by Alice Walker
Anybody can wear them, I said.
Men and women not suppose to wear the same thing, he said. Men spose to wear the pants.
So I said, You ought to tell that to the mens in Africa.
Say what? he ast. First time he ever thought bout what Africans do.
People in Africa try to wear what feel comfortable in the heat, I say. Of course, missionaries have they own ideas bout dress. But left to themself, Africans wear a little sometimes, or a lot, according to Nettie. But men and women both preshate a nice dress.
Robe you said before, he say.
Robe, dress. Not pants, anyhow.
Well, he say. I’ll be dog.
And men sew in Africa, too, I say.
They do? he ast.
Yeah, I say. They not so backward as mens here.
When I was growing up, he said, I use to try to sew along with mama cause that’s what she was always doing. But everybody laughed at me. But you know, I liked it.
Well, nobody gon laugh at you now, I said. Here, help me stitch in these pockets.
But I don’t know how, he say.
I’ll show you, I said. And I did.
Now us sit sewing and talking and smoking our pipes.
Guess what, I say to him, folks in Africa where Nettie and the children is believe white people is black peoples children.
Naw, he say, like this interesting but his mind really on the slant of his next stitch.
They named Adam some other name soon as he arrive. They say the white missionaries before Nettie and them come told them all about Adam from the white folks point of view and what the white folks know. But they know who Adam is from they own point of view. And for a whole lot longer time ago.
And who that? Mr. _____ ast.
The first man that was white. Not the first man. They say nobody so crazy they think they can say who was the first man. But everybody notice the first white man cause he was white.
Mr. _____ frown, look at the different color thread us got. Thread his needle, lick his finger, tie a knot.
They say everybody before Adam was black. Then one day some woman they just right away kill, come out with this colorless baby. They thought at first it was something she ate. But then another one had one and also the women start to have twins. So the people start to put the white babies and the twins to death. So really Adam wasn’t even the first white man. He was just the first one the people didn’t kill.
Mr. _____ look at me real thoughtful. He not such a bad looking man, you know, when you come right down to it. And now it do begin to look like he got a lot of feeling hind his face.
Well, I say, you know black folks have what you call albinos to this day. But you never hear of white folks having nothing black unless some black man been messing with ’em. And no white folks been in Africa back yonder when all this happen.
So these Olinka people heard about Adam and Eve from the white missionaries and they heard about how the serpent tricked Eve and how God chased them out of the garden of Eden. And they was real curious to hear this, cause after they had chased the white Olinka children out of the village they hadn’t hardly thought no more about it. Nettie say one thing about Africans. Out of sight, out of mind. And another thing, they don’t like nothing around them that look or act different. They want everybody to be just alike. So you know somebody white wouldn’t last long. She say seem like to her the Africans throwed out the white Olinka peoples for how they look. They throwed out the rest of us, all us who become slaves, for how us act. Seem like us just wouldn’t do right no matter how us try. Well, you know how niggers is. Can’t nobody tell ’em nothing even today. Can’t be rule. Every nigger you see got a kingdom in his head.
But guess what else, I say to Mr. ____. When the missionaries got to the part bout Adam and Eve being naked, the Olinka peoples nearly bust out laughing. Especially when the missionaries tried to make them put on clothes because of this. They tried to explain to the missionaries that it was they who put Adam and Eve out of the village because they was naked. Their word for naked is white. But since they are covered by color they are not naked. They said anybody looking at a white person can tell they naked, but black people can not be naked because they can not be white.
Yeah, say Mr. ____. But they was wrong.
Right, I said. Adam and Eve prove it. What they did, these Olinka peoples, was throw out they own children, just cause they was a little different.
I bet they do that same kind of stuff today, Mr. _____ say.
Oh, from what Nettie say, them Africans is a mess. And you know what the bible say, the fruit don’t fall too far from the tree. And something else, I say. Guess who they say the snake is?
Us, no doubt, say Mr. ____.
Right, I say. Whitefolks sign for they parents. They was so mad to git throwed out and told they was naked they made up they minds to crush us wherever they find us, same as they would a snake.
You reckon? Mr. _____ ast.
That’s what these Olinka peoples say. But they say just like they know history before the white children start to come, they know the future after the biggest of ’em leave. They say they know these particular children and they gon kill each other off, they still so mad bout being unwanted. Gon kill off a lot of other folk too who got some color. In fact, they gon kill off so much of the earth and the colored that everybody gon hate them just like they hate us today. Then they will become the new serpent. And wherever a white person is found he’ll be crush by somebody not white, just like they do us today. And some of the Olinka peoples believe life will just go on and on like this forever. And every million years or so something will happen to the earth and folks will change the way they look. Folks might start growing two heads one of these days, for all we know, and then the folks with one head will send ’em all someplace else. But some of ’em don’t think like this. They think, after the biggest of the white folks no longer on the earth, the only way to stop making somebody the serpent is for everybody to accept everybody else as a child of God, or one mother’s children, no matter what they look like or how they act. And guess what else about the snake?
