Part 5 (1/2)
”I don't know the real one. She just didn't belong in that house. Digging around in the cupboards, picking up pots and ice picks...”
”You sure have changed. That house was always full of people digging in cupboards and carrying on.”
”That's the reason, then.”
”Sula. Come on, now.”
”You've changed too. I didn't used to have to explain everything to you.”
Nel blushed. ”Who's feeding the deweys and Tar Baby? You?”
”Sure me. Anyway Tar Baby don't eat and the deweys still crazy.”
”I heard one of 'em's mamma came to take him back but didn't know which was hern.”
”Don't n.o.body know.”
”And Eva? You doing the work for her too?”
”Well, since you haven't heard it, let me tell you. Eva's real sick. I had her put where she could be watched and taken care of.”
”Where would that be?”
”Out by Beechnut.”
”You mean that home the white church run? Sula! That ain't no place for Eva. All them women is dirt poor with no people at all. Mrs. Wilkens and them. They got dropsy and can't hold their water-crazy as loons. Eva's odd, but she got sense. I don't think that's right, Sula.”
”I'm scared of her, Nellie. That's why...”
”Scared? Of Eva?”
”You don't know her. Did you know she burnt Plum?”
”Oh, I heard that years ago. But n.o.body put no stock in it.”
”They should have. It's true. I saw it. And when I got back here she was planning to do it to me too.”
”Eva? I can't hardly believe that. She almost died trying to get to your mother.”
Sula leaned forward, her elbows on the table. ”You ever known me to lie to you?”
”No. But you could be mistaken. Why would Eva...”
”All I know is I'm scared. And there's no place else for me to go. We all that's left, Eva and me. I guess I should have stayed gone. I didn't know what else to do. Maybe I should have talked to you about it first. You always had better sense than me. Whenever I was scared before, you knew just what to do.”
The closed place in the water spread before them. Nel put the iron on the stove. The situation was clear to her now. Sula, like always, was incapable of making any but the most trivial decisions. When it came to matters of grave importance, she behaved emotionally and irresponsibly and left it to others to straighten out. And when fear struck her, she did unbelievable things. Like that time with her finger. Whatever those hunkies did, it wouldn't have been as bad as what she did to herself. But Sula was so scared she had mutilated herself, to protect herself.
”What should I do, Nellie? Take her back and sleep with my door locked again?”
”No. I guess it's too late anyway. But let's work out a plan for taking care of her. So she won't be messed over.”
”Anything you say.”
”What about money? She got any?”
Sula shrugged. ”The checks come still. It's not much, like it used to be. Should I have them made over to me?”
”Can you? Do it, then. We can arrange for her to have special comforts. That place is a mess, you know. A doctor don't never set foot in there. I ain't figured out yet how they stay alive in there as long as they do.”
”Why don't I have the checks made over to you, Nellie? You better at this than I am.”
”Oh no. People will say I'm scheming. You the one to do it. Was there insurance from Hannah?”
”Yes. Plum too. He had all that army insurance.”
”Any of it left?”
”Well I went to college on some. Eva banked the rest. I'll look into it, though.”
”...and explain it all to the bank people.”
”Will you go down with me?”
”Sure. It's going to be all right.”
”I'm glad I talked to you 'bout this. It's been bothering me.”
”Well, tongues will wag, but so long as we know the truth, it don't matter.”
Just at that moment the children ran in announcing the entrance of their father. Jude opened the back door and walked into the kitchen. He was still a very good-looking man, and the only difference Sula could see was the thin pencil mustache under his nose, and a part in his hair.
”Hey, Jude. What you know good?”
”White man running it-nothing good.”
Sula laughed while Nel, high-tuned to his moods, ignored her husband's smile saying, ”Bad day, honey?”
”Same old stuff,” he replied and told them a brief tale of some personal insult done him by a customer and his boss-a whiney tale that peaked somewhere between anger and a lapping desire for comfort. He ended it with the observation that a Negro man had a hard row to hoe in this world. He expected his story to dovetail into milkwarm commiseration, but before Nel could excrete it, Sula said she didn't know about that-it looked like a pretty good life to her.
”Say what?” Jude's temper flared just a bit as he looked at this friend of his wife's, this slight woman, not exactly plain, but not fine either, with a copperhead over her eye. As far as he could tell, she looked like a woman roaming the country trying to find some man to burden down with a lot of lip and a lot of mouths.
Sula was smiling. ”I mean, I don't know what the fuss is about. I mean, everything in the world loves you. White men love you. They spend so much time worrying about your p.e.n.i.s they forget their own. The only thing they want to do is cut off a n.i.g.g.e.r's privates. And if that ain't love and respect I don't know what is. And white women? They chase you all to every corner of the earth, feel for you under every bed. I knew a white woman wouldn't leave the house after 6 o'clock for fear one of you would s.n.a.t.c.h her. Now ain't that love? They think rape soon's they see you, and if they don't get the rape they looking for, they scream it anyway just so the search won't be in vain. Colored women worry themselves into bad health just trying to hang on to your cuffs. Even little children-white and black, boys and girls-spend all their childhood eating their hearts out 'cause they think you don't love them. And if that ain't enough, you love yourselves. Nothing in this world loves a black man more than another black man. You hear of solitary white men, but n.i.g.g.e.rs? Can't stay away from one another a whole day. So. It looks to me like you the envy of the world.”
Jude and Nel were laughing, he saying, ”Well, if that's the only way they got to show it-cut off my b.a.l.l.s and throw me in jail-I'd just as soon they left me alone.” But thinking that Sula had an odd way of looking at things and that her wide smile took some of the sting from that rattlesnake over her eye. A funny woman, he thought, not that bad-looking. But he could see why she wasn't married; she stirred a man's mind maybe, but not his body.He left his tie. The one with the scriggly yellow lines running lopsided across the dark-blue field. It hung over the top of the closet door pointing steadily downward while it waited with every confidence for Jude to return.
Could he be gone if his tie is still here? He will remember it and come back and then she would...uh. Then she could...tell him. Sit down quietly and tell him. ”But Jude,” she would say, ”you knew knew me. All those days and years, Jude, you me. All those days and years, Jude, you knew knew me. My ways and my hands and how my stomach folded and how we tried to get Mickey to nurse and how about that time when the landlord said...but you said...and I cried, Jude. You knew me and had listened to the things I said in the night, and heard me in the bathroom and laughed at my raggedy girdle and I laughed too because I knew you too, Jude. So how could you leave me when you knew me?” me. My ways and my hands and how my stomach folded and how we tried to get Mickey to nurse and how about that time when the landlord said...but you said...and I cried, Jude. You knew me and had listened to the things I said in the night, and heard me in the bathroom and laughed at my raggedy girdle and I laughed too because I knew you too, Jude. So how could you leave me when you knew me?”