Paul D was the only one in town who didn't know. How did information that had been in thenewspaper 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; thoughalways for a clear and holy purpose. Before the War all he did was sneak: runaways into hiddenplaces, secret information to public places. Underneath his legal vegetables were the contrabandhumans 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 readto them the ones they received. He knew who had dropsy and who needed stovewood; whichchildren had a gift and which needed correction. He knew the secrets of the Ohio River and itsbanks; empty houses and full; the best dancers, the worst speakers, those with beautiful voices andthose who could not carry a tune. There was nothing interesting between his legs, but heremembered when there had been — when that drive drove the driven — and that was why heconsidered long and hard before opening his wooden box and searching for the eighteen-year-oldclipping to show Paul D as proof.
Afterward — not before — he considered Sethe's feelings in the matter. And it was the lateness ofthis 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 ofChrist he thought he was, but an ordinary, plain meddler who had interrupted something goingalong just fine for the sake of truth and forewarning, things he set much store by. Now 124 wasback like it was before Paul D came to town — worrying Sethe and Denver with a pack of hauntshe could hear from the road. Even if Sethe could deal with the return of the spirit, Stamp didn'tbelieve her daughter could. Denver needed somebody normal in her life. By luck he had been thereat her very birth almost — before she knew she was alive — and it made him partial to her. It wasseeing her, alive, don't you know, and looking healthy four weeks later that pleased him so muchhe gathered all he could carry of the best blackberries in the county and stuck two in her mouthfirst, 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 stillalive. Had he not been there, chopping firewood, Sethe would have spread her baby brains on theplanking. Maybe he should have thought of Denver, if not Sethe, before he gave Paul D the newsthat ran him off, the one normal somebody in the girl's life since Baby Suggs died. And right therewas the thorn.
Chapter 38
Deeper and more painful than his belated concern for Denver or Sethe, scorching his soul like asilver dollar in a fool's pocket, was the memory of Baby Suggs — the mountain to his sky. It wasthe memory of her and the honor that was her due that made him walk straight-necked into theyard of 124, although he heard its voices from the road.
He had stepped foot in this house only once after the Misery (which is what he called Sethe's roughresponse to the Fugitive Bill) and that was to carry Baby Suggs, holy, out of it. When he pickedher up in his arms, she looked to him like a gift, and he took the pleasure she would have knowingshe didn't have to grind her hipbone anymore — that at last somebody carried bar. Had she waitedjust a little she would have seen the end of the War, its short, flashy results. They could havecelebrated together; gone to hear the great sermons preached on the occasion. As it was, he wentalone from house to joyous house drinking what was offered. But she hadn't waited and heattended her funeral more put out with her than bereaved. Sethe and her daughter were dry-eyed onthat 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. BabySuggs went down next to the baby with its throat cut — a neighborliness that Stamp wasn't surehad Baby Suggs' approval.
The setting-up was held in the yard because nobody besides himself would enter 124 — an injurySethe answered with another by refusing to attend the service Reverend Pike presided over. Shewent instead to the gravesite, whose silence she competed with as she stood there not joining in thehymns the others sang with all their hearts. That insult spawned another by the mourners: back inthe yard of 124, they ate the food they brought and did not touch Sethe's, who did not touch theirsand forbade Denver to. So Baby Suggs, holy, having devoted her freed life to harmony, was buriedamid a regular dance of pride, fear, condemnation and spite. Just about everybody in town waslonging for Sethe to come on difficult times. Her outrageous claims, her self-sufficiency seemed todemand it, and Stamp Paid, who had not felt a trickle of meanness his whole adult life, wondered ifsome 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 needswhen 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 andturned her eyes on his. He was willing to offer her help, if she wanted any from him, or receive heranger, if she harbored any against him. Beyond that, he trusted his instincts to right what he mayhave done wrong to Baby Suggs' kin, and to guide him in and through the stepped-up haunting 124was subject to, as evidenced by the voices he heard from the road. Other than that, he would relyon the power of Jesus Christ to deal with things older, but not stronger, than He Himself was. Whathe heard, as he moved toward the porch, he didn't understand. Out on Bluestone Road he thoughthe heard a conflagration of hasty voices — loud, urgent, all speaking at once so he could not makeout what they were talking about or to whom. The speech wasn't nonsensical, exactly, nor was ittongues. But something was wrong with the order of the words and he couldn't describe or cipher itto save his life. All he could make out was the word mine. The rest of it stayed outside his mind'sreach. Yet he went on through. When he got to the steps, the voices drained suddenly to less than awhisper. It gave him pause. They had become an occasional mutter — like the interior sounds awoman makes when she believes she is alone and unobserved at her work: a sth when she missesthe needle's eye; a soft moan when she sees another chip in her one good platter; the low, friendlyargument with which she greets the hens. Nothing fierce or startling. Just that eternal, privateconversation 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 alwaysopen to or for him) and could not do it. Dispensing with that formality was all the pay he expectedfrom Negroes in his debt. Once Stamp Paid brought you a coat, got the message to you, saved yourlife, 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 hastyvoices to the mumbling beyond it and stopped, trying to figure out what to do at the door. Sixtimes in as many days he abandoned his normal route and tried to knock at 124 . But the coldnessof the gesture — its sign that he was indeed a stranger at the gate — overwhelmed him. Retracinghis steps in the snow, he sighed. Spirit willing; flesh weak.
