保罗•D不能指挥他的双脚，可是他认为自己还能说话，于是他下定决心以这种方式爆发。他要跟塞丝谈谈过去的三个星期：当她从她称做餐馆的那家露天啤酒馆下班、单独回家的时候，揪住她，向她和盘托出。
他等着她。冬日的午后看上去已像黄昏，他在索亚餐馆后面的巷子里站着。一边想象着她的面容，一边排练，让词句在他脑袋里聚集起来，好像准备排好队、跟着排头走的孩子们一样。
“这个，呃，这事不是，一个男人不能，你瞧，可是噢听着，不是那个，真的不是，老家伙加纳，我的意思是，这不是个弱点，我能战胜的那种弱点，因为、因为我出了点儿事，是那个姑娘干的，我知道你觉得我从来不可能喜欢她，可这是她对我干的。耍我。塞丝，她耍了我，可我甩不掉她。”
什么？一个壮年男子汉让一个小姑娘给耍了？可是如果那姑娘不是个姑娘，而是什么东西假装的呢？是一个貌似甜姑娘的下流坯，而操她还是没操她就不是关键，问题是他不能够在124号里面自由去留，而且危险在于失去塞丝，因为他不能像个十足的男子汉一样爆发，所以他需要她，塞丝，来帮助他，来了解这件事情，而他又耻于去乞求他想保护的女人来帮助他，真他妈的。
保罗•D向自己扣起的双手中呵着热气。风疾速穿过胡同，梳亮了四只等待残羹剩饭的厨房狗的皮毛。他看着狗。狗看着他。
后门终于开了，塞丝用臂弯夹着剩饭锅，迈了出来。她一看见他，马上“哦”了一声，微笑里有喜悦也有惊讶。
保罗•D觉得自己回了一笑，可是他的脸冷得厉害，他自己也拿不准。
“伙计，你让我觉得像个小姑娘，下班后还过来接我。从前可没有人这么待过我。你最好留神，我要盼起来可没个够啊。
”她麻利地把那些最大块的骨头扔在地上，这样狗就会知道骨头够吃，用不着争来抢去了。然后她倒出来一些东西的肉皮、一些东西的头和另一些东西的下水———餐馆不能用、她也不愿要的———在狗的脚边堆了一大摊，冒着热气。
“得回去把这个刷净了，”她说道，“马上就来。
”
他点点头，她又回到厨房。
狗默不作声地吃着。保罗•D心想，它们至少得到了想要的东西，要是她有足够的东西给它们———她头上的棕色围巾是羊毛的，她把它压到发际挡风。
“你早收工了还是怎么的？
”
“我提前走了。
”
“有事儿吗？
”
“可以这么说。
”他说着，抹了一下嘴唇。
“不是裁人了吧？
”
“不，不是。他们有的是活儿。只是我———”
“嗯？”
“塞丝，我说的话你不会爱听的。
”
Chapter 30
She stopped then and turned her face toward him and the hateful wind. Another woman wouldhave squinted or at least teared if the wind whipped her face as it did Sethe's. Another womanmight have shot him a look of apprehension, pleading, anger even, because what he said suresounded like part one of Goodbye, I'm gone.
Sethe looked at him steadily, calmly, already ready to accept, release or excuse an in-need-ortroubleman. 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 thediminished expectation in her eyes, the melancholy without blame, he could not say it. He couldnot 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. "Iwant 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'tyou think I'm too old to start that all over again?" She slipped her fingers in his hand for all theworld 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 hismanhood and break out of the girl's spell — all in one. He put the tips of Sethe's fingers on hischeek. Laughing, she pulled them away lest somebody passing the alley see them misbehaving inpublic, in daylight, in the wind.
Still, he'd gotten a little more time, bought it, in fact, and hoped the price wouldn't wreck him. Likepaying 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, stiffinside their coats. No men leaned against door frames or storefront windows. The wheels ofwagons delivering feed or wood screeched as though they hurt. Hitched horses in front of thesaloons shivered and closed their eyes. Four women, walking two abreast, approached, their shoesloud on the wooden walkway. Paul D touched Sethe's elbow to guide her as they stepped from theslats 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 andsnatching each other's fingers, stealing quick pats on the behind. Joyfully embarrassed to be thatgrownup 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.
