现在她的妈妈正和那个男人一起待在楼上，就是他，赶跑了她唯一的伙伴。丹芙将一小块面包蘸进果酱。慢吞吞地，有条不紊地，凄苦不堪地，她吃掉了它。
并不很急，但也不浪费一点时间，塞丝和保罗•D爬着白楼梯。能够如此幸运地找到她的房子和当中的她，而且肯定要同她云雨一番，保罗•D彻底昏了头，把记忆中最近的二十五年丢个精光。前面一磴楼梯上就是那个顶替贝比•萨格斯的姑娘，那个他们夜里梦想、黎明为之去操母牛、同时等待她挑选的新来的姑娘。单是亲吻她后背上的锻铁，已经晃动了整座房子，已经逼着他把它打了个稀巴烂。现在他还要做得更多呢。
她把他领到楼梯的上面，那儿的光线从天空直射进来，因为二楼的窗户不是开在墙上，而是装在倾斜的屋顶上。楼上一共有两个房间，她带他进了其中一间，心下希望他不会介意她还没准备好———虽然她还能唤起欲望，却已经忘了欲望是如何作用的：挥之不去，手中的紧迫与无力；意乱情迷之下，跳进眼帘的只有可以躺下的地方，而其余的一切———门把手、皮带、挂钩、蜷在屋角的悲伤，以及时光的流逝———不过是干扰。
在他们把衣服脱光之前那事就都完了。胴体半裸，气喘吁吁，他们并排躺着，相互怨恨，也怨恨上面的天光。他对她的魂牵梦萦已是太久太久以前的事了，而她压根就被剥夺了梦想的权利。现在他们很难过，而且实在羞于彼此交谈。
塞丝仰卧着，头从他那边扭开。保罗•D从眼角瞥见她的乳房在一起一伏，觉得不舒服。那两个松弛的、又扁又圆的东西他绝对不需要，尽管在楼下他那样捧着它们，仿佛它们是他最珍贵的部分。还有他在厨房里好像淘金者扒拉矿砂那样探查的锻铁迷宫，实际上是一堆令人作呕的伤疤。不像她说的，是棵什么树。也许形状相似，不过可不像他认识的任何一棵树，因为树都是友好的，你能信赖，也能靠近它们，愿意的话还可以跟它们说话，多年前，在“甜蜜之家”的田里吃午饭时，他就经常这样做。可能的话，他就总在同一个地方；挑选地方是很困难的，因为“甜蜜之家”
里漂亮的树比周围任何农庄都要多。他管自己挑的那棵叫“兄弟”，坐在它下面，有时是自个儿，有时是和黑尔或其他保罗们，但更多的时候是和那时还很温顺、仍旧说英语的西克索一道。靛青色的西克索长着火红的舌头，他在夜里烤土豆做试验，试着算准恰好什么时刻把滚烫、冒烟的石头放进坑里，搁上土豆，再用小树枝全都盖严实；这样，当他们拴好牲口、离开田地，来到“兄弟”那儿歇 晌吃饭的时候，土豆就会烧得恰到好处。有时他三更半夜爬起来，大老远地一路走到那里，借着星光开始挖坑；要么他就不把石头烧得那么热，一吃完饭便将第二天的土豆搁上去。他从来都算不准，但他们一样吃掉那些火候不够的、烤过火的、干干巴巴的和生涩的土豆，大笑着，一边吐出来，一边给他提修改意见。
时间从来不按西克索设想的那样走，因此他当然不可能算准。有一次，他掐算好了时间走三十英里路去看一个女人，行程精确到一分一秒。他在一个星期六等月亮升到固定位置就动身了，星期天赶到教堂前面她的小屋，只有道声早安的时间，然后他必须开始再往回走，才能赶上星期一田里的早点名。他走了十七个小时，坐了一个小时，掉转身来再走十七个小时。黑尔和保罗们花了一整天的时间在加纳先生面前为他的瞌睡打马虎眼。那天他们没吃成土豆，也没吃成甘薯。开饭的时候，西克索懒在“兄弟”旁边，藏起火红的舌头，靛青的脸上毫无表情，一直睡得像具死尸。瞧，那才是个男人，那才是棵树呐。躺在床上的他自己，还有身边的那棵“树”，算个啥。
