke up next to Paul
| |
| D, the word her daughter had used a few years
| |
| ago did cross her mind and she thought about
| |
| what Denver had seen kneeling next to her, and
| |
| thought also of the temptation to trust and
| |
| remember that gripped her as she stood before
| |
| the cooking stove in his arms. Would it be all
| |
| right? Would it be all right to go ahead and feel?
| |
| Go ahead and count on something?
| |
| She couldn't think clearly, lying next to
| |
| him listening to his breathing, so carefully,
| |
| carefully, she had left the bed.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 76 of 525
| |
| Kneeling in the keeping room where she
| |
| usually went to talk-think it was clear why Baby
| |
| Suggs was so starved for color. There wasn't any
| |
| except for two orange squares in a quilt that
| |
| made the absence shout. The walls of the room
| |
| were slate-colored, the floor earth-brown, the
| |
| wooden dresser the color of itself, curtains white,
| |
| and the dominating feature, the quilt over an
| |
| iron cot, was made up of scraps of blue serge,
| |
| black, brown and gray wool--the full range of the
| |
| dark and the muted that thrift and modesty
| |
| allowed. In that sober field, two patches of
| |
| orange looked wild--like life in the raw.
| |
| Sethe looked at her hands, her
| |
| bottle-green sleeves, and thought how little color
| |
| there was in the house and how strange that she
| |
| had not missed it the way Baby did. Deliberate,
| |
| she thought, it must be deliberate, because the
| |
| last color she remembered was the pink chips in
| |
| the headstone of her baby girl. After that she
| |
| became as color conscious as a hen. Every dawn
| |
| she worked at fruit pies, potato dishes and
| |
| vegetables while the cook did the soup, meat
| |
| and all the rest. And she could not remember
| |
| remembering a molly apple or a yellow squash.
| |
| Every dawn she saw the dawn, but never
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 77 of 525
| |
| acknowledged or remarked its color. There was
| |
| something wrong with that.
| |
| It was as though one day she saw red
| |
| baby blood, another day the pink gravestone
| |
| chips, and that was the last of it.
| |
| 124 was so full of strong feeling perhaps
| |
| she was oblivious to the loss of anything at all.
| |
| There was a time when she scanned the fields
| |
| every morning and every evening for her boys.
| |
| When she stood at the open window, unmindful
| |
| of flies, her head cocked to her left shoulder, her
| |
| eyes searching to the right for them. Cloud
| |
| shadow on the road, an old woman, a wandering
| |
| goat untethered and gnawing bramble--each
| |
| one looked at first like Howard--no, Buglar. Little
| |
| by little she stopped and their thirteen- year-old
| |
| faces faded completely into their baby ones,
| |
| which came to her only in sleep. When her
| |
| dreams roamed outside 124, anywhere they
| |
| wished, she saw them sometimes in beautiful
| |
| trees, their little legs barely visible in the leaves.
| |
| Sometimes they ran along the railroad
| |
| track laughing, too loud, apparently, to hear her
| |
| because they never did turn around. When she
| |
| woke the house crowded in on her: there was
| |
| the door where the soda crackers were lined up
| |
| in a row; the white stairs her baby girl loved to
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 78 of 525
| |
| climb; the corner where Baby Suggs mended
| |
| shoes, a pile of which were still in the cold room;
| |
| the exact place on the stove where Denver
| |
| burned her fingers. And of course the spite of the
| |
| house itself. There was no room for any other
| |
| thing or body until Paul D arrived and broke up
| |
| the place, making room, shifting it, moving it
| |
| over to someplace else, then standing in the
| |
| place he had made.
| |
| So, kneeling in the keeping room the
| |
| morning after Paul D came, she was distracted
| |
| by the two orange squares that signaled how
| |
| barren 124 really was.
| |
| He was responsible for that. Emotions
| |
| sped to the surface in his company. Things
| |
| became what they were: drabness looked drab;
| |
| heat was hot. Windows suddenly had view. And
| |
| wouldn't you know he'd be a singing man.
| |
| Little rice, little bean, No meat in between.
| |
| Hard work ain't easy, Dry bread ain't greasy
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 79 of 525
| |
| He was up now and singing as he mended
| |
| things he had broken the day before. Some old
| |
| pieces of song he'd learned on the prison farm or
| |
| in the War afterward. Nothing like what they
| |
| sang at Sweet Home, where yearning fashioned
| |
| every note.
| |
| The songs he knew from Georgia
| |
| were flat-headed nails for pounding and
| |
| pounding and pounding.
| |
| Lay my bead on the railroad line,
| |
| Train come along, pacify my mind.
| |
| If I had my weight in lime,
| |
| I'd whip my captain till he went stone blind.
| |
| Five-cent nickel, Ten-cent dime,
| |
| Busting rocks is busting time.
| |
| But they didn't fit, these songs. They were
| |
| too loud, had too much power for the little house
| |
| chores he was engaged in--resetting table legs;
| |
| glazing.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 80 of 525
| |
| He couldn't go back to "Storm upon the
| |
| Waters" that they sang under the trees of Sweet
| |
| Home, so he contented himself with
| |
| mmmmmmmmm, throwing in a line if one
| |
| occurred to him, and what occurred over and
| |
| over was "Bare feet and chamomile sap,/ Took
| |
| off my shoes; took off my hat."
| |
| It was tempting to change the words
| |
| (Gimme back my shoes; gimme back my hat),
| |
| because he didn't believe he could live with a
| |
| woman--any woman--for over two out of three
| |
| months. That was about as long as he could
| |
| abide one place. After Delaware and before that
| |
| Alfred, Georgia, where he slept underground
| |
| and crawled into sunlight for the sole purpose of
| |
| breaking rock, walking off when he got ready
| |
| was the only way he could convince himself that
| |
| he would no longer have to sleep, pee, eat or
| |
| swing a sledge hammer in chains.
| |
| But this was not a normal woman in a
| |
| normal house. As soon as he had stepped
| |
| through the red light he knew that, compared to
| |
| 124, the rest of the world was bald. After Alfred
| |
| he had shut down a generous portion of his
| |
| head, operating on the part that helped him
| |
| walk, eat, sleep, sing. If he could do those
| |
| things--with a little work and a little sex thrown
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 81 of 525
| |
| in--he asked for no more, for more required him
| |
| to dwell on Halle's face and Sixo laughing. To
| |
| recall trembling in a box built into the ground.
| |
| Grateful for the daylight spent doing mule work
| |
| in a quarry because he did not tremble when he
| |
| had a hammer in his hands. The box had done
| |
| what Sweet Home had not, what working like an
| |
| ass and living like a dog had not: drove him
| |
| crazy so he would not lose his mind.
| |
| By the time he got to Ohio, then to
| |
| Cincinnati, then to Halle Suggs' mother's house,
| |
| he thought he had seen and felt it all. Even now
| |
| as he put back the window frame he had
| |
| smashed, he could not account for the pleasure
| |
| in his surprise at seeing Halle's wife alive,
| |
| barefoot with uncovered hair- walking around
| |
| the corner of the house with her shoes and
| |
| stockings in her hands. The closed portion of his
| |
| head opened like a greased lock.
| |
| "I was thinking of looking for work around
| |
| here. What you think?" "Ain't much. River
| |
| mostly. And hogs."
| |
| "Well, I never worked on water, but I can
| |
| pick up anything heavy as me, hogs
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 82 of 525
| |
| included." "Whitepeople better here than
| |
| Kentucky but you may have to scramble
| |
| some." "It ain't whether I scramble; it's
| |
| where. You saying it's all right to scramble
| |
| here?" "Better than all right."
| |
| "Your girl, Denver. Seems to me she's of a
| |
| different mind." "Why you say that?"
| |
| "She's got a waiting way about her.
| |
| Something she's expecting and it ain't me."
| |
| "I don't know what it could be."
| |
| "Well, whatever it is, she believes I'm
| |
| interrupting it."
| |
| "Don't worry about her. She's a charmed
| |
| child. From the beginning."
| |
| "Is that right?"
| |
| "Uh huh. Nothing bad can happen to her.
| |
| Look at it. Everybody I knew dead or gone or
| |
| dead and gone. Not her. Not my Denver.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 83 of 525
| |
| Even when I was carrying her, when it got
| |
| clear that I wasn't going to make it--which
| |
| meant she wasn't going to make it either--she
| |
| pulled a whitegirl out of the hill. The last thing
| |
| you'd expect to help.
| |
| And when the schoolteacher found us and
| |
| came busting in here with the law and a shotgun--"
| |
| "Schoolteacher found you?"
| |
| "Took a while, but he did. Finally."
| |
| "And he didn't take you back?"
| |
| "Oh, no. I wasn't going back there. I don't
| |
| care who found who.
| |
| Any life but not that one. I went to jail
| |
| instead. Denver was just a baby so she went
| |
| right along with me. Rats bit everything in there
| |
| but her."
| |
| Paul D turned away. He wanted to know
| |
| more about it, but jail talk put him back in
| |
| Alfred, Georgia.
| |
| "I need some nails. Anybody around here I can borrow from or should I go to town?" "May as well go to town. You'll need other
| |
| things."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 84 of 525
| |
| One night and they were talking like a
| |
| couple. They had skipped love and promise and
| |
| went directly to "You saying it's all right to
| |
| scramble here?"
| |
| To Sethe, the future was a matter of
| |
| keeping the past at bay. The "better life" she
| |
| believed she and Denver were living was simply
| |
| not that other one.
| |
| The fact that Paul D had come out of "that
| |
| other one" into her bed was better too; and the
| |
| notion of a future with him, or for that matter
| |
| without him, was beginning to stroke her mind.
| |
| As for Denver, the job Sethe had of keeping her
| |
| from the past that was still waiting for her was
| |
| all that mattered.
| |
| PLEASANTLY TROUBLED, Sethe avoided the
| |
| keeping room and Denver's sidelong looks. As
| |
| she expected, since life was like that--it didn't
| |
| do any good. Denver ran a mighty interference
| |
| and on the third day flat- out asked Paul D how
| |
| long he was going to hang around.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 85 of 525
| |
| The phrase hurt him so much he missed
| |
| the table. The coffee cup hit the floor and rolled
| |
| down the sloping boards toward the front door.
| |
| "Hang around?" Paul D didn't even look at
| |
| the mess he had made.
| |
| "Denver! What's got into you?" Sethe looked at her daughter, feeling more embarrassed than
| |
| angry.
| |
| Paul D scratched the hair on his chin.
| |
| "Maybe I should make tracks." "No!"
| |
| Sethe was surprised by how loud she said
| |
| it. "He know what he needs," said Denver.
| |
| "Well, you don't," Sethe told her, "and you
| |
| must not know what you need either. I don't
| |
| want to hear another word out of you."
| |
| "I just asked if--"
| |
| "Hush! You make tracks. Go somewhere and
| |
| sit down."
| |
| Denver picked up her plate and left the
| |
| table but not before adding a chicken back and
| |
| more bread to the heap she was carrying away.
| |
| Paul D leaned over to wipe the spilled coffee with his blue handkerchief.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 86 of 525
| |
| "I'll get that." Sethe jumped up and went
| |
| to the stove. Behind it various cloths hung, each
| |
| in some stage of drying. In silence she wiped the
| |
| floor and retrieved the cup. Then she poured him
| |
| another cupful, and set it carefully before him.
| |
| Paul D touched its rim but didn't say
| |
| anything--as though even "thank you" was an
| |
| obligation he could not meet and the coffee itself
| |
| a gift he could not take.
| |
| Sethe resumed her chair and the silence
| |
| continued. Finally she realized that if it was going
| |
| to be broken she would have to do it.
| |
| "I didn't train her like that."
| |
| Paul D stroked the rim of the cup.
| |
| "And I'm as surprised by her manners as
| |
| you are hurt by em." Paul D looked at
| |
| Sethe. "Is there history to her question?"
| |
| "History? What you mean?"
| |
| "I mean, did she have to ask that, or want to
| |
| ask it, of anybody else before me?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 87 of 525
| |
| Sethe made two fists and placed them on her
| |
| hips. "You as bad as she is."
| |
| "Come on, Sethe."
| |
| "Oh, I am coming on. I am!"
| |
| "You know what I mean."
| |
| "I do and I don't like it."
| |
| "Jesus," he whispered.
| |
| "Who?" Sethe was getting loud again.
| |
| "Jesus! I said Jesus! All I did was sit down
| |
| for supper! and I get cussed out twice. Once for
| |
| being here and once for asking why I was cussed
| |
| in the first place!"
| |
| "She didn't cuss."
| |
| "No? Felt like it."
| |
| "Look here. I apologize for her. I'm real-- "
| |
| "You can't do that. You can't apologize for
| |
| nobody. She got to do that." "Then I'll see
| |
| that she does." Sethe sighed.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 88 of 525
| |
| "What I want to know is, is she asking a
| |
| question that's on your mind too?"
| |
| "Oh no. No, Paul D. Oh no."
| |
| "Then she's of one mind and you another? If you can call what ever's in her head a mind, that
| |
| is."
| |
| "Excuse me, but I can't hear a word against
| |
| her. I'll chastise her.
| |
| You leave her alone."
| |
| Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a
| |
| used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that
| |
| much was dangerous, especially if it was her
| |
| children she had settled on to love. The best
| |
| thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit;
| |
| everything, just a little bit, so when they broke
| |
| its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well,
| |
| maybe you'd have a little love left over for the
| |
| next one. "Why?" he asked her. "Why you think
| |
| you have to take up for her? Apologize for her?
| |
| She's grown."
| |
| "I don't care what she is. Grown don't mean
| |
| nothing to a mother.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 89 of 525
| |
| A child is a child. They get bigger, older,
| |
| but grown? What's that supposed to mean? In
| |
| my heart it don't mean a thing."
| |
| "It means she has to take it if she acts up.
| |
| You can't protect her every minute. What's going
| |
| to happen when you die?"
| |
| "Nothing! I'll protect her while I'm live and I'll protect her when I ain't."
| |
| "Oh well, I'm through," he said. "I quit."
| |
| "That's the way it is, Paul D. I can't explain
| |
| it to you no better than that, but that's the way it
| |
| is. If I have to choose--well, it's not even a
| |
| choice."
| |
| "That's the point. The whole point. I'm not
| |
| asking you to choose.
| |
| Nobody would. I thought--well, I thought
| |
| you could--there was some space for me."
| |
| "She's asking me."
| |
| "You can't go by that. You got to say it to
| |
| her. Tell her it's not about choosing somebody
| |
| over her--it's making space for somebody along
| |
| with her. You got to say it. And if you say it and
| |
| mean it, then you also got to know you can't gag
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 90 of 525
| |
| me. There's no way I'm going to hurt her or not
| |
| take care of what she need if I can, but I can't be
| |
| told to keep my mouth shut if she's acting ugly.
| |
| You want me here, don't put no gag on me."
| |
| "Maybe I should leave things the way they are," she said.
| |
| "How are they?"
| |
| "We get along."
| |
| "What about inside?"
| |
| "I don't go inside."
| |
| "Sethe, if I'm here with you, with Denver,
| |
| you can go anywhere you want. Jump, if you
| |
| want to, 'cause I'll catch you, girl. I'll catch you
| |
| "fore you fall. Go as far inside as you need to, I'll
| |
| hold your ankles. Make sure you get back out.
| |
| I'm not saying this because I need a place to
| |
| stay. That's the last thing I need. I told you, I'm
| |
| a walking man, but I been heading in this
| |
| direction for seven years.
| |
| Walking all around this place. Upstate,
| |
| downstate, east, west; I been in territory ain't
| |
| got no name, never staying nowhere long. But
| |
| when I got here and sat out there on the porch,
| |
| waiting for you, well, I knew it wasn't the place I
| |
| was heading toward; it was you. We can make a
| |
| life, girl. A life."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 91 of 525
| |
| "I don't know. I don't know."
| |
| "Leave it to me. See how it goes. No
| |
| promises, if you don't want to make any. Just
| |
| see how it goes. All right?"
| |
| "All right."
| |
| "You willing to leave it to me?"
| |
| "Well--some of it."
| |
| "Some?" he smiled. "Okay. Here's some.
| |
| There's a carnival in town. Thursday, tomorrow,
| |
| is for coloreds and I got two dollars.
| |
| Me and you and Denver gonna spend every penny of it. What you say?"
| |
| "No" is what she said. At least what she
| |
| started out saying (what would her boss say if
| |
| she took a day off?), but even when she said it
| |
| she was thinking how much her eyes enjoyed
| |
| looking in his face.
| |
| The crickets were screaming on Thursday
| |
| and the sky, stripped of blue, was white hot at
| |
| eleven in the morning. Sethe was badly dressed
| |
| for the heat, but this being her first social outing
| |
| in eighteen years, she felt obliged to wear her
| |
| one good dress, heavy as it was, and a hat.
| |
| Certainly a hat. She didn't want to meet Lady
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 92 of 525
| |
| Jones or Ella with her head wrapped like she was
| |
| going to work. The dress, a good- wool castoff,
| |
| was a Christmas present to Baby Suggs from
| |
| Miss Bodwin, the whitewoman who loved her.
| |
| Denver and Paul D fared better in the heat since
| |
| neither felt the occasion required special
| |
| clothing. Denver's bonnet knocked against her
| |
| shoulder blades; Paul D wore his vest open, no
| |
| jacket and his shirt sleeves rolled above his
| |
| elbows. They were not holding hands, but their
| |
| shadows were. Sethe looked to her left and all
| |
| three of them were gliding over the dust holding
| |
| hands. Maybe he was right. A life. Watching their
| |
| hand holding shadows, she was embarrassed at
| |
| being dressed for church.
| |
| The others, ahead and behind them,
| |
| would think she was putting on airs, letting them
| |
| know that she was different because she lived in
| |
| a house with two stories; tougher, because she
| |
| could do and
| |
| survive things they believed she should
| |
| neither do nor survive. She was glad Denver
| |
| had resisted her urgings to dress up--rebraid
| |
| her hair at least.
| |
| But Denver was not doing anything to
| |
| make this trip a pleasure. She agreed to
| |
| go--sullenly--but her attitude was "Go 'head. Try
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 93 of 525
| |
| and make me happy." The happy one was Paul
| |
| D. He said howdy to everybody within twenty
| |
| feet. Made fun of the weather and what it was
| |
| doing to him, yelled back at the crows, and was
| |
| the first to smell the doomed roses. All the time,
| |
| no matter what they were doing-- whether
| |
| Denver wiped perspiration from her forehead or
| |
| stooped to retie her shoes; whether Paul D
| |
| kicked a stone or reached over to meddle a
| |
| child's face leaning on its mother's shoulder--all
| |
| the time the three shadows that shot out of their
| |
| feet to the left held hands.
| |
| Nobody noticed but Sethe and she
| |
| stopped looking after she decided that it was a
| |
| good sign. A life. Could be.
| |
| Up and down the lumberyard fence old
| |
| roses were dying. The sawyer who had planted
| |
| them twelve years ago to give his workplace a
| |
| friendly feel--something to take the sin out of
| |
| slicing trees for a living--was amazed by their
| |
| abundance; how rapidly they crawled all over
| |
| the stake-and-post fence that separated the
| |
| lumberyard from the open field next to it where
| |
| homeless men slept, children ran and, once a
| |
| year, carnival people pitched tents. The closer
| |
| the roses got to death, the louder their scent,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 94 of 525
| |
| and everybody who attended the carnival
| |
| associated it with the stench of the rotten roses.
| |
| It made them a little dizzy and very thirsty but
| |
| did nothing to extinguish the eagerness of the
| |
| coloredpeople filing down the road. Some
| |
| walked on the grassy shoulders, others dodged
| |
| the wagons creaking down the road's dusty
| |
| center. All, like Paul D, were in high spirits,
| |
| which the smell of dying roses (that Paul D called
| |
| to everybody's attention) could not dampen. As
| |
| they pressed to get to the rope entrance they
| |
| were lit like lamps. Breathless with the
| |
| excitement of seeing white people loose: doing
| |
| magic, clowning, without heads or with two
| |
| heads, twenty feet tall or two feet tall, weighing
| |
| a ton, completely tattooed, eating glass,
| |
| swallowing fire, spitting ribbons, twisted into
| |
| knots, forming pyramids, playing with snakes
| |
| and beating each other up.
| |
| All of this was advertisement, read by
| |
| those who could and heard by those who could
| |
| not, and the fact that none of it was true did not
| |
| extinguish their appetite a bit. The barker called
| |
| them and their children names ("Pickaninnies
| |
| free!") but the food on his vest and the hole in
| |
| his pants rendered it fairly harmless. In any case
| |
| it was a small price to pay for the fun they might
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 95 of 525
| |
| not ever have again. Two pennies and an insult
| |
| were well spent if it meant seeing the spectacle
| |
| of whitefolks making a spectacle of themselves.
| |
| So, although the carnival was a lot less than
| |
| mediocre (which is why it agreed to a Colored
| |
| Thursday), it gave the four hundred black people
| |
| in its audience thrill upon thrill upon thrill.
| |
| One-Ton Lady spit at them, but her bulk
| |
| shortened her aim and they got a big kick out of
| |
| the helpless meanness in her little eyes.
| |
| Arabian Nights Dancer cut her
| |
| performance to three minutes instead of the
| |
| usual fifteen she normally did-earning the
| |
| gratitude of the children, who could hardly wait
| |
| for Abu Snake Charmer, who followed her.
| |
| Denver bought horehound, licorice,
| |
| peppermint and lemonade at a table manned by a
| |
| little whitegirl in ladies' high-topped shoes.
| |
| Soothed by sugar, surrounded by a crowd of
| |
| people who did not find her the main attraction,
| |
| who, in fact, said, "Hey, Denver," every now and
| |
| then, pleased her enough to consider the
| |
| possibility that Paul D wasn't all that bad. In fact
| |
| there was something about him-- when the three
| |
| of them stood together watching Midget
| |
| dance--that made the stares of other Negroes
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 96 of 525
| |
| kind, gentle, something Denver did not remember
| |
| seeing in their faces. Several even nodded and
| |
| smiled at her mother, no one, apparently, able to
| |
| withstand sharing the pleasure Paul D. was
| |
| having. He slapped his knees when Giant danced
| |
| with Midget; when Two-Headed Man talked to
| |
| himself. He bought everything Denver asked for
| |
| and much she did not. He teased Sethe into tents
| |
| she was reluctant to enter. Stuck pieces of candy
| |
| she didn't want between her lips. When Wild
| |
| African Savage shook his bars and said wa wa,
| |
| Paul D told everybody he knew him back in
| |
| Roanoke.
| |
| Paul D made a few acquaintances; spoke to
| |
| them about what work he might find. Sethe
| |
| returned the smiles she got. Denver was swaying
| |
| with delight. And on the way home, although
| |
| leading them now, the shadows of three people
| |
| still held hands.
| |
| A FULLY DRESSED woman walked out of the
| |
| water. She barely gained the dry bank of the
| |
| stream before she sat down and leaned against a
| |
| mulberry tree. All day and all night she sat there,
| |
| her head resting on the trunk in a position
| |
| abandoned enough to crack the brim in her straw
| |
| hat. Everything hurt but her lungs most of all.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 97 of 525
| |
| Sopping wet and breathing shallow she
| |
| spent those hours trying to negotiate the weight
| |
| of her eyelids. The day breeze blew her dress dry;
| |
| the night wind wrinkled it. Nobody saw her
| |
| emerge or came accidentally by. If they had,
| |
| chances are they would have hesitated before
| |
| approaching her. Not because she was wet, or
| |
| dozing or had what sounded like asthma, but
| |
| because amid all that she was smiling.
| |
| It took her the whole of the next morning to
| |
| lift herself from the ground and make her way
| |
| through the woods past a giant temple of
| |
| boxwood to the field and then the yard of the
| |
| slate-gray house.
| |
| Exhausted again, she sat down on the first
| |
| handy place--a stump not far from the steps of
| |
| 124. By then keeping her eyes open was less of an
| |
| effort. She could manage it for a full two minutes
| |
| or more.
| |
| Her neck, its circumference no wider than a
| |
| parlor-service saucer, kept bending and her chin
| |
| brushed the bit of lace edging her dress.
| |
| Women who drink champagne when there is
| |
| nothing to celebrate can look like that: their straw
| |
| hats with broken brims are often askew; they nod
| |
| in public places; their shoes are undone. But their
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 98 of 525
| |
| skin is not like that of the woman breathing near
| |
| the steps of 124. She had new skin, lineless and
| |
| smooth, including the knuckles of her hands.
| |
| By late afternoon when the carnival was
| |
| over, and the Negroes were hitching rides home if
| |
| they were lucky--walking if they were not--the
| |
| woman had fallen asleep again. The rays of the
| |
| sun struck her
| |
| full in the face, so that when Sethe, Denver and
| |
| Paul D rounded the curve in the road all they
| |
| saw was a black dress, two unlaced shoes below
| |
| it, and Here Boy nowhere in sight.
| |
| "Look," said Denver. "What is that?"
| |
| And, for some reason she could not
| |
| immediately account for, the moment she got
| |
| close enough to see the face, Sethe's bladder
| |
| filled to capacity. She said, "Oh, excuse me," and
| |
| ran around to the back of 124. Not since she was
| |
| a baby girl, being cared for by the eight year-old
| |
| girl who pointed out her mother to her, had she
| |
| had an emergency that unmanageable. She
| |
| never made the outhouse. Right in front of its
| |
| door she had to lift her skirts, and the water she
| |
| voided was endless. Like a horse, she thought,
| |
| but as it went on and on she thought, No, more
| |
| like flooding the boat when Denver was born. So
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 99 of 525
| |
| much water Amy said, "Hold on, Lu. You going to
| |
| sink us you keep that up." But there was no
| |
| stopping water breaking from a breaking womb
| |
| and there was no stopping now. She hoped Paul
| |
| D wouldn't take it upon himself to come looking
| |
| for her and be obliged to see her squatting in
| |
| front of her own privy making a mudhole too
| |
| deep to be witnessed without shame. Just about
| |
| the time she started wondering if the carnival
| |
| would accept another freak, it stopped. She
| |
| tidied herself and ran around to the porch. No
| |
| one was there. All three were insidePaul D and
| |
| Denver standing before the stranger, watching
| |
| her drink cup after cup of water.
| |
| "She said she was thirsty," said Paul D. He took off his cap.
| |
| "Mighty thirsty look like."
| |
| The woman gulped water from a speckled
| |
| tin cup and held it out for more. Four times
| |
| Denver filled it, and four times the woman
| |
| drank as though she had crossed a desert.
| |
| When she was finished a little water was on her
| |
| chin, but she did not wipe it away. Instead she
| |
| gazed at Sethe with sleepy eyes. Poorly fed,
| |
| thought Sethe, and younger than her clothes
| |
| suggested--good lace at the throat, and a rich
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 100 of 525
| |
| woman's hat. Her skin was flawless except for
| |
| three vertical scratches on her forehead so fine
| |
| and thin they seemed at first like hair, baby hair
| |
| before it bloomed and roped into the masses of
| |
| black yarn under her hat.
| |
| "You from around here?" Sethe asked her.
| |
| She shook her head no and reached down to
| |
| take off her shoes.
| |
| She pulled her dress up to the knees and
| |
| rolled down her stockings.
| |
| When the hosiery was tucked into the
| |
| shoes, Sethe saw that her feet were like her
| |
| hands, soft and new. She must have hitched a
| |
| wagon ride, thought Sethe. Probably one of
| |
| those West Virginia girls looking for something
| |
| to beat a life of tobacco and sorghum. Sethe
| |
| bent to pick up the shoes.
| |
| "What might your name be?" asked Paul D.
| |
| "Beloved," she said, and her voice was so
| |
| low and rough each one looked at the other two.
| |
| They heard the voice first—later the name.
| |
| "Beloved. You use a last name, Beloved?" Paul D asked her.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 101 of 525
| |
| "Last?" She seemed puzzled. Then "No,"
| |
| and she spelled it for them, slowly as though the
| |
| letters were being formed as she spoke them.
| |
| Sethe dropped the shoes; Denver sat down and Paul D smiled.
| |
| He recognized the careful enunciation of
| |
| letters by those, like himself, who could not read
| |
| but had memorized the letters of their name. He
| |
| was about to ask who her people were but
| |
| thought better of it. A young coloredwoman
| |
| drifting was drifting from ruin. He had been in
| |
| Rochester four years ago and seen five women
| |
| arriving with fourteen female children. All their
| |
| men--brothers, uncles, fathers, husbands,
| |
| sons--had been picked off one by one by one.
| |
| They had a single piece of paper directing them
| |
| to a preacher on DeVore Street.
| |
| The War had been over four or five years
| |
| then, but nobody white or black seemed to know
| |
| it. Odd clusters and strays of Negroes wandered
| |
| the back roads and cowpaths from Schenectady
| |
| to Jackson.
| |
| Dazed but insistent, they searched each
| |
| other out for word of a cousin, an aunt, a friend
| |
| who once said, "Call on me. Anytime you get near
| |
| Chicago, just call on me." Some of them were
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 102 of 525
| |
| running from family that could not support them,
| |
| some to family; some were running from dead
| |
| crops, dead kin, life threats, and took-over land.
| |
| Boys younger than Buglar and Howard;
| |
| configurations and blends of families of women
| |
| and children, while elsewhere, solitary, hunted
| |
| and hunting for, were men, men, men. Forbidden
| |
| public transportation, chased by debt and filthy
| |
| "talking sheets," they followed secondary routes,
| |
| scanned the horizon for signs and counted
| |
| heavily on each other. Silent, except for social
| |
| courtesies, when they met one another they
| |
| neither described nor asked about the sorrow
| |
| that drove them from one place to another. The
| |
| whites didn't bear speaking on. Everybody knew.
| |
| So he did not press the young woman with
| |
| the broken hat about where from or how come. If
| |
| she wanted them to know and was strong enough
| |
| to get through the telling, she would. What
| |
| occupied them at the moment was what it might
| |
| be that she needed. Underneath the major
| |
| question, each harbored another. Paul D
| |
| wondered at the newness of her shoes. Sethe
| |
| was deeply touched by her sweet name; the
| |
| remembrance of glittering headstone made her
| |
| feel especially kindly toward her. Denver,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 103 of 525
| |
| however, was shaking. She looked at this sleepy
| |
| beauty and wanted more.
| |
| Sethe hung her hat on a peg and
| |
| turned graciously toward the girl. "That's a
| |
| pretty name, Beloved. Take off your hat,
| |
| why don't you, and I'll make us something.
| |
| We just got back from the carnival over near
| |
| Cincinnati. Everything in there is something
| |
| to see."
| |
| Bolt upright in the chair, in the middle of Sethe's welcome, Beloved had fallen asleep again.
| |
| "Miss. Miss." Paul D shook her gently. "You want to lay down a spell?"
| |
| She opened her eyes to slits and stood up
| |
| on her soft new feet which, barely capable of
| |
| their job, slowly bore her to the keeping room.
| |
| Once there, she collapsed on Baby Suggs' bed.
| |
| Denver removed her hat and put the quilt with
| |
| two squares of color over her feet.
| |
| She was breathing like a steam engine.
| |
| "Sounds like croup," said Paul D, closing the
| |
| door.
| |
| "Is she feverish? Denver, could you tell?"
| |
| "No. She's cold."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 104 of 525
| |
| "Then she is. Fever goes from hot to cold."
| |
| "Could have the cholera," said Paul D.
| |
| "Reckon?"
| |
| "All that water. Sure sign."
| |
| "Poor thing. And nothing in this house to
| |
| give her for it. She'll just have to ride it out.
| |
| That's a hateful sickness if ever there was one."
| |
| "She's not sick!" said Denver, and the passion in her voice made them smile.
| |
| Four days she slept, waking and sitting
| |
| up only for water. Denver tended her, watched
| |
| her sound sleep, listened to her labored
| |
| breathing and, out of love and a breakneck
| |
| possessiveness that charged her, hid like a
| |
| personal blemish Beloved's incontinence. She
| |
| rinsed the sheets secretly, after Sethe went to
| |
| the restaurant and Paul D went scrounging for
| |
| barges to help unload. She boiled the
| |
| underwear and soaked it in bluing, praying the
| |
| fever would pass without damage.
| |
| So intent was her nursing, she forgot to eat or visit the emerald closet.
| |
| "Beloved?" Denver would whisper.
| |
| "Beloved?" and when the black eyes opened a
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 105 of 525
| |
| slice all she could say was "I'm here. I'm still
| |
| here."
| |
| Sometimes, when Beloved lay
| |
| dreamy-eyed for a very long time, saying
| |
| nothing, licking her lips and heaving deep sighs,
| |
| Denver panicked.
| |
| "What is it?" she would ask.
| |
| "Heavy," murmured Beloved. "This place is
| |
| heavy."
| |
| "Would you like to sit up?"
| |
| "No," said the raspy voice.
| |
| It took three days for Beloved to notice
| |
| the orange patches in the darkness of the quilt.
| |
| Denver was pleased because it kept her patient
| |
| awake longer. She seemed totally taken with
| |
| those faded scraps of orange, even made the
| |
| effort to lean on her elbow and stroke them.
| |
| An effort that quickly exhausted her, so
| |
| Denver rearranged the quilt so its cheeriest part
| |
| was in the sick girl's sight line.
| |
| Patience, something Denver had never
| |
| known, overtook her. As long as her mother
| |
| did not interfere, she was a model of
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 106 of 525
| |
| compassion, turning waspish, though, when
| |
| Sethe tried to help.
| |
| "Did she take a spoonful of anything today?"
| |
| Sethe inquired.
| |
| "She shouldn't eat with cholera."
| |
| "You sure that's it? Was just a hunch of Paul
| |
| D's."
| |
| "I don't know, but she shouldn't eat anyway
| |
| just yet."
| |
| "I think cholera people puke all the time."
| |
| "That's even more reason, ain't it?"
| |
| "Well she shouldn't starve to death either,
| |
| Denver."
| |
| "Leave us alone, Ma'am. I'm taking care of
| |
| her."
| |
| "She say anything?"
| |
| "I'd let you know if she did."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 107 of 525
| |
| Sethe looked at her daughter and thought,
| |
| Yes, she has been lonesome. Very lonesome.
| |
| "Wonder where Here Boy got off to?" Sethe
| |
| thought a change of subject was needed.
| |
| "He won't be back," said Denver.
| |
| "How you know?"
| |
| "I just know." Denver took a square of sweet
| |
| bread off the plate.
| |
| Back in the keeping room, Denver was
| |
| about to sit down when Beloved's eyes flew wide
| |
| open. Denver felt her heart race. It wasn't that
| |
| she was looking at that face for the first time
| |
| with no trace of sleep in it, or that the eyes were
| |
| big and black. Nor was it that the whites of them
| |
| were much too white-blue-white. It was that
| |
| deep down in those big black eyes there was no
| |
| expression at all.
| |
| "Can I get you something?"
| |
| Beloved looked at the sweet bread in
| |
| Denver's hands and Denver held it out to her. She
| |
| smiled then and Denver's heart stopped bouncing
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 108 of 525
| |
| and sat down—relieved and easeful like a traveler
| |
| who had made it home.
| |
| From that moment and through everything
| |
| that followed, sugar could always be counted on
| |
| to please her. It was as though sweet things were
| |
| what she was born for. Honey as well as the wax it
| |
| came in, sugar sandwiches, the sludgy molasses
| |
| gone hard and brutal in the can, lemonade, taffy
| |
| and any type of dessert Sethe brought home from
| |
| the restaurant. She gnawed a cane stick to flax
| |
| and kept the strings in her mouth long after the
| |
| syrup had been sucked away.
| |
| Denver laughed, Sethe smiled and Paul D said it made him sick to his stomach.
| |
| Sethe believed it was a recovering body's
| |
| need—after an illness-- for quick strength. But it
| |
| was a need that went on and on into glowing
| |
| health because Beloved didn't go anywhere.
| |
| There didn't seem anyplace for her to go. She
| |
| didn't mention one, or have much of an idea of
| |
| what she was doing in that part of the country or
| |
| where she had been. They believed the fever had
| |
| caused her memory to fail just as it kept her
| |
| slow-moving. A young woman, about nineteen or
| |
| twenty, and slender, she moved like a heavier one
| |
| or an older one, holding on to furniture, resting
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 109 of 525
| |
| her head in the palm of her hand as though it was
| |
| too heavy for a neck alone.
| |
| "You just gonna feed her? From now on?"
| |
| Paul D, feeling ungenerous, and surprised by it,
| |
| heard the irritability in his voice.
| |
| "Denver likes her. She's no real trouble. I
| |
| thought we'd wait till her breath was better. She
| |
| still sounds a little lumbar to me."
| |
| "Something funny 'bout that gal," Paul D
| |
| said, mostly to himself.
| |
| "Funny how?"
| |
| "Acts sick, sounds sick, but she don't look
| |
| sick. Good skin, bright eyes and strong as a bull."
| |
| "She's not strong. She can hardly walk
| |
| without holding on to something."
| |
| "That's what I mean. Can't walk, but I seen
| |
| her pick up the rocker with one hand."
| |
| "You didn't."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 110 of 525
| |
| "Don't tell me. Ask Denver. She was right
| |
| there with her."
| |
| "Denver! Come in here a minute."
| |
| Denver stopped rinsing the porch and stuck
| |
| her head in the window.
| |
| "Paul D says you and him saw Beloved pick up the rocking chair single-handed. That so?"
| |
| Long, heavy lashes made Denver's eyes
| |
| seem busier than they were; deceptive, even
| |
| when she held a steady gaze as she did now on
| |
| Paul D. "No," she said. "I didn't see no such
| |
| thing."
| |
| Paul D frowned but said nothing. If there had been an open latch between them, it would have
| |
| closed.
| |
| RAINWATER held on to pine needles for dear life
| |
| and Beloved could not take her eyes off Sethe.
| |
| Stooping to shake the damper, or snapping sticks
| |
| for kindlin, Sethe was licked, tasted, eaten by
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 111 of 525
| |
| Beloved's eyes. Like a familiar, she hovered,
| |
| never leaving the room Sethe was in unless
| |
| required and told to. She rose early in the dark to
| |
| be there, waiting, in the kitchen when Sethe
| |
| came down to make fast bread before she left for
| |
| work. In lamplight, and over the flames of the
| |
| cooking stove, their two shadows clashed and
| |
| crossed on the ceiling like black swords. She was
| |
| in the window at two when Sethe returned, or the
| |
| doorway; then the porch, its steps, the path, the
| |
| road, till finally, surrendering to the habit,
| |
| Beloved began inching down Bluestone Road
| |
| further and further each day to meet Sethe and
| |
| walk her back to 124. It was as though every
| |
| afternoon she doubted anew the older woman's
| |
| return.
| |
| Sethe was flattered by Beloved's open,
| |
| quiet devotion. The same adoration from her
| |
| daughter (had it been forthcoming) would have
| |
| annoyed her; made her chill at the thought of
| |
| having raised a ridiculously dependent child.
| |
| But the company of this sweet, if peculiar,
| |
| guest pleased her the way a zealot pleases his
| |
| teacher.
| |
| Time came when lamps had to be lit early
| |
| because night arrived sooner and sooner.
| |
| Sethe was leaving for work in the dark; Paul D
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 112 of 525
| |
| was walking home in it. On one such evening
| |
| dark and cool, Sethe cut a rutabaga into four
| |
| pieces and left them stewing. She gave Denver
| |
| a half peck of peas to sort and soak overnight.
| |
| Then she sat herself down to rest. The heat of
| |
| the stove made her drowsy and she was sliding
| |
| into sleep when she felt Beloved touch her. A
| |
| touch no heavier than a feather but loaded,
| |
| nevertheless, with desire. Sethe stirred and
| |
| looked around. First at Beloved's soft new hand
| |
| on her shoulder, then into her eyes. The
| |
| longing she saw there was bottomless. Some
| |
| plea barely in control. Sethe patted Beloved's
| |
| fingers and glanced at Denver, whose eyes
| |
| were fixed on her pea-sorting task.
| |
| "Where your diamonds?" Beloved searched
| |
| Sethe's face.
| |
| "Diamonds? What would I be doing with
| |
| diamonds?"
| |
| "On your ears."
| |
| "Wish I did. I had some crystal once. A
| |
| present from a lady I worked for."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 113 of 525
| |
| "Tell me," said Beloved, smiling a wide
| |
| happy smile. "Tell me your diamonds."
| |
| It became a way to feed her. Just as Denver
| |
| discovered and relied on the delightful effect
| |
| sweet things had on Beloved, Sethe learned the
| |
| profound satisfaction Beloved got from
| |
| storytelling. It amazed Sethe (as much as it
| |
| pleased Beloved) because every mention of her
| |
| past life hurt. Everything in it was painful or lost.
| |
| She and Baby Suggs had agreed without saying so
| |
| that it was unspeakable; to Denver's inquiries
| |
| Sethe gave short replies or rambling incomplete
| |
| reveries.
| |
| Even with Paul D, who had shared some of it
| |
| and to whom she could talk with at least a
| |
| measure of calm, the hurt was always there-like a
| |
| tender place in the corner of her mouth that the bit
| |
| left.
| |
| But, as she began telling about the earrings,
| |
| she found herself wanting to, liking it. Perhaps it
| |
| was Beloved's distance from the events itself, or
| |
| her thirst for hearing it—in any case it was an
| |
| unexpected pleasure.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 114 of 525
| |
| Above the patter of the pea sorting and the
| |
| sharp odor of cooking rutabaga, Sethe explained
| |
| the crystal that once hung from her ears.
| |
| "That lady I worked for in Kentucky gave
| |
| them to me when I got married. What they called
| |
| married hack there and back then. I guess she saw
| |
| how bad I felt when I found out there wasn't going
| |
| to be no ceremony, no preacher. Nothing. I
| |
| thought there should be something--something to
| |
| say it was right and true. I didn't want it to be just
| |
| me moving over a bit of pallet full of corn husks.
| |
| Or just me bringing my night bucket into his cabin.
| |
| I thought there should be some ceremony.
| |
| Dancing maybe. A little sweet william in my hair."
| |
| Sethe smiled. "I never saw a wedding, but I saw
| |
| Mrs. Garner's wedding gown in the press, and
| |
| heard her go on about what it was like. Two
| |
| pounds of currants in the cake, she said, and four
| |
| whole sheep. The people were still eating the next
| |
| day. That's what I wanted.
| |
| A meal maybe, where me and Halle and all
| |
| the Sweet Home men sat down and ate something
| |
| special. Invite some of the other colored people
| |
| from over by Covington or High Trees--those
| |
| places Sixo used to sneak off to. But it wasn't
| |
| going to be nothing. They said it was all right for
| |
| us to be husband and wife and that was it. All of it.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 115 of 525
| |
| "Well, I made up my mind to have at the
| |
| least a dress that wasn't the sacking I worked in.
| |
| So I took to stealing fabric, and wound up with a
| |
| dress you wouldn't believe. The top was from
| |
| two pillow cases in her mending basket. The
| |
| front of the skirt was a dresser scarf a candle fell
| |
| on and burnt a hole in, and one of her old sashes
| |
| we used to test the flatiron on. Now the back was
| |
| a problem for the longest time. Seem like I
| |
| couldn't find a thing that wouldn't be missed
| |
| right away. Because I had to take it apart
| |
| afterwards and put all the pieces back where
| |
| they were. Now Halle was patient, waiting for me
| |
| to finish it. He knew I wouldn't go ahead without
| |
| having it.
| |
| Finally I took the mosquito netting from a
| |
| nail out the barn. We used it to strain jelly
| |
| through. I washed it and soaked it best I could and
| |
| tacked it on for the back of the skirt. And there I
| |
| was, in the worst-looking gown you could imagine.
| |
| Only my wool shawl kept me from looking like a
| |
| haint peddling. I wasn't but fourteen years old, so
| |
| I reckon that's why I was so proud of myself.
| |
| "Anyhow, Mrs. Garner must have seen me
| |
| in it. I thought I was stealing smart, and she
| |
| knew everything I did. Even our honeymoon:
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 116 of 525
| |
| going down to the cornfield with Halle. That's
| |
| where we went first.
| |
| A Saturday afternoon it was. He begged
| |
| sick so he wouldn't have to go work in town that
| |
| day. Usually he worked Saturdays and Sundays
| |
| to pay off Baby Suggs' freedom. But he begged
| |
| sick and I put on my dress and we walked into
| |
| the corn holding hands. I can still smell the ears
| |
| roasting yonder where the Pauls and Sixo was.
| |
| Next day Mrs. Garner crooked her finger at me
| |
| and took me upstairs to her bedroom. She
| |
| opened up a wooden box and took out a pair of
| |
| crystal earrings. She said, 'I want you to have
| |
| these, Sethe.' I said, 'Yes, ma'am.'
| |
| 'Are your ears pierced?' she said. I said, 'No, ma'am.'
| |
| 'Well do it,' she said, 'so you can wear
| |
| them. I want you to have them and I want you
| |
| and Halle to be happy.' I thanked her but I never
| |
| did put them on till I got away from there. One
| |
| day after I walked into this here house Baby
| |
| Suggs unknotted my underskirt and took em
| |
| out. I sat right here by the stove with Denver in
| |
| my arms and let her punch holes in my ears for
| |
| to wear them."
| |
| "I never saw you in no earrings," said Denver. "Where are they now?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 117 of 525
| |
| "Gone," said Sethe. "Long gone," and she
| |
| wouldn't say another word. Until the next time
| |
| when all three of them ran through the wind
| |
| back into the house with rainsoaked sheets and
| |
| petticoats.
| |
| Panting, laughing, they draped the laundry over the chairs and table.
| |
| Beloved filled herself with water from the
| |
| bucket and watched while Sethe rubbed
| |
| Denver's hair with a piece of toweling.
| |
| "Maybe we should unbraid it?" asked Sethe.
| |
| "Oh uh. Tomorrow." Denver crouched
| |
| forward at the thought of a fine-tooth comb pulling
| |
| her
| |
| hair.
| |
| "Today is always here," said Sethe.
| |
| "Tomorrow, never."
| |
| "It hurts," Denver said.
| |
| "Comb it every day, it won't."
| |
| "Ouch."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 118 of 525
| |
| "Your woman she never fix up your hair?"
| |
| Beloved asked.
| |
| Sethe and Denver looked up at her. After
| |
| four weeks they still had not got used to the
| |
| gravelly voice and the song that seemed to lie in
| |
| it. Just outside music it lay, with a cadence not
| |
| like theirs.
| |
| "Your woman she never fix up your hair?"
| |
| was clearly a question for sethe, since that's
| |
| who she was looking at.
| |
| "My woman? You mean my mother? If she did, I don't remember.
| |
| I didn't see her but a few times out in the
| |
| fields and once when she was working indigo. By
| |
| the time I woke up in the morning, she was in
| |
| line. If the moon was bright they worked by its
| |
| light. Sunday she slept like a stick. She must of
| |
| nursed me two or three weeks--that's the way
| |
| the others did. Then she went back in rice and I
| |
| sucked from another woman whose job it was.
| |
| So to answer you, no. I reckon not. She never
| |
| fixed my hair nor nothing. She didn't even sleep
| |
| in the same cabin most nights I remember. Too
| |
| far from the line-up, I guess. One thing she did
| |
| do. She picked me up and carried me behind the
| |
| smokehouse. Back there she opened up her
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 119 of 525
| |
| dress front and lifted her breast and pointed
| |
| under it. Right on her rib was a circle and a cross
| |
| burnt right in the skin. She said, 'This is your
| |
| ma'am. This,' and she pointed. 'I am the only
| |
| one got this mark now. The rest dead. If
| |
| something happens to me and you can't tell me
| |
| by my face, you can know me by this mark.'
| |
| Scared me so. All I could think of was how
| |
| important this was and how I needed to have
| |
| something important to say back, but I couldn't
| |
| think of anything so I just said what I thought.
| |
| 'Yes, Ma'am,' I said. 'But how will you know me?
| |
| How will you know me? Mark me, too,' I said.
| |
| 'Mark the mark on me too.'" Sethe chuckled.
| |
| "Did she?" asked Denver.
| |
| "She slapped my face."
| |
| "What for?"
| |
| "I didn't understand it then. Not till I had a
| |
| mark of my own."
| |
| "What happened to her?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 120 of 525
| |
| "Hung. By the time they cut her down
| |
| nobody could tell whether she had a circle and a
| |
| cross or not, least of all me and I did look."
| |
| Sethe gathered hair from the comb and
| |
| leaning back tossed it into the fire. It exploded
| |
| into stars and the smell infuriated them. "Oh,
| |
| my Jesus," she said and stood up so suddenly
| |
| the comb she had parked in Denver's hair fell to
| |
| the floor.
| |
| "Ma'am? What's the matter with you, Ma'am?"
| |
| Sethe walked over to a chair, lifted a sheet
| |
| and stretched it as wide as her arms would go.
| |
| Then she folded, refolded and double folded it.
| |
| She took another. Neither was completely dry
| |
| but the folding felt too fine to stop. She had to
| |
| do something with her hands because she was
| |
| remembering something she had forgotten she
| |
| knew.
| |
| Something privately shameful that had
| |
| seeped into a slit in her mind right behind the
| |
| slap on her face and the circled cross.
| |
| "Why they hang your ma'am?" Denver
| |
| asked. This was the first time she had heard
| |
| anything about her mother's mother. Baby
| |
| Suggs was the only grandmother she knew.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 121 of 525
| |
| "I never found out. It was a lot of them,"
| |
| she said, but what was getting clear and clearer
| |
| as she folded and refolded damp laundry was
| |
| the woman called Nan who took her hand and
| |
| yanked her away from the pile before she could
| |
| make out the mark. Nan was the one she knew
| |
| best, who was around all day, who nursed
| |
| babies, cooked, had one good arm and half of
| |
| another. And who used different words.
| |
| Words Sethe understood then but could
| |
| neither recall nor repeat now. She believed that
| |
| must be why she remembered so little before
| |
| Sweet Home except singing and dancing and
| |
| how crowded it was.
| |
| What Nan told her she had forgotten,
| |
| along with the language she told it in. The same
| |
| language her ma'am spoke, and which would
| |
| never come back. But the message--that was
| |
| and had been there all along. Holding the damp
| |
| white sheets against her chest, she was picking
| |
| meaning out of a code she no longer
| |
| understood. Nighttime.
| |
| Nan holding her with her good arm,
| |
| waving the stump of the other in the air. "Telling
| |
| you. I am telling you, small girl Sethe," and she
| |
| did that. She told Sethe that her mother and
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 122 of 525
| |
| Nan were together from the sea. Both were
| |
| taken up many times by the crew. "She threw
| |
| them all away but you. The one from the crew
| |
| she threw away on the island. The others from
| |
| more whites she also threw away. Without
| |
| names, she threw them. You she gave the name
| |
| of the black man.
| |
| She put her arms around him. The others
| |
| she did not put her arms around. Never. Never.
| |
| Telling you. I am telling you, small girl Sethe."
| |
| As small girl Sethe, she was unimpressed.
| |
| As grown-up woman Sethe she was angry, but
| |
| not certain at what. A mighty wish for Baby
| |
| Suggs broke over her like surf. In the quiet
| |
| following its splash, Sethe looked at the two
| |
| girls sitting by the stove: her sickly,
| |
| shallow-minded boarder, her irritable, lonely
| |
| daughter. They seemed little and far away.
| |
| "Paul D be here in a minute," she said.
| |
| Denver sighed with relief. For a minute
| |
| there, while her mother stood folding the wash
| |
| lost in thought, she clamped her teeth and
| |
| prayed it would stop. Denver hated the stories
| |
| her mother told that did not concern herself,
| |
| which is why Amy was all she ever asked about.
| |
| The rest was a gleaming, powerful world made
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 123 of 525
| |
| more so by Denver's absence from it. Not being
| |
| in it, she hated it and wanted Beloved to hate it
| |
| too, although there was no chance of that at all.
| |
| Beloved took every opportunity to ask
| |
| some funny question and get Sethe going.
| |
| Denver noticed how greedy she was to hear
| |
| Sethe talk.
| |
| Now she noticed something more. The questions Beloved asked: "Where your diamonds?"
| |
| "Your woman she never fix up your hair?"
| |
| And most perplexing: Tell me your earrings.
| |
| How did she know? strawberry plants did
| |
| before they shot out their thin vines: the quality
| |
| of the green changed. Then the vine threads
| |
| came, then the buds. By the time the white
| |
| petals died and the mint-colored berry poked
| |
| out, the leaf shine was gilded fight and waxy.
| |
| That's how Beloved looked-- gilded and shining.
| |
| Paul D took to having Sethe on waking, so that
| |
| later, when he went down the white stairs where
| |
| she made bread under Beloved's gaze, his head
| |
| was clear.
| |
| In the evening when he came home and
| |
| the three of them were all there fixing the supper
| |
| table, her shine was so pronounced he wondered
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 124 of 525
| |
| why Denver and Sethe didn't see it. Or maybe
| |
| they did.
| |
| Certainly women could tell, as men could,
| |
| when one of their number was aroused. Paul D
| |
| looked carefully at Beloved to see if she was
| |
| aware of it but she paid him no attention at
| |
| all--frequently not even answering a direct
| |
| question put to her. She would look at him and
| |
| not open her mouth. Five weeks she had been
| |
| with them, and they didn't know any more about
| |
| her than they did when they found her asleep on
| |
| the stump.
| |
| They were seated at the table Paul D had
| |
| broken the day he arrived at 124. Its mended
| |
| legs stronger than before. The cabbage was all
| |
| gone and the shiny ankle bones of smoked pork
| |
| were pushed in a heap on their plates. Sethe was
| |
| dishing up bread pudding, murmuring her hopes
| |
| for it, apologizing in advance the way veteran
| |
| cooks always do, when something in Beloved's
| |
| face, some petlike adoration that took hold of her
| |
| as she looked at Sethe, made Paul D speak.
| |
| "Ain't you got no brothers or sisters?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 125 of 525
| |
| Beloved diddled her spoon but did not look at
| |
| him. "I don't have nobody."
| |
| "What was you looking for when you came
| |
| here?" he asked her.
| |
| "This place. I was looking for this place I
| |
| could be in."
| |
| "Somebody tell you about this house?"
| |
| "She told me. When I was at the bridge, she
| |
| told me."
| |
| "Must be somebody from the old days,"
| |
| Sethe said. The days when 124 was a way station
| |
| where messages came and then their senders.
| |
| Where bits of news soaked like dried beans in
| |
| spring water-- until they were soft enough to
| |
| digest.
| |
| "How'd you come? Who brought you?"
| |
| Now she looked steadily at him, but did not
| |
| answer.
| |
| He could feel both Sethe and Denver
| |
| pulling in, holding their stomach muscles,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 126 of 525
| |
| sending out sticky spiderwebs to touch one
| |
| another.
| |
| He decided to force it anyway.
| |
| "I asked you who brought you here?"
| |
| "I walked here," she said. "A long, long, long,
| |
| long way. Nobody bring me. Nobody help me."
| |
| "You had new shoes. If you walked so long
| |
| why don't your shoes show it?"
| |
| "Paul D, stop picking on her."
| |
| "I want to know," he said, holding the knife
| |
| handle in his fist like a pole.
| |
| "I take the shoes! I take the dress! The
| |
| shoe strings don't fix!" she shouted and gave
| |
| him a look so malevolent Denver touched her
| |
| arm.
| |
| "I'll teach you," said Denver, "how to tie your shoes," and got a smile from Beloved as a reward.
| |
| Paul D had the feeling a large, silver fish
| |
| had slipped from his hands the minute he
| |
| grabbed hold of its tail. That it was streaming
| |
| back off into dark water now, gone but for the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 127 of 525
| |
| glistening marking its route. But if her shining
| |
| was not for him, who then? He had never known
| |
| a woman who lit up for nobody in particular, who
| |
| just did it as a general announcement. Always,
| |
| in his experience, the light appeared when there
| |
| was focus. Like the Thirty-Mile Woman, dulled to
| |
| smoke while he waited with her in the ditch, and
| |
| starlight when Sixo got there. He never knew
| |
| himself to mistake it. It was there the instant he
| |
| looked at Sethe's wet legs, otherwise he never
| |
| would have been bold enough to enclose her in
| |
| his arms that day and whisper into her back.
| |
| This girl Beloved, homeless and without
| |
| people, beat all, though he couldn't say exactly
| |
| why, considering the coloredpeople he had run
| |
| into during the last twenty years. During, before
| |
| and after the War he had seen Negroes so
| |
| stunned, or hungry, or tired or bereft it was a
| |
| wonder they recalled or said anything. Who, like
| |
| him, had hidden in caves and fought owls for
| |
| food; who, like him, stole from pigs; who, like
| |
| him, slept in trees in the day and walked by
| |
| night; who, like him, had buried themselves in
| |
| slop and jumped in wells to avoid regulators,
| |
| raiders, paterollers, veterans, hill men, posses
| |
| and merrymakers. Once he met a Negro about
| |
| fourteen years old who lived by himself in the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 128 of 525
| |
| woods and said he couldn't remember living
| |
| anywhere else. He saw a witless coloredwoman
| |
| jailed and hanged for stealing ducks she
| |
| believed were her own babies.
| |
| Move. Walk. Run. Hide. Steal and move
| |
| on. Only once had it been possible for him to
| |
| stay in one spot--with a woman, or a family--for
| |
| longer than a few months. That once was almost
| |
| two years with a weaver lady in Delaware, the
| |
| meanest place for Negroes he had ever seen
| |
| outside Pulaski County, Kentucky, and of course
| |
| the prison camp in Georgia.
| |
| From all those Negroes, Beloved was
| |
| different. Her shining, her new shoes. It
| |
| bothered him. Maybe it was just the fact that he
| |
| didn't bother her. Or it could be timing. She had
| |
| appeared and been taken in on the very day
| |
| Sethe and he had patched up their quarrel, gone
| |
| out in public and had a right good time--like a
| |
| family. Denver had come around, so to speak;
| |
| Sethe was laughing; he had a promise of steady
| |
| work, 124 was cleared up from spirits. It had
| |
| begun to look like a life. And damn! a
| |
| water-drinking woman fell sick, got took in,
| |
| healed, and hadn't moved a peg since.
| |
| He wanted her out, but Sethe had let her
| |
| in and he couldn't put her out of a house that
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 129 of 525
| |
| wasn't his. It was one thing to beat up a ghost,
| |
| quite another to throw a helpless coloredgirl
| |
| out in territory infected by the Klan.
| |
| Desperately thirsty for black blood, without
| |
| which it could not live, the dragon swam the
| |
| Ohio at will.
| |
| Sitting at table, chewing on his
| |
| after-supper broom straw, Paul D decided to
| |
| place her. Consult with the Negroes in town
| |
| and find her her own place.
| |
| No sooner did he have the thought than
| |
| Beloved strangled on one of the raisins she had
| |
| picked out of the bread pudding. She fell
| |
| backward and off the chair and thrashed
| |
| around holding her throat.
| |
| Sethe knocked her on the back while
| |
| Denver pried her hands away from her neck.
| |
| Beloved, on her hands and knees, vomited up
| |
| her food and struggled for breath.
| |
| When she was quiet and Denver had wiped up the mess, she said, "Go to sleep now."
| |
| "Come in my room," said Denver. "I can watch out for you up there."
| |
| No moment could have been better.
| |
| Denver had worried herself sick trying to think
| |
| of a way to get Beloved to share her room. It
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 130 of 525
| |
| was hard sleeping above her, wondering if she
| |
| was going to be sick again, fall asleep and not
| |
| wake, or (God, please don't) get up and
| |
| wander out of the yard just the way she
| |
| wandered in. They could have their talks easier
| |
| there: at night when Sethe and Paul D were
| |
| asleep; or in the daytime before either came
| |
| home. Sweet, crazy conversations full of half
| |
| sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings
| |
| more thrilling than understanding could ever
| |
| be.
| |
| When the girls left, Sethe began to clear the
| |
| table. She stacked the plates near a basin of water.
| |
| "What is it about her vex you so?"
| |
| Paul D frowned, but said nothing.
| |
| "We had one good fight about Denver. Do we
| |
| need one about her too?" asked Sethe.
| |
| "I just don't understand what the hold is.
| |
| It's clear why she holds on to you, but just
| |
| can't see why you holding on to her."
| |
| Sethe turned away from the plates toward
| |
| him. "what you care who's holding on to who?
| |
| Feeding her is no trouble. I pick up a little extra
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 131 of 525
| |
| from the restaurant is all. And she's nice girl
| |
| company for Denver. You know that and I know
| |
| you know it, so what is it got your teeth on
| |
| edge?"
| |
| "I can't place it. It's a feeling in me."
| |
| "Well, feel this, why don't you? Feel how
| |
| it feels to have a bed to sleep in and somebody
| |
| there not worrying you to death about what
| |
| you got to do each day to deserve it. Feel how
| |
| that feels. And if that don't get it, feel how it
| |
| feels to be a coloredwoman roaming the roads
| |
| with anything God made liable to jump on you.
| |
| Feel that."
| |
| "I know every bit of that, Sethe. I wasn't born yesterday and I never mistreated a woman in
| |
| my
| |
| life."
| |
| "That makes one in the world," Sethe
| |
| answered. "Not two?" "No. Not two."
| |
| "What Halle ever do to you? Halle stood by
| |
| you. He never left you."
| |
| "What'd he leave then if not me?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 132 of 525
| |
| "I don't know, but it wasn't you. That's a
| |
| fact."
| |
| "Then he did worse; he left his children."
| |
| "You don't know that."
| |
| "He wasn't there. He wasn't where he said
| |
| he would be." "He was there."
| |
| "Then why didn't he show himself? Why
| |
| did I have to pack my babies off and stay behind
| |
| to look for him?"
| |
| "He couldn't get out the loft."
| |
| "Loft? What loft?"
| |
| "The one over your head. In the barn."
| |
| Slowly, slowly, taking all the time allowed,
| |
| Sethe moved toward the table.
| |
| "He saw?"
| |
| "He saw."
| |
| "He told you?"
| |
| "You told me."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 133 of 525
| |
| "What?"
| |
| "The day I came in here. You said they
| |
| stole your milk. I never knew what it was that
| |
| messed him up. That was it, I guess. All I knew
| |
| was that something broke him. Not a one of
| |
| them years of Saturdays, Sundays and nighttime
| |
| extra never touched him. But whatever he saw
| |
| go on in that barn that day broke him like a
| |
| twig."