What? he ast.
These Olinka people worship it. They say who knows, maybe it is kinfolks, but for sure it’s the smartest, cleanest, slickest thing they ever seen.
These folks sure must have a heap of time just to sit and think, say Mr. ___.
Nettie say they real good at thinking, I say. But they think so much in terms of thousands of years they have a hard time gitting themself through one.
So what they name Adam?
Something sound like Omatangu, I say. It mean a un-naked man somewhere near the first one God made that knowed what he was. A whole lot of the men that come before the first man was men, but none of ’em didn’t know it. You know how long it take some mens to notice anything, I say.
Took me long enough to notice you such good company, he say. And he laugh.
He ain’t Shug, but he begin to be somebody I can talk to.
And no matter how much the telegram said you must be drown, I still git letters from you.
Your Sister, Celie
DEAR CELIE,
After two and a half months Adam and Tashi returned! Adam overtook Tashi and her mother and some other members of our compound as they were nearing the village where the white woman missionary had lived, but Tashi would not hear of turning back, nor would Catherine, and so Adam accompanied them to the mbeles encampment.
Oh, he says, it is the most extraordinary place!
You know, Celie, in Africa there is a huge depression in the earth called the great rift valley, but it is on the other side of the continent from where we are. However, according to Adam, there is a “small” rift on our side, several thousand acres large and even deeper than the great rift, which covers millions of acres. It is a place set so deep into the earth that it can only really be seen, Adam thinks, from the air, and then it would seem just an overgrown canyon. Well, in this overgrown canyon ar
e a thousand people from dozens of African tribes, and even one colored man—Adam swears—from Alabama! There are farms. There is a school. An infirmary. A temple. And there are male and female warriors who do indeed go on missions of sabotage against the white plantations.
But all this seemed more a marvel in the recounting than in the actual experiencing of it, if I am any judge of Adam and Tashi. Their minds seem to have been completely riveted on each other.
I wish you could have seen them as they staggered into the compound. Filthy as hogs, hair as wild as could be. Sleepy. Exhausted. Smelly. God knows. But still arguing.
Just because I came back with you, don’t think I am saying yes to marriage, says Tashi.
Oh yes you are, says Adam, heatedly, but through a yawn. You promised your mother. I promised your mother.
Nobody in America will like me, says Tashi.
I will like you, says Adam.
Olivia ran and enfolded Tashi in her arms. Ran about preparing food and a bath.
Last night, after Tashi and Adam had slept most of the day, we had a family conference. We informed them that because so many of our people had gone to join the mbeles and the planters were beginning to bring in Moslem workers from the North, and because it was time for us to do so, we would be leaving for home in a matter of weeks.
Adam announced his desire to marry Tashi.
Tashi announced her refusal to be married.
And then, in that honest, forthright way of hers, she gave her reasons. Paramount among them that, because of the scarification marks on her cheeks Americans would look down on her as a savage and shun her, and whatever children she and Adam might have. That she had seen the magazines we receive from home and that it was very clear to her that black people did not truly admire blackskinned black people like herself, and especially did not admire blackskinned black women. They bleach their faces, she said. They fry their hair. They try to look naked.
Also, she continued, I fear Adam will be distracted by one of these naked looking women and desert me. Then I would have no country, no people, no mother and no husband and brother.
You’d have a sister, said Olivia.
Then Adam spoke. He asked Tashi to forgive his initial stupid response to the scarification. And to forgive the repugnance he’d felt about the female initiation ceremony. He assured Tashi that it was she he loved and that in America she would have country, people, parents, sister, husband, brother and lover, and that whatever befell her in America would also be his own choice and his own lot.
Oh, Celie.
So, the next day, our boy came to us with scars identical to Tashi’s on his cheeks.
And they are so happy. So happy, Celie. Tashi and Adam Omatangu.
Samuel married them, of course, and all the people left in the compound came to wish them happiness and an abundance of roofleaf forever. Olivia stood up with the bride and a friend of Adam’s—a man too old to have joined the mbeles—stood up with him. Immediately after the wedding we left the compound, riding in a lorry that took us to a boat at the coast inlet that flows out to sea.
In a few weeks, we will all be home.
Your loving sister, Nettie
DEAR NETTIE,
Mr. _____ talk to Shug a lot lately by telephone. He say as soon as he told her my sister and her family was missing, she and Germaine made a beeline for the State department trying to find out what happen. He say Shug say it just kill her to think I’m down here suffering from not knowing. But nothing happen at the State department. Nothing at the department of defense. It’s a big war. So much going on. One ship lost feel like nothing, I guess. Plus, colored don’t count to those people.
Well, they just don’t know, and never did. Never will. And so what? I know you on your way home and you may not git here till I’m ninety, but one of these days I do expect to see your face.