保罗•D透过脚上方的天窗望着外边，又叠起双手，枕到脑后。胳膊肘掠过塞丝的肩膀，布料擦着她的皮肤，把她吓了一跳。她都忘了，他还没脱下衬衫呢。狗，她心道，然后才想起是自己没给他脱衬衫的时间，也没给自己脱衬裙的时间。不过，要知道，在门廊上遇见他之前她可就开始宽衣解带了，鞋袜在手里拎着，而且一直就没再穿上；然后他盯着她湿漉漉的光脚看，还请求和她做伴；她起身做饭时，他又进一步地给她脱衣服；考虑到他们见面不久就这么快地开始脱，你会认为，到现在他们总该脱光了吧。但是也许一个男人不过是个男人，贝比•萨格斯就总这样说。他们鼓励你把你的一部分重量放到他们手中，正当你感到那有多么轻松、可爱的时候，他们便来研究你的伤疤和苦难，而在此之前，他们已经像他刚才那样干了：赶走她的孩子，砸烂整座房子。
她得从床上起来了，好下楼去把所有东西都拼拢到一起。他让她离开这所房子，就好像一所房子是小事一桩———一件罩衫，或者一个针线笸箩，你什么时候都可以丢开或是送人。可她呢，她除了这个还从未拥有过一所房子；她离开土地面，就是为了住进这样的家；她每天都得往加纳太太的厨房里带一把婆罗门参，才能开始在里面干活，才能感觉到它有一部分是属于自己的，因为她想热爱自己的工作；为把丑恶剔除，唯有这样摘一些美丽的花草随身带着，她才能觉得“甜蜜之家”是个家。如果哪天她忘了，那么不是黄油没送到，就是桶里的卤水把她的胳膊烫出了泡。
至少看起来如此。桌上有几朵黄花，把儿上缠着桃金娘的烙铁支开屋门，让轻风抚慰着她，这样，当加纳太太和她坐下来拔猪毛或者制墨水时，她会感觉良好。良好。不害怕远处的男人们。那五个人都睡在她附近的地方，但晚上从不进来。他们遇见她时只是捏一下他们的破帽子，盯着她。
如果她到田里给他们送饭，送去用干净的布包着的火腿和面包，他们也从不打她手里接过去。他们站远一点，等着她将包袱放到地上（树底下）然后离开。他们要么是不想从她手里接东西，要么就是不想让她看见自己的吃相。有两三回她磨蹭了一会儿，藏在忍冬树后面偷看他们。没有她他们是多么不同啊，他们怎样地大笑、打闹、撒尿和唱歌呀。所有人都是，只有西克索除外，他平生只大笑过一次———在生命的最后一刻。当然，黑尔是最好的。贝比•萨格斯的第八个，也是最后一个孩子，他在县里四处揽活儿干，就是为了把她从那里赎出来。可是他也一样，说到底，不过是个男人而已。
“一个男人不过是个男人，”贝比•萨格斯说道，“可是一个儿子？嗯，那才是个人物。
”
这话说得通，有很多理由，因为在贝比的一生里，还有在塞丝自己的生活中，男男女女都像棋子一样任人摆布。所有贝比•萨格斯认识的人，更不用提爱过的了，只要没有跑掉或吊死，就得被租用，被出借，被购入，被送还，被储存，被抵押，被赢被偷被掠夺。所以贝比的八个孩子有六个父亲。她惊愕地发现人们并不因为棋子中包括她的孩子而停止下这盘棋，这便是她所说的生活的龌龊。黑尔是她能留得最久的。二十年。一辈子。毫无疑问，是给她的补偿，因为当她听说她的两个还都未换牙的女儿被卖掉、带走的时候，她连再见都没能说上一声。是补偿，因为她跟一个工头同居了四个月，作为交换，她能把第三个孩子，一个儿子，留在身边———谁想到来年春天他被拿去换了木材，而那个不守信用的家伙又弄大了她的肚子。那个孩子她不能爱，而其余的她根本不去爱。
“上帝想带谁走就带谁走。
”她说。而且他带走了一个一个又一个，最后给了她黑尔，而黑尔给了她那时已一文不值的自由。
塞丝三生有幸与那个“人物”儿子度过了整整六年的婚姻生活，还跟他生了她的每一个孩子。她满不在乎地觉得福气是理所当然而又靠得住的，好像“甜蜜之家”果真是个甜蜜之家似的。好像用把上缠着桃金娘的烙铁支住白女人厨房的门，厨房就属于她了。好像嘴里的薄荷枝改变了呼吸的味道，也就改变了嘴本身的气味。世上没有更蠢的傻瓜了。
Chapter 6
Sethe started to turn over on her stomach but changed her mind. She did not want to call Paul D'sattention back to her, so she settled for crossing her ankles.