| |
| "He saw?" Sethe was gripping her elbows as
| |
| though to keep them from flying away.
| |
| "He saw. Must have."
| |
| "He saw them boys do that to me and let
| |
| them keep on breathing air? He saw? He saw? He
| |
| saw?"
| |
| "Hey! Hey! Listen up. Let me tell you
| |
| something. A man ain't a goddamn ax.
| |
| Chopping, hacking, busting every goddamn
| |
| minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he
| |
| can't chop down because they're inside."
| |
| Sethe was pacing up and down, up and down in the lamplight.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 134 of 525
| |
| "The underground agent said, By Sunday.
| |
| They took my milk and he saw it and didn't come
| |
| down? Sunday came and he didn't. Monday
| |
| came and no Halle. I thought he was dead, that's
| |
| why; then I thought they caught him, that's
| |
| why. Then I thought, No, he's not dead because
| |
| if he was I'd know it, and then you come here
| |
| after all this time and you didn't say he was
| |
| dead, because you didn't know either, so I
| |
| thought, Well, he just found him another better
| |
| way to live.
| |
| Because if he was anywhere near here,
| |
| he'd come to Baby Suggs, if not to me. But I
| |
| never knew he saw."
| |
| "What does that matter now?"
| |
| "If he is alive, and saw that, he won't step foot in my door. Not Halle."
| |
| "It broke him, Sethe." Paul D looked up at
| |
| her and sighed. "You may as well know it all.
| |
| Last time I saw him he was sitting by the chum.
| |
| He had butter all over his face."
| |
| Nothing happened, and she was grateful
| |
| for that. Usually she could see the picture right
| |
| away of what she heard. But she could not
| |
| picture what Paul D said. Nothing came to mind.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 135 of 525
| |
| Carefully, carefully, she passed on to a
| |
| reasonable question.
| |
| "What did he say?"
| |
| "Nothing."
| |
| "Not a word?"
| |
| "Not a word."
| |
| "Did you speak to him? Didn't you say
| |
| anything to him? Something!"
| |
| "I couldn't, Sethe. I just.., couldn't."
| |
| "Why!"
| |
| "I had a bit in my mouth."
| |
| Sethe opened the front door and sat down on the porch steps.
| |
| The day had gone blue without its sun, but
| |
| she could still make out the black silhouettes of
| |
| trees in the meadow beyond. She shook her
| |
| head from side to side, resigned to her
| |
| rebellious brain. Why was there nothing it
| |
| reused? No misery, no regret, no hateful picture
| |
| too rotten to accept? Like a greedy child it
| |
| snatched up everything. Just once, could it say,
| |
| No thank you? I just ate and can't hold another
| |
| bite? I am full God damn it of two boys with
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 136 of 525
| |
| mossy teeth, one sucking on my breast the
| |
| other holding me down, their book-reading
| |
| teacher watching and writing it up. I am still full
| |
| of that, God damn it, I can't go back and add
| |
| more. Add my husband to it, watching, above
| |
| me in the loft--hiding close by--the one place he
| |
| thought no one would look for him, looking
| |
| down on what I couldn't look at at all.
| |
| And not stopping them--looking and
| |
| letting it happen. But my greedy brain says, Oh
| |
| thanks, I'd love more--so I add more. And no
| |
| sooner than I do, there is no stopping. There is
| |
| also my husband squatting by the churn
| |
| smearing the butter as well as its clabber all
| |
| over his face because the milk they took is on
| |
| his mind. And as far as he is concerned, the
| |
| world may as well know it. And if he was that
| |
| broken then, then he is also and certainly dead
| |
| now. And if Paul D saw him and could not save
| |
| or comfort him because the iron bit was in his
| |
| mouth, then there is still more that Paul D could
| |
| tell me and my brain would go right ahead and
| |
| take it and never say, No thank you. I don't
| |
| want to know or have to remember that. I have
| |
| other things to do: worry, for example, about
| |
| tomorrow, about Denver, about Beloved, about
| |
| age and sickness not to speak of love.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 137 of 525
| |
| But her brain was not interested in the
| |
| future. Loaded with the past and hungry for
| |
| more, it left her no room to imagine, let alone
| |
| plan for, the next day. Exactly like that
| |
| afternoon in the wild onions-- when one more
| |
| step was the most she could see of the future.
| |
| Other people went crazy, why couldn't she?
| |
| Other people's brains stopped, turned around
| |
| and went on to something new, which is what
| |
| must have happened to Halle. And how sweet
| |
| that would have been: the two of them back by
| |
| the milk shed, squatting by the churn, smashing
| |
| cold, lumpy butter into their faces with not a
| |
| care in the world.
| |
| Feeling it slippery, sticky--rubbing it in
| |
| their hair, watching it squeeze through their
| |
| fingers. What a relief to stop it right there.
| |
| Close. Shut.
| |
| Squeeze the butter. But her three children
| |
| were chewing sugar teat under a blanket on
| |
| their way to Ohio and no butter play would
| |
| change that.
| |
| Paul D stepped through the door and
| |
| touched her shoulder.
| |
| "I didn't plan on telling you that."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 138 of 525
| |
| "I didn't plan on hearing it."
| |
| "I can't take it back, but I can leave it alone,"
| |
| Paul D said.
| |
| He wants to tell me, she thought. He
| |
| wants me to ask him about what it was like for
| |
| him--about how offended the tongue is, held
| |
| down by iron, how the need to spit is so deep
| |
| you cry for it. She already knew about it, had
| |
| seen it time after time in the place before Sweet
| |
| Home. Men, boys, little
| |
| girls, women. The wildness that shot up into the
| |
| eye the moment the lips were yanked back. Days
| |
| after it was taken out, goose fat was rubbed on
| |
| the corners of the mouth but nothing to soothe
| |
| the tongue or take the wildness out of the eye.
| |
| Sethe looked up into Paul D's eyes to see if there was any trace left in them.
| |
| "People I saw as a child," she said, "who'd
| |
| had the bit always looked wild after that.
| |
| Whatever they used it on them for, it couldn't
| |
| have worked, because it put a wildness where
| |
| before there wasn't any. When I look at you, I
| |
| don't see it. There ain't no wildness in your eye
| |
| nowhere."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 139 of 525
| |
| "There's a way to put it there and there's a
| |
| way to take it out. I know em both and I haven't
| |
| figured out yet which is worse." He sat down
| |
| beside her. Sethe looked at him. In that unlit
| |
| daylight his face, bronzed and reduced to its
| |
| bones, smoothed her heart down.
| |
| "You want to tell me about it?" she asked
| |
| him.
| |
| "I don't know. I never have talked about it.
| |
| Not to a soul. Sang it sometimes, but I never told a
| |
| soul."
| |
| "Go ahead. I can hear it."
| |
| "Maybe. Maybe you can hear it. I just ain't
| |
| sure I can say it. Say it right, I mean, because it
| |
| wasn't the bit--that wasn't it."
| |
| "What then?" Sethe asked.
| |
| "The roosters," he said. "Walking past the
| |
| roosters looking at them look at me."
| |
| Sethe smiled. "In that pine?"
| |
| "Yeah." Paul D smiled with her. "Must have
| |
| been five of them perched up there, and at least
| |
| fifty hens."
| |
| "Mister, too?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 140 of 525
| |
| "Not right off. But I hadn't took twenty steps
| |
| before I seen him.
| |
| He come down off the fence post there and
| |
| sat on the tub."
| |
| "He loved that tub," said Sethe, thinking, No,
| |
| there is no stopping now.
| |
| "Didn't he? Like a throne. Was me took him
| |
| out the shell, you know. He'd a died if it hadn't
| |
| been for me. The hen had walked on off with all
| |
| the hatched peeps trailing behind her. There was
| |
| this one egg left. Looked like a blank, but then I
| |
| saw it move so I tapped it open and here come
| |
| Mister, bad feet and all. I watched that son a bitch
| |
| grow up and whup everything in the yard."
| |
| "He always was hateful," Sethe said.
| |
| "Yeah, he was hateful all right. Bloody too,
| |
| and evil. Crooked feet flapping. Comb as big as my
| |
| hand and some kind of red. He sat right there on
| |
| the tub looking at me. I swear he smiled. My head
| |
| was full of what I'd seen of Halle a while back. I
| |
| wasn't even thinking about the bit. Just Halle and
| |
| before him Sixo, but when I saw Mister I knew it
| |
| was me too. Not just them, me too. One crazy, one
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 141 of 525
| |
| sold, one missing, one burnt and me licking iron
| |
| with my hands crossed behind me. The last of the
| |
| Sweet Home men.
| |
| "Mister, he looked so... free. Better than me.
| |
| Stronger, tougher.
| |
| Son a bitch couldn't even get out the shell by
| |
| hisself but he was still king and I was..." Paul D
| |
| stopped and squeezed his left hand with his right.
| |
| He held it that way long enough for it and the
| |
| world to quiet down and let him go on.
| |
| "Mister was allowed to be and stay what he
| |
| was. But I wasn't allowed to be and stay what I
| |
| was. Even if you cooked him you'd be cooking a
| |
| rooster named Mister. But wasn't no way I'd ever
| |
| be Paul D again, living or dead. Schoolteacher
| |
| changed me. I was something else and that
| |
| something was less than a chicken sitting in the
| |
| sun on a tub."
| |
| Sethe put her hand on his knee and rubbed.
| |
| Paul D had only begun, what he was telling
| |
| her was only the beginning when her fingers on his
| |
| knee, soft and reassuring, stopped him. Just as
| |
| well. Just as well. Saying more might push them
| |
| both to a place they couldn't get back from. He
| |
| would keep the rest where it belonged: in that
| |
| tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 142 of 525
| |
| used to be. Its lid rusted shut. He would not pry it
| |
| loose now in front of this sweet sturdy woman, for
| |
| if she got a whiff of the contents it would shame
| |
| him. And it would hurt her to know that there was
| |
| no red heart bright as Mister's comb beating in
| |
| him.
| |
| Sethe rubbed and rubbed, pressing the work
| |
| cloth and the stony curves that made up his knee.
| |
| She hoped it calmed him as it did her.
| |
| Like kneading bread in the half-light of the
| |
| restaurant kitchen. Before the cook arrived when
| |
| she stood in a space no wider than a bench is long,
| |
| back behind and to the left of the milk cans.
| |
| Working dough.
| |
| Working, working dough. Nothing better
| |
| than that to start the day's serious work of beating
| |
| back the past. make-a-new-step, slide, slide and
| |
| strut on down.
| |
| Denver sat on the bed smiling and providing the music.
| |
| She had never seen Beloved this happy. She
| |
| had seen her pouty lips open wide with the
| |
| pleasure of sugar or some piece of news Denver
| |
| gave her. She had felt warm satisfaction radiating
| |
| from Beloved's skin when she listened to her
| |
| mother talk about the old days.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 143 of 525
| |
| But gaiety she had never seen. Not ten
| |
| minutes had passed since Beloved had fallen
| |
| backward to the floor, pop-eyed, thrashing and
| |
| holding her throat. Now, after a few seconds lying
| |
| in Denver's bed, she was up and dancing.
| |
| "Where'd you learn to dance?" Denver asked
| |
| her.
| |
| "Nowhere. Look at me do this." Beloved
| |
| put her fists on her hips and commenced to
| |
| skip on bare feet. Denver laughed.
| |
| "Now you. Come on," said Beloved. "You
| |
| may as well just come on." Her black skirt swayed
| |
| from side to side.
| |
| Denver grew ice-cold as she rose from the
| |
| bed. She knew she was twice Beloved's size but
| |
| she floated up, cold and light as a snowflake.
| |
| Beloved took Denver's hand and placed
| |
| another on Denver's shoulder. They danced then.
| |
| Round and round the tiny room and it may have
| |
| been dizziness, or feeling light and icy at once,
| |
| that made Denver laugh so hard. A catching laugh
| |
| that Beloved caught. The two of them, merry as
| |
| kittens, swung to and fro, to and fro, until
| |
| exhausted they sat on the floor. Beloved let her
| |
| head fall back on the edge of the bed while she
| |
| found her breath and Denver saw the tip of the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 144 of 525
| |
| thing she always saw in its entirety when Beloved
| |
| undressed to sleep. Looking straight at it she
| |
| whispered, "Why you call yourself Beloved?"
| |
| Beloved closed her eyes. "In the dark my name is Beloved."
| |
| Denver scooted a little closer. "What's it like
| |
| over there, where you were before? Can you tell
| |
| me?"
| |
| "Dark," said Beloved. "I'm small in that
| |
| place. I'm like this here."
| |
| She raised her head off the bed, lay down on
| |
| her side and curled up.
| |
| Denver covered her lips with her fingers.
| |
| "Were you cold?"
| |
| Beloved curled tighter and shook her head.
| |
| "Hot. Nothing to breathe down there and no room
| |
| to move in."
| |
| "You see anybody?"
| |
| "Heaps. A lot of people is down there. Some
| |
| is dead."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 145 of 525
| |
| "You see Jesus? Baby Suggs?"
| |
| "I don't know. I don't know the names." She
| |
| sat up.
| |
| "Tell me, how did you get here?"
| |
| "I wait; then I got on the bridge. I stay
| |
| there in the dark, in the daytime, in the dark,
| |
| in the daytime. It was a long time."
| |
| "All this time you were on a
| |
| bridge?" "No. After. When I got
| |
| out." "What did you come back
| |
| for?" Beloved smiled. "To see her
| |
| face." "Ma'am's? Sethe?" "Yes,
| |
| Sethe."
| |
| Denver felt a little hurt, slighted that she
| |
| was not the main reason for Beloved's return.
| |
| "Don't you remember we played together by the
| |
| stream?"
| |
| "I was on the bridge," said Beloved. "You see
| |
| me on the bridge?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 146 of 525
| |
| "No, by the stream. The water back in the
| |
| woods."
| |
| "Oh, I was in the water. I saw her
| |
| diamonds down there. I could touch
| |
| them." "What stopped you?"
| |
| "She left me behind. By myself," said
| |
| Beloved. She lifted her eyes to meet Denver's
| |
| and frowned, perhaps. Perhaps not. The tiny
| |
| scratches on her forehead may have made it
| |
| seem so.
| |
| Denver swallowed. "Don't," she said. "Don't. You won't leave us, will you?"
| |
| "No. Never. This is where I am."
| |
| Suddenly Denver, who was sitting
| |
| cross-legged, lurched forward and grabbed
| |
| Beloved's wrist. "Don't tell her. Don't let Ma'am
| |
| know who you are. Please, you hear?"
| |
| "Don't tell me what to do. Don't you never never tell me what to do."
| |
| "But I'm on your side, Beloved."
| |
| "She is the one. She is the one I need. You
| |
| can go but she is the one I have to have." Her
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 147 of 525
| |
| eyes stretched to the limit, black as the all night
| |
| sky.
| |
| "I didn't do anything to you. I never hurt
| |
| you. I never hurt anybody," said Denver.
| |
| "Me either. Me either."
| |
| "What you gonna do?"
| |
| "Stay here. I belong here."
| |
| "I belong here too."
| |
| "Then stay, but don't never tell me what to
| |
| do. Don't never do that."
| |
| "We were dancing. Just a minute ago we
| |
| were dancing together.
| |
| Let's."
| |
| "I don't want to." Beloved got up and lay
| |
| down on the bed. Their quietness boomed
| |
| about on the walls like birds in panic. Finally
| |
| Denver's breath steadied against the threat of
| |
| an unbearable loss.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 148 of 525
| |
| "Tell me," Beloved said. "Tell me how Sethe
| |
| made you in the boat."
| |
| "She never told me all of it," said Denver.
| |
| "Tell me."
| |
| Denver climbed up on the bed and folded
| |
| her arms under her apron. She had not been in
| |
| the tree room once since Beloved sat on their
| |
| stump after the carnival, and had not
| |
| remembered that she hadn't gone there until
| |
| this very desperate moment. Nothing was out
| |
| there that this sister-girl did not provide in
| |
| abundance: a racing heart, dreaminess,
| |
| society, danger, beauty. She swallowed twice
| |
| to prepare for the telling, to construct out of
| |
| the strings she had heard all her life a net to
| |
| hold Beloved.
| |
| "She had good hands, she said. The
| |
| whitegirl, she said, had thin little arms but
| |
| good hands. She saw that right away, she said.
| |
| Hair enough for five heads and good hands,
| |
| she said. I guess the hands made her think she
| |
| could do it: get us both across the river. But
| |
| the mouth was what kept her from being
| |
| scared. She said there ain't nothing to go by
| |
| with whitepeople. You don't know how they'll
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 149 of 525
| |
| jump. Say one thing, do another. But if you
| |
| looked at the mouth sometimes you could tell
| |
| by that. She said this girl talked a storm, but
| |
| there wasn't no meanness around her mouth.
| |
| She took Ma'am to that lean-to and rubbed her
| |
| feet for her, so that was one thing.
| |
| And Ma'am believed she wasn't going to
| |
| turn her over. You could get money if you turned
| |
| a runaway over, and she wasn't sure this girl
| |
| Amy didn't need money more than anything,
| |
| especially since all she talked about was getting
| |
| hold of some velvet."
| |
| "What's velvet?"
| |
| "It's a cloth, kind of deep and soft."
| |
| "Go ahead."
| |
| "Anyway, she rubbed Ma'am's feet back
| |
| to life, and she cried, she said, from how it
| |
| hurt. But it made her think she could make it
| |
| on over to where Grandma Baby Suggs was
| |
| and..."
| |
| "Who is that?"
| |
| "I just said it. My grandmother."
| |
| "Is that Sethe's mother?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 150 of 525
| |
| "No. My father's mother."
| |
| "Go ahead."
| |
| "That's where the others was. My brothers and.., the baby girl.
| |
| She sent them on before to wait for
| |
| her at Grandma Baby's. So she had to
| |
| put up with everything to get there. And
| |
| this here girl Amy helped."
| |
| Denver stopped and sighed. This was the
| |
| part of the story she loved. She was coming to it
| |
| now, and she loved it because it was all about
| |
| herself; but she hated it too because it made her
| |
| feel like a bill was owing somewhere and she,
| |
| Denver, had to pay it. But who she owed or what
| |
| to pay it with eluded her. Now, watching
| |
| Beloved's alert and hungry face, how she took in
| |
| every word, asking questions about the color of
| |
| things and their size, her downright craving to
| |
| know, Denver began to see what she was saying
| |
| and not just to hear it: there is this
| |
| nineteen-year-old slave girl--a year older than
| |
| her self- walking through the dark woods to get
| |
| to her children who are far away. She is tired,
| |
| scared maybe, and maybe even lost. Most of all
| |
| she is by herself and inside her is another baby
| |
| she has to think about too. Behind her dogs,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 151 of 525
| |
| perhaps; guns probably; and certainly mossy
| |
| teeth. She is not so afraid at night because she
| |
| is the color of it, but in the day every sound is a
| |
| shot or a tracker's quiet step.
| |
| Denver was seeing it now and feeling
| |
| it--through Beloved. Feeling how it must have
| |
| felt to her mother. Seeing how it must have
| |
| looked.
| |
| And the more fine points she made, the
| |
| more detail she provided, the more Beloved
| |
| liked it. So she anticipated the questions by
| |
| giving blood to the scraps her mother and
| |
| grandmother had told herwand a heartbeat. The
| |
| monologue became, iri fact, a duet as they lay
| |
| down together, Denver nursing Beloved's
| |
| interest like a lover whose pleasure was to
| |
| overfeed the loved. The dark quilt with two
| |
| orange patches was there with them because
| |
| Beloved wanted it near her when she slept. It
| |
| was smelling like grass and feeling like hands--
| |
| the unrested hands of busy women: dry, warm,
| |
| prickly. Denver spoke, Beloved listened, and the
| |
| two did the best they could to create what really
| |
| happened, how it really was, something only
| |
| Sethe knew because she alone had the mind for
| |
| it and the time afterward to shape it: the quality
| |
| of Amy's voice, her breath like burning wood.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 152 of 525
| |
| The quick-change weather up in those hills—
| |
| cool at night, hot in the day, sudden fog. How
| |
| recklessly she behaved with this whitegirlNa
| |
| recklessness born of desperation and
| |
| encouraged by Amy's fugitive eyes and her
| |
| tenderhearted mouth.
| |
| "You ain't got no business walking round these hills, miss."
| |
| "Looka here who's talking. I got more business here 'n you got.
| |
| They catch you they cut your head off.
| |
| Ain't nobody after me but I know somebody
| |
| after you." Amy pressed her fingers into the
| |
| soles of the slavewoman's feet. "Whose baby
| |
| that?"
| |
| Sethe did not answer.
| |
| "You don't even know. Come here, Jesus," Amy sighed and shook her head. "Hurt?" "A touch."
| |
| "Good for you. More it hurt more better it is.
| |
| Can't nothing heal without pain, you know. What
| |
| you wiggling for?"
| |
| Sethe raised up on her elbows. Lying on her
| |
| back so long had raised a ruckus between her
| |
| shoulder blades. The fire in her feet and the fire
| |
| on her back made her sweat.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 153 of 525
| |
| "My back hurt me," she said.
| |
| "Your back? Gal, you a mess. Turn over here and let me see."
| |
| In an effort so great it made her sick to her
| |
| stomach, Sethe turned onto her right side. Amy
| |
| unfastened the back of her dress and said, "Come
| |
| here, Jesus," when she saw. Sethe guessed it
| |
| must be bad because after that call to Jesus Amy
| |
| didn't speak for a while. In the silence of an Amy
| |
| struck dumb for a change, Sethe felt the fingers of
| |
| those good hands lightly touch her back. She
| |
| could hear her breathing but still the whitegirl said
| |
| nothing. Sethe could not move. She couldn't lie on
| |
| her stomach or her back, and to keep on her side
| |
| meant pressure on her screaming feet. Amy
| |
| spoke at last in her dreamwalker's voice.
| |
| "It's a tree, Lu. A chokecherry tree. See,
| |
| here's the trunk--it's red and split wide open, full
| |
| of sap, and this here's the parting for the
| |
| branches. You got a mighty lot of branches.
| |
| Leaves, too, look like, and dern if these ain't
| |
| blossoms. Tiny little cherry blossoms, just as
| |
| white. Your back got a whole tree on it. In bloom.
| |
| What God have in mind, I wonder. I had me some
| |
| whippings, but I don't remember nothing like this.
| |
| Mr. Buddy had a right evil hand too. Whip you for
| |
| looking at him straight. Sure would. I looked right
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 154 of 525
| |
| at him one time and he hauled off and threw the
| |
| poker at me. Guess he knew what I was
| |
| a-thinking.'"
| |
| Sethe groaned and Amy cut her reverie
| |
| short--long enough to shift Sethe's feet so the
| |
| weight, resting on leaf-covered stones, was above
| |
| the ankles.
| |
| "That better? Lord what a way to die. You
| |
| gonna die in here, you know. Ain't no way out of
| |
| it. Thank your Maker I come along so's you
| |
| wouldn't have to die outside in them weeds.
| |
| Snake come along he bite you. Bear eat you up.
| |
| Maybe you should of stayed where you was, Lu. I
| |
| can see by your back why you didn't ha ha.
| |
| Whoever planted that tree beat Mr. Buddy
| |
| by a mile. Glad I ain't you. Well, spiderwebs is
| |
| 'bout all I can do for you. What's in here ain't
| |
| enough. I'll look outside. Could use moss, but
| |
| sometimes bugs and things is in it. Maybe I ought
| |
| to break them blossoms open. Get that pus to
| |
| running, you think? Wonder what God had in
| |
| mind. You must of did something. Don't run off
| |
| nowhere now."
| |
| Sethe could hear her humming away in the
| |
| bushes as she hunted spiderwebs. A humming
| |
| she concentrated on because as soon as Amy
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 155 of 525
| |
| ducked out the baby began to stretch. Good
| |
| question, she was thinking.
| |
| What did He have in mind? Amy had left
| |
| the back of Sethe's dress open and now a tail of
| |
| wind hit it, taking the pain down a step. A relief
| |
| that let her feel the lesser pain of her sore
| |
| tongue. Amy returned with two palmfuls of web,
| |
| which she cleaned of prey and then draped on
| |
| Sethe's back, saying it was like stringing a tree
| |
| for Christmas.
| |
| "We got a old nigger girl come by our place.
| |
| She don't know nothing. Sews stuff for Mrs.
| |
| Buddy- real fine lace but can't barely stick two
| |
| words together. She don't know nothing, just like
| |
| you. You don't know a thing. End up dead, that's
| |
| what. Not me. I'm a get to Boston and get myself
| |
| some velvet. Carmine. You don't even know
| |
| about that, do you? Now you never will. Bet you
| |
| never even sleep with the sun in your face. I did
| |
| it a couple of times. Most times I'm feeding stock
| |
| before light and don't get to sleep till way after
| |
| dark comes. But I was in the back of the wagon
| |
| once and fell asleep.
| |
| Sleeping with the sun in your face is the
| |
| best old feeling. Two times I did it. Once when I
| |
| was little. Didn't nobody bother me then. Next
| |
| time, in back of the wagon, it happened again
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 156 of 525
| |
| and doggone if the chickens didn't get loose. Mr.
| |
| Buddy whipped my tail. Kentucky ain't no good
| |
| place to be in. Boston's the place to be in. That's
| |
| where my mother was before she was give to Mr.
| |
| Buddy. Joe Nathan said Mr.
| |
| Buddy is my daddy but I don't believe that,
| |
| you?"
| |
| Sethe told her she didn't believe Mr. Buddy
| |
| was her daddy.
| |
| "You know your daddy, do you?"
| |
| "No," said Sethe.
| |
| "Neither me. All I know is it ain't him." She
| |
| stood up then, having finished her repair work,
| |
| and weaving about the lean-to, her slow-moving
| |
| eyes pale in the sun that lit her hair, she sang:
| |
| "'When the busy day is done And my weary little
| |
| one Rocketh gently to and fro; When the night
| |
| winds softly blow, And the crickets in the glen
| |
| Chirp and chirp and chirp again; Where "pon the
| |
| haunted green Fairies dance around their queen,
| |
| Then from yonder misty skies Cometh Lady
| |
| Button Eyes."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 157 of 525
| |
| Suddenly she stopped weaving and rocking
| |
| and sat down, her skinny arms wrapped around
| |
| her knees, her good good hands cupping her
| |
| elbows. Her slow-moving eyes stopped and
| |
| peered into the dirt at her feet. "That's my
| |
| mama's song. She taught me it."
| |
| "Through the muck and mist and glaam To
| |
| our quiet cozy home, Where to singing sweet and
| |
| low Rocks a cradle to and fro.
| |
| Where the clock's dull monotone Telleth of
| |
| the day that's done, Where the
| |
| moonbeams hover o'er Playthings sleeping
| |
| on the floor, Where my weary wee one lies
| |
| Cometh Lady Button Eyes.
| |
| Layeth she her hands upon My dear weary
| |
| little one, And those white hands
| |
| overspread Like a veil the curly head,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 158 of 525
| |
| Seem to fondle and caress Every little
| |
| silken tress.
| |
| Then she smooths the eyelids down Over
| |
| those two eyes of brown In such soothing
| |
| tender wise Cometh Lady Button Eyes
| |
| .
| |
| "
| |
| Amy sat quietly after her song, then
| |
| repeated the last line before she stood, left the
| |
| lean-to and walked off a little ways to lean
| |
| against a young ash. When she came back the
| |
| sun was in the valley below and they were way
| |
| above it in blue Kentucky light.
| |
| You ain't dead yet, Lu? Lu?" "Not yet
| |
| "Make you a bet. You make it through
| |
| the night, you make it all the way." Amy
| |
| rearranged the leaves for comfort and knelt
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 159 of 525
| |
| down to massage the swollen feet again. "Give
| |
| these one more real good rub," she said, and
| |
| when Sethe sucked air through her teeth, she
| |
| said, "Shut up. You got to keep your mouth
| |
| shut."
| |
| Careful of her tongue, Sethe bit down on
| |
| her lips and let the good hands go to work to the
| |
| tune of "So bees, sing soft and bees, sing low."
| |
| Afterward, Amy moved to the other side of the
| |
| lean-to where, seated, she lowered her head
| |
| toward her shoulder and braided her hair,
| |
| saying, "Don't up and die on me
| |
| in the night, you hear? I don't want to see your
| |
| ugly black face hankering over me. If you do die,
| |
| just go on off somewhere where I can't see you,
| |
| hear?"
| |
| "I hear," said Sethe. I'll do what I can, miss."
| |
| Sethe never expected to see another
| |
| thing in this world, so when she felt toes
| |
| prodding her hip it took a while to come out of a
| |
| sleep she thought was death. She sat up, stiff
| |
| and shivery, while Amy looked in on her juicy
| |
| back.
| |
| "Looks like the devil," said Amy. "But you
| |
| made it through.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 160 of 525
| |
| Come down here, Jesus, Lu made it through.
| |
| That's because of me.
| |
| I'm good at sick things. Can you walk, you
| |
| think?"
| |
| "I have to let my water some kind of way."
| |
| "Let's see you walk on em."
| |
| It was not good, but it was possible, so Sethe
| |
| limped, holding on first to Amy, then to a sapling.
| |
| "Was me did it. I'm good at sick things ain't
| |
| I?"
| |
| "Yeah," said Sethe, "you good."
| |
| "We got to get off this here hill. Come on.
| |
| I'll take you down to the river. That ought to suit
| |
| you. Me, I'm going to the Pike. Take me straight
| |
| to Boston. What's that all over your dress?"
| |
| "Milk."
| |
| "You one mess."
| |
| Sethe looked down at her stomach and
| |
| touched it. The baby was dead. She had not died
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 161 of 525
| |
| in the night, but the baby had. If that was the
| |
| case, then there was no stopping now. She
| |
| would get that milk to her baby girl if she had to
| |
| swim.
| |
| "Ain't you hungry?" Amy asked her.
| |
| "I ain't nothing but in a hurry, miss."
| |
| "Whoa. Slow down. Want some shoes?"
| |
| "Say what?"
| |
| "I figured how," said Amy and so she had.
| |
| She tore two pieces from Sethe's shawl, filled
| |
| them with leaves and tied them over her feet,
| |
| chattering all the while.
| |
| "How old are you, Lu? I been bleeding for
| |
| four years but I ain't having nobody's baby.
| |
| Won't catch me sweating milk cause... " "I know," said Sethe. "You going to Boston."
| |
| At noon they saw it; then they were near
| |
| enough to hear it. By late afternoon they could
| |
| drink from it if they wanted to. Four stars were
| |
| visible by the time they found, not a riverboat to
| |
| stow Sethe away on, or a ferryman willing to
| |
| take on a fugitive passenger--nothing like
| |
| that--but a whole boat to steal. It had one oar,
| |
| lots of holes and two bird nests.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 162 of 525
| |
| "There you go, Lu. Jesus looking at you."
| |
| Sethe was looking at one mile of dark
| |
| water, which would have to be split with one oar
| |
| in a useless boat against a current dedicated to
| |
| the Mississippi hundreds of miles away. It looked
| |
| like home to her, and the baby (not dead in the
| |
| least) must have thought so too.
| |
| As soon as Sethe got close to the river her
| |
| own water broke loose to join it. The break,
| |
| followed by the redundant announcement of
| |
| labor, arched her back.
| |
| "What you doing that for?" asked Amy.
| |
| "Ain't you got a brain in your head? Stop that
| |
| right now. I said stop it, Lu. You the dumbest
| |
| thing on this here earth. Lu! Lu!"
| |
| Sethe couldn't think of anywhere to go but
| |
| in. She waited for the sweet beat that followed
| |
| the blast of pain. On her knees again, she
| |
| crawled into the boat. It waddled under her and
| |
| she had just enough time to brace her leaf-bag
| |
| feet on the bench when another rip took her
| |
| breath away. Panting under four summer stars,
| |
| she threw her legs over the sides, because here
| |
| come the head, as Amy informed her as though
| |
| she did not know it--as though the rip was a
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 163 of 525
| |
| breakup of walnut logs in the brace, or of
| |
| lightning's jagged tear through a leather sky.
| |
| It was stuck. Face up and drowning in its
| |
| mother's blood. Amy stopped begging Jesus and
| |
| began to curse His daddy.
| |
| "Push!" screamed Amy.
| |
| "Pull," whispered Sethe.
| |
| And the strong hands went to work a
| |
| fourth time, none too soon, for river water,
| |
| seeping through any hole it chose, was
| |
| spreading over Sethe's hips. She reached one
| |
| arm back and grabbed the rope while Amy fairly
| |
| clawed at the head. When a foot rose from the
| |
| river bed and kicked the bottom of the boat and
| |
| Sethe's behind, she knew it was done and
| |
| permitted herself a short faint. Coming to, she
| |
| heard no cries, just Amy's encouraging coos.
| |
| Nothing happened for so long they both
| |
| believed they had lost it. Sethe arched suddenly
| |
| and the afterbirth shot out. Then the baby
| |
| whimpered and Sethe looked.
| |
| Twenty inches of cord hung from its belly
| |
| and it trembled in the cooling evening air. Amy
| |
| wrapped her skirt around it and the wet sticky
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 164 of 525
| |
| women clambered ashore to see what, indeed,
| |
| God had in mind.
| |
| Spores of bluefern growing in the hollows
| |
| along the riverbank float toward the water in
| |
| silver- blue lines hard to see unless you are in or
| |
| near them, lying right at the river's edge when
| |
| the sunshots
| |
| are low and drained. Often they are
| |
| mistook for insects--but they are seeds in
| |
| which the whole generation sleeps
| |
| confident of a future.
| |
| And for a moment it is easy to believe each
| |
| one has one--will become all of what is contained
| |
| in the spore: will live out its days as planned.
| |
| This moment of certainty lasts no longer than that; longer, perhaps, than the spore itself.
| |
| On a riverbank in the cool of a summer
| |
| evening two women struggled under a shower of
| |
| silvery blue. They never expected to see each
| |
| other again in this world and at the moment
| |
| couldn't care less.
| |
| But there on a summer night surrounded
| |
| by bluefern they did something together
| |
| appropriately and well. A pateroller passing
| |
| would have sniggered to see two throw-away
| |
| people, two lawless outlaws-- a slave and a
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 165 of 525
| |
| barefoot whitewoman with unpinned
| |
| hair--wrapping a ten-minute-old baby in the
| |
| rags they wore. But no pateroller came and no
| |
| preacher. The water sucked and swallowed itself
| |
| beneath them. There was nothing to disturb
| |
| them at their work. So they did it appropriately
| |
| and well.
| |
| Twilight came on and Amy said she had to
| |
| go; that she wouldn't be caught dead in daylight
| |
| on a busy river with a runaway. After rinsing her
| |
| hands and face in the river, she stood and looked
| |
| down at the baby wrapped and tied to Sethe's
| |
| chest.
| |
| "She's never gonna know who I am. You
| |
| gonna tell her? Who brought her into this here
| |
| world?" She lifted her chin, looked off into the
| |
| place where the sun used to be. "You better tell
| |
| her. You hear? Say Miss Amy Denver. Of
| |
| Boston."
| |
| Sethe felt herself falling into a sleep she
| |
| knew would be deep. On the lip of it, just before
| |
| going under, she thought, "That's pretty.
| |
| Denver. Real pretty."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 166 of 525
| |
| IT WAS TIME to lay it all down. Before Paul D
| |
| came and sat on her porch steps, words
| |
| whispered in the keeping room had kept her
| |
| going. Helped her endure the chastising ghost;
| |
| refurbished the baby faces of Howard and Buglar
| |
| and kept them whole in the world because in her
| |
| dreams she saw only their parts in trees; and
| |
| kept her husband shadowy but
| |
| there--somewhere. Now Halle's face between
| |
| the butter press and the churn swelled larger
| |
| and larger, crowding her eyes and making her
| |
| head hurt. She wished for Baby Suggs' fingers
| |
| molding her nape, reshaping it, saying, "Lay em
| |
| down, Sethe. Sword and shield. Down. Down.
| |
| Both of em down. Down by the riverside.
| |
| Sword and shield. Don't study war no more. Lay all that mess down.
| |
| Sword and shield." And under the pressing
| |
| fingers and the quiet instructive voice, she would.
| |
| Her heavy knives of defense against misery,
| |
| regret, gall and hurt, she placed one by one on a
| |
| bank where dear water rushed on below.
| |
| Nine years without the fingers or the voice of
| |
| Baby Suggs was too much. And words whispered
| |
| in the keeping room were too little.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 167 of 525
| |
| The butter-smeared face of a man God made
| |
| none sweeter than demanded more: an arch built
| |
| or a robe sewn. Some fixing ceremony.
| |
| Sethe decided to go to the Clearing, back where Baby Suggs had danced in sunlight.
| |
| Before 124 and everybody in it had closed
| |
| down, veiled over and shut away; before it had
| |
| become the plaything of spirits and the home of
| |
| the chafed, 124 had been a cheerful, buzzing
| |
| house where Baby Suggs, holy, loved, cautioned,
| |
| fed, chastised and soothed. Where not one but two
| |
| pots simmered on the stove; where the lamp
| |
| burned all night long. Strangers rested there while
| |
| children tried on their shoes. Messages were left
| |
| there, for whoever needed them was sure to stop
| |
| in one day soon. Talk was low and to the point--for
| |
| Baby Suggs, holy, didn't approve of extra.
| |
| "Everything depends on knowing how much," she
| |
| said, and "Good is knowing when to stop."
| |
| It was in front of that 124 that Sethe climbed
| |
| off a wagon, her newborn tied to her chest, and felt
| |
| for the first time the wide arms of her
| |
| mother-in-law, who had made it to Cincinnati. Who
| |
| decided that, because slave life had "busted her
| |
| legs, back, head, eyes, hands, kidneys, womb and
| |
| tongue," she had nothing left to make a living with
| |
| but her heart--which she put to work at once.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 168 of 525
| |
| Accepting no title of honor before her name, but
| |
| allowing a small caress after it, she became an
| |
| unchurched preacher, one who visited pulpits and
| |
| opened her great heart to those who could use it.
| |
| In winter and fall she carried it to AME's and
| |
| Baptists, Holinesses and Sanctifieds, the Church of
| |
| the Redeemer and the Redeemed. Uncalled,
| |
| unrobed, un anointed, she let her great heart beat
| |
| in their presence. When warm weather came, Baby
| |
| Suggs, holy, followed by every black man, woman
| |
| and child who could make it through, took her
| |
| great heart to the Clearing--a wide-open place cut
| |
| deep in the woods nobody knew for what at the
| |
| end of a path known only to deer and whoever
| |
| cleared the land in the first place. In the heat of
| |
| every Saturday afternoon, she sat in the clearing
| |
| while the people waited among the trees.
| |
| After situating herself on a huge flat-sided
| |
| rock, Baby Suggs bowed her head and prayed
| |
| silently. The company watched her from the trees.
| |
| They knew she was ready when she put her stick
| |
| down. Then she shouted, "Let the children come!"
| |
| and they ran from the trees toward her.
| |
| "Let your mothers hear you laugh," she told
| |
| them, and the woods rang. The adults looked on
| |
| and could not help smiling.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 169 of 525
| |
| Then "Let the grown men come," she
| |
| shouted. They stepped out one by one from among
| |
| the ringing trees.
| |
| "Let your wives and your children see you
| |
| dance," she told them, and groundlife shuddered
| |
| under their feet.
| |
| Finally she called the women to her. "Cry,"
| |
| she told them. "For the living and the dead. Just
| |
| cry." And without covering their eyes the women
| |
| let loose.
| |
| It started that way: laughing children,
| |
| dancing men, crying women and then it got mixed
| |
| up. Women stopped crying and danced; men sat
| |
| down and cried; children danced, women laughed,
| |
| children cried until, exhausted and riven, all and
| |
| each lay about the Clearing damp and gasping for
| |
| breath. In the silence that followed, Baby Suggs,
| |
| holy, offered up to them her great big heart.
| |
| She did not tell them to clean up their lives
| |
| or to go and sin no more. She did not tell them
| |
| they were the blessed of the earth, its inheriting
| |
| meek or its glorybound pure.
| |
| She told them that the only grace they could
| |
| have was the grace they could imagine. That if
| |
| they could not see it, they would not have it.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 170 of 525
| |
| "Here," she said, "in this here place, we
| |
| flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances
| |
| on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard.
| |
| Yonder they do not love your flesh. They
| |
| despise it. They don't love your eyes; they'd just
| |
| as soon pick em out. No more do they love the
| |
| skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my
| |
| people they do not love your hands. Those they
| |
| only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love
| |
| your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss
| |
| them. Touch others with them, pat them together,
| |
| stroke them on your face 'cause they don't love
| |
| that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they
| |
| ain't in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there,
| |
| they will see it broken and break it again. What
| |
| you say out of it they will not heed. What you
| |
| scream from it they do not hear. What you put into
| |
| it to nourish your body they will snatch away and
| |
| give you leavins instead. No, they don't love your
| |
| mouth. You got to love it.
| |
| This is flesh I'm talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved.
| |
| Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs
| |
| that need support; shoulders that need arms,
| |
| strong arms I'm telling you. And O my people, out
| |
| yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck
| |
| unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 171 of 525
| |
| hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all
| |
| your inside parts that they'd just as soon slop for
| |
| hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark
| |
| liver--love it, love it, and the beat and beating
| |
| heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet.
| |
| More than lungs that have yet to draw free
| |
| air. More than your life holding womb and your
| |
| life- giving private parts, hear me now, love your
| |
| heart. For this is the prize." Saying no more, she
| |
| stood up then and danced with her twisted hip the
| |
| rest of what her heart had to say while the others
| |
| opened their mouths and gave her the music.
| |
| Long notes held until the four-part harmony was perfect enough for their deeply loved flesh.
| |
| Sethe wanted to be there now. At the least
| |
| to listen to the spaces that the long-ago singing
| |
| had left behind. At the most to get a clue from her
| |
| husband's dead mother as to what she should do
| |
| with her sword and shield now, dear Jesus, now
| |
| nine years after Baby Suggs, holy, proved herself
| |
| a liar, dismissed her great heart and lay in the
| |
| keeping-room bed roused once in a while by a
| |
| craving for color and not for another thing.
| |
| "Those white things have taken all I had or
| |
| dreamed," she said, "and broke my heartstrings
| |
| too. There is no bad luck in the world but
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 172 of 525
| |
| whitefolks." 124 shut down and put up with the
| |
| venom of its ghost. No more lamp all night long,
| |
| or neighbors dropping by. No low conversations
| |
| after supper. No watched barefoot children
| |
| playing in the shoes of strangers. Baby Suggs,
| |
| holy, believed she had lied.
| |
| There was no grace-imaginary or real--and
| |
| no sunlit dance in a Clearing could change that.
| |
| Her faith, her love, her imagination and her great
| |
| big old heart began to collapse twenty-eight days
| |
| after her daughter-in-law arrived.
| |
| Yet it was to the Clearing that Sethe
| |
| determined to go--to pay tribute to Halle. Before
| |
| the light changed, while it was still the green
| |
| blessed place she remembered: misty with plant
| |
| steam and the decay of berries.
| |
| She put on a shawl and told Denver and
| |
| Beloved to do likewise.
| |
| All three set out late one Sunday morning, Sethe leading, the girls trotting behind, not a soul
| |
| in
| |
| sight.
| |
| When they reached the woods it took her no
| |
| time to find the path through it because big-city
| |
| revivals were held there regularly now, complete
| |
| with food-laden tables, banjos and a tent. The old
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 173 of 525
| |
| path was a track now, but still arched over with
| |
| trees dropping buckeyes onto the grass below.
| |
| There was nothing to be done other than
| |
| what she had done, but Sethe blamed herself for
| |
| Baby Suggs' collapse. However many times Baby
| |
| denied it, Sethe knew the grief at 124 started
| |
| when she jumped down off the wagon, her
| |
| newborn tied to her chest in the underwear of a
| |
| whitegirl looking for Boston.
| |
| Followed by the two girls, down a bright
| |
| green corridor of oak and horse chestnut, Sethe
| |
| began to sweat a sweat just like the other one
| |
| when she woke, mud-caked, on the banks of the
| |
| Ohio.
| |
| Amy was gone. Sethe was alone and weak,
| |
| but alive, and so was her baby. She walked a
| |
| ways downriver and then stood gazing at the
| |
| glimmering water. By and by a flatbed slid into
| |
| view, but she could not see if the figures on it
| |
| were whitepeople or not. She began to sweat
| |
| from a fever she thanked God for since it would
| |
| certainly keep her baby warm. When the flatbed
| |
| was beyond her sight she stumbled on and found
| |
| herself near three coloredpeople fishing-- two
| |
| boys and an older man. She stopped and waited
| |
| to be spoken to. One of the boys pointed and the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 174 of 525
| |
| man looked over his shoulder at her--a quick look
| |
| since all he needed to know about her he could
| |
| see in no time.
| |
| No one said anything for a while. Then the
| |
| man said, "Headin'
| |
| 'cross?"
| |
| "Yes, sir," said Sethe.
| |
| "Anybody know you coming?"
| |
| "Yes, sir."
| |
| He looked at her again and nodded
| |
| toward a rock that stuck out of the ground
| |
| above him like a bottom lip. Sethe walked to it
| |
| and sat down. The stone had eaten the sun's
| |
| rays but was nowhere near as hot as she was.
| |
| Too tired to move, she stayed there, the sun in
| |
| her eyes making her dizzy. Sweat poured over
| |
| her and bathed the baby completely. She must
| |
| have slept sitting up, because when next she
| |
| opened her eyes the man was standing in front
| |
| of her with a smoking-hot piece of fried eel in
| |
| his hands. It was an effort to reach for, more to
| |
| smell, impossible to eat. She begged him for
| |
| water and he gave her some of the Ohio in a
| |
| jar. Sethe drank it all and begged more. The
| |
| clanging was back in her head but she refused
| |
| to believe that she had come all that way,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 175 of 525
| |
| endured all she had, to die on the wrong side of
| |
| the river.
| |
| The man watched her streaming face and
| |
| called one of the boys over.
| |
| "Take off that coat," he told him.
| |
| "Sir?"
| |
| "You heard me."
| |
| The boy slipped out of his jacket, whining,
| |
| "What you gonna do? What I'm gonna wear?"
| |
| The man untied the baby from her chest and
| |
| wrapped it in the boy's coat, knotting the sleeves
| |
| in front.
| |
| "What I'm gonna wear?"
| |
| The old man sighed and, after a pause,
| |
| said, "You want it back, then go head and take it
| |
| off that baby. Put the baby naked in the grass
| |
| and put your coat back on. And if you can do it,
| |
| then go on 'way somewhere and don't come
| |
| back."
| |
| The boy dropped his eyes, then turned to
| |
| join the other. With eel in her hand, the baby at
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 176 of 525
| |
| her feet, Sethe dozed, dry-mouthed and
| |
| sweaty. Evening came and the man touched
| |
| her shoulder.
| |
| Contrary to what she expected they
| |
| poled upriver, far away from the rowboat Amy
| |
| had found. Just when she thought he was
| |
| taking her back to Kentucky, he turned the
| |
| flatbed and crossed the Ohio like a shot. There
| |
| he helped her up the steep bank, while the boy
| |
| without a jacket carried the baby who wore it.
| |
| The man led her to a brush-covered hutch with
| |
| a beaten floor.
| |
| "Wait here. Somebody be here directly.
| |
| Don't move. They'll find you."
| |
| "Thank you," she said. "I wish I knew your
| |
| name so I could remember you right."
| |
| "Name's Stamp," he said. "Stamp Paid.
| |
| Watch out for that there baby, you hear?"
| |
| "I hear. I hear," she said, but she didn't.
| |
| Hours later a woman was right up on her before
| |
| she heard a thing. A short woman, young, with a
| |
| croaker sack, greeted her.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 177 of 525
| |
| "'Saw the sign a while ago," she said. "But I couldn't get here no quicker."
| |
| "What sign?" asked Sethe.
| |
| "Stamp leaves the old sty open when
| |
| there's a crossing. Knots a white rag on the post
| |
| if it's a child too."
| |
| She knelt and emptied the sack. "My
| |
| name's Ella," she said, taking a wool blanket,
| |
| cotton cloth, two baked sweet potatoes and a
| |
| pair of men's shoes from the sack. "My husband,
| |
| John, is out yonder a ways. Where you
| |
| heading?"
| |
| Sethe told her about Baby Suggs where she had sent her three children.
| |
| Ella wrapped a cloth strip tight around the
| |
| baby's navel as she listened for the holes--the
| |
| things the fugitives did not say; the questions
| |
| they did not ask. Listened too for the unnamed,
| |
| unmentioned people left behind. She shook
| |
| gravel from the men's shoes and tried to force
| |
| Sethe's feet into them. They would not go.
| |
| Sadly, they split them down the heel, sorry
| |
| indeed to ruin so valuable an item. Sethe put on
| |
| the boy's jacket, not daring to ask whether
| |
| there was any word of the children.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 178 of 525
| |
| "They made it," said Ella. "Stamp ferried some of that party.
| |
| Left them on Bluestone. It ain't too far."
| |
| Sethe couldn't think of anything to do, so
| |
| grateful was she, so she peeled a potato, ate it,
| |
| spit it up and ate more in quiet celebration.
| |
| "They be glad to see you," said Ella. "When was this one born?"
| |
| "Yesterday," said Sethe, wiping sweat from under her chin. "I hope she makes it."
| |
| Ella looked at the tiny, dirty face poking
| |
| out of the wool blanket and shook her head.
| |
| "Hard to say," she said. "If anybody was to ask
| |
| me I'd say, 'Don't love nothing.' " Then, as if to
| |
| take the edge off her pronouncement, she
| |
| smiled at Sethe. "You had that baby by
| |
| yourself?"
| |
| "No. Whitegirl helped."
| |
| "Then we better make tracks."
| |
| Baby Suggs kissed her on the mouth and
| |
| refused to let her see the children. They were
| |
| asleep she said and Sethe was too uglylooking
| |
| to wake them in the night. She took the
| |
| newborn and handed it to a young woman in a
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 179 of 525
| |
| bonnet, telling her not to clean the eyes till she
| |
| got the mother's urine.
| |
| "Has it cried out yet?" asked Baby.
| |
| "A little."
| |
| "Time enough. Let's get the mother well."
| |
| She led Sethe to the keeping room and, by
| |
| the light of a spirit lamp, bathed her in sections,
| |
| starting with her face. Then, while waiting for
| |
| another pan of heated water, she sat next to her
| |
| and stitched gray cotton. Sethe dozed and woke
| |
| to the washing of her hands and arms. After each
| |
| bathing, Baby covered her with a quilt and put
| |
| another pan on in the kitchen. Tearing sheets,
| |
| stitching the gray cotton, she supervised the
| |
| woman in the bonnet who tended the baby and
| |
| cried into her cooking. When Sethe's legs were
| |
| done, Baby looked at her feet and wiped them
| |
| lightly. She cleaned between Sethe's legs with
| |
| two separate pans of hot water and then tied her
| |
| stomach and vagina with sheets. Finally she
| |
| attacked the unrecognizable feet.
| |
| "You feel this?"
| |
| "Feel what?" asked Sethe.
| |
| "Nothing. Heave up." She helped Sethe to
| |
| a rocker and lowered her feet into a bucket of
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 180 of 525
| |
| salt water and juniper. The rest of the night
| |
| Sethe sat soaking. The crust from her nipples
| |
| Baby softened with lard and then washed away.
| |
| By dawn the silent baby woke and took her
| |
| mother's milk.
| |
| "Pray God it ain't turned bad," said Baby.
| |
| "And when you through, call me." As she turned
| |
| to go, Baby Suggs caught a glimpse of
| |
| something dark on the bed sheet. She frowned
| |
| and looked at her daughter-in-law bending
| |
| toward the baby. Roses of blood blossomed in
| |
| the blanket covering Sethe's shoulders. Baby
| |
| Suggs hid her mouth with her hand. When the
| |
| nursing was over and the newborn was
| |
| asleep--its eyes half open, its tongue
| |
| dream-sucking--wordlessly the older woman
| |
| greased the flowering back and pinned a double
| |
| thickness of cloth to the inside of the newly
| |
| stitched dress.
| |
| It was not real yet. Not yet. But when her
| |
| sleepy boys and crawl ing-already? girl were
| |
| brought in, it didn't matter whether it was real or
| |
| not. Sethe lay in bed under, around, over,
| |
| among but especially with them all. The little girl
| |
| dribbled clear spit into her face, and Sethe's
| |
| laugh of delight was so loud the
| |
| crawling-already? baby blinked.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 181 of 525
| |
| Buglar and Howard played with her ugly
| |
| feet, after daring each other to be the first to
| |
| touch them. She kept kissing them. She kissed
| |
| the backs of their necks, the tops of their heads
| |
| and the centers of their palms, and it was the
| |
| boys who decided enough was enough when she
| |
| liked their shirts to kiss their tight round bellies.
| |
| She stopped when and because they said,
| |
| "Pappie come?"
| |
| She didn't cry. She said "soon" and smiled
| |
| so they would think the brightness in her eyes
| |
| was love alone. It was some time before she let
| |
| Baby Suggs shoo the boys away so Sethe could
| |
| put on the gray cotton dress her mother-in-law
| |
| had started stitching together the night before.
| |
| Finally she lay back and cradled the crawling
| |
| already? girl in her arms. She enclosed her left
| |
| nipple with two fingers of her right hand and the
| |
| child opened her mouth. They hit home together.
| |
| Baby Suggs came in and laughed at them,
| |
| telling Sethe how strong the baby girl was, how
| |
| smart, already crawling. Then she stooped to
| |
| gather up the ball of rags that had been Sethe's
| |
| clothes.
| |
| "Nothing worth saving in here," she said.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 182 of 525
| |
| Sethe liked her eyes. "Wait," she called.
| |
| "Look and see if there's something still knotted
| |
| up in the petticoat."
| |
| Baby Suggs inched the spoiled fabric
| |
| through her fingers and came upon what felt like
| |
| pebbles. She held them out toward Sethe. "Going
| |
| away present?"
| |
| "Wedding present."
| |
| "Be nice if there was a groom to go with it."
| |
| She gazed into her hand. "What you think
| |
| happened to him?"
| |
| "I don't know," said Sethe. "He wasn't
| |
| where he said to meet him at. I had to get out.
| |
| Had to." Sethe watched the drowsy eyes of the
| |
| sucking girl for a moment then looked at Baby
| |
| Suggs' face. "He'll make it. If I made it, Halle sure
| |
| can."
| |
| "Well, put these on. Maybe they'll light his
| |
| way." Convinced her son was dead, she handed
| |
| the stones to Sethe.
| |
| "I need holes in my ears."
| |
| "I'll do it," said Baby Suggs. "Soon's you up to it."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 183 of 525
| |
| Sethe jingled the earrings for the pleasure
| |
| of the crawling-already? girl, who reached for
| |
| them over and over again.
| |
| In the Clearing, Sethe found Baby's old
| |
| preaching rock and remembered the smell of
| |
| leaves simmering in the sun, thunderous feet and
| |
| the shouts that ripped pods off the limbs of the
| |
| chestnuts. With Baby Suggs' heart in charge, the
| |
| people let go.
| |
| Sethe had had twenty-eight days--the
| |
| travel of one whole moon--of unslaved life. From
| |
| the pure clear stream of spit that the little girl
| |
| dribbled into her face to her oily blood was
| |
| twenty-eight days. Days of healing, ease and
| |
| real-talk. Days of company: knowing the names
| |
| of forty, fifty other Negroes, their views, habits;
| |
| where they had been and what done; of feeling
| |
| their fun and sorrow along with her own, which
| |
| made it better. One taught her the alphabet;
| |
| another a stitch.
| |
| All taught her how it felt to wake up at
| |
| dawn and decide what to do with the day. That's
| |
| how she got through the waiting for Halle.
| |
| Bit by bit, at 124 and in the Clearing, along
| |
| with the others, she had claimed herself. Freeing
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 184 of 525
| |
| yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of
| |
| that freed self was another.
| |
| Now she sat on Baby Suggs' rock, Denver
| |
| and Beloved watching her from the trees. There
| |
| will never be a day, she thought, when Halle will
| |
| knock on the door. Not knowing it was hard;
| |
| knowing it was harder.
| |
| Just the fingers, she thought. Just let me
| |
| feel your fingers again on the back of my neck and
| |
| I will lay it all down, make a way out of this no
| |
| way. Sethe bowed her head and sure
| |
| enough--they were there. Lighter now, no more
| |
| than the strokes of bird feather, but unmistakably
| |
| caressing fingers. She had to relax a bit to let
| |
| them do their work, so light was the touch,
| |
| childlike almost, more finger kiss than kneading.
| |
| Still she was grateful for the effort; Baby Suggs'
| |
| long distance love was equal to any skin-close
| |
| love she had known. The desire, let alone the
| |
| gesture, to meet her needs was good enough to
| |
| lift her spirits to the place where she could take
| |
| the next step: ask for some clarifying word; some
| |
| advice about how to keep on with a brain greedy
| |
| for news nobody could live with in a world happy
| |
| to provide it.
| |
| She knew Paul D was adding something to
| |
| her life--something she wanted to count on but
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 185 of 525
| |
| was scared to. Now he had added more: new
| |
| pictures and old rememories that broke her heart.
| |
| Into the empty space of not knowing about
| |
| Halle—a space sometimes colored with righteous
| |
| resentment at what could have been his
| |
| cowardice, or stupidity or bad luck--that empty
| |
| place of no definite news was filled now with a
| |
| brand-new sorrow and who could tell how many
| |
| more on the way. Years ago--when 124 was
| |
| alive--she had women friends, men friends from
| |
| all around to share grief with. Then there was no
| |
| one, for they would not visit her while the baby
| |
| ghost filled the house, and she returned their
| |
| disapproval with the potent pride of the
| |
| mistreated. But now there was someone to share
| |
| it, and he had beat the spirit away the very day he
| |
| entered her house and no sign of it since. A
| |
| blessing, but in its place he brought another kind
| |
| of haunting: Halle's face smeared with butter and
| |
| the dabber too; his own mouth jammed full of
| |
| iron, and Lord knows what else he could tell her if
| |
| he wanted to.
| |
| The fingers touching the back of her neck
| |
| were stronger now-- the strokes bolder as though
| |
| Baby Suggs were gathering strength.
| |
| Putting the thumbs at the nape, while the fingers pressed the sides.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 186 of 525
| |
| Harder, harder, the fingers moved slowly
| |
| around toward her windpipe, making little circles
| |
| on the way. Sethe was actually more surprised
| |
| than frightened to find that she was being
| |
| strangled. Or so it seemed. In any case, Baby
| |
| Suggs' fingers had a grip on her that would not let
| |
| her breathe. Tumbling forward from her seat on
| |
| the rock, she clawed at the hands that were not
| |
| there. Her feet were thrashing by the time Denver
| |
| got to her and then Beloved.
| |
| "Ma'am! Ma'am!" Denver shouted.
| |
| "Ma'ammy!" and turned her mother over on her
| |
| back.
| |
| The fingers left off and Sethe had to swallow
| |
| huge draughts of air before she recognized her
| |
| daughter's face next to her own and Beloved's
| |
| hovering above.
| |
| "You all right?"
| |
| "Somebody choked me," said Sethe.
| |
| "Who?"
| |
| Sethe rubbed her neck and struggled to a
| |
| sitting position. "Grandma Baby, I reckon. I just
| |
| asked her to rub my neck, like she used to and she
| |
| was doing fine and then just got crazy with it, I
| |
| guess."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 187 of 525
| |
| "She wouldn't do that to you, Ma'am.
| |
| Grandma Baby? Uh uh."
| |
| "Help me up from here."
| |
| "Look." Beloved was pointing at Sethe's
| |
| neck.
| |
| "What is it? What you see?" asked Sethe.
| |
| "Bruises," said Denver.
| |
| "On my neck?"
| |
| "Here," said Beloved. "Here and
| |
| here, too." She reached out her hand
| |
| and touched the splotches, gathering
| |
| color darker than Sethe's dark throat,
| |
| and her fingers were mighty cool.
| |
| "That don't help nothing," Denver said,
| |
| but Beloved was leaning in, her two hands
| |
| stroking the damp skin that felt like chamois
| |
| and looked like taffeta.
| |
| Sethe moaned. The girl's fingers were so
| |
| cool and knowing. Sethe's knotted, private,
| |
| walk-on- water life gave in a bit, softened, and
| |
| it seemed that the glimpse of happiness she
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 188 of 525
| |
| caught in the shadows swinging hands on the
| |
| road to the carnival was a likelihood--if she
| |
| could just manage the news Paul D brought and
| |
| the news he kept to himself. Just manage it.
| |
| Not break, fall or cry each time a hateful picture
| |
| drifted in front of her face. Not develop some
| |
| permanent craziness like Baby Suggs' friend, a
| |
| young woman in a bonnet whose food was full
| |
| of tears. Like Aunt Phyllis, who slept with her
| |
| eyes wide open. Like Jackson Till, who slept
| |
| under the bed. All she wanted was to go on. As
| |
| she had. Alone with her daughter in a haunted
| |
| house she managed every damn thing. Why
| |
| now, with Paul D instead of the ghost, was she
| |
| breaking up? getting scared? needing Baby?
| |
| The worst was over, wasn't it? She had
| |
| already got through, hadn't she? With the ghost
| |
| in 124 she could bear, do, solve anything. Now
| |
| a hint of what had happened to Halie and she
| |
| cut out like a rabbit looking for its mother.
| |
| Beloved's fingers were heavenly. Under
| |
| them and breathing evenly again, the anguish
| |
| rolled down. The peace Sethe had come there
| |
| to find crept into her.
| |
| We must look a sight, she thought, and
| |
| closed her eyes to see it: the three women in
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 189 of 525
| |
| the middle of the Clearing, at the base of the
| |
| rock where Baby Suggs, holy, had loved. One
| |
| seated, yielding up her throat to the kind hands
| |
| of one of the two kneeling before her.
| |
| Denver watched the faces of the other
| |
| two. Beloved watched the work her thumbs
| |
| were doing and must have loved what she saw
| |
| because she leaned over and kissed the
| |
| tenderness under Sethe's chin.
