But there would be time. The click had clicked; things were where they ought to be or poised andready to glide in.
"I made that song up," said Sethe. "I made it up and sang it to my children. Nobody knows thatsong 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 lockmay have rusted or broken away from the clasp. Still you should touch the nail heads, and test itsweight. No smashing with an ax head before it is decently exhumed from the grave that has hiddenit all this time. No gasp at a miracle that is truly miraculous because the magic lies in the fact thatyou 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 roomfor the girls' heads. There was no tremor in her voice as she instructed them to keep the fire — -ifnot, come on upstairs.
Chapter 41
With that, she gathered her blanket around her elbows and asc.ended the lily-white stairs like abride. Outside, snow solidified itself into graceful forms. The peace of winter stars seemedpermanent. Fingering a ribbon and smelling skin, Stamp Paid approached 124 again. "My marrowis tired," he thought. "I been tired all my days, bone-tired, but now it's in the marrow. Must bewhat Baby Suggs felt when she lay down and thought about color for the rest of her life." Whenshe told him what her aim was, he thought she was ashamed and too shamed to say so. Herauthority in the pulpit, her dance in the Clearing, her powerful Call (she didn't deliver sermons orpreach — insisting she was too ignorant for that — she called and the hearing heard) — all thathad been mocked and rebuked by the bloodspill in her backyard. God puzzled her and she was tooashamed of Him to say so. Instead she told Stamp she was going to bed to think about the colors ofthings. He tried to dissuade her. Sethe was in jail with her nursing baby, the one he had saved. Hersons were holding hands in the yard, terrified of letting go. Strangers and familiars were stoppingby to hear how it went one more time, and suddenly Baby declared peace. She just up and quit. Bythe 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 hercontentious funeral and eighteen years after the Misery, he changed his mind. Her marrow wastired and it was a testimony to the heart that fed it that it took eight years to meet finally the colorshe was hankering after. The onslaught of her fatigue, like his, was sudden, but lasted for years.
After sixty years of losing children to the people who chewed up her life and spit it out like a fishbone; 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; toacquire a daughter and grandchildren and see that daughter slay the children (or try to); to belongto a community of other free Negroes — to love and be loved by them, to counsel and becounseled, protect and be protected, feed and be fed — and then to have that community step backand 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, Idon't care what all happen to you."They were standing in Richmond Street, ankle deep in leaves. Lamps lit the downstairs windowsof spacious houses and made the early evening look darker than it was. The odor of burning leaveswas brilliant. Quite by chance, as he pocketed a penny tip for a delivery, he had glanced across thestreet and recognized the skipping woman as his old friend. He had not seen her in weeks. Quicklyhe crossed the street, scuffing red leaves as he went. When he stopped her with a greeting, shereturned it with a face knocked clean of interest. She could have been a plate. A carpetbag full ofshoes in her hand, she waited for him to begin, lead or share a conversation. If there had beensadness in her eyes he would have understood it; but indifference lodged where sadness shouldhave been.
"You missed the Clearing three Saturdays running," he told her. She turned her head away andscanned 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.
"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 inhis 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 her, pleadedwith 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 youngbirch." "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 thisworld.""What world you talking about? Ain't nothing harmless down here.""Yes it is. Blue. That don't hurt nobody. Yellow 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?""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 lipssearching with his tongue for the words that would turn her around, lighten her load. "We have tobe 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 rightto it. They didn't let her in. They took the shoes from her as she stood on the steps and she restedher hip on the railing while the whitewoman went looking for the dime.
Chapter 42
Stamp Paid rearranged his way. Too angry to walk her home and listen to more, he watched her fora moment and turned to go before the alert white face at the window next door had come to anyconclusion.
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'tcount. 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. Thewhitefolks had tired her out at last. And him. Eighteen seventy-four and whitefolks were still onthe loose. Whole towns wiped clean of Negroes; eighty-seven lynchings in one year alone inKentucky; four colored schools burned to the ground; grown men whipped like children; childrenwhipped like adults; black women raped by the crew; property taken, necks broken. He smelledskin, skin and hot blood. The skin was one thing, but human blood cooked in a lynch fire was awhole other thing. The stench stank. Stank up off the pages of the North Star, out of the mouths ofwitnesses, etched in crooked handwriting in letters delivered by hand. Detailed in documents andpetitions full of whereas and presented to any legal body who'd read it, it stank. But none of thathad worn out his marrow. None of that. It was the ribbon. Tying his flatbed up on the bank of theLicking 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 cameloose in his hand was a red ribbon knotted around a curl of wet woolly hair, clinging still to its bitof scalp. He untied the ribbon and put it in his pocket, dropped the curl in the weeds. On the wayhome, he stopped, short of breath and dizzy. He waited until the spell passed before continuing onhis way. A moment later, his breath left him again. This time he sat down by a fence. Rested, hegot to his feet, but before he took a step he turned to look back down the road he was traveling andsaid, 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. Hesat on the porch in the cold till way past dark and went to his bed only because his sister's voicecalling him was getting nervous. He kept the ribbon; the skin smell nagged him, and his weakenedmarrow made him dwell on Baby Suggs' wish to consider what in the world was harmless. Hehoped she stuck to blue, yellow, maybe green, and never fixed on red. Mistaking her, upbraidingher, 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 thedoor of 124. This time, although he couldn't cipher but one word, he believed he knew who spokethem. The people of the broken necks, of fire-cooked blood and black girls who had lost theirribbons.
What a roaring.
Sethe had gone to bed smiling, eager to lie down and unravel the proof for the conclusion she hadalready leapt to. Fondle the day and circumstances of Beloved's arrival and the meaning of thatkiss in the Clearing. She slept instead and woke, still smiling, to a snow bright morning, coldenough to see her breath. She lingered a moment to collect the courage to throw off the blanketsand 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 wrappedtight in blankets, breathing into their pillows. The pair and a half of skates were lying by the frontdoor, the stockings hung on a nail behind the cooking stove to dry had not.
Chapter 43
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 waswild and fast. When she went outside to collect more wood from the shed, she did not notice theman's frozen footprints. She crunched around to the back, to the cord piled high with snow. Afterscraping it clean, she filled her arms with as much dry wood as she could. She even looked straightat the shed, smiling, smiling at the things she would not have to remember now. Thinking, "Sheain't even mad with me. Not a bit."Obviously the hand-holding shadows she had seen on the road were not Paul D, Denver andherself, but "us three." The three holding on to each other skating the night before; the threesipping flavored milk. And since that was so — if her daughter could come back home from thetimeless 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 inher 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, bothdrawn to the fire. Dumping the armload into the woodbox made them stir but not wake. Sethestarted the cooking stove as quietly as she could, reluctant to wake the sisters, happy to have themasleep 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 someham 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 Iwake her?""No, let her rest.""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 herknow I know. Think about all I ain't got to remember no more. Do like Baby said: Think on it thenlay it down — for good. Paul D convinced me there was a world out there and that I could live init. 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 andthe opportunity to look in her eyes. When Sethe wrapped her head and bundled up to go to town, itwas already midmorning. And when she left the house she neither saw the prints nor heard thevoices that ringed 124 like a noose. Trudging in the ruts left earlier by wheels, Sethe was excited togiddiness by the things she no longer had to remember.
