She picked it up and looked at it. "M. Lucille Williams" was written in big crooked letters. On theback was a blob of flour-water paste. So Denver paid a second visit to the world outside the porch,although all she said when she returned the basket was "Thank you.""Welcome," said M. Lucille Williams.
Every now and then, all through the spring, names appeared near or in gifts of food. Obviously forthe return of the pan or plate or basket; but also to let the girl know, if she cared to, who the donorwas, because some of the parcels were wrapped in paper, and though there was nothing to return,the name was nevertheless there. Many had X's with designs about them, and Lady Jones tried toidentify the plate or pan or the covering towel. When she could only guess, Denver followed herdirections and went to say thank you anywaym whether she had the right benefactor or not. Whenshe was wrong, when the person said, "No, darling. That's not my bowl. Mine's got a blue ring onit," a small conversation took place. All of them knew her grandmother and some had even dancedwith her in the Clearing. Others remembered the days when 124 was a way station, the place theyassembled to catch news, taste oxtail soup, leave their children, cut out a skirt. One rememberedthe tonic mixed there that cured a relative. One showed her the border of a pillowslip, the stamensof its pale blue flowers French-knotted in Baby Suggs' kitchen by the light of an oil lamp whilearguing the Settlement Fee. They remembered the party with twelve turkeys and tubs of strawberrysmash. One said she wrapped Denver when she was a single day old and cut shoes to fit hermother's blasted feet. Maybe they were sorry for her. Or for Sethe. Maybe they were sorry for theyears of their own disdain. Maybe they were simply nice people who could hold meanness towardeach other for just so long and when trouble rode bareback among them, quickly, easily they didwhat they could to trip him up. In any case, the personal pride, the arrogant claim staked out at 124seemed to them to have run its course. They whispered, naturally, wondered, shook their heads.
Some even laughed outright at Denver's clothes of a hussy, but it didn't stop them caring whethershe ate and it didn't stop the pleasure they took in her soft "Thank you."
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At least once a week, she visited Lady Jones, who perked up enough to do a raisin loaf especiallyfor her, since Denver was set on sweet things. She gave her a book of Bible verse and listenedwhile she mumbled words or fairly shouted them. By June Denver had read and memorized allfifty-two pages — one for each week of the year. As Denver's outside life improved, her home lifedeteriorated. If the whitepeople of Cincinnati had allowed Negroes into their lunatic asylum theycould have found candidates in 124. Strengthened by the gifts of food, the source of which neitherSethe nor Beloved questioned, the women had arrived at a doomsday truce designed by the devil.
Beloved sat around, ate, went from bed to bed. Sometimes she screamed, "Rain! Rain!" andclawed her throat until rubies of blood opened there, made brighter by her midnight skin. ThenSethe shouted, "No!" and knocked over chairs to get to her and wipe the jewels away. Other timesBeloved curled up on the floor, her wrists between her knees, and stayed there for hours. Or she would go to the creek, stick her feet in the water and whoosh it up her legs. Afrerward she wouldgo to Sethe, run her fingers over the woman's teeth while tears slid from her wide black eyes. Thenit seemed to Denver the thing was done: Beloved bending over Sethe looked the mother, Sethe theteething child, for other than those times when Beloved needed her, Sethe confined herself to acorner chair. The bigger Beloved got, the smaller Sethe became; the brighter Beloved's eyes, themore those eyes that used never to look away became slits of sleeplessness. Sethe no longercombed her hair or splashed her face with water. She sat in the chair licking her lips like achastised child while Beloved ate up her life, took it, swelled up with it, grew taller on it. And theolder woman yielded it up without a murmur. Denver served them both. Washing, cooking,forcing, cajoling her mother to eat a little now and then, providing sweet things for Beloved asoften as she could to calm her down. It was hard to know what she would do from minute tominute. When the heat got hot, she might walk around the house naked or wrapped in a sheet, herbelly protruding like a winning watermelon.