| |
| They stayed that way for a while because
| |
| neither Denver nor Sethe knew how not to: how
| |
| to stop and not love the look or feel of the lips
| |
| that kept on kissing. Then Sethe, grabbing
| |
| Beloved's hair
| |
| and blinking rapidly, separated herself. She
| |
| later believed that it was because the girl's
| |
| breath was exactly like new milk that she
| |
| said to her, stern and frowning, "You too old
| |
| for that."
| |
| She looked at Denver, and seeing panic
| |
| about to become something more, stood up
| |
| quickly, breaking the tableau apart.
| |
| "Come on up! Up!" Sethe waved the girls
| |
| to their feet. As they left the Clearing they
| |
| looked pretty much the same as they had when
| |
| they had come: Sethe in the lead, the girls a
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 190 of 525
| |
| ways back. All silent as before, but with a
| |
| difference. Sethe was bothered, not because of
| |
| the kiss, but because, just before it, when she
| |
| was feeling so fine letting Beloved massage
| |
| away the pain, the fingers she was loving and
| |
| the ones that had soothed her before they
| |
| strangled her had reminded her of something
| |
| that now slipped her mind. But one thing for
| |
| sure, Baby Suggs had not choked her as first she
| |
| thought. Denver was right, and walking in the
| |
| dappled tree-light, clearer-headed now-- away
| |
| from the enchantment of the Clearing--Sethe
| |
| remembered the tou ch of those fingers that she
| |
| knew better than her own. They had bathed her
| |
| in sections, wrapped her womb, combed her
| |
| hair, oiled her nipples, stitched her clothes,
| |
| cleaned her feet, greased her back and dropped
| |
| just about anything they were doing to massage
| |
| Sethe's nape when, especially in the early days,
| |
| her spirits fell down under the weight of the
| |
| things she remembered and those she did not:
| |
| schoolteacher writing in ink she herself had
| |
| made while his nephews played on her; the face
| |
| of the woman in a felt hat as she rose to stretch
| |
| in the field. If she lay among all the hands in the
| |
| world, she would know Baby Suggs' just as she
| |
| did the good hands of the whitegirl looking for
| |
| velvet. But for eighteen years she had lived in a
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 191 of 525
| |
| house full of touches from the other side. And
| |
| the thumbs that pressed her nape were the
| |
| same. Maybe that was where it had gone to.
| |
| After Paul D beat it out of 124, maybe it collected
| |
| itself in the Clearing. Reasonable, she thought.
| |
| Why she had taken Denver and Beloved
| |
| with her didn't puzzle her now--at the time it
| |
| seemed impulse, with a vague wish for
| |
| protection.
| |
| And the girls had saved her, Beloved so agitated she behaved like a two-year-old.
| |
| Like a faint smell of burning that
| |
| disappears when the fire is cut off or the window
| |
| opened for a breeze, the suspicion that the girl's
| |
| touch was also exactly like the baby's ghost
| |
| dissipated. It was only a tiny disturbance
| |
| anyway--not strong enough to divert her from
| |
| the ambition welling in her now: she wanted
| |
| Paul D. No matter what he told and knew, she
| |
| wanted him in her life. More than
| |
| commemorating Halle, that is what she had
| |
| come to the Clearing to figure out, and now it
| |
| was figured. Trust and rememory, yes, the way
| |
| she believed it could be when he cradled her
| |
| before the cooking stove.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 192 of 525
| |
| The weight and angle of him; the
| |
| true-to-life beard hair on him; arched back,
| |
| educated hands. His waiting eyes and awful
| |
| human power. The mind of him that knew her
| |
| own. Her story was bearable because it was his
| |
| as well--to tell, to refine and tell again. The
| |
| things neither knew about the other--the things
| |
| neither had word-shapes for--well, it would
| |
| come in time: where they led him off to sucking
| |
| iron; the perfect death of her crawling-already?
| |
| baby.
| |
| She wanted to get back--fast. Set these
| |
| idle girls to some work that would fill their
| |
| wandering heads. Rushing through the green
| |
| corridor, cooler now because the sun had moved,
| |
| it occurred to her that the two were alike as
| |
| sisters. Their obedience and absolute reliability
| |
| shot through with surprise. Sethe understood
| |
| Denver. Solitude had made her
| |
| secretive--self-manipulated. Years of haunting
| |
| had dulled her in ways you wouldn't believe and
| |
| sharpened her in ways you wouldn't believe
| |
| either. The consequence was a timid but
| |
| hard-headed daughter Sethe would die to
| |
| protect. The other, Beloved, she knew less,
| |
| nothing, about—except that there was nothing
| |
| she wouldn't do for Sethe and that Denver and
| |
| she liked each other's company. Now she thought
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 193 of 525
| |
| she knew why. They spent up or held on to their
| |
| feelings in harmonious ways. What one had to
| |
| give the other was pleased to take. They hung
| |
| back in the trees that ringed the Clearing, then
| |
| rushed into it with screams and kisses when
| |
| Sethe choked--anyhow that's how she explained
| |
| it to herself for she noticed neither competition
| |
| between the two nor domination by one. On her
| |
| mind was the supper she wanted to fix for Paul
| |
| D--something difficult to do, something she
| |
| would do just so--to launch her newer, stronger
| |
| life with a tender man. Those litty bitty potatoes
| |
| browned on all sides, heavy on the pepper; snap
| |
| beans seasoned with rind; yellow squash
| |
| sprinkled with vinegar and sugar. Maybe corn cut
| |
| from the cob and fried with green onions and
| |
| butter. Raised bread, even.
| |
| Her mind, searching the kitchen before she
| |
| got to it, was so full of her offering she did not see
| |
| right away, in the space under the white stairs,
| |
| the wooden tub and Paul D sitting in it. She
| |
| smiled at him and he smiled back.
| |
| "Summer must be over," she said.
| |
| "Come on in here."
| |
| "Uh uh. Girls right behind me."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 194 of 525
| |
| "I don't hear nobody."
| |
| "I have to cook, Paul D."
| |
| "Me too." He stood up and made her stay
| |
| there while he held her in his arms. Her dress
| |
| soaked up the water from his body. His jaw was
| |
| near her ear. Her chin touched his shoulder.
| |
| "What you gonna cook?"
| |
| "I thought some snap beans."
| |
| "Oh, yeah."
| |
| "Fry up a little corn?"
| |
| "Yeah."
| |
| There was no question but that she could
| |
| do it. Just like the day she arrived at 124--sure
| |
| enough, she had milk enough for all. Beloved came through the door and they ought to have heard her tread, but they didn't.
| |
| Breathing and murmuring, breathing and
| |
| murmuring. Beloved heard them as soon as the
| |
| door banged shut behind her. She jumped at the
| |
| slam and swiveled her head toward the whispers
| |
| coming from behind the white stairs. She took a
| |
| step and felt like crying. She had been so close,
| |
| then closer. And it was so much better than the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 195 of 525
| |
| anger that ruled when Sethe did or thought
| |
| anything that excluded herself.
| |
| She could bear the hours—nine or ten of
| |
| them each day but one— when Sethe was gone.
| |
| Bear even the nights when she was close but out
| |
| of sight, behind walls and doors lying next to him.
| |
| But now- even the daylight time that Beloved had
| |
| counted on, disciplined herself to be content
| |
| with, was being reduced, divided by Sethe's
| |
| willingness to pay attention to other things. Him
| |
| mostly. Him who said something to her that
| |
| made her run out into the woods and talk to
| |
| herself on a rock. Him who kept her hidden at
| |
| night behind doors.
| |
| And him who had hold of her now
| |
| whispering behind the stairs after Beloved had
| |
| rescued her neck and was ready now to put her
| |
| hand in that woman's own.
| |
| Beloved turned around and left. Denver
| |
| had not arrived, or else she was waiting
| |
| somewhere outside. Beloved went to look,
| |
| pausing to watch a cardinal hop from limb to
| |
| branch. She followed the blood spot shifting in
| |
| the leaves until she lost it and even then she
| |
| walked on, backward, still hungry for another
| |
| glimpse.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 196 of 525
| |
| She turned finally and ran through the woods to the stream.
| |
| Standing close to its edge she watched her
| |
| reflection there. When Denver's face joined hers,
| |
| they stared at each other in the water.
| |
| "You did it, I saw you," said Denver.
| |
| "What?"
| |
| "I saw your face. You made her choke."
| |
| "I didn't do it."
| |
| "You told me you loved her."
| |
| "I fixed it, didn't I? Didn't I fix her neck?"
| |
| "After. After you choked her neck."
| |
| "I kissed her neck. I didn't choke it. The
| |
| circle of iron choked it."
| |
| "I saw you." Denver grabbed Beloved's arm.
| |
| "Look out, girl," said Beloved and, snatching
| |
| her arm away, ran ahead as fast as she could
| |
| along the stream that sang on the other side of the
| |
| woods.
| |
| Left alone, Denver wondered if, indeed, she
| |
| had been wrong. She and Beloved were standing
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 197 of 525
| |
| in the trees whispering, while Sethe sat on the
| |
| rock. Denver knew that the Clearing used to be
| |
| where Baby Suggs preached, but that was when
| |
| she was a baby. She had never been there herself
| |
| to remember it .124 and the field behind it were all
| |
| the world she knew or wanted.
| |
| Once upon a time she had known more and
| |
| wanted to. Had walked the path leading to a real
| |
| other house. Had stood outside the window
| |
| listening. Four times she did it on her own--crept
| |
| away from 12 4 early in the afternoon when her
| |
| mother and grandmother had their guard down,
| |
| just before supper, after chores; the blank hour
| |
| before gears changed to evening occupations.
| |
| Denver had walked off looking for the house other
| |
| children visited but not her. When she found it she
| |
| was too timid to go to the front door so she
| |
| peeped in the window. Lady Jones sat in a
| |
| straight-backed chair; several children sat
| |
| cross-legged on the floor in front of her. Lady
| |
| Jones had a book. The children had slates. Lady
| |
| Jones was saying something too soft for Denver to
| |
| hear. The children were saying it after her. Four
| |
| times Denver went to look. The fifth time Lady
| |
| Jones caught her and said, "Come in the front
| |
| door, Miss Denver. This is not a side show."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 198 of 525
| |
| So she had almost a whole year of the
| |
| company of her peers and along with them
| |
| learned to spell and count. She was seven, and
| |
| those two hours in the afternoon were precious to
| |
| her. Especially so because she had done it on her
| |
| own and was pleased and surprised by the
| |
| pleasure and surprise it created in her mother and
| |
| her brothers. For a nickel a month, Lady Jones did
| |
| what whitepeople thought unnecessary if not
| |
| illegal: crowded her little parlor with the colored
| |
| children who had time for and interest in book
| |
| learning. The nickel, tied to a handkerchief knot,
| |
| tied to her belt, that she carried to Lady Jones,
| |
| thrilled her. The effort to handle chalk expertly
| |
| and avoid the scream it would make; the capital
| |
| w, the little i, the beauty of the letters in her
| |
| name, the deeply mournful sentences from the
| |
| Bible Lady Jones used as a textbook. Denver
| |
| practiced every morning; starred every afternoon.
| |
| She was so happy she didn't even know she was
| |
| being avoided by her classmates--that they made
| |
| excuses and altered their pace not to walk with
| |
| her. It was Nelson Lord--the boy as smart as she
| |
| was--who put a stop to it; who asked her the
| |
| question about her mother that put chalk, the little
| |
| i and all the rest that those afternoons held, out of
| |
| reach forever. She should have laughed when he
| |
| said it, or pushed him down, but there was no
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 199 of 525
| |
| meanness in his face or his voice. Just curiosity.
| |
| But the thing that leapt up in her when he asked it
| |
| was a thing that had been lying there all along.
| |
| She never went back. The second day she
| |
| didn't go, Sethe asked her why not. Denver didn't
| |
| answer. She was too scared to ask her brothers or
| |
| anyone else Nelson Lord's question because
| |
| certain odd and terrifying feelings about her
| |
| mother were collecting around the thing that leapt
| |
| up inside her. Later on, after Baby Suggs died, she
| |
| did not wonder why Howard and Buglar had run
| |
| away. She did not agree with Sethe that they left
| |
| because of the ghost. If so, what took them so
| |
| long? They had lived with it as long as she had.
| |
| But if Nelson Lord was right--no wonder they were
| |
| sulky, staying away from home as much as they
| |
| could.
| |
| Meanwhile the monstrous and
| |
| unmanageable dreams about Sethe found
| |
| release in the concentration Denver began
| |
| to fix on the baby ghost. Before Nelson
| |
| Lord, she had been barely interested in its
| |
| antics.
| |
| The patience of her mother and
| |
| grandmother in its presence made her indifferent
| |
| to it. Then it began to irritate her, wear her out
| |
| with its mischief. That was when she walked off to
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 200 of 525
| |
| follow the children to Lady Jones' house-school.
| |
| Now it held for her all the anger, love and fear she
| |
| didn't know what to do with. Even when she did
| |
| muster the courage to ask Nelson Lord's question,
| |
| she could not hear Sethe's answer, nor Baby
| |
| Suggs' words, nor anything at all thereafter. For
| |
| two years she walked in a silence too solid for
| |
| penetration but which gave her eyes a power even
| |
| she found hard to believe. The black nostrils of a
| |
| sparrow sitting on a branch sixty feet above her
| |
| head, for instance. For two years she heard
| |
| nothing at all and then she heard close thunder
| |
| crawling up the stairs. Baby Suggs thought it was
| |
| Here Boy padding into places he never went. Sethe
| |
| thought it was the India-rubber ball the boys
| |
| played with bounding down the stairs.
| |
| "Is that damn dog lost his mind?" shouted
| |
| Baby Suggs.
| |
| "He's on the porch," said Sethe. "See for
| |
| yourself."
| |
| "Well, what's that I'm hearing then?"
| |
| Sethe slammed the stove lid. "Buglar!
| |
| Buglar! I told you all not to use that ball in
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 201 of 525
| |
| here." She looked at the white stairs and saw
| |
| Denver at the top.
| |
| "She was trying to get upstairs."
| |
| "What?" The cloth she used to handle the
| |
| stove lid was balled in Sethe's hand.
| |
| "The baby," said Denver. "Didn't you hear
| |
| her crawling?"
| |
| What to jump on first was the problem: that
| |
| Denver heard anything at all or that the crawling�already? baby girl was still at it but more so, The
| |
| return of Denver's hearing, cut off by an answer
| |
| she could not hear to hear, cut on by the sound of
| |
| her dead sister trying to climb the stairs, signaled
| |
| another shift in the fortunes of the people of 124.
| |
| From then on the presence was full of spite.
| |
| Instead of sighs and accidents there was pointed
| |
| and deliberate abuse. Buglar and Howard grew
| |
| furious at the company of the women in the house,
| |
| and spent in sullen reproach any time they had
| |
| away from their odd work in town carrying water
| |
| and feed at the stables. Until the spite became so
| |
| personal it drove each off. Baby Suggs grew tired,
| |
| went to bed and stayed there until her big old heart
| |
| quit. Except for an occasional request for color she
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 202 of 525
| |
| said practically nothing--until the afternoon of the
| |
| last day of her life when she got out of bed,
| |
| skipped slowly to the door of the keeping room and
| |
| announced to Sethe and Denver the lesson she
| |
| had learned from her sixty years a slave and ten
| |
| years free: that there was no bad luck in the world
| |
| but white people. "They don't know when to stop,"
| |
| she said, and returned to her bed, pulled up the
| |
| quilt and left them to hold that thought forever.
| |
| Shortly afterward Sethe and Denver tried
| |
| to call up and reason with the baby ghost, but
| |
| got nowhere. It took a man, Paul D, to shout it
| |
| off, beat it off and take its place for himself. And
| |
| carnival or no carnival, Denver preferred the
| |
| venomous baby to him any day.
| |
| During the first days after Paul D moved
| |
| in, Denver stayed in her emerald closet as long
| |
| as she could, lonely as a mountain and almost
| |
| as big, thinking everybody had somebody but
| |
| her; thinking even a ghost's company was
| |
| denied her. So when she saw the black dress
| |
| with two unlaced shoes beneath it she trembled
| |
| with secret thanks.
| |
| Whatever her power and however she
| |
| used it, Beloved was hers. Denver was alarmed
| |
| by the harm she thought Beloved planned for
| |
| Sethe, but felt helpless to thwart it, so
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 203 of 525
| |
| unrestricted was her need to love another. The
| |
| display she witnessed at the Clearing shamed
| |
| her because the choice between Sethe and
| |
| Beloved was without conflict.
| |
| Walking toward the stream, beyond her
| |
| green bush house, she let herself wonder what if
| |
| Beloved really decided to choke her mother.
| |
| Would she let it happen? Murder, Nelson
| |
| Lord had said. "Didn't your mother get locked
| |
| away for murder? Wasn't you in there with her
| |
| when she went?"
| |
| It was the second question that made it
| |
| impossible for so long to ask Sethe about the
| |
| first. The thing that leapt up had been coiled in
| |
| just such a place: a darkness, a stone, and some
| |
| other thing that moved by itself. She went deaf
| |
| rather than hear the answer, and like the little
| |
| four o'clocks that searched openly for sunlight,
| |
| then closed themselves tightly when it left,
| |
| Denver kept watch for the baby and withdrew
| |
| from everything else. Until Paul D came. But the
| |
| damage he did came undone with the
| |
| miraculous resurrection of Beloved.
| |
| Just ahead, at the edge of the stream,
| |
| Denver could see her silhouette, standing
| |
| barefoot in the water, liking her black skirts up
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 204 of 525
| |
| above her calves, the beautiful head lowered in
| |
| rapt attention.
| |
| Blinking fresh tears Denver approached her--eager for a word, a sign of forgiveness.
| |
| Denver took off her shoes and stepped into the water with her.
| |
| It took a moment for her to drag her eyes
| |
| from the spectacle of Beloved's head to see
| |
| what she was staring at.
| |
| A turtle inched along the edge, turned and climbed to dry ground.
| |
| Not far behind it was another one, headed in the same direction.
| |
| Four placed plates under a hovering
| |
| motionless bowl. Behind her in the grass the
| |
| other one moving quickly, quickly to mount
| |
| her. The impregnable strength of
| |
| him--earthing his feet near her shoulders.
| |
| The embracing necks--hers stretching up
| |
| toward his bending down, the pat pat pat of their
| |
| touching heads. No height was beyond her
| |
| yearning neck, stretched like a finger toward his,
| |
| risking everything outside the bowl just to touch
| |
| his face. The gravity of their shields, clashing,
| |
| countered and mocked the floating heads
| |
| touching.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 205 of 525
| |
| Beloved dropped the folds of her skirt. It spread around her. The hem darkened in the
| |
| water.
| |
| OUT OF SIGHT of Mister's sight, away, praise His
| |
| name, from the smiling boss of roosters, Paul D
| |
| began to tremble. Not all at once and not so
| |
| anyone could tell. When he turned his head,
| |
| aiming for a last look at Brother, turned it as
| |
| much as the rope that connected his neck to the
| |
| axle of a buckboard allowed, and, later on, when
| |
| they fastened the iron around his ankles and
| |
| clamped the wrists as well, there was no
| |
| outward sign of trembling at all. Nor eighteen
| |
| days after that when he saw the ditches; the one
| |
| thousand feet of earth--five feet deep, five feet
| |
| wide, into which wooden boxes had been fitted.
| |
| A door of bars that you could lift on hinges like a
| |
| cage opened into three walls and a roof of scrap
| |
| lumber and red dirt. Two feet of it over his head;
| |
| three feet of open trench in front of him with
| |
| anything that crawled or scurried welcome to
| |
| share that grave calling itself quarters. And
| |
| there were forty-five more. He was sent there
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 206 of 525
| |
| after trying to kill Brandywine, the man
| |
| schoolteacher sold him to.
| |
| Brandywine was leading him, in a coffle
| |
| with ten others, through Kentucky into Virginia.
| |
| He didn't know exactly what prompted him to
| |
| try--other than Halle, Sixo, Paul A, Paul F and
| |
| Mister. But the trembling was fixed by the time
| |
| he knew it was there.
| |
| Still no one else knew it, because it began
| |
| inside. A flutter of a kind, in the chest, then the
| |
| shoulder blades. It felt like rippling-- gentle at
| |
| first and then wild. As though the further south
| |
| they led him the more his blood, frozen like an
| |
| ice pond for twenty years, began thawing,
| |
| breaking into pieces that, once melted, had no
| |
| choice but to swirl and eddy. Sometimes it was in
| |
| his leg. Then again it moved to the base of his
| |
| spine. By the time they unhitched him from the
| |
| wagon and he saw nothing but dogs and two
| |
| shacks in a world of sizzling grass, the roiling
| |
| blood was shaking him to and fro. But no one
| |
| could tell. The wrists he held out for the
| |
| bracelets that evening were steady as were the
| |
| legs he stood on when chains were attached to
| |
| the leg irons. But when they shoved him into the
| |
| box and dropped the cage door down, his hands
| |
| quit taking instruction. On their own, they
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 207 of 525
| |
| traveled. Nothing could stop them or get their
| |
| attention. They would not hold his penis to
| |
| urinate or a spoon to scoop lumps of lima beans
| |
| into his mouth. The miracle of their obedience
| |
| came with the hammer at dawn.
| |
| All forty-six men woke to rifle shot. All
| |
| forty-six. Three whitemen walked along the
| |
| trench unlocking the doors one by one. No one
| |
| stepped through. When the last lock was
| |
| opened, the three returned and lifted the bars,
| |
| one by one. And one by one the blackmen
| |
| emerged--promptly and without the poke of a
| |
| rifle butt if they had been there more than a day;
| |
| promptly with the butt if, like Paul D, they had
| |
| just arrived. When all forty-six were standing in
| |
| a line in the trench, another rifle shot signaled
| |
| the climb out and up to the ground above, where
| |
| one thousand feet of the best hand-forged chain
| |
| in Georgia stretched. Each man bent and waited.
| |
| The first man picked up the end and threaded it
| |
| through the loop on his leg iron. He stood up
| |
| then, and, shuffling a little, brought the chain tip
| |
| to the next prisoner, who did likewise. As the
| |
| chain was passed on and each man stood in the
| |
| other's place, the line of men turned around,
| |
| facing the boxes they had come out of. Not one
| |
| spoke to the other. At least not with words. The
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 208 of 525
| |
| eyes had to tell what there was to tell: "Help me
| |
| this mornin; 's bad"; "I'm a make it"; "New
| |
| man"; "Steady now steady."
| |
| Chain-up completed, they knelt down. The
| |
| dew, more likely than not, was mist by then.
| |
| Heavy sometimes and if the dogs were quiet and
| |
| just breathing you could hear doves. Kneeling in
| |
| the mist they waited for the whim of a guard, or
| |
| two, or three. Or maybe all of them wanted it.
| |
| Wanted it from one prisoner in particular or
| |
| none-- or all.
| |
| "Breakfast? Want some breakfast, nigger?"
| |
| "Yes, sir."
| |
| "Hungry, nigger?"
| |
| "Yes, sir."
| |
| "Here you go."
| |
| Occasionally a kneeling man chose
| |
| gunshot in his head as the price, maybe, of
| |
| taking a bit of foreskin with him to Jesus. Paul D
| |
| did not know that then. He was looking at his
| |
| palsied hands, smelling the guard, listening to
| |
| his soft grunts so like the doves', as he stood
| |
| before the man kneeling in mist on his right.
| |
| Convinced he was next, Paul D
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 209 of 525
| |
| retched--vomiting up nothing at all. An
| |
| observing guard smashed his shoulder with the
| |
| rifle and the engaged one decided to skip the
| |
| new man for the time being lest his pants and
| |
| shoes got soiled by nigger puke.
| |
| "Hiiii"
| |
| It was the first sound, other than "Yes, sir"
| |
| a blackman was allowed to speak each morning,
| |
| and the lead chain gave it everything he had.
| |
| "Hiiii!" It was never clear to Paul D how he knew
| |
| when to shout that mercy. They called him Hi
| |
| Man and Paul D thought at first the guards told
| |
| him when to give the signal that let the prisoners
| |
| rise up off their knees and dance two-step to the
| |
| music of hand forged iron. Later he doubted it.
| |
| He believed to this day that the "Hiiii!" at dawn
| |
| and the "Hoooo!" when evening came were the
| |
| responsibility Hi Man assumed because he alone
| |
| knew what was enough, what was too much,
| |
| when things were over, when the time had
| |
| come.
| |
| They chain-danced over the fields,
| |
| through the woods to a trail that ended in the
| |
| astonishing beauty of feldspar, and there Paul
| |
| D's hands disobeyed the furious rippling of his
| |
| blood and paid attention.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 210 of 525
| |
| With a sledge hammer in his hands and Hi
| |
| Man's lead, the men got through. They sang it
| |
| out and beat it up, garbling the words so they
| |
| could not be understood; tricking the words so
| |
| their syllables yielded up other meanings. They
| |
| sang the women they knew; the children they
| |
| had been; the animals they had tamed
| |
| themselves or seen others tame. They sang of
| |
| bosses and masters and misses; of mules and
| |
| dogs and the shamelessness of life. They sang
| |
| lovingly of graveyards and sisters long gone. Of
| |
| pork in the woods; meal in the pan; fish on the
| |
| line; cane, rain and rocking chairs.
| |
| And they beat. The women for having
| |
| known them and no more, no more; the children
| |
| for having been them but never again. They
| |
| killed a boss so often and so completely they had
| |
| to bring him back to life to pulp him one more
| |
| time. Tasting hot mealcake among pine trees,
| |
| they beat it away. Singing love songs to Mr.
| |
| Death, they smashed his head. More than the
| |
| rest, they killed the flirt whom folks called Life for
| |
| leading them on. Making them think the next
| |
| sunrise would be worth it; that another stroke of
| |
| time would do it at last. Only when she was dead
| |
| would they be safe. The successful ones--the
| |
| ones who had been there enough years to have
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 211 of 525
| |
| maimed, mutilated, maybe even buried
| |
| her--kept watch over the others who were still in
| |
| her cock-teasing hug, caring and looking
| |
| forward, remembering and looking back. They
| |
| were the ones whose eyes said, "Help me, 's
| |
| bad"; or "Look out," meaning this might be the
| |
| day I bay or eat my own mess or run, and it was
| |
| this last that had to be guarded against, for if one
| |
| pitched and ran--all, all forty-six, would be
| |
| yanked by the chain that bound them and no
| |
| telling who or how many would be killed. A man
| |
| could risk his own life, but not his brother's. So
| |
| the eyes said, "Steady now," and "Hang by me."
| |
| Eighty-six days and done. Life was dead.
| |
| Paul D beat her butt all day every day till there
| |
| was not a whimper in her. Eighty-six days and his
| |
| hands were still, waiting serenely each
| |
| rat-rustling night for "Hiiii!" at dawn and the
| |
| eager clench on the hammer's shaft. Life rolled
| |
| over dead. Or so he thought.
| |
| It rained.
| |
| Snakes came down from short-leaf pine and
| |
| hemlock.
| |
| It rained.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 212 of 525
| |
| Cypress, yellow poplar, ash and palmetto
| |
| drooped under five days of rain without wind. By
| |
| the eighth day the doves were nowhere in sight,
| |
| by the ninth even the salamanders were gone.
| |
| Dogs laid their ears down and stared over their
| |
| paws. The men could not work.
| |
| Chain-up was slow, breakfast abandoned,
| |
| the two-step became a slow drag over soupy
| |
| grass and unreliable earth.
| |
| It was decided to lock everybody down in
| |
| the boxes till it either stopped or lightened up so
| |
| a whiteman could walk, damnit, without flooding
| |
| his gun and the dogs could quit shivering. The
| |
| chain was threaded through forty-six loops of the
| |
| best hand-forged iron in Georgia.
| |
| It rained.
| |
| In the boxes the men heard the water rise
| |
| in the trench and looked out for cottonmouths.
| |
| They squatted in muddy water, slept above it,
| |
| peed in it. Paul D thought he was screaming; his
| |
| mouth was open and there was this loud
| |
| throat-splitting sound--but it may have been
| |
| somebody else. Then he thought he was crying.
| |
| Something was running down his cheeks. He
| |
| lifted his hands to wipe away the tears and saw
| |
| dark brown slime. Above him rivulets of mud slid
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 213 of 525
| |
| through the boards of the roof. When it come
| |
| down, he thought, gonna crush me like a tick
| |
| bug. It happened so quick he had no time to
| |
| ponder.
| |
| Somebody yanked the chain--once--hard
| |
| enough to cross his legs and throw him into the
| |
| mud. He never figured out how he knew-- how
| |
| anybody did--but he did know--he did--and he
| |
| took both hands and yanked the length of chain
| |
| at his left, so the next man would know too. The
| |
| water was above his ankles, flowing over the
| |
| wooden plank he slept on. And then it wasn't
| |
| water anymore. The ditch was caving in and mud
| |
| oozed under and through the bars.
| |
| They waited--each and every one of the
| |
| forty-six. Not screaming, although some of them
| |
| must have fought like the devil not to. The mud
| |
| was up to his thighs and he held on to the bars.
| |
| Then it came-- another yank--from the left this
| |
| time and less forceful than the first because of
| |
| the mud it passed through.
| |
| It started like the chain-up but the
| |
| difference was the power of the chain. One by
| |
| one, from Hi Man back on down the line, they
| |
| dove. Down through the mud under the bars,
| |
| blind, groping. Some had sense enough to wrap
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 214 of 525
| |
| their heads in their shirts, cover their faces with
| |
| rags, put on their shoes. Others just plunged,
| |
| simply ducked down and pushed out, fighting up,
| |
| reaching for air. Some lost direction and their
| |
| neighbors, feeling the confused pull of the chain,
| |
| snatched them around. For one lost, all lost. The
| |
| chain that held them would save all or none, and
| |
| Hi Man was the Delivery. They talked through
| |
| that chain like Sam Morse and, Great God, they
| |
| all came up. Like the unshriven dead, zombies on
| |
| the loose, holding the chains in their hands, they
| |
| trusted the rain and the dark, yes, but mostly Hi
| |
| Man and each other.
| |
| Past the sheds where the dogs lay in deep
| |
| depression; past the two guard shacks, past the
| |
| stable of sleeping horses, past the hens whose
| |
| bills were bolted into their feathers, they waded.
| |
| The moon did not help because it wasn't there.
| |
| The field was a marsh, the track a trough. All
| |
| Georgia seemed to be sliding, melting away.
| |
| Moss wiped their faces as they fought the
| |
| live-oak branches that blocked their way.
| |
| Georgia took up all of Alabama and Mississippi
| |
| then, so there was no state line to cross and it
| |
| wouldn't have mattered anyway. If they had
| |
| known about it, they would have avoided not
| |
| only Alfred and the beautiful feldspar, but
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 215 of 525
| |
| Savannah too and headed for the Sea Islands on
| |
| the river that slid down from the Blue Ridge
| |
| Mountains.
| |
| But they didn't know.
| |
| Daylight came and they huddled in a copse
| |
| of redbud trees. Night came and they scrambled
| |
| up to higher ground, praying the rain would go on
| |
| shielding them and keeping folks at home. They
| |
| were hoping for a shack, solitary, some distance
| |
| from its big house, where a slave might be
| |
| making rope or heating potatoes at the grate.
| |
| What they found was a camp of sick Cherokee for
| |
| whom a rose was named.
| |
| Decimated but stubborn, they were among
| |
| those who chose a fugitive life rather than
| |
| Oklahoma. The illness that swept them now was
| |
| reminiscent of the one that had killed half their
| |
| number two hundred years earlier. In between
| |
| that calamity and this, they had visited George III
| |
| in London, published a newspaper, made baskets,
| |
| led Oglethorpe through forests, helped Andrew
| |
| Jackson fight Creek, cooked maize, drawn up a
| |
| constitution, petitioned the King of Spain, been
| |
| experimented on by Dartmouth, established
| |
| asylums, wrote their language, resisted settlers,
| |
| shot bear and translated scripture.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 216 of 525
| |
| All to no avail. The forced move to the
| |
| Arkansas River, insisted upon by the same
| |
| president they fought for against the Creek,
| |
| destroyed another quarter of their already
| |
| shattered number.
| |
| That was it, they thought, and removed
| |
| themselves from those Cherokee who signed the
| |
| treaty, in order to retire into the forest and await
| |
| the end of the world. The disease they suffered
| |
| now was a mere inconvenience compared to the
| |
| devastation they remembered.
| |
| Still, they protected each other as best they
| |
| could. The healthy were sent some miles away;
| |
| the sick stayed behind with the dead--to survive
| |
| or join them.
| |
| The prisoners from Alfred, Georgia, sat
| |
| down in semicircle near the encampment. No one
| |
| came and still they sat. Hours passed and the rain
| |
| turned soft. Finally a woman stuck her head out of
| |
| her house. Night came and nothing happened. At
| |
| dawn two men with barnacles covering their
| |
| beautiful skin approached them. No one spoke for
| |
| a moment, then Hi Man raised his hand. The
| |
| Cherokee saw the chains and went away. When
| |
| they returned each carried a handful of small
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 217 of 525
| |
| axes. Two children followed with a pot of mush
| |
| cooling and thinning in the rain.
| |
| Buffalo men, they called them, and talked
| |
| slowly to the prisoners scooping mush and tapping
| |
| away at their chains. Nobody from a box in Alfred,
| |
| Georgia, cared about the illness the Cherokee
| |
| warned them about, so they stayed, all forty-six,
| |
| resting, planning their next move. Paul D had no
| |
| idea of what to do and knew less than anybody, it
| |
| seemed. He heard his co-convicts talk
| |
| knowledgeably of rivers and states, towns and
| |
| territories. Heard Cherokee men describe the
| |
| beginning of the world and its end. Listened to
| |
| tales of other Buffalo men they knew--three of
| |
| whom were in the healthy camp a few miles away.
| |
| Hi Man wanted to join them; others wanted to join
| |
| him. Some wanted to leave; some to stay on.
| |
| Weeks later Paul D was the only Buffalo man
| |
| left--without a plan. All he could think of was
| |
| tracking dogs, although Hi Man said the rain they
| |
| left in gave that no chance of success. Alone, the
| |
| last man with buffalo hair among the ailing
| |
| Cherokee, Paul D finally woke up and, admitting
| |
| his ignorance, asked how he might get North. Free
| |
| North. Magical North. Welcoming, benevolent
| |
| North. The Cherokee smiled and looked around.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 218 of 525
| |
| The flood rains of a month ago had turned
| |
| everything to steam and blossoms.
| |
| "That way," he said, pointing. "Follow the tree flowers," he said.
| |
| "Only the tree flowers. As they go, you go. You will be where you want to be when they are
| |
| gone."
| |
| So he raced from dogwood to blossoming
| |
| peach. When they thinned out he headed for the
| |
| cherry blossoms, then magnolia, chinaberry,
| |
| pecan, walnut and prickly pear. At last he
| |
| reached a field of apple trees whose flowers were
| |
| just becoming tiny knots of fruit.
| |
| Spring sauntered north, but he had to run
| |
| like hell to keep it as his traveling companion.
| |
| From February to July he was on the lookout for
| |
| blossoms. When he lost them, and found himself
| |
| without so much as a petal to guide him, he
| |
| paused, climbed a tree on a hillock and scanned
| |
| the horizon for a flash of pink or white in the leaf
| |
| world that surrounded him. He did not touch
| |
| them or stop to smell. He merely followed in their
| |
| wake, a dark ragged figure guided by the
| |
| blossoming plums.
| |
| The apple field turned out to be Delaware
| |
| where the weaver lady lived. She snapped him
| |
| up as soon as he finished the sausage she fed
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 219 of 525
| |
| him and he crawled into her bed crying. She
| |
| passed him off as her nephew from Syracuse
| |
| simply by calling him that nephew's name.
| |
| Eighteen months and he was looking out again for blossoms only this time he did the looking
| |
| on
| |
| a dray.
| |
| It was some time before he could put
| |
| Alfred, Georgia, Sixo, schoolteacher, Halle, his
| |
| brothers, Sethe, Mister, the taste of iron, the
| |
| sight of butter, the smell of hickory, notebook
| |
| paper, one by one, into the tobacco tin lodged
| |
| in his chest. By the time he got to 124 nothing
| |
| in this world could pry it open.
| |
| SHE MOVED HIM.
| |
| Not the way he had beat off the baby's
| |
| ghost--all bang and shriek with windows
| |
| smashed and icily iars rolled in a heap. But she
| |
| moved him nonetheless, and Paul D didn't know
| |
| how to stop it because it looked like he was
| |
| moving himself. Imperceptibly, downright
| |
| reasonably, he was moving out of 124.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 220 of 525
| |
| The beginning was so simple. One day,
| |
| after supper, he sat in the rocker by the stove,
| |
| bone- tired, river-whipped, and fell asleep.
| |
| He woke to the footsteps of Sethe coming
| |
| down the white stairs to make breakfast.
| |
| "I thought you went out somewhere," she
| |
| said.
| |
| Paul D moaned, surprised to find himself
| |
| exactly where he was the last time he looked.
| |
| "Don't tell me I slept in this chair the whole
| |
| night."
| |
| Sethe laughed. "Me? I won't say a word to
| |
| you."
| |
| "Why didn't you rouse me?"
| |
| "I did. Called you two or three times. I gave
| |
| it up around midnight and then I thought you went
| |
| out somewhere."
| |
| He stood, expecting his back to fight it. But
| |
| it didn't. Not a creak or a stiff joint anywhere. In
| |
| fact he felt refreshed. Some things are like that,
| |
| he thought, good-sleep places. The base of certain
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 221 of 525
| |
| trees here and there; a wharf, a bench, a rowboat
| |
| once, a haystack usually, not always bed, and
| |
| here, now, a rocking chair, which was strange
| |
| because in his experience furniture was the worst
| |
| place for a good- sleep sleep.
| |
| The next evening he did it again and then
| |
| again. He was accustomed to sex with Sethe just
| |
| about every day, and to avoid the confusion
| |
| Beloved's shining caused him he still made it his
| |
| business to take her back upstairs in the morning,
| |
| or lie down with her after supper. But he found a
| |
| way and a reason to spend the longest part of the
| |
| night in the rocker. He told himself it must be his
| |
| back- something supportive it needed for a
| |
| weakness left over from sleeping in a box in
| |
| Georgia.
| |
| It went on that way and might have
| |
| stayed that way but one evening, after supper,
| |
| after Sethe, he came downstairs, sat in the
| |
| rocker and didn't want to be there. He stood up
| |
| and realized he didn't want to go upstairs either.
| |
| Irritable and longing for rest, he opened the
| |
| door to Baby Suggs' room and dropped off to
| |
| sleep on the bed the old lady died in. That
| |
| settled it--so it seemed. It became his room and
| |
| Sethe didn't object--her bed made for two had
| |
| been occupied by one for eighteen years before
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 222 of 525
| |
| Paul D came to call. And maybe it was better
| |
| this way, with young girls in the house and him
| |
| not being her true-to-life husband. In any case,
| |
| since there was no reduction in his
| |
| before-breakfast or after-supper appetites, he
| |
| never heard her complain.
| |
| It went on that way and might have stayed
| |
| that way, except one evening, after supper, after
| |
| Sethe, he came downstairs and lay on Baby
| |
| Suggs' bed and didn't want to be there.
| |
| He believed he was having house-fits, the
| |
| glassy anger men sometimes feel when a
| |
| woman's house begins to bind them, when they
| |
| want to yell and break something or at least run
| |
| off. He knew all about that--felt it lots of times--in
| |
| the Delaware weaver's house, for instance. But
| |
| always he associated the house-fit with the
| |
| woman in it. This nervousness had nothing to do
| |
| with the woman, whom he loved a little bit more
| |
| every day: her hands among vegetables, her
| |
| mouth when she licked a thread end before
| |
| guiding it through a needle or bit it in two when
| |
| the seam was done, the blood in her eye when she
| |
| defended her girls (and Beloved was hers now) or
| |
| any coloredwoman from a slur. Also in this
| |
| house-fit there was no anger, no suffocation, no
| |
| yearning to be elsewhere. He just could not, would
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 223 of 525
| |
| not, sleep upstairs or in the rocker or, now, in
| |
| Baby Suggs' bed. So he went to the storeroom.
| |
| It went on that way and might have stayed
| |
| that way except one evening, after supper, after
| |
| Sethe, he lay on a pallet in the storeroom and
| |
| didn't want to be there. Then it was the cold house
| |
| and it was out there, separated from the main part
| |
| of 124, curled on top of two croaker sacks full of
| |
| sweet potatoes, staring at the sides of a lard can,
| |
| that he realized the moving was involuntary. He
| |
| wasn't being nervous; he was being prevented.
| |
| So he waited. Visited Sethe in the morning; slept in the cold room at night and waited. She came, and he wanted to knock her down.
| |
| In Ohio seasons are theatrical. Each one
| |
| enters like a prima donna, convinced its
| |
| performance is the reason the world has people in
| |
| it.
| |
| When Paul D had been forced out of 124
| |
| into a shed behind it, summer had been hooted
| |
| offstage and autumn with its bottles of blood and
| |
| gold had everybody's attention. Even at night,
| |
| when there should have been a restful
| |
| intermission, there was none because the voices
| |
| of a dying landscape were insistent and loud. Paul
| |
| D packed newspaper under himself and over, to
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 224 of 525
| |
| give his thin blanket some help. But the chilly
| |
| night was not on his mind. When he heard the
| |
| door open behind him he refused to turn and look.
| |
| "What you want in here? What you want?" He should have been able to hear her breathing.
| |
| "I want you to touch me on the inside part and call me my name."
| |
| Paul D never worried about his little tobacco
| |
| tin anymore. It was rusted shut. So, while she
| |
| hoisted her skirts and turned her head over her
| |
| shoulder the way the turtles had, he just looked at
| |
| the lard can, silvery in moonlight, and spoke
| |
| quietly.
| |
| "When good people take you in and treat
| |
| you good, you ought to try to be good back. You
| |
| don't... Sethe loves you. Much as her own
| |
| daughter. You know that."
| |
| Beloved dropped her skirts as he spoke and
| |
| looked at him with empty eyes. She took a step he
| |
| could not hear and stood close behind him.
| |
| "She don't love me like I love her. I don't
| |
| love nobody but her."
| |
| "Then what you come in here for?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 225 of 525
| |
| "I want you to touch me on the inside part."
| |
| "Go on back in that house and get to bed."
| |
| "You have to touch me. On the inside part.
| |
| And you have to call me my name."
| |
| As long as his eyes were locked on the silver
| |
| of the lard can he was safe. If he trembled like
| |
| Lot's wife and felt some womanish need to see the
| |
| nature of the sin behind him; feel a sympathy,
| |
| perhaps, for the cursing cursed, or want to hold it
| |
| in his arms out of respect for the connection
| |
| between them, he too would be lost.
| |
| "Call me my name."
| |
| "No."
| |
| "Please call it. I'll go if you call it."
| |
| "Beloved." He said it, but she did not go.
| |
| She moved closer with a footfall he didn't hear
| |
| and he didn't hear the whisper that the flakes of
| |
| rust made either as they fell away from the
| |
| seams of his tobacco tin. So when the lid gave he
| |
| didn't know it. What he knew was that when he
| |
| reached the inside part he was saying, "Red
| |
| heart. Red heart," over and over again. Softly
| |
| and then so loud it woke Denver, then Paul D
| |
| himself. "Red heart. Red heart. Red heart."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 226 of 525
| |
| TO GO BACK to the original hunger was
| |
| impossible. Luckily for Denver, looking was food
| |
| enough to last. But to be looked at in turn was
| |
| beyond appetite; it was breaking through her
| |
| own skin to a place where hunger hadn't been
| |
| discovered. It didn't have to happen often,
| |
| because Beloved seldom looked right at her, or
| |
| when she did, Denver could tell that her own
| |
| face was just the place those eyes stopped while
| |
| the mind behind it walked on. But
| |
| sometimes--at moments Denver could neither
| |
| anticipate nor create-- Beloved rested cheek on
| |
| knuckles and looked at Denver with attention.
| |
| It was lovely. Not to be stared at, not
| |
| seen, but being pulled into view by the
| |
| interested, uncritical eyes of the other. Having
| |
| her hair examined as a part of her self, not as
| |
| material or a style. Having her lips, nose, chin
| |
| caressed as they might be if she were a moss
| |
| rose a gardener paused to admire. Denver's skin
| |
| dissolved under that gaze and became soft and
| |
| bright like the lisle dress that had its arm around
| |
| her mother's waist. She floated near but outside
| |
| her own body, feeling vague and intense at the
| |
| same time. Needing nothing. Being what there
| |
| was.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 227 of 525
| |
| At such times it seemed to be Beloved who
| |
| needed somethingm wanted something. Deep
| |
| down in her wide black eyes, back behind the
| |
| expressionlessness, was a palm held out for a
| |
| penny which Denver would gladly give her, if
| |
| only she knew how or knew enough about her, a
| |
| knowledge not to be had by the answers to the
| |
| questions Sethe occasionally put to her: '"You
| |
| disremember everything? I never knew my
| |
| mother neither, but I saw her a couple of times.
| |
| Did you never see yours? What kind of whites
| |
| was they? You don't remember none?"
| |
| Beloved, scratching the back of her hand,
| |
| would say she remembered a woman who was
| |
| hers, and she remembered being snatched away
| |
| from her. Other than that, the clearest memory
| |
| she had, the one she repeated, was the
| |
| bridge-standing on the bridge looking down. And
| |
| she knew one whiteman.
| |
| Sethe found that remarkable and more
| |
| evidence to support her conclusions, which she
| |
| confided to Denver.
| |
| "Where'd you get the dress, them shoes?"
| |
| Beloved said she took them.
| |
| "Who from?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 228 of 525
| |
| Silence and a faster scratching of her hand. She didn't know; she saw them and just took them.
| |
| "Uh huh," said Sethe, and told Denver
| |
| that she believed Beloved had been locked up
| |
| by some whiteman for his own purposes, and
| |
| never let out the door. That she must have
| |
| escaped to a bridge or someplace and rinsed the
| |
| rest out of her mind. Something like that had
| |
| happened to Ella except it was two men—a
| |
| father and son— and Ella remembered every bit
| |
| of it. For more than a year, they kept her locked
| |
| in a room for themselves.
| |
| "You couldn't think up," Ella had said, "what them two done to me."
| |
| Sethe thought it explained Beloved's behavior around Paul D, whom she hated so.
| |
| Denver neither believed nor commented on
| |
| Sethe's speculations, and she lowered her eyes
| |
| and never said a word about the cold house.
| |
| She was certain that Beloved was the white
| |
| dress that had knelt with her mother in the
| |
| keeping room, the true-to-life presence of the
| |
| baby that had kept her company most of her life.
| |
| And to be looked at by her, however briefly, kept
| |
| her grateful for the rest of the time when she was
| |
| merely the looker. Besides, she had her own set
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 229 of 525
| |
| of questions which had nothing to do with the
| |
| past. The present alone interested Denver, but
| |
| she was careful to appear uninquisitive about the
| |
| things she was dying to ask Beloved, for if she
| |
| pressed too hard, she might lose the penny that
| |
| the held-out palm wanted, and lose, therefore,
| |
| the place beyond appetite. It was better to feast,
| |
| to have permission to be the looker, because the
| |
| old hunger--the before-Beloved hunger that
| |
| drove her into boxwood and cologne for just a
| |
| taste of a life, to feel it bumpy and not flat--was
| |
| out of the question. Looking kept it at bay.
| |
| So she did not ask Beloved how she knew
| |
| about the earrings, the night walks to the cold
| |
| house or the tip of the thing she saw when
| |
| Beloved lay down or came undone in her sleep.
| |
| The look, when it came, came when Denver had
| |
| been careful, had explained things, or
| |
| participated in things, or told stories to keep her
| |
| occupied when Sethe was at the restaurant. No
| |
| given chore was enough to put out the licking fire
| |
| that seemed always to burn in her. Not when
| |
| they wrung out sheets so tight the rinse water
| |
| ran back up their arms. Not when they shoveled
| |
| snow from the path to the outhouse. Or broke
| |
| three inches of ice from the rain barrel; scoured
| |
| and boiled last summer's canning jars, packed
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 230 of 525
| |
| mud in the cracks of the hen house and warmed
| |
| the chicks with their skirts. All the while Denver
| |
| was obliged to talk about what they were
| |
| doing--the how and why of it. About people
| |
| Denver knew once or had seen, giving them
| |
| more life than life had: the sweet-smelling
| |
| whitewoman who brought her oranges and
| |
| cologne and good wool skirts; Lady Jones who
| |
| taught them songs to spell and count by; a
| |
| beautiful boy as smart as she was with a
| |
| birthmark like a nickel on his cheek. A white
| |
| preacher who prayed for their souls while Sethe
| |
| peeled potatoes and Grandma Baby sucked air.
| |
| And she told her about Howard and Buglar: the
| |
| parts of the bed that belonged to each (the top
| |
| reserved for herself); that before she transferred
| |
| to Baby Suggs' bed she never knew them to sleep
| |
| without holding hands. She described them to
| |
| Beloved slowly, to keep her attention, dwelling
| |
| on their habits, the games they taught her and
| |
| not the fright that drove them increasingly out of
| |
| the house—anywhere--and finally far away.
| |
| This day they are outside. It's cold and the
| |
| snow is hard as packed dirt. Denver has finished
| |
| singing the counting song Lady Jones taught her
| |
| students. Beloved is holding her arms steady
| |
| while Denver unclasps frozen underwear and
| |
| towels from the line. One by one she lays them in
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 231 of 525
| |
| Beloved's arms until the pile, like a huge deck of
| |
| cards, reaches her chin. The rest, aprons and
| |
| brown stockings, Denver carries herself. Made
| |
| giddy by the cold, they return to the house. The
| |
| clothes will thaw slowly to a dampness perfect for
| |
| the pressing iron, which will make them smell like
| |
| hot rain. Dancing around the room with Sethe's
| |
| apron, Beloved wants to know if there are flowers
| |
| in the dark. Denver adds sticks to the stovefire
| |
| and assures her there are. Twirling, her face
| |
| framed by the neckband, her waist in the apron
| |
| strings' embrace, she says she is thirsty.
| |
| Denver suggests warming up some cider,
| |
| while her mind races to something she might do or
| |
| say to interest and entertain the dancer.
| |
| Denver is a strategist now and has to keep
| |
| Beloved by her side from the minute Sethe leaves
| |
| for work until the hour of her return when Beloved
| |
| begins to hover at the window, then work her way
| |
| out the door, down the steps and near the road.
| |
| Plotting has changed Denver markedly. Where
| |
| she was once indolent, resentful of every task,
| |
| now she is spry, executing, even extending the
| |
| assignments Sethe leaves for them. All to be able
| |
| to say "We got to" and "Ma'am said for us to."
| |
| Otherwise Beloved gets private and dreamy, or
| |
| quiet and sullen, and Denver's chances of being
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 232 of 525
| |
| looked at by her go down to nothing. She has no
| |
| control over the evenings. When her mother is
| |
| anywhere around, Beloved has eyes only for
| |
| Sethe. At night, in bed, anything might happen.
| |
| She might want to be told a story in the dark when
| |
| Denver can't see her. Or she might get up and go
| |
| into the cold house where Paul D has begun to
| |
| sleep. Or she might cry, silently. She might even
| |
| sleep like a brick, her breath sugary from
| |
| fingerfuls of molasses or sand-cookie crumbs.
| |
| Denver will turn toward her then, and if Beloved
| |
| faces her, she will inhale deeply the sweet air from
| |
| her mouth. If not, she will have to lean up and
| |
| over her, every once in a while, to catch a sniff.
| |
| For anything is better than the original
| |
| hunger--the time when, after a year of the
| |
| wonderful little i, sentences rolling out like pie
| |
| dough and the company of other children, there
| |
| was no sound coming through. Anything is better
| |
| than the silence when she answered to hands
| |
| gesturing and was indifferent to the movement of
| |
| lips. When she saw every little thing and colors
| |
| leaped smoldering into view. She will forgo the
| |
| most violent of sunsets, stars as fat as dinner
| |
| plates and all the blood of autumn and settle for
| |
| the palest yellow if it comes from her Beloved.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 233 of 525
| |
| The cider jug is heavy, but it always is, even
| |
| when empty. Denver can carry it easily, yet she
| |
| asks Beloved to help her. It is in the cold house
| |
| next to the molasses and six pounds of cheddar
| |
| hard as bone.
| |
| A pallet is in the middle of the floor covered
| |
| with newspaper and a blanket at the foot. It has
| |
| been slept on for almost a month, even though
| |
| snow has come and, with it, serious winter.
| |
| It is noon, quite light outside; inside it is not.
| |
| A few cuts of sun break through the roof and walls
| |
| but once there they are too weak to shift for
| |
| themselves. Darkness is stronger and swallows
| |
| them like minnows.
| |
| The door bangs shut. Denver can't tell where Beloved is standing.
| |
| "Where are you?" she whispers in a laughing
| |
| sort of way.
| |
| "Here," says Beloved.
| |
| "Where?"
| |
| "Come find me," says Beloved.
| |
| Denver stretches out her right arm and
| |
| takes a step or two. She trips and falls down onto
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 234 of 525
| |
| the pallet. Newspaper crackles under her weight.
| |
| She laughs again. "Oh, shoot. Beloved?"
| |
| No one answers. Denver waves her arms
| |
| and squinches her eyes to separate the shadows
| |
| of potato sacks, a lard can and a side of smoked
| |
| pork from the one that might be human.
| |
| "Stop fooling," she says and looks up
| |
| toward the light to check and make sure this is
| |
| still the cold house and not something going on
| |
| in her sleep. The minnows of light still swim
| |
| there; they can't make it down to where she is.
| |
| "You the one thirsty. You want cider or
| |
| don't you?" Denver's voice is mildly accusatory.
| |
| Mildly. She doesn't want to offend and she
| |
| doesn't want to betray the panic that is creeping
| |
| over her like hairs. There is no sight or sound of
| |
| Beloved. Denver struggles to her feet amid the
| |
| crackling newspaper. Holding her palm out, she
| |
| moves slowly toward the door. There is no latch
| |
| or knob--just a loop of wire to catch a nail. She
| |
| pushes the door open. Cold sunlight displaces
| |
| the dark. The room is just as it was when they
| |
| entered-except Beloved is not there. There is no
| |
| point in looking further, for everything in the
| |
| place can be seen at first sight. Denver looks
| |
| anyway because the loss is ungovernable. She
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 235 of 525
| |
| steps back into the shed, allowing the door to
| |
| close quickly behind her. Darkness or not, she
| |
| moves rapidly around, reaching, touching
| |
| cobwebs, cheese, slanting shelves, the pallet
| |
| interfering with each step. If she stumbles, she is
| |
| not aware of it because she does not know where
| |
| her body stops, which part of her is an arm, a
| |
| foot or a knee. She feels like an ice cake torn
| |
| away from the solid surface of the stream,
| |
| floating on darkness, thick and crashing against
| |
| the edges of things around it.
| |
| Breakable, meltable and cold.
| |
| It is hard to breathe and even if there were
| |
| light she wouldn't be able to see anything
| |
| because she is crying. Just as she thought it
| |
| might happen, it has. Easy as walking into a
| |
| room. A magical appearance on a stump, the
| |
| face wiped out by sunlight, and a magical
| |
| disappearance in a shed, eaten alive by the dark.
| |
| "Don't," she is saying between tough swallows. "Don't. Don't go back."
| |
| This is worse than when Paul D came to
| |
| 124 and she cried helplessly into the stove. This
| |
| is worse. Then it was for herself. Now she is
| |
| crying because she has no self. Death is a
| |
| skipped meal compared to this. She can feel her
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 236 of 525
| |
| thickness thinning, dissolving into nothing. She
| |
| grabs the hair at her temples to get enough to
| |
| uproot it and halt the melting for a while. Teeth
| |
| clamped shut, Denver brakes her sobs. She
| |
| doesn't move to open the door because there is
| |
| no world out there. She decides to stay in
| |
| the cold house and let the dark swallow her
| |
| like the minnows of light above. She won't put
| |
| up with another leaving, another trick.
| |
| Waking up to find one brother then another
| |
| not at the bottom of the bed, his foot jabbing
| |
| her spine.
| |
| Sitting at the table eating turnips and
| |
| saving the liquor for her grandmother to drink;
| |
| her mother's hand on the keeping-room door and
| |
| her voice saying, "Baby Suggs is gone, Denver."
| |
| And when she got around to worrying about what
| |
| would be the case if Sethe died or Paul D took her
| |
| away, a dream-come-true comes true just to
| |
| leave her on a pile of newspaper in the dark.
| |
| No footfall announces her, but there she is,
| |
| standing where before there was nobody when
| |
| Denver looked. And smiling.
| |
| Denver grabs the hem of Beloved's skirt. "I
| |
| thought you left me.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 237 of 525
| |
| I thought you went back."
| |
| Beloved smiles, "I don't want that place. This
| |
| the place I am."
| |
| She sits down on the pallet and, laughing,
| |
| lies back looking at the cracklights above.
| |
| Surreptitiously, Denver pinches a piece of
| |
| Beloved's skirt between her fingers and holds on.
| |
| A good thing she does because suddenly Beloved
| |
| sits up.
| |
| "What is it?" asks Denver.
| |
| "Look," she points to the sunlit cracks.
| |
| "What? I don't see nothing." Denver follows
| |
| the pointing finger.
| |
| Beloved drops her hand. "I'm like this."
| |
| Denver watches as Beloved bends over,
| |
| curls up and rocks. Her eyes go to no place; her
| |
| moaning is so small Denver can hardly hear it.
| |
| "You all right? Beloved?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 238 of 525
| |
| Beloved focuses her eyes. "Over there. Her
| |
| face."
| |
| Denver looks where Beloved's eyes go; there
| |
| is nothing but darkness there.
| |
| "Whose face? Who is it?"
| |
| "Me. It's me."
| |
| She is smiling again.
| |
| THE LAST of the Sweet Home men, so named
| |
| and called by one who would know, believed it.
| |
| The other four believed it too, once, but they
| |
| were long gone. The sold one never returned,
| |
| the lost one never found. One, he knew, was
| |
| dead for sure; one he hoped was, because butter
| |
| and clabber was no life or reason to live it. He
| |
| grew up thinking that, of all the Blacks in
| |
| Kentucky, only the five of them were men.
| |
| Allowed, encouraged to correct Garner, even
| |
| defy him.
| |
| To invent ways of doing things; to see
| |
| what was needed and attack it without
| |
| permission. To buy a mother, choose a horse
| |
| or a wife, handle guns, even learn reading if
| |
| they wanted to--but they didn't want to since
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 239 of 525
| |
| nothing important to them could be put down
| |
| on paper.
| |
| Was that it? Is that where the manhood
| |
| lay? In the naming done by a whiteman who was
| |
| supposed to know? Who gave them the privilege
| |
| not of working but of deciding how to? No. In
| |
| their relationship with Garner was true metal:
| |
| they were believed and trusted, but most of all
| |
| they were listened to.
| |
| He thought what they said had merit, and
| |
| what they felt was serious. Deferring to his
| |
| slaves' opinions did not deprive him of authority
| |
| or power. It was schoolteacher who taught them
| |
| otherwise.
| |
| A truth that waved like a scarecrow in rye:
| |
| they were only Sweet Home men at Sweet
| |
| Home. One step off that ground and they were
| |
| trespassers among the human race. Watchdogs
| |
| without teeth; steer bulls without horns; gelded
| |
| workhorses whose neigh and whinny could not
| |
| be translated into a language responsible
| |
| humans spoke.
| |
| His strength had lain in knowing that
| |
| schoolteacher was wrong. Now he wondered.
| |
| There was Alfred, Georgia, there was Delaware,
| |
| there was Sixo and still he wondered. If
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 240 of 525
| |
| schoolteacher was right it explained how he had
| |
| come to be a rag doll--picked up and put back
| |
| down anywhere any time by a girl young enough
| |
| to be his daughter. Fucking her when he was
| |
| convinced he didn't want to. Whenever she
| |
| turned her behind up, the calves of his youth
| |
| (was that it?) cracked his resolve. But it was
| |
| more than appetite that humiliated him and
| |
| made him wonder if schoolteacher was right. It
| |
| was being moved, placed where she wanted him,
| |
| and there was nothing he was able to do about it.
| |
| For his life he could not walk up the glistening
| |
| white stairs in the evening; for his life he could
| |
| not stay in the kitchen, in the keeping room, in
| |
| the storeroom at night. And he tried. Held his
| |
| breath the way he had when he ducked into the
| |
| mud; steeled his heart the way he had when the
| |
| trembling began. But it was worse than that,
| |
| worse than the blood eddy he had controlled
| |
| with a sledge hammer. When he stood up from
| |
| the supper table at 124 and turned toward the
| |
| stairs, nausea was first, then repulsion. He, he.
| |
| He who had eaten raw meat barely dead, who
| |
| under plum trees bursting with blossoms had
| |
| crunched through a dove's breast before its
| |
| heart stopped beating. Because he was a man
| |
| and a man could do what he would: be still for six
| |
| hours in a dry well while night dropped; fight
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 241 of 525
| |
| raccoon with his hands and win; watch another
| |
| man, whom he loved better than his brothers,
| |
| roast without a tear just so the roasters would
| |
| know what a man was like. And it was he, that
| |
| man, who had walked from Georgia to Delaware,
| |
| who could not go or stay put where he wanted to
| |
| in 124--shame.
| |
| Paul D could not command his feet, but he
| |
| thought he could still talk and he made up his
| |
| mind to break out that way. He would tell Sethe
| |
| about the last three weeks: catch her alone
| |
| coming from work at the beer garden she called
| |
| a restaurant and tell it all.
| |
| He waited for her. The winter afternoon
| |
| looked like dusk as he stood in the alley behind
| |
| Sawyer's Restaurant. Rehearsing, imagining her
| |
| face and letting the words flock in his head like
| |
| kids before lining up to follow the leader.
| |
| "Well, ah, this is not the, a man can't, see,
| |
| but aw listen here, it ain't that, it really ain't, Ole
| |
| Garner, what I mean is, it ain't a weak- ness,
| |
| the kind of weakness I can fight 'cause 'cause
| |
| something is happening to me, that girl is doing
| |
| it, I know you think I never liked her nohow, but
| |
| she is doing it to me. Fixing me. Sethe, she's
| |
| fixed me and I can't break it."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 242 of 525
| |
| What? A grown man fixed by a girl? But
| |
| what if the girl was not a girl, but something in
| |
| disguise? A lowdown something that looked like
| |
| a sweet young girl and fucking her or not was
| |
| not the point, it was not being able to stay or go
| |
| where he wished in 124, and the danger was in
| |
| losing Sethe because he was not man enough to
| |
| break out, so he needed her, Sethe, to help him,
| |
| to know about it, and it shamed him to have to
| |
| ask the woman he wanted to protect to help him
| |
| do it, God damn it to hell.
