Tar Baby - Toni Morrison

“Let’s go back to armpits,” Margaret said.

The maiden aunts smiled and tossed their maiden aunt hair.

“We’ll do nothing of the sort. You were saying, Jade?” Valerian drained his wineglass.

Jadine shrugged. “Are you planning Christmas here—or where?”

“Here. Quietly. Although we may have a guest or two.”

“Oh? Who?”

“Tell her, Margaret.”

“Michael is coming. For Christmas.” Margaret’s smile was shy.

“But that’s wonderful,” said Jadine.

“Valerian thinks he won’t. He will though, because I promised him this really terrific present.”

“What? Can you tell me?”

“A poet,” said Valerian. “She’s giving him his favorite poet for Christmas. Isn’t that so, love?”

“You make everything I do sound stupid.”

“I thought I described it fairly.”

“It’s not the words; it’s the tone.” Margaret turned her head to Jadine. “I’ve invited B. J. Bridges for the holidays and he said he’d come. He used to be Michael’s teacher.”

“And Michael doesn’t know?”

“Not exactly. But he’ll guess. I gave him a hint—a big one—so he could. I used a line from one of Bridges’s poems in my letter. ‘And he glittered when he walked.’”

“Then you may as well have your nervous breakdown right now,” said Valerian. “He won’t come. You’ve misled him entirely.”

“What are you talking about? He’s on his way. His trunk’s already been shipped.”

“That is not a line from anything Bridges ever wrote. Michael will think you’re dotty.”

“It is. I have the poem right upstairs. I underlined it myself. It was the one Michael used to recite.”

“Then Bridges is not only a mediocrity, he’s a thief.”

“Perhaps he was using it as a quotation, or an allusion—” Jadine fiddled with her hair.

“He’ll think you’re batty and…”

“Valerian, please.”

“…and go snake dancing.”

“Then I’ll go with him.”

“We’ve been all through this, Margaret.”

“When will you know for sure?” Jadine’s voice affected lightness.

“She already knows for sure. The rest is hope and a determination to irritate me.”

“Irritating you doesn’t have to be determined. All anybody has to do is breathe a slice of your air—”

“Must you always speak in food measurements? The depression is over. You are free to leave something on your plate. There’s more. There really is more.”

“I don’t have to sit here and listen to this. You’re trying to ruin it for me, but you’re not going to. I tear my life apart and come down here for the winter and all I ask in return is a normal Christmas that includes my son. You won’t come to us—we have to come to you and it’s not fair. You know it’s not. This whole thing is getting to be too much!”

“Is that a problem for you? Having too much?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know what you mean, but is it a problem for you? Because if it is I can arrange for less. I could certainly do with less myself. Less hysteria, less shouting, less drama…”

Jadine, unable to think of anything to do or say, watched tomato seeds slide into the salad dressing, and set about applying the principles of a survey course in psychology. During the two months she’d been there, Valerian and Margaret frequently baited one another and each had a dictionary of complaints against the other, entries in which, from time to time, they showed her. Just a May and December marriage, she thought, at its crucial stage. He’s seventy; she’s knocking fifty. He is waning, shutting up, closing in. She’s blazing with the fire of a soon to be setting sun. Naturally they bickered and taunted one another. Naturally. Normally, even. For they were decent people. Over and above their personal generosity to her and their solicitude for her uncle and aunt, they seemed decent. Decent like Sydney and Nanadine were decent, and this house full of decent folk situated in the pure sea air was exactly where she wanted to be right now. This vacation with light but salaried work was what she needed to pull herself together. Listening to Margaret and Valerian fight was a welcome distraction, just as playing daughter to Sydney and Nanadine was.

But recently (a few days ago, last night, and again tonight) flecks of menace lay in these quarrels. They no longer seemed merely the tiffs of long-married people who alone knew the physics of their relationship. Who like two old cats clawed each other, used each other to display a quarrelsomeness neither took seriously, quarreling because they thought it was expected of them, quarreling simply to exchange roles now and then for their own private amusement: the heavy would appear abused in public, the aggressive and selfish one would appear the eye and heart of restraint before an audience. And most of the time, like now, the plain of their battle was a child, and the weapons public identification of human frailty. Still, this was a little darker than what she had come to expect from them. Bits of blood, tufts of hair seemed to stick on those worn claws. Maybe she had misread their rules. Or maybe (most likely) she wasn’t an audience anymore. Maybe she was family now—or nobody. No, she thought, it must be this place. The island exaggerated everything. Too much light. Too much shadow. Too much rain. Too much foliage and much too much sleep. She’d never slept so deeply in her life. Such tranquillity in sleep made for wildness during the waking hours. That’s what it was: the wilderness creeping into Valerian and Margaret’s seasoned and regulated arguments, subverting the rules so that they looked at each other under the tender light of a seventy-year-old chandelier, bought by Valerian’s father in celebration of his wife’s first pregnancy, lifted their lips and bared their teeth.

“…she never liked me,” Margaret was saying. “From the very beginning she hated me.”

“How could she hate you from the beginning? She didn’t even know you.” Valerian lowered his voice in an effort to calm her.

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

“She was perfectly polite and gracious to you in the beginning.”

“She was awful to me, Valerian. Awful!”

“That was later when you wouldn’t let Michael visit her.”

“Wouldn’t let? I couldn’t make him go. He hated her; he’d shrink at the very—”

“Margaret, stick to the facts, Michael was two or three. He couldn’t have hated anybody, let alone his aunt.”

