Tar Baby - Toni Morrison

“I wouldn’t have tried any such thing, if they stole. I don’t condone that.”

“Well, they did and I let them go and that’s that.”

Son’s mouth went dry as he watched Valerian chewing a piece of ham, his head-of-a-coin profile content, approving even of the flavor in his mouth although he had been able to dismiss with a flutter of the fingers the people whose sugar and cocoa had allowed him to grow old in regal comfort; although he had taken the sugar and cocoa and paid for it as though it had no value, as though the cutting of cane and picking of beans was child’s play and had no value; but he turned it into candy, the invention of which really was child’s play, and sold it to other children and made a fortune in order to move near, but not in the midst of, the jungle where the sugar came from and build a palace with more of their labor and then hire them to do more of the work he was not capable of and pay them again according to some scale of value that would outrage Satan himself and when those people wanted a little of what he wanted, some apples for their Christmas, and took some, he dismissed them with a flutter of the fingers, because they were thieves, and nobody knew thieves and thievery better than he did and he probably thought he was a law-abiding man, they all did, and they all always did, because they had not the dignity of wild animals who did not eat where they defecated but they could defecate over a whole people and come there to live and defecate some more by tearing up the land and that is why they loved property so, because they had killed it soiled it defecated on it and they loved more than anything the places where they shit. Would fight and kill to own the cesspools they made, and although they called it architecture it was in fact elaborately built toilets, decorated toilets, toilets surrounded with and by business and enterprise in order to have something to do in between defecations since waste was the order of the day and the ordering principle of the universe. And especially the Americans who were the worst because they were new at the business of defecation spent their whole lives bathing bathing bathing washing away the stench of the cesspools as though pure soap had anything to do with purity.

That was the sole lesson of their world: how to make waste, how to make machines that made more waste, how to make wasteful products, how to talk waste, how to study waste, how to design waste, how to cure people who were sickened by waste so they could be well enough to endure it, how to mobilize waste, legalize waste and how to despise the culture that lived in cloth houses and shit on the ground far away from where they ate. And it would drown them one day, they would all sink into their own waste and the waste they had made of the world and then, finally they would know true peace and the happiness they had been looking for all along. In the meantime this one here would chew a morsel of ham and drink white wine secure in the knowledge that he had defecated on two people who had dared to want some of his apples.

And Jadine had defended him. Poured his wine, offered him a helping of this, a dab of that and smiled when she did not have to. Soothed down any disturbance that might fluster him; quieted even the mild objections her own aunt raised, and sat next to him more alive and responsive and attentive than even his own wife was, basking in the cold light that came from one of the killers of the world.

Jadine who should know better, who had been to schools and seen some of the world and who ought to know better than any of them because she had been made by them, coached by them and should know by heart the smell of their huge civilized latrines.

Sydney closed his knife and fork and said, “Other folks steal and they get put in the guest room.”

Jadine shot a look at Son and said, “Uncle Sydney, please.”

“It’s true, ain’t it? We were slighted by taking in one thief and now we are slighted by letting another go.”

“We are quarreling about apples,” said Margaret with surprise. “We are actually quarreling about apples.”

“It is not about apples, Mrs. Street,” said Sydney quietly. “I just think we should have been informed. We would have let them go ourselves, probably. This way, well…” He looked as if even staying on at the table let alone the job was hopeless.

Valerian, at the head of his Christmas table, looked at the four black people; all but one he knew extremely well, all but one, and even that one was in his debt. Across from him at the bottom of the table sat Son who thought he knew them all very well too, except one and that one was escaping out of his hands, and that one was doing the bidding of her boss and “patron.” Keeping the dinner going smoothly, quietly chastising everybody including her own uncle and aunt, soothing Margaret, agreeing with Valerian and calling Gideon Yardman and never taking the trouble to know his name and never calling his own name out loud. He looked at Valerian and Valerian looked back.

The evening eyes met those of the man with savannas in his face. The man who respected industry looked over a gulf at the man who prized fraternity.

So he said to Valerian, in a clear voice, “If they had asked, would you have given them some of the apples?” The whole table looked at Son as if he were crazy.