| |
| Paul D blew warm breath into the hollow of
| |
| his cupped hands.
| |
| The wind raced down the alley so fast it
| |
| sleeked the fur of four kitchen dogs waiting for
| |
| scraps. He looked at the dogs. The dogs looked
| |
| at him.
| |
| Finally the back door opened and Sethe
| |
| stepped through holding a scrap pan in the
| |
| crook of her arm. When she saw him, she said
| |
| Oh, and her smile was both pleasure and
| |
| surprise.
| |
| Paul D believed he smiled back but his face
| |
| was so cold he wasn't sure.
| |
| "Man, you make me feel like a girl, coming
| |
| by to pick me up after work. Nobody ever did
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 243 of 525
| |
| that before. You better watch out, I might start
| |
| looking forward to it." She tossed the largest
| |
| bones into the dirt rapidly so the dogs would
| |
| know there was enough and not fight each
| |
| other. Then she dumped the skins of some
| |
| things, heads of other things and the insides of
| |
| still more things--what the restaurant could not
| |
| use and she would not--in a smoking pile near
| |
| the animals' feet.
| |
| "Got to rinse this out," she said, "and then I'll be right with you."
| |
| He nodded as she returned to the kitchen.
| |
| The dogs ate without sound and Paul D
| |
| thought they at least got what they came for,
| |
| and if she had enough for them-- The cloth on
| |
| her head was brown wool and she edged it down
| |
| over her hairline against the wind.
| |
| "You get off early or what?"
| |
| "I took off early."
| |
| "Anything the matter?"
| |
| "In a way of speaking," he said and wiped his
| |
| lips.
| |
| "Not cut back?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 244 of 525
| |
| "No, no. They got plenty work. I just-- "
| |
| "Hm?"
| |
| "Sethe, you won't like what I'm 'bout to say."
| |
| She stopped then and turned her face
| |
| toward him and the hateful wind. Another
| |
| woman would have squinted or at least teared
| |
| if the wind whipped her face as it did Sethe's.
| |
| Another woman might have shot him a look of
| |
| apprehension, pleading, anger even, because
| |
| what he said sure sounded like part one of
| |
| Goodbye, I'm gone.
| |
| Sethe looked at him steadily, calmly,
| |
| already ready to accept, release or excuse an
| |
| in-need-or- trouble man. Agreeing, saying
| |
| okay, all right, in advance, because she didn't
| |
| believe any of them--over the long haul--could
| |
| measure up. And whatever the reason, it was
| |
| all right. No fault. Nobody's fault.
| |
| He knew what she was thinking and even
| |
| though she was wrong-- he was not leaving
| |
| her, wouldn't ever--the thing he had in mind to
| |
| tell her was going to be worse. So, when he saw
| |
| the diminished expectation in her eyes, the
| |
| melancholy without blame, he could not say it.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 245 of 525
| |
| He could not say to this woman who did not
| |
| squint in the wind, "I am not a man."
| |
| "Well, say it, Paul D, whether I like it or not."
| |
| Since he could not say what he planned
| |
| to, he said something he didn't know was on his
| |
| mind. "I want you pregnant, Sethe. Would you
| |
| do that for me?"
| |
| Now she was laughing and so was he.
| |
| "You came by here to ask me that? You
| |
| are one crazy-headed man. You right; I don't
| |
| like it. Don't you think I'm too old to start that
| |
| all over again?" She slipped her fingers in his
| |
| hand for all the world like the hand-holding
| |
| shadows on the side of the road.
| |
| "Think about it," he said. And suddenly it
| |
| was a solution: a way to hold on to her,
| |
| document his manhood and break out of the
| |
| girl's spell—all in one. He put the tips of Sethe's
| |
| fingers on his cheek.
| |
| Laughing, she pulled them away lest
| |
| somebody passing the alley see them
| |
| misbehaving in public, in daylight, in the wind.
| |
| Still, he'd gotten a little more time,
| |
| bought it, in fact, and hoped the price wouldn't
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 246 of 525
| |
| wreck him. Like paying for an afternoon in the
| |
| coin of life to come.
| |
| They left off playing, let go hands and
| |
| hunched forward as they left the alley and
| |
| entered the street. The wind was quieter there
| |
| but the dried-out cold it left behind kept
| |
| pedestrians fast-moving, stiff inside their coats.
| |
| No men leaned against door frames or
| |
| storefront windows. The wheels of wagons
| |
| delivering feed or wood screeched as though
| |
| they hurt. Hitched horses in front of the saloons
| |
| shivered and closed their eyes. Four women,
| |
| walking two abreast, approached, their shoes
| |
| loud on the wooden walkway. Paul D touched
| |
| Sethe's elbow to guide her as they stepped from
| |
| the slats to the dirt to let the women pass.
| |
| Half an hour later, when they reached the
| |
| city's edge, Sethe and Paul D resumed catching
| |
| and snatching each other's fingers, stealing quick
| |
| pats on the behind. Joyfully embarrassed to be
| |
| that grownup and that young at the same time.
| |
| Resolve, he thought. That was all it took,
| |
| and no motherless gal was going to break it up.
| |
| No lazy, stray pup of a woman could turn him
| |
| around, make him doubt himself, wonder, plead
| |
| or confess.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 247 of 525
| |
| Convinced of it, that he could do it, he
| |
| threw his arm around Sethe's shoulders and
| |
| squeezed. She let her head touch his chest, and
| |
| since the moment was valuable to both of them,
| |
| they stopped and stood that way--not breathing,
| |
| not even caring if a passerby passed them by.
| |
| The winter light was low. Sethe closed her eyes.
| |
| Paul D looked at the black trees lining the
| |
| roadside, their defending arms raised against
| |
| attack. Softly, suddenly, it began to snow, like a
| |
| present come down from the sky. Sethe opened
| |
| her eyes to it and said, "Mercy."
| |
| And it seemed to Paul D that it was--a little
| |
| mercy--something given to them on purpose to
| |
| mark what they were feeling so they would
| |
| remember it later on when they needed to.
| |
| Down came the dry flakes, fat enough and
| |
| heavy enough to crash like nickels on stone. It
| |
| always surprised him, how quiet it was. Not like
| |
| rain, but like a secret.
| |
| "Run!" he said.
| |
| "You run," said Sethe. "I been on my feet all
| |
| day."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 248 of 525
| |
| "Where I been? Sitting down?" and he pulled
| |
| her along.
| |
| "Stop! Stop!" she said. "I don't have the legs
| |
| for this."
| |
| "Then give em to me," he said and before
| |
| she knew it he had backed into her, hoisted her
| |
| on his back and was running down the road past
| |
| brown fields turning white.
| |
| Breathless at last, he stopped and she slid
| |
| back down on her own two feet, weak from
| |
| laughter.
| |
| "You need some babies, somebody to play
| |
| with in the snow."
| |
| Sethe secured her headcloth.
| |
| Paul D smiled and warmed his hands with
| |
| his breath. "I sure would like to give it a try.
| |
| Need a willing partner though." "I'll say," she answered. "Very, very willing."
| |
| It was nearly four o'clock now and 124 was half a mile ahead.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 249 of 525
| |
| Floating toward them, barely visible in the
| |
| drifting snow, was a figure, and although it was
| |
| the same figure that had been meeting Sethe for
| |
| four months, so complete was the attention she
| |
| and Paul D were paying to themselves they both
| |
| felt a jolt when they saw her close in.
| |
| Beloved did not look at Paul D; her
| |
| scrutiny was for Sethe. She had no coat, no
| |
| wrap, nothing on her head, but she held in her
| |
| hand a long shawl. Stretching out her arms she
| |
| tried to circle it around Sethe.
| |
| "Crazy girl," said Sethe. "You the one out
| |
| here with nothing on." And stepping away and in
| |
| front of Paul D, Sethe took the shawl and
| |
| wrapped it around Beloved's head and
| |
| shoulders. Saying, "You got to learn more sense
| |
| than that," she enclosed her in her left arm.
| |
| Snowflakes stuck now. Paul D felt icy cold
| |
| in the place Sethe had been before Beloved
| |
| came. Trailing a yard or so behind the women,
| |
| he fought the anger that shot through his
| |
| stomach all the way home.
| |
| When he saw Denver silhouetted in the
| |
| lamplight at the window, he could not help
| |
| thinking, "And whose ally you?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 250 of 525
| |
| It was Sethe who did it. Unsuspecting, surely, she solved everything with one blow.
| |
| "Now I know you not sleeping out there
| |
| tonight, are you, Paul D?" She smiled at him,
| |
| and like a friend in need, the chimney coughed
| |
| against the rush of cold shooting into it from the
| |
| sky. Window sashes shuddered in a blast of
| |
| winter air.
| |
| Paul D looked up from the stew meat.
| |
| "You come upstairs. Where you belong," she said, "... and stay there."
| |
| The threads of malice creeping toward him
| |
| from Beloved's side of the table were held
| |
| harmless in the warmth of Sethe's smile.
| |
| Once before (and only once) Paul D had been grateful to a woman.
| |
| Crawling out of the woods, cross-eyed
| |
| with hunger and loneliness, he knocked at the
| |
| first back door he came to in the colored section
| |
| of Wilmington. He told the woman who opened it
| |
| that he'd appreciate doing her woodpile, if she
| |
| could spare him something to eat.
| |
| She looked him up and down.
| |
| "A little later on," she said and opened the
| |
| door wider. She fed him pork sausage, the worst
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 251 of 525
| |
| thing in the world for a starving man, but neither
| |
| he nor his stomach objected. Later, when he
| |
| saw pale cotton sheets and two pillows in her
| |
| bedroom, he had to wipe his eyes quickly,
| |
| quickly so she would not
| |
| see the thankful tears of a man's first time.
| |
| Soil, grass, mud, shucking, leaves, hay, cobs,
| |
| sea shells—all that he'd slept on. White cotton
| |
| sheets had never crossed his mind. He fell in
| |
| with a groan and the woman helped him
| |
| pretend he was making love to her and not her
| |
| bed linen. He vowed that night, full of pork,
| |
| deep in luxury, that he would never leave her.
| |
| She would have to kill him to get him out of
| |
| that bed. Eighteen months later, when he had
| |
| been purchased by Northpoint Bank and Railroad
| |
| Company, he was still thankful for that
| |
| introduction to sheets.
| |
| Now he was grateful a second time. He felt
| |
| as though he had been plucked from the face of a
| |
| cliff and put down on sure ground.
| |
| In Sethe's bed he knew he could put up
| |
| with two crazy girls—as long as Sethe made her
| |
| wishes known. Stretched out to his full length,
| |
| watching snowflakes stream past the window
| |
| over his feet, it was easy to dismiss the doubts
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 252 of 525
| |
| that took him to the alley behind the
| |
| restaurant: his expectations for himself were
| |
| high, too high. What he might call cowardice
| |
| other people called common sense.
| |
| Tucked into the well of his arm, Sethe
| |
| recalled Paul D's face in the street when he asked
| |
| her to have a baby for him. Although she laughed
| |
| and took his hand, it had frightened her. She
| |
| thought quickly of how good the sex would be if
| |
| that is what he wanted, but mostly she was
| |
| frightened by the thought of having a baby once
| |
| more.
| |
| Needing to be good enough, alert enough,
| |
| strong enough, that caring--again. Having to
| |
| stay alive just that much longer. O Lord, she
| |
| thought, deliver me. Unless carefree, motherlove
| |
| was a killer. What did he want her pregnant for?
| |
| To hold on to her? have a sign that he passed this
| |
| way? He probably had children everywhere
| |
| anyway.
| |
| Eighteen years of roaming, he would have to have dropped a few.
| |
| No. He resented the children she had,
| |
| that's what. Child, she corrected herself. Child
| |
| plus Beloved whom she thought of as her own,
| |
| and that is what he resented. Sharing her with
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 253 of 525
| |
| the girls. Hearing the three of them laughing at
| |
| something he wasn't in on. The code they used
| |
| among themselves that he could not break.
| |
| Maybe even the time spent on their needs and
| |
| not his. They were a family somehow and he was
| |
| not the head of it.
| |
| Can you stitch this up for me, baby?
| |
| Um hm. Soon's I finish this petticoat. She
| |
| just got the one she came here in and everybody
| |
| needs a change.
| |
| Any pie left?
| |
| I think Denver got the last of it.
| |
| And not complaining, not even minding
| |
| that he slept all over and around the house now,
| |
| which she put a stop to this night out of courtesy.
| |
| Sethe sighed and placed her hand on his
| |
| chest. She knew she was building a case against
| |
| him in order to build a case against getting
| |
| pregnant, and it shamed her a little. But she
| |
| had all the children she needed. If her boys
| |
| came back one day, and Denver and Beloved
| |
| stayed on--well, it would be the way it was
| |
| supposed to be, no?
| |
| Right after she saw the shadows holding
| |
| hands at the side of the road hadn't the picture
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 254 of 525
| |
| altered? And the minute she saw the dress and
| |
| shoes sitting in the front yard, she broke water.
| |
| Didn't even have to see the face burning in the
| |
| sunlight. She had been dreaming it for years.
| |
| Paul D's chest rose and fell, rose and fell under her hand.
| |
| DENVER FINISHED washing the dishes and sat
| |
| down at the table.
| |
| Beloved, who had not moved since Sethe
| |
| and Paul D left the room, sat sucking her
| |
| forefinger. Denver watched her face awhile and
| |
| then said, "She likes him here."
| |
| Beloved went on probing her mouth with her finger. "Make him go away," she said.
| |
| "She might be mad at you if he leaves."
| |
| Beloved, inserting a thumb in her mouth
| |
| along with the forefinger, pulled out a back
| |
| tooth. There was hardly any blood, but Denver
| |
| said, "Ooooh, didn't that hurt you?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 255 of 525
| |
| Beloved looked at the tooth and thought,
| |
| This is it. Next would be her arm, her hand, a
| |
| toe. Pieces of her would drop maybe one at a
| |
| time, maybe all at once. Or on one of those
| |
| mornings before Denver woke and after Sethe
| |
| left she would fly apart. It is difficult keeping her
| |
| head on her neck, her legs attached to her hips
| |
| when she is by herself. Among the things she
| |
| could not remember was when she first knew
| |
| that she could wake up any day and find herself
| |
| in pieces.
| |
| She had two dreams: exploding, and
| |
| being swallowed. When her tooth came out--an
| |
| odd fragment, last in the row--she thought it
| |
| was starting.
| |
| "Must be a wisdom," said Denver. "Don't it
| |
| hurt?"
| |
| "Yes."
| |
| "
| |
| T
| |
| h
| |
| e
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 256 of 525
| |
| n
| |
| w
| |
| h
| |
| y
| |
| d
| |
| o
| |
| n
| |
| '
| |
| t
| |
| y
| |
| o
| |
| u
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 257 of 525
| |
| c
| |
| r
| |
| y
| |
| ?
| |
| "
| |
| "
| |
| W
| |
| h
| |
| a
| |
| t
| |
| ?
| |
| "
| |
| "If it hurts, why don't you cry?"
| |
| And she did. Sitting there holding a small
| |
| white tooth in the palm of her smooth smooth
| |
| hand. Cried the way she wanted to when
| |
| turtles came out of the water, one behind the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 258 of 525
| |
| other, right after the blood-red bird
| |
| disappeared back into the leaves. The way she
| |
| wanted to when Sethe went to him standing in
| |
| the tub under the stairs. With the tip of her
| |
| tongue she touched the salt water that slid to
| |
| the corner of her mouth and hoped Denver's
| |
| arm around her shoulders would keep them
| |
| from falling apart.
| |
| The couple upstairs, united, didn't hear a
| |
| sound, but below them, outside, all around 124
| |
| the snow went on and on and on. Piling itself,
| |
| burying itself. Higher. Deeper.
| |
| AT THE BACK of Baby Suggs' mind may have
| |
| been the thought that if Halle made it, God do
| |
| what He would, it would be a cause for
| |
| celebration. If only this final son could do for
| |
| himself what he had done for her and for the
| |
| three children John and Ella delivered to her
| |
| door one summer night. When the children
| |
| arrived and no Sethe, she was afraid and
| |
| grateful. Grateful that the part of the family that
| |
| survived was her own grandchildren--the first
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 259 of 525
| |
| and only she would know: two boys and a little
| |
| girl who was crawling already. But she held her
| |
| heart still, afraid to form questions: What about
| |
| Sethe and Halle; why the delay? Why didn't
| |
| Sethe get on board too? Nobody could make it
| |
| alone. Not only because trappers picked them
| |
| off like buzzards or netted them like rabbits, but
| |
| also because you couldn't run if you didn't know
| |
| how to go. You could be lost forever, if there
| |
| wasn't nobody to show you the way.
| |
| So when Sethe arrived--all mashed up and
| |
| split open, but with another grandchild in her
| |
| arms-- the idea of a whoop moved closer to the
| |
| front of her brain. But since there was still no
| |
| sign of Halle and Sethe herself didn't know what
| |
| had happened to him, she let the whoop lie-not
| |
| wishing to hurt his chances by thanking God too
| |
| soon.
| |
| It was Stamp Paid who started it. Twenty
| |
| days after Sethe got to 124 he came by and
| |
| looked at the baby he had tied up in his
| |
| nephew's jacket, looked at the mother he had
| |
| handed a piece of fried eel to and, for some
| |
| private reason of his own, went off with two
| |
| buckets to a place near the river's edge that only
| |
| he knew about where blackberries grew, tasting
| |
| so good and happy that to eat them was like
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 260 of 525
| |
| being in church. Just one of the berries and you
| |
| felt anointed.
| |
| He walked six miles to the riverbank; did
| |
| a slide-run-slide down into a ravine made
| |
| almost inaccessible by brush. He reached
| |
| through brambles lined with blood-drawing
| |
| thorns thick as knives that cut through his shirt
| |
| sleeves and trousers. All the while suffering
| |
| mosquitoes, bees, hornets, wasps and the
| |
| meanest lady spiders in the state. Scratched,
| |
| raked and bitten, he maneuvered through and
| |
| took hold of each berry with fingertips so gentle
| |
| not a single one was bruised. Late in the
| |
| afternoon he got back to 124 and put two full
| |
| buckets down on the porch. When Baby Suggs
| |
| saw his shredded clothes, bleeding hands,
| |
| welted face and neck she sat down laughing
| |
| out loud.
| |
| Buglar, Howard, the woman in the bonnet
| |
| and Sethe came to look and then laughed along
| |
| with Baby Suggs at the sight of the sly, steely old
| |
| black man: agent, fisherman, boatman, tracker,
| |
| savior, spy, standing in broad daylight whipped
| |
| finally by two pails of blackberries.
| |
| Paying them no mind he took a berry and
| |
| put it in the three week-old Denver's mouth. The
| |
| women shrieked.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 261 of 525
| |
| "She's too little for that, Stamp."
| |
| "Bowels be soup."
| |
| "Sickify her stomach."
| |
| But the baby's thrilled eyes and smacking
| |
| lips made them follow suit, sampling one at a time
| |
| the berries that tasted like church. Finally Baby
| |
| Suggs slapped the boys' hands away from the
| |
| bucket and sent Stamp around to the pump to
| |
| rinse himself. She had decided to do something
| |
| with the fruit worthy of the man's labor and his
| |
| love.
| |
| That's how it began.
| |
| She made the pastry dough and thought she
| |
| ought to tell Ella and John to stop on by because
| |
| three pies, maybe four, were too much to keep for
| |
| one's own. Sethe thought they might as well back
| |
| it up with a couple of chickens. Stamp allowed that
| |
| perch and catfish were jumping into the
| |
| boat--didn't even have to drop a line.
| |
| From Denver's two thrilled eyes it grew to a
| |
| feast for ninety people .124 shook with their
| |
| voices far into the night. Ninety people who ate so
| |
| well, and laughed so much, it made them angry.
| |
| They woke up the next morning and remembered
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 262 of 525
| |
| the meal-fried perch that Stamp Paid handled with
| |
| a hickory twig, holding his left palm out against
| |
| the spit and pop of the boiling grease; the corn
| |
| pudding made with cream; tired, overfed children
| |
| asleep in the grass, tiny bones of roasted rabbit
| |
| still in their hands-- and got angry.
| |
| Baby Suggs' three (maybe four) pies grew to ten (maybe twelve).
| |
| Sethe's two hens became five turkeys. The
| |
| one block of ice brought all the way from
| |
| Cincinnati-- -over which they poured mashed
| |
| watermelon mixed with sugar and mint to make a
| |
| punch--became a wagonload of ice cakes for a
| |
| washtub full of strawberry shrug, 124, rocking
| |
| with laughter, goodwill and food for ninety, made
| |
| them angry. Too much, they thought. Where does
| |
| she get it all, Baby Suggs, holy? Why is she and
| |
| hers always the center of things? How come she
| |
| always knows exactly what to do and when?
| |
| Giving advice; passing messages; healing the
| |
| sick, hiding fugitives, loving, cooking, cooking,
| |
| loving, preaching, singing, dancing and loving
| |
| everybody like it was her job and hers alone.
| |
| Now to take two buckets of blackberries and
| |
| make ten, maybe twelve, pies; to have turkey
| |
| enough for the whole town pretty near, new peas
| |
| in September, fresh cream but no cow, ice and
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 263 of 525
| |
| sugar, batter bread, bread pudding, raised bread,
| |
| shortbread--it made them mad.
| |
| Loaves and fishes were His powers--they
| |
| did not belong to an ex slave who had probably
| |
| never carried one hundred pounds to the scale,
| |
| or picked okra with a baby on her back. Who had
| |
| never been lashed by a ten-year-old whiteboy as
| |
| God knows they had. Who had not even escaped
| |
| slavery--had, in fact, been bought out of it by a
| |
| doting son and driven to the Ohio River in a
| |
| wagon--free papers folded between her breasts
| |
| (driven by the very man who had been her
| |
| master, who also paid her resettlement
| |
| fee--name of Garner), and rented a house with
| |
| two floors and a well from the Bodwins-- the
| |
| white brother and sister who gave Stamp Paid,
| |
| Ella and John clothes, goods and gear for
| |
| runaways because they hated slavery worse than
| |
| they hated slaves.
| |
| It made them furious. They swallowed
| |
| baking soda, the morning after, to calm the
| |
| stomach violence caused by the bounty, the
| |
| reckless generosity on display at 124. Whispered
| |
| to each other in the yards about fat rats, doom
| |
| and uncalled-for pride.
| |
| The scent of their disapproval lay heavy in
| |
| the air. Baby Suggs woke to it and wondered
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 264 of 525
| |
| what it was as she boiled hominy for her
| |
| grandchildren. Later, as she stood in the
| |
| garden, chopping at the tight soil over the roots
| |
| of the pepper plants, she smelled it again.
| |
| She lifted her head and looked around.
| |
| Behind her some yards to the left Sethe squatted
| |
| in the pole beans. Her shoulders were distorted
| |
| by the greased flannel under her dress to
| |
| encourage the healing of her back. Near her in a
| |
| bushel basket was the three-week-old baby.
| |
| Baby Suggs, holy, looked up. The sky was
| |
| blue and clear. Not one touch of death in the
| |
| definite green of the leaves. She could hear birds
| |
| and, faintly, the stream way down in the
| |
| meadow. The puppy, Here Boy, was burying the
| |
| last bones from yesterday's party. From
| |
| somewhere at the side of the house came the
| |
| voices of Buglar, Howard and the crawling girl.
| |
| Nothing seemed amiss--yet the smell of
| |
| disapproval was sharp. Back beyond the
| |
| vegetable garden, closer to the stream but in full
| |
| sun, she had planted corn. Much as they'd picked
| |
| for the party, there were still ears ripening, which
| |
| she could see from where she stood. Baby Suggs
| |
| leaned back into the peppers and the squash
| |
| vines with her hoe. Carefully, with the blade at
| |
| just the right angle, she cut through a stalk of
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 265 of 525
| |
| insistent rue. Its flowers she stuck through a split
| |
| in her hat; the rest she tossed aside. The quiet
| |
| clok clok clok of wood splitting reminded her that
| |
| Stamp was doing the chore he promised to the
| |
| night before. She sighed at her work and, a
| |
| moment later, straightened up to sniff the
| |
| disapproval once again.
| |
| Resting on the handle of the hoe, she
| |
| concentrated. She was accustomed to the
| |
| knowledge that nobody prayed for her--but this
| |
| free floating repulsion was new. It wasn't
| |
| whitefolks--that much she could tell--so it must
| |
| be colored ones. And then she knew. Her friends
| |
| and neighbors were angry at her because she
| |
| had overstepped, given too much, offended
| |
| them by excess.
| |
| Baby closed her eyes. Perhaps they were
| |
| right. Suddenly, behind the disapproving odor,
| |
| way way back behind it, she smelled another
| |
| thing. Dark and coming. Something she couldn't
| |
| get at because the other odor hid it.
| |
| She squeezed her eyes tight to see
| |
| what it was but all she could make out was
| |
| high-topped shoes she didn't like the look of.
| |
| Thwarted yet wondering, she chopped
| |
| away with the hoe. What could it be? This dark
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 266 of 525
| |
| and coming thing. What was left to hurt her now?
| |
| News of Halle's death? No. She had been
| |
| prepared for that better than she had for his life.
| |
| The last of her children, whom she barely glanced
| |
| at when he was born because it wasn't worth the
| |
| trouble to try to learn features you would never
| |
| see change into adulthood anyway. Seven times
| |
| she had done that: held a little foot; examined
| |
| the fat fingertips with her own--fingers she never
| |
| saw become the male or female hands a mother
| |
| would recognize anywhere.
| |
| She didn't know to this day what their
| |
| permanent teeth looked like; or how they held
| |
| their heads when they walked. Did Patty lose her
| |
| lisp? What color did Famous' skin finally take?
| |
| Was that a cleft in Johnny's chin or just a dimple
| |
| that would disappear soon's his jawbone
| |
| changed? Four girls, and the last time she saw
| |
| them there was no hair under their arms. Does
| |
| Ardelia still love the burned bottom of bread? All
| |
| seven were gone or dead. What would be the
| |
| point of looking too hard at that youngest one?
| |
| But for some reason they let her keep him. He
| |
| was with her--everywhere.
| |
| When she hurt her hip in Carolina she was
| |
| a real bargain (costing less than Halle, who was
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 267 of 525
| |
| ten then) for Mr. Garner, who took them both to
| |
| Kentucky to a farm he called Sweet Home.
| |
| Because of the hip she jerked like a
| |
| three-legged dog when she walked. But at
| |
| Sweet Home there wasn't a rice field or tobacco
| |
| patch in sight, and nobody, but nobody,
| |
| knocked her down. Not once. Lillian Garner
| |
| called her Jenny for some reason but she never
| |
| pushed, hit or called her mean names. Even
| |
| when she slipped in cow dung and broke every
| |
| egg in her apron, nobody said
| |
| you-blackbitchwhat'sthematterwith-you and
| |
| nobody knocked her down.
| |
| Sweet Home was tiny compared to the places she had been. Mr.
| |
| Garner, Mrs. Garner, herself, Halle, and
| |
| four boys, over half named Paul, made up the
| |
| entire population. Mrs. Garner hummed when
| |
| she worked; Mr. Garner acted like the world was
| |
| a toy he was supposed to have fun with. Neither
| |
| wanted her in the field--Mr.
| |
| Garner's boys, including Halle, did all of
| |
| that--which was a blessing since she could not
| |
| have managed it anyway. What she did was
| |
| stand beside the humming Lillian Garner while
| |
| the two of them cooked, preserved, washed,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 268 of 525
| |
| ironed, made candles, clothes, soap and cider;
| |
| fed chickens, pigs, dogs and geese; milked cows,
| |
| churned butter, rendered fat, laid fires....
| |
| Nothing to it. And nobody knocked her down.
| |
| Her hip hurt every single day--but she
| |
| never spoke of it. Only Halle, who had watched
| |
| her movements closely for the last four years,
| |
| knew that to get in and out of bed she had to lift
| |
| her thigh with both hands, which was why he
| |
| spoke to Mr. Garner about buying her out of
| |
| there so she could sit down for a change. Sweet
| |
| boy. The one person who did something hard for
| |
| her: gave her his work, his life and now his
| |
| children, whose voices she could just make out
| |
| as she stood in the garden wondering what was
| |
| the dark and coming thing behind the scent of
| |
| disapproval. Sweet Home was a marked
| |
| improvement. No question. And no matter, for
| |
| the sadness was at her center, the desolated
| |
| center where the self that was no self made its
| |
| home. Sad as it was that she did not know where
| |
| her children were buried or what they looked like
| |
| if alive, fact was she knew more about them than
| |
| she knew about herself, having never had the
| |
| map to discover what she was like.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 269 of 525
| |
| Could she sing? (Was it nice to hear when
| |
| she did?) Was she pretty? Was she a good friend?
| |
| Could she have been a loving mother?
| |
| A faithful wife? Have I got a sister and does she favor me? If my mother knew me would she
| |
| like
| |
| me?
| |
| In Lillian Garner's house, exempted from
| |
| the field work that broke her hip and the
| |
| exhaustion that drugged her mind; in Lillian
| |
| Garner's house where nobody knocked her down
| |
| (or up), she listened to the whitewoman humming
| |
| at her work; watched her face light up when Mr.
| |
| Garner came in and thought, It's better here, but
| |
| I'm not. The Garners, it seemed to her, ran a
| |
| special kind of slavery, treating them like paid
| |
| labor, listening to what they said, teaching what
| |
| they wanted known. And he didn't stud his boys.
| |
| Never brought them to her cabin with directions to
| |
| "lay down with her," like they did in Carolina, or
| |
| rented their sex out on other farms. It surprised
| |
| and pleased her, but worried her too. Would he
| |
| pick women for them or what did he think was
| |
| going to happen when those boys ran smack into
| |
| their nature? Some danger he was courting and he
| |
| surely knew it. In fact, his order for them not to
| |
| leave Sweet Home, except in his company, was
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 270 of 525
| |
| not so much because of the law, but the danger of
| |
| men- bred slaves on the loose.
| |
| Baby Suggs talked as little as she could get
| |
| away with because what was there to say that the
| |
| roots of her tongue could manage?
| |
| So the whitewoman, finding her new slave excellent if silent help, hummed to herself while she
| |
| worked.
| |
| When Mr. Garner agreed to the
| |
| arrangements with Halle, and when Halle looked
| |
| like it meant more to him that she go free than
| |
| anything in the world, she let herself be taken
| |
| 'cross the river. Of the two hard thingsstanding
| |
| on her feet till she dropped or leaving her last
| |
| and probably only living child- she chose the
| |
| hard thing that made him happy, and never put
| |
| to him the question she put to herself: What for?
| |
| What does a sixty-odd-year-old slavewoman
| |
| who walks like a three-legged dog need freedom
| |
| for? And when she stepped foot on free ground
| |
| she could not believe that Halle knew what she
| |
| didn't; that Halle, who had never drawn one free
| |
| breath, knew that there was nothing like it in this
| |
| world. It scared her.
| |
| Something's the matter. What's the matter?
| |
| What's the matter? she asked herself. She didn't
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 271 of 525
| |
| know what she looked like and was not curious.
| |
| But suddenly she saw her hands and thought with
| |
| a clarity as simple as it was dazzling, "These hands
| |
| belong to me. These my hands." Next she felt a
| |
| knocking in her chest and discovered something
| |
| else new: her own heartbeat. Had it been there all
| |
| along? This pounding thing? She felt like a fool and
| |
| began to laugh out loud.
| |
| Mr. Garner looked over his shoulder at her
| |
| with wide brown eyes and smiled himself. "What's
| |
| funny, Jenny?"
| |
| She couldn't stop laughing. "My heart's beating," she said.
| |
| And it was true.
| |
| Mr. Garner laughed. "Nothing to be scared of, Jenny. Just keep your same ways, you'll be all
| |
| right."
| |
| She covered her mouth to keep from laughing too loud.
| |
| "These people I'm taking you to will give
| |
| you what help you need. Name of Bodwin. A
| |
| brother and a sister. Scots. I been knowing them
| |
| for twenty years or more."
| |
| Baby Suggs thought it was a good time to
| |
| ask him something she had long wanted to know.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 272 of 525
| |
| "Mr. Garner," she said, "why you all call me
| |
| Jenny?"
| |
| '"Cause that what's on your sales ticket,
| |
| gal. Ain't that your name? What you call
| |
| yourself?" "Nothings" she said. "I don't call
| |
| myself nothing."
| |
| Mr. Garner went red with laughter. "When I
| |
| took you out of Carolina, Whitlow called you
| |
| Jenny and Jenny Whitlow is what his bill said.
| |
| Didn't he call you Jenny?"
| |
| "No, sir. If he did I didn't hear it."
| |
| "What did you answer to?"
| |
| "Anything, but Suggs is what my husband
| |
| name."
| |
| "You got married, Jenny? I didn't know it."
| |
| "Manner of speaking."
| |
| "You know where he is, this husband?"
| |
| "No, sir."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 273 of 525
| |
| "Is that Halle's daddy?" "No, sir."
| |
| "why you call him Suggs, then? His bill of
| |
| sale says Whitlow too, just like yours."
| |
| "Suggs is my name, sir. From my husband.
| |
| He didn't call me Jenny." "What he call
| |
| you?" "Baby."
| |
| "Well," said Mr. Garner, going pink again,
| |
| "if I was you I'd stick to Jenny Whitlow. Mrs. Baby
| |
| Suggs ain't no name for a freed Negro."
| |
| Maybe not, she thought, but Baby Suggs
| |
| was all she had left of the "husband" she
| |
| claimed. A serious, melancholy man who taught
| |
| her how to make shoes. The two of them made
| |
| a pact: whichever one got a chance to run
| |
| would take it; together if possible, alone if not,
| |
| and no looking back. He got his chance, and
| |
| since she never heard otherwise she believed
| |
| he made it. Now how could he find or hear tell of
| |
| her if she was calling herself some bill-of-sale
| |
| name?
| |
| She couldn't get over the city. More
| |
| people than Carolina and enough whitefolks to
| |
| stop the breath. Two-story buildings
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 274 of 525
| |
| everywhere, and walkways made of perfectly
| |
| cut slats of wood. Roads wide as Garner's whole
| |
| house.
| |
| "This is a city of water," said Mr. Garner.
| |
| "Everything travels by water and what the
| |
| rivers can't carry the canals take. A queen of a
| |
| city, Jenny. Everything you ever dreamed of,
| |
| they make it right here. Iron stoves, buttons,
| |
| ships, shirts, hairbrushes, paint, steam
| |
| engines, books. A sewer system make your
| |
| eyes bug out. Oh, this is a city, all right. If you
| |
| have to live in a city--this is it."
| |
| The Bodwins lived right in the center of a
| |
| street full of houses and trees. Mr. Garner
| |
| leaped out and tied his horse to a solid iron
| |
| post.
| |
| "Here we are."
| |
| Baby picked up her bundle and with great
| |
| difficulty, caused by her hip and the hours of
| |
| sitting in a wagon, climbed down. Mr.
| |
| Garner was up the walk and on the porch
| |
| before she touched ground, but she got a peep
| |
| at a Negro girl's face at the open door before
| |
| she followed a path to the back of the house.
| |
| She waited what seemed a long time before this
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 275 of 525
| |
| same girl opened the kitchen door and offered
| |
| her a seat by the window.
| |
| "Can I get you anything to eat, ma'am?" the girl asked.
| |
| "No, darling. I'd look favorable on some
| |
| water though." The girl went to the sink and
| |
| pumped a cupful of water. She placed it in Baby
| |
| Suggs' hand. "I'm Janey, ma'am."
| |
| Baby, marveling at the sink, drank every
| |
| drop of water although it tasted like a serious
| |
| medicine. "Suggs," she said, blotting her lips
| |
| with the back of her hand. "Baby Suggs."
| |
| "Glad to meet you, Mrs. Suggs. You going to be staying here?"
| |
| "I don't know where I'll be. Mr.
| |
| Garner--that's him what brought me here--he
| |
| say he arrange something for me." And then,
| |
| "I'm free, you know."
| |
| Janey smiled. "Yes, ma'am."
| |
| "Your people live around here?"
| |
| "Yes, ma'am. All us live out on Bluestone."
| |
| "We scattered," said Baby Suggs, "but
| |
| maybe not for long."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 276 of 525
| |
| Great God, she thought, where do I start?
| |
| Get somebody to write old Whitlow. See who
| |
| took Patty and Rosa Lee. Somebody name Dunn
| |
| got Ardelia and went West, she heard. No point
| |
| in trying for Tyree or John. They cut thirty years
| |
| ago and, if she searched too hard and they were
| |
| hiding, finding them would do them more harm
| |
| than good. Nancy and Famous died in a ship off
| |
| the Virginia coast before it set sail for
| |
| Savannah. That much she knew. The overseer
| |
| at Whitlow's place brought her the news, more
| |
| from a wish to have his way with her than from
| |
| the kindness of his heart. The captain waited
| |
| three weeks in port, to get a full cargo before
| |
| setting off. Of the slaves in the hold who didn't
| |
| make it, he said, two were Whitlow pickaninnies
| |
| name of...
| |
| But she knew their names. She knew, and
| |
| covered her ears with her fists to keep from
| |
| hearing them come from his mouth.
| |
| Janey heated some milk and poured it
| |
| in a bowl next to a plate of cornbread. After
| |
| some coaxing, Baby Suggs came to the
| |
| table and sat down. She crumbled the bread
| |
| into the hot milk and discovered she was
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 277 of 525
| |
| hungrier than she had ever been in her life
| |
| and that was saying something.
| |
| "They going to miss this?"
| |
| "No," said Janey. "Eat all you want; it's
| |
| ours."
| |
| "Anybody else live here?"
| |
| "Just me. Mr. Woodruff, he does the outside
| |
| chores. He comes by two, three days a week."
| |
| "Just you two?"
| |
| "Yes, ma'am. I do the cooking and washing."
| |
| "Maybe your people know of somebody
| |
| looking for help."
| |
| "I be sure to ask, but I know they take
| |
| women at the slaughterhouse."
| |
| "Doing what?"
| |
| "I don't know."
| |
| "Something men don't want to do, I reckon."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 278 of 525
| |
| "My cousin say you get all the meat
| |
| you want, plus twenty-five cents the hour.
| |
| She make summer sausage."
| |
| Baby Suggs lifted her hand to the top of her
| |
| head. Money? Money?
| |
| They would pay her money every single day?
| |
| Money?
| |
| "Where is this here slaughterhouse?" she
| |
| asked.
| |
| Before Janey could answer, the Bodwins
| |
| came in to the kitchen with a grinning Mr.
| |
| Garner behind. Undeniably brother and sister,
| |
| both dressed in gray with faces too young for
| |
| their snow-white hair.
| |
| "Did you give her anything to eat, Janey?"
| |
| asked the brother.
| |
| "Yes, sir."
| |
| "Keep your seat, Jenny," said the sister, and
| |
| that good news got better.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 279 of 525
| |
| When they asked what work she could do,
| |
| instead of reeling off the hundreds of tasks she
| |
| had performed, she asked about the
| |
| slaughterhouse.
| |
| She was too old for that, they said.
| |
| "She's the best cobbler you ever see," said
| |
| Mr. Garner.
| |
| "Cobbler?" Sister Bodwin raised her black
| |
| thick eyebrows. "Who taught you that?"
| |
| "Was a slave taught me," said Baby Suggs.
| |
| "New boots, or just repair?"
| |
| "New, old, anything."
| |
| "Well," said Brother Bodwin, "that'll be
| |
| something, but you'll need more."
| |
| "What about taking in wash?" asked Sister
| |
| Bodwin.
| |
| "Yes, ma'am."
| |
| "Two cents a pound."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 280 of 525
| |
| "Yes, ma'am. But where's the in?"
| |
| "What?"
| |
| "You said 'take in wash.' Where is the 'in'?
| |
| Where I'm going to be."
| |
| "Oh, just listen to this, Jenny," said Mr.
| |
| Garner. "These two angels got a house for you.
| |
| Place they own out a ways."
| |
| It had belonged to their grandparents before they moved in town.
| |
| Recently it. had been rented out to a
| |
| whole parcel of Negroes, who had left the state.
| |
| It was too big a house for Jenny alone, they said
| |
| (two rooms upstairs, two down), but it was the
| |
| best and the only thing they could do. In return
| |
| for laundry, some seamstress work, a little
| |
| canning and so on (oh shoes, too), they would
| |
| permit her to stay there. Provided she was
| |
| clean. The past parcel of colored wasn't.
| |
| Baby Suggs agreed to the situation, sorry
| |
| to see the money go but excited about a house
| |
| with stepsnever mind she couldn't climb them.
| |
| Mr. Garner told the Bodwins that she was a right
| |
| fine cook as well as a fine cobbler and showed
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 281 of 525
| |
| his belly and the sample on his feet. Everybody
| |
| laughed.
| |
| "Anything you need, let us know," said the sister. "We don't hold with slavery, even Garner's
| |
| kind."
| |
| "Tell em, Jenny. You live any better on any
| |
| place before mine?"
| |
| "No, sir," she said. "No place."
| |
| "How long was you at Sweet Home?"
| |
| "Ten year, I believe."
| |
| "Ever go hungry?"
| |
| "No, sir."
| |
| "Cold?"
| |
| "No, sir."
| |
| Anybody lay a hand on you?" "No, sir
| |
| "Did I let Halle buy you or not?"
| |
| "Yes, sir, you did," she said, thinking, But
| |
| you got my boy and I'm all broke down. You be
| |
| renting him out to pay for me way after I'm gone
| |
| to Glory.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 282 of 525
| |
| Woodruff, they said, would carry her out
| |
| there, they said, and all three disappeared
| |
| through the kitchen door.
| |
| "I have to fix the supper now," said Janey.
| |
| "I'll help," said Baby Suggs. "You too short to reach the fire."
| |
| It was dark when Woodruff clicked the
| |
| horse into a trot. He was a young man with a
| |
| heavy beard and a burned place on his jaw
| |
| the beard did not hide.
| |
| "You born up here?" Baby Suggs asked him.
| |
| "No, ma'am. Virginia. Been here a couple
| |
| years."
| |
| "I see."
| |
| "You going to a nice house. Big too. A preacher and his family was in there. Eighteen children."
| |
| "Have mercy. Where they go?"
| |
| "Took off to Illinois. Bishop Allen gave him a
| |
| congregation up there. Big."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 283 of 525
| |
| "What churches around here? I ain't set foot
| |
| in one in ten years."
| |
| "How come?"
| |
| "Wasn't none. I dislike the place I was
| |
| before this last one, but I did get to church every
| |
| Sunday some kind of way. I bet the Lord done
| |
| forgot who I am by now."
| |
| "Go see Reverend Pike, ma'am. He'll
| |
| reacquaint you."
| |
| "I won't need him for that. I can make my
| |
| own acquaintance.
| |
| What I need him for is to reacquaint me with
| |
| my children. He can read and write, I reckon?"
| |
| "Sure."
| |
| "Good, 'cause I got a lot of digging up to
| |
| do." But the news they dug up was so pitiful she
| |
| quit. After two years of messages written by the
| |
| preacher's hand, two years of washing, sewing,
| |
| canning, cobbling, gardening, and sitting in
| |
| churches, all she found out was that the Whitlow
| |
| place was gone and that you couldn't write to "a
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 284 of 525
| |
| man named Dunn" if all you knew was that he
| |
| went West. The good news, however, was that
| |
| Halle got married and had a baby coming.
| |
| She fixed on that and her own brand of
| |
| preaching, having made up her mind about what
| |
| to do with the heart that started beating the
| |
| minute she crossed the Ohio River. And it worked
| |
| out, worked out just fine, until she got proud and
| |
| let herself be overwhelmed by the sight of her
| |
| daughter-in-law and Halle's children--one of
| |
| whom was born on the way--and have a
| |
| celebration of blackberries that put Christmas to
| |
| shame. Now she stood in the garden smelling
| |
| disapproval, feeling a dark and coming thing,
| |
| and seeing high-topped shoes that she didn't like
| |
| the look of at all. At all.
| |
| WHEN THE four horsemen came--schoolteacher,
| |
| one nephew, one slave catcher and a sheriff--the
| |
| house on Bluestone Road was so quiet they
| |
| thought they were too late. Three of them
| |
| dismounted, one stayed in the saddle, his rifle
| |
| ready, his eyes trained away from the house to
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 285 of 525
| |
| the left and to the right, because likely as not the
| |
| fugitive would make a dash for it. Although
| |
| sometimes, you could never tell, you'd find them
| |
| folded up tight somewhere: beneath floorboards,
| |
| in a pantry--once in a chimney. Even then care
| |
| was taken, because the quietest ones, the ones
| |
| you pulled from a press, a hayloft, or, that once,
| |
| from a chimney, would go along nicely for two or
| |
| three seconds.
| |
| Caught red-handed, so to speak, they
| |
| would seem to recognize the futility of
| |
| outsmarting a whiteman and the hopelessness
| |
| of outrunning a rifle. Smile even, like a child
| |
| caught dead with his hand in the jelly jar, and
| |
| when you reached for the rope to tie him, well,
| |
| even then you couldn't tell. The very nigger with
| |
| his head hanging and a little jelly-jar smile on
| |
| his face could all of a sudden roar, like a bull or
| |
| some such, and commence to do disbelievable
| |
| things. Grab the rifle at its mouth; throw himself
| |
| at the one holding it--anything. So you had to
| |
| keep back a pace, leave the tying to another.
| |
| Otherwise you ended up killing what you were
| |
| paid to bring back alive. Unlike a snake or a
| |
| bear, a dead nigger could not be skinned for
| |
| profit and was not worth his own dead weight in
| |
| coin.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 286 of 525
| |
| Six or seven Negroes were walking up the
| |
| road toward the house: two boys from the slave
| |
| catcher's left and some women from his right.
| |
| He motioned them still with his rifle and they
| |
| stood where they were. The nephew came back
| |
| from peeping inside the house, and after
| |
| touching his lips for silence, pointed his thumb
| |
| to say that what they were looking for was round
| |
| back. The slave catcher dismounted then and
| |
| joined the others. Schoolteacher and the
| |
| nephew moved to the left of the house; himself
| |
| and the sheriff to the right.
| |
| A crazy old nigger was standing in the
| |
| woodpile with an ax. You could tell he was crazy
| |
| right off because he was grunting--making low,
| |
| cat noises like. About twelve yards beyond that
| |
| nigger was another one--a woman with a flower
| |
| in her hat. Crazy too, probably, because she too
| |
| was standing stock-still--but fanning her hands
| |
| as though pushing cobwebs out of her way.
| |
| Both, however, were staring at the same
| |
| place--a shed. Nephew walked over to the old
| |
| nigger boy and took the ax from him. Then all
| |
| four started toward the shed.
| |
| Inside, two boys bled in the sawdust and
| |
| dirt at the feet of a nigger woman holding a
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 287 of 525
| |
| blood- soaked child to her chest with one hand
| |
| and an infant by the heels in the other. She did
| |
| not look at them; she simply swung the baby
| |
| toward the wall planks, missed and tried to
| |
| connect a second time, when out of nowheremin
| |
| the ticking time the men spent staring at what
| |
| there was to stare the old nigger boy, still
| |
| mewing, ran through the door behind them and
| |
| snatched the baby from the arch of its mother's
| |
| swing.
| |
| Right off it was clear, to schoolteacher
| |
| especially, that there was nothing there to
| |
| claim. The three (now four--because she'd had
| |
| the one coming when she cut) pickaninnies they
| |
| had hoped were alive and well enough to take
| |
| back to Kentucky, take back and raise properly
| |
| to do the work Sweet Home desperately needed,
| |
| were not.
| |
| Two were lying open-eyed in sawdust; a
| |
| third pumped blood down the dress of the main
| |
| one-- the woman schoolteacher bragged about,
| |
| the one he said made fine ink, damn good soup,
| |
| pressed his collars the way he liked besides
| |
| having at least ten breeding years left. But now
| |
| she'd gone wild, due to the mishandling of the
| |
| nephew who'd overbeat her and made her cut
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 288 of 525
| |
| and run. Schoolteacher had chastised that
| |
| nephew, telling him to think--just think--what
| |
| would his own horse do if you beat it beyond the
| |
| point of education. Or Chipper, or Samson.
| |
| Suppose you beat the hounds past that point
| |
| thataway.
| |
| Never again could you trust them in the
| |
| woods or anywhere else.
| |
| You'd be feeding them maybe, holding out
| |
| a piece of rabbit in your hand, and the animal
| |
| would revert--bite your hand clean off. So he
| |
| punished that nephew by not letting him come on
| |
| the hunt. Made him stay there, feed stock, feed
| |
| himself, feed Lillian, tend crops. See how he liked
| |
| it; see what happened when you overbear
| |
| creatures God had given you the responsibility
| |
| of--the trouble it was, and the loss. The whole lot
| |
| was lost now. Five. He could claim the baby
| |
| struggling in the arms of the mewing old man,
| |
| but who'd tend her?
| |
| Because the woman--something was
| |
| wrong with her. She was looking at him now, and
| |
| if his other nephew could see that look he would
| |
| learn the lesson for sure: you just can't
| |
| mishandle creatures and expect success.
| |
| The nephew, the one who had nursed her
| |
| while his brother held her down, didn't know he
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 289 of 525
| |
| was shaking. His uncle had warned him against
| |
| that kind of confusion, but the warning didn't
| |
| seem to be taking. What she go and do that for?
| |
| On account of a beating? Hell, he'd been beat a
| |
| million times and he was white. Once it hurt so
| |
| bad and made him so mad he'd smashed the well
| |
| bucket. Another time he took it out on
| |
| Samson--a few tossed rocks was all. But no
| |
| beating ever made him... I mean no way he could
| |
| have... What she go and do that for? And that is
| |
| what he asked the sheriff, who was standing
| |
| there, amazed like the rest of them, but not
| |
| shaking. He was swallowing hard, over and over
| |
| again. "What she want to go and do that for?"
| |
| The sheriff turned, then said to the other
| |
| three, "You all better go on. Look like your
| |
| business is over. Mine's started now."
| |
| Schoolteacher beat his hat against his
| |
| thigh and spit before leaving the woodshed.
| |
| Nephew and the catcher backed out with him.
| |
| They didn't look at the woman in the pepper
| |
| plants with the flower in her hat. And they didn't
| |
| look at the seven or so faces that had edged
| |
| closer in spite of the catcher's rifle warning.
| |
| Enough nigger eyes for now. Little nigger-boy
| |
| eyes open in sawdust; little nigger-girl eyes
| |
| staring between the wet fingers that held her
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 290 of 525
| |
| face so her head wouldn't fall off; little
| |
| nigger-baby eyes crinkling up to cry in the arms
| |
| of the old nigger whose own eyes were nothing
| |
| but slivers looking down at his feet. But the
| |
| worst ones were those of the nigger woman who
| |
| looked like she didn't have any. Since the whites
| |
| in them had disappeared and since they were as
| |
| black as her skin, she looked blind.
| |
| They unhitched from schoolteacher's horse
| |
| the borrowed mule that was to carry the fugitive
| |
| woman back to where she belonged, and tied it to
| |
| the fence. Then, with the sun straight up over
| |
| their heads, they trotted off, leaving the sheriff
| |
| behind among the damnedest bunch of coons
| |
| they'd ever seen. All testimony to the results of a
| |
| little so-called freedom imposed on people who
| |
| needed every care and guidance in the world to
| |
| keep them from the cannibal life they preferred.
| |
| The sheriff wanted to back out too. To
| |
| stand in the sunlight outside of that place meant
| |
| for housing wood, coal, kerosene--fuel for cold
| |
| Ohio winters, which he thought of now, while
| |
| resisting the urge to run into the August sunlight.
| |
| Not because he was afraid. Not at all. He was just
| |
| cold. And he didn't want to touch anything. The
| |
| baby in the old man's arms was crying, and the
| |
| woman's eyes with no whites were gazing
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 291 of 525
| |
| straight ahead. They all might have remained
| |
| that way, frozen till Thursday,
| |
| except one of the boys on the floor sighed. As if
| |
| he were sunk in the pleasure of a deep sweet
| |
| sleep, he sighed the sigh that flung the sheriff
| |
| into action.
| |
| "I'll have to take you in. No trouble now.
| |
| You've done enough to last you. Come on now."
| |
| She did not move.
| |
| "You come quiet, hear, and I won't have to
| |
| tie you up."
| |
| She stayed still and he had made up his
| |
| mind to go near her and some kind of way bind
| |
| her wet red hands when a shadow behind him in
| |
| the doorway made him turn. The nigger with
| |
| the flower in her hat entered.
| |
| Baby Suggs noticed who breathed and
| |
| who did not and went straight to the boys lying
| |
| in the dirt. The old man moved to the woman
| |
| gazing and said, "Sethe. You take my armload
| |
| and gimme yours."
| |
| She turned to him, and glancing at the
| |
| baby he was holding, made a low sound in her
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 292 of 525
| |
| throat as though she'd made a mistake, left the
| |
| salt out of the bread or something.
| |
| "I'm going out here and send for a wagon," the sheriff said and got into the sunlight at last.
| |
| But neither Stamp Paid nor Baby Suggs
| |
| could make her put her crawling-already? girl
| |
| down. Out of the shed, back in the house, she
| |
| held on. Baby Suggs had got the boys inside
| |
| and was bathing their heads, rubbing their
| |
| hands, lifting their lids, whispering, "Beg your
| |
| pardon, I beg your pardon," the whole time.
| |
| She bound their wounds and made them
| |
| breathe camphor before turning her attention
| |
| to Sethe. She took the crying baby from Stamp
| |
| Paid and carried it on her shoulder for a full two
| |
| minutes, then stood in front of its mother.
| |
| "It's time to nurse your youngest," she said.
| |
| Sethe reached up for the baby without letting the dead one go.
| |
| Baby Suggs shook her head. "One at a
| |
| time," she said and traded the living for the
| |
| dead, which she carried into the keeping room.
| |
| When she came back, Sethe was
| |
| aiming a bloody nipple into the baby's
| |
| mouth. Baby Suggs slammed her fist on the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 293 of 525
| |
| table and shouted, "Clean up! Clean yourself
| |
| up!"
| |
| They fought then. Like rivals over the
| |
| heart of the loved, they fought. Each struggling
| |
| for the nursing child. Baby Suggs lost when she
| |
| slipped in a red puddle and fell. So Denver took
| |
| her mother's milk right along with the blood of
| |
| her sister. And that's the way they were when
| |
| the sheriff returned, having commandeered a
| |
| neighbor's cart, and ordered Stamp to drive it.
| |
| Outside a throng, now, of black faces
| |
| stopped murmuring. Holding the living child,
| |
| Sethe walked past them in their silence and
| |
| hers.
| |
| She climbed into the cart, her profile
| |
| knife-clean against a cheery blue sky. A
| |
| profile that shocked them with its clarity.
| |
| Was her head a bit too high? Her back a little
| |
| too straight? Probably. Otherwise the
| |
| singing would have begun at once, the
| |
| moment she appeared in the doorway of the
| |
| house on Bluestone Road. Some cape of
| |
| sound would have quickly been wrapped
| |
| around her, like arms to hold and steady her
| |
| on the way. As it was, they waited till the
| |
| cart turned about, headed west to town. And
| |
| then no words. Humming. No words at all.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 294 of 525
| |
| Baby Suggs meant to run, skip down the
| |
| porch steps after the cart, screaming, No. No.
| |
| Don't let her take that last one too. She meant
| |
| to. Had started to, but when she got up from the
| |
| floor and reached the yard the cart was gone
| |
| and a wagon was rolling up. A red-haired boy
| |
| and a yellow-haired girl jumped down and ran
| |
| through the crowd toward her. The boy had a
| |
| half-eaten sweet pepper in one hand and a pair
| |
| of shoes in the other.
| |
| "Mama says Wednesday." He held them
| |
| together by their tongues.
| |
| "She says you got to have these fixed by
| |
| Wednesday."
| |
| Baby Suggs looked at him, and then at the
| |
| woman holding a twitching lead horse to the road.
| |
| "She says Wednesday, you hear? Baby?
| |
| Baby?"
| |
| She took the shoes from
| |
| him--high-topped and muddy--saying, "I beg
| |
| your pardon. Lord, I beg your pardon. I sure
| |
| do."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 295 of 525
| |
| Out of sight, the cart creaked on down
| |
| Bluestone Road. Nobody in it spoke. The wagon
| |
| rock had put the baby to sleep. The hot sun
| |
| dried Sethe's dress, stiff, like rigor morris.
| |
| THAT AIN'T her mouth.
| |
| Anybody who didn't know her, or maybe
| |
| somebody who just got a glimpse of her through
| |
| the peephole at the restaurant, might think it
| |
| was hers, but Paul D knew better. Oh well, a
| |
| little something around the forehead--a
| |
| quietness--that kind of reminded you of her.
| |
| But there was no way you could take that
| |
| for her mouth and he said so. Told Stamp Paid,
| |
| who was watching him carefully.
| |
| "I don't know, man. Don't look like it to
| |
| me. I know Sethe's mouth and this ain't it." He
| |
| smoothed the clipping with his fingers and
| |
| peered at it, not at all disturbed. From the
| |
| solemn air with which Stamp had unfolded the
| |
| paper, the tenderness in the old man's fingers
| |
| as he stroked its creases and flattened it out,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 296 of 525
| |
| first on his knees, then on the split top of the
| |
| piling, Paul D knew that it ought to mess him up.
| |
| That whatever was written on it should shake
| |
| him.
| |
| Pigs were crying in the chute. All day Paul
| |
| D, Stamp Paid and twenty more had pushed and
| |
| prodded them from canal to shore to chute to
| |
| slaughterhouse. Although, as grain farmers
| |
| moved west, St.
| |
| Louis and Chicago now ate up a lot of the
| |
| business, Cincinnati was still pig port in the
| |
| minds of Ohioans. Its main job was to receive,
| |
| slaughter and ship up the river the hogs that
| |
| Northerners did not want to live without. For a
| |
| month or so in the winter any stray man had
| |
| work, if he could breathe the stench of offal and
| |
| stand up for twelve hours, skills in which Paul D
| |
| was admirably trained.
| |
| A little pig shit, rinsed from every place he
| |
| could touch, remained on his boots, and he was
| |
| conscious of it as he stood there with a light smile
| |
| of scorn curling his lips. Usually he left his boots
| |
| in the shed and put his walking shoes on along
| |
| with his day clothes in the corner before he went
| |
| home. A route that took him smack dab through
| |
| the middle of a cemetery as old as sky, rife with
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 297 of 525
| |
| the agitation of dead Miami no longer content to
| |
| rest in the mounds that covered them. Over their
| |
| heads walked a strange people; through their
| |
| earth pillows roads were cut; wells and houses
| |
| nudged them out of eternal rest. Outraged more
| |
| by their folly in believing land was holy than by
| |
| the disturbances of their peace, they growled on
| |
| the banks of Licking River, sighed in the trees on
| |
| Catherine Street and rode the wind above the pig
| |
| yards. Paul D heard them but he stayed on
| |
| because all in all it wasn't a bad job, especially in
| |
| winter when Cincinnati reassumed its status of
| |
| slaughter and riverboat capital. The craving for
| |
| pork was growing into a mania in every city in the
| |
| country. Pig farmers were cashing in, provided
| |
| they could raise enough and get them sold
| |
| farther and farther away. And the Germans who
| |
| flooded southern Ohio brought and developed
| |
| swine cooking to its highest form. Pig boats
| |
| jammed the Ohio River, and their captains'
| |
| hollering at one another over the grunts of the
| |
| stock was as common a water sound as that of
| |
| the ducks flying over their heads. Sheep, cows
| |
| and fowl too floated up and down that river, and
| |
| all a Negro had to do was show up and there was
| |
| work: poking, killing, cutting, skinning, case
| |
| packing and saving offal.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 298 of 525
| |
| A hundred yards from the crying pigs, the
| |
| two men stood behind a shed on Western Row
| |
| and it was clear why Stamp had been eyeing Paul
| |
| D this last week of work; why he paused when
| |
| the evening shift came on, to let Paul D's
| |
| movements catch up to his own. He had made up
| |
| his mind to show him this piece of
| |
| paper--newspaper-- with a picture drawing of a
| |
| woman who favored Sethe except that was not
| |
| her mouth. Nothing like it.
| |
| Paul D slid the clipping out from under
| |
| Stamp's palm. The print meant nothing to him so
| |
| he didn't even glance at it. He simply looked at
| |
| the face, shaking his head no. No. At the mouth,
| |
| you see. And no at whatever it was those black
| |
| scratches said, and no to whatever it was Stamp
| |
| Paid wanted him to know. Because there was no
| |
| way in hell a black face could appear in a
| |
| newspaper if the story was about something
| |
| anybody wanted to hear. A whip of fear broke
| |
| through the heart chambers as soon as you saw a
| |
| Negro's face in a paper, since the face was not
| |
| there because the person had a healthy baby, or
| |
| outran a street mob. Nor was it there because the
| |
| person had been killed, or maimed or caught or
| |
| burned or jailed or whipped or evicted or
| |
| stomped or raped or cheated, since that could
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 299 of 525
| |
| hardly qualify as news in a newspaper. It would
| |
| have to be something out of the
| |
| ordinary--something whitepeople
| |
| would find interesting, truly different, worth a
| |
| few minutes of teeth sucking if not gasps. And it
| |
| must have been hard to find news about
| |
| Negroes worth the breath catch of a white
| |
| citizen of Cincinnati.
| |
| So who was this woman with a mouth that
| |
| was not Sethe's, but whose eyes were almost as
| |
| calm as hers? Whose head was turned on her neck
| |
| in the manner he loved so well it watered his eye to
| |
| see it.
| |
| And he said so. "This ain't her mouth. I know
| |
| her mouth and this ain't it." Before Stamp Paid
| |
| could speak he said it and even while he spoke Paul
| |
| D said it again. Oh, he heard all the old man was
| |
| saying, but the more he heard, the stranger the
| |
| lips in the drawing became.
