"Hey," he said.
Stamp put his ribbon in his pocket. "Yes, sir?""I'm looking for a gal name of Judy. Works over by the slaughterhouse.""Don't believe I know her. No, sir.""Said she lived on Plank Road.""Plank Road. Yes, sir. That's up a ways. Mile, maybe.""You don't know her? Judy. Works in the slaughterhouse.""No, sir, but I know Plank Road. 'Bout a mile up thataway."Paul D lifted his bottle and swallowed. The rider looked at him and then back at Stamp Paid.
Loosening the right rein, he turned his horse toward the road, then changed his mind and cameback.
"Look here," he said to Paul D. "There's a cross up there, so I guess this here's a church or used tobe. Seems to me like you ought to show it some respect, you follow me?""Yes, sir," said Stamp. "You right about that. That's just what I come over to talk to him about. Justthat."
Chapter 60
The rider clicked his tongue and trotted off. Stamp made small circles in the palm of his left handwith two fingers of his right. "You got to choose," he said. "Choose anyone. They let you be if youwant em to. My house. Ella. Willie Pike. None of us got much, but all of us got room for one more.
Pay a little something when you can, don't when you can't. Think about it. You grown. I can'tmake you do what you won't, but think about it."Paul D said nothing.
"If I did you harm, I'm here to rectify it.""No need for that. No need at all."A woman with four children walked by on the other side of the road. She waved, smiling. "Hoooo.
I can't stop. See you at meeting.""I be there," Stamp returned her greeting. "There's another one," he said to Paul D. "ScriptureWoodruff, Able's sister. Works at the brush and tallow factory. You'll see. Stay around here longenough, you'll see ain't a sweeter bunch of colored anywhere than what's right here. Pride, well,that bothers em a bit. They can get messy when they think somebody's too proud, but when itcomes right down to it, they good people and anyone will take you in.""What about Judy? She take me in?""Depends. What you got in mind?""You know Judy?""Judith. I know everybody.""Out on Plank Road?""Everybody.""Well? She take me in?"Stamp leaned down and untied his shoe. Twelve black buttonhooks, six on each side at the bottom,led to four pairs of eyes at the top. He loosened the laces all the way down, adjusted the tonguecarefully and wound them back again. When he got to the eyes he rolled the lace tips with hisfingers before inserting them. "Let me tell you how I got my name." The knot was tight and so wasthe bow. "They called me Joshua," he said. "I renamed myself," he said, "and I'm going to tell youwhy I did it," and he told him about Vashti. "I never touched her all that time. Not once. Almost a year. We was planting when it started and picking when it stopped. Seemed longer. I should havekilled him. She said no, but I should have. I didn't have the patience I got now, but I figured maybesomebody else didn't have much patience either — his own wife. Took it in my head to see if shewas taking it any better than I was. Vashti and me was in the fields together in the day and everynow and then she be gone all night. I never touched her and damn me if I spoke three words to hera day. I took any chance I had to get near the great house to see her, the young master's wife.
Nothing but a boy. Seventeen, twenty maybe. I caught sight of her finally, standing in the backyardby the fence with a glass of water. She was drinking out of it and just gazing out over the yard. Iwent over. Stood back a ways and took off my hat. I said, 'Scuse me, miss. Scuse me?' She turnedto look. I'm smiling. 'Scuse me. You seen Vashti? My wife Vashti?' A little bitty thing, she was.
Black hair. Face no bigger than my hand. She said, "What? Vashti?' I say, 'Yes'm, Vashti. Mywife. She say she owe you all some eggs. You know if she brung em? You know her if you seeher. Wear a black ribbon on her neck.' She got rosy then and I knowed she knowed. He give Vashtithat to wear. A cameo on a black ribbon. She used to put it on every time she went to him. I put myhat back on. 'You see her tell her I need her. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.' I backed off beforeshe could say something. I didn't dare look back till I got behind some trees. She was standing justas I left her, looking in her water glass. I thought it would give me more satisfaction than it did. Ialso thought she might stop it, but it went right on. Till one morning Vashti came in and sat by thewindow. A Sunday. We worked our own patches on Sunday. She sat by the window looking out ofit. 'I'm back,' she said. 'I'm back, Josh.' I looked at the back of her neck. She had a real small neck.
I decided to break it. You know, like a twig — just snap it. I been low but that was as low as I evergot.""Did you? Snap it?""Uh uh. I changed my name.""How you get out of there? How you get up here?""Boat. On up the Mississippi to Memphis. Walked from Memphis to Cumberland.""Vashti too?""No. She died.""Aw, man. Tie your other shoe!""What?""Tie your goddamn shoe! It's sitting right in front of you!
