The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker

Author:Alice Walker [Walker, Alice]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 0156028360
Publisher: Phoenix Press
Published: 1970-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

34

JOSIE SAW THEM dancing together once, in the small log cabin Grange had built Ruth as a playhouse. It was on Ruth’s tenth birthday and she was dressed from head to toe in brand-new clothes. Josie was furious. Grange had not bought clothes for her since they’d been married. And he had never, after Ruth came to stay with them, taken the trouble to dance with her.

“It ain’t decent!” she cried, while Grange and Ruth danced breathlessly all around her. “And with your heart already full of holes!” They continued to dance, the music coming bluesy and hoarse from Grange’s straining throat. When he sang he seemed to be in pain. But Ruth knew nothing of the physical condition of his heart. She knew she was in it, and that seemed enough.

“What’s she talking about your heart?” she asked. But Grange was caught up in his lament. Ruth thought her grandfather a very sexy sort of old guy. He was tall and lean and had a jutting hip. When he danced you couldn’t tell if his day had been bad or good. He closed his eyes and grunted music. His songs were always his own; she never heard them sung over the radio. His songs moved her; watching him dance made her feel kin to something very old. Grange danced like he walked, with a sort of spring in his knees. When he was drinking his dance paced a thin line between hilarity and vulgarity. He had a good time. His heart, to Ruth, was not an organ in his body, it was the tremor in his voice when he sang. They danced best when they danced alone. And dancing taught Ruth she had a body. And she could see that her grandfather had one too and she could respect what he was able to do with it. Grange taught her untaught history through his dance; she glimpsed a homeland she had never known and felt the pattering of the drums. Dancing was a warm electricity that stretched, connecting them with other dancers moving across the seas. Through her grandfather’s old and beautifully supple limbs she learned how marvelous was the grace with which she moved.

Josie began to leave them every Sunday. She went into town to visit the jail where Brownfield was kept. Grange did nothing to detain her, or if he did Ruth knew nothing of it. Ruth, however, was startled by this turn in events. She could not imagine anyone being fearless enough to see her father. Josie had brought them word that Brownfield had changed since he was in prison, and that they would hardly believe it was him when they saw him. Ruth had assumed she would never see him again; she had even hoped he would be done away with. Josie made her afraid that her father would be out of prison very soon. However, as week followed week and Josie’s visits became less extraordinary to her, Ruth began to relax and to enjoy

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