But Paul D noticed the movement as well as the change in her breathing. He felt obliged to tryagain, slower this time, but the appetite was gone. Actually it was a good feeling — not wantingher. Twenty-five years and blip! The kind of thing Sixo would do — like the time he arranged ameeting with Patsy the Thirty-Mile Woman. It took three months and two thirty-four-mile roundtrips to do it. To persuade her to walk one-third of the way toward him, to a place he knew. Adeserted stone structure that Redmen used way back when they thought the land was theirs. Sixodiscovered it on one of his night creeps, and asked its permission to enter. Inside, having felt whatit felt like, he asked the Redmen's Presence if he could bring his woman there. It said yes and Sixopainstakingly instructed her how to get there, exactly when to start out, how his welcoming orwarning whistles would sound. Since neither could go anywhere on business of their own, andsince the Thirty-Mile Woman was already fourteen and scheduled for somebody's arms, the dangerwas real. When he arrived, she had not. He whistled and got no answer. He went into the Redmen's deserted lodge. She was not there. He returned to the meeting spot. She was not there. He waitedlonger. She still did not come. He grew frightened for her and walked down the road in thedirection she should be coming from. Three or four miles, and he stopped. It was hopeless to go onthat way, so he stood in the wind and asked for help. Listening close for some sign, he heard awhimper. He turned toward it, waited and heard it again. Uncautious now, he hollered her name.
She answered in a voice that sounded like life to him — not death. "Not move!" he shouted.
"Breathe hard I can find you." He did. She believed she was already at the meeting place and wascrying because she thought he had not kept his promise. Now it was too late for the rendezvous tohappen at the Redmen's house, so they dropped where they were. Later he punctured her calf tosimulate snakebite so she could use it in some way as an excuse for not being on time to shakeworms from tobacco leaves. He gave her detailed directions about following the stream as ashortcut back, and saw her off. When he got to the road it was very light and he had his clothes inhis hands. Suddenly from around a bend a wagon trundled toward him. Its driver, wide-eyed,raised a whip while the woman seated beside him covered her face. But Sixo had already meltedinto the woods before the lash could unfurl itself on his indigo behind.
He told the story to Paul F, Halle, Paul A and Paul D in the peculiar way that made them cry-laugh. Sixo went among trees at night. For dancing, he said, to keep his bloodlines open, he said.
Privately, alone, he did it. None of the rest of them had seen him at it, but they could imagine it,and the picture they pictured made them eager to laugh at him — in daylight, that is, when it wassafe. But that was before he stopped speaking English because there was no future in it. Because ofthe Thirty-Mile Woman Sixo was the only one not paralyzed by yearning for Sethe. Nothing couldbe as good as the sex with her Paul D had been imagining off and on for twenty-five years. Hisfoolishness made him smile and think fondly of himself as he turned over on his side, facing her.
Sethe's eyes were closed, her hair a mess. Looked at this way, minus the polished eyes, her facewas not so attractive. So it must have been her eyes that kept him both guarded and stirred up.
Without them her face was manageable — a face he could handle. Maybe if she would keep themclosed like that... But no, there was her mouth. Nice. Halle never knew what he had.