Denver thought she understood the connection between her mother and Beloved: Sethe was tryingto make up for the handsaw; Beloved was making her pay for it. But there would never be an endto that, and seeing her mother diminished shamed and infuriated her. Yet she knew Sethe's greatestfear was the same one Denver had in the beginning — that Beloved might leave. That before Sethecould make her understand what it meant — what it took to drag the teeth of that saw under thelittle chin; to feel the baby blood pump like oil in her hands; to hold her face so her head wouldstay on; to squeeze her so she could absorb, still, the death spasms that shot through that adoredbody, plump and sweet with life — Beloved might leave. Leave before Sethe could make herrealize that worse than that — far worse — was what Baby Suggs died of, what Ella knew, whatStamp saw and what made Paul D tremble. That anybody white could take your whole self foranything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad youcouldn't like yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up.
And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own.
The best thing she was, was her children. Whites might dirty bet all right, but not her best thing,her beautiful, magical best thing — the part of her that was cl ean. No undreamable dreams aboutwhether the headless, feetless torso hanging in the tree with a sign on it was her husband or PaulA; whether the bubbling-hot girls in the colored-school fire set by patriots included her daughter;whether a gang of whites invaded her daughter's private parts, soiled her daughter's thighs andthrew her daughter out of the wagon. She might have to work the slaughterhouse yard, but not herdaughter.
And no one, nobody on this earth, would list her daughter's characteristics on the animal side ofthe paper. No. Oh no. Maybe Baby Suggs could worry about it, live with the likelihood of it; Sethehad refused — and refused still. This and much more Denver heard her say from her corner chair,trying to persuade Beloved, the one and only person she felt she had to convince, that what she haddone was right because it came from true love.
Beloved, her fat new feet propped on the seat of a chair in front of the one she sat in, her unlinedhands resting on her stomach, looked at her. Uncomprehending everything except that Sethe wasthe woman who took her face away, leaving her crouching in a dark, dark place, forgetting to smile.
Her father's daughter after all, Denver decided to do the necessary. Decided to stop relying onkindness to leave something on the stump. She would hire herself out somewhere, and althoughshe was afraid to leave Sethe and Beloved alone all day not knowing what calamity either one ofthem would create, she came to realize that her presence in that house had no influence on whateither woman did. She kept them alive and they ignored her. Growled when they chose; sulked,explained, demanded, strutted, cowered, cried and provoked each other to the edge of violence,then over. She had begun to notice that even when Beloved was quiet, dreamy, minding her ownbusiness, Sethe got her going again. Whispering, muttering justification, some bit ofclarifyinginformationtoBelovedtoexplainwhatithadbeenlike,and(some) why, and how come. It wasas though Sethe didn't really want forgiveness given; she wanted it refused. And Beloved helpedher out.
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Somebody had to be saved, but unless Denver got work, there would be no one to save, no one tocome home to, and no Denver either. It was a new thought, having a self to look out for andpreserve. And it might not have occurred to her if she hadn't met Nelson Lord leaving hisgrandmother's house as Denver entered it to pay a thank you for half a pie. All he did was smileand say, "Take care of yourself, Denver," but she heard it as though it were what language wasmade for. The last time he spoke to her his words blocked up her ears. Now they opened her mind.
Weeding the garden, pulling vegetables, cooking, washing, she plotted what to do and how. TheBodwins were most likely to help since they had done it twice. Once for Baby Suggs and once forher mother. Why not the third generation as well? She got lost so many times in the streets ofCincinnati it was noon before she arrived, though she started out at sunrise. The house sat backfrom the sidewalk with large windows looking out on a noisy, busy street. The Negro woman whoanswered the front door said,"Yes?""May I come in?""What you want?""I want to see Mr. and Mrs. Bodwin.""Miss Bodwin. They brother and sister.""Oh.""What you want em for?""I'm looking for work. I was thinking they might know of some.""You Baby Suggs' kin, ain't you?""Yes, ma'am.""Come on in. You letting in flies." She led Denver toward the kitchen, saying, "First thing youhave to know is what door to knock on." But Denver only half heard her because she was steppingon something soft and blue. All around her was thick, soft and blue. Glass cases crammed full ofglistening things. Books on tables and shelves. Pearl-white lamps with shiny metal bottoms. And asmell like the cologne she poured in the emerald house, only better. "Sit down," the woman said.
"You know my name?""No, ma'am.""Janey. Janey Wagon.""How do you do?""Fairly. I heard your mother took sick, that so?""Yes, ma'am.""Who's looking after her?""I am. But I have to find work."Janey laughed. "You know what? I've been here since I was fourteen, and I remember likeyesterday when Baby Suggs, holy, came here and sat right there where you are. Whiteman broughther. That's how she got that house you all live in. Other things, too.""Yes, ma'am.""What's the trouble with Sethe?" Janey leaned against an indoor sink and folded her arms.