Tie it!""That make you feel better?""No." Paul D tossed the bottle on the ground and stared at the golden chariot on its label. Nohorses. Just a golden coach draped in blue cloth.
"I said I had two things to say to you. I only told you one. I have to tell you the other.""I don't want to know it. I don't want to know nothing. Just if Judy will take me in or won't she.""I was there, Paul D.""You was where?""There in the yard. When she did it.""Judy?""Sethe.""Jesus.""It ain't what you think.""You don't know what I think.""She ain't crazy. She love those children. She was trying to out hurt the hurter.""Leave off.""And spread it.""Stamp, let me off. I knew her when she was a girl. She scares me and I knew her when she was agirl.""You ain't scared of Sethe. I don't believe you.""Sethe scares me. I scare me. And that girl in her house scares me the most.""Who is that girl? Where she come from?""I don't know. Just shot up one day sitting on a stump." "Huh. Look like you and me the only onesoutside 124 lay eyes on her.""She don't go nowhere. Where'd you see her?""Sleeping on the kitchen floor. I peeped in.""First minute I saw her I didn't want to be nowhere around her. Something funny about her. Talksfunny. Acts funny." Paul D dug his fingers underneath his cap and rubbed the scalp over histemple. "She reminds me of something. Something, look like, I'm supposed to remember.""She never say where she was from? Where's her people?""She don't know, or says she don't. All I ever heard her say was something about stealing herclothes and living on a bridge." "What kind of bridge?""Who you asking?""No bridges around here I don't know about. But don't nobody live on em. Under em neither. Howlong she been over there with Sethe?""Last August. Day of the carnival.""That's a bad sign. Was she at the carnival?""No. When we got back, there she was — 'sleep on a stump. Silk dress. Brand-new shoes. Black asoil.""You don't say? Huh. Was a girl locked up in the house with a whiteman over by Deer Creek.
Found him dead last summer and the girl gone. Maybe that's her. Folks say he had her in theresince she was a pup.""Well, now she's a bitch.""Is she what run you off? Not what I told you 'bout Sethe?"A shudder ran through Paul D. A bone-cold spasm that made him clutch his knees. He didn't knowif it was bad whiskey, nights in the cellar, pig fever, iron bits, smiling roosters, fired feet, laughingdead men, hissing grass, rain, apple blossoms, neck jewelry, Judy in the slaughterhouse, Halle inthe butter, ghost-white stairs, chokecherry trees, cameo pins, aspens, Paul A's face, sausage or theloss of a red, red heart.
"Tell me something, Stamp." Paul D's eyes were rheumy. "Tell me this one thing. How much is anigger supposed to take? Tell me. How much?""All he can," said Stamp Paid. "All he can.""why? Why? Why? Why? Why?"
Chapter 61
124 WAS QUIET.
Denver, who thought she knew all about silence, was surprised to learn hungercould do that: quiet you down and wear you out. Neither Sethe nor Beloved knew or cared about itone way or another. They were too busy rationing their strength to fight each other. So it was shewho had to step off the edge of the world and die because if she didn't, they all would. The fleshbetween her mother's forefinger and thumb was thin as china silk and there wasn't a piece ofclothing in the house that didn't sag on her. Beloved held her head up with the palms of her hands,slept wherever she happened to be, and whined for sweets although she was getting bigger,plumper by the day. Everything was gone except two laying hens, and somebody would soon haveto decide whether an egg every now and then was worth more than two fried chickens. Thehungrier they got, the weaker; the weaker they got, the quieter they were — which was better thanthe furious arguments, the poker slammed up against the wall, all the shouting and crying thatfollowed that one happy January when they played. Denver had joined in the play, holding back abit out of habit, even though it was the most fun she had ever known. But once Sethe had seen thescar, the tip of which Denver had been looking at whenever Beloved undressed — the little curvedshadow of a smile in the kootchy-kootchy-coo place under her chin — once Sethe saw it, fingeredit and closed her eyes for a long time, the two of them cut Denver out of the games. The cookinggames, the sewing games, the hair and dressing-up games. Games her mother loved so well shetook to going to work later and later each day until the predictable happened: Sawyer told her notto come back. And instead of looking for another job, Sethe played all the harder with Beloved,who never got enough of anything: lullabies, new stitches, the bottom of the cake bowl, the top ofthe milk. If the hen had only two eggs, she got both. It was as though her mother had lost her mind,like Grandma Baby calling for pink and not doing the things she used to. But different because,unlike Baby Suggs, she cut Denver out completely. Even the song that she used