Race by Toni Morrison

Author:Toni Morrison [Morrison, Toni]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2017-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

From the novel Beloved

UNFORTUNATELY HER BRAIN was devious. She might be hurrying across a field, running practically, to get to the pump quickly and rinse the chamomile sap from her legs. Nothing else would be in her mind. The picture of the men coming to nurse her was as lifeless as the nerves in her back where the skin buckled like a washboard. Nor was there the faintest scent of ink or the cherry gum and oak bark from which it was made. Nothing. Just the breeze cooling her face as she rushed toward water. And then sopping the chamomile away with pump water and rags, her mind fixed on getting every last bit of sap off – on her carelessness in taking a shortcut across the field just to save a half mile, and not noticing how high the weeds had grown until the itching was all the way to her knees. Then something. The plash of water, the sight of her shoes and stockings awry on the path where she had flung them; or Here Boy lapping in the puddle near her feet, and suddenly there was Sweet Home rolling, rolling, rolling out before her eyes, and although there was not a leaf on that farm that did not make her want to scream, it rolled itself out before her in shameless beauty. It never looked as terrible as it was and it made her wonder if hell was a pretty place too. Fire and brimstone all right, but hidden in lacy groves. Boys hanging from the most beautiful sycamores in the world. It shamed her – remembering the wonderful soughing trees rather than the boys. Try as she might to make it otherwise, the sycamores beat out the children every time and she could not forgive her memory for that.

When the last of the chamomile was gone, she went around to the front of the house, collecting her shoes and stockings on the way. As if to punish her further for her terrible memory, sitting on the porch not forty feet away was Paul D, the last of the Sweet Home men. And although she could never mistake his face for another’s, she said, ‘Is that you?’

‘What’s left.’ He stood up and smiled. ‘How you been, girl, besides barefoot?’

When she laughed it came out loose and young. ‘Messed up my legs back yonder. Chamomile.’

He made a face as though tasting a teaspoon of something bitter. ‘I don’t want to even hear ’bout it. Always did hate that stuff.’

Sethe balled up her stockings and jammed them into her pocket. ‘Come on in.’

‘Porch is fine, Sethe. Cool out here.’ He sat back down and looked at the meadow on the other side of the road, knowing the eagerness he felt would be in his eyes.

‘Eighteen years,’ she said softly.

‘Eighteen,’ he repeated. ‘And I swear I been walking every one of em. Mind if I join you?’ He nodded toward her feet and began unlacing his shoes.

‘You want to soak them? Let me get you a basin of water.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.