Although her eyes were closed, Sethe knew his gaze was on her face, and a paper picture of justhow bad she must look raised itself up before her mind's eye. Still, there was no mockery comingfrom his gaze. Soft. It felt soft in a waiting kind of way. He was not judging her — or rather hewas judging but not comparing her. Not since Halle had a man looked at her that way: not lovingor passionate, but interested, as though he were examining an ear of corn for quality. Halle wasmore like a brother than a husband. His care suggested a family relationship rather than a man'slaying claim. For years they saw each other in full daylight only on Sundays. The rest of the timethey spoke or touched or ate in darkness. Predawn darkness and the afterlight of sunset. So lookingat each other intently was a Sunday morning pleasure and Halle examined her as though storing upwhat he saw in sunlight for the shadow he saw the rest of the week. And he had so little time. Afterhis Sweet Home work and on Sunday afternoons was the debt work he owed for his mother. Whenhe asked her to be his wife, Sethe happily agreed and then was stuck not knowing the next step.
There should be a ceremony, shouldn't there? A preacher, some dancing, a party, a something. Sheand Mrs. Garner were the only women there, so she decided to ask her. "Halle and me want to bemarried, Mrs. Garner.""So I heard." She smiled. "He talked to Mr. Garner about it. Are you already expecting?""No, ma'am.""Well, you will be. You know that, don't you?""Yes, ma'am.""Halle's nice, Sethe. He'll be good to you.""But I mean we want to get married.""You just said so. And I said all right.""Is there a wedding?"Mrs. Garner put down her cooking spoon. Laughing a little, she touched Sethe on the head, saying,"You are one sweet child." And then no more.
Sethe made a dress on the sly and Halle hung his hitching rope from a nail on the wall of her cabin.
And there on top of a mattress on top of the dirt floor of the cabin they coupled for the third time,the first two having been in the tiny cornfield Mr. Garner kept because it was a crop animals coulduse as well as humans. Both Halle and Sethe were under the impression that they were hidden.
Scrunched down among the stalks they couldn't see anything, including the corn tops waving overtheir heads and visible to everyone else. Sethe smiled at her and Halle's stupidity. Even the crowsknew and came to look. Uncrossing her ankles, she managed not to laugh aloud.
The jump, thought Paul D, from a calf to a girl wasn't all that mighty. Not the leap Halle believedit would be. And taking her in the corn rather than her quarters, a yard away from the cabins of theothers who had lost out, was a gesture of tenderness. Halle wanted privacy for her and got publicdisplay. Who could miss a ripple in a cornfield on a quiet cloudless day? He, Sixo and both of thePauls sat under Brother pouring water from a gourd over their heads, and through eyes streamingwith well water, they watched the confusion of tassels in the field below. It had been hard, hard,hard sitting there erect as dogs, watching corn stalks dance at noon. The water running over theirheads made it worse.
Paul D sighed and turned over. Sethe took the opportunity afforded by his movement to shift aswell. Looking at Paul D's back, she remembered that some of the corn stalks broke, folded downover Halle's back, and among the things her fingers clutched were husk and cornsilk hair.
How loose the silk. How jailed down the juice.
The jealous admiration of the watching men melted with the feast of new corn they allowed themselves that night. Plucked from the broken stalks that Mr. Garner could not doubt was thefault of the raccoon. Paul F wanted his roasted; Paul A wanted his boiled and now Paul D couldn'tremember how finally they'd cooked those ears too young to eat. What he did remember wasparting the hair to get to the tip, the edge of his fingernail just under, so as not to graze a singlekernel.
The pulling down of the tight sheath, the ripping sound always convinced her it hurt.
As soon as one strip of husk was down, the rest obeyed and the ear yielded up to him its shy rows,exposed at last. How loose the silk. How quick the jailed-up flavor ran free.
No matter what all your teeth and wet fingers anticipated, there was no accounting for the way thatsimple joy could shake you. How loose the silk. How fine and loose and free.