Convinced of it, that he could do it, he threw his arm around Sethe's shoulders and squeezed. Shelet her head touch his chest, and since the moment was valuable to both of them, they stopped andstood 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, theirdefending arms raised against attack. Softly, suddenly, it began to snow, like a present come downfrom 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 theywould 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 alwayssurprised 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.""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 beforeshe knew it he had backed into her, hoisted her on his back and was running down the road pastbrown 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 awilling partner though.""I'll say," she answered. "Very, very willing."It was nearly four o'clock now and 124 was half a mile ahead. Floating toward them, barely visiblein the drifting snow, was a figure, and although it was the same figure that had been meeting Sethefor four months, so complete was the attention she and Paul D were paying to themselves theyboth 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 onher head, but she held in her hand a long shawl. Stretching out her arms she tried to circle it aroundSethe.
"Crazy girl," said Sethe. "You the one out here with nothing on." And stepping away and in frontof 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 behindthe women, he fought the anger that shot through his stomach all the way home. When he sawDenver silhouetted in the lamplight at the window, he could not help thinking, "And whose allyyou?"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 afriend in need, the chimney coughed against the rush of cold shooting into it from the sky. Windowsashes 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 inthe 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 backdoor he came to in the colored section of Wilmington. He told the woman who opened it that he'dappreciate doing her woodpile, if she could spare him something to eat. She looked him up anddown.
"A little later on," she said and opened the door wider. She fed him pork sausage, the worst thingin the world for a starving man, but neither he nor his stomach objected. Later, when he saw palecotton sheets and two pillows in her bedroom, he had to wipe his eyes quickly, quickly so shewould 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 witha groan and the woman helped him pretend he was making love to her and not her bed linen. Hevowed that night, full of pork, deep in luxury, that he would never leave her. She would have tokill him to get him out of that bed. Eighteen months later, when he had been purchased byNorthpoint 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 cliffand put down on sure ground. In Sethe's bed he knew he could put up with two crazy girls — -aslong as Sethe made her wishes known. Stretched out to his full length, watching snowflakes streampast the window over his feet, it was easy to dismiss the doubts that took him to the alley behindthe restaurant: his expectations for himself were high, too high. What he might call cowardiceother people called common sense.
Tucked into the well of his arm, Sethe recalled Paul D's face in the street when he asked her tohave a baby for him. Although she laughed and took his hand, it had frightened her. She thoughtquickly of how good the sex would be if that is what he wanted, but mostly she was frightened bythe thought of having a baby once more.
Needing to be good enough, alert enough, strong enough, that caring — again. Having to stay alivejust 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? Heprobably 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 Belovedwhom she thought of as her own, and that is what he resented. Sharing her with the girls. Hearingthe three of them laughing at something he wasn't in on. The code they used among themselvesthat he could not break. Maybe even the time spent on their needs and not his. They were a familysomehow 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 achange.
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 sheput 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 inorder to build a case against getting pregnant, and it shamed her a little. But she had all thechildren she needed. If her boys came back one day, and Denver and Beloved stayed on — well, itwould be the way it was supposed to be, no? Right after she saw the shadows holding hands at theside of the road hadn't the picture altered? And the minute she saw the dress and shoes sitting inthe front yard, she broke water. Didn't even have to see the face burning in the sunlight. She hadbeen 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. Therewas hardly any blood, but Denver said, "Ooooh, didn't that hurt you?"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 beforeDenver 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 waswhen she first knew that she could wake up any day and find herself in pieces. She had twodreams: exploding, and being swallowed. When her tooth came out — an odd fragment, last in therow — she thought it was starting.
"Must be a wisdom," said Denver. "Don't it hurt?""Yes.""Then why don't you cry?""What?""If it hurts, why don't you cry?"