| |
| Stamp started with the party, the one Baby
| |
| Suggs gave, but stopped and backed up a bit to tell
| |
| about the berries--where they were and what was
| |
| in the earth that made them grow like that.
| |
| "They open to the sun, but not the birds,
| |
| 'cause snakes down in there and the birds know it,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 300 of 525
| |
| so they just grow--fat and sweet--with nobody to
| |
| bother em 'cept me because don't nobody go in
| |
| that piece of water but me and ain't too many legs
| |
| willing to glide down that bank to get them. Me
| |
| neither. But I was willing that day. Somehow or
| |
| 'nother I was willing. And they whipped me, I'm
| |
| telling you. Tore me up. But I filled two buckets
| |
| anyhow. And took em over to Baby Suggs' house.
| |
| It was on from then on. Such a cooking you never
| |
| see no more. We baked, fried and stewed
| |
| everything God put down here.
| |
| Everybody came. Everybody stuffed. Cooked
| |
| so much there wasn't a stick of kirdlin left for the
| |
| next day. I volunteered to do it. And next morning
| |
| I come over, like I promised, to do it."
| |
| "But this ain't her mouth," Paul D said. "This ain't it at all."
| |
| Stamp Paid looked at him. He was going to
| |
| tell him about how restless Baby Suggs was that
| |
| morning, how she had a listening way about her;
| |
| how she kept looking down past the corn to the
| |
| stream so much he looked too. In between ax
| |
| swings, he watched where Baby was watching.
| |
| Which is why they both missed it: they were
| |
| looking the wrong way--toward water--and all the
| |
| while it was coming down the road. Four. Riding
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 301 of 525
| |
| close together, bunched-up like, and righteous. He
| |
| was going to tell him that, because he thought it
| |
| was important: why he and Baby Suggs both
| |
| missed it. And about the party too, because that
| |
| explained why nobody ran on ahead; why nobody
| |
| sent a fleet-footed son to cut 'cross a field soon as
| |
| they saw the four horses in town hitched for
| |
| watering while the riders asked questions. Not
| |
| Ella, not John, not anybody ran down or to
| |
| Bluestone Road, to say some new whitefolks with
| |
| the Look just rode in. The righteous Look every
| |
| Negro learned to recognize along with his ma'am's
| |
| tit. Like a flag hoisted, this righteousness
| |
| telegraphed and announced the faggot, the whip,
| |
| the fist, the lie, long before it went public. Nobody
| |
| warned them, and he'd always believed it wasn't
| |
| the exhaustion from a long day's gorging that
| |
| dulled them, but some other thing--like, well, like
| |
| meanness--that let them stand aside, or not pay
| |
| attention, or tell themselves somebody else was
| |
| probably bearing the news already to the house on
| |
| Bluestone Road where a pretty woman had been
| |
| living for almost a month. Young and deft with four
| |
| children one of which she delivered herself the day
| |
| before she got there and who now had the full
| |
| benefit of Baby Suggs' bounty and her big old
| |
| heart. Maybe they just wanted to know if Baby
| |
| really was special, blessed in some way they were
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 302 of 525
| |
| not. He was going to tell him that, but Paul D was
| |
| laughing, saying, "Uh uh. No way. A little
| |
| semblance round the forehead maybe, but this
| |
| ain't her mouth."
| |
| So Stamp Paid did not tell him how she
| |
| flew, snatching up her children like a hawk on the
| |
| wing; how her face beaked, how her hands
| |
| worked like claws, how she collected them every
| |
| which way: one on her shoulder, one under her
| |
| arm, one by the hand, the other shouted forward
| |
| into the woodshed filled with just sunlight and
| |
| shavings now because there wasn't any wood.
| |
| The party had used it all, which is why he was
| |
| chopping some. Nothing was in that shed, he
| |
| knew, having been there early that morning.
| |
| Nothing but sunlight.
| |
| Sunlight, shavings, a shovel. The ax he
| |
| himself took out. Nothing else was in there
| |
| except the shovel--and of course the saw.
| |
| "You forgetting I knew her before," Paul D
| |
| was saying. "Back in Kentucky. When she was a
| |
| girl. I didn't just make her acquaintance a few
| |
| months ago. I been knowing her a long time.
| |
| And I can tell you for sure: this ain't her mouth.
| |
| May look like it, but it ain't."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 303 of 525
| |
| So Stamp Paid didn't say it all. Instead he
| |
| took a breath and leaned toward the mouth that
| |
| was not hers and slowly read out the words Paul
| |
| D couldn't. And when he finished, Paul D said
| |
| with a vigor fresher than the first time, "I'm
| |
| sorry, Stamp. It's a mistake somewhere 'cause
| |
| that ain't her mouth."
| |
| Stamp looked into Paul D's eyes and the
| |
| sweet conviction in them almost made him
| |
| wonder if it had happened at all, eighteen years
| |
| ago, that while he and Baby Suggs were looking
| |
| the wrong way, a pretty little slavegirl had
| |
| recognized a hat, and split to the woodshed to kill
| |
| her children.
| |
| "SHE WAS crawling already when I got
| |
| here. One week, less, and the baby who was
| |
| sitting up and turning over when I put her on the
| |
| wagon was crawling already. Devil of a time
| |
| keeping her off the stairs. Nowadays babies get
| |
| up and walk soon's you drop em, but twenty
| |
| years ago when I was a girl, babies stayed babies
| |
| longer.
| |
| Howard didn't pick up his own head till he
| |
| was nine months. Baby Suggs said it was the
| |
| food, you know. If you ain't got nothing but milk
| |
| to give em, well they don't do things so quick.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 304 of 525
| |
| Milk was all I ever had. I thought teeth meant
| |
| they was ready to chew. Wasn't nobody to ask.
| |
| Mrs. Garner never had no children and we was
| |
| the only women there."
| |
| She was spinning. Round and round the
| |
| room. Past the jelly cupboard, past the window,
| |
| past the front door, another window, the
| |
| sideboard, the keeping-room door, the dry sink,
| |
| the stove--back to the jelly cupboard. Paul D sat
| |
| at the table watching her drift into view then
| |
| disappear behind his back, turning like a slow but
| |
| steady wheel. Sometimes she crossed her hands
| |
| behind her back. Other times she held her ears,
| |
| covered her mouth or folded her arms across her
| |
| breasts. Once in a while she rubbed her hips as
| |
| she turned, but the wheel never stopped.
| |
| "Remember Aunt Phyllis? From out by
| |
| Minnoveville? Mr. Garner sent one a you all to get
| |
| her for each and every one of my babies.
| |
| That'd be the only time I saw her. Many's
| |
| the time I wanted to get over to where she was.
| |
| Just to talk. My plan was to ask Mrs. Garner to let
| |
| me off at Minnowville whilst she went to meeting.
| |
| Pick me up on her way back. I believe she would
| |
| a done that if I was to ask her.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 305 of 525
| |
| I never did, 'cause that's the only day Halle
| |
| and me had with sunlight in it for the both of us to
| |
| see each other by. So there wasn't nobody.
| |
| To talk to, I mean, who'd know when it was
| |
| time to chew up a little something and give it to
| |
| em. Is that what make the teeth come on out, or
| |
| should you wait till the teeth came and then solid
| |
| food? Well, I know now, because Baby Suggs fed
| |
| her right, and a week later, when I got here she
| |
| was crawling already. No stopping her either.
| |
| She loved those steps so much we painted them so she could see her way to the top."
| |
| Sethe smiled then, at the memory of it. The
| |
| smile broke in two and became a sudden suck of
| |
| air, but she did not shudder or close her eyes. She
| |
| wheeled.
| |
| "I wish I'd a known more, but, like I say,
| |
| there wasn't nobody to talk to. Woman, I mean.
| |
| So I tried to recollect what I'd seen back where I
| |
| was before Sweet Home. How the women did
| |
| there. Oh they knew all about it. How to make that
| |
| thing you use to hang the babies in the trees--so
| |
| you could see them out of harm's way while you
| |
| worked the fields. Was a leaf thing too they gave
| |
| em to chew on.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 306 of 525
| |
| Mint, I believe, or sassafras. Comfrey,
| |
| maybe. I still don't know how they constructed
| |
| that basket thing, but I didn't need it anyway,
| |
| because all my work was in the barn and the
| |
| house, but I forgot what the leaf was. I could have
| |
| used that. I tied Buglar when we had all that pork
| |
| to smoke. Fire everywhere and he was getting into
| |
| everything.
| |
| I liked to lost him so many times. Once he
| |
| got up on the well, right on it. I flew. Snatched him
| |
| just in time. So when I knew we'd be rendering
| |
| and smoking and I couldn't see after him, well, I
| |
| got a rope and tied it round his ankle. Just long
| |
| enough to play round a little, but not long enough
| |
| to reach the well or the fire. I didn't like the look of
| |
| it, but I didn't know what else to do. It's hard, you
| |
| know what I mean? by yourself and no woman to
| |
| help you get through.
| |
| Halle was good, but he was debt-working all
| |
| over the place. And when he did get down to a
| |
| little sleep, I didn't want to be bothering him with
| |
| all that. Sixo was the biggest help. I don't 'spect
| |
| you rememory this, but Howard got in the milk
| |
| parlor and Red Cora I believe it was mashed his
| |
| hand. Turned his thumb backwards. When I got to
| |
| him, she was getting ready to bite it. I don't know
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 307 of 525
| |
| to this day how I got him out. Sixo heard him
| |
| screaming and come running.
| |
| Know what he did? Turned the thumb right
| |
| back and tied it cross his palm to his little finger.
| |
| See, I never would have thought of that.
| |
| Never. Taught me a lot, Sixo."
| |
| It made him dizzy. At first he thought it was
| |
| her spinning. Circling him the way she was circling
| |
| the subject. Round and round, never changing
| |
| direction, which might have helped his head. Then
| |
| he thought, No, it's the sound of her voice; it's too
| |
| near. Each turn she made was at least three yards
| |
| from where he sat, but listening to her was like
| |
| having a child whisper into your ear so close you
| |
| could feel its lips form the words you couldn't
| |
| make out because they were too close. He caught
| |
| only pieces of what she said--which was fine,
| |
| because she hadn't gotten to the main part--the
| |
| answer to the question he had not asked outright,
| |
| but which lay in the clipping he showed her. And
| |
| lay in the smile as well. Because he smiled too,
| |
| when he showed it to her, so when she burst out
| |
| laughing at the joke--the mix- up of her face put
| |
| where some other coloredwoman's ought to
| |
| be--well, he'd be ready to laugh right along with
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 308 of 525
| |
| her. "Can you beat it?" he would ask. And "Stamp
| |
| done lost his mind," she would giggle.
| |
| "Plumb lost it."
| |
| But his smile never got a chance to grow. It
| |
| hung there, small and alone, while she examined
| |
| the clipping and then handed it back.
| |
| Perhaps it was the smile, or maybe the
| |
| ever-ready love she saw in his eyes--easy and
| |
| upfront, the way colts, evangelists and children
| |
| look at you: with love you don't have to
| |
| deserve--that made her go ahead and tell him
| |
| what she had not told Baby Suggs, the only person
| |
| she felt obliged to explain anything to. Otherwise
| |
| she would have said what the newspaper said she
| |
| said and no more. Sethe could recognize only
| |
| seventy-five printed words (half of which appeared
| |
| in the newspaper clipping), but she knew that the
| |
| words she did not understand hadn't any more
| |
| power than she had to explain. It was the smile
| |
| and the upfront love that made her try.
| |
| "I don't have to tell you about Sweet
| |
| Home--what it was--but maybe you don't know
| |
| what it was like for me to get away from there."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 309 of 525
| |
| Covering the lower half of her face with her
| |
| palms, she paused to consider again the size of the
| |
| miracle; its flavor.
| |
| "I did it. I got us all out. Without Halle too.
| |
| Up till then it was the only thing I ever did on my
| |
| own. Decided. And it came off right, like it was
| |
| supposed to. We was here. Each and every one of
| |
| my babies and me too. I birthed them and I got em
| |
| out and it wasn't no accident. I did that. I had help,
| |
| of course, lots of that, but still it was me doing it;
| |
| me saying, Go on, and Now. Me having to look out.
| |
| Me using my own head. But it was more
| |
| than that. It was a kind of selfishness I never
| |
| knew nothing about before. It felt good. Good
| |
| and right. I was big, Paul D, and deep and wide
| |
| and when I stretched out my arms all my
| |
| children could get in between. I was that wide.
| |
| Look like I loved em more after I got
| |
| here. Or maybe I couldn't love em proper in
| |
| Kentucky because they wasn't mine to love.
| |
| But when I got here, when I jumped down off
| |
| that wagon--there wasn't nobody in the world
| |
| I couldn't love if I wanted to. You know what I
| |
| mean?"
| |
| Paul D did not answer because she didn't
| |
| expect or want him to, but he did know what she
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 310 of 525
| |
| meant. Listening to the doves in Alfred, Georgia,
| |
| and having neither the right nor the permission to
| |
| enjoy it because in that place mist, doves,
| |
| sunlight, copper dirt, moon—every thing belonged
| |
| to the men who had the guns. Little men, some of
| |
| them, big men too, each one of whom he could
| |
| snap like a twig if he wanted to. Men who knew
| |
| their manhood lay in their guns and were not even
| |
| embarrassed by the knowledge that without
| |
| gunshot fox would laugh at them. And these "men"
| |
| who made even vixen laugh could, if you let them,
| |
| stop you from hearing doves or loving moonlight.
| |
| So you protected yourself and
| |
| loved small. Picked the tiniest stars out of the
| |
| sky to own; lay down with head twisted in
| |
| order to see the loved one over the rim of the
| |
| trench before you slept.
| |
| Stole shy glances at her between the trees
| |
| at chain-up. Grass blades, salamanders, spiders,
| |
| woodpeckers, beetles, a kingdom of ants.
| |
| Anything bigger wouldn't do. A woman, a child, a
| |
| brother--a big love like that would split you wide
| |
| open in Alfred, Georgia. He knew exactly what
| |
| she meant: to get to a place where you could
| |
| love anything you chose--not to need permission
| |
| for desire--well now, that was freedom.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 311 of 525
| |
| Circling, circling, now she was gnawing something else instead of getting to the point.
| |
| "There was this piece of goods Mrs. Garner gave me. Calico.
| |
| Stripes it had with little flowers in
| |
| between. 'Bout a yard--not enough for more 'n a
| |
| head tie. But I been wanting to make a shift for
| |
| my girl with it. Had the prettiest colors. I don't
| |
| even know what you call that color: a rose but
| |
| with yellow in it. For the longest time I been
| |
| meaning to make it for her and do you know like
| |
| a fool I left it behind? No more than a yard, and
| |
| I kept putting it off because I was tired or didn't
| |
| have the time. So when I got here, even before
| |
| they let me get out of bed, I stitched her a little
| |
| something from a piece of cloth Baby Suggs had.
| |
| Well, all I'm saying is that's a selfish pleasure I
| |
| never had before. I couldn't let all that go back to
| |
| where it was, and I couldn't let her nor any of em
| |
| live under schoolteacher.
| |
| That was out."
| |
| Sethe knew that the circle she was making
| |
| around the room, him, the subject, would
| |
| remain one. That she could never close in, pin it
| |
| down for anybody who had to ask. If they didn't
| |
| get it right off- she could never explain. Because
| |
| the truth was simple, not a long drawn-out
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 312 of 525
| |
| record of flowered shifts, tree cages, selfishness,
| |
| ankle ropes and wells. Simple: she was
| |
| squatting in the garden and when she saw them
| |
| coming and recognized schoolteacher's hat, she
| |
| heard wings. Little hummingbirds stuck their
| |
| needle beaks right through her headcloth into
| |
| her hair and beat their wings. And if she thought
| |
| anything, it was No. No. Nono. Nonono. Simple.
| |
| She just flew.
| |
| Collected every bit of life she had
| |
| made, all the parts of her that were precious
| |
| and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed,
| |
| dragged them through the veil, out, away,
| |
| over there where no one could hurt them.
| |
| Over there. Outside this place, where they
| |
| would be safe. And the hummingbird wings beat
| |
| on. Sethe paused in her circle again and looked
| |
| out the window. She remembered when the yard
| |
| had a fence with a gate that somebody was
| |
| always latching and unlatching in the. time when
| |
| 124 was busy as a way station. She did not see
| |
| the whiteboys who pulled it down, yanked up the
| |
| posts and smashed the gate leaving 124
| |
| desolate and exposed at the very hour when
| |
| everybody stopped dropping by. The shoulder
| |
| weeds of Bluestone Road were all that came
| |
| toward the house.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 313 of 525
| |
| When she got back from the jail house, she
| |
| was glad the fence was gone. That's where they
| |
| had hitched their horses--where she saw,
| |
| floating above the railing as she squatted in the
| |
| garden, schoolteacher's hat. By the time she
| |
| faced him, looked him dead in the eye, she had
| |
| something in her arms that stopped him in his
| |
| tracks. He took a backward step with each jump
| |
| of the baby heart until finally there were none.
| |
| "I stopped him," she said, staring at the
| |
| place where the fence used to be. "I took and put
| |
| my babies where they'd be safe."
| |
| The roaring in Paul D's head did not
| |
| prevent him from hearing the pat she gave to the
| |
| last word, and it occurred to him that what she
| |
| wanted for her children was exactly what was
| |
| missing in 124: safety. Which was the very first
| |
| message he got the day he walked through the
| |
| door. He thought he had made it safe, had
| |
| gotten rid of the danger; beat the shit out of it;
| |
| run it off the place and showed it and everybody
| |
| else the difference between a mule and a plow.
| |
| And because she had not done it before he got
| |
| there her own self, he thought it was because
| |
| she could not do it. That she lived with 124 in
| |
| helpless, apologetic resignation because she had
| |
| no choice; that minus husband, sons,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 314 of 525
| |
| mother-in-law, she and her slow-witted
| |
| daughter had to live there all alone making do.
| |
| The prickly, mean-eyed Sweet Home girl he
| |
| knew as Halle's girl was obedient (like Halle),
| |
| shy (like Halle), and work-crazy (like Halle). He
| |
| was wrong. This here Sethe was new. The ghost
| |
| in her house didn't bother her for the very same
| |
| reason a room-and-board witch with new shoes
| |
| was welcome.
| |
| This here Sethe talked about love like
| |
| any other woman; talked about baby clothes
| |
| like any other woman, but what she meant
| |
| could cleave the bone. This here Sethe talked
| |
| about safety with a handsaw.
| |
| This here new Sethe didn't know where the
| |
| world stopped and she began. Suddenly he saw
| |
| what Stamp Paid wanted him to see: more
| |
| important than what Sethe had done was what
| |
| she claimed. It scared him.
| |
| "Your love is too thick," he said, thinking, | |
| That bitch is looking at me; she is right over my
| |
| head looking down through the floor at me.
| |
| "Too thick?" she said, thinking of the
| |
| Clearing where Baby Suggs' commands knocked
| |
| the pods off horse chestnuts. "Love is or it ain't.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 315 of 525
| |
| Thin love ain't love at all."
| |
| "Yeah. It didn't work, did it? Did it work?" he
| |
| asked.
| |
| "It worked," she said.
| |
| "How? Your boys gone you don't know
| |
| where. One girl dead, the other won't leave the
| |
| yard. How did it work?"
| |
| "They ain't at Sweet Home. Schoolteacher ain't got em."
| |
| "Maybe there's worse."
| |
| "It ain't my job to know what's worse. It's
| |
| my job to know what is and to keep them away
| |
| from what I know is terrible. I did that."
| |
| "What you did was wrong, Sethe."
| |
| "I should have gone on back there? Taken
| |
| my babies back there?"
| |
| "There could have been a way. Some other
| |
| way."
| |
| "What way?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 316 of 525
| |
| "You got two feet, Sethe, not four," he
| |
| said, and right then a forest sprang up between
| |
| them; trackless and quiet.
| |
| Later he would wonder what made him
| |
| say it. The calves of his youth? or the conviction
| |
| that he was being observed through the ceiling?
| |
| How fast he had moved from his shame to hers.
| |
| From his cold- house secret straight to her
| |
| too-thick love.
| |
| Meanwhile the forest was locking the distance between them, giving it shape and heft.
| |
| He did not put his hat on right away. First
| |
| he fingered it, deciding how his going would be,
| |
| how to make it an exit not an escape. And it was
| |
| very important not to leave without looking. He
| |
| stood up, turned and looked up the white stairs.
| |
| She was there all right. Standing straight as a
| |
| line with her back to him. He didn't rush to the
| |
| door. He moved slowly and when he got there
| |
| he opened it before asking Sethe to put supper
| |
| aside for him because he might be a little late
| |
| getting back. Only then did he put on his hat.
| |
| Sweet, she thought. He must think I can't
| |
| bear to hear him say it. That after all I have told
| |
| him and after telling me how many feet I have,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 317 of 525
| |
| "goodbye" would break me to pieces. Ain't that
| |
| sweet.
| |
| "So long," she murmured from the far side of the trees.
| |
| Two
| |
| 124 WAS LOUD. Stamp Paid could hear it even
| |
| from the road.
| |
| He walked toward the house holding his
| |
| head as high as possible so nobody looking
| |
| could call him a sneak, although his worried
| |
| mind made him feel like one. Ever since he
| |
| showed that newspaper clipping to Paul D and
| |
| learned that he'd moved out of 124 that very
| |
| day, Stamp felt uneasy. Having wrestled with
| |
| the question of whether or not to tell a man
| |
| about his woman, and having convinced
| |
| himself that he should, he then began to worry
| |
| about Sethe. Had he stopped the one shot she
| |
| had of the happiness a good man could bring
| |
| her?
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 318 of 525
| |
| Was she vexed by the loss, the free
| |
| and unasked-for revival of gossip by the man
| |
| who had helped her cross the river and who
| |
| was her friend as well as Baby Suggs'?
| |
| "I'm too old," he thought, "for clear
| |
| thinking. I'm too old and I seen too much." He
| |
| had insisted on privacy during the revelation at
| |
| the slaughter yard--now he wondered whom he
| |
| was protecting.
| |
| Paul D was the only one in town who didn't
| |
| know. How did information that had been in the
| |
| newspaper become a secret that needed to be
| |
| whispered in a pig yard? A secret from whom?
| |
| Sethe, that's who. He'd gone behind her back,
| |
| like a sneak. But sneaking was his job--his life;
| |
| though always for a clear and holy purpose.
| |
| Before the War all he did was sneak: runaways
| |
| into hidden places, secret information to public
| |
| places. Underneath his legal vegetables were the
| |
| contraband humans that he ferried across the
| |
| river. Even the pigs he worked in the spring
| |
| served his purposes. Whole families lived on the
| |
| bones and guts he distributed to them. He wrote
| |
| their letters and read to them the ones they
| |
| received. He knew who had dropsy and who
| |
| needed stovewood; which children had a gift and
| |
| which needed correction. He knew the secrets of
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 319 of 525
| |
| the Ohio River and its banks; empty houses and
| |
| full; the best dancers, the worst speakers, those
| |
| with beautiful voices and those who could not
| |
| carry a tune. There was nothing interesting
| |
| between his legs, but he remembered when
| |
| there had been--when that drive drove the
| |
| driven--and that was why he considered long
| |
| and hard before opening his wooden box and
| |
| searching for the eighteen-year-old clipping to
| |
| show Paul D as proof.
| |
| Afterward--not before--he considered
| |
| Sethe's feelings in the matter.
| |
| And it was the lateness of this
| |
| consideration that made him feel so bad. Maybe
| |
| he should have left it alone; maybe Sethe would
| |
| have gotten around to telling him herself; maybe
| |
| he was not the high minded Soldier of Christ he
| |
| thought he was, but an ordinary, plain meddler
| |
| who had interrupted something going along just
| |
| fine for the sake of truth and forewarning, things
| |
| he set much store by. Now 124 was back like it
| |
| was before Paul D came to town-worrying Sethe
| |
| and Denver with a pack of haunts he could hear
| |
| from the road.
| |
| Even if Sethe could deal with the return of
| |
| the spirit, Stamp didn't believe her daughter
| |
| could. Denver needed somebody normal in her
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 320 of 525
| |
| life. By luck he had been there at her very birth
| |
| almost--before she knew she was alive--and it
| |
| made him partial to her. It was seeing her, alive,
| |
| don't you know, and looking healthy four weeks
| |
| later that pleased him so much he gathered all
| |
| he could carry of the best blackberries in the
| |
| county and stuck two in her mouth first, before
| |
| he presented the difficult harvest to Baby Suggs.
| |
| To this day he believed his berries (which
| |
| sparked the feast and the wood chopping that
| |
| followed) were the reason Denver was still alive.
| |
| Had he not been there, chopping firewood, Sethe
| |
| would have spread her baby brains on the
| |
| planking. Maybe he should have thought of
| |
| Denver, if not Sethe, before he gave Paul D the
| |
| news that ran him off, the one normal somebody
| |
| in the girl's life since Baby Suggs died. And right
| |
| there was the thorn.
| |
| Deeper and more painful than his belated
| |
| concern for Denver or Sethe, scorching his soul
| |
| like a silver dollar in a fool's pocket, was the
| |
| memory of Baby Suggs--the mountain to his sky.
| |
| It was the memory of her and the honor that was
| |
| her due that made him walk straight-necked into
| |
| the yard of 124, although he heard its voices from
| |
| the road.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 321 of 525
| |
| He had stepped foot in this house only once
| |
| after the Misery (which is what he called Sethe's
| |
| rough response to the Fugitive Bill) and that was
| |
| to carry Baby Suggs, holy, out of it. When he
| |
| picked her up in his arms, she looked to him like a
| |
| gift, and he took the pleasure she would have
| |
| knowing she didn't have to grind her hipbone
| |
| anymore--that at last somebody carried bar. Had
| |
| she waited just a little she would have seen the
| |
| end of the War, its short, flashy results. They
| |
| could have celebrated together; gone to hear the
| |
| great sermons preached on the occasion. As it
| |
| was, he went alone from house to joyous house
| |
| drinking what was offered. But she hadn't waited
| |
| and he attended her funeral more put out with her
| |
| than bereaved. Sethe and her daughter were
| |
| dry-eyed on that occasion.
| |
| Sethe had no instructions except "Take her
| |
| to the Clearing," which he tried to do, but was
| |
| prevented by some rule the whites had invented
| |
| about where the dead should rest. Baby Suggs
| |
| went down next to the baby with its throat cut--a
| |
| neighborliness that Stamp wasn't sure had Baby
| |
| Suggs' approval.
| |
| The setting-up was held in the yard because
| |
| nobody besides himself would enter 124--an
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 322 of 525
| |
| injury Sethe answered with another by refusing to
| |
| attend the service Reverend Pike presided over.
| |
| She went instead to the gravesite, whose silence
| |
| she competed with as she stood there not joining
| |
| in the hymns the others sang with all their hearts.
| |
| That insult spawned another by the
| |
| mourners: back in the yard of 124, they ate the
| |
| food they brought and did not touch Sethe's, who
| |
| did not touch theirs and forbade Denver to. So
| |
| Baby Suggs, holy, having devoted her freed life to
| |
| harmony, was buried amid a regular dance of
| |
| pride, fear, condemnation and spite. Just about
| |
| everybody in town was longing for Sethe to come
| |
| on difficult times. Her outrageous claims, her
| |
| self-sufficiency seemed to demand it, and Stamp
| |
| Paid, who had not felt a trickle of meanness his
| |
| whole adult life, wondered if some of the "pride
| |
| goeth before a fall" expectations of the townsfolk
| |
| had rubbed off on him anyhow--which would
| |
| explain why he had not considered Sethe's
| |
| feelings or Denver's needs when he showed Paul D
| |
| the clipping.
| |
| He hadn't the vaguest notion of what he
| |
| would do or say when and if Sethe opened the
| |
| door and turned her eyes on his. He was willing to
| |
| offer her help, if she wanted any from him, or
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 323 of 525
| |
| receive her anger, if she harbored any against
| |
| him. Beyond that, he trusted his instincts to right
| |
| what he may have done wrong to Baby Suggs' kin,
| |
| and to guide him in and through the stepped-up
| |
| haunting 124 was subject to, as evidenced by the
| |
| voices he heard from the road. Other than that, he
| |
| would rely on the power of Jesus Christ to deal
| |
| with things older, but not stronger, than He
| |
| Himself was.
| |
| What he heard, as he moved toward the
| |
| porch, he didn't understand.
| |
| Out on Bluestone Road he thought he heard
| |
| a conflagration of hasty voices--loud, urgent, all
| |
| speaking at once so he could not make out what
| |
| they were talking about or to whom. The speech
| |
| wasn't
| |
| nonsensical, exactly, nor was it tongues. But
| |
| something was wrong with the order of the words
| |
| and he couldn't describe or cipher it to save his
| |
| life. All he could make out was the word mine.
| |
| The rest of it stayed outside his mind's reach. Yet
| |
| he went on through.
| |
| When he got to the steps, the voices drained
| |
| suddenly to less than a whisper. It gave him
| |
| pause. They had become an occasional mutter--
| |
| like the interior sounds a woman makes when she
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 324 of 525
| |
| believes she is alone and unobserved at her work:
| |
| a sth when she misses the needle's eye; a soft
| |
| moan when she sees another chip in her one good
| |
| platter; the low, friendly argument with which she
| |
| greets the hens. Nothing fierce or startling. Just
| |
| that eternal, private conversation that takes place
| |
| between women and their tasks.
| |
| Stamp Paid raised his fist to knock on the
| |
| door he had never knocked on (because it was
| |
| always open to or for him) and could not do it.
| |
| Dispensing with that formality was all the pay he
| |
| expected from Negroes in his debt. Once Stamp
| |
| Paid brought you a coat, got the message to you,
| |
| saved your life, or fixed the cistern he took the
| |
| liberty of walking in your door as though it were his
| |
| own. Since all his visits were beneficial, his step or
| |
| holler through a doorway got a bright welcome.
| |
| Rather than forfeit the one privilege he claimed for
| |
| himself, he lowered his hand and left the porch.
| |
| Over and over again he tried it: made up his
| |
| mind to visit Sethe; broke through the loud hasty
| |
| voices to the mumbling beyond it and stopped,
| |
| trying to figure out what to do at the door. Six
| |
| times in as many days he abandoned his normal
| |
| route and tried to knock at 124. But the coldness of
| |
| the gesture-its sign that he was indeed a stranger
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 325 of 525
| |
| at the gate-overwhelmed him. Retracing his steps
| |
| in the snow, he sighed. Spirit willing; flesh weak.
| |
| While Stamp Paid was making up his mind to
| |
| visit 124 for Baby Suggs' sake, Sethe was trying to
| |
| take her advice: to lay it all down, sword and
| |
| shield. Not just to acknowledge the advice Baby
| |
| Suggs gave her, but actually to take it. Four days
| |
| after Paul D reminded her of how many feet she
| |
| had, Sethe rummaged among the shoes of
| |
| strangers to find the ice skates she was sure were
| |
| there. Digging in the heap she despised herself for
| |
| having been so trusting, so quick to surrender at
| |
| the stove while Paul D kissed her back. She should
| |
| have known that he would behave like everybody
| |
| else in town once he knew. The twenty-eight days
| |
| of having women friends, a mother in-law, and all
| |
| her children together; of being part of a
| |
| neighborhood; of, in fact, having neighbors at all
| |
| to call her own--all that was long gone and would
| |
| never come back. No more dancing in the Clearing
| |
| or happy feeds. No more discussions, stormy or
| |
| quiet, about the true meaning of the Fugitive Bill,
| |
| the Settlement Fee, God's Ways and Negro pews;
| |
| antislavery, manumission, skin voting,
| |
| Republicans, Dred Scott, book learning,
| |
| Sojourner's high- wheeled buggy, the Colored
| |
| Ladies of Delaware, Ohio, and the other weighty
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 326 of 525
| |
| issues that held them in chairs, scraping the
| |
| floorboards or pacing them in agony or
| |
| exhilaration. No anxious wait for the North Star or
| |
| news of a beat-off. No sighing at a new betrayal or
| |
| handclapping at a small victory.
| |
| Those twenty-eight happy days were
| |
| followed by eighteen years of disapproval and a
| |
| solitary life. Then a few months of the sun
| |
| splashed life that the shadows holding hands on
| |
| the road promised her; tentative greetings from
| |
| other coloredpeople in Paul D's company; a bed
| |
| life for herself. Except for
| |
| Denver's friend, every bit of it had disappeared.
| |
| Was that the pattern? she wondered. Every
| |
| eighteen or twenty years her unlivable life would
| |
| be interrupted by a short-lived glory?
| |
| Well, if that's the way it was--that's the way it was.
| |
| She had been on her knees, scrubbing the
| |
| floor, Denver trailing her with the drying rags,
| |
| when Beloved appeared saying, "What these
| |
| do?" On her knees, scrub brush in hand, she
| |
| looked at the girl and the skates she held up.
| |
| Sethe couldn't skate a lick but then and there
| |
| she decided to take Baby Suggs' advice: lay it all
| |
| down. She left the bucket where it was. Told
| |
| Denver to get out the shawls and started
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 327 of 525
| |
| searching for the other skates she was certain
| |
| were in that heap somewhere. Anybody feeling
| |
| sorry for her, anybody wandering by to peep in
| |
| and see how she was getting on (including Paul
| |
| D) would discover that the woman junkheaped
| |
| for the third time because she loved her
| |
| children--that woman was sailing happily on a
| |
| frozen creek.
| |
| Hurriedly, carelessly she threw the shoes
| |
| about. She found one blade--a man's.
| |
| "Well," she said. "We'll take turns. Two
| |
| skates on one; one skate on one; and shoe slide for the
| |
| other."
| |
| Nobody saw them falling.
| |
| Holding hands, bracing each other, they
| |
| swirled over the ice.
| |
| Beloved wore the pair; Denver wore one,
| |
| step-gliding over the treacherous ice. Sethe
| |
| thought her two shoes would hold and anchor her.
| |
| She was wrong. Two paces onto the creek,
| |
| she lost her balance and landed on her behind. The
| |
| girls, screaming with laughter, joined her on the
| |
| ice. Sethe struggled to stand and discovered not
| |
| only that she could do a split, but that it hurt. Her
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 328 of 525
| |
| bones surfaced in unexpected places and so did
| |
| laughter. Making a circle or a line, the three of
| |
| them could not stay upright for one whole minute,
| |
| but nobody saw them falling.
| |
| Each seemed to be helping the other two
| |
| stay upright, yet every tumble doubled their
| |
| delight. The live oak and soughing pine on the
| |
| banks enclosed them and absorbed their laughter
| |
| while they fought gravity for each other's hands.
| |
| Their skirts flew like wings and their skin turned
| |
| pewter in the cold and dying light.
| |
| Nobody saw them falling.
| |
| Exhausted finally they lay down on their backs to recover breath.
| |
| The sky above them was another country.
| |
| Winter stars, close enough to lick, had come out
| |
| before sunset. For a moment, looking up, Sethe
| |
| entered the perfect peace they offered. Then
| |
| Denver stood up and tried for a long, independent
| |
| glide. The tip of her single skate hit an ice bump,
| |
| and as she fell, the flapping of her arms was so
| |
| wild and hopeless that all three--Sethe, Beloved
| |
| and Denver herself- -laughed till they coughed.
| |
| Sethe rose to her hands and knees, laughter still
| |
| shaking her chest, making
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 329 of 525
| |
| her eyes wet. She stayed that way for a while,
| |
| on all fours. But when her laughter died, the
| |
| tears did not and it was some time before
| |
| Beloved or Denver knew the difference. When
| |
| they did they touched her lightly on the
| |
| shoulders.
| |
| Walking back through the woods, Sethe
| |
| put an arm around each girl at her side. Both of
| |
| them had an arm around her waist. Making their
| |
| way over hard snow, they stumbled and had to
| |
| hold on tight, but nobody saw them fall.
| |
| Inside the house they found out they were
| |
| cold. They took off their shoes, wet stockings,
| |
| and put on dry woolen ones. Denver fed the fire.
| |
| Sethe warmed a pan of milk and stirred cane
| |
| syrup and vanilla into it. Wrapped in quilts and
| |
| blankets before the cooking stove, they drank,
| |
| wiped their noses, and drank again.
| |
| "We could roast some taters," said Denver.
| |
| "Tomorrow," said Sethe. "Time to sleep."
| |
| She poured them each a bit more of the hot
| |
| sweet milk. The stovefire roared.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 330 of 525
| |
| "You finished with your eyes?" asked
| |
| Beloved.
| |
| Sethe smiled. "Yes, I'm finished with my
| |
| eyes. Drink up. Time for bed."
| |
| But none of them wanted to leave the
| |
| warmth of the blankets, the fire and the cups for
| |
| the chill of an unheated bed. They went on
| |
| sipping and watching the fire.
| |
| When the click came Sethe didn't know
| |
| what it was. Afterward it was clear as daylight
| |
| that the click came at the very beginning-- a
| |
| beat, almost, before it started; before she heard
| |
| three notes; before the melody was even clear.
| |
| Leaning forward a little, Beloved was humming
| |
| softly.
| |
| It was then, when Beloved finished
| |
| humming, that Sethe recalled the click--the
| |
| settling of pieces into places designed and made
| |
| especially for them. No milk spilled from her cup
| |
| because her hand was not shaking. She simply
| |
| turned her head and looked at Beloved's profile:
| |
| the chin, mouth, nose, forehead, copied and
| |
| exaggerated in the huge shadow the fire threw
| |
| on the wall behind her. Her hair, which Denver
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 331 of 525
| |
| had braided into twenty or thirty plaits, curved
| |
| toward her shoulders like arms. From where she
| |
| sat Sethe could not examine it, not the hairline,
| |
| nor the eyebrows, the lips, nor...
| |
| "All I remember," Baby Suggs had said,
| |
| "is how she loved the burned bottom of bread.
| |
| Her little hands I wouldn't know em if they
| |
| slapped me."
| |
| .. the birthmark, nor the color of the gums,
| |
| the shape of her ears, nor...
| |
| "Here. Look here. This is your ma'am. If you
| |
| can't tell me by my face, look here."
| |
| .. the fingers, nor their nails, nor even...
| |
| But there would be time. The click had
| |
| clicked; things were where they ought to be or
| |
| poised and ready to glide in.
| |
| "I made that song up," said Sethe. "I made
| |
| it up and sang it to my children. Nobody knows
| |
| that song but me and my children."
| |
| Beloved turned to look at Sethe. "I know it," she said.
| |
| A hobnail casket of jewels found in a tree
| |
| hollow should be fondled before it is opened. Its
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 332 of 525
| |
| lock may have rusted or broken away from the
| |
| clasp. Still you should touch the nail heads, and
| |
| test its weight. No smashing with an ax head
| |
| before it is decently exhumed from the grave that
| |
| has hidden it all this time. No gasp at a miracle
| |
| that is truly miraculous because the magic lies in
| |
| the fact that you knew it was there for you all
| |
| along.
| |
| Sethe wiped the white satin coat from the
| |
| inside of the pan, brought pillows from the
| |
| keeping room for the girls' heads. There was no
| |
| tremor in her voice as she instructed them to keep
| |
| the fire— if not, come on upstairs.
| |
| With that, she gathered her blanket around
| |
| her elbows and asc. ended the lily-white stairs like
| |
| a bride. Outside, snow solidified itself into graceful
| |
| forms. The peace of winter stars seemed
| |
| permanent.
| |
| Fingering a ribbon and smelling skin, Stamp Paid approached 12 4 again.
| |
| "My marrow is tired," he thought. "I been
| |
| tired all my days, bone-tired, but now it's in the
| |
| marrow. Must be what Baby Suggs felt when she
| |
| lay down and thought about color for the rest of
| |
| her life." When she told him what her aim was, he
| |
| thought she was ashamed and too shamed to say
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 333 of 525
| |
| so. Her authority in the pulpit, her dance in the
| |
| Clearing, her powerful Call (she didn't deliver
| |
| sermons or preach--insisting she was too ignorant
| |
| for that--she called and the hearing heard)--all
| |
| that had been mocked and rebuked by the
| |
| bloodspill in her backyard. God puzzled her and
| |
| she was too ashamed of Him to say so. Instead
| |
| she told Stamp she was going to bed to think
| |
| about the colors of things. He tried to dissuade
| |
| her. Sethe was in jail with her nursing baby, the
| |
| one he had saved. Her sons were holding hands in
| |
| the yard, terrified of letting go. Strangers and
| |
| familiars were stopping by to hear how it went one
| |
| more time, and suddenly Baby declared peace.
| |
| She just up and quit. By the time Sethe was
| |
| released she had exhausted blue and was well on
| |
| her way to yellow.
| |
| At first he would see her in the yard
| |
| occasionally, or delivering food to the jail, or
| |
| shoes in town. Then less and less. He believed
| |
| then that shame put her in the bed. Now, eight
| |
| years after her contentious funeral and eighteen
| |
| years after the Misery, he changed his mind. Her
| |
| marrow was tired and it was a testimony to the
| |
| heart that fed it that it took eight years to meet
| |
| finally the color she was hankering after. The
| |
| onslaught of her fatigue, like his, was sudden, but
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 334 of 525
| |
| lasted for years. After sixty years of losing
| |
| children to the people who chewed up her life and
| |
| spit it out like a fish bone; after five years of
| |
| freedom given to her by her last child, who bought
| |
| her future with his, exchanged it, so to speak, so
| |
| she could have one whether he did or not--to lose
| |
| him too; to acquire a daughter and grandchildren
| |
| and see that daughter slay the children (or try to);
| |
| to belong to a community of other free
| |
| Negroes--to love and
| |
| be loved by them, to counsel and be counseled,
| |
| protect and be protected, feed and be fed--and
| |
| then to have that community step back and hold
| |
| itself at a distance—well, it could wear out even
| |
| a Baby Suggs, holy.
| |
| "Listen here, girl," he told her, "you can't
| |
| quit the Word. It's given to you to speak. You
| |
| can't quit the Word, I don't care what all happen
| |
| to you."
| |
| They were standing in Richmond Street, ankle deep in leaves.
| |
| Lamps lit the downstairs windows of
| |
| spacious houses and made the early evening
| |
| look darker than it was. The odor of burning
| |
| leaves was brilliant. Quite by chance, as he
| |
| pocketed a penny tip for a delivery, he had
| |
| glanced across the street and recognized the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 335 of 525
| |
| skipping woman as his old friend. He had not
| |
| seen her in weeks. Quickly he crossed the
| |
| street, scuffing red leaves as he went. When he
| |
| stopped her with a greeting, she returned it with
| |
| a face knocked clean of interest. She could have
| |
| been a plate. A carpetbag full of shoes in her
| |
| hand, she waited for him to begin, lead or share
| |
| a conversation.
| |
| If there had been sadness in her eyes
| |
| he would have understood it; but
| |
| indifference lodged where sadness should
| |
| have been.
| |
| "You missed the Clearing three Saturdays
| |
| running," he told her.
| |
| She turned her head away and scanned the
| |
| houses along the street.
| |
| "Folks came," he said.
| |
| "Folks come; folks go," she answered.
| |
| "Here, let me carry that." He tried to take her
| |
| bag from her but she wouldn't let him.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 336 of 525
| |
| "I got a delivery someplace long in here,"
| |
| she said. "Name of Tucker."
| |
| "Yonder," he said. "Twin chestnuts in the
| |
| yard. Sick, too."
| |
| They walked a bit, his pace slowed to
| |
| accommodate her skip.
| |
| "Well?"
| |
| "Well, what?"
| |
| "Saturday coming. You going to Call or
| |
| what?"
| |
| "If I call them and they come, what on earth
| |
| I'm going to say?"
| |
| "Say the Word!" He checked his shout
| |
| too late. Two whitemen burning leaves
| |
| turned their heads in his direction. Bending
| |
| low he whispered into her ear, "The Word.
| |
| The Word."
| |
| "That's one other thing took away from
| |
| me," she said, and that was when he exhorted
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 337 of 525
| |
| her, pleaded with her not to quit, no matter
| |
| what. The Word had been given to her and she
| |
| had to speak it.
| |
| Had to.
| |
| They had reached the twin chestnuts and the
| |
| white house that stood behind them.
| |
| "See what I mean?" he said. "Big trees like
| |
| that, both of em together ain't got the leaves of a
| |
| young birch."
| |
| "I see what you mean," she said, but she
| |
| peered instead at the white house.
| |
| "You got to do it," he said. "You got to. Can't
| |
| nobody Call like you. You have to be there."
| |
| "What I have to do is get in my bed and lay
| |
| down. I want to fix on something harmless in
| |
| this
| |
| world."
| |
| "What world you talking about? Ain't
| |
| nothing harmless down here." "Yes it is.
| |
| Blue. That don't hurt nobody. Yellow
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 338 of 525
| |
| neither." "You getting in the bed to think
| |
| about yellow?" "I likes yellow."
| |
| "Then what? When you get through with blue
| |
| and yellow, then what?"
| |
| "Can't say. It's something can't be planned."
| |
| "You blaming God," he said. "That's what
| |
| you doing."
| |
| "No, Stamp. I ain't."
| |
| "You saying the whitefolks won? That what
| |
| you saying?"
| |
| "I'm saying they came in my yard."
| |
| "You saying nothing counts."
| |
| "I'm saying they came in my yard."
| |
| "Sethe's the one did it."
| |
| "And if she hadn't?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 339 of 525
| |
| "You saying God give up? Nothing left for
| |
| us but pour out our own blood?" "I'm
| |
| saying they came in my yard." "You
| |
| punishing Him, ain't you." "Not like He
| |
| punish me."
| |
| "You can't do that, Baby. It ain't right."
| |
| "Was a time I knew what that was."
| |
| "You still know."
| |
| "What I know is what I see: a nigger woman
| |
| hauling shoes."
| |
| "Aw, Baby." He licked his lips searching
| |
| with his tongue for the words that would turn her
| |
| around, lighten her load. "We have to be steady.
| |
| 'These things too will pass.' What you looking
| |
| for? A miracle?"
| |
| "No," she said. "I'm looking for what I was
| |
| put here to look for: the back door," and skipped
| |
| right to it. They didn't let her in.
| |
| They took the shoes from her as she stood
| |
| on the steps and she rested her hip on the railing
| |
| while the whitewoman went looking for the dime.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 340 of 525
| |
| Stamp Paid rearranged his way. Too angry
| |
| to walk her home and listen to more, he watched
| |
| her for a moment and turned to go before the
| |
| alert white face at the window next door had
| |
| come to any conclusion.
| |
| Trying to get to 124 for the second time
| |
| now, he regretted that conversation: the high
| |
| tone he took; his refusal to see the effect of
| |
| marrow weariness in a woman he believed was
| |
| a mountain. Now, too late, he understood her.
| |
| The heart that pumped out love, the mouth
| |
| that spoke the Word, didn't count. They came
| |
| in her yard anyway and she could not approve
| |
| or condemn Sethe's rough choice.
| |
| One or the other might have saved her,
| |
| but beaten up by the claims of both, she went to
| |
| bed. The whitefolks had tired her out at last.
| |
| And him. Eighteen seventy-four and
| |
| whitefolks were still on the loose. Whole towns
| |
| wiped clean of Negroes; eighty-seven lynchings
| |
| in one year alone in Kentucky; four colored
| |
| schools burned to the ground; grown men
| |
| whipped like children; children whipped like
| |
| adults; black women raped by the crew;
| |
| property taken, necks broken.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 341 of 525
| |
| He smelled skin, skin and hot blood. The
| |
| skin was one thing, but human blood cooked in a
| |
| lynch fire was a whole other thing.
| |
| The stench stank. Stank up off the pages
| |
| of the North Star, out of the mouths of
| |
| witnesses, etched in crooked handwriting in
| |
| letters delivered by hand. Detailed in documents
| |
| and petitions full of whereas and presented to
| |
| any legal body who'd read it, it stank. But none
| |
| of that had worn out his marrow. None of that. It
| |
| was the ribbon. Tying his flatbed up on the bank
| |
| of the Licking River, securing it the best he could,
| |
| he caught sight of something red on its bottom.
| |
| Reaching for it, he thought it was a cardinal
| |
| feather stuck to his boat. He tugged and what
| |
| came loose in his hand was a red ribbon knotted
| |
| around a curl of wet woolly hair, clinging still to
| |
| its bit of scalp. He untied the ribbon and put it in
| |
| his pocket, dropped the curl in the weeds. On the
| |
| way home, he stopped, short of breath and
| |
| dizzy. He
| |
| waited until the spell passed before continuing
| |
| on his way. A moment later, his breath left him
| |
| again. This time he sat down by a fence.
| |
| Rested, he got to his feet, but before he
| |
| took a step he turned to look back down the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 342 of 525
| |
| road he was traveling and said, to its frozen
| |
| mud and the river beyond, "What are these
| |
| people? You tell me, Jesus. What are they?"
| |
| When he got to his house he was too tired
| |
| to eat the food his sister and nephews had
| |
| prepared. He sat on the porch in the cold till way
| |
| past dark and went to his bed only because his
| |
| sister's voice calling him was getting nervous. He
| |
| kept the ribbon; the skin smell nagged him, and
| |
| his weakened marrow made him dwell on Baby
| |
| Suggs' wish to consider what in the world was
| |
| harmless. He hoped she stuck to blue, yellow,
| |
| maybe green, and never fixed on red.
| |
| Mistaking her, upbraiding her, owing her,
| |
| now he needed to let her know he knew, and to
| |
| get right with her and her kin. So, in spite of his
| |
| exhausted marrow, he kept on through the
| |
| voices and tried once more to knock at the door
| |
| of 124. This time, although he couldn't cipher
| |
| but one word, he believed he knew who spoke
| |
| them.
| |
| The people of the broken necks, of fire-cooked blood and black girls who had lost their
| |
| ribbons.
| |
| What a roaring.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 343 of 525
| |
| Sethe had gone to bed smiling, eager to lie
| |
| down and unravel the proof for the conclusion
| |
| she had already leapt to. Fondle the day and
| |
| circumstances of Beloved's arrival and the
| |
| meaning of that kiss in the Clearing. She slept
| |
| instead and woke, still smiling, to a snow bright
| |
| morning, cold enough to see her breath. She
| |
| lingered a moment to collect the courage to
| |
| throw off the blankets and hit a chilly floor.
| |
| For the first time, she was going to be late for work.
| |
| Downstairs she saw the girls sleeping
| |
| where she'd left them, but back to back now,
| |
| each wrapped tight in blankets, breathing into
| |
| their pillows. The pair and a half of skates were
| |
| lying by the front door, the stockings hung on a
| |
| nail behind the cooking stove to dry had not.
| |
| Sethe looked at Beloved's face and smiled.
| |
| Quietly, carefully she stepped around her
| |
| to wake the fire. First a bit of paper, then a little
| |
| kindlin--not too much--just a taste until it was
| |
| strong enough for more. She fed its dance until it
| |
| was wild and fast. When she went outside to
| |
| collect more wood from the shed, she did not
| |
| notice the man's frozen footprints. She crunched
| |
| around to the back, to the cord piled high with
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 344 of 525
| |
| snow. After scraping it clean, she filled her arms
| |
| with as much dry wood as she could. She even
| |
| looked straight at the shed, smiling, smiling at
| |
| the things she would not have to remember now.
| |
| Thinking, "She ain't even mad with me.
| |
| Not a bit."
| |
| Obviously the hand-holding shadows
| |
| she had seen on the road were not Paul D,
| |
| Denver and herself, but "us three." The three
| |
| holding on to each other skating the night
| |
| before; the three sipping flavored milk. And
| |
| since that was so--if her daughter could come
| |
| back home from the timeless place- certainly
| |
| her sons could, and would, come back from
| |
| wherever they had gone to.
| |
| Sethe covered her front teeth with her
| |
| tongue against the cold.
| |
| Hunched forward by the burden in her
| |
| arms, she walked back around the house to the
| |
| porch-- not once noticing the frozen tracks she
| |
| stepped in.
| |
| Inside, the girls were still sleeping,
| |
| although they had changed positions while she
| |
| was gone, both drawn to the fire. Dumping the
| |
| armload into the woodbox made them stir but
| |
| not wake. Sethe started the cooking stove as
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 345 of 525
| |
| quietly as she could, reluctant to wake the
| |
| sisters, happy to have them asleep at her feet
| |
| while she made breakfast. Too bad she would be
| |
| late for work—too, too bad. Once in sixteen
| |
| years?
| |
| That's just too bad.
| |
| She had beaten two eggs into
| |
| yesterday's hominy, formed it into patties and
| |
| fried them with some ham pieces before
| |
| Denver woke completely and groaned.
| |
| "Back stiff?"
| |
| "Ooh yeah."
| |
| "Sleeping on the floor's supposed to be good
| |
| for you."
| |
| "Hurts like the devil," said Denver.
| |
| "Could be that fall you took."
| |
| Denver smiled. "That was fun." She turned
| |
| to look down at
| |
| Beloved snoring lightly. "Should I wake her?"
| |
| "No, let her rest."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 346 of 525
| |
| "She likes to see you off in the morning."
| |
| I'll make sure she does," said Sethe, and
| |
| thought, Be nice to think first, before I talk to
| |
| her, let her know I know. Think about all I ain't
| |
| got to remember no more. Do like Baby said:
| |
| Think on it then lay it down--for good. Paul D
| |
| convinced me there was a world out there and
| |
| that I could live in it. Should have known better.
| |
| Did know better. Whatever is going on outside
| |
| my door ain't for me.
| |
| The world is in this room. This here's all there
| |
| is and all there needs to be.
| |
| They ate like men, ravenous and intent.
| |
| Saying little, content with the company of the
| |
| other and the opportunity to look in her eyes.
| |
| When Sethe wrapped her head and
| |
| bundled up to go to town, it was already
| |
| midmorning. And when she left the house she
| |
| neither saw the prints nor heard the voices that
| |
| ringed 124 like a noose.
| |
| Trudging in the ruts left earlier by wheels,
| |
| Sethe was excited to giddiness by the things she
| |
| no longer had to remember.
| |
| I don't have to remember nothing. I don't even have to explain.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 347 of 525
| |
| She understands it all. I can forget how
| |
| Baby Suggs' heart collapsed; how we agreed it
| |
| was consumption without a sign of it in the
| |
| world.
| |
| Her eyes when she brought my food, I can
| |
| forget that, and how she told me that Howard
| |
| and Buglar were all right but wouldn't let go each
| |
| other's hands. Played that way: stayed that way
| |
| especially in their sleep. She handed me the food
| |
| from a basket; things wrapped small enough to
| |
| get through the bars, whispering news: Mr.
| |
| Bodwin going to see the judge--in chambers, she
| |
| kept on saying, in chambers, like I knew what it
| |
| meant or she did. The Colored Ladies of
| |
| Delaware, Ohio, had drawn up a petition to keep
| |
| me from being hanged. That two white
| |
| preachers had come round and wanted to talk to
| |
| me, pray for me. That a newspaperman came
| |
| too. She told me the news and I told her I
| |
| needed something for the rats. She wanted
| |
| Denver out and slapped her palms when I
| |
| wouldn't let her go. "Where your earrings?" she
| |
| said. I'll hold em for you." I told her the jailer
| |
| took them, to protect me from myself. He
| |
| thought I could do some harm with the wire.
| |
| Baby Suggs covered her mouth with her hand.
| |
| "Schoolteacher left town," she said. "Filed a
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 348 of 525
| |
| claim and rode on off. They going to let you out
| |
| for the burial," she said, "not the funeral, just the
| |
| burial," and they did. The sheriff came with me
| |
| and looked away when I fed Denver in the
| |
| wagon. Neither Howard nor Buglar would let me
| |
| near them, not even to touch their hair. I believe
| |
| a lot of folks were there, but I just saw the box.
| |
| Reverend Pike spoke in a real loud voice, but I
| |
| didn't catch a word—except the first two, and
| |
| three months later when Denver was ready for
| |
| solid food and they let me out for good, I went
| |
| and got you a gravestone, but I didn't have
| |
| money enough for the carving so I exchanged
| |
| (bartered, you might say) what I did have and
| |
| I'm sorry to this day I never thought to ask him
| |
| for the whole thing: all I heard of what Reverend
| |
| Pike said.
| |
| Dearly Beloved, which is what you are to
| |
| me and I don't have to be sorry about getting
| |
| only one word, and I don't have to remember the
| |
| slaughterhouse and the Saturday girls who
| |
| worked its yard. I can forget that what I did
| |
| changed Baby Suggs' life. No Clearing, no
| |
| company. Just laundry and shoes. I can forget it
| |
| all now because as soon as I got the gravestone
| |
| in place you made your presence known in the
| |
| house and worried us all to distraction. I didn't
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 349 of 525
| |
| understand it then. I thought you were mad with
| |
| me. And now I know that if you was, you ain't
| |
| now because you came back here to me and I
| |
| was right all along: there is no world outside my
| |
| door. I only need to know one thing. How bad is
| |
| the scar?
| |
| As Sethe walked to work, late for the first
| |
| time in sixteen years and wrapped in a timeless
| |
| present, Stamp Paid fought fatigue and the habit
| |
| of a lifetime. Baby Suggs refused to go to the
| |
| Clearing because she believed they had won; he
| |
| refused to acknowledge any such victory. Baby
| |
| had no back door; so he braved the cold and a
| |
| wall of talk to knock on the one she did have. He
| |
| clutched the red ribbon in his pocket for
| |
| strength. Softly at first, then harder. At the last
| |
| he banged furiously-disbelieving it could
| |
| happen. That the door of a house with
| |
| coloredpeople in it did not fly open in his
| |
| presence.
| |
| He went to the window and wanted to
| |
| cry. Sure enough, there they were, not a one of
| |
| them heading for the door. Worrying his scrap
| |
| of ribbon to shreds, the old man turned and
| |
| went down the steps.
| |
| Now curiosity joined his shame and his
| |
| debt. Two backs curled away from him as he
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 350 of 525
| |
| looked in the window. One had a head he
| |
| recognized; the other troubled him. He didn't
| |
| know her and didn't know anybody it could be.
| |
| Nobody, but nobody visited that house.
| |
| After a disagreeable breakfast he went to
| |
| see Ella and John to find out what they knew.
| |
| Perhaps there he could find out if, after all these
| |
| years of clarity, he had misnamed himself and
| |
| there was yet another debt he owed. Born
| |
| Joshua, he renamed himself when he handed
| |
| over his wife to his master's son. Handed her
| |
| over in the sense that he did not kill anybody,
| |
| thereby himself, because his wife demanded he
| |
| stay alive. Otherwise, she reasoned, where and
| |
| to whom could she return when the boy was
| |
| through? With that gift, he decided that he didn't
| |
| owe anybody anything. Whatever his obligations
| |
| were, that act paid them off. He thought it would
| |
| make him rambunctious, renegade--a drunkard
| |
| even, the debtlessness, and in a way it did.
| |
| But there was nothing to do with it. Work
| |
| well; work poorly. Work a little; work not at all.
| |
| Make sense; make none. Sleep, wake up; like
| |
| somebody, dislike others. It didn't seem much
| |
| of a way to live and it brought him no
| |
| satisfaction. So he extended this debtlessness
| |
| to other people by helping them pay out and off
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 351 of 525
| |
| whatever they owed in misery. Beaten
| |
| runaways? He ferried them and rendered them
| |
| paid for; gave them their own bill of sale, so to
| |
| speak. "You paid it; now life owes you." And the
| |
| receipt, as it were, was a welcome door that he
| |
| never had to knock on, like John and Ella's in
| |
| front of which he stood and said, "Who in
| |
| there?" only once and she was pulling on the
| |
| hinge.
| |
| "where you been keeping yourself? I told
| |
| John must be cold if Stamp stay inside."
| |
| "Oh, I been out." He took off his cap and
| |
| massaged his scalp.
| |
| "Out where? Not by here." Ella hung two
| |
| suits of underwear on a line behind the stove.
| |
| "Was over to Baby Suggs' this morning."
| |
| "What you want in there?" asked Ella.
| |
| "Somebody invite you in?"
| |
| "That's Baby's kin. I don't need no invite to
| |
| look after her people."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 352 of 525
| |
| "Sth." Ella was unmoved. She had been
| |
| Baby Suggs' friend and Sethe's too till the
| |
| rough time. Except for a nod at the carnival,
| |
| she hadn't given Sethe the time of day.
| |
| "Somebody new in there. A woman. Thought you might know who is she."
| |
| "Ain't no new Negroes in this town I don't
| |
| know about," she said. "what she look like? You
| |
| sure that wasn't Denver?"
| |
| "I know Denver. This girl's narrow."
| |
| "You sure?"
| |
| "I know what I see."
| |
| "Might see anything at all at 124."
| |
| "True."
| |
| "Better ask Paul D," she said.
| |
| "Can't locate him," said Stamp, which was
| |
| the truth although his efforts to find Paul D had
| |
| been feeble. He wasn't ready to confront the
| |
| man whose life he had altered with his graveyard
| |
| information.
| |
| "He's sleeping in the church," said Ella.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 353 of 525
| |
| "The church!" Stamp was shocked and very
| |
| hurt.
| |
| "Yeah. Asked Reverend Pike if he could stay
| |
| in the cellar."
| |
| "It's cold as charity in there!"
| |
| "I expect he knows that."
| |
| "What he do that for?"
| |
| "Hes a touch proud, seem like."
| |
| "He don't have to do that! Any number'll take
| |
| him in."
| |
| Ella turned around to look at Stamp Paid.
| |
| "Can't nobody read minds long distance. All he
| |
| have to do is ask somebody."
| |
| "Why? Why he have to ask? Can't nobody
| |
| offer? What's going on? Since when a blackman
| |
| come to town have to sleep in a cellar like a
| |
| dog?"
| |
| "Unrile yourself, Stamp."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 354 of 525
| |
| "Not me. I'm going to stay riled till
| |
| somebody gets some sense and leastway
| |
| act like a Christian." "It's only a few days
| |
| he been there."
| |
| "Shouldn't be no days! You know all about
| |
| it and don't give him a hand? That don't sound
| |
| like you, Ella. Me and you been pulling
| |
| coloredfolk out the water more'n twenty years.
| |
| Now you tell me you can't offer a man a bed? A
| |
| working man, too! A man what can pay his own
| |
| way."
| |
| "He ask, I give him anything."
| |
| "Why's that necessary all of a sudden?"