“Of course,” said Valerian. “Some, surely, but they didn’t ask; they took. Do you know how many Americans here want special treats and goodies from the consulate? Especially at Christmas. They sent us one crate, and those two, along with that girl they bring, took them, or tried to. I stopped them. Besides, it wasn’t the apples alone. It was the way they acted when I caught them. After trying to lie out of it, they didn’t even apologize. They got arrogant—the woman called me names I haven’t heard since I left the army. So I fired them. Those apples came at great expense and inconvenience from the consulate. I don’t see what the problem is.”

“Inconvenience for who?” Son asked. “You didn’t go and get them. They did. You didn’t row eighteen miles to bring them here. They did.”

“Surely you don’t expect me to explain my actions, defend them to you?”

“You should explain it to somebody. Two people are going to starve so your wife could play American mama and fool around in the kitchen.”

“Keep me out of it, please,” said Margaret.

“Precisely,” said Valerian. His evening eyes had a touch of menace. “You keep my wife out of this. I rather think you have caused her enough mischief.” Somewhere in the back of Valerian’s mind one hundred French chevaliers were roaming the hills on horses. Their swords were in their scabbards and their epaulets glittered in the sun. Backs straight, shoulders high—alert but restful in the security of the Napoleonic Code.

Somewhere in the back of Son’s mind one hundred black men on one hundred unshod horses rode blind and naked through the hills and had done so for hundreds of years. They knew the rain forest when it was a rain forest, they knew where the river began, where the roots twisted above the ground; they knew all there was to know about the island and had not even seen it. They had floated in strange waters blind, but they were still there racing each other for sport in the hills behind this white man’s house. Son folded his hands before his jawline and turned his savanna eyes on those calm head-of-a-coin evening ones. “Whatever mischief I did,” he said, “it wasn’t enough to make you leave the table to find out about it.”

“You will leave this house,” said Valerian. “Now.”

“I don’t think so,” said Son.

Margaret raised her hand and touched Valerian on the shoulder. “It’s all right, Valerian. Let’s just…”

“It’s not all right! Whose house is this?”

“We got them back,” she said. “I made the ollieballen with them.” Her voice was limp. Maybe if they all just ignored that “I don’t think so,” it would disappear. It didn’t. It clicked like a key opening a lock.

“That’s not the point!”

“Well, what is the point, I’d like to know. It’s Christmas…”

“I am being questioned by these people, as if, as if I could be called into question!”

Jadine spoke. “Valerian, Ondine’s feelings were hurt. That’s all.”

“By what, pray? By my removing a pair of thieves from my house?”

“No, by not telling her,” said Margaret.

“So what? All of a sudden I’m beholden to a cook for the welfare of two people she hated anyway? I don’t understand.”

Ondine had been watching the exchanges with too bright eyes, chagrined by Margaret’s defense of her interests. Having caused all the trouble, now she was pretending that Ondine was the source of the dispute. “I may be a cook, Mr. Street, but I’m a person too.”

“Mr. Street,” said Sydney, “my wife is as important to me as yours is to you and should have the same respect.”

“More,” said Ondine. “I should have more respect. I am the one who cleans up her shit!”

“Ondine!” Both Sydney and Valerian spoke at once.

“This is impossible!” Valerian was shouting.

“I’ll tell it,” said Ondine. “Don’t push me, I’ll tell it.”

“Nanadine! Get hold of yourself!” Jadine pushed her chair back as though to rise.

“I’ll tell it. She wants to meddle in my kitchen, fooling around with pies. And my help gets fired!”

“Your kitchen? Your help?” Valerian was astonished.

“Yes my kitchen and yes my help. If not mine, whose?”

“You are losing your mind!” shouted Valerian.

Ondine was fuming now. “The first time in her life she tries to boil water and I get slapped in the face. Keep that bitch out of my kitchen. She’s not fit to enter it. She’s no cook and she’s no mother.”

Valerian stood up. “If you don’t leave this room I’ll…” It was the second time he ordered a dismissal and the second time it held no force.

“What? You’ll what?” asked Ondine.

“Leave!” said Valerian.

“Make me,” said Ondine.

“You don’t work here anymore,” he said.

“Oh, yeah? Who’s going to feed you? Her?” She pointed up-table at Margaret. “You’ll be dead in a week! and lucky to be dead. And away from her.”

