"Why you think you have to take up for her? Apologize for her? She's grown.""I don't care what she is. Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They getbigger, older, but grown? What's that supposed to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing.""It means she has to take it if she acts up. You can't protect her every minute. What's going tohappen when you die?""Nothing! I'll protect her while I'm live and I'll protect her when I ain't.""Oh well, I'm through," he said. "I quit.""That's the way it is, Paul D. I can't explain it to you no better than that, but that's the way it is. If Ihave to choose — well, it's not even a choice.""That's the point. The whole point. I'm not asking you to choose. Nobody would. I thought — well,I thought you could — there was some space for me.""She's asking me.""You can't go by that. You got to say it to her. Tell her it's not about choosing somebody over her— it's making space for somebody along with her. You got to say it. And if you say it and mean it,then you also got to know you can't gag me. There's no way I'm going to hurt her or not take careof what she need if I can, but I can't be told to keep my mouth shut if she's acting ugly. You wantme here, don't put no gag on me.""Maybe I should leave things the way they are," she said.
"How are they?""We get along.""What about inside?""I don't go inside.""Sethe, if I'm here with you, with Denver, you can go anywhere you want. Jump, if you want to,'cause I'll catch you, girl. I'll catch you "fore you fall. Go as far inside as you need to, I'll hold yourankles. Make sure you get back out. I'm not saying this because I need a place to stay. That's thelast thing I need. I told you, I'm a walking man, but I been heading in this direction for seven years.
Walking all around this place. Upstate, downstate, east, west; I been in territory ain't got no name,never staying nowhere long. But when I got here and sat out there on the porch, waiting for you,well, I knew it wasn't the place I was heading toward; it was you. We can make a life, girl. A life.""I don't know. I don't know.""Leave it to me. See how it goes. No promises, if you don't want to make any. Just see how it goes.
All right?""All right.""You willing to leave it to me?""Well — some of it.""Some?" he smiled. "Okay. Here's some. There's a carnival in town. Thursday, tomorrow, is forcoloreds and I got two dollars. Me and you and Denver gonna spend every penny of it. What yousay?""No" is what she said. At least what she started out saying (what would her boss say if she took aday off?), but even when she said it she was thinking how much her eyes enjoyed looking in hisface.
塞丝攥起两只拳头，把它们藏在屁股后面。
“你跟她一样差劲。
”
“得啦，塞丝。
”
“噢，我要说，我要说!”
“你知道我什么意思。
”
“我知道，而且不高兴。
”
“耶稣啊。
”他嘟囔道。
“谁？”塞丝又开始提高音量。
“耶稣!我说的是耶稣!我只不过坐下来吃顿晚饭，就给骂了两回。一回是因为在这儿待着，一回是因为问问一开始为什么挨骂!”
“她没骂。
”
“没骂？听着可像。
”
“听我说。我替她道歉。我真的———”
“你做不到。你不能替别人道歉。得让她来说。
”
“那么我会让她说的。
”塞丝叹了口气。
“我想知道的是，她问的问题你脑子里也有吗？
”
“噢，不是。不是，保罗•D。噢，不是。
”
“这么说她有一套想法，而你有另一套喽？要是你能把她脑子里的什么玩意儿都叫做想法的话。”
“原谅我，可是我听不得一丁点儿她的坏话。我会惩罚她的。你甭管她。
”
危险，保罗•D想，太危险了。一个做过奴隶的女人，这样强烈地去爱什么都危险，尤其当她爱的是自己的孩子。最好的办法，他知道，是只爱一点点；对于一切，都只爱一点点，这样，当他们折断它的脊梁，或者将它胡乱塞进收尸袋的时候，那么，也许你还会有一点爱留给下一个。“为什么？
”他问她，“为什么你觉得你得替她承担？替她道歉？她已经成熟了。
”
“我可不管她怎么样了。成熟对一个母亲来说啥都不算。孩子就是孩子。他们会变大、变老，可是变成熟？那是什么意思？在我心里那什么也不算。
”
“成熟意味着她必须对她的行为负责。你不能时时刻刻护着她。你死了以后怎么办？
”
“不怎么办!我活着的时候保护她，我不活的时候还保护她。
”
“噢得啦，我没词儿了，”他说，“我投降。
”
“就是那么回事，保罗•D。我没有更好的解释，可就是那么回事。假如我非选择不可———唉，连选择都没有。
”
“就是这个意思，完全正确。我不是要求你去选择，谁也不会这样要求你。我以为———我是说，我以为你能———给我一席之地。
”
“她也在问我。
”
“你逃不过去。你得对她讲。告诉她这不是放弃她选择别人的问题———是同她一道为别人腾点地方。你得讲出来。要是你这样讲也这样打算，那么你也该明白你不能堵住我的嘴。做得到的话，我绝不可能伤害她或者不照顾好她，可是如果她做事丢人现眼，我不能让人跟我说住嘴。你愿意我待在这儿，就别堵住我的嘴。
”
“也许我应该顺其自然。
”她说。
“那是什么样？
”
“我们挺合得来。
”
“内心呢？
”
“我不进入内心。
”
“塞丝，有我在这儿陪着你，陪着丹芙，你想去哪儿就去哪儿。你想跳就跳吧，我会接着你的，姑娘。我会在你摔倒之前就接住你。你在心里想走多远就走多远，我会握住你的脚脖子。保证你能再走出来。我不是为了能有个地方待才这么说的。那是我最不需要的东西。我说了，我是个过路客，可是我已经朝这个方向走了七年了。在这一带转来转去。北边的州，南边的州，东边的，西边的；没有名字的地方我也去过，在哪儿都不久留。可是我到了这儿，坐在门廊上等着你，这时我才知道，我不是奔这个地方来的，是奔你。我们能创造一种生活，姑娘。一种生活。
”
“我不知道。我不知道。
”
“交给我吧。看看会怎么样。你要是不愿意就先别答应。先看看会怎么样。好吗？
”
“好吧。
”
“你愿意交给我来干吗？