| |
| "I don't know him all that well."
| |
| "You know he's colored!"
| |
| "Stamp, don't tear me up this
| |
| morning. I don't feel like it." "It's
| |
| her, ain't it?" "Her who?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 355 of 525
| |
| "Sethe. He took up with her and stayed in
| |
| there and you don't want nothing to--"
| |
| "Hold on. Don't jump if you can't see
| |
| bottom."
| |
| "Girl, give it up. We been friends too long to
| |
| act like this."
| |
| "Well, who can tell what all went on in
| |
| there? Look here, I don't know who Sethe is or
| |
| none of her people."
| |
| "What?!"
| |
| "All I know is she married Baby Suggs'
| |
| boy and I ain't sure I know that. Where is he,
| |
| huh? Baby never laid eyes on her till John
| |
| carried her to the door with a baby I strapped on
| |
| her chest."
| |
| "I strapped that baby! And you way off the
| |
| track with that wagon.
| |
| Her children know who she was even if you don't."
| |
| "So what? I ain't saying she wasn't their
| |
| ma'ammy, but who's to say they was Baby
| |
| Suggs' grandchildren? How she get on board
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 356 of 525
| |
| and her husband didn't? And tell me this, how
| |
| she have that baby in the woods by herself?
| |
| Said a whitewoman come out the trees and
| |
| helped her. Shoot. You believe that? A
| |
| whitewoman? Well, I know what kind of white
| |
| that was."
| |
| "Aw, no, Ella."
| |
| "Anything white floating around in the
| |
| woods—if it ain't got a shotgun, it's something I
| |
| don't want no part of!"
| |
| "You all was friends."
| |
| "Yeah, till she showed herself."
| |
| "Ella."
| |
| "I ain't got no friends take a handsaw to
| |
| their own children." "You in deep water,
| |
| girl."
| |
| "Uh uh. I'm on dry land and I'm going to stay
| |
| there. You the one wet."
| |
| "What's any of what you talking got to do
| |
| with Paul D?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 357 of 525
| |
| "What run him off? Tell me that."
| |
| "I run him off."
| |
| "You?"
| |
| "I told him about--I showed him the
| |
| newspaper, about the-- what Sethe did. Read it
| |
| to him. He left that very day."
| |
| "You didn't tell me that. I thought he knew."
| |
| "He didn't know nothing. Except her, from
| |
| when they was at that place Baby Suggs was at."
| |
| "He knew Baby Suggs?"
| |
| "Sure he knew her. Her boy Halle too."
| |
| "And left when he found out what Sethe
| |
| did?"
| |
| "Look like he might have a place to stay after
| |
| all."
| |
| "What you say casts a different light. I
| |
| thought--"
| |
| But Stamp Paid knew what she thought.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 358 of 525
| |
| "You didn't come here asking about him," Ela
| |
| said. "You came about some new girl."
| |
| "That's so."
| |
| "Well, Paul D must know who she is. Or what
| |
| she is."
| |
| "Your mind is loaded with spirits.
| |
| Everywhere you look you see one."
| |
| "You know as well as I do that people who die
| |
| bad don't stay in the ground."
| |
| He couldn't deny it. Jesus Christ Himself
| |
| didn't, so Stamp ate a piece of Ella's head
| |
| cheese to show there were no bad feelings and
| |
| set out to find Paul D. He found him on the steps
| |
| of Holy Redeemer, holding his wrists between
| |
| his knees and looking red-eyed.
| |
| Sawyer shouted at her when she entered
| |
| the kitchen, but she just turned her back and
| |
| reached for her apron. There was no entry now.
| |
| No crack or crevice available. She had
| |
| taken pains to keep them out, but knew full well
| |
| that at any moment they could rock her, rip her
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 359 of 525
| |
| from her moorings, send the birds twittering
| |
| back into her hair. Drain her mother's milk, they
| |
| had already done. Divided her back into plant
| |
| life--that too. Driven her fat- bellied into the
| |
| woods--they had done that. All news of them
| |
| was rot. They buttered Halle's face; gave Paul D
| |
| iron to eat; crisped Sixo; hanged her own
| |
| mother. She didn't want any more news about
| |
| whitefolks; didn't want to know what Ella knew
| |
| and John and Stamp Paid, about the world done
| |
| up the way whitefolks loved it. All news of them
| |
| should have stopped with the birds in her hair.
| |
| Once, long ago, she was soft, trusting.
| |
| She trusted Mrs. Garner and her husband too.
| |
| She knotted the earrings into her underskirt to
| |
| take along, not so much to wear but to hold.
| |
| Earrings that made her believe she could
| |
| discriminate among them. That for every
| |
| schoolteacher there would be an Amy; that for
| |
| every pupil there was a Garner, or Bodwin, or
| |
| even a sheriff, whose touch at her elbow was
| |
| gentle and who looked away when she nursed.
| |
| But she had come to believe every one of Baby
| |
| Suggs' last words and buried all recollection of
| |
| them and luck. Paul D dug it up, gave her back
| |
| her body, kissed her divided back, stirred her
| |
| rememory and brought her more news: of
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 360 of 525
| |
| clabber, of iron, of roosters' smiling, but when
| |
| he heard her news, he counted her feet and
| |
| didn't even say goodbye.
| |
| "Don't talk to me, Mr. Sawyer. Don't say
| |
| nothing to me this morning."
| |
| "What? What? What? You talking back to
| |
| me?"
| |
| "I'm telling you don't say nothing to me."
| |
| "You better get them pies made."
| |
| Sethe touched the fruit and picked up the
| |
| paring knife.
| |
| When pie juice hit the bottom of the oven
| |
| and hissed, Sethe was well into the potato
| |
| salad. Sawyer came in and said, "Not too sweet.
| |
| You make it too sweet they don't eat it."
| |
| "Make it the way I always did."
| |
| "Yeah. Too sweet."
| |
| None of the sausages came back. The
| |
| cook had a way with them and Sawyer's
| |
| Restaurant never had leftover sausage. If Sethe
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 361 of 525
| |
| wanted any, she put them aside soon as they
| |
| were ready. But there was some passable stew.
| |
| Problem was, all her pies were sold too. Only
| |
| rice pudding left and half a pan of gingerbread
| |
| that didn't come out right.
| |
| Had she been paying attention instead of
| |
| daydreaming all morning, she wouldn't be
| |
| picking around looking for her dinner like a
| |
| crab.
| |
| She couldn't read clock time very well,
| |
| but she knew when the hands were closed in
| |
| prayer at the top of the face she was through
| |
| for the day. She got a metal-top jar, filled it
| |
| with stew and wrapped the gingerbread in
| |
| butcher paper. These she dropped in her outer
| |
| skirt pockets and began washing up. None of it
| |
| was anything like what the cook and the two
| |
| waiters walked off with. Mr. Sawyer included
| |
| midday dinner in the terms of the job--along
| |
| with $3 .4o a week-- and she made him
| |
| understand from the beginning she would take
| |
| her dinner home. But matches, sometimes a bit
| |
| of kerosene, a little salt, butter too--these
| |
| things she took also, once in a while, and felt
| |
| ashamed because she could afford to
| |
| buy them; she just didn't want the
| |
| embarrassment of waiting out back of Phelps
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 362 of 525
| |
| store with the others till every white in Ohio was
| |
| served before the keeper turned to the cluster of
| |
| Negro faces looking through a hole in his back
| |
| door. She was ashamed, too, because it was
| |
| stealing and Sixo's argument on the subject
| |
| amused her but didn't change the way she felt;
| |
| just as it didn't change schoolteacher's mind.
| |
| "Did you steal that shoat? You stole that
| |
| shoat." Schoolteacher was quiet but firm, like he
| |
| was just going through the motions--not
| |
| expecting an answer that mattered. Sixo sat
| |
| there, not even getting up to plead or deny. He
| |
| just sat there, the streak-of-lean in his hand, the
| |
| gristle clustered in the tin plate like
| |
| gemstones—rough, unpolished, but loot
| |
| nevertheless.
| |
| "You stole that shoat, didn't you?"
| |
| "No. Sir." said Sixo, but he had the decency,
| |
| to keep his eyes on the meat.
| |
| "You telling me you didn't steal it, and I'm
| |
| looking right at you?"
| |
| "No, sir. I didn't steal it."
| |
| Schoolteacher smiled. "Did you kill it?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 363 of 525
| |
| "Yes, sir. I killed it."
| |
| "Did you butcher it?"
| |
| "Yes, sir."
| |
| "Did you cook it?"
| |
| "Yes, sir."
| |
| "Well, then. Did you eat it?"
| |
| "Yes, sir. I sure did."
| |
| "And you telling me that's not stealing?"
| |
| "No, sir. It ain't."
| |
| "What is it then?"
| |
| "Improving your property, sir."
| |
| "What?"
| |
| "Sixo plant rye to give the high piece a
| |
| better chance. Sixo take and feed the soil, give
| |
| you more crop. Sixo take and feed Sixo give you
| |
| more work."
| |
| Clever, but schoolteacher beat him
| |
| anyway to show him that definitions
| |
| belonged to the definers--not the defined.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 364 of 525
| |
| After Mr. Garner died with a hole in his ear
| |
| that Mrs. Garner said was an
| |
| exploded ear drum brought on by stroke and
| |
| Sixo said was gunpowder, everything they
| |
| touched was looked on as stealing. Not just a
| |
| rifle of corn, or two yard eggs the hen herself
| |
| didn't even remember, everything.
| |
| Schoolteacher took away the guns from the
| |
| Sweet Home men and, deprived of game to
| |
| round out their diet of bread, beans, hominy,
| |
| vegetables and a little extra at slaughter time,
| |
| they began to pilfer in earnest, and it became not
| |
| only their right but their obligation.
| |
| Sethe understood it then, but now with a
| |
| paying job and an employer who was kind
| |
| enough to hire an ex-convict, she despised
| |
| herself for the pride that made pilfering better
| |
| than standing in line at the window of the general
| |
| store with all the other Negroes. She didn't want
| |
| to jostle them or be jostled by them. Feel their
| |
| judgment or their pity, especially now. She
| |
| touched her forehead with the back of her wrist
| |
| and blotted the perspiration. The workday had
| |
| come to a close and already she was feeling the
| |
| excitement. Not since that other escape had she
| |
| felt so alive. Slopping the alley dogs, watching
| |
| their frenzy, she pressed her lips. Today would be
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 365 of 525
| |
| a day she would accept a lift, if anybody on a
| |
| wagon offered it. No one would, and for sixteen
| |
| years her pride had not let her ask. But today.
| |
| Oh, today.
| |
| Now she wanted speed, to skip over the long walk home and be there.
| |
| When Sawyer warned her about being
| |
| late again, she barely heard him. He used to be
| |
| a sweet man. Patient, tender in his dealings
| |
| with his help. But each year, following the
| |
| death of his son in the War, he grew more and
| |
| more crotchety. As though Sethe's dark face
| |
| was to blame.
| |
| "Un huh," she said, wondering how she could hurry tine along and get to the no-time waiting for
| |
| her.
| |
| She needn't have worried. Wrapped tight,
| |
| hunched forward, as she started home her mind
| |
| was busy with the things she could forget.
| |
| Thank God I don't have to rememory or say
| |
| a thing because you know it. All. You know I
| |
| never would a left you. Never. It was all I could
| |
| think of to do. When the train came I had to be
| |
| ready.
| |
| Schoolteacher was teaching us things we
| |
| couldn't learn. I didn't care nothing about the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 366 of 525
| |
| measuring string. We all laughed about that--
| |
| except Sixo. He didn't laugh at nothing. But I
| |
| didn't care. Schoolteacher'd wrap that string all
| |
| over my head, 'cross my nose, around my
| |
| behind. Number my teeth. I thought he was a
| |
| fool. And the questions he asked was the biggest
| |
| foolishness of all.
| |
| Then me and your brothers come up from
| |
| the second patch. The first one was close to the
| |
| house where the quick things grew: beans,
| |
| onions, sweet peas. The other one was further
| |
| down for long-lasting things, potatoes, pumpkin,
| |
| okra, pork salad. Not much was up yet down
| |
| there. It was early still. Some young salad
| |
| maybe, but that was all. We pulled weeds and
| |
| hoed a little to give everything a good start.
| |
| After that we hit out for the house. The
| |
| ground raised up from the second patch. Not a
| |
| hill exactly but kind of. Enough for Buglar and
| |
| Howard to run up and roll down, run up and roll
| |
| down. That's the way I used to see them in my
| |
| dreams, laughing, their short fat legs running up
| |
| the hill. Now all I see is their backs walking down
| |
| the railroad tracks. Away from me. Always away
| |
| from me. But that day they was happy, running
| |
| up and rolling down. It was early still-- the
| |
| growing season had took hold but not much was
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 367 of 525
| |
| up. I remember the peas still had flowers. The
| |
| grass was long though, full of white buds and
| |
| those tall red blossoms people call Diane and
| |
| something there with the leastest little bit of
| |
| blue—light, like a cornflower but pale, pale. Real
| |
| pale. I maybe should have hurried because I left
| |
| you back at the house in a basket in the yard.
| |
| Away from where the chickens scratched but you
| |
| never know. Anyway I took my time getting back
| |
| but your brothers didn't have patience with me
| |
| staring at flowers and sky every two or three
| |
| steps. They ran on ahead and I let em.
| |
| Something sweet lives in the air that time of
| |
| year, and if the breeze is right, it's hard to stay
| |
| indoors. When I got back I could hear Howard
| |
| and Buglar laughing down by the quarters. I put
| |
| my hoe down and cut across the side yard to get
| |
| to you. The shade moved so by the time I got
| |
| back the sun was shining right on you.
| |
| Right in your face, but you wasn't woke at
| |
| all. Still asleep. I wanted to pick you up in my
| |
| arms and I wanted to look at you sleeping too.
| |
| Didn't know which; you had the sweetest
| |
| face. Yonder, not far, was a grape arbor Mr.
| |
| Garner made. Always full of big plans, he wanted
| |
| to make his own wine to get drunk off. Never did
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 368 of 525
| |
| get more than a kettle of jelly from it. I don't
| |
| think the soil was right for grapes. Your daddy
| |
| believed it was the rain, not the soil. Sixo said it
| |
| was bugs.
| |
| The grapes so little and tight. Sour as
| |
| vinegar too. But there was a little table in there.
| |
| So I picked up your basket and carried you over
| |
| to the grape arbor. Cool in there and shady. I set
| |
| you down on the little table and figured if I got a
| |
| piece of muslin the bugs and things wouldn't get
| |
| to you. And if Mrs. Garner didn't need me right
| |
| there in the kitchen, I could get a chair and you
| |
| and me could set out there while I did the
| |
| vegetables. I headed for the back door to get the
| |
| clean muslin we kept in the kitchen press. The
| |
| grass felt good on my feet.
| |
| I got near the door and I heard voices.
| |
| Schoolteacher made his pupils sit and learn
| |
| books for a spell every afternoon. If it was nice
| |
| enough weather, they'd sit on the side porch. All
| |
| three of em. He'd talk and they'd write. Or he
| |
| would read and they would write down what he
| |
| said. I never told nobody this. Not your pap, not
| |
| nobody. I almost told Mrs. Garner, but she was
| |
| so weak then and getting weaker. This is the first
| |
| time I'm telling it and I'm telling it to you because
| |
| it might help explain something to you although I
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 369 of 525
| |
| know you don't need me to do it. To tell it or even
| |
| think over it. You don't have to listen either, if
| |
| you don't want to. But I couldn't help listening to
| |
| what I heard that day. He was talking to his
| |
| pupils and I heard him say, "Which one are you
| |
| doing?" And one of the boys said, "Sethe."
| |
| That's when I stopped because I heard
| |
| my name, and then I took a few steps to where
| |
| I could see what they was doing. Schoolteacher
| |
| was standing over one of them with one hand
| |
| behind his back. He licked a forefinger a couple
| |
| of times and turned a few pages. Slow.
| |
| I was about to turn around and keep on my
| |
| way to where the muslin was, when I heard him
| |
| say, "No, no. That's not the way. I told you to put
| |
| her human characteristics on the left; her animal
| |
| ones on the right. And don't forget to line them
| |
| up." I commenced to walk backward, didn't even
| |
| look behind me to find out where I was headed.
| |
| I just kept lifting my feet and pushing
| |
| back. When I bumped up against a tree my
| |
| scalp was prickly. One of the dogs was licking
| |
| out a pan in the yard. I got to the grape arbor
| |
| fast enough, but I didn't have the muslin.
| |
| Flies settled all over your face, rubbing their
| |
| hands.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 370 of 525
| |
| My head itched like the devil. Like
| |
| somebody was sticking fine needles in my scalp.
| |
| I never told Halle or nobody. But that very day I
| |
| asked Mrs. Garner a part of it. She was low then.
| |
| Not as low as she ended up, but failing. A kind of
| |
| bag grew under her jaw. It didn't seem to hurt
| |
| her, but it made her weak. First she'd be up and
| |
| spry in the morning and by the second milking
| |
| she couldn't stand up. Next she took to sleeping
| |
| late. The day I went up there she was in bed the
| |
| whole day, and I thought to carry her some bean
| |
| soup and ask her then. When I opened the
| |
| bedroom door she looked at me from
| |
| underneath her nightcap. Already it was hard to
| |
| catch life in her eyes. Her shoes and stockings
| |
| were on the floor so I knew she had tried to get
| |
| dressed.
| |
| "I brung you some bean soup," I said.
| |
| She said, "I don't think I can swallow that."
| |
| "Try a bit," I told her.
| |
| "Too thick. I'm sure it's too thick."
| |
| "Want me to loosen it up with a little water?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 371 of 525
| |
| "No. Take it away. Bring me some cool
| |
| water, that's all."
| |
| "Yes, ma'am. Ma'am? Could I ask you
| |
| something?"
| |
| "What is it, Sethe?"
| |
| "What do characteristics mean?"
| |
| "What?"
| |
| "A word. Characteristics."
| |
| "Oh." She moved her head around on the
| |
| pillow. "Features. Who taught you that?"
| |
| "I heard the schoolteacher say it."
| |
| "Change the water, Sethe. This is warm."
| |
| "Yes, ma'am. Features?"
| |
| 'Water, Sethe. Cool water."
| |
| I put the pitcher on the tray with the white
| |
| bean soup and went downstairs. When I got
| |
| back with the fresh water I held her head while
| |
| she drank. It took her a while because that lump
| |
| made it hard to swallow. She laid back and
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 372 of 525
| |
| wiped her mouth. The drinking seemed to
| |
| satisfy her but she frowned and said, "I don't
| |
| seem able to wake up, Sethe. All I seem to want
| |
| is sleep."
| |
| "Then do it," I told her. "I'm take care of
| |
| things."
| |
| Then she went on: what about this? what
| |
| about that? Said she knew Halle was no trouble,
| |
| but she wanted to know if schoolteacher was
| |
| handling the Pauls all right and Sixo.
| |
| "Yes, ma'am," I said. "Look like it."
| |
| "Do they do what he tells them?"
| |
| "They don't need telling."
| |
| "Good. That's a mercy. I should be
| |
| back downstairs in a day or two. I just need
| |
| more rest. Doctor's due back. Tomorrow, is
| |
| it?"
| |
| "You said features, ma'am?"
| |
| "What?"
| |
| "Features?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 373 of 525
| |
| "Umm. Like, a feature of summer is heat. A
| |
| characteristic is a feature. A thing that's natural to
| |
| a
| |
| thing."
| |
| "Can you have more than one?"
| |
| "You can have quite a few. You know. Say
| |
| a baby sucks its thumb. That's one, but it has
| |
| others too. Keep Billy away from Red Corn. Mr.
| |
| Garner never let her calve every other year.
| |
| Sethe, you hear me? Come away from that
| |
| window and listen."
| |
| "Yes, ma'am."
| |
| "Ask
| |
| my
| |
| brother
| |
| -in-law
| |
| to
| |
| come
| |
| up after
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 374 of 525
| |
| supper.
| |
| " "Yes,
| |
| ma'am.
| |
| "
| |
| "If you'd
| |
| wash your
| |
| hair you
| |
| could get
| |
| rid of that
| |
| lice." "Ain't
| |
| no lice in
| |
| my head,
| |
| ma'am."
| |
| "Whatever it is, a
| |
| good scrubbing is
| |
| what it needs, not
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 375 of 525
| |
| scratching. Don't
| |
| tell me we're out of
| |
| soap."
| |
| "No, ma'am."
| |
| "All right now. I'm through. Talking makes
| |
| me tired."
| |
| "Yes, ma'am."
| |
| "And thank you, Sethe."
| |
| "Yes, ma'am."
| |
| You was too little to remember the
| |
| quarters. Your brothers slept under the window.
| |
| Me, you and your daddy slept by the wall. The
| |
| night after I heard why schoolteacher measured
| |
| me, I had trouble sleeping. When Halle came in I
| |
| asked him what he thought about schoolteacher.
| |
| He said there wasn't nothing to think about. Said,
| |
| He's white, ain't he? I said, But I mean is he like
| |
| Mr. Garner?
| |
| "What you want to know, Sethe?"
| |
| "Him and her," I said, "they ain't like the
| |
| whites I seen before.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 376 of 525
| |
| The ones in the big place I was before I came
| |
| here."
| |
| "How these different?" he asked me.
| |
| "Well," I said, "they talk soft for one thing."
| |
| "It don't matter, Sethe. What they say is the
| |
| same. Loud or soft."
| |
| "Mr. Garner let you buy out your mother," I
| |
| said.
| |
| "Yep. He did."
| |
| "Well?"
| |
| "If he hadn't of, she would of dropped in his
| |
| cooking stove."
| |
| "Still, he did it. Let you work it off."
| |
| "Uh huh."
| |
| "Wake up, Halle."
| |
| "I said, Uh huh."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 377 of 525
| |
| "He could of said no. He didn't tell you no."
| |
| "No, he didn't tell me no. She worked
| |
| here for ten years. If she worked another ten
| |
| you think she would've made it out? I pay him
| |
| for her last years and in return he got you, me
| |
| and three more coming up. I got one more year
| |
| of debt work; one more. Schoolteacher in there
| |
| told me to quit it. Said the reason for doing it
| |
| don't hold. I should do the extra but here at
| |
| Sweet Home."
| |
| "Is he going to pay you for the extra?"
| |
| "Nope."
| |
| "Then how you going to pay it off? How much
| |
| is it?"
| |
| "$123 .7o."
| |
| "Don't he want it back?"
| |
| "He want something."
| |
| "What?"
| |
| "I don't know. Something, But he don't
| |
| want me off Sweet Home no more. Say it don't
| |
| pay to have my labor somewhere else while the
| |
| boys is small."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 378 of 525
| |
| "What about the money you owe?"
| |
| "He must have another way of getting it."
| |
| "What way?"
| |
| "I don't know, Sethe."
| |
| "Then the only question is how? How he
| |
| going get it?"
| |
| "No. That's one question. There's one more."
| |
| "What's that?"
| |
| He leaned up and turned over, touching my
| |
| cheek with his knuckles.
| |
| "The question now is, Who's going buy
| |
| you out? Or me? Or her?" He pointed over to
| |
| where you was laying.
| |
| "What?"
| |
| "If all my labor is Sweet Home, including the extra, what I got left to sell?"
| |
| He turned over then and went back to
| |
| sleep and I thought I wouldn't but I did too for a
| |
| while. Something he said, maybe, or something
| |
| he didn't say woke me. I sat up like somebody
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 379 of 525
| |
| hit me, and you woke up too and commenced to
| |
| cry. I rocked you some, but there wasn't much
| |
| room, so I stepped outside the door to walk you.
| |
| Up and down I went. Up and down. Everything
| |
| dark but lamplight in the top window of the
| |
| house. She must've been up still. I couldn't get
| |
| out of my head the thing that woke me up:
| |
| "While the boys is small." That's what he said
| |
| and it snapped me awake. They tagged after me
| |
| the whole day weeding, milking, getting
| |
| firewood.
| |
| For now. For now.
| |
| That's when we should have begun to plan.
| |
| But we didn't. I don't know what we thought--but
| |
| getting away was a money thing to us.
| |
| Buy out. Running was nowhere on our minds. All of us? Some?
| |
| Where to? How to go? It was Sixo who
| |
| brought it up, finally, after Paul F. Mrs. Garner sold
| |
| him, trying to keep things up. Already she lived
| |
| two years off his price. But it ran out, I guess, so
| |
| she wrote schoolteacher to come take over. Four
| |
| Sweet Home men and she still believed she needed
| |
| her brother- in-law and two boys 'cause people
| |
| said she shouldn't be alone out there with nothing
| |
| but Negroes. So he came with a big hat and
| |
| spectacles and a coach box full of paper.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 380 of 525
| |
| Talking soft and watching hard. He beat Paul
| |
| A. Not hard and not long, but it was the first time
| |
| anyone had, because Mr. Garner disallowed it.
| |
| Next time I saw him he had company in the
| |
| prettiest trees you ever saw. Sixo started watching
| |
| the sky. He was the only one who crept at night
| |
| and Halle said that's how he learned about the
| |
| train.
| |
| "That way." Halle was pointing over the
| |
| stable. "Where he took my ma'am. Sixo say
| |
| freedom is that way. A whole train is going and if
| |
| we can get there, don't need to be no buyout."
| |
| "Train? What's that?" I asked him.
| |
| They stopped talking in front of me then.
| |
| Even Halle. But they whispered among themselves
| |
| and Sixo watched the sky. Not the high part, the
| |
| low part where it touched the trees. You could tell
| |
| his mind was gone from Sweet Home.
| |
| The plan was a good one, but when it came
| |
| time, I was big with Denver. So we changed it a
| |
| little. A little. Just enough to butter Halle's face, so
| |
| Paul D tells me, and make Sixo laugh at last.
| |
| But I got you out, baby. And the boys too.
| |
| When the signal for the train come, you all was the
| |
| only ones ready. I couldn't find Halle or nobody. I
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 381 of 525
| |
| didn't know Sixo was burned up and Paul D
| |
| dressed in a collar you wouldn't believe. Not till
| |
| later. So I sent you all to the wagon with the
| |
| woman who waited in the corn. Ha ha. No
| |
| notebook for my babies and no measuring string
| |
| neither. What I had to get through later I got
| |
| through because of you. Passed right by those
| |
| boys hanging in the trees. One had Paul A's shirt
| |
| on but not his feet or his head. I walked right on by
| |
| because only me had your milk, and God do what
| |
| He would, I was going to get it to you. You
| |
| remember that, don't you; that I did? That when I
| |
| got here I had milk enough for all?
| |
| One more curve in the road, and Sethe could
| |
| see her chimney; it wasn't lonely-looking
| |
| anymore. The ribbon of smoke was from a fire that
| |
| warmed a body returned to her--just like it never
| |
| went away, never needed a headstone. And the
| |
| heart that beat inside it had not for a single
| |
| moment stopped in her hands.
| |
| She opened the door, walked in and locked it
| |
| tight behind her.
| |
| The day Stamp Paid saw the two backs
| |
| through the window and then hurried down the
| |
| steps, he believed the undecipherable language
| |
| clamoring around the house was the mumbling
| |
| of the black and angry dead. Very few had died
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 382 of 525
| |
| in bed, like Baby Suggs, and none that he knew
| |
| of, including Baby, had lived a livable life. Even
| |
| the educated colored: the long-school people,
| |
| the doctors, the teachers, the paper-writers and
| |
| businessmen had a hard row to hoe. In addition
| |
| to having to use their heads to get ahead, they
| |
| had the weight of the whole race sitting there.
| |
| You needed two heads for that. Whitepeople
| |
| believed that whatever the manners, under
| |
| every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable
| |
| waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping
| |
| snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white
| |
| blood. In a way, he thought, they were right.
| |
| The more coloredpeople spent their strength
| |
| trying to convince them how gentle they were,
| |
| how clever and loving, how human, the more
| |
| they used themselves up to persuade whites of
| |
| something Negroes believed could not be
| |
| questioned, the deeper and more tangled the
| |
| jungle grew inside. But it wasn't the jungle
| |
| blacks brought with them to this place from the
| |
| other (livable) place.
| |
| It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread.
| |
| In, through and after life, it spread, until it
| |
| invaded the whites who had made it. Touched
| |
| them every one. Changed and altered them.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 383 of 525
| |
| Made them bloody, silly, worse than even
| |
| they wanted to be, so scared were they of the
| |
| jungle they had made. The screaming baboon
| |
| lived under their own white skin; the red gums
| |
| were their own.
| |
| Meantime, the secret spread of this new
| |
| kind of whitefolks' jungle was hidden, silent,
| |
| except once in a while when you could hear its
| |
| mumbling in places like 124.
| |
| Stamp Paid abandoned his efforts to see
| |
| about Sethe, after the pain of knocking and not
| |
| gaining entrance, and when he did, 124 was left
| |
| to its own devices. When Sethe locked the door,
| |
| the women inside were free at last to be what
| |
| they liked, see whatever they saw and say
| |
| whatever was on their minds.
| |
| Almost. Mixed in with the voices
| |
| surrounding the house, recognizable but
| |
| undecipherable to Stamp Paid, were the
| |
| thoughts of the women of 124, unspeakable
| |
| thoughts, unspoken. of her own free will and I
| |
| don't have to explain a thing. I didn't have time
| |
| to explain before because it had to be done
| |
| quick. Quick. She had to be safe and I put her
| |
| where she would be. But my love was tough and
| |
| she back now. I knew she would be. Paul D ran
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 384 of 525
| |
| her off so she had no choice but to come back to
| |
| me in the flesh. I bet you Baby Suggs, on the
| |
| other side, helped. I won't never let her go. I'll
| |
| explain to her, even though I don't have to. Why
| |
| I did it. How if I hadn't killed her she would have
| |
| died and that is something I could not bear to
| |
| happen to her. When I explain it she'll
| |
| understand, because she understands
| |
| everything already. I'll tend her as no mother
| |
| ever tended a child, a daughter. Nobody will
| |
| ever get my milk no more except my own
| |
| children. I never had to give it to nobody else--
| |
| and the one time I did it was took from me--they
| |
| held me down and took it. Milk that belonged to
| |
| my baby. Nan had to nurse whitebabies and me
| |
| too because Ma'am was in the rice. The little
| |
| whitebabies got it first and I got what was left.
| |
| Or none. There was no nursing milk to call my
| |
| own. I know what it is to be without the milk that
| |
| belongs to you; to have to fight and holler for it,
| |
| and to have so little left. i'll tell Beloved about
| |
| that; she'll understand. She my daughter. The
| |
| one I managed to have milk for and to get it to
| |
| her even after they stole it; after they handled
| |
| me like I was the cow, no, the goat, back behind
| |
| the stable because it was too nasty to stay in
| |
| with the horses. But I wasn't too nasty to cook
| |
| their food or take care of Mrs. Garner. I tended
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 385 of 525
| |
| her like I would have tended my own mother if
| |
| she needed me. If they had let her out the rice
| |
| field, because I was the one she didn't throw
| |
| away. I couldn't have done more for that woman
| |
| than I would my own ma'am if she was to take
| |
| sick and need me and I'd have stayed with her
| |
| till she got well or died.
| |
| And I would have stayed after that except Nan snatched me back.
| |
| Before I could check for the sign. It was
| |
| her all right, but for a long time I didn't believe
| |
| it. I looked everywhere for that hat. Stuttered
| |
| after that. Didn't stop it till I saw Halle. Oh, but
| |
| that's all over now.
| |
| I'm here. I lasted. And my girl come home.
| |
| Now I can look at things again because she's
| |
| here to see them too. After the shed, I stopped.
| |
| Now, in the morning, when I light the fire
| |
| I mean to look out the window to see what the
| |
| sun is doing to the day. Does it hit the pump
| |
| handle first or the spigot? See if the grass is
| |
| gray-green or brown or what. Now I know why
| |
| Baby Suggs pondered color her last years.
| |
| She never had time to see, let alone enjoy
| |
| it before. Took her a long time to finish with
| |
| blue, then yellow, then green. She was well into
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 386 of 525
| |
| pink when she died. I don't believe she wanted
| |
| to get to red and I understand why because me
| |
| and Beloved outdid ourselves with it.
| |
| Matter of fact, that and her pinkish
| |
| headstone was the last color I recall. Now I'll be
| |
| on the lookout. Think what spring will he for us!
| |
| I'll plant carrots just so she can see them,
| |
| and turnips. Have you ever seen one, baby? A
| |
| prettier thing God never made. White and purple
| |
| with a tender tail and a hard head. Feels good
| |
| when you hold it in your hand and smells like the
| |
| creek when it floods, bitter but happy.
| |
| We'll smell them together, Beloved.
| |
| Beloved. Because you mine and I have to show
| |
| you these things, and teach you what a mother
| |
| should.
| |
| Funny how you lose sight of some things
| |
| and memory others. I never will forget that
| |
| whitegirl's hands. Amy. But I forget the color of
| |
| all that hair on her head. Eyes must have been
| |
| gray, though. Seem like I do rememory that.
| |
| Mrs. Garner's was light brown--while she was
| |
| well. Got dark when she took sick. A strong
| |
| woman, used to be.
| |
| And when she talked off her head, she'd
| |
| say it. "I used to be strong as a mule, Jenny."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 387 of 525
| |
| Called me "Jenny" when she was babbling, and I
| |
| can bear witness to that. Tall and strong. The
| |
| two of us on a cord of wood was as good as two
| |
| men. Hurt her like the devil not to be able to
| |
| raise her head off the pillow. Still can't figure
| |
| why she thought she needed schoolteacher,
| |
| though. I wonder if she lasted, like I did.
| |
| Last time I saw her she couldn't do nothing
| |
| but cry, and I couldn't do a thing for her but wipe
| |
| her face when I told her what they done to me.
| |
| Somebody had to know it. Hear it. Somebody.
| |
| Maybe she lasted. Schoolteacher wouldn't treat
| |
| her the way he treated me. First beating I took
| |
| was the last. Nobody going to keep me from my
| |
| children. Hadn't been for me taking care of her
| |
| maybe I would have known what happened.
| |
| Maybe Halle was trying to get to me. I stood by her
| |
| bed waiting for her to finish with the slop jar. Then
| |
| I got her back in the bed she said she was cold. Hot
| |
| as blazes and she wanted quilts. Said to shut the
| |
| window. I told her no. She needed the cover; I
| |
| needed the breeze. Long as those yellow curtains
| |
| flapped, I was all right. Should have heeded her.
| |
| Maybe what sounded like shots really was. Maybe
| |
| I would have seen somebody or something.
| |
| Maybe. Anyhow I took my babies to the
| |
| corn, Halle or no. Jesus. then I heard that woman's
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 388 of 525
| |
| rattle. She said, Any more? I told her I didn't
| |
| know. She said, I been here all night. Can't wait. I
| |
| tried to make her. She said, Can't do it. Come on.
| |
| Hoo! Not a man around.
| |
| Boys scared. You asleep on my back. Denver sleep in my stomach.
| |
| Felt like I was split in two. I told her to take
| |
| you all; I had to go back. In case. She just looked
| |
| at me. Said, Woman? Bit a piece of my tongue off
| |
| when they opened my back. It was hanging by a
| |
| shred.
| |
| I didn't mean to. Clamped down on it, it
| |
| come right off. I thought, Good God, I'm going to
| |
| eat myself up. They dug a hole for my stomach so
| |
| as not to hurt the baby. Denver don't like for me to
| |
| talk about it. She hates anything about Sweet
| |
| Home except how she was born. But you was there
| |
| and even if you too young to memory it, I can tell
| |
| it to you. The grape arbor. You memory that? I ran
| |
| so fast.
| |
| Flies beat me to you. I would have known
| |
| right away who you was when the sun blotted out
| |
| your face the way it did when I took you to the
| |
| grape arbor. I would have known at once when my
| |
| water broke. The minute I saw you sitting on the
| |
| stump, it broke. And when I did see your face it
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 389 of 525
| |
| had more than a hint of what you would look like
| |
| after all these years. I would have known who you
| |
| were right away because the cup after cup of
| |
| water you drank proved and connected to the fact
| |
| that you dribbled clear spit on my face the day I
| |
| got to 124. I would have known right off, but Paul
| |
| D distracted me. Otherwise I would have seen my
| |
| fingernail prints right there on your forehead for all
| |
| the world to see. From when I held your head up,
| |
| out in the shed. And later on, when you asked me
| |
| about the earrings I used to dangle for you to play
| |
| with, I would have recognized you right off, except
| |
| for Paul D. Seems to me he wanted you out from
| |
| the beginning, but I wouldn't let him. What you
| |
| think? And look how he ran when he found out
| |
| about me and you in the shed.
| |
| Too rough for him to listen to. Too thick, he
| |
| said. My love was too thick. What he know about
| |
| it? Who in the world is he willing to die for? Would
| |
| he give his privates to a stranger in return for a
| |
| carving?
| |
| Some other way, he said. There must have
| |
| been some other way. Let schoolteacher haul us
| |
| away, I guess, to measure your behind before he
| |
| tore it up? I have felt what it felt like and nobody
| |
| walking or stretched out is going to make you feel
| |
| it too. Not you, not none of mine, and when I tell
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 390 of 525
| |
| you you mine, I also mean I'm yours I wouldn't
| |
| draw breath without my children. I told Baby
| |
| Suggs that and
| |
| she got down on her knees to beg God's
| |
| pardon for me. Still, it's so. My plan was to
| |
| take us all to the other side where my own
| |
| ma'am is.
| |
| They stopped me from getting us there,
| |
| but they didn't stop you from getting here. Ha
| |
| ha. You came right on back like a good girl, like
| |
| a daughter which is what I wanted to be and
| |
| would have been if my ma'am had been able to
| |
| get out of the rice long enough before they
| |
| hanged her and let me be one. You know what?
| |
| She'd had the bit so many times she smiled.
| |
| When she wasn't smiling she smiled, and I
| |
| never saw her own smile. I wonder what they
| |
| was doing when they was caught. Running, you
| |
| think? No. Not that. Because she was my ma'am
| |
| and nobody's ma'am would run off and leave
| |
| her daughter, would she? Would she, now?
| |
| Leave her in the yard with a one-armed woman?
| |
| Even if she hadn't been able to suckle the
| |
| daughter for more than a week or two and had
| |
| to turn her over to another woman's tit that
| |
| never had enough for all. They said it was the bit
| |
| that made her smile when she didn't want to.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 391 of 525
| |
| Like the Saturday girls working the
| |
| slaughterhouse yard. When I came out of jail I
| |
| saw them plain.
| |
| They came when the shift changed on
| |
| Saturday when the men got paid and worked
| |
| behind the fences, back of the outhouse. Some
| |
| worked standing up, leaning on the toolhouse
| |
| door. They gave some of their nickels and dimes
| |
| to the foreman as they left but by then their
| |
| smiles was over. Some of them drank liquor to
| |
| keep from feeling what they felt. Some didn't
| |
| drink a drop--just beat it on over to Phelps to pay
| |
| for what their children needed, or their
| |
| ma'ammies.
| |
| Working a pig yard. That has got to be
| |
| something for a woman to do, and I got close to it
| |
| myself when I got out of jail and bought, so to
| |
| speak, your name. But the Bodwins got me the
| |
| cooking job at Sawyer's and left me able to smile
| |
| on my own like now when I think about you.
| |
| But you know all that because you smart
| |
| like everybody said because when I got here
| |
| you was crawling already. Trying to get up the
| |
| stairs. Baby Suggs had them painted white so
| |
| you could see your way to the top in the dark
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 392 of 525
| |
| where lamplight didn't reach. Lord, you loved
| |
| the stairsteps.
| |
| I got close. I got close. To being a Saturday
| |
| girl. I had already worked a stone mason's shop.
| |
| A step to the slaughterhouse would have been a
| |
| short one. When I put that headstone up I
| |
| wanted to lay in there with you, put your head on
| |
| my shoulder and keep you warm, and I would
| |
| have if Buglar and Howard and Denver didn't
| |
| need me, because my mind was homeless then. I
| |
| couldn't lay down with you then. No matter how
| |
| much I wanted to. I couldn't lay down nowhere in
| |
| peace, back then. Now I can. I can sleep like the
| |
| drowned, have mercy. She come back to me, my
| |
| daughter, and she is mine. mother's milk. The
| |
| first thing I heard after not hearing anything was
| |
| the sound of her crawling up the stairs. She was
| |
| my secret company until Paul D came. He threw
| |
| her out. Ever since I was little she was my
| |
| company and she helped me wait for my daddy.
| |
| Me and her waited for him. I love my mother but
| |
| I know she killed one of her own daughters, and
| |
| tender as she is with me, I'm scared of her
| |
| because of it. She missed killing my brothers and
| |
| they knew it. They told me die-witch! stories to
| |
| show me the way to do it, if ever I needed to.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 393 of 525
| |
| Maybe it was getting that close to dying
| |
| made them want to fight the War. That's what
| |
| they told me they were going to do. I guess they
| |
| rather be around killing men than killing women,
| |
| and there sure is something in her that makes it
| |
| all right to kill her own. All the time, I'm afraid the
| |
| thing that happened
| |
| that made it all right for my mother to kill my
| |
| sister could happen again. I don't know what it
| |
| is, I don't know who it is, but maybe there is
| |
| something else terrible enough to make her do it
| |
| again. I need to know what that thing might be,
| |
| but I don't want to. Whatever it is, it comes from
| |
| outside this house, outside the yard, and it can
| |
| come right on in the yard if it wants to. So I
| |
| never leave this house and I watch over the
| |
| yard, so it can't happen again and my mother
| |
| won't have to kill me too.
| |
| Not since Miss Lady Jones' house have I left 124 by myself. Never.
| |
| The only other times--two times in all—I
| |
| was with my mother. Once to see Grandma Baby
| |
| put down next to Beloved, she's my sister. The
| |
| other time Paul D went too and when we came
| |
| back I thought the house would still be empty
| |
| from when he threw my sister's ghost out. But
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 394 of 525
| |
| no. When I came back to 124, there she was.
| |
| Beloved.
| |
| Waiting for me. Tired from her long
| |
| journey back. Ready to be taken care of; ready
| |
| for me to protect her. This time I have to keep
| |
| my mother away from her. That's hard, but I
| |
| have to. It's all on me.
| |
| I've seen my mother in a dark place, with
| |
| scratching noises. A smell coming from her
| |
| dress. I have been with her where something
| |
| little watched us from the corners. And touched.
| |
| Sometimes they touched.
| |
| I didn't remember it for a long time until
| |
| Nelson Lord made me. I asked her if it was true
| |
| but couldn't hear what she said and there was no
| |
| point in going back to Lady Jones if you couldn't
| |
| hear what anybody said. So quiet. Made me
| |
| have to read faces and learn how to figure out
| |
| what people were thinking, so I didn't need to
| |
| hear what they said. That's how come me and
| |
| Beloved could play together.
| |
| Not talking. On the porch. By the creek.
| |
| In the secret house. It's all on me, now, but
| |
| she can count on me. I thought she was
| |
| trying to kill her that day in the Clearing. Kill
| |
| her back. But then she kissed her neck and I
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 395 of 525
| |
| have to warn her about that. Don't love her
| |
| too much.
| |
| Don't. Maybe it's still in her the thing that
| |
| makes it all right to kill her children. I have to tell
| |
| her. I have to protect her.
| |
| She cut my head off every night. Buglar
| |
| and Howard told me she would and she did. Her
| |
| pretty eyes looking at me like I was a stranger.
| |
| Not mean or anything, but like I was
| |
| somebody she found and felt sorry for. Like she
| |
| didn't want to do it but she had to and it wasn't
| |
| going to hurt. That it was just a thing grown-up
| |
| people do--like pull a splinter out your hand;
| |
| touch the corner of a towel in your eye if you get
| |
| a cinder in it. She looks over at Buglar and
| |
| Howard--see if they all right. Then she comes
| |
| over to my side. I know she'll be good at it,
| |
| careful. That when she cuts it off it'll be done
| |
| right; it won't hurt. After she does it I lie there
| |
| for a minute with just my head.
| |
| Then she carries it downstairs to braid my
| |
| hair. I try not to cry but it hurts so much to comb
| |
| it. When she finishes the combing and starts the
| |
| braiding, I get sleepy. I want to go to sleep but I
| |
| know if I do I won't wake up. So I have to stay
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 396 of 525
| |
| awake while she finishes my hair, then I can
| |
| sleep. The scary part is
| |
| waiting for her to come in and do it. Not when she
| |
| does it, but when I wait for her to. Only place she
| |
| can't get to me in the night is Grandma Baby's
| |
| room. The room we sleep in upstairs used to be
| |
| where the help slept when whitepeople lived here.
| |
| They had a kitchen outside, too. But Grandma
| |
| Baby turned it into a woodshed and toolroom
| |
| when she moved in.
| |
| And she boarded up the back door that led to
| |
| it because she said she didn't want to make that
| |
| journey no more. She built around it to make a
| |
| storeroom, so if you want to get in 124 you have to
| |
| come by her. Said she didn't care what folks said
| |
| about her fixing a two story house up like a cabin
| |
| where you cook inside. She said they told her
| |
| visitors with nice dresses don't want to sit in the
| |
| same room with the cook stove and the peelings
| |
| and the grease and the smoke. She wouldn't pay
| |
| them no mind, she said. I was safe at night in there
| |
| with her. All I could hear was me breathing but
| |
| sometimes in the day I couldn't tell whether it was
| |
| me breathing or somebody next to me. I used to
| |
| watch Here Boy's stomach go in and out, in and
| |
| out, to see if it matched mine, holding my breath to
| |
| get off his rhythm, releasing it to get on. Just to
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 397 of 525
| |
| see whose it was--that sound like when you blow
| |
| soft in a bottle only regular, regular. Am I making
| |
| that sound? Is Howard? Who is? That was when
| |
| everybody was quiet and I couldn't hear anything
| |
| they said. I didn't care either because the quiet let
| |
| me dream my daddy better. I always knew he was
| |
| coming. Something was holding him up. He had a
| |
| problem with the horse. The river flooded; the boat
| |
| sank and he had to make a new one. Sometimes it
| |
| was a lynch mob or a windstorm. He was coming
| |
| and it was a secret. I spent all of my outside self
| |
| loving Ma'am so she wouldn't kill me, loving her
| |
| even when she braided my head at night. I never
| |
| let her know my daddy was coming for me.
| |
| Grandma Baby thought he was coming, too. For a
| |
| while she thought so, then she stopped. I never
| |
| did. Even when Buglar and Howard ran away.
| |
| Then Paul D came in here. I heard his voice
| |
| downstairs, and Ma'am laughing, so I thought it
| |
| was him, my daddy. Nobody comes to this house
| |
| anymore. But when I got downstairs it was Paul D
| |
| and he didn't come for me; he wanted my
| |
| mother. At first. Then he wanted my sister, too,
| |
| but she got him out of here and I'm so glad he's
| |
| gone.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 398 of 525
| |
| Now it's just us and I can protect her till my
| |
| daddy gets here to help me watch out for Ma'am
| |
| and anything come in the yard.
| |
| My daddy do anything for runny fried eggs. Dip his bread in it.
| |
| Grandma used to tell me his things. She said
| |
| anytime she could make him a plate of soft fried
| |
| eggs was Christmas, made him so happy.
| |
| She said she was always a little scared of my
| |
| daddy. He was too good, she said. From the
| |
| beginning, she said, he was too good for the world.
| |
| Scared her. She thought, He'll never make it
| |
| through nothing. Whitepeople must have thought
| |
| so too, because they never got split up. So she got
| |
| the chance to know him, look after him, and he
| |
| scared her the way he loved things. Animals and
| |
| tools and crops and the alphabet. He could count
| |
| on paper. The boss taught him.
| |
| Offered to teach the other boys but only my
| |
| daddy wanted it. She said the other boys said no.
| |
| One of them with a number for a name said it
| |
| would change his mind--make him forget things he
| |
| shouldn't and memorize things he shouldn't and
| |
| he didn't want his mind messed up. But my daddy
| |
| said, If you can't count they can cheat you. If you
| |
| can't read they can beat you. They thought that
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 399 of 525
| |
| was funny. Grandma said she didn't know, but it
| |
| was because my daddy could count on paper and
| |
| figure that he bought her away from there. And
| |
| she said she always wished she could read the
| |
| Bible like real preachers. So it was good for me to
| |
| learn how, and I did until it got quiet and all I
| |
| could hear was my own breathing and one other
| |
| who knocked over the milk jug while it was sitting
| |
| on the table. Nobody near it. Ma'am whipped
| |
| Buglar but he didn't touch it. Then it messed up all
| |
| the ironed clothes and put its hands in the cake.
| |
| Look like I was the only one who knew right away
| |
| who it was. Just like when she came back I knew
| |
| who she was too. Not right away, but soon as she
| |
| spelled her name--not her given name, but the
| |
| one Ma'am paid the stonecutter for--I knew. And
| |
| when she wondered about Ma'am's
| |
| earrings--something I didn't know about--well,
| |
| that just made the cheese more binding: my sister
| |
| come to help me wait for my daddy.
| |
| My daddy was an angel man. He could look
| |
| at you and tell where you hurt and he could fix it
| |
| too. He made a hanging thing for Grandma Baby,
| |
| so she could pull herself up from the floor when
| |
| she woke up in the morning, and he made a step
| |
| so when she stood up she was level. Grandma
| |
| said she was always afraid a whiteman would
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 400 of 525
| |
| knock her down in front of her children. She
| |
| behaved and did everything right in front of her
| |
| children because she didn't want them to see her
| |
| knocked down. She said it made children crazy to
| |
| see that.
| |
| At Sweet Home nobody did or said they
| |
| would, so my daddy never saw it there and never
| |
| went crazy and even now I bet he's trying to get
| |
| here. If Paul D could do it my daddy could too.
| |
| Angel man. We should all be together. Me, him
| |
| and Beloved. Ma'am could stay or go off with Paul
| |
| D if she wanted to. Unless Daddy wanted her
| |
| himself, but I don't think he would now, since she
| |
| let Paul D in her bed.
| |
| Grandma Baby said people look down on
| |
| her because she had eight children with different
| |
| men. Coloredpeople and whitepeople both look
| |
| down on her for that. Slaves not supposed to have
| |
| pleasurable feelings on their own; their bodies not
| |
| supposed to be like that, but they have to have as
| |
| many children as they can to please whoever
| |
| owned them. Still, they were not supposed to
| |
| have pleasure deep down. She said for me not to
| |
| listen to all that. That I should always listen to my
| |
| body and love it.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 401 of 525
| |
| The secret house. When she died I went
| |
| there. Ma'am wouldn't let me go outside in the
| |
| yard and eat with the others. We stayed inside.
| |
| That hurt. I know Grandma Baby would have liked
| |
| the party and the people who came to it, because
| |
| she got low not seeing anybody or going
| |
| anywhere--just grieving and thinking about colors
| |
| and how she made a mistake. That what she
| |
| thought about what the heart and the body could
| |
| do was wrong. The whitepeople came anyway. In
| |
| her yard. She had done everything right and they
| |
| came in her yard anyway. And she didn't know
| |
| what to think. All she had left was her heart and
| |
| they busted it so even the War couldn't rouse her.
| |
| She told me all my daddy's things. How
| |
| hard he worked to buy her. After the cake was
| |
| ruined and the ironed clothes all messed up, and
| |
| after I heard my sister crawling up the stairs to
| |
| get back to her bed, she told me my things too.
| |
| That I was charmed. My birth was and I got saved
| |
| all the time. And that I
| |
| shouldn't be afraid of the ghost. It wouldn't
| |
| harm me because I tasted its blood when Ma'am
| |
| nursed me. She said the ghost was after Ma'am
| |
| and her too for not doing anything to stop it. But
| |
| it would never hurt me. I just had to watch out
| |
| for it because it was a greedy ghost and needed
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 402 of 525
| |
| a lot of love, which was only natural,
| |
| considering. And I do. Love her. I do.
| |
| She played with me and always came to
| |
| be with me whenever I needed her. She's mine,
| |
| Beloved. She's mine. leaves she puts them in a
| |
| round basket the leaves are not for her she fills
| |
| the basket she opens the grass I would help her
| |
| but the clouds are in the way how can I say
| |
| things that are pictures I am not separate from
| |
| her there is no place where I stop her face is my
| |
| own and I want to be there in the place where
| |
| her face is and to be looking at it too a hot thing
| |
| All of it is now it is always now there will never be
| |
| a time when I am not crouching and watching
| |
| others who are crouching too I am always
| |
| crouching the man on my face is dead his face is
| |
| not mine his mouth smells sweet but his eyes
| |
| are locked some who eat nasty themselves I do
| |
| not eat the men without skin bring us their
| |
| morning water to drink we have none at night I
| |
| cannot see the dead man on my face daylight
| |
| comes through the cracks and I can see his
| |
| locked eyes I am not big small rats do not wait
| |
| for us to sleep someone is thrashing but there is
| |
| no room to do it in if we had more to drink we
| |
| could make tears we cannot make sweat or
| |
| morning water so the men without skin bring us
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 403 of 525
| |
| theirs one time they bring us sweet rocks to suck
| |
| we are all trying to leave our bodies behind the
| |
| man on my face has done it it is hard to make
| |
| yourself die forever you sleep short and then
| |
| return in the beginning we could vomit now we
| |
| do not now we cannot his teeth are pretty white
| |
| points someone is trembling I can feel it over
| |
| here he is fighting hard to leave his body which
| |
| is a small bird trembling there is no room to
| |
| tremble so he is not able to die my own dead
| |
| man is pulled away from my face I miss his
| |
| pretty white points We are not crouching now we
| |
| are standing but my legs are like my dead man's
| |
| eyes I cannot fall because there is no room to
| |
| the men without skin are making loud noises I
| |
| am not dead the bread is sea-colored I am too
| |
| hungry to eat it the sun closes my eyes those
| |
| able to die are in a pile I cannot find my man the
| |
| one whose teeth I have loved a hot thing the
| |
| little hill of dead people a hot thing the men
| |
| without skin push them through with poles the
| |
| woman is there with the face I want the face that
| |
| is mine they fall into the sea which is the color of
| |
| the bread she has nothing in her ears if I had the
| |
| teeth of the man who died on my face I would
| |
| bite the circle around her neck bite it away I
| |
| know she does not like it now there is room to
| |
| crouch and to watch the crouching others it is
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 404 of 525
| |
| the crouching that is now always now inside the
| |
| woman with my face is in the sea a hot thing In
| |
| the beginning I could see her I could not help her
| |
| because the clouds were in the way in the
| |
| beginning I could see her the shining in her ears
| |
| she does not like the circle around her neck I
| |
| know this I look hard at her so she will know that
| |
| the clouds are in the way I am sure she saw me
| |
| I am looking at her see me she empties out her
| |
| eyes I am there in the place where her face is
| |
| and telling her the noisy clouds were in my way
| |
| she wants her earrings she wants her round
| |
| basket I want her face a hot thing in the
| |
| beginning the women are away from the men
| |
| and the men are away from the women storms
| |
| rock us and mix the men into the women and the
| |
| women into the men that is when I begin to be
| |
| on the back of the man for a long time I see only
| |
| his neck and his wide shoulders above me I am
| |
| small I love him because he has a song when he
| |
| turned around to die I see the teeth he sang
| |
| through his singing was soft his singing is of the
| |
| place where a woman takes flowers away from
| |
| their leaves and puts them in a round basket
| |
| before the clouds she is crouching near us but I
| |
| do not see her until he locks his eyes and dies on
| |
| my face we are that way there is no breath
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 405 of 525
| |
| coming from his mouth and the place where
| |
| breath should be is sweet-smelling the others do
| |
| not know he is dead I know his song is gone now I
| |
| love his pretty little teeth instead I cannot lose her
| |
| again my dead man was in the way like the noisy
| |
| clouds when he dies on my face I can see hers she
| |
| is going to smile at me she is going to her sharp
| |
| earrings are gone the men without skin are
| |
| making loud noises they push my own man
| |
| through they do not push the woman with my face
| |
| through she goes in they do not push her she goes
| |
| in the little hill is gone she was going to smile at
| |
| me she was going to a hot thing They are not
| |
| crouching now we are they are floating on the
| |
| water they break up the little hill and push it
| |
| through I cannot find my pretty teeth I see the
| |
| dark face that is going to smile at me it is my dark
| |
| face that is going to smile at me the iron circle is
| |
| around our neck she does not have sharp earrings
| |
| in her ears or a round basket she goes in the water
| |
| with my face I am standing in the rain falling the
| |
| others are taken I am not taken I am falling like
| |
| the rain is I watch him eat inside I am crouching to
| |
| keep from falling with the rain I am going to be in
| |
| pieces he hurts where I sleep he puts his finger
| |
| there I drop the food and break into pieces she
| |
| took my face away there is no one to want me to
| |
| say me my name I wait on the bridge because she
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 406 of 525
| |
| is under it there is night and there is day again
| |
| again night day night day I am waiting no iron
| |
| circle is around my neck no boats go on this water
| |
| no men without skin my dead man is not floating
| |
| here his teeth are down there where the blue is
| |
| and the grass so is the face I want the face that is
| |
| going to smile at me it is going to in the day
| |
| diamonds are in the water where she is and turtles
| |
| in the night I hear chewing and swallowing and
| |
| laughter it belongs to me she is the laugh I am the
| |
| laugher I see her face which is mine it is the face
| |
| that was going to smile at me in the place where
| |
| we crouched now she is going to her face comes
| |
| through the water a hot thing her face is mine she
| |
| is not smiling she is chewing and swallowing I
| |
| have to have my face I go in the grass opens she
| |
| opens it I am in the water and she is coming there
| |
| is no round basket no iron circle around her neck
| |
| she goes up where the diamonds are I follow her
| |
| we are in the diamonds which are her earrings
| |
| now my face is coming I have to have it I am
| |
| looking for the join I am loving my face so much
| |
| my dark face is close to me I want to join she
| |
| whispers to me she whispers I reach for her
| |
| chewing and swallowing she touches me she
| |
| knows I want to join she chews and swallows me I
| |
| am gone now I am her face my own face has left
| |
| me I see me swim away a hot thing I see the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 407 of 525
| |
| bottoms of my feet I am alone I want to be the two
| |
| of us I want the join I come out of blue water after
| |
| the bottoms of my feet swim away from me I
| |
| come up I need to find a place to be the air is
| |
| heavy I am not dead I am not there is a house
| |
| there is what she whispered to me I am where she
| |
| told me I am not dead I sit the sun closes my eyes
| |
| when I open them I see the face I lost Sethe's is
| |
| the face that lef me Sethe sees me see her and I
| |
| see the smile her smiling face is the place for me it
| |
| is the face I lost she is my face smiling at me doing
| |
| it at last a hot thing now we can join a hot thing I
| |
| AM BE LOV ED and she is mine. Sethe is the one
| |
| that picked flowers, yellow flowers in the place
| |
| before the crouching. Took them away from their
| |
| green leaves. They are on the quilt now where we
| |
| sleep.
| |
| She was about to smile at me when the men
| |
| without skin came and took us up into the sunlight
| |
| with the dead and shoved them into the sea.
| |
| Sethe went into the sea. She went there. They did
| |
| not push her.
| |
| She went there. She was getting ready to
| |
| smile at me and when she saw the dead people
| |
| pushed into the sea she went also and left me
| |
| there with no face or hers. Sethe is the face I
| |
| found and lost in the water under the bridge.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 408 of 525
| |
| When I went in, I saw her face coming to me and
| |
| it was my face too. I
| |
| wanted to join. I tried to join, but she went up
| |
| into the pieces of light at the top of the water. I
| |
| lost her again, but I found the house she
| |
| whispered to me and there she was, smiling at
| |
| last. It's good, but I cannot lose her again. All I
| |
| want to know is why did she go in the water in
| |
| the place where we crouched?
| |
| Why did she do that when she was just
| |
| about to smile at me? I wanted to join her in the
| |
| sea but I could not move; I wanted to help her
| |
| when she was picking the flowers, but the
| |
| clouds of gunsmoke blinded me and I lost her.
| |
| Three times I lost her: once with the flowers
| |
| because of the noisy clouds of smoke; once
| |
| when she went into the sea instead of smiling at
| |
| me; once under the bridge when I went in to j
| |
| oin her and she came toward me but did not
| |
| smile. She whispered to me, chewed me, and
| |
| swam away. Now I have found her in this
| |
| house. She smiles at me and it is my own face
| |
| smiling. I will not lose her again. She is mine.
| |
| Tell me the truth. Didn't you come from the
| |
| other side?