Chapter 39
While Stamp Paid was making up his mind to visit 124 for Baby Suggs' sake, Sethe was trying totake her advice: to lay it all down, sword and shield. Not just to acknowledge the advice BabySuggs gave her, but actually to take it. Four days after Paul D reminded her of how many feet shehad, 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 thestove while Paul D kissed her back. She should have known that he would behave like everybodyelse in town once he knew. The twenty-eight days of having women friends, a mother in-law, andall her children together; of being part of a neighborhood; of, in fact, having neighbors at all to callher own — all that was long gone and would never come back. No more dancing in the Clearing orhappy feeds. No more discussions, stormy or quiet, about the true meaning of the Fugitive Bill, theSettlement 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 issues that held them in chairs, scraping the floorboards or pacingthem in agony or exhilaration. No anxious wait for the North Star or news of a beat-off. No sighingat 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 promisedher; 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 thefloor, 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'tskate a lick but then and there she decided to take Baby Suggs' advice: lay it all down. She left thebucket where it was. Told Denver to get out the shawls and started searching for the other skatesshe was certain were in that heap somewhere. Anybody feeling sorry for her, anybody wanderingby to peep in and see how she was getting on (including Paul D) would discover that the womanjunkheaped for the third time because she loved her children — that woman was sailing happily ona 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 theother."Nobody saw them falling.
Holding hands, bracing each other, they swirled over the ice. Beloved wore the pair; Denver woreone, 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. Thegirls, screaming with laughter, joined her on the ice. Sethe struggled to stand and discovered notonly that she could do a split, but that it hurt. Her bones surfaced in unexpected places and so didlaughter. 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. Thelive oak and soughing pine on the banks enclosed them and absorbed their laughter while theyfought gravity for each other's hands. Their skirts flew like wings and their skin turned pewter inthe cold and dying light.
Nobody saw them falling.
Chapter 40
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 herarms was so wild and hopeless that all three — Sethe, Beloved and Denver herself — laughed tillthey coughed. Sethe rose to her hands and knees, laughter still shaking her chest, making her eyeswet. She stayed that way for a while, on all fours. But when her laughter died, the tears did not andit was some time before Beloved or Denver knew the difference. When they did they touched herlightly on the shoulders.
Walking back through the woods, Sethe put an arm around each girl at her side. Both of them hadan arm around her waist. Making their way over hard snow, they stumbled and had to hold ontight, but nobody saw them fall.
Inside the house they found out they were cold. They took off their shoes, wet stockings, and puton dry woolen ones. Denver fed the fire. Sethe warmed a pan of milk and stirred cane syrup andvanilla into it. Wrapped in quilts and blankets before the cooking stove, they drank, wiped theirnoses, 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.
"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 ofan 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 theclick 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 piecesinto places designed and made especially for them. No milk spilled from her cup because her handwas 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 had braided into twenty or thirty plaits, curved toward her shoulders likearms. 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. Herlittle 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...