Margaret picked up her glass and threw it. The Evian splashed on the cloth and some got on Ondine’s chiffon dress. As the others jumped up from their seats, Ondine slipped out of her zircon-studded shoes and raced around the table at the target of all her anger. The real target, who would not be riled until now when she got fed up with the name-calling and shot her water glass across the table. “Don’t you come near me!” Margaret shouted, but Ondine did and with the back of her hand slapped Margaret across the face.

“Call the harbor!” shouted Valerian, but again there was no one to do his bidding. He had played a silly game, and everyone was out of place.

Margaret touched her flaming cheek and then rose up from her chair like a red-topped geyser and grabbed Ondine’s braids, forced her head down to the table where she would have banged it except for the woman’s fist blows to her waist.

It was Jadine and Son who managed to separate them. Sydney was shaking and saying, “O Lord O Lord.” Valerian was shaking and saying nothing—his evening eyes gone dawn with rage.

Held tightly in the arms of Son, Ondine was shouting wildly, “You white freak! You baby killer! I saw you! I saw you! You think I don’t know what that apple pie shit is for?”

Jadine had a hard time holding back Margaret, who was shouting, “Shut up! Shut up! You nigger! You nigger bitch! Shut your big mouth, I’ll kill you!”

“You cut him up. You cut your baby up. Made him bleed for you. For fun you did it. Made him scream, you, you freak. You crazy white freak. She did,” Ondine addressed the others, still shouting. “She stuck pins in his behind. Burned him with cigarettes. Yes, she did, I saw her; I saw his little behind. She burned him!”

Valerian held on to the table edge as though it were the edge of the earth. His face was truly white and his voice cracked a little as he asked, “Burned…who?”

“Your son! Your precious Michael. When he was just a baby. A wee wee little bitty baby.” Ondine started to cry. “I used to hold him and pet him. He was so scared.” Her voice was hardly audible under the sobbing. “All the time scared. And he wanted her to stop. He wanted her to stop so bad. And every time she’d stop for a while, but then I’d see him curled up on his side, staring off. After a while—after a while he didn’t even cry. And she wants him home…for Christmas and apple pie. A little boy who she hurt so much he can’t even cry.”

She broke down then and said no more. Sydney put his arms around her. Son let her arms go and picked up a table napkin so she could wipe her streaming eyes with it instead of with the backs and the palms of her hands. Sydney led her barefoot, her diadem braids turned into horns, away from the table. Margaret was standing as still and as straight as a pillar. There were tears in her eyes but her beautiful face was serene. They could hear Ondine’s cries all the way into the first kitchen and down the stairs to the apartment of second-hand furniture. “Yes my kitchen. Yes my kitchen. I am the woman in this house. None other. As God is my witness there is none other. Not in this house.”

Margaret serene and lovely stared ahead at nobody. “I have always loved my son,” she said. “I am not one of those women in the National Enquirer.”

“THAT WAS AWFUL, awful,” said Jadine. She was holding Son’s hand as they walked up the stairs. There had been no point in staying or even excusing themselves. Valerian was looking at Margaret and she was looking at nobody. So the two of them left as soon as Ondine and Sydney did. Jadine would not admit to herself that she was rattled, but her fingertips were ice-cold in Son’s hand. She wanted a little human warmth, some unsullied person to be near, someone to be with, so she took his hand without thinking about it and said, “That was awful!”

“Yes,” he said.

“What happened? We all went crazy. Do you think it’s true? What Nanadine said? She wouldn’t make up anything like that.” They were at Jadine’s bedroom door and went in. Still holding hands. In the center of the room, Jadine stopped, released his hand and turned to face him. She pressed her fingers together in front of her lips. “Awful,” she said frowning, looking at the floor.

“Don’t think about it. It’s over.”

Jadine put her head on his chest. “It’s not over. They’re fired for sure. Tomorrow will be terrible. God, how can I wake up in the morning and face that? I won’t be able to sleep at all. Maybe I should go down and see about her?”

“Ondine?”

“Yes.”

“Leave her alone with Sydney. You shouldn’t bother them now.”

“I wish I could figure it out, what got into everybody.” Son put his arm around her; she was like a bird in the crook of his arm. “What does it mean?” She closed her eyes.

“It means,” he said, talking into her hair, “that white folks and black folks should not sit down and eat together.”