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 409 of 525
| |
| Yes. I was on the other side.
| |
| You came back because of me?
| |
| Yes.
| |
| You rememory me?
| |
| Yes. I remember you.
| |
| You never forgot me?
| |
| Your face is mine.
| |
| Do you forgive me? Will you stay? You safe
| |
| here now.
| |
| Where are the men without skin?
| |
| Out there. Way off.
| |
| Can they get in here?
| |
| No. They tried that once, but I stopped them.
| |
| They won't ever come back.
| |
| One of them was in the house I was in. He
| |
| hurt me.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 410 of 525
| |
| They can't hurt us no more.
| |
| Where are your earrings?
| |
| They took them from me.
| |
| The men without skin took them?
| |
| Yes.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 411 of 525
| |
| I was going to help you but the clouds got in the
| |
| way. There're no clouds here.
| |
| If they put an iron circle around your neck I will
| |
| bite it away. Beloved.
| |
| I will make you a round basket.
| |
| You're back. You're back.
| |
| Will we smile at me?
| |
| Can't you see I'm smiling?
| |
| I love your face.
| |
| We played by the creek.
| |
| I was there in the water.
| |
| In the quiet time, we played.
| |
| The clouds were noisy and in the way.
| |
| When I needed you, you came to be with me.
| |
| I needed her face to smile.
| |
| I could only hear breathing.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 412 of 525
| |
| The breathing is gone; only the teeth are left.
| |
| She said you wouldn't hurt me.
| |
| She hurt me.
| |
| I will protect you.
| |
| I want her face.
| |
| Don't love her too much.
| |
| I am loving her too much.
| |
| Watch out for her; she can give you dreams.
| |
| She chews and swallows.
| |
| Don't fall asleep when she braids your hair.
| |
| She is the laugh; I am the laughter.
| |
| I watch the house; I watch the yard.
| |
| She left me.
| |
| Daddy is coming for us.
| |
| A hot thing.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 413 of 525
| |
| Beloved
| |
| You are my sister
| |
| You are my daughter
| |
| You are my face; you are me
| |
| I have found you again; you have come back to me
| |
| You are my Beloved
| |
| You are mine
| |
| You are mine
| |
| You are mine
| |
| I have your milk
| |
| I have your smile
| |
| I will take care of you
| |
| You are my face; I am you. Why did you leave me
| |
| who am you?
| |
| I will never leave you again
| |
| Don't ever leave me again
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 414 of 525
| |
| You will never leave me again
| |
| You went in the water
| |
| I drank your bloo
| |
| I brought your milk
| |
| You forgot to smile
| |
| I loved you
| |
| You hurt me
| |
| You came back to me
| |
| You left me I waited for you
| |
| You are mine
| |
| You are mine
| |
| You are mine
| |
| IT WAS a tiny church no bigger than a rich man's
| |
| parlor. The pews had no backs, and since the
| |
| congregation was also the choir, it didn't need a
| |
| stall. Certain members had been assigned the
| |
| construction of a platform to raise the preacher a
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 415 of 525
| |
| few inches above his congregation, but it was a
| |
| less than urgent task, since the major elevation,
| |
| a white oak cross, had already taken place.
| |
| Before it was the Church of the Holy Redeemer, it
| |
| was a dry-goods shop that had no use for side
| |
| windows, just front ones for display. These were
| |
| papered over while members considered whether
| |
| to paint or curtain them--how to have privacy
| |
| without losing the little light that might want to
| |
| shine on them. In the summer the doors were left
| |
| open for ventilation. In winter an iron stove in the
| |
| aisle did what it could. At the front of the church
| |
| was a sturdy porch where customers used to sit,
| |
| and children laughed at the boy who got his head
| |
| stuck between the railings. On a sunny and
| |
| windless day in January it was actually warmer
| |
| out there than inside, if the iron stove was cold.
| |
| The damp cellar was fairly warm, but there was
| |
| no light lighting the pallet or the washbasin or the
| |
| nail from which a man's clothes could be hung.
| |
| And a oil lamp in a cellar was sad, so Paul
| |
| D sat on the porch steps and got additional
| |
| warmth from a bottle of liquor jammed in his
| |
| coat pocket. Warmth and red eyes. He held his
| |
| wrist between his knees, not to keep his hands
| |
| still but because he had nothing else to hold on
| |
| to. His tobacco tin, blown open, spilled contents
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 416 of 525
| |
| that floated freely and made him their play and
| |
| prey.
| |
| He couldn't figure out why it took so long.
| |
| He may as well have jumped in the fire with Sixo
| |
| and they both could have had a good laugh.
| |
| Surrender was bound to come anyway, why not
| |
| meet it with a laugh, shouting Seven-O! Why
| |
| not? Why the delay? He had already seen his
| |
| brother wave goodbye from the back of a dray,
| |
| fried chicken in his pocket, tears in his eyes.
| |
| Mother. Father. Didn't remember the one. Never
| |
| saw the other. He was the youngest of three
| |
| half-brothers (same mother-different fathers)
| |
| sold to Garner and kept there, forbidden to leave
| |
| the farm, for twenty years. Once, in Maryland,
| |
| he met four families of slaves who had all been
| |
| together for a hundred years: great-grands,
| |
| grands, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles,
| |
| cousins, children. Half white, part white, all
| |
| black, mixed with Indian. He watched them with
| |
| awe and envy, and each time he discovered
| |
| large families of black people he made them
| |
| identify over and over who each was, what
| |
| relation, who, in fact, belonged to who.
| |
| "That there's my auntie. This here's her
| |
| boy. Yonder is my pap's cousin. My ma'am was
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 417 of 525
| |
| married twice--this my half-sister and these her
| |
| two children. Now, my wife..."
| |
| Nothing like that had ever been his and
| |
| growing up at Sweet Home he didn't miss it. He
| |
| had his brothers, two friends, Baby Suggs in the
| |
| kitchen, a boss who showed them how to shoot
| |
| and listened to what they had to say. A mistress
| |
| who made their soap and never raised her voice.
| |
| For twenty years they had all lived in that cradle,
| |
| until Baby left, Sethe came, and Halle took her.
| |
| He made a family with her, and Sixo was
| |
| hell-bent to make one with the Thirty-Mile
| |
| Woman. When Paul D waved goodbye to his
| |
| oldest brother, the boss was dead, the mistress
| |
| nervous and the cradle already split. Sixo said
| |
| the doctor made Mrs. Garner sick. Said he was
| |
| giving her to drink what stallions got when they
| |
| broke a leg and no gunpowder could be spared,
| |
| and had it not been for schoolteacher's new
| |
| rules, he would have told her so. They laughed
| |
| at him. Sixo had a knowing tale about
| |
| everything. Including Mr. Garner's stroke, which
| |
| he said was a shot in his ear put there by a
| |
| jealous neighbor.
| |
| "where's the blood?" they asked him.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 418 of 525
| |
| There was no blood. Mr. Garner came
| |
| home bent over his mare's neck, sweating and
| |
| blue- white. Not a drop of blood. Sixo grunted,
| |
| the only one of them not sorry to see him go.
| |
| Later, however, he was mighty sorry; they all
| |
| were.
| |
| "Why she call on him?" Paul D asked. "Why
| |
| she need the schoolteacher?"
| |
| "She need somebody can figure," said Halle.
| |
| "You can do figures."
| |
| "Not like that."
| |
| "No, man," said Sixo. "She need another
| |
| white on the place."
| |
| "What for?"
| |
| "What you think? What you think?"
| |
| Well, that's the way it was. Nobody counted
| |
| on Garner dying.
| |
| Nobody thought he could. How 'bout that?
| |
| Everything rested on Garner being alive.
| |
| Without his life each of theirs fell to pieces. Now
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 419 of 525
| |
| ain't that slavery or what is it? At the peak of his
| |
| strength, taller than tall men, and stronger than
| |
| most, they clipped him, Paul D.
| |
| First his shotgun, then his thoughts, for
| |
| schoolteacher didn't take advice from Negroes.
| |
| The information they offered he called backtalk
| |
| and developed a variety of corrections (which he
| |
| recorded in his notebook) to reeducate them. He
| |
| complained they ate too much, rested too much,
| |
| talked too much, which was certainly true
| |
| compared to him, because schoolteacher ate
| |
| little, spoke less and rested not at all. Once he
| |
| saw them playing--a pitching game--and his
| |
| look of deeply felt hurt was enough to make Paul
| |
| D blink. He was as hard on his pupils as he was
| |
| on them--except for the corrections.
| |
| For years Paul D believed schoolteacher
| |
| broke into children what Garner had raised into
| |
| men. And it was that that made them run off.
| |
| Now, plagued by the contents of his tobacco tin,
| |
| he wondered how much difference there really
| |
| was between before schoolteacher and after.
| |
| Garner called and announced them men--but
| |
| only on Sweet Home, and by his leave. Was he
| |
| naming what he saw or creating what he did
| |
| not? That was the wonder of Sixo, and even
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 420 of 525
| |
| Halle; it was always clear to Paul D that those
| |
| two were men whether Garner said so or not. It
| |
| troubled him that, concerning his own manhood,
| |
| he could not satisfy himself on that point. Oh, he
| |
| did manly things, but was that Garner's gift or
| |
| his own will? What would he have been
| |
| anyway--before Sweet Home--without Garner?
| |
| In Sixo's country, or his mother's? Or, God help
| |
| him, on the boat? Did a whiteman saying it make
| |
| it so? Suppose Garner woke up one morning and
| |
| changed his mind? Took the word away. Would
| |
| they have run then? And if he didn't, would the
| |
| Pauls have stayed there all their lives? Why did
| |
| the brothers need the one whole night to decide?
| |
| To discuss whether they would join Sixo and
| |
| Halle. Because they had been isolated in a
| |
| wonderful lie, dismissing Halle's and Baby
| |
| Suggs' life before Sweet Home as bad luck.
| |
| Ignorant of or amused by Sixo's dark stories.
| |
| Protected and convinced they were special.
| |
| Never suspecting the problem of Alfred,
| |
| Georgia; being so in love with the look of the
| |
| world, putting up with anything and everything,
| |
| just to stay alive in a place where a moon he had
| |
| no right to was nevertheless there. Loving small
| |
| and in secret. His little love was a tree, of course,
| |
| but not like Brother--old, wide and beckoning.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 421 of 525
| |
| In Alfred, Georgia, there was an aspen too young to call sapling.
| |
| Just a shoot no taller than his waist. The
| |
| kind of thing a man would cut to whip his horse.
| |
| Song- murder and the aspen. He stayed alive to
| |
| sing songs that murdered life, and watched an
| |
| aspen that confirmed it, and never for a minute
| |
| did he believe he could escape. Until it rained.
| |
| Afterward, after the Cherokee pointed and sent
| |
| him running toward blossoms, he wanted simply
| |
| to move, go, pick up one day and be somewhere
| |
| else the next. Resigned to life without aunts,
| |
| cousins, children. Even a woman, until Sethe.
| |
| And then she moved him. Just when
| |
| doubt, regret and every single unasked question
| |
| was packed away, long after he believed he had
| |
| willed himself into being, at the very time and
| |
| place he wanted to take root--she moved him.
| |
| From room to room. Like a rag doll.
| |
| Sitting on the porch of a dry-goods church,
| |
| a little bit drunk and nothing much to do, he
| |
| could have these thoughts. Slow, what-if
| |
| thoughts that cut deep but struck nothing solid a
| |
| man could hold on to. So he held his wrists.
| |
| Passing by that woman's life, getting in it and
| |
| letting it get in him had set him up for this fall.
| |
| Wanting to live out his life with a whole woman
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 422 of 525
| |
| was new, and losing the feeling of it made him
| |
| want to cry and think deep thoughts that struck
| |
| nothing solid. When he was drifting, thinking
| |
| only about the next meal and night's sleep, when
| |
| everything was packed tight in his chest, he had
| |
| no sense of failure, of things not working out.
| |
| Anything that worked at all worked out. Now he
| |
| wondered what-all went wrong, and starting
| |
| with the Plan, everything had. It was a good
| |
| plan, too.
| |
| Worked out in detail with every possibility of error eliminated.
| |
| Sixo, hitching up the horses, is speaking
| |
| English again and tells Halle what his Thirty-Mile
| |
| Woman told him. That seven Negroes on her
| |
| place were joining two others going North. That
| |
| the two others had done it before and knew the
| |
| way. That one of the two, a woman, would wait
| |
| for them in the corn when it was high--one night
| |
| and half of the next day she would wait, and if
| |
| they came she would take them to the caravan,
| |
| where the others would be hidden.
| |
| That she would rattle, and that would be
| |
| the sign. Sixo was going, his woman was going,
| |
| and Halle was taking his whole family. The two
| |
| Pauls say they need time to think about it. Time
| |
| to wonder where they will end up; how they will
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 423 of 525
| |
| live. What work; who will take them in; should
| |
| they try to get to Paul F, whose owner, they
| |
| remember, lived in something called the "trace"?
| |
| It takes them one evening's conversation to
| |
| decide.
| |
| Now all they have to do is wait through the
| |
| spring, till the corn is as high as it ever got and
| |
| the moon as fat.
| |
| And plan. Is it better to leave in the dark to
| |
| get a better start, or go at daybreak to be able to
| |
| see the way better? Sixo spits at the suggestion.
| |
| Night gives them more time and the protection
| |
| of color.
| |
| He does not ask them if they are afraid. He
| |
| manages some dry runs to the corn at night,
| |
| burying blankets and two knives near the creek.
| |
| Will Sethe be able to swim the creek? they
| |
| ask him. It will be dry, he says, when the corn is
| |
| tall. There is no food to put by, but Sethe says
| |
| she will get a jug of cane syrup or molasses, and
| |
| some bread when it is near the time to go. She
| |
| only wants to be sure the blankets are where
| |
| they should be, for they will need them to tie her
| |
| baby on her back and to cover them during the
| |
| journey. There are no clothes other than what
| |
| they wear. And of course no shoes. The knives
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 424 of 525
| |
| will help them eat, but they bury rope and a pot
| |
| as well. A good plan.
| |
| They watch and memorize the comings
| |
| and goings of schoolteacher and his pupils: what
| |
| is wanted when and where; how long it takes.
| |
| Mrs. Garner, restless at night, is sunk in sleep all
| |
| morning.
| |
| Some days the pupils and their teacher do lessons until breakfast.
| |
| One day a week they skip breakfast
| |
| completely and travel ten miles to church,
| |
| expecting a large dinner upon their return.
| |
| Schoolteacher writes in his notebook after
| |
| supper; the pupils clean, mend or sharpen tools.
| |
| Sethe's work is the most uncertain because she
| |
| is on call for Mrs. Garner anytime, including
| |
| nighttime when the pain or the weakness or the
| |
| downright loneliness is too much for her. So:
| |
| Sixo and the Pauls will go after supper and wait
| |
| in the creek for the Thirty Mile Woman. Halle will
| |
| bring Sethe and the three children before
| |
| dawn--before the sun, before the chickens and
| |
| the milking cow need attention, so by the time
| |
| smoke should be coming from the cooking
| |
| stove, they will be in or near the creek with the
| |
| others. That way, if Mrs. Garner needs Sethe in
| |
| the night and calls her, Sethe will be there to
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 425 of 525
| |
| answer. They only have to wait through the
| |
| spring.
| |
| But. Sethe was pregnant in the spring and
| |
| by August is so heavy with child she may not be
| |
| able to keep up with the men, who can carry the
| |
| children but not her.
| |
| But. Neighbors discouraged by Garner
| |
| when he was alive now feel free to visit Sweet
| |
| Home and might appear in the right place at the
| |
| wrong time.
| |
| But. Sethe's children cannot play in the
| |
| kitchen anymore, so she is dashing back and
| |
| forth between house and quarters-fidgety and
| |
| frustrated trying to watch over them. They are
| |
| too young for men's work and the baby girl is
| |
| nine months old. Without Mrs. Garner's help her
| |
| work increases as do schoolteacher's demands.
| |
| But. After the conversation about the
| |
| shoat, Sixo is tied up with the stock at night, and
| |
| locks are put on bins, pens, sheds, coops, the
| |
| tackroom and the barn door. There is no place to
| |
| dart into or congregate.
| |
| Sixo keeps a nail in his mouth now, to help him undo the rope when he has to.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 426 of 525
| |
| But. Halle is told to work his extra on
| |
| Sweet Home and has no call to be anywhere
| |
| other than where schoolteacher tells him. Only
| |
| Sixo, who has been stealing away to see his
| |
| woman, and Halle, who has been hired away for
| |
| years, know what lies outside Sweet Home and
| |
| how to get there.
| |
| It is a good plan. It can be done right under the watchful pupils and their teacher.
| |
| But. They had to alter it--just a little. First they change the leaving.
| |
| They memorize the directions Halle gives
| |
| them. Sixo, needing time to untie himself, break
| |
| open the door and not disturb the horses, will
| |
| leave later, joining them at the creek with the
| |
| Thirty-Mile Woman.
| |
| All four will go straight to the corn. Halle,
| |
| who also needs more time now, because of
| |
| Sethe, decides to bring her and the children at
| |
| night; not wait till first light. They will go straight
| |
| to the corn and not assemble at the creek. The
| |
| corn stretches to their shoulders--it will never
| |
| be higher. The moon is swelling. They can
| |
| hardly harvest, or chop, or clear, or pick, or haul
| |
| for listening for a rattle that is not bird or snake.
| |
| Then one midmorning, they hear it. Or Halle
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 427 of 525
| |
| does and begins to sing it to the others: "Hush,
| |
| hush. Somebody's calling my name. Hush,
| |
| hush. Somebody's calling my name. O my Lord,
| |
| O my Lord, what shall I do?"
| |
| On his dinner break he leaves the field. He
| |
| has to. He has to tell Sethe that he has heard
| |
| the sign. For two successive nights she has
| |
| been with Mrs. Garner and he can't chance it
| |
| that she will not know that this night she cannot
| |
| be. The Pauls see him go. From underneath
| |
| Brother's shade where they are chewing corn
| |
| cake, they see him, swinging along. The bread
| |
| tastes good. They lick sweat from their lips to
| |
| give it a saltier flavor. Schoolteacher and his
| |
| pupils are already at the house eating dinner.
| |
| Halle swings along. He is not singing now.
| |
| Nobody knows what happened. Except for
| |
| the churn, that was the last anybody ever saw
| |
| of Halle. What Paul D knew was that Halle
| |
| disappeared, never told Sethe anything, and
| |
| was next seen squatting in butter. Maybe when
| |
| he got to the gate and asked to see Sethe,
| |
| schoolteacher heard a tint of anxiety in his
| |
| voice--the tint that would make him pick up his
| |
| ever-ready shotgun. Maybe Halle made the
| |
| mistake of saying "my wife" in some way that
| |
| would put a light in schoolteacher's eye. Sethe
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 428 of 525
| |
| says now that she heard shots, but did not look
| |
| out the window of Mrs. Garner's bedroom. But
| |
| Halle was not killed or wounded that day
| |
| because Paul D saw him later, after she had run
| |
| off with no one's help; after Sixo laughed and
| |
| his brother disappeared. Saw him greased and
| |
| flat-eyed as a fish. Maybe schoolteacher shot
| |
| after him, shot at his feet, to remind him of the
| |
| trespass.
| |
| Maybe Halle got in the barn, hid there and
| |
| got locked in with the rest of schoolteacher's
| |
| stock. Maybe anything. He disappeared and
| |
| everybody was on his own.
| |
| Paul A goes back to moving timber after
| |
| dinner. They are to meet at quarters for supper.
| |
| He never shows up. Paul D leaves for the creek
| |
| on time, believing, hoping, Paul A has gone on
| |
| ahead; certain schoolteacher has learned
| |
| something. Paul D gets to the creek and it is as
| |
| dry as Sixo promised. He waits there with the
| |
| Thirty-Mile Woman for Sixo and Paul A. Only
| |
| Sixo shows up, his wrists bleeding, his tongue
| |
| licking his lips like a flame.
| |
| "You see Paul A?"
| |
| "No."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 429 of 525
| |
| "Halle?"
| |
| "No."
| |
| "No sign of them?"
| |
| "No sign. Nobody in quarters but the
| |
| children."
| |
| "Sethe?"
| |
| "Her children sleep. She must be there still."
| |
| "I can't leave without Paul A."
| |
| "I can't help you."
| |
| "Should I go back and look for them?"
| |
| "I can't help you."
| |
| "What you think?"
| |
| "I think they go straight to the corn."
| |
| Sixo turns, then, to the woman and they
| |
| clutch each other and whisper. She is lit now
| |
| with some glowing, some shining that comes
| |
| from inside her. Before when she knelt on creek
| |
| pebbles with Paul D, she was nothing, a shape in
| |
| the dark breathing lightly.
| |
| Sixo is about to crawl out to look for the
| |
| knives he buried. He hears something. He hears
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 430 of 525
| |
| nothing. Forget the knives. Now. The three of
| |
| them climb up the bank and schoolteacher, his
| |
| pupils and four other whitemen move toward
| |
| them. With lamps. Sixo pushes the Thirty-Mile
| |
| Woman and she runs further on in the creekbed.
| |
| Paul D and Sixo run the other way toward the
| |
| woods. Both are surrounded and tied.
| |
| The air gets sweet then. Perfumed by the
| |
| things honeybees love.
| |
| Tied like a mule, Paul D feels how dewy and
| |
| inviting the grass is.
| |
| He is thinking about that and where Paul A
| |
| might be when Sixo turns and grabs the mouth
| |
| of the nearest pointing rifle. He begins to sing.
| |
| Two others shove Paul D and tie him to a tree.
| |
| Schoolteacher is saying, "Alive. Alive. I want him
| |
| alive." Sixo swings and cracks the ribs of one,
| |
| but with bound hands cannot get the weapon in
| |
| position to use it in any other way. All the
| |
| whitemen have to do is wait. For his song,
| |
| perhaps, to end? Five guns are trained on him
| |
| while they listen. Paul D cannot see them when
| |
| they step away from lamplight. Finally one of
| |
| them hits Sixo in the head with his rifle, and
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 431 of 525
| |
| when he comes to, a hickory fire is in front of
| |
| him and he is tied at the waist to a tree.
| |
| Schoolteacher has changed his mind: "This one
| |
| will never be suitable." The song must have
| |
| convinced him.
| |
| The fire keeps failing and the whitemen
| |
| are put out with themselves at not being
| |
| prepared for this emergency. They came to
| |
| capture, not kill. What they can manage is only
| |
| enough for cooking hominy.
| |
| Dry faggots are scarce and the grass is slick with dew.
| |
| By the light of the hominy fire Sixo
| |
| straightens. He is through with his song. He
| |
| laughs. A rippling sound like Sethe's sons make
| |
| when they tumble in hay or splash in rainwater.
| |
| His feet are cooking; the cloth of his trousers
| |
| smokes. He laughs. Something is funny. Paul D
| |
| guesses what it is when Sixo interrupts his
| |
| laughter to call out, "Seven-O! Seven-O!"
| |
| Smoky, stubborn fire. They shoot him to shut him up. Have to.
| |
| Shackled, walking through the perfumed
| |
| things honeybees love, Paul D hears the men
| |
| talking and for the first time learns his worth.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 432 of 525
| |
| He has always known, or believed he did,
| |
| his value--as a hand, a laborer who could make
| |
| profit on a farm--but now he discovers his worth,
| |
| which is to say he learns his price. The dollar
| |
| value of his weight, his strength, his heart, his
| |
| brain, his penis, and his future.
| |
| As soon as the whitemen get to where they
| |
| have tied their horses and mount them, they are
| |
| calmer, talking among themselves about the
| |
| difficulty they face. The problems. Voices remind
| |
| schoolteacher about the spoiling these particular
| |
| slaves have had at Garner's hands.
| |
| There's laws against what he done: letting
| |
| niggers hire out their own time to buy
| |
| themselves. He even let em have guns! And you
| |
| think he mated them niggers to get him some
| |
| more? Hell no! He planned for them to marry! if
| |
| that don't beat all! Schoolteacher sighs, and says
| |
| doesn't he know it? He had come to put the place
| |
| aright. Now it faced greater ruin than what
| |
| Garner left for it, because of the loss of two
| |
| niggers, at the least, and maybe three because
| |
| he is not sure they will find the one called Halle.
| |
| The sister-in-law is too weak to help out and
| |
| doggone if now there ain't a full-scale stampede
| |
| on his hands. He would have to trade this here
| |
| one for $900 if he could get it, and set out to
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 433 of 525
| |
| secure the breeding one, her foal and the other
| |
| one, if he found him. With the money from "this
| |
| here one" he could get two young ones, twelve or
| |
| fifteen years old. And maybe with the breeding
| |
| one, her three pickaninnies and whatever the foal
| |
| might be, he and his nephews would have seven
| |
| niggers and Sweet Home would be worth the
| |
| trouble it was causing him.
| |
| "Look to you like Lillian gonna make it?"
| |
| "Touch and go. Touch and go."
| |
| "You was married to her sister-in-law, wasn't
| |
| you?"
| |
| "I was."
| |
| "She frail too?"
| |
| "A bit. Fever took her."
| |
| "Well, you don't need to stay no widower in
| |
| these parts."
| |
| "My cogitation right now is Sweet Home."
| |
| "Can't say as I blame you. That's some
| |
| spread."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 434 of 525
| |
| They put a three-spoke collar on him so
| |
| he can't lie down and they chain his ankles
| |
| together. The number he heard with his ear is
| |
| now in his head. Two. Two? Two niggers lost?
| |
| Paul D thinks his heart is jumping. They are
| |
| going to look for Halle, not Paul A. They must
| |
| have found Paul A and if a whiteman finds you
| |
| it means you are surely lost.
| |
| Schoolteacher looks at him for a long time
| |
| before he closes the door of the cabin.
| |
| Carefully, he looks. Paul D does not look back.
| |
| It is sprinkling now. A teasing August rain
| |
| that raises expectations it cannot fill. He thinks
| |
| he should have sung along. Loud something
| |
| loud and rolling to go with Sixo's tune, but the
| |
| words put him off-- he didn't understand the
| |
| words. Although it shouldn't have mattered
| |
| because he understood the sound: hatred so
| |
| loose it was juba.
| |
| The warm sprinkle comes and goes,
| |
| comes and goes. He thinks he hears sobbing
| |
| that seems to come from Mrs. Garner's window,
| |
| but it could be anything, anyone, even a she-cat
| |
| making her yearning known. Tired of holding his
| |
| head up, he lets his chin rest on the collar and
| |
| speculates on how he can hobble over to the
| |
| grate, boil a little water and throw in a handful
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 435 of 525
| |
| of meal. That's what he is doing when Sethe
| |
| comes in, rain-wet and big-bellied, saying she is
| |
| going to cut. She has just come back from
| |
| taking her children to the corn.
| |
| The whites were not around. She couldn't
| |
| find Halle. Who was caught? Did Sixo get away?
| |
| Paul
| |
| A?
| |
| He tells her what he knows: Sixo is dead;
| |
| the Thirty-Mile Woman ran, and he doesn't
| |
| know what happened to Paul A or Halle. "Where
| |
| could he be?" she asks.
| |
| Paul D shrugs because he can't shake his
| |
| head.
| |
| "You saw Sixo die? You sure?"
| |
| "I'm sure."
| |
| "Was he woke when it happened? Did he see
| |
| it coming?"
| |
| "He was woke. Woke and laughing."
| |
| "Sixo laughed?"
| |
| "You should have heard him, Sethe."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 436 of 525
| |
| Sethe's dress steams before the little fire
| |
| over which he is boiling water. It is hard to
| |
| move about with shackled ankles and the neck
| |
| jewelry embarrasses him. In his shame he
| |
| avoids her eyes, but when he doesn't he sees
| |
| only black in them--no whites. She says she is
| |
| going, and he thinks she will never make it to
| |
| the gate, but he doesn't dissuade her. He knows
| |
| he will never see her again, and right then and
| |
| there his heart stopped.
| |
| The pupils must have taken her to the
| |
| barn for sport right afterward, and when she
| |
| told Mrs. Garner, they took down the cowhide.
| |
| Who in hell or on this earth would have
| |
| thought that she would cut anyway? They must
| |
| have believed, what with her belly and her
| |
| back, that she wasn't going anywhere. He
| |
| wasn't surprised to learn
| |
| that they had tracked her down in Cincinnati,
| |
| because, when he thought about it now, her
| |
| price was greater than his; property that
| |
| reproduced itself without cost.
| |
| Remembering his own price, down to the
| |
| cent, that schoolteacher was able to get for him,
| |
| he wondered what Sethe's would have been.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 437 of 525
| |
| What had Baby Suggs' been? How much
| |
| did Halle owe, still, besides his labor? What did
| |
| Mrs. Garner get for Paul F? More than nine
| |
| hundred dollars? How much more? Ten dollars?
| |
| Twenty? Schoolteacher would know. He knew
| |
| the worth of everything. It accounted for the real
| |
| sorrow in his voice when he pronounced Sixo
| |
| unsuitable.
| |
| Who could be fooled into buying a singing
| |
| nigger with a gun? Shouting Seven-O! Seven-O!
| |
| because his Thirty-Mile Woman got away with his
| |
| blossoming seed. What a laugh. So rippling and
| |
| full of glee it put out the fire. And it was Sixo's
| |
| laughter that was on his mind, not the bit in his
| |
| mouth, when they hitched him to the buckboard.
| |
| Then he saw Halle, then the rooster,
| |
| smiling as if to say, You ain't seen nothing yet.
| |
| How could a rooster know about Alfred, Georgia?
| |
| "HOWDY."
| |
| Stamp Paid was still fingering the ribbon and
| |
| it made a little motion in his pants pocket.
| |
| Paul D looked up, noticed the side pocket
| |
| agitation and snorted.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 438 of 525
| |
| "I can't read. You got any more newspaper
| |
| for me, just a waste of time."
| |
| Stamp withdrew the ribbon and sat down on
| |
| the steps.
| |
| "No. This here's something else." He
| |
| stroked the red cloth between forefinger and
| |
| thumb. "Something else."
| |
| Paul D didn't say anything so the two men sat in silence for a few moments.
| |
| "This is hard for me," said Stamp. "But I
| |
| got to do it. Two things I got to say to you. I'm a
| |
| take the easy one first."
| |
| Paul D chuckled. "If it's hard for you, might
| |
| kill me dead."
| |
| "No, no. Nothing like that. I come looking for
| |
| you to ask your pardon. Apologize."
| |
| "For what?" Paul D reached in his coat pocket
| |
| for his bottle.
| |
| "You pick any house, any house where
| |
| colored live. In all of Cincinnati. Pick any one and
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 439 of 525
| |
| you welcome to stay there. I'm apologizing
| |
| because they didn't offer or tell you. But you
| |
| welcome anywhere you want to be. My house is
| |
| your house too. John and Ella, Miss Lady, Able
| |
| Woodruff, Willie Pike-anybody. You choose. You
| |
| ain't got to sleep in no cellar, and I apologize for
| |
| each and every night you did. I don't know how
| |
| that preacher let you do it. I knowed him since
| |
| he was a boy."
| |
| "Whoa, Stamp. He offered."
| |
| "Did? Well?"
| |
| "Well. I wanted, I didn't want to, I just
| |
| wanted to be off by myself a spell. He offered.
| |
| Every time I see him he offers again."
| |
| "That's a load off. I thought everybody gone
| |
| crazy."
| |
| Paul D shook his head. "Just me."
| |
| "You planning to do anything about it?"
| |
| "Oh, yeah. I got big plans." He swallowed
| |
| twice from the bottle.
| |
| Any planning in a bottle is short, thought
| |
| Stamp, but he knew from personal experience
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 440 of 525
| |
| the pointlessness of telling a drinking man not
| |
| to. He cleared his sinuses and began to think
| |
| how to get to the second thing he had come to
| |
| say. Very few people were out today.
| |
| The canal was frozen so that traffic too had
| |
| stopped. They heard the dop of a horse
| |
| approaching. Its rider sat a high Eastern saddle
| |
| but everything else about him was Ohio Valley.
| |
| As he rode by he looked at them and suddenly
| |
| reined his horse, and came up to the path leading
| |
| to the church. He leaned forward.
| |
| "Hey," he said.
| |
| Stamp put his ribbon in his pocket. "Yes,
| |
| sir?"
| |
| "I'm looking for a gal name of Judy. Works
| |
| over by the slaughterhouse."
| |
| "Don't believe I know her. No, sir."
| |
| "Said she lived on Plank Road."
| |
| "Plank Road. Yes, sir. That's up a ways. Mile,
| |
| maybe."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 441 of 525
| |
| "You don't know her? Judy. Works in the
| |
| slaughterhouse."
| |
| "No, sir, but I know Plank Road. 'Bout a mile
| |
| up thataway."
| |
| Paul D lifted his bottle and swallowed. The
| |
| rider looked at him and then back at Stamp Paid.
| |
| Loosening the right rein, he turned his horse
| |
| toward the road, then changed his mind and
| |
| came back.
| |
| "Look here," he said to Paul D. "There's a
| |
| cross up there, so I guess this here's a church or
| |
| used to be. Seems to me like you ought to show
| |
| it some respect, you follow me?"
| |
| "Yes, sir," said Stamp. "You right about
| |
| that. That's just what I come over to talk to him
| |
| about. Just that."
| |
| The rider clicked his tongue and trotted
| |
| off. Stamp made small circles in the palm of his
| |
| left hand with two fingers of his right. "You got
| |
| to choose," he said. "Choose anyone. They let
| |
| you be if you want em to. My house. Ella. Willie
| |
| Pike. None of us got much, but all of us got
| |
| room for one more. Pay a little something when
| |
| you can, don't when you can't. Think about it.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 442 of 525
| |
| You grown. I can't make you do what you
| |
| won't, but think about it."
| |
| Paul D said nothing.
| |
| "If I did you harm, I'm here to rectify it."
| |
| "No need for that. No need at all."
| |
| A woman with four children walked by on
| |
| the other side of the road. She waved, smiling.
| |
| "Hoo- oo. I can't stop. See you at meeting."
| |
| "I be there," Stamp returned her
| |
| greeting. "There's another one," he said to Paul
| |
| D. "Scripture Woodruff, Able's sister. Works at
| |
| the brush and tallow factory. You'll see. Stay
| |
| around here long enough, you'll see ain't a
| |
| sweeter bunch of colored anywhere than what's
| |
| right here. Pride, well, that bothers em a bit.
| |
| They can get messy when they think
| |
| somebody's too proud, but when it comes right
| |
| down to it, they good people and anyone will
| |
| take you in."
| |
| "What about Judy? She take me in?"
| |
| "Depends. What you got in mind?"
| |
| "You know Judy?"
| |
| "Judith. I know everybody."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 443 of 525
| |
| "Out on Plank Road?"
| |
| "Everybody."
| |
| "Well? She take me in?"
| |
| Stamp leaned down and untied his shoe.
| |
| Twelve black buttonhooks, six on each side at
| |
| the bottom, led to four pairs of eyes at the top.
| |
| He loosened the laces all the way down,
| |
| adjusted the tongue carefully and wound them
| |
| back again. When he got to the eyes he rolled
| |
| the lace tips with his fingers before inserting
| |
| them.
| |
| "Let me tell you how I got my name." The
| |
| knot was tight and so was the bow. "They called
| |
| me Joshua," he said. "I renamed myself," he
| |
| said, "and I'm going to tell you why I did it,"
| |
| and he told him about Vashti. "I never touched
| |
| her all that time. Not once.
| |
| Almost a year. We was planting when it
| |
| started and picking when it stopped. Seemed
| |
| longer. I should have killed him. She said no,
| |
| but I should have. I didn't have the patience I
| |
| got now, but I figured maybe somebody else
| |
| didn't have much patience either--his own wife.
| |
| Took it in my head to see if she was taking it
| |
| any better than I was. Vashti and me was in the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 444 of 525
| |
| fields together in the day and every now and
| |
| then she be gone all night. I never touched her
| |
| and damn me if I spoke three words to her a
| |
| day. I took any chance I had to get near the
| |
| great house to see her, the young master's
| |
| wife. Nothing but a boy. Seventeen, twenty
| |
| maybe. I caught sight of her finally, standing in
| |
| the backyard by the fence with a glass of water.
| |
| She was drinking out of it and just gazing out
| |
| over the yard. I went over.
| |
| Stood back a ways and took off my hat. I
| |
| said, 'Scuse me, miss. Scuse me?' She turned
| |
| to look. I'm smiling. 'Scuse me. You seen
| |
| Vashti?
| |
| My wife Vashti?' A little bitty thing, she
| |
| was. Black hair. Face no bigger than my hand.
| |
| She said, "What? Vashti?' I say, 'Yes'm, Vashti.
| |
| My wife. She say she owe you all some
| |
| eggs. You know if she brung em? You know her
| |
| if you see her. Wear a black ribbon on her neck.'
| |
| She got rosy then and I knowed she
| |
| knowed. He give Vashti that to wear. A cameo
| |
| on a black ribbon. She used to put it on every
| |
| time she went to him. I put my hat back on.
| |
| 'You see her tell her I need her. Thank you.
| |
| Thank you, ma'am.' I backed off before she
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 445 of 525
| |
| could say something. I didn't dare look back till
| |
| I got behind some trees.
| |
| She was standing just as I left her,
| |
| looking in her water glass. I thought it would
| |
| give me more satisfaction than it did. I also
| |
| thought she might stop it, but it went right on.
| |
| Till one morning Vashti came in and sat by the
| |
| window. A Sunday. We worked our own patches
| |
| on Sunday. She sat by the window looking out
| |
| of it. 'I'm back,' she said.
| |
| 'I'm back, Josh.' I looked at the back of
| |
| her neck. She had a real small neck. I decided
| |
| to break it. You know, like a twig--just snap it. I
| |
| been low but that was as low as I ever got."
| |
| "Did you? Snap it?"
| |
| "Uh uh. I changed my name."
| |
| "How you get out of there? How you get up
| |
| here?"
| |
| "Boat. On up the Mississippi to Memphis.
| |
| Walked from Memphis to Cumberland."
| |
| "Vashti too?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 446 of 525
| |
| "No. She died."
| |
| "Aw, man. Tie your other shoe!"
| |
| "What?"
| |
| "Tie your goddamn shoe! It's sitting right
| |
| in front of you! Tie it!"
| |
| "That make you feel better?"
| |
| "No." Paul D tossed the bottle on the
| |
| ground and stared at the golden chariot on its
| |
| label. No horses. Just a golden coach draped in
| |
| blue cloth.
| |
| "I said I had two things to say to you. I only
| |
| told you one. I have to tell you the other."
| |
| "I don't want to know it. I don't want to know
| |
| nothing. Just if Judy will take me in or won't
| |
| she."
| |
| "I was there, Paul D."
| |
| "You was where?"
| |
| "There in the yard. When she did it."
| |
| "Judy?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 447 of 525
| |
| "Sethe."
| |
| "Jesus."
| |
| "It ain't what you think." "You don't know
| |
| what I think."
| |
| "She ain't crazy. She love those children.
| |
| She was trying to out hurt the hurter."
| |
| "Leave off." "And spread it."
| |
| "Stamp, let me off. I knew her when she was
| |
| a girl. She scares me and I knew her when
| |
| she was
| |
| a girl."
| |
| "You ain't scared of Sethe. I don't believe
| |
| you."
| |
| "Sethe scares me. I scare me. And that girl in
| |
| her house scares me the most."
| |
| "Who is that girl? Where she come from?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 448 of 525
| |
| "I don't know. Just shot up one day sitting on
| |
| a stump."
| |
| "Huh. Look like you and me the only ones
| |
| outside 124 lay eyes on her."
| |
| "She don't go nowhere. Where'd you see
| |
| her?"
| |
| "Sleeping on the kitchen floor. I peeped in."
| |
| "First minute I saw her I didn't want to be
| |
| nowhere around her.
| |
| Something funny about her. Talks funny.
| |
| Acts funny." Paul D dug his fingers underneath
| |
| his cap and rubbed the scalp over his temple.
| |
| "She reminds me of something. Something, look like, I'm supposed to remember."
| |
| "She never say where she was from? Where's her people?"
| |
| "She don't know, or says she don't. All I
| |
| ever heard her say was something about
| |
| stealing her clothes and living on a bridge."
| |
| "What kind of bridge?"
| |
| "Who you asking?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 449 of 525
| |
| "No bridges around here I don't know
| |
| about. But don't nobody live on em. Under em
| |
| neither. How long she been over there with
| |
| Sethe?"
| |
| "Last August. Day of the carnival."
| |
| "That's a bad sign. Was she at the carnival?"
| |
| "No. When we got back, there she
| |
| was--'sleep on a stump. Silk dress. Brand-new
| |
| shoes. Black as
| |
| oil."
| |
| "You don't say? Huh. Was a girl locked up
| |
| in the house with a whiteman over by Deer
| |
| Creek. Found him dead last summer and the
| |
| girl gone. Maybe that's her. Folks say he had
| |
| her in there since she was a pup."
| |
| "Well, now she's a bitch."
| |
| "Is she what run you off? Not what I told you 'bout Sethe?"
| |
| A shudder ran through Paul D. A
| |
| bone-cold spasm that made him clutch his
| |
| knees. He didn't know if it was bad whiskey,
| |
| nights in the cellar, pig fever, iron bits, smiling
| |
| roosters, fired feet, laughing dead men, hissing
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 450 of 525
| |
| grass, rain, apple blossoms, neck jewelry, Judy
| |
| in the slaughterhouse, Halle in the butter,
| |
| ghost-white stairs, chokecherry trees, cameo
| |
| pins, aspens, Paul A's face, sausage or the loss
| |
| of a red, red heart.
| |
| "Tell me something, Stamp." Paul D's
| |
| eyes were rheumy. "Tell me this one thing. How
| |
| much is a nigger supposed to take? Tell me.
| |
| How much?"
| |
| "All he can," said Stamp Paid. "All he can."
| |
| "why? Why? Why? Why? Why?"
| |
| Three
| |
| 124 WAS QUIET. Denver, who thought she knew
| |
| all about silence, was surprised to learn hunger
| |
| could do that: quiet you down and wear you out.
| |
| Neither Sethe nor Beloved knew or cared about it
| |
| one way or another. They were too busy rationing
| |
| their strength to fight each other. So it was she
| |
| who had to step off the edge of the world and die
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 451 of 525
| |
| because if she didn't, they all would. The flesh
| |
| between her mother's forefinger and thumb was
| |
| thin as china silk and there wasn't a piece of
| |
| clothing in the house that didn't sag on her.
| |
| Beloved held her head up with the palms of her
| |
| hands, slept wherever she happened to be, and
| |
| whined for sweets although she was getting
| |
| bigger, plumper by the day. Everything was gone
| |
| except two laying hens, and somebody would soon
| |
| have to decide whether an egg every now and then
| |
| was worth more than two fried chickens. The
| |
| hungrier they got, the weaker; the weaker they
| |
| got, the quieter they were--which was better than
| |
| the furious arguments, the poker slammed up
| |
| against the wall, all the shouting and crying that
| |
| followed that one happy January when they
| |
| played. Denver had joined in the play, holding
| |
| back a bit out of habit, even though it was the
| |
| most fun she had ever known.
| |
| But once Sethe had seen the scar, the tip of
| |
| which Denver had been looking at whenever
| |
| Beloved undressed--the little curved shadow of a
| |
| smile in the kootchy-kootchy-coo place under her
| |
| chin-once Sethe saw it, fingered it and closed her
| |
| eyes for a long time, the two of them cut Denver
| |
| out of the games. The cooking games, the sewing
| |
| games, the hair and dressing-up games. Games
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 452 of 525
| |
| her mother loved so well she took to going to work
| |
| later and later each day until the predictable
| |
| happened: Sawyer told her not to come back. And
| |
| instead of looking for another job, Sethe played all
| |
| the harder with Beloved, who never got enough of
| |
| anything: lullabies, new stitches, the bottom of
| |
| the cake bowl, the top of the milk. If the hen had
| |
| only two eggs, she got both. It was as though her
| |
| mother had lost her mind, like Grandma Baby
| |
| calling for pink and not doing the things she used
| |
| to. But different because, unlike Baby Suggs, she
| |
| cut Denver out completely. Even the song that she
| |
| used to sing to Denver she sang for Beloved alone:
| |
| "High Johnny, wide Johnny, don't you leave my
| |
| side, Johnny."
| |
| At first they played together. A whole month
| |
| and Denver loved it. From the night they ice�skated under a star-loaded sky and drank sweet
| |
| milk by the stove, to the string puzzles Sethe did
| |
| for them in afternoon light, and shadow pictures in
| |
| the gloaming. In the very teeth of winter and
| |
| Sethe, her eyes fever bright, was plotting a garden
| |
| of vegetables and flowers--talking, talking about
| |
| what colors it would have. She played with
| |
| Beloved's hair, braiding, puffing, tying, oiling it
| |
| until it made Denver nervous to watch her They
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 453 of 525
| |
| changed beds and exchanged clothes. Walked arm
| |
| in arm and smiled all the time.
| |
| When the weather broke, they were on
| |
| their knees in the backyard designing a garden in
| |
| dirt too hard to chop. The thirty-eight dollars of
| |
| life savings went to feed themselves with fancy
| |
| food and decorate themselves with ribbon and
| |
| dress goods, which Sethe cut and sewed like they
| |
| were going somewhere in a hurry. Bright
| |
| clothes--with blue stripes and sassy prints. She
| |
| walked the four miles to John Shillito's to buy
| |
| yellow ribbon, shiny buttons and bits of black
| |
| lace. By the end of March the three of them
| |
| looked like carnival women with nothing to do.
| |
| When it became clear that they were only
| |
| interested in each other, Denver began to drift
| |
| from the play, but she watched it, alert for any
| |
| sign that Beloved was in danger. Finally
| |
| convinced there was none, and seeing her
| |
| mother that happy, that smiling--how could it go
| |
| wrong?--she let down her guard and it did. Her
| |
| problem at first was trying to find out who was to
| |
| blame. Her eye was on her mother, for a signal
| |
| that the thing that was in her was out, and she
| |
| would kill again. But it was Beloved who made
| |
| demands.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 454 of 525
| |
| Anything she wanted she got, and when
| |
| Sethe ran out of things to give her, Beloved
| |
| invented desire. She wanted Sethe's company
| |
| for hours to watch the layer of brown leaves
| |
| waving at them from the bottom of the creek, in
| |
| the same place where, as a little girl, Denver
| |
| played in the silence with her. Now the players
| |
| were altered. As soon as the thaw was complete
| |
| Beloved gazed at her gazing face, rippling,
| |
| folding, spreading, disappearing into the leaves
| |
| below. She flattened herself on the ground,
| |
| dirtying her bold stripes, and touched the rocking
| |
| faces with her own. She filled basket after basket
| |
| with the first things warmer weather let loose in
| |
| the ground--dandelions, violets,
| |
| forsythia--presenting them to Sethe, who
| |
| arranged them, stuck them, wound them all over
| |
| the house. Dressed in Sethe's dresses, she
| |
| stroked her skin with the palm of her hand. She
| |
| imitated Sethe, talked the way she did, laughed
| |
| her laugh and used her body the same way down
| |
| to the walk, the way Sethe moved her hands,
| |
| sighed through her nose, held her head.
| |
| Sometimes coming upon them making men and
| |
| women cookies or tacking scraps of cloth on Baby
| |
| Suggs' old quilt, it was difficult for Denver to tell
| |
| who was who.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 455 of 525
| |
| Then the mood changed and the arguments began. Slowly at first.
| |
| A complaint from Beloved, an apology from
| |
| Sethe. A reduction of pleasure at some special
| |
| effort the older woman made. Wasn't it too cold
| |
| to stay outside? Beloved gave a look that said, So
| |
| what? Was it past bedtime, the light no good for
| |
| sewing? Beloved didn't move; said, "Do it," and
| |
| Sethe complied. She took the best of
| |
| everything--first. The best chair, the biggest
| |
| piece, the prettiest plate, the brightest ribbon for
| |
| her hair, and the more she took, the more Sethe
| |
| began to talk, explain, describe how much she
| |
| had suffered, been through, for her children,
| |
| waving away flies in grape arbors, crawling on
| |
| her knees to a lean-to. None of which made the
| |
| impression it was supposed to. Beloved accused
| |
| her of leaving her behind. Of not being nice to
| |
| her, not smiling at her. She said they were the
| |
| same, had the same face, how could she have left
| |
| her? And Sethe cried, saying she never did, or
| |
| meant to—that she had to get them out, away,
| |
| that she had the milk all the time and had the
| |
| money too for the stone but not enough. That her
| |
| plan was always that they would all be together
| |
| on the other side, forever. Beloved wasn't
| |
| interested. She said when she cried there was no
| |
| one. That dead men lay on top of her. That she
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 456 of 525
| |
| had nothing to eat. Ghosts without skin stuck
| |
| their fingers in her and said beloved in the dark
| |
| and bitch in the light. Sethe pleaded for
| |
| forgiveness, counting, listing again and again her
| |
| reasons: that Beloved was more important,
| |
| meant more to her than her own life.
| |
| That she would trade places any day. Give up
| |
| her life, every minute and hour of it, to take back
| |
| just one of Beloved's tears. Did she know it hurt
| |
| her when mosquitoes bit her baby? That to leave
| |
| her on the ground to run into the big house drove
| |
| her crazy? That before leaving Sweet Home
| |
| Beloved slept every night on her chest or curled on
| |
| her back? Beloved denied it. Sethe never came to
| |
| her, never said a word to her, never smiled and
| |
| worst of all never waved goodbye or even looked
| |
| her way before running away from her.
| |
| When once or twice Sethe tried to assert
| |
| herself--be the unquestioned mother whose word
| |
| was law and who knew what was best--Beloved
| |
| slammed things, wiped the table clean of plates,
| |
| threw salt on the floor, broke a windowpane.
| |
| She was not like them. She was wild game,
| |
| and nobody said, Get on out of here, girl, and come
| |
| back when you get some sense. Nobody said, You
| |
| raise your hand to me and I will knock you into the
| |
| middle of next week. Ax the trunk, the limb will die.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 457 of 525
| |
| Honor thy mother and father that thy days may be
| |
| long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth
| |
| thee. I will wrap you round that doorknob, don't
| |
| nobody work for you and God don't love ugly ways.
| |
| No, no. They mended the plates, swept the
| |
| salt, and little by little it dawned on Denver that if
| |
| Sethe didn't wake up one morning and pick up a
| |
| knife, Beloved might. Frightened as she was by the
| |
| thing in Sethe that could come out, it shamed her
| |
| to see her mother serving a girl not much older
| |
| than herself. When she saw her carrying out
| |
| Beloved's night bucket, Denver raced to relieve her
| |
| of it. But the pain was unbearable when they ran
| |
| low on food, and Denver watched her mother go
| |
| without--pick- eating around the edges of the table
| |
| and stove: the hominy that stuck on the bottom;
| |
| the crusts and rinds and peelings of things. Once
| |
| she saw her run her longest finger deep in an
| |
| empty jam jar before rinsing and putting it away.
| |
| They grew tired, and even Beloved, who
| |
| was getting bigger, seemed nevertheless as
| |
| exhausted as they were. In any case she
| |
| substituted a snarl or a tooth-suck for waving a
| |
| poker around and 124 was quiet.
| |
| Listless and sleepy with hunger Denver saw
| |
| the flesh between her mother's forefinger and
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 458 of 525
| |
| thumb fade. Saw Sethe's eyes bright but dead,
| |
| alert but vacant, paying attention to everything
| |
| about Beloved--her lineless palms, her forehead,
| |
| the smile under her jaw, crooked and much too
| |
| long-- everything except her basket-fat stomach.
| |
| She also saw the sleeves of her own carnival
| |
| shirtwaist cover her fingers; hems that once
| |
| showed her ankles now swept the floor. She saw
| |
| themselves beribboned, decked-out, limp and
| |
| starving but locked in a love that wore everybody
| |
| out. Then Sethe spit up something she had not
| |
| eaten and it rocked Denver like gunshot. The job
| |
| she started out with, protecting Beloved from
| |
| Sethe, changed to protecting her mother from
| |
| Beloved. Now it was obvious that her mother could
| |
| die and leave them both and what would Beloved
| |
| do then? Whatever was happening, it only worked
| |
| with three--not two--and since neither Beloved nor
| |
| Sethe seemed to care what the next day might
| |
| bring (Sethe happy when Beloved was; Beloved
| |
| lapping devotion like cream), Denver knew it was
| |
| on her. She would have to leave the yard; step off
| |
| the edge of the world, leave the two behind and go
| |
| ask somebody for help.
| |
| Who would it be? Who could she stand in
| |
| front of who wouldn't shame her on learning that
| |
| her mother sat around like a rag doll, broke
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 459 of 525
| |
| down, finally, from trying to take care of and
| |
| make up for.
| |
| Denver knew about several people,
| |
| from hearing her mother and grandmother
| |
| talk. But she knew, personally, only two: an
| |
| old man with white hair called Stamp and
| |
| Lady Jones. Well, Paul D, of course.
| |
| And that boy who told her about Sethe. But they wouldn't do at all.
| |
| Her heart kicked and an itchy burning in
| |
| her throat made her swallow all her saliva
| |
| away. She didn't even know which way to go.
| |
| When Sethe used to work at the restaurant
| |
| and when she still had money to shop, she
| |
| turned right. Back when Denver went to Lady
| |
| Jones' school, it was left.
| |
| The weather was warm; the day beautiful.
| |
| It was April and everything alive was tentative.
| |
| Denver wrapped her hair and her shoulders.
| |
| In the brightest of the carnival dresses and
| |
| wearing a stranger's shoes, she stood on the
| |
| porch of 124 ready to be swallowed up in the
| |
| world beyond the edge of the porch. Out there
| |
| where small things scratched and sometimes
| |
| touched. Where words could be spoken that
| |
| would close your ears shut. Where, if you were
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 460 of 525
| |
| alone, feeling could overtake you and stick to
| |
| you like a shadow. Out there where there were
| |
| places in which things so bad had happened that
| |
| when you went near them it would happen
| |
| again. Like Sweet Home where time didn't pass
| |
| and where, like her mother said, the bad was
| |
| waiting for her as well. How would she know
| |
| these places? What was more--much more—out
| |
| there were whitepeople and how could you tell
| |
| about them? Sethe said the mouth and
| |
| sometimes the hands. Grandma Baby said there
| |
| was no defense--they could prowl at will, change
| |
| from one mind to another, and even when they
| |
| thought they were behaving, it was a far cry
| |
| from what real humans did.
| |
| "They got me out of jail," Sethe once told
| |
| Baby Suggs.
| |
| "They also put you in it," she answered.
| |
| "They drove you 'cross the river."
| |
| "On my son's back."
| |
| "They gave you this house."
| |
| "Nobody gave me nothing."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 461 of 525
| |
| "I got a job from them."
| |
| "He got a cook from them, girl."
| |
| "Oh, some of them do all right by us."
| |
| "And every time it's a surprise, ain't it?"
| |
| "You didn't used to talk this way."
| |
| "Don't box with me. There's more of us
| |
| they drowned than there is all of them ever
| |
| lived from the start of time. Lay down your
| |
| sword.
| |
| This ain't a battle; it's a rout."
| |
| Remembering those conversations and
| |
| her grandmother's last and final words, Denver
| |
| stood on the porch in the sun and couldn't leave
| |
| it. Her throat itched; her heart kicked--and then
| |
| Baby Suggs laughed, clear as anything. "You
| |
| mean I never told you nothing about Carolina?
| |
| About your daddy? You don't remember
| |
| nothing about how come I walk the way I do
| |
| and about your mother's feet, not to speak of
| |
| her back? I never told you all that? Is that why
| |
| you can't walk down the steps? My Jesus my."
| |
| But you said there was no defense.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 462 of 525
| |
| "There ain't."
| |
| Then what do I do?
| |
| "Know it, and go on out the yard. Go on."
| |
| * * *
| |
| It came back. A dozen years had passed and the way came back.
| |
| Four houses on the right, sitting close together in a line like wrens.
| |
| The first house had two steps and a
| |
| rocking chair on the porch; the second had
| |
| three steps, a broom propped on the porch
| |
| beam, two broken chairs and a clump of
| |
| forsythia at the side. No window at the front. A
| |
| little boy sat on the ground chewing a stick. The
| |
| third house had yellow shutters on its two front
| |
| windows and pot after pot of green leaves with
| |
| white hearts or red. Denver could hear chickens
| |
| and the knock of a badly hinged gate. At the
| |
| fourth house the buds of a sycamore tree had
| |
| rained down on the roof and made the yard look
| |
| as though grass grew there. A woman, standing
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 463 of 525
| |
| at the open door, lifted her hand halfway in
| |
| greeting, then froze it near her shoulder as she
| |
| leaned forward to see whom she waved to.
| |
| Denver lowered her head. Next was a tiny
| |
| fenced plot with a cow in it. She remembered
| |
| the plot but not the cow. Under her headcloth
| |
| her scalp was wet with tension. Beyond her,
| |
| voices, male voices, floated, coming closer with
| |
| each step she took. Denver kept her eyes on the
| |
| road in case they were whitemen; in case she
| |
| was walking where they wanted to; in case they
| |
| said something and she would have to answer
| |
| them. Suppose they flung out at her, grabbed
| |
| her, tied her. They were getting closer. Maybe
| |
| she should cross the road--now. Was the
| |
| woman who half waved at her still there in the
| |
| open door? Would she come to her rescue, or,
| |
| angry at Denver for not waving back, would she
| |
| withhold her help? Maybe she should turn around,
| |
| get closer to the waving woman's house. Before
| |
| she could make up her mind, it was too late--they
| |
| were right in front of her. Two men, Negro.
| |
| Denver breathed. Both men touched their caps
| |
| and murmured, "Morning. Morning." Denver
| |
| believed her eyes spoke gratitude but she never
| |
| got her mouth open in time to reply. They moved
| |
| left of her and passed on.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 464 of 525
| |
| Braced and heartened by that easy
| |
| encounter, she picked up speed and began
| |
| to look deliberately at the neighborhood
| |
| surrounding her.
| |
| She was shocked to see how small the big
| |
| things were: the boulder by the edge of the road
| |
| she once couldn't see over was a sitting-on rock.
| |
| Paths leading to houses weren't miles long. Dogs
| |
| didn't even reach her knees. Letters cut into
| |
| beeches and oaks by giants were eye level now.
| |
| She would have known it anywhere. The
| |
| post and scrap-lumber fence was gray now, not
| |
| white, but she would have known it anywhere.
| |
| The stone porch sitting in a skirt of ivy, pale
| |
| yellow curtains at the windows; the laid brick path
| |
| to the front door and wood planks leading around
| |
| to the back, passing under the windows where she
| |
| had stood on tiptoe to see above the sill. Denver
| |
| was about to do it again, when she realized how
| |
| silly it would be to be found once more staring into
| |
| the parlor of Mrs. Lady Jones. The pleasure she
| |
| felt at having found the house dissolved,
| |
| suddenly, in doubt. Suppose she didn't live there
| |
| anymore? Or remember her former student after
| |
| all this time? What would she say? Denver
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 465 of 525
| |
| shivered inside, wiped the perspiration from her
| |
| forehead and knocked.
| |
| Lady Jones went to the door expecting
| |
| raisins. A child, probably, from the softness of the
| |
| knock, sent by its mother with the raisins she
| |
| needed if her contribution to the supper was to be
| |
| worth the trouble. There would be any number of
| |
| plain cakes, potato pies. She had reluctantly
| |
| volunteered her own special creation, but said she
| |
| didn't have raisins, so raisins is what the president
| |
| said would be provided--early enough so there
| |
| would be no excuses. Mrs. Jones, dreading the
| |
| fatigue of beating batter, had been hoping she had
| |
| forgotten. Her bake oven had been cold all
| |
| week--getting it to the right temperature would be
| |
| awful. Since her husband died and her eyes grew
| |
| dim, she had let up-to-snuff housekeeping fall
| |
| away. She was of two minds about baking
| |
| something for the church. On the one hand, she
| |
| wanted to remind everybody of what she was able
| |
| to do in the cooking line; on the other, she didn't
| |
| want to have to.
| |
| When she heard the tapping at the door, she
| |
| sighed and went to it hoping the raisins had at
| |
| least been cleaned.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 466 of 525
| |
| She was older, of course, and dressed like a
| |
| chippy, but the girl was immediately recognizable
| |
| to Lady Jones. Everybody's child was in that face:
| |
| the nickel-round eyes, bold yet mistrustful; the
| |
| large powerful teeth between dark sculptured lips
| |
| that did not cover them.
| |
| Some vulnerability lay across the bridge of the nose, above the cheeks.
| |
| And then the skin. Flawless,
| |
| economical--just enough of it to cover the bone
| |
| and not a bit more. She must be eighteen or
| |
| nineteen by now, thought Lady Jones, looking at
| |
| the face young enough to be twelve. Heavy
| |
| eyebrows, thick baby lashes and the unmistakable
| |
| love call that shimmered around children until
| |
| they learned better.
| |
| "Why, Denver," she said. "Look at you."
| |
| Lady Jones had to take her by the hand and
| |
| pull her in, because the smile seemed all the girl
| |
| could manage. Other people said this child was
| |
| simple, but Lady Jones never believed it. Having
| |
| taught her, watched her eat up a page, a rule, a
| |
| figure, she knew better.
| |
| When suddenly she had stopped coming,
| |
| Lady Jones thought it was the nickel. She
| |
| approached the ignorant grandmother one day on
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 467 of 525
| |
| the road, a woods preacher who mended shoes, to
| |
| tell her it was all right if the money was owed. The
| |
| woman said that wasn't it; the child was deaf, and
| |
| deaf Lady Jones thought she still was until she
| |
| offered her a seat and Denver heard that.
| |
| "It's nice of you to come see me. What brings
| |
| you?"
| |
| Denver didn't answer.
| |
| "Well, nobody needs a reason to visit. Let me
| |
| make us some tea."
| |
| Lady Jones was mixed. Gray eyes and
| |
| yellow woolly hair, every strand of which she
| |
| hated-- though whether it was the color or the
| |
| texture even she didn't know. She had married
| |
| the blackest man she could find, had five
| |
| rainbow-colored children and sent them all to
| |
| Wilberforce, after teaching them all she knew
| |
| right along with the others who sat in her parlor.
| |
| Her light skin got her picked for a coloredgirls',
| |
| normal school in Pennsylvania and she paid it
| |
| back by teaching the unpicked. The children who
| |
| played in dirt until they were old enough for
| |
| chores, these she taught. The colored population
| |
| of Cincinnati had two graveyards and six
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 468 of 525
| |
| churches, but since no school or hospital was
| |
| obliged to serve them, they learned and died at
| |
| home. She believed in her heart that, except for
| |
| her husband, the whole world (including her
| |
| children) despised her and her hair. She had been
| |
| listening to "all that yellow gone to waste" and
| |
| "white nigger" since she was a girl in a houseful of
| |
| silt-black children, so she disliked everybody a
| |
| little bit because she believed they hated her hair
| |
| as much as she did. With that education pat and
| |
| firmly set, she dispensed with rancor, was
| |
| indiscriminately polite, saving her real affection
| |
| for the unpicked children of Cincinnati, one of
| |
| whom sat before her in a dress so loud it
| |
| embarrassed the needlepoint chair seat.
| |
| "Sugar?"
| |
| "Yes. Thank you." Denver drank it all down.
| |
| "More?"
| |
| "No, ma'am."
| |
| "Here. Go ahead."
| |
| "Yes, ma'am."
| |
| "How's your family, honey?"
| |
| Denver stopped in the middle of a
| |
| swallow. There was no way to tell her how her
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 469 of 525
| |
| family was, so she said what was at the top of
| |
| her mind.
| |
| "I want work, Miss Lady."
| |
| "Work?"
| |
| "Yes, ma'am. Anything."
| |
| Lady Jones smiled. "What can you do?"
| |
| "I can't do anything, but I would learn it for
| |
| you if you have a little extra."
| |
| "Extra?"
| |
| "Food. My ma'am, she doesn't feel good."
| |
| "Oh, baby," said Mrs. Jones. "Oh, baby."