”
“嗯———一部分。
”
“一部分？
”他笑了，“好极了。先给你一部分。城里有个狂欢节。星期四，明天，是黑人专场。我有两块钱。我、你，还有丹芙，咱们去把它花个一个子儿不剩。你说怎么样？
”
她的回答是“不”。至少一开始是这么说的（她要是请一天假老板会怎么说？），可是尽管嘴上这么说，她心里却一直在想，她的眼睛是多么爱看他的脸呀。
Chapter 12
The crickets were screaming on Thursday and the sky, stripped of blue, was white hot ateleven in the morning. Sethe was badly dressed for the heat, but this being her first social outing ineighteen years, she felt obliged to wear her one good dress, heavy as it was, and a hat. Certainly ahat. She didn't want to meet Lady Jones or Ella with her head wrapped like she was going to work.
The dress, a good-wool castoff, was a Christmas present to Baby Suggs from Miss Bodwin, thewhitewoman who loved her. Denver and Paul D fared better in the heat since neither felt theoccasion required special clothing. Denver's bonnet knocked against her shoulder blades; Paul Dwore his vest open, no jacket and his shirt sleeves rolled above his elbows. They were not holdinghands, but their shadows were. Sethe looked to her left and all three of them were gliding over thedust holding hands. Maybe he was right. A life. Watching their hand holding shadows, she wasembarrassed at being dressed for church.
The others, ahead and behind them, would think she was putting on airs, letting them know thatshe was different because she lived in a house with two stories; tougher, because she could do andsurvive things they believed she should neither do nor survive. She was glad Denver had resistedher urgings to dress up — rebraid her hair at least.
But Denver was not doing anything to make this trip a pleasure. She agreed to go — sullenly —but her attitude was "Go 'head. Try and make me happy." The happy one was Paul D. He saidhowdy to everybody within twenty feet. Made fun of the weather and what it was doing to him,yelled back at the crows, and was the first to smell the doomed roses. All the time, no matter whatthey were doing — whether Denver wiped perspiration from her forehead or stooped to retie hershoes; whether Paul D kicked a stone or reached over to meddle a child's face leaning on its mother's shoulder — all the time the three shadows that shot out of their feet to the left held hands.
Nobody noticed but Sethe and she stopped looking after she decided that it was a good sign. A life.
Could be.
Up and down the lumberyard fence old roses were dying. The sawyer who had planted themtwelve years ago to give his workplace a friendly feel — something to take the sin out of slicingtrees for a living — was amazed by their abundance; how rapidly they crawled all over the stakeand-post fence that separated the lumberyard from the open field next to it where homeless menslept, children ran and, once a year, carnival people pitched tents. The closer the roses got to death,the louder their scent, and everybody who attended the carnival associated it with the stench of therotten roses. It made them a little dizzy and very thirsty but did nothing to extinguish the eagernessof the coloredpeople filing down the road. Some walked on the grassy shoulders, others dodged thewagons creaking down the road's dusty center. All, like Paul D, were in high spirits, which thesmell of dying roses (that Paul D called to everybody's attention) could not dampen. As theypressed to get to the rope entrance they were lit like lamps. Breathless with the excitement ofseeing white people loose: doing magic, clowning, without heads or with two heads, twenty feettall or two feet tall, weighing a ton, completely tattooed, eating glass, swallowing fire, spittingribbons, twisted into knots, forming pyramids, playing with snakes and beating each other up.
All of this was advertisement, read by those who could and heard by those who could not, and thefact that none of it was true did not extinguish their appetite a bit. The barker called them and theirchildren names ("Pickaninnies free!") but the food on his vest and the hole in his pants rendered itfairly harmless. In any case it was a small price to pay for the fun they might not ever have again.
