Beloved_a novel

by Toni Morrison

  "He's sleeping in the church," said Ella.

  "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."

  "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?"

  "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 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?"

  "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.

  "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 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 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 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 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 ju
st 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?"

  "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. 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 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 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 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 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 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.

  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?"

  "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 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?"

  "Umm. Like, a feature of summer is heat. A characteristic is a feature. A thing that's natural to a thing."