| |
| Denver looked up at her. She did not
| |
| know it then, but it was the word "baby," said
| |
| softly and with such kindness, that inaugurated
| |
| her life in the world as a woman. The trail she
| |
| followed to get to that sweet thorny place was
| |
| made up of paper scraps containing the
| |
| handwritten names of others. Lady Jones gave
| |
| her some rice, four eggs and some tea. Denver
| |
| said she couldn't be away from home long
| |
| because of her mother's condition. Could she do
| |
| chores in the morning? Lady Jones told her that
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 470 of 525
| |
| no one, not herself, not anyone she knew, could
| |
| pay anybody anything for work they did
| |
| themselves.
| |
| "But if you all need to eat until your
| |
| mother is well, all you have to do is say so." She
| |
| mentioned her church's committee invented so
| |
| nobody had to go hungry. That agitated her
| |
| guest who said, "No, no," as though asking for
| |
| help from strangers was worse than hunger.
| |
| Lady Jones said goodbye to her and asked her to come back anytime.
| |
| "Anytime at all."
| |
| Two days later Denver stood on the porch
| |
| and noticed something lying on the tree stump
| |
| at the edge of the yard. She went to look and
| |
| found a sack of white beans. Another time a
| |
| plate of cold rabbit meat. One morning a basket
| |
| of eggs sat there. As she lifted it, a slip of paper
| |
| fluttered down. She picked it up and looked at
| |
| it.
| |
| "M. Lucille Williams" was written in big
| |
| crooked letters. On the back was a blob of
| |
| flour-water paste. So Denver paid a second visit
| |
| to the world outside the porch, although all she
| |
| said when she returned the basket was "Thank
| |
| you."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 471 of 525
| |
| "Welcome," said M. Lucille Williams.
| |
| Every now and then, all through the
| |
| spring, names appeared near or in gifts of food.
| |
| Obviously for the return of the pan or plate or
| |
| basket; but also to let the girl know, if she
| |
| cared to, who the donor was, because some of
| |
| the parcels were wrapped in paper, and though
| |
| there was nothing to return, the name was
| |
| nevertheless there. Many had X's with designs
| |
| about them, and Lady Jones tried to identify the
| |
| plate or pan or the covering towel. When she
| |
| could only guess, Denver followed her
| |
| directions and went to say thank you anywaym
| |
| whether she had the right benefactor or not.
| |
| When she was wrong, when the person said,
| |
| "No, darling. That's not my bowl. Mine's got a
| |
| blue ring on it," a small conversation took
| |
| place. All of them knew her grandmother and
| |
| some had even danced with her in the Clearing.
| |
| Others remembered the days when 124
| |
| was a way station, the place they assembled to
| |
| catch news, taste oxtail soup, leave their
| |
| children, cut out a skirt. One remembered the
| |
| tonic mixed there that cured a relative. One
| |
| showed her the border of a pillowslip, the
| |
| stamens of its pale blue flowers French- knotted
| |
| in Baby Suggs' kitchen by the light of an oil lamp
| |
| while arguing the Settlement Fee. They
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 472 of 525
| |
| remembered the party with twelve turkeys and
| |
| tubs of strawberry smash.
| |
| One said she wrapped Denver when she
| |
| was a single day old and cut shoes to fit her
| |
| mother's blasted feet. Maybe they were sorry for
| |
| her. Or for Sethe. Maybe they were sorry for the
| |
| years of their own disdain. Maybe they were
| |
| simply nice people who could hold meanness
| |
| toward each other for just so long and when
| |
| trouble rode bareback among them, quickly,
| |
| easily they did what they could to trip him up. In
| |
| any case, the personal pride, the arrogant claim
| |
| staked out at 124 seemed to them to have run its
| |
| course. They whispered, naturally, wondered,
| |
| shook their heads. Some even laughed outright
| |
| at Denver's clothes of a hussy, but it didn't stop
| |
| them caring whether she ate and it didn't stop
| |
| the pleasure they took in her soft "Thank you."
| |
| At least once a week, she visited Lady
| |
| Jones, who perked up enough to do a raisin loaf
| |
| especially for her, since Denver was set on sweet
| |
| things. She gave her a book of Bible verse and
| |
| listened while she mumbled words or fairly
| |
| shouted them. By June Denver had read and
| |
| memorized all fifty-two pages- one for each
| |
| week of the year.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 473 of 525
| |
| As Denver's outside life improved, her
| |
| home life deteriorated. If the whitepeople of
| |
| Cincinnati had allowed Negroes into their lunatic
| |
| asylum they could have found candidates in 124.
| |
| Strengthened by the gifts of food, the source of
| |
| which neither Sethe nor Beloved questioned, the
| |
| women had arrived at a doomsday truce
| |
| designed by the devil. Beloved sat around, ate,
| |
| went from bed to bed. Sometimes she screamed,
| |
| "Rain! Rain!" and clawed her throat until rubies
| |
| of blood opened there, made brighter by her
| |
| midnight skin. Then Sethe shouted, "No!" and
| |
| knocked over chairs to get to her and wipe the
| |
| jewels away. Other times Beloved curled up on
| |
| the floor, her wrists between her knees, and
| |
| stayed there for hours. Or she would go to the
| |
| creek, stick her feet in the water and whoosh it
| |
| up her legs.
| |
| Afrerward she would go to Sethe, run her
| |
| fingers over the woman's teeth while tears slid
| |
| from her wide black eyes. Then it seemed to
| |
| Denver the thing was done: Beloved bending
| |
| over Sethe looked the mother, Sethe the
| |
| teething child, for other than those times when
| |
| Beloved needed her, Sethe confined herself to a
| |
| corner chair. The bigger Beloved got, the smaller
| |
| Sethe became; the brighter
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 474 of 525
| |
| Beloved's eyes, the more those eyes that used
| |
| never to look away became slits of
| |
| sleeplessness. Sethe no longer combed her
| |
| hair or splashed her face with water. She sat in
| |
| the chair licking her lips like a chastised child
| |
| while Beloved ate up her life, took it, swelled up
| |
| with it, grew taller on it. And the older woman
| |
| yielded it up without a murmur.
| |
| Denver served them both. Washing,
| |
| cooking, forcing, cajoling her mother to eat a
| |
| little now and then, providing sweet things for
| |
| Beloved as often as she could to calm her down.
| |
| It was hard to know what she would do from
| |
| minute to minute. When the heat got hot, she
| |
| might walk around the house naked or wrapped
| |
| in a sheet, her belly protruding like a winning
| |
| watermelon.
| |
| Denver thought she understood the
| |
| connection between her mother and Beloved:
| |
| Sethe was trying to make up for the handsaw;
| |
| Beloved was making her pay for it. But there
| |
| would never be an end to that, and seeing her
| |
| mother diminished shamed and infuriated her.
| |
| Yet she knew Sethe's greatest fear was the same
| |
| one Denver had in the beginning--that Beloved
| |
| might leave. That before Sethe could make her
| |
| understand what it meant--what it took to drag
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 475 of 525
| |
| the teeth of that saw under the little chin; to feel
| |
| the baby blood pump like oil in her hands; to hold
| |
| her face so her head would stay on; to squeeze
| |
| her so she could absorb, still, the death spasms
| |
| that shot through that adored body, plump and
| |
| sweet with life--Beloved might leave. Leave
| |
| before Sethe could make her realize that worse
| |
| than that--far worse-- was what Baby Suggs
| |
| died of, what Ella knew, what Stamp saw and
| |
| what made Paul D tremble. That anybody white
| |
| could take your whole self for anything that
| |
| came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you,
| |
| but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like
| |
| yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot
| |
| who you were and couldn't think it up. And
| |
| though she and others lived through and got
| |
| over it, she could never let it happen to her own.
| |
| The best thing she was, was her children. Whites
| |
| might dirty bet all right, but not her best thing,
| |
| her beautiful, magical best thing--the part of her
| |
| that was cl ean. No undreamable dreams about
| |
| whether the headless, feetless torso hanging in
| |
| the tree with a sign on it was her husband or Paul
| |
| A; whether the bubbling-hot girls in the
| |
| colored-school fire set by patriots included her
| |
| daughter; whether a gang of whites invaded her
| |
| daughter's private parts, soiled her daughter's
| |
| thighs and threw her daughter out of the wagon.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 476 of 525
| |
| She might have to work the slaughterhouse
| |
| yard, but not her daughter.
| |
| And no one, nobody on this earth, would
| |
| list her daughter's characteristics on the animal
| |
| side of the paper. No. Oh no. Maybe Baby Suggs
| |
| could worry about it, live with the likelihood of it;
| |
| Sethe had refused--and refused still.
| |
| This and much more Denver heard her say
| |
| from her corner chair, trying to persuade
| |
| Beloved, the one and only person she felt she
| |
| had to convince, that what she had done was
| |
| right because it came from true love.
| |
| Beloved, her fat new feet propped on the
| |
| seat of a chair in front of the one she sat in, her
| |
| unlined hands resting on her stomach, looked at
| |
| her. Uncomprehending everything except that
| |
| Sethe was the woman who took her face away,
| |
| leaving her crouching in a dark, dark place,
| |
| forgetting to smile.
| |
| Her father's daughter after all, Denver decided to do the necessary.
| |
| Decided to stop relying on kindness to
| |
| leave something on the stump. She would hire
| |
| herself out somewhere, and although she was
| |
| afraid to leave Sethe and Beloved alone all day
| |
| not knowing what calamity either one of them
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 477 of 525
| |
| would create, she came to realize that her
| |
| presence in that house had no influence on what
| |
| either woman did. She kept them alive and they
| |
| ignored her. Growled when they chose; sulked,
| |
| explained, demanded, strutted, cowered, cried
| |
| and provoked each other to the edge of violence,
| |
| then over. She had begun to notice that even
| |
| when Beloved was quiet, dreamy, minding her
| |
| own business, Sethe got her going again.
| |
| Whispering, muttering some justification, some
| |
| bit of clarifying information to Beloved to explain
| |
| what it had been like, and why, and how come. It
| |
| was as though Sethe didn't really want
| |
| forgiveness given; she wanted it refused. And
| |
| Beloved helped her out.
| |
| Somebody had to be saved, but unless
| |
| Denver got work, there would be no one to save,
| |
| no one to come home to, and no Denver either. It
| |
| was a new thought, having a self to look out for
| |
| and preserve.
| |
| And it might not have occurred to her if
| |
| she hadn't met Nelson Lord leaving his
| |
| grandmother's house as Denver entered it to
| |
| pay a thank you for half a pie. All he did was
| |
| smile and say, "Take care of yourself, Denver,"
| |
| but she heard it as though it were what
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 478 of 525
| |
| language was made for. The last time he spoke
| |
| to her his words blocked up her ears.
| |
| Now they opened her mind. Weeding the
| |
| garden, pulling vegetables, cooking, washing,
| |
| she plotted what to do and how. The Bodwins
| |
| were most likely to help since they had done it
| |
| twice. Once for Baby Suggs and once for her
| |
| mother. Why not the third generation as well?
| |
| She got lost so many times in the streets
| |
| of Cincinnati it was noon before she arrived,
| |
| though she started out at sunrise. The house
| |
| sat back from the sidewalk with large windows
| |
| looking out on a noisy, busy street. The Negro
| |
| woman who answered the front door said,
| |
| "Yes?"
| |
| "May I come in?"
| |
| "What you want?"
| |
| "I want to see Mr. and Mrs. Bodwin."
| |
| "Miss Bodwin. They brother and sister."
| |
| "Oh."
| |
| "What you want em for?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 479 of 525
| |
| "I'm looking for work. I was thinking they
| |
| might know of some."
| |
| "You Baby Suggs' kin, ain't you?"
| |
| "Yes, ma'am."
| |
| "Come on in. You letting in flies." She led
| |
| Denver toward the kitchen, saying, "First thing
| |
| you have to know is what door to knock on."
| |
| But Denver only half heard her because she
| |
| was stepping on something soft and blue. All
| |
| around her was thick, soft and blue.
| |
| Glass cases crammed full of glistening
| |
| things. Books on tables and shelves. Pearl-white
| |
| lamps with shiny metal bottoms. And a smell like
| |
| the cologne she poured in the emerald house,
| |
| only better.
| |
| "Sit down," the woman said. "You know my
| |
| name?"
| |
| "No, ma'am."
| |
| "Janey. Janey Wagon."
| |
| "How do you do?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 480 of 525
| |
| "Fairly. I heard your mother took sick, that
| |
| so?"
| |
| "Yes, ma'am."
| |
| "Who's looking after her?"
| |
| "I am. But I have to find work."
| |
| Janey laughed. "You know what? I've been
| |
| here since I was fourteen, and I remember like
| |
| yesterday when Baby Suggs, holy, came here
| |
| and sat right there where you are. Whiteman
| |
| brought her. That's how she got that house you
| |
| all live in. Other things, too."
| |
| "Yes, ma'am."
| |
| "What's the trouble with Sethe?" Janey leaned against an indoor sink and folded her arms.
| |
| It was a little thing to pay, but it seemed
| |
| big to Denver. Nobody was going to help her
| |
| unless she told it--told all of it. It was clear Janey
| |
| wouldn't and wouldn't let her see the Bodwins
| |
| otherwise. So Denver told this stranger what she
| |
| hadn't told Lady Jones, in return for which Janey
| |
| admitted the Bodwins needed help, although
| |
| they didn't know it. She was alone there, and
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 481 of 525
| |
| now that her employers were getting older, she
| |
| couldn't take care of them like she used to.
| |
| More and more she was required to sleep
| |
| the night there. Maybe she could talk them into
| |
| letting Denver do the night shift, come right
| |
| after supper, say, maybe get the breakfast. That
| |
| way Denver could care for Sethe in the day and
| |
| earn a little something at night, how's that?
| |
| Denver had explained the girl in her house
| |
| who plagued her mother as a cousin come to
| |
| visit, who got sick too and bothered them both.
| |
| Janey seemed more interested in Sethe's
| |
| condition, and from what Denver told her it
| |
| seemed the woman had lost her mind.
| |
| That wasn't the Sethe she remembered.
| |
| This Sethe had lost her wits, finally, as Janey
| |
| knew she would--trying to do it all alone with her
| |
| nose in the air. Denver squirmed under the
| |
| criticism of her mother, shifting in the chair and
| |
| keeping her eyes on the inside sink. Janey
| |
| Wagon went on about pride until she got to Baby
| |
| Suggs, for whom she had nothing but sweet
| |
| words. "I never went to those woodland services
| |
| she had, but she was always nice to me. Always.
| |
| Never be another like her."
| |
| "I miss her too," said Denver.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 482 of 525
| |
| "Bet you do. Everybody miss her. That was a good woman."
| |
| Denver didn't say anything else and Janey
| |
| looked at her face for a while. "Neither one of
| |
| your brothers ever come back to see how you all
| |
| was?"
| |
| "No, ma'am."
| |
| "Ever hear from them?"
| |
| "No, ma'am. Nothing."
| |
| "Guess they had a rough time in that
| |
| house. Tell me, this here woman in your house.
| |
| The cousin. She got any lines in her hands?"
| |
| "No," said Denver.
| |
| "Well," said Janey. "I guess there's a God after all."
| |
| The interview ended with Janey telling her
| |
| to come back in a few days. She needed time to
| |
| convince her employers what they needed: night
| |
| help because Janey's own family needed her. "I
| |
| don't want to quit these people, but they can't
| |
| have all my days and nights too."
| |
| What did Denver have to do at night?
| |
| "Be here. In case."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 483 of 525
| |
| In case what?
| |
| Janey shrugged. "In case the house burn
| |
| down." She smiled then.
| |
| "Or bad weather slop the roads so bad I
| |
| can't get here early enough for them. Case late
| |
| guests need serving or cleaning up after.
| |
| Anything.
| |
| Don't ask me what whitefolks need at night."
| |
| "They used to be good whitefolks."
| |
| "Oh, yeah. They good. Can't say they ain't
| |
| good. I wouldn't trade them for another pair, tell
| |
| you
| |
| that."
| |
| With those assurances, Denver left, but not
| |
| before she had seen, sitting on a shelf by the
| |
| back door, a blackboy's mouth full of money.
| |
| His head was thrown back farther than a
| |
| head could go, his hands were shoved in his
| |
| pockets. Bulging like moons, two eyes were all
| |
| the face he had above the gaping red mouth. His
| |
| hair was a cluster of raised, widely spaced dots
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 484 of 525
| |
| made of nail heads. And he was on his knees. His
| |
| mouth, wide as a cup,
| |
| held the coins needed to pay for a delivery or
| |
| some other small service, but could just as well
| |
| have held buttons, pins or crab-apple jelly.
| |
| Painted across the pedestal he knelt on were the
| |
| words "At Yo Service."
| |
| The news that Janey got hold of she
| |
| spread among the other coloredwomen.
| |
| Sethe's dead daughter, the one whose throat
| |
| she cut, had come back to fix her. Sethe was
| |
| worn down, speckled, dying, spinning,
| |
| changing shapes and generally bedeviled.
| |
| That this daughter beat her, tied her to the
| |
| bed and pulled out all her hair. It took them
| |
| days to get the story properly blown up and
| |
| themselves agitated and then to calm down
| |
| and assess the situation. They fell into three
| |
| groups: those that believed the worst; those
| |
| that believed none of it; and those, like Ella,
| |
| who thought it through.
| |
| "Ella. What's all this I'm hearing about
| |
| Sethe?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 485 of 525
| |
| "Tell me it's in there with her. That's all I
| |
| know."
| |
| "The daughter? The killed one?"
| |
| "That's what they tell me."
| |
| "How they know that's her?"
| |
| "It's sitting there. Sleeps, eats and raises
| |
| hell. Whipping Sethe every day."
| |
| "I'll be. A baby?"
| |
| "No. Grown. The age it would have been had
| |
| it lived."
| |
| "You talking about flesh?"
| |
| "I'm talking about flesh."
| |
| "whipping her?"
| |
| "Like she was batter."
| |
| "Guess she had it coming."
| |
| "Nobody got that coming."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 486 of 525
| |
| "But, Ella--"
| |
| "But nothing. What's fair ain't necessarily
| |
| right."
| |
| "You can't just up and kill your children."
| |
| "No, and the children can't just up and kill
| |
| the mama."
| |
| It was Ella more than anyone who
| |
| convinced the others that rescue was in order.
| |
| She was a practical woman who believed there
| |
| was a root either to chew or avoid for every
| |
| ailment. Cogitation, as she called it, clouded
| |
| things and prevented action. Nobody loved her
| |
| and she wouldn't have liked it if
| |
| they had, for she considered love a serious
| |
| disability. Her puberty was spent in a house
| |
| where she was shared by father and son, whom
| |
| she called "the lowest yet." It was "the lowest
| |
| yet" who gave her a disgust for sex and against
| |
| whom she measured all atrocities. A killing, a
| |
| kidnap, a rape--whatever, she listened and
| |
| nodded. Nothing compared to "the lowest yet."
| |
| She understood Sethe's rage in the shed
| |
| twenty years ago, but not her reaction to it,
| |
| which Ella thought was prideful, misdirected,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 487 of 525
| |
| and Sethe herself too complicated. When she
| |
| got out of jail and made no gesture toward
| |
| anybody, and lived as though she were alone,
| |
| Ella junked her and wouldn't give her the time
| |
| of day.
| |
| The daughter, however, appeared to have some sense after all.
| |
| At least she had stepped out the door,
| |
| asked or the help she needed and wanted work.
| |
| When Ella heard 124 was occupied by something
| |
| or-other beating up on Sethe, it infuriated her
| |
| and gave her another opportunity to measure
| |
| what could very well be the devil himself against
| |
| "the lowest yet." There was also something very
| |
| personal in her fury. Whatever Sethe had done,
| |
| Ella didn't like the idea of past errors taking
| |
| possession of the present. Sethe's crime was
| |
| staggering and her pride outstripped even that;
| |
| but she could not countenance the possibility of
| |
| sin moving on in the house, unleashed and
| |
| sassy.
| |
| Daily life took as much as she had. The
| |
| future was sunset; the past something to leave
| |
| behind. And if it didn't stay behind, well, you
| |
| might have to stomp it out. Slave life; freed
| |
| life--every day was a test and a trial. Nothing
| |
| could be counted on in a world where even when
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 488 of 525
| |
| you were a solution you were a problem.
| |
| "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," and
| |
| nobody needed more; nobody needed a
| |
| grown-up evil sitting at the table with a grudge.
| |
| As long as the ghost showed out from its ghostly
| |
| place- shaking stuff, crying, smashing and
| |
| such--Ella respected it. But if it took flesh and
| |
| came in her world, well, the shoe was on the
| |
| other foot. She didn't mind a little
| |
| communication between the two worlds, but this
| |
| was an invasion.
| |
| "Shall we pray?" asked the women.
| |
| "Uh huh," said Ella. "First. Then we got to get
| |
| down to business."
| |
| The day Denver was to spend her first night
| |
| at the Bodwins', Mr.
| |
| Bodwin had some business on the edge of
| |
| the city and told Janey he would pick the new girl
| |
| up before supper. Denver sat on the porch steps
| |
| with a bundle in her lap, her carnival dress
| |
| sun-faded to a quieter rainbow. She was looking
| |
| to the right, in the direction Mr.
| |
| Bodwin would be coming from. She did not
| |
| see the women approaching, accumulating
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 489 of 525
| |
| slowly in groups of twos and threes from the left.
| |
| Denver was looking to the right. She was a little
| |
| anxious about whether she would prove
| |
| satisfactory to the Bodwins, and uneasy too
| |
| because she woke up crying from a dream about
| |
| a running pair of shoes. The sadness of the
| |
| dream she hadn't been able to shake, and the
| |
| heat oppressed her as she went about the
| |
| chores. Far too early she wrapped a nightdress
| |
| and hairbrush into a bundle. Nervous, she
| |
| fidgeted the knot and looked to the right.
| |
| Some brought what they could and what
| |
| they believed would work. Stuffed in apron
| |
| pockets, strung around their necks, lying in the
| |
| space between their breasts. Others brought
| |
| Christian faith--as shield and sword. Most brought
| |
| a little of both. They had no idea what they would
| |
| do once they got there. They just started out,
| |
| walked down Bluestone Road and came together
| |
| at the agreed-upon time.
| |
| The heat kept a few women who promised to
| |
| go at home. Others who believed the story didn't
| |
| want any part of the confrontation and wouldn't
| |
| have come no matter what the weather. And there
| |
| were those like Lady Jones who didn't believe the
| |
| story and hated the ignorance of those who did. So
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 490 of 525
| |
| thirty women made up that company and walked
| |
| slowly, slowly toward 124.
| |
| It was three in the afternoon on a Friday so
| |
| wet and hot Cincinnati's stench had traveled to the
| |
| country: from the canal, from hanging meat and
| |
| things rotting in jars; from small animals dead in
| |
| the fields, town sewers and factories. The stench,
| |
| the heat, the moisture— trust the devil to make
| |
| his presence known. Otherwise it looked almost
| |
| like a regular workday. They could have been
| |
| going to do the laundry at the orphanage or the
| |
| insane asylum; corn shucking at the mill; or to
| |
| dean fish, rinse offal, cradle whitebabies, sweep
| |
| stores, scrape hog skin, press lard, case-pack
| |
| sausage or hide in tavern kitchens so whitepeople
| |
| didn't have to see them handle their food. But not
| |
| today.
| |
| When they caught up with each other, all
| |
| thirty, and arrived at 12 4, the first thing they saw
| |
| was not Denver sitting on the steps, but
| |
| themselves. Younger, stronger, even as little girls
| |
| lying in the grass asleep. Catfish was popping
| |
| grease in the pan and they saw themselves scoop
| |
| German potato salad onto the plate. Cobbler
| |
| oozing purple syrup colored their teeth. They sat
| |
| on the porch, ran down to the creek, teased the
| |
| men, hoisted children on their hips or, if they were
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 491 of 525
| |
| the children, straddled the ankles of old men who
| |
| held their little hands while giving them a horsey
| |
| ride. Baby Suggs laughed and skipped among
| |
| them, urging more. Mothers, dead now, moved
| |
| their shoulders to mouth harps. The fence they
| |
| had leaned on and climbed over was gone. The
| |
| stump of the butternut had split like a fan. But
| |
| there they were, young and happy, playing in
| |
| Baby Suggs' yard, not feeling the envy that
| |
| surfaced the next day.
| |
| Denver heard mumbling and looked to the
| |
| left. She stood when she saw them. They grouped,
| |
| murmuring and whispering, but did not step foot
| |
| in the yard. Denver waved. A few waved back but
| |
| came no closer. Denver sat back down wondering
| |
| what was going on. A woman dropped to her
| |
| knees. Half of the others did likewise. Denver saw
| |
| lowered heads, but could not hear the lead
| |
| prayer--only the earnest syllables of agreement
| |
| that backed it: Yes, yes, yes, oh yes.
| |
| Hear me. Hear me. Do it, Maker, do it. Yes.
| |
| Among those not on their knees, who stood
| |
| holding 124 in a fixed glare, was Ella, trying to see
| |
| through the walls, behind the door, to what was
| |
| really in there.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 492 of 525
| |
| Was it true the dead daughter come back?
| |
| Or a pretend? Was it whipping Sethe? Ella had
| |
| been beaten every way but down. She
| |
| remembered the bottom teeth she had lost to the
| |
| brake and the scars from the bell were thick as
| |
| rope around her waist. She had delivered, but
| |
| would not nurse, a hairy white thing, fathered by
| |
| "the lowest yet." It lived five days never making a
| |
| sound. The idea of that pup coming back to whip
| |
| her too set her jaw working, and then Ella
| |
| hollered.
| |
| Instantly the kneelers and the standers
| |
| joined her. They stopped praying and took a
| |
| step back to the beginning. In the beginning
| |
| there were no words. In the beginning was the
| |
| sound, and they all knew what that sound
| |
| sounded like.
| |
| Edward Bodwin drove a cart down
| |
| Bluestone Road. It displeased him a bit because
| |
| he preferred his figure astride Princess. Curved
| |
| over his own hands, holding the reins made him
| |
| look the age he was.
| |
| But he had promised his sister a detour to
| |
| pick up a new girl. He didn't have to think about
| |
| the way--he was headed for the house he was
| |
| born in. Perhaps it was his destination that
| |
| turned his thoughts to time--the way it dripped
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 493 of 525
| |
| or ran. He had not seen the house for thirty
| |
| years. Not the butternut in front, the stream at
| |
| the rear nor the block house in between. Not
| |
| even the meadow across the road.
| |
| Very few of the interior details did he
| |
| remember because he was three years old when
| |
| his family moved into town. But he did
| |
| remember that the cooking was done behind the
| |
| house, the well was forbidden to play near, and
| |
| that women died there: his mother,
| |
| grandmother, an aunt and an older sister before
| |
| he was born. The men (his father and
| |
| grandfather) moved with himself and his baby
| |
| sister to Court Street sixty-seven years ago. The
| |
| land, of course, eighty acres of it on both sides
| |
| of Bluestone, was the central thing, but he felt
| |
| something sweeter and deeper about the house
| |
| which is why he rented it for a little something if
| |
| he could get it, but it didn't trouble him to get no
| |
| rent at all since the tenants at least kept it from
| |
| the disrepair total abandonment would permit.
| |
| There was a time when he buried things
| |
| there. Precious things he wanted to protect. As a
| |
| child every item he owned was available and
| |
| accountable to his family. Privacy was an adult
| |
| indulgence, but when he got to be one, he
| |
| seemed not to need it.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 494 of 525
| |
| The horse trotted along and Edward
| |
| Bodwin cooled his beautiful mustache with his
| |
| breath. It was generally agreed upon by the
| |
| women in the Society that, except for his hands,
| |
| it was the most attractive feature he had. Dark,
| |
| velvety, its beauty was enhanced by his strong
| |
| clean-shaven chin. But his hair was white, like
| |
| his sister's--and had been since he was a young
| |
| man. It made him the most visible and
| |
| memorable person at every gathering, and
| |
| cartoonists had fastened onto the theatricality of
| |
| his white hair and big black mustache whenever
| |
| they depicted local political antagonism. Twenty
| |
| years ago when the Society was at its height in
| |
| opposing slavery, it was as though his coloring
| |
| was itself the heart of the matter. The "bleached
| |
| nigger" was what his enemies called him, and on
| |
| a trip to Arkansas, some Mississippi rivermen,
| |
| enraged by the Negro boatmen they competed
| |
| with, had caught him and shoe-blackened his
| |
| face and his hair. Those heady days were gone
| |
| now; what remained was the sludge of ill will;
| |
| dashed hopes and difficulties beyond repair. A
| |
| tranquil Republic?
| |
| Well, not in his lifetime.
| |
| Even the weather was getting to be too
| |
| much for him. He was either too hot or freezing,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 495 of 525
| |
| and this day was a blister. He pressed his hat
| |
| down to keep the sun from his neck, where
| |
| heatstroke was a real possibility. Such thoughts
| |
| of mortality were not new to him (he was over
| |
| seventy now), but they still had the power to
| |
| annoy. As he drew closer to the old homestead,
| |
| the place that continued to surface in
| |
| his dreams, he was even more aware of the
| |
| way time moved. Measured by the wars he
| |
| had lived through but not fought in (against
| |
| the Miami, the Spaniards, the
| |
| Secessionists), it was slow. But measured
| |
| by the burial of his private things it was the
| |
| blink of an eye.
| |
| Where, exactly, was the box of tin
| |
| soldiers? The watch chain with no watch? And
| |
| who was he hiding them from? His father,
| |
| probably, a deeply religious man who knew what
| |
| God knew and told everybody what it was.
| |
| Edward Bodwin thought him an odd man, in so
| |
| many ways, yet he had one clear directive:
| |
| human life is holy, all of it. And that his son still
| |
| believed, although he had less and less reason
| |
| to.
| |
| Nothing since was as stimulating as the old
| |
| days of letters, petitions, meetings, debates,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 496 of 525
| |
| recruitment, quarrels, rescue and downright
| |
| sedition.
| |
| Yet it had worked, more or less, and when
| |
| it had not, he and his sister made themselves
| |
| available to circumvent obstacles. As they had
| |
| when a runaway slavewoman lived in his
| |
| homestead with her mother-in-law and got
| |
| herself into a world of trouble. The Society
| |
| managed to turn infanticide and the cry of
| |
| savagery around, and build a further case for
| |
| abolishing slavery. Good years, they were, full of
| |
| spit and conviction. Now he just wanted to know
| |
| where his soldiers were and his watchless chain.
| |
| That would be enough for this day of unbearable
| |
| heat: bring back the new girl and recall exactly
| |
| where his treasure lay. Then home, supper, and
| |
| God willing, the sun would drop once more to
| |
| give him the blessing of a good night's sleep.
| |
| The road curved like an elbow, and as he approached it he heard the singers before he saw
| |
| them.
| |
| When the women assembled outside 124,
| |
| Sethe was breaking a lump of ice into chunks.
| |
| She dropped the ice pick into her apron pocket to
| |
| scoop the pieces into a basin of water. When the
| |
| music entered the window she was wringing a
| |
| cool cloth to put on Beloved's forehead. Beloved,
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 497 of 525
| |
| sweating profusely, was sprawled on the bed in
| |
| the keeping room, a salt rock in her hand. Both
| |
| women heard it at the same time and both lifted
| |
| their heads. As the voices grew louder, Beloved
| |
| sat up, licked the salt and went into the bigger
| |
| room. Sethe and she exchanged glances and
| |
| started toward the window. They saw Denver
| |
| sitting on the steps and beyond her, where the
| |
| yard met the road, they saw the rapt faces of
| |
| thirty neighborhood women.
| |
| Some had their eyes closed; others looked at the hot, cloudless sky.
| |
| Sethe opened the door and reached for
| |
| Beloved's hand. Together they stood in the
| |
| doorway. For Sethe it was as though the
| |
| Clearing had come to her with all its heat and
| |
| simmering leaves, where the voices of women
| |
| searched for the right combination, the key,
| |
| the code, the sound that broke the back of
| |
| words. Building voice upon voice until they
| |
| found it, and when they did it was a wave of
| |
| sound wide enough to sound deep water and
| |
| knock the pods off chestnut trees. It broke
| |
| over Sethe and she trembled like the baptized
| |
| in its wash.
| |
| The singing women recognized Sethe at
| |
| once and surprised themselves by their absence
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 498 of 525
| |
| of fear when they saw what stood next to her.
| |
| The devil-child was clever, they thought. And
| |
| beautiful. It had taken the shape of a pregnant
| |
| woman, naked and smiling in the heat of the
| |
| afternoon sun. Thunderblack and glistening, she
| |
| stood on long straight legs, her belly big and
| |
| tight. Vines of hair twisted all over her head.
| |
| Jesus. Her smile was dazzling.
| |
| Sethe feels her eyes burn and it may have
| |
| been to keep them clear that she looks up. The
| |
| sky is blue and clear. Not one touch of death in
| |
| the definite green of the leaves. It is when she
| |
| lowers her eyes to look again at the loving faces
| |
| before her that she sees him. Guiding the mare,
| |
| slowing down, his black hat wide-brimmed
| |
| enough to hide his face but not his purpose. He is
| |
| coming into her yard and he is coming for her
| |
| best thing. She hears wings. Little hummingbirds
| |
| stick needle beaks right through her headcloth
| |
| into her hair and beat their wings. And if she
| |
| thinks anything, it is no. No no. Nonono. She
| |
| flies.
| |
| The ice pick is not in her hand; it is her hand.
| |
| Standing alone on the porch, Beloved is
| |
| smiling. But now her hand is empty. Sethe is
| |
| running away from her, running, and she feels
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 499 of 525
| |
| the emptiness in the hand Sethe has been
| |
| holding. Now she is running into the faces of
| |
| the people out there, joining them and leaving
| |
| Beloved behind. Alone. Again. Then Denver,
| |
| running too.
| |
| Away from her to the pile of people out
| |
| there. They make a hill. A hill of black people,
| |
| falling. And above them all, rising from his
| |
| place with a whip in his hand, the man without
| |
| skin, looking. He is looking at her.
| |
| Bare feet and chamomile sap.
| |
| Took off my shoes; took off my hat.
| |
| Bare feet and chamomile sap
| |
| Gimme back my shoes; gimme back my hat.
| |
| Lay my head on a potato sack,
| |
| Devil sneak up behind my back.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 500 of 525
| |
| Steam engine got a lonesome whine; Love
| |
| that woman till you go stone blind. Stone
| |
| blind; stone blind.
| |
| Sweet Home gal make you lose your mind.
| |
| HIS COMING is the reverse route of his going.
| |
| First the cold house, the storeroom, then the
| |
| kitchen before he tackles the beds. Here Boy,
| |
| feeble and shedding his coat in patches, is asleep
| |
| by the pump, so Paul D knows Beloved is truly
| |
| gone. Disappeared, some say, exploded right
| |
| before their eyes. Ella is not so sure. "Maybe," she
| |
| says, "maybe not. Could be hiding in the trees
| |
| waiting for another chance." But when Paul D sees
| |
| the ancient dog, eighteen years if a day, he is
| |
| certain 124 is clear of her. But he opens the door
| |
| to the cold house halfway expecting to hear her.
| |
| "Touch me. Touch me. On the inside part and call
| |
| me my name."
| |
| There is the pallet spread with old
| |
| newspapers gnawed at the edges by mice. The
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 501 of 525
| |
| lard can. The potato sacks too, but empty now,
| |
| they lie on the dirt floor in heaps. In daylight he
| |
| can't imagine it in darkness with moonlight
| |
| seeping through the cracks. Nor the desire that
| |
| drowned him there and forced him to struggle up,
| |
| up into that girl like she was the clear air at the
| |
| top of the sea. Coupling with her wasn't even fun.
| |
| It was more like a brainless urge to stay alive.
| |
| Each time she came, pulled up her skirts, a
| |
| life hunger overwhelmed him and he had no more
| |
| control over it than over his lungs. And afterward,
| |
| beached and gobbling air, in the midst of
| |
| repulsion and personal shame, he was thankful
| |
| too for having been escorted to some ocean-deep
| |
| place he once belonged to.
| |
| Sifting daylight dissolves the memory,
| |
| turns it into dust motes floating in light. Paul D
| |
| shuts the door. He looks toward the house and,
| |
| surprisingly, it does not look back at him.
| |
| Unloaded, 124 is just another weathered house
| |
| needing repair. Quiet, just as Stamp Paid said.
| |
| "Used to be voices all round that place. Quiet, now," Stamp said.
| |
| "I been past it a few times and I can't hear a
| |
| thing. Chastened, I reckon, 'cause Mr. Bodwin say
| |
| he selling it soon's he can."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 502 of 525
| |
| "That the name of the one she tried to stab?
| |
| That one?"
| |
| "Yep. His sister say it's full of trouble. Told
| |
| Janey she was going to get rid of it."
| |
| "And him?" asked Paul D.
| |
| "Janey say he against it but won't stop it."
| |
| "Who they think want a house out there?
| |
| Anybody got the money don't want to live out
| |
| there."
| |
| "Beats me," Stamp answered. "It'll be a spell, I guess, before it get took off his hands." "He don't plan on taking her to the law?"
| |
| "Don't seem like it. Janey say all he wants
| |
| to know is who was the naked blackwoman
| |
| standing on the porch. He was looking at her so
| |
| hard he didn't notice what Sethe was up to. All
| |
| he saw was some coloredwomen fighting. He
| |
| thought Sethe was after one of them, Janey
| |
| say."
| |
| "Janey tell him any different?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 503 of 525
| |
| "No. She say she so glad her boss ain't
| |
| dead. If Ella hadn't clipped her, she say she
| |
| would have. Scared her to death have that
| |
| woman kill her boss. She and Denver be looking
| |
| for a job."
| |
| "Who Janey tell him the naked woman was?"
| |
| "Told him she didn't see none."
| |
| "You believe they saw it?"
| |
| "Well, they saw something. I trust Ella
| |
| anyway, and she say she looked it in the eye. It
| |
| was standing right next to Sethe. But from the
| |
| way they describe it, don't seem like it was the
| |
| girl I saw in there.
| |
| The girl I saw was narrow. This one was
| |
| big. She say they was holding hands and Sethe
| |
| looked like a little girl beside it."
| |
| "Little girl with a ice pick. How close she get to him?"
| |
| "Right up on him, they say. Before Denver and them grabbed her and Ella put her fist in her
| |
| jaw."
| |
| "He got to know Sethe was after him. He got to."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 504 of 525
| |
| "Maybe. I don't know. If he did think it, I
| |
| reckon he decided not to. That be just like him,
| |
| too. He's somebody never turned us down.
| |
| Steady as a rock. I tell you something, if
| |
| she had got to him, it'd be the worst thing in the
| |
| world for us. You know, don't you, he's the main
| |
| one kept Sethe from the gallows in the first
| |
| place."
| |
| "Yeah. Damn. That woman is crazy. Crazy."
| |
| "Yeah, well, ain't we all?"
| |
| They laughed then. A rusty chuckle at first
| |
| and then more, louder and louder until Stamp
| |
| took out his pocket handkerchief and wiped his
| |
| eyes while Paul D pressed the heel of his hand in
| |
| his own. As the scene neither one had witnessed
| |
| took shape before them, its seriousness and its
| |
| embarrassment made them shake with
| |
| laughter.
| |
| "Every time a whiteman come to the door she got to kill somebody?"
| |
| "For all she know, the man could be coming
| |
| for the rent."
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 505 of 525
| |
| "Good thing they don't deliver mail out that
| |
| way."
| |
| "Wouldn't nobody get no letter."
| |
| "Except the postman."
| |
| "Be a mighty hard message."
| |
| "And his last."
| |
| When their laughter was spent, they took
| |
| deep breaths and shook their heads.
| |
| "And he still going to let Denver spend the
| |
| night in his house?
| |
| Ha!"
| |
| "Aw no. Hey. Lay off Denver, Paul D.
| |
| That's my heart. I'm proud of that girl. She was
| |
| the first one wrestle her mother down. Before
| |
| anybody knew what the devil was going on."
| |
| "She saved his life then, you could say."
| |
| "You could. You could," said Stamp,
| |
| thinking suddenly of the leap, the wide swing
| |
| and snatch of his arm as he rescued the little
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 506 of 525
| |
| curly-headed baby from within inches of a split
| |
| skull. "I'm proud of her. She turning out fine.
| |
| Fine."
| |
| It was true. Paul D saw her the next
| |
| morning when he was on his way to work and
| |
| she was leaving hers. Thinner, steady in the
| |
| eyes, she looked more like Halle than ever.
| |
| She was the first to smile. "Good morning, Mr. D."
| |
| "Well, it is now." Her smile, no longer the
| |
| sneer he remembered, had welcome in it and
| |
| strong traces of Sethe's mouth. Paul D touched
| |
| his cap. "How you getting along?"
| |
| "Don't pay to complain."
| |
| "You on your way home?"
| |
| She said no. She had heard about an
| |
| afternoon job at the shirt factory. She hoped
| |
| that with her night work at the Bodwins' and
| |
| another one, she could put away something and
| |
| help her mother too.
| |
| When he asked her if they treated her all
| |
| right over there, she said more than all right.
| |
| Miss Bodwin taught her stuff. He asked her what
| |
| stuff and she laughed and said book stuff. "She
| |
| says I might go to Oberlin. She's experimenting
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 507 of 525
| |
| on me." And he didn't say, "Watch out. Watch
| |
| out. Nothing in the world more dangerous than
| |
| a white schoolteacher." Instead he nodded and
| |
| asked the question he wanted to.
| |
| "Your mother all right?"
| |
| "No," said Denver. "No. No, not a bit all
| |
| right."
| |
| "You think I should stop by? Would she
| |
| welcome it?"
| |
| "I don't know," said Denver. "I think I've lost
| |
| my mother, Paul D."
| |
| They were both silent for a moment and then
| |
| he said, "Uh, that girl. You know. Beloved?"
| |
| "Yes?"
| |
| "You think she sure 'nough your sister?"
| |
| Denver looked at her shoes. "At times.
| |
| At times I think she was-- more." She fiddled
| |
| with her shirtwaist, rubbing a spot of
| |
| something.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 508 of 525
| |
| Suddenly she leveled her eyes at his.
| |
| "But who would know that better than you,
| |
| Paul D? I mean, you sure 'nough knew her."
| |
| He licked his lips. "Well, if you want my
| |
| opinion--"
| |
| "I don't," she said. "I have my own."
| |
| "You grown," he said.
| |
| "Yes, sir."
| |
| "Well. Well, good luck with the job."
| |
| "Thank you. And, Paul D, you don't have to
| |
| stay 'way, but be careful how you talk to my
| |
| ma'am,
| |
| hear?"
| |
| "Don't worry," he said and left her then,
| |
| or rather she left him because a young man
| |
| was running toward her, saying, "Hey, Miss
| |
| Denver. Wait up."
| |
| She turned to him, her face looking like someone had turned up the gas jet.
| |
| He left her unwillingly because he
| |
| wanted to talk more, make sense out of the
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 509 of 525
| |
| stories he had been hearing: whiteman came
| |
| to take Denver to work and Sethe cut him.
| |
| Baby ghost came back evil and sent Sethe out
| |
| to get the man who kept her from hanging.
| |
| One point of agreement is: first they saw it
| |
| and then they didn't. When they got Sethe
| |
| down on the ground and the ice pick out of her
| |
| hands and looked back to the house, it was
| |
| gone. Later, a little boy put it out how he had
| |
| been looking for bait back of 124, down by the
| |
| stream, and saw, cutting through the woods, a
| |
| naked woman with fish for hair.
| |
| As a matter of fact, Paul D doesn't care
| |
| how It went or even why. He cares about how
| |
| he left and why. Then he looks at himself
| |
| through Garner's eyes, he sees one thing.
| |
| Through Sixo's, another.
| |
| One makes him feel righteous. One makes
| |
| him feel ashamed. Like the time he worked both
| |
| sides of the War. Running away from the
| |
| Northpoint Bank and Railway to join the 44th
| |
| Colored Regiment in Tennessee, he thought he
| |
| had made it, only to discover he had arrived at
| |
| another colored regiment forming under a
| |
| commander in New Jersey. He stayed there four
| |
| weeks. The regiment fell apart before it got
| |
| started on the question of whether the soldiers
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 510 of 525
| |
| should have weapons or not. Not, it was decided,
| |
| and the white commander had to figure out what
| |
| to command them to do instead of kill other
| |
| white men. Some of the ten thousand stayed
| |
| there to clean, haul and build things; others
| |
| drifted away to another regiment; most were
| |
| abandoned, left to their own devices with
| |
| bitterness for pay. He was trying to make up his
| |
| mind what to do when an agent from Northpoint
| |
| Bank caught up with him and took him back to
| |
| Delaware, where he slave-worked a year. Then
| |
| Northpoint took $300 in exchange for his
| |
| services in Alabama, where he worked for the
| |
| Rebellers, first sorting the dead and then
| |
| smelting iron. When he and his group combed
| |
| the battlefields, their job was to pull the
| |
| Confederate wounded away from the
| |
| Confederate dead. Care, they told them. Take
| |
| good care. Coloredmen and white, their faces
| |
| wrapped to their eyes, picked their way through
| |
| the meadows with lamps, listening in the dark for
| |
| groans of life in the indifferent silence of the
| |
| dead. Mostly young men, some children, and it
| |
| shamed him a little to feel pity for what he
| |
| imagined were the sons of the guards in Alfred,
| |
| Georgia.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 511 of 525
| |
| In five tries he had not had one permanent
| |
| success. Every one of his escapes (from Sweet
| |
| Home, from Brandywine, from Alfred, Georgia,
| |
| from Wilmington, from Northpoint) had been
| |
| frustrated. Alone, undisguised, with visible skin,
| |
| memorable hair and no whiteman to protect him,
| |
| he never stayed uncaught. The longest had been
| |
| when he ran with the convicts, stayed with the
| |
| Cherokee, followed their advice and lived in
| |
| hiding with the weaver woman in Wilmington,
| |
| Delaware: three years. And in all those escapes
| |
| he could not help being astonished by the beauty
| |
| of this land that was not his. He hid in its breast,
| |
| fingered its earth for food, clung to its banks to
| |
| lap water and tried not to love it. On nights when
| |
| the sky was personal, weak with the weight of its
| |
| own stars, he made himself not love it. Its
| |
| graveyards and low-lying rivers. Or just a
| |
| house—solitary under a chinaberry tree; maybe
| |
| a mule tethered and the light hitting its hide just
| |
| so. Anything could stir him and he tried hard not
| |
| to love it.
| |
| After a few months on the battlefields of
| |
| Alabama, he was impressed to a foundry in
| |
| Selma along with three hundred captured, lent or
| |
| taken coloredmen. That's where the War's end
| |
| found him, and leaving Alabama when he had
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 512 of 525
| |
| been declared free should have been a snap. He
| |
| should have been able to walk from the foundry
| |
| in Selma straight to Philadelphia, taking the main
| |
| roads, a train if he wanted to, or passage on a
| |
| boat. But it wasn't like that. When he and two
| |
| colored soldiers (who had been captured from
| |
| the 44th he had looked for) walked from Selma
| |
| to Mobile, they saw twelve dead blacks in the
| |
| first eighteen miles. Two were women, four were
| |
| little boys. He thought this, for sure, would be
| |
| the walk of his life.
| |
| The Yankees in control left the Rebels out
| |
| of control. They got to the outskirts of Mobile,
| |
| where blacks were putting down tracks for the
| |
| Union that, earlier, they had torn up for the
| |
| Rebels. One of the men with him, a private called
| |
| Keane, had been with the Massachusetts 54th.
| |
| He told Paul D they had been paid less than white
| |
| soldiers. It was a sore point with him that, as a
| |
| group, they had refused the offer Massachusetts
| |
| made to make up the difference in pay. Paul D
| |
| was so impressed by the idea of being paid
| |
| money to fight he looked at the private with
| |
| wonder and envy.
| |
| Keane and his friend, a Sergeant Rossiter,
| |
| confiscated a skiff and the three of them floated in
| |
| Mobile Bay. There the private hailed a Union
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 513 of 525
| |
| gunboat, which took all three aboard. Keane and
| |
| Rossiter disembarked at Memphis to look for their
| |
| commanders. The captain of the gunboat let Paul
| |
| D stay aboard all the way to Wheeling, West
| |
| Virginia. He made his own way to New Jersey.
| |
| By the time he got to Mobile, he had seen
| |
| more dead people than living ones, but when he
| |
| got to Trenton the crowds of alive people, neither
| |
| hunting nor hunted, gave him a measure of free
| |
| life so tasty he never forgot it. Moving down a busy
| |
| street full of whitepeople who needed no
| |
| explanation for his presence, the glances he got
| |
| had to do with his disgusting clothes and
| |
| unforgivable hair. Still, nobody raised an alarm.
| |
| Then came the miracle. Standing in a street in
| |
| front of a row of brick houses, he heard a
| |
| whiteman call him ("Say there!
| |
| Yo!") to help unload two trunks from a coach
| |
| cab. Afterward the whiteman gave him a coin. Paul
| |
| D walked around with it for hours-- not sure what it
| |
| could buy (a suit? a meal? a horse?) and if anybody
| |
| would sell him anything. Finally he saw a
| |
| greengrocer selling vegetables from a wagon. Paul
| |
| D pointed to a bunch of turnips. The grocer handed
| |
| them to him, took his one coin and gave him
| |
| several more. Stunned, he backed away. Looking
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 514 of 525
| |
| around, he saw that nobody seemed interested in
| |
| the "mistake" or him, so he walked along, happily
| |
| chewing turnips. Only a few women looked
| |
| vaguely repelled as they passed. His first earned
| |
| purchase made him glow, never mind the turnips
| |
| were withered dry. That was when he decided that
| |
| to eat, walk and sleep anywhere was life as good
| |
| as it got. And he did it for seven years till he found
| |
| himself in southern Ohio, where an old woman and
| |
| a girl he used to know had gone.
| |
| Now his coming is the reverse of his going.
| |
| First he stands in the back, near the cold house,
| |
| amazed by the riot of late-summer flowers where
| |
| vegetables should be growing. Sweet william,
| |
| morning glory, chrysanthemums. The odd
| |
| placement of cans jammed with the rotting stems
| |
| of things, the blossoms shriveled like sores. Dead
| |
| ivy twines around bean poles and door handles.
| |
| Faded newspaper pictures are nailed to the
| |
| outhouse and on trees. A rope too short for
| |
| anything but skip-jumping lies discarded near the
| |
| washtub; and jars and jars of dead lightning bugs.
| |
| Like a child's house; the house of a very tall child.
| |
| He walks to the front door and opens it. It is
| |
| stone quiet. In the place where once a shaft of
| |
| sad red light had bathed him, locking him where
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 515 of 525
| |
| he stood, is nothing. A bleak and minus nothing.
| |
| More like absence, but an absence he had to get
| |
| through with the same determination he had
| |
| when he trusted Sethe and stepped through the
| |
| pulsing light. He glances quickly at the
| |
| lightning-white stairs. The entire railing is wound
| |
| with ribbons, bows, bouquets. Paul D steps
| |
| inside. The outdoor breeze he brings with him
| |
| stirs the ribbons.
| |
| Carefully, not quite in a hurry but losing no
| |
| time, he climbs the luminous stairs. He enters
| |
| Sethe's room. She isn't there and the bed looks so
| |
| small he wonders how the two of them had lain
| |
| there. It has no sheets, and because the roof
| |
| windows do not open the room is stifling. Brightly
| |
| colored clothes lie on the floor. Hanging from a wall
| |
| peg is the dress Beloved wore when he first saw
| |
| her. A pair of ice skates nestles in a basket in the
| |
| corner. He turns his eyes back to the bed and
| |
| keeps looking at it. It seems to him a place he is
| |
| not.
| |
| With an effort that makes him sweat he
| |
| forces a picture of himself lying there, and when
| |
| he sees it, it lifts his spirit. He goes to the other
| |
| bedroom. Denver's is as neat as the other is
| |
| messy. But still no Sethe.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 516 of 525
| |
| Maybe she has gone back to work, gotten
| |
| better in the days since he talked to Denver. He
| |
| goes back down the stairs, leaving the image of
| |
| himself firmly in place on the narrow bed. At the
| |
| kitchen table he sits down. Something is
| |
| missing from 124. Something larger than the
| |
| people who lived there. Something more than
| |
| Beloved or the red light. He can't put his finger
| |
| on it, but it seems, for a moment, that just
| |
| beyond his knowing is the glare of an outside
| |
| thing that embraces while it accuses.
| |
| To the right of him, where the door to the
| |
| keeping room is ajar, he hears humming.
| |
| Someone is humming a tune. Something soft
| |
| and sweet, like a lullaby. Then a few words.
| |
| Sounds like "high Johnny, wide Johnny. Sweet
| |
| William bend down low." Of course, he thinks.
| |
| That's where she is--and she is. Lying under a quilt of merry colors.
| |
| Her hair, like the dark delicate roots of
| |
| good plants, spreads and curves on the pillow.
| |
| Her eyes, fixed on the window, are so
| |
| expressionless he is not sure she will know who
| |
| he is. There is too much light here in this room.
| |
| Things look sold.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 517 of 525
| |
| "Jackweed raise up high," she sings.
| |
| "Lambswool over my shoulder, buttercup and
| |
| clover fly." She is fingering a long clump of her
| |
| hair.
| |
| Paul D clears his throat to interrupt her.
| |
| "Sethe?"
| |
| She turns her head. "Paul D."
| |
| "Aw, Sethe."
| |
| "I made the ink, Paul D. He couldn't have
| |
| done it if I hadn't made the ink."
| |
| "What ink? Who?"
| |
| "You shaved."
| |
| "Yeah. Look bad?"
| |
| "No. You looking good."
| |
| "Devil's confusion. What's this I hear about
| |
| you not getting out of bed?"
| |
| She smiles, lets it fade and turns her eyes
| |
| back to the window.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 518 of 525
| |
| "I need to talk to you," he tells her.
| |
| She doesn't answer.
| |
| "I saw Denver. She tell you?"
| |
| "She comes in the daytime. Denver. She's
| |
| still with me, my Denver."
| |
| "You got to get up from here, girl." He is
| |
| nervous. This reminds him of something.
| |
| "I'm tired, Paul D. So tired. I have to rest a
| |
| while."
| |
| Now he knows what he is reminded of and
| |
| he shouts at her, "Don't you die on me! This is
| |
| Baby Suggs' bed! Is that what you planning?" He
| |
| is so angry he could kill her. He checks himself,
| |
| remembering Denver's warning, and whispers,
| |
| "What you planning, Sethe?"
| |
| "Oh, I don't have no plans. No plans at all."
| |
| "Look," he says, "Denver be here in the
| |
| day. I be here in the night. I'm a take care of
| |
| you, you hear? Starting now. First off, you don't
| |
| smell right. Stay there. Don't move. Let me heat
| |
| up some water." He stops. "Is it all right, Sethe,
| |
| if I heat up some water?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 519 of 525
| |
| "And count my feet?" she asks him.
| |
| He steps closer. "Rub your feet."
| |
| Sethe closes her eyes and presses her
| |
| lips together. She is thinking: No. This little
| |
| place by a window is what I want. And rest.
| |
| There's nothing to rub now and no reason to.
| |
| Nothing left to bathe, assuming he even knows
| |
| how. Will he do it in sections? First her face,
| |
| then her hands, her thighs, her feet, her back?
| |
| Ending with her exhausted breasts? And if he
| |
| bathes her in sections, will the parts hold? She
| |
| opens her eyes, knowing the danger of looking
| |
| at him. She looks at him. The peachstone skin,
| |
| the crease between his ready, waiting eyes and
| |
| sees it--the thing in him, the blessedness, that
| |
| has made him the kind of man who can walk in
| |
| a house and make the women cry.
| |
| Because with him, in his presence, they
| |
| could. Cry and tell him things they only told each
| |
| other: that time didn't stay put; that she called,
| |
| but Howard and Buglar walked on down the
| |
| railroad track and couldn't hear her; that Amy
| |
| was scared to stay with her because her feet
| |
| were ugly and her back looked so bad; that her
| |
| ma'am had hurt her feelings and she couldn't
| |
| find her hat anywhere and "Paul D?"
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 520 of 525
| |
| "What, baby?"
| |
| "She left me."
| |
| "Aw, girl. Don't cry."
| |
| "She was my best thing."
| |
| Paul D sits down in the rocking chair and
| |
| examines the quilt patched in carnival colors. His
| |
| hands are limp between his knees.
| |
| There are too many things to feel about this woman. His head hurts.
| |
| Suddenly he remembers Sixo trying to
| |
| describe what he felt about the Thirty-Mile
| |
| Woman. "She is a friend of my mind. She gather
| |
| me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and
| |
| give them back to me in all the right order. It's
| |
| good, you know, when you got a woman who is
| |
| a friend of your mind."
| |
| He is staring at the quilt but he is thinking
| |
| about her wrought iron back; the delicious
| |
| mouth still puffy at the corner from Ella's fist.
| |
| The mean black eyes. The wet dress steaming
| |
| before the fire.
| |
| Her tenderness about his neck
| |
| jewelry--its three wands, like attentive baby
| |
| rattlers, curving two feet into the air. How she
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 521 of 525
| |
| never mentioned or looked at it, so he did not
| |
| have to feel the shame of being collared like a
| |
| beast. Only this woman Sethe could have left
| |
| him his manhood like that. He wants to put his
| |
| story next to hers.
| |
| "Sethe," he says, "me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody.
| |
| We need some kind of tomorrow."
| |
| He leans over and takes her hand. With
| |
| the other he touches her face. "You your best
| |
| thing, Sethe. You are." His holding fingers are
| |
| holding hers.
| |
| "Me? Me?"
| |
| THERE IS a loneliness that can be rocked.
| |
| Arms crossed, knees drawn up; holding,
| |
| holding on, this motion, unlike a ship's,
| |
| smooths and contains the rocker. It's an
| |
| inside kind--wrapped tight like skin.
| |
| Then there is a loneliness that roams. No
| |
| rocking can hold it down.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 522 of 525
| |
| It is alive, on its own. A dry and spreading
| |
| thing that makes the sound of one's own feet
| |
| going seem to come from a far-off place.
| |
| Everybody knew what she was called, but
| |
| nobody anywhere knew her name.
| |
| Disremembered and unaccounted for, she
| |
| cannot be lost because no one is looking for her,
| |
| and even if they were, how can they call her if
| |
| they don't know her name? Although she has
| |
| claim, she is not claimed. In the place where
| |
| long grass opens, the girl who waited to be
| |
| loved and cry shame erupts into her separate
| |
| parts, to make it easy for the chewing laughter
| |
| to swallow her all away.
| |
| It was not a story to pass on.
| |
| They forgot her like a bad dream. After
| |
| they made up their tales, shaped and decorated
| |
| them, those that saw her that day on the porch
| |
| quickly and deliberately forgot her. It took
| |
| longer for those who had spoken to her, lived
| |
| with her, fallen in love with her, to forget, until
| |
| they realized they couldn't remember or repeat
| |
| a single thing she said, and began to believe
| |
| that, other than what they themselves
| |
| were thinking, she hadn't said anything at all.
| |
| So, in the end, they forgot her too.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 523 of 525
| |
| Remembering seemed unwise. They never
| |
| knew where or why she crouched, or whose was
| |
| the underwater face she needed like that.
| |
| Where the memory of the smile under her chin
| |
| might have been and was not, a latch latched
| |
| and lichen attached its apple-green bloom to
| |
| the metal. What made her think her fingernails
| |
| could open locks the rain rained on?
| |
| It was not a story to pass on.
| |
| So they forgot her. Like an unpleasant
| |
| dream during a troubling sleep. Occasionally,
| |
| however, the rustle of a skirt hushes when they
| |
| wake, and the knuckles brushing a cheek in
| |
| sleep seem to belong to the sleeper. Sometimes
| |
| the photograph of a close friend or
| |
| relative-looked at too long--shifts, and
| |
| something more familiar than the dear face
| |
| itself moves there. They can touch it if they like,
| |
| but don't, because they know things will never
| |
| be the same if they do.
| |
| This is not a story to pass on.
| |
| Down by the stream in back of 124 her
| |
| footprints come and go, come and go. They are
| |
| so familiar. Should a child, an adult place his
| |
| feet in them, they will fit. Take them out and
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 524 of 525
| |
| they disappear again as though nobody ever
| |
| walked there.
| |
| By and by all trace is gone, and what is
| |
| forgotten is not only the footprints but the water
| |
| too and what it is down there. The rest is
| |
| weather. Not the breath of the disremembered
| |
| and unaccounted for, but wind in the eaves, or
| |
| spring ice thawing too quickly. Just weather.
| |
| Certainly no clamor for a kiss.
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Beloved
| |
| Toni Morrison
| |
| Page 525 of 525
| |
| TONI MORRISON was born in Lorain, Ohio. The recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, and of
| |
| the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for Beloved, she is the author of six other novels. The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, which won the 1978 National Book Critics
| |
| Circle Award for fiction, Tar Baby, Jazz, andParadise, which are available or forthcoming in Plume editions.
| |
| She is Robert F.Goheen Professor, Council of the
| |
| Humanities, at Princeton University.
| |
|
| |
|
| == 하위 연습장 == | | == 하위 연습장 == |
| 14,005번째 줄: |
19번째 줄: |
| * [[연습장:Kimchan/팁]]: 위키 이용 및 편집에 있어 유용한 팁들 | | * [[연습장:Kimchan/팁]]: 위키 이용 및 편집에 있어 유용한 팁들 |
| * [[연습장:Kimchan/공부]]: 대학 공부와 관련된 메모 | | * [[연습장:Kimchan/공부]]: 대학 공부와 관련된 메모 |
| | * [[연습장:Kimchan/모듈]]: 루아 연습 및 모듈 테스트 |
| * [[틀:김찬 틀 연습장]]: 끼워넣기 등 틀 관련 문법 연습 및 테스트 | | * [[틀:김찬 틀 연습장]]: 끼워넣기 등 틀 관련 문법 연습 및 테스트 |
| * [[틀:김찬/styles.css]]: 틀 스타일 연습 및 테스트 | | * [[틀:김찬/styles.css]]: 틀 스타일 연습 및 테스트 |
| | * [[모듈:kimchan]]: 루아 연습 및 모듈 테스트 |
하위 문서: 메모, 낙서, 노트, 연구, 팁, 공부, 모듈