Two pennies and an insult were well spent if it meant seeing the spectacle of whitefolks making aspectacle of themselves. So, although the carnival was a lot less than mediocre (which is why itagreed to a Colored Thursday), it gave the four hundred black people in its audience thrill uponthrill upon thrill.
One-Ton Lady spit at them, but her bulk shortened her aim and they got a big kick out of thehelpless meanness in her little eyes. Arabian Nights Dancer cut her performance to three minutesinstead of the usual fifteen she normally did-earning the gratitude of the children, who couldhardly wait for Abu Snake Charmer, who followed her.
Denver bought horehound, licorice, peppermint and lemonade at table manned by a littlewhitegirl in ladies' high-topped shoes. Soothed by sugar, surrounded by (a) a crowd of people who didnot find her the main attraction, who, in fact, said, "Hey, Denver," every now and then, pleased herenough to consider the possibility that Paul D wasn't all that bad. In fact there was something abouthim — when the three of them stood together watching Midget dance — that made the stares ofother Negroes kind, gentle, something Denver did not remember seeing in their faces. Several evennodded and smiled at her mother, no one, apparently, able to withstand sharing the pleasure Paul D.was having. He slapped his knees when Giant danced with Midget; when Two-Headed Mantalked to himself. He bought everything Denver asked for and much she did not. He teased Setheinto tents she was reluctant to enter. Stuck pieces of candy she didn't want between her lips. WhenWild African Savage shook his bars and said wa wa, Paul D told everybody he knew him back in Roanoke.
Paul D made a few acquaintances; spoke to them about what work he might find. Sethe returnedthe smiles she got. Denver was swaying with delight. And on the way home, although leadingthem now, the shadows of three people still held hands.
A FULLY DRESSED woman walked out of the water. She barely gained the dry bank of thestream before she sat down and leaned against a mulberry tree. All day and all night she sat there,her head resting on the trunk in a position abandoned enough to crack the brim in her straw hat.
Everything hurt but her lungs most of all. Sopping wet and breathing shallow she spent those hourstrying to negotiate the weight of her eyelids. The day breeze blew her dress dry; the night windwrinkled it. Nobody saw her emerge or came accidentally by. If they had, chances are they wouldhave hesitated before approaching her. Not because she was wet, or dozing or had what soundedlike asthma, but because amid all that she was smiling. It took her the whole of the next morning tolift herself from the ground and make her way through the woods past a giant temple of boxwoodto the field and then the yard of the slate-gray house. Exhausted again, she sat down on the firsthandy place — a stump not far from the steps of 124. By then keeping her eyes open was less of aneffort. She could manage it for a full two minutes or more. Her neck, its circumference no widerthan a parlor-service saucer, kept bending and her chin brushed the bit of lace edging her dress.
Women who drink champagne when there is nothing to celebrate can look like that: their strawhats with broken brims are often askew; they nod in public places; their shoes are undone. Buttheir skin is not like that of the woman breathing near the steps of 124. She had new skin, linelessand smooth, including the knuckles of her hands. By late afternoon when the carnival was over,and the Negroes were hitching rides home if they were lucky — walking if they were not — thewoman had fallen asleep again. The rays of the sun struck her full in the face, so that when Sethe,Denver and Paul D rounded the curve in the road all they saw was a black dress, two unlaced shoesbelow it, and Here Boy nowhere in sight.
"Look," said Denver. "What is that?"And, for some reason she could not immediately account for, the moment she got close enough tosee the face, Sethe's bladder filled to capacity. She said, "Oh, excuse me," and ran around to theback of 124. Not since she was a baby girl, being cared for by the eight year-old girl who pointedout her mother to her, had she had an emergency that unmanageable. She never made the outhouse.
Right in front of its door she had to lift her skirts, and the water she voided was endless. Like ahorse, she thought, but as it went on and on she thought, No, more like flooding the boat whenDenver was born. So much water Amy said, "Hold on, Lu. You going to sink us you keep that up."But there was no stopping water breaking from a breaking womb and there was no stopping now.
She hoped Paul D wouldn't take it upon himself to come looking for her and be obliged to see hersquatting in front of her own privy making a mudhole too deep to be witnessed without shame.
Just about the time she started wondering if the carnival would accept another freak, it stopped.
She tidied herself and ran around to the porch. No one was there. All three were insidePaul D andDenver standing before the stranger, watching her drink cup after cup of water.
"She said she was thirsty," said Paul D. He took off his cap. "Mighty thirsty look like."The woman gulped water from a speckled tin cup and held it out for more. Four times Denverfilled it, and four times the woman drank as though she had crossed a desert. When she wasfinished a little water was on her chin, but she did not wipe it away. Instead she gazed at Sethewith sleepy eyes. Poorly fed, thought Sethe, and younger than her clothes suggested — good laceat the throat, and a rich woman's hat. Her skin was flawless except for three vertical scratches onher forehead so fine and thin they seemed at first like hair, baby hair before it bloomed and ropedinto the masses of black yarn under her hat.
"You from around here?" Sethe asked her.