DENVER'S SECRETS were sweet. Accompanied every time by wild veronica until shediscovered cologne. The first bottle was a gift, the next she stole from her mother and hid amongboxwood until it froze and cracked. That was the year winter came in a hurry at suppertime andstayed eight months. One of the War years when Miss Bodwin, the whitewoman, broughtChristmas cologne for her mother and herself, oranges for the boys and another good wool shawlfor Baby Suggs. Talking of a war full of dead people, she looked happy — flush-faced, andalthough her voice was heavy as a man's, she smelled like a roomful of flowers — excitement thatDenver could have all for herself in the boxwood. Back beyond 1x4 was a narrow field thatstopped itself at a wood. On the yonder side of these woods, a stream. In these woods, between thefield and the stream, hidden by post oaks, five boxwood bushes, planted in a ring, had startedstretching toward each other four feet off the ground to form a round, empty room seven feet high,its walls fifty inches of murmuring leaves. Bent low, Denver could crawl into this room, and oncethere she could stand all the way up in emerald light.
It began as a little girl's houseplay, but as her desires changed, so did the play. Quiet, primate andcompletely secret except for the noisome cologne signal that thrilled the rabbits before it confusedthem. First a playroom (where the silence was softer), then a refuge (from her brothers' fright),soon the place became the point. In that bower, closed off from the hurt of the hurt world, Denver'simagination produced its own hunger and its own food, which she badly needed because lonelinesswore her out. Wore her out. Veiled and protected by the live green walls, she felt ripe and clear,and salvation was as easy as a wish.
Once when she was in the boxwood, an autumn long before Paul D moved into the house with hermother, she was made suddenly cold by a combination of wind and the perfume on her skin. Shedressed herself, bent down to leave and stood up in snowfall: a thin and whipping snow very likethe picture her mother had painted as she described the circumstances of Denver's birth in a canoestraddled by a whitegirl for whom she was named.
Shivering, Denver approached the house, regarding it, as she always did, as a person rather than astructure. A person that wept, sighed, trembled and fell into fits. Her steps and her gaze were the cautious ones of a child approaching a nervous, idle relative (someone dependent but proud). Abreastplate of darkness hid all the windows except one. Its dim glow came from Baby Suggs'
room. When Denver looked in, she saw her mother on her knees in prayer, which was not unusual.
What was unusual (even for a girl who had lived all her life in a house peopled by the livingactivity of the dead) was that a white dress knelt down next to her mother and had its sleeve aroundher mother's waist. And it was the tender embrace of the dress sleeve that made Denver rememberthe details of her birth — that and the thin, whipping snow she was standing in, like the fruit ofcommon flowers. The dress and her mother together looked like two friendly grown-up women —one (the dress) helping out the other. And the magic of her birth, its miracle in fact, testified to thatfriendliness as did her own name.
塞丝本想翻个身趴着，临了又改变了主意。她不想再引起保罗•D的注意，所以只把双脚叠了起来。
但保罗•D注意到了这个动作，还有她呼吸的变化。他觉得有责任再试一遍，这回慢一点，然而欲望消失了。实际上这是一种很好的感觉———不想要她。二十五年咔嚓一下!西克索才干得出那种事———就像那回，他安排了同“三十英里女子”帕特茜的会面。他花了整整三个月时间和两次三十四英里路来回，去说服她朝他这边走三分之一的路程，到一个他知道的地方。那是一座被遗弃的石头建筑，很久以前红种人认为这块土地属于他们时使用过它。西克索在他的一次夜半溜号中间发现了它，并请求它允许他进入。在里面，他与红种人的精灵灵犀相通，向它请示能否把他的女人带来。它说可以。西克索就费了牛劲指导她怎么到那儿，究竟什么时刻出发，如何分辨他表示迎接和警告的口哨声。由于谁都不许跑出去干自己的事，再加上“三十英里女子”已经十四岁并且许配了人，所以危险可是真格的。他到的时候，她还没到。他吹了口哨，却没有得到回应。他走进红种人遗弃的旧屋。她不在那儿。他回到相会的地点。她不在那儿。他又等了一会儿。她还是没来。他越来越毛骨悚然，就沿着大路朝她该来的方向走下去。走了有三四英里路，他停下脚步。再走下去没有什么希望，于是他站在风中向天求助。他仔细地捕捉着信号，听到了一声呜咽。他转向它，等了一会儿，又听见了。他不再警惕了，大叫她的名字。她回答的声音在他听来仿佛生命———而非死亡。