to sing to Denvershe sang for Beloved alone: "High Johnny, wide Johnny, don't you leave my side, Johnny."At first they played together. A whole month and Denver loved it. From the night they ice-skatedunder a star-loaded sky and drank sweet milk by the stove, to the string puzzles Sethe did for themin afternoon light, and shadow pictures in the gloaming. In the very teeth of winter and Sethe, hereyes fever bright, was plotting a garden of vegetables and flowers — talking, talking about whatcolors it would have. She played with Beloved's hair, braiding, puffing, tying, oiling it until itmade Denver nervous to watch her They changed beds and exchanged clothes. Walked arm in armand smiled all the time. When the weather broke, they were on their knees in the backyarddesigning a garden in dirt too hard to chop. The thirty-eight dollars of life savings went to feedthemselves with fancy food and decorate themselves with ribbon and dress goods, which Sethe cutand sewed like they were going somewhere in a hurry. Bright clothes — with blue stripes andsassy prints. She walked the four miles to John Shillito's to buy yellow ribbon, shiny buttons andbits of black lace. By the end of March the three of them looked like carnival women with nothingto do. When it became clear that they were only interested in each other, Denver began to driftfrom the play, but she watched it, alert for any sign that Beloved was in danger. Finally convincedthere was none, and seeing her mother that happy, that smiling — how could it go wrong? — shelet down her guard and it did. Her problem at first was trying to find out who was to blame. Hereye was on her mother, for a signal that the thing that was in her was out, and she would kill again.
But it was Beloved who made demands. Anything she wanted she got, and when Sethe ran out ofthings to give her, Beloved invented desire. She wanted Sethe's company for hours to watch thelayer of brown leaves waving at them from the bottom of the creek, in the same place where, as alittle girl, Denver played in the silence with her. Now the players were altered. As soon as the thawwas complete Beloved gazed at her gazing face, rippling, folding, spreading, disappearing into theleaves below. She flattened herself on the ground, dirtying her bold stripes, and touched therocking faces with her own. She filled basket after basket with the first things warmer weather letloose in the ground — dandelions, violets, forsythia — presenting them to Sethe, who arrangedthem, stuck them, wound them all over the house. Dressed in Sethe's dresses, she stroked her skinwith the palm of her hand. She imitated Sethe, talked the way she did, laughed her laugh and usedher body the same way down to the walk, the way Sethe moved her hands, sighed through hernose, held her head. Sometimes coming upon them making men and women cookies or tackingscraps of cloth on Baby Suggs' old quilt, it was difficult for Denver to tell who was who. Then themood changed and the arguments began. Slowly at first. A complaint from Beloved, an apologyfrom Sethe. A reduction of pleasure at some special effort the older woman made. Wasn't it toocold to stay outside? Beloved gave a look that said, So what? Was it past bedtime, the light nogood for sewing? Beloved didn't move; said, "Do it," and Sethe complied. She took the best ofeverything — first. The best chair, the biggest piece, the prettiest plate, the brightest ribbon for herhair, and the more she took, the more Sethe began to talk, explain, describe how much she hadsuffered, been through, for her children, waving away flies in grape arbors, crawling on her kneesto a lean-to. None of which made the impression it was supposed to. Beloved accused her ofleaving her behind. Of not being nice to her, not smiling at her. She said they were the same, hadthe same face, how could she have left her? And Sethe cried, saying she never did, or meant to —-that she had to get them out, away, that she had the milk all the time and had the money too forthe stone but not enough. That her plan was always that they would all be together on the otherside, forever. Beloved wasn't interested. She said when she cried there was no one. That dead menlay on top of her. That she had nothing to eat. Ghosts without skin stuck their fingers in her andsaid beloved in the dark and bitch in the light. Sethe pleaded for forgiveness, counting, listingagain and again her reasons: that Beloved was more important, meant more to her than her ownlife. That she would trade places any day. Give up her life, every minute and hour of it, to takeback just one of Beloved's tears. Did she know it hurt her when mosquitoes bit her baby? That toleave her on the ground to run into the big house drove her crazy? That before leaving SweetHome Beloved slept every night on her chest or curled on her back? Beloved denied it. Sethe nevercame to her, never said a word to her, never smiled and worst of all never waved goodbye or evenlooked her way before running away from her.