Meanwhile, I hired Sofia to clerk in our store. Kept the white man Alphonso got to run it, but put Sofia in there to wait on colored cause they never had nobody in a store to wait on ’em before and nobody in a store to treat ’em nice. Sofia real good at selling stuff too cause she act like she don’t care if you buy or not. No skin off her nose. And then if you decide to buy anyhow, well, she might exchange a few pleasant words with you. Plus, she scare that white man. Anybody else colored he try to call ’em auntie or something. First time he try that with Sofia she ast him which colored man his mama sister marry.
I ast Harpo do he mind if Sofia work.
What I’m gon mind for? he say. It seem to make her happy. And I can take care of anything come up at home. Anyhow, he say, Sofia got me a little help for when Henrietta need anything special to eat or git sick.
Yeah, say Sofia. Miss Eleanor Jane gon look in on Henrietta and every other day promise to cook her something she’ll eat. You know white people have a look of machinery in they kitchen. She whip up stuff with yams you’d never believe. Last week she went and made yam ice cream.
How this happen? I ast. I thought the two of you was through.
Oh, say Sofia. It finally dawn on her to ast her mama why I come to work for them.
I don’t expect it to last, though, say Harpo. You know how they is.
Do her peoples know? I ask.
They know, say Sofia. They carrying on just like you know they would. Whoever heard of a white woman working for niggers, they rave. She tell them, Whoever heard of somebody like Sofia working for trash.
She bring Reynolds Stanley with her? I ask.
Henrietta say she don’t mind him.
Well, say Harpo, I’m satisfied if her menfolks against her helping you, she gon quit.
Let her quit, say Sofia. It not my salvation she working for. And if she don’t learn she got to face judgment for herself, she won’t even have live.
Well, you got me behind you, anyway, say Harpo. And I loves every judgment you ever made. He move up and kiss her where her nose was stitch.
Sofia toss her head. Everybody learn something in life, she say. And they laugh.
Speaking of learning, Mr. _____ say one day us was sewing out on the porch, I first start to learn all them days ago I use to sit up there on my porch, staring out cross the railing.
Just miserable. That’s what I was. And I couldn’t understand why us have life at all if all it can do most times is make us feel bad. All I ever wanted in life was Shug Avery, he say. And one while, all she wanted in life was me. Well, us couldn’t have each other, he say. I got Annie Julia. Then you. All them rotten children. She got Grady and who know who all. But still, look like she come out better than me. A lot of people love Shug, but nobody but Shug love me.
Hard not to love Shug, I say. She know how to love somebody back.
I tried to do something bout my children after you left me. But by that time it was too late. Bub come with me for two weeks, stole all my money, laid up on the porch drunk. My girls so far off into mens and religion they can’t hardly talk. Every time they open they mouth some kind of plea come out. Near bout to broke my sorry heart.
If you know your heart sorry, I say, that mean it not quite as spoilt as you think.
Anyhow, he say, you know how it is. You ask yourself one question, it lead to fifteen. I start to wonder why us need love. Why us suffer. Why us black. Why us men and women. Where do children really come from. It didn’t take long to realize I didn’t hardly know nothing. And that if you ast yourself why you black or a man or a woman or a bush it don’t mean nothing if you don’t ask why you here, period.
So what you think? I ask.
I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, he say, the more I love.
And people start to love you back, I bet, I say.
They do, he say, surprise. Harpo seem to love me. Sofia and the children. I think even ole evil H
enrietta love me a little bit, but that’s cause she know she just as big a mystery to me as the man in the moon.
Mr. _____ is busy patterning a shirt for folks to wear with my pants.
Got to have pockets, he say. Got to have loose sleeves. And definitely you not spose to wear it with no tie. Folks wearing ties look like they being lynch.
And then, just when I know I can live content without Shug, just when Mr. _____ done ask me to marry him again, this time in the spirit as well as in the flesh, and just after I say Naw, I still don’t like frogs, but let’s us be friends, Shug write me she coming home.
Now. Is this life or not?
I be so calm.
If she come, I be happy. If she don’t, I be content.
And then I figure this the lesson I was suppose to learn.
Oh Celie, she say, stepping out of the car, dress like a moving star, I missed you more than I missed my own mama.
Us hug.
Come on in, I say.
Oh, the house look so nice, she say, when us git to her room. You know I love pink.
Got you some elephants and turtles coming, too, I say.
Where your room? she ast.
Down the hall, I say.
Let’s go see it, she say.
Well, here it is, I say, standing in the door. Everything in my room purple and red cept the floor, that painted bright yellow. She go right to the little purple frog perch on my mantlepiece.
What this? she ast.
Oh, I say, a little something Albert carve for me.
She look at me funny for a minute, I look at her. Then us laugh.
Where Germaine at? I ast.
In college, she say. Wilberforce. Can’t let all that talent go to waste. Us through, though, she say. He feel just like family now. Like a son. Maybe a grandson. What you and Albert been up to? she ast.
Nothing much, I say.
She say, I know Albert and I bet he been up to something, with you looking as fine as you look.
Us sew, I say. Make idle conversation.
How idle? she ast.
What do you know, I think. Shug jealous. I have a good mind to make up a story just to make her feel bad. But I don’t