她停下来，把脸转向可恶的风。换一个女人，准会眯起眼睛，至少要流眼泪，如果风像抽打塞丝一样抽打她的脸。换一个女人，准会向他投去一种不安、恳求甚至愤怒的目光，因为他说的话听起来绝对像“再见，我走了”的开头。
塞丝镇定、平静地看着他，已经准备好了接受、释放或者原谅一个处在需要或困难中的男人。
事先就同意，说，好吧，没关系，因为她根本不相信它们———没完没了的死拉硬拽———会达到目的。无论原因是什么，都没关系。没错。谁都没错。
他知道她在想什么，而且尽管她误会了———他不是在离开她，永远不会———但他想告诉她的事情仍然会更糟糕。所以，当他看到期待从她的眼里消失，看到那种毫无责备的忧郁，他说不出口。他不能对这个在风中不眯眼睛的女人说：
“我不是个男子汉。
”
“得啦，说吧，保罗•D，甭管我爱不爱听。
”
本来打算好要说的他说不出来，就说了脑子里面一些自己都没意识到的想法。
“我想让你怀孕，塞丝。你愿意为我干那个吗？
”
这时，她放声大笑起来，他也笑了。
“你到这儿来就为了问我这个？你是个地地道道的疯子。你说对了，我不爱听。你不觉得我从头再来一遍太老了点儿吗？
”她把手指插进他的手里，情形跟路边携手的影子简直一模一样。
“考虑一下吧。
”他说。突然间柳暗花明了：有法子抓住她不放、证明他的男子气概并且摆脱那个姑娘的魔力———一箭三雕。他把塞丝的指尖放在自己脸上。她大笑着抽回手，以免给过路人看见他们行为不端，在公共场合，在光天化日之下，在刺骨寒风中。
现在，他仍然拥有一点时间，其实是买的，但愿那价钱不至于毁了他。就仿佛买来一个下午，预支的却是将来的生活费。
他们停止了嬉闹，放开手，耸着肩出了巷子，走上大街。那里的风小一些，不过风留下的干冷使得那些缩在外套里发僵的过路人行色匆匆。没有人靠在门框上或者商店橱窗前。送食品或木料的大车的轱辘好像怕冷似的，吱吱嘎嘎的。酒店门前套住的马闭上眼睛打着哆嗦。四个女人两两并肩走了过来，她们的鞋踩在木板人行道上嗒嗒作响。保罗•D拉着塞丝的胳膊肘，带她从木板路走下土路，给女人们让道。
半小时之后，他们到了城郊，塞丝和保罗•D又得以相互把手指头抓来拽去，不时趁机摸摸屁股。这么大了还这么孩子气，他们又兴奋又难为情。
决定了，他想。就这么定了，哪个没娘的丫头都不能搞破坏。哪个懒惰的丧家狗女人都不能摆布他，让他顾虑重重、不知所措、摇尾乞怜或者忏悔表白。他坚信自己能够成功，就搂住塞丝的肩膀，紧紧箍着。她把脑袋靠上他的胸脯。这个时刻对于他们两个都很珍贵，于是他们停下来，就那样站着———屏住呼吸，甚至不在乎有没有人路过。冬日的光线是黯淡的。塞丝闭上眼睛。保罗•D看着路边成行的黑树，它们自卫的手臂高举着抵御寒冷的袭击。悄悄地，忽然开始下雪了，宛如从天而降的一件礼物。塞丝睁开两眼看着，说道：
“恩惠啊。
”而在保罗•D看来，那确实是———一点恩惠———专门赐给他们，为他们此刻的感情标上记号，以便日后需要的时候他们能够记起。
干燥的雪花落下来，又厚又重，简直可以像五分硬币一样砸在石头上。雪总是让他惊讶，雪是多么恬静啊。不像雨，而像是一个秘密。
“快跑!”他说。
“你跑吧，”塞丝道，“我立了一整天了。
”
“我在哪儿呢？坐着吗？
”他一路拽着她。
“站住!站住!”她说，“我的腿可干不了这个。
”
“那就交给我吧。
”他说道。还没等她回过味来，他已经退到她身下，用后背驮起她，在大路上跑起来，跑过开始变得洁白的褐色田野。
他终于上气不接下气地停住了，她滑下来站稳，都笑瘫了。
“你的确需要些娃娃，跟你一块儿在雪里玩。
”塞丝整理好头巾。
保罗•D边笑边呵着气暖和双手。
“我当然想试他一家伙。只是还需要个自愿的合作者。”
“我会说，”塞丝回答道，“非常、非常愿意。
”
快四点了，离124号还有半英里路。一个人影向他们飘来，在纷扬的雪花里隐约可见；尽管这同一个形象四个月来一直每天迎接塞丝，可是她和保罗•D正在如此忘情地专注于彼此，看见她在近前出现，都不禁心中一凛。