It was a little thing to pay, but it seemed big to Denver. Nobody was going to help her unless shetold it — told all of it. It was clear Janey wouldn't and wouldn't let her see the Bodwins otherwise.
So Denver told this stranger what she hadn't told Lady Jones, in return for which Janey admittedthe Bodwins needed help, although they didn't know it. She was alone there, and now that heremployers were getting older, she couldn't take care of them like she used to.
More and more she was required to sleep the night there. Maybe she could talk them into lettingDenver do the night shift, come right after supper, say, maybe get the breakfast. That way Denvercould care for Sethe in the day and earn a little something at night, how's that?
Denver had explained the girl in her house who plagued her mother as a cousin come to visit, whogot sick too and bothered them both. Janey seemed more interested in Sethe's condition, and from what Denver told her it seemed the had lost her mind. That wasn't the Sethe she remembered.ThisSethehadlostherwits,final(woman) ly, as Janey knew she would — trying to do it allalone with her nose in the air. Denver squirmed under the criticism of her mother, shifting in thechair and keeping her eyes on the inside sink. Janey Wagon went on about pride until she got toBaby Suggs, for whom she had nothing but sweet words. "I never went to those woodland servicesshe had, but she was always nice to me. Always. Never be another like her.""I miss her too," said Denver.
"Bet you do. Everybody miss her. That was a good woman."Denver didn't say anything else and Janey looked at her face for a while. "Neither one of yourbrothers ever come back to see how you all was?""No, ma'am.""Ever hear from them?""No, ma'am. Nothing.""Guess they had a rough time in that house. Tell me, this here woman in your house. The cousin.
She got any lines in her hands?" "No," said Denver.
"Well," said Janey. "I guess there's a God after all." The interview ended with Janey telling her tocome back in a few days. She needed time to convince her employers what they needed: night helpbecause Janey's own family needed her. "I don't want to quit these people, but they can't have allmy days and nights too." What did Denver have to do at night?
"Be here. In case."In case what?
Janey shrugged. "In case the house burn down." She smiled then.
"Or bad weather slop the roads so bad I can't get here early enough for them. Case late guests needserving or cleaning up after. Anything. Don't ask me what whitefolks need at night.""They used to be good whitefolks.""Oh, yeah. They good. Can't say they ain't good. I wouldn't trade them for another pair, tell youthat."With those assurances, Denver left, but not before she had seen, sitting on a shelf by the back door,a blackboy's mouth full of money. His head was thrown back farther than a head could go, his hands were shoved in his pockets. Bulging like moons, two eyes were all the face he had above thegaping red mouth. His hair was a cluster of raised, widely spaced dots made of nail heads. And hewas on his knees. His mouth, wide as a cup, held the coins needed to pay for a delivery or someother small service, but could just as well have held buttons, pins or crab-apple jelly. Paintedacross the pedestal he knelt on were the words "At Yo Service."
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The news that Janey got hold of she spread among the other coloredwomen. Sethe's dead daughter,the one whose throat she cut, had come back to fix her. Sethe was worn down, speckled, dying,spinning, changing shapes and generally bedeviled. That this daughter beat her, tied her to the bedand pulled out all her hair. It took them days to get the story properly blown up and themselvesagitated and then to calm down and assess the situation. They fell into three groups: those thatbelieved the worst; those that believed none of it; and those, like Ella, who thought it through.
"Ella. What's all this I'm hearing about Sethe?""Tell me it's in there with her. That's all I know.""The daughter? The killed one?""That's what they tell me.""How they know that's her?""It's sitting there. Sleeps, eats and raises hell. Whipping Sethe every day.""I'll be. A baby?""No. Grown. The age it would have been had it lived.""You talking about flesh?""I'm talking about flesh.""whipping her?""Like she was batter.""Guess she had it coming.""Nobody got that coming.""But, Ella — ""But nothing. What's fair ain't necessarily right.""You can't just up and kill your children.""No, and the children can't just up and kill the mama."It was Ella more than anyone who convinced the others that rescue was in order. She was apractical who believed there was root either to chew or avoid for every ailment.