“He did, and if you had any feelings you would have hated her too.”

“My own sister?”

“Or at least told her off.”

“For what, for God’s sake. For having a private wedding instead of a circus? You never invite them down here and she’s probably upset about it, that’s all. And this is her way of—”

“Dear God. You have screamed at me for years for having too many people. Now you want me to invite Cissy and Frank. I don’t believe—”

“I didn’t say that. I don’t want her here any more than you do. I am only trying to explain why they didn’t let us know about the wedding. From what I gather—”

“What do you mean us? She invited Michael! But not me!”

“Stacey’s idea.”

“Do you think if Michael got married I would invite Stacey and not her parents?”

“Margaret, I don’t give one goddamn—”

“She’s always treated me that way. You know what she did to me the first day I met her.”

“I suppose I should but I don’t.”

“You don’t?”

“No. Sorry.”

“What she said to me that first day?”

“It’s been some time.”

“About my cross?”

“Your what?”

“My cross. The cross I wore. My first communion present. She said for me to take it off. That only whores wore crosses.”

Valerian laughed. “That sounds like her.”

“You think it’s funny.”

“In a way.”

“That your own sister…my God.”

“Margaret, you didn’t have to do it—take it off. Why didn’t you tell her to go to hell?”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Because you agreed with her, that’s why.”

“That my bride was a whore?”

“You know what I mean.”

“All I know is that you let her get under your skin and she’s still there after thirty years. You don’t give a gnat’s ass about the wedding. You just wanted to be anywhere Michael is. You can’t stand for him to be wherever you’re not.”

“That’s not true.”

“You wanted to crash some fatheaded wedding because Michael was there. You are too stupid to live.”

“I don’t have to sit here and be called names!”

“Idiot. I married an idiot!”

“And I married an old fool!”

“Of course you did. Who else but an old fool would marry a high school dropout off the back of a truck!”

“A float!” Margaret shouted, and when the wineglass bounced from the centerpiece of calla lilies and rolled toward him he didn’t even look at it. He simply watched his wife’s face crumple and her boy-blue eyes well up.

“Oh,” said Jadine. “This is…maybe…Margaret? Would you like to…” But Margaret was gone, leaving the oak door swinging behind her and the maiden aunts cowering in the corners of the room.

Sydney (unbidden but right on time) removed the glass and placed a fresh white napkin over the wine spot. Then he collected the salad plates, replacing them with warm white china with a single band of gold around the edges. Each plate he handled with a spotlessly white napkin and was careful, as he slipped it from the blue quilted warmer, not to make a sound. When the plates were in position, he disappeared for a few seconds and returned with a smoking soufflé. He held it near Valerian a moment for inspection, and then proceeded to the sideboard to slice it into flawless, frothy wedges.

Jadine considered her soufflé while Valerian signaled for more wine. It seemed a long time before he murmured to her, “Sorry.”

Jadine smiled or tried to and said, “You shouldn’t tease her like that.”

“No, I suppose not,” he answered, but his voice held no conviction and his twilight gaze was muddy.

“Is it because she wants to go away?” asked Jadine.

“Of course not. Not at all.”

“Michael?”

“Yes. Michael.”

He said nothing more so Jadine decided to exit as quickly as she could manage it. She was folding her napkin when suddenly he spoke. “She’s nervous. Afraid he won’t show. I’m nervous. Afraid he will.”

There was another silence as Jadine struggled to think of something purposeful—even relevant—to say. She couldn’t think of a thing so she gave up and said the obvious. “I remember Michael. He’s…nice.” She recalled an eighteen-year-old boy with red hair and cut-off jeans.

“Quite,” said Valerian. “Quite nice.”

“If he does come, as well as his friend, how can it hurt?”

“I don’t know. It depends.”

“On what?”

“Things outside my control. I can’t be responsible for things outside my control.” He pushed away his plate and drank his wine.

Jadine sighed. She wanted to leave the table, but didn’t know how. Does he want me to stay or doesn’t he? she wondered. Does he want me to talk or doesn’t he? All I can do is ask polite questions and urge him to talk if he feels like it. Maybe I should go to Margaret, or change the subject, or have my head examined for coming here. “No one asks you to be,” she said softly.

“That’s not the point, whether I’m asked or not. A lot of life is outside and frequently it’s the part that most needs control.” He covered his lips with his napkin for a while then uncovered them and said, “Margaret thinks this is some sort of long lazy vacation for me, designed to hurt her. In fact I’m doing just the opposite. I intend to go back at some point. I will go back but actually it’s for Michael that I stay. His protection.”

“You make him sound weak, the way you say that. I don’t remember him that way at all.”

“You did know him, didn’t you?” Valerian looked at her with surprise.

“Well, not really know him. I met him twice. The last time when you invited me to spend the summer in Orange County. Remember?” Jadine perked up, animated by her own memory. “My first year at college? He was there and we used to talk. He was…oh…clearheaded—independent it seemed to me. Actually we didn’t talk; we quarreled. About why I was studying art history at that snotty school instead of—I don’t know what. Organizing or something. He said I was abandoning my history. My people.”

“Typical,” said Valerian. “His idea of racial progress is All Voodoo to the People.”

“I think he wanted me to string cowrie beads or sell Afro combs. The system was all fucked up he said and only a return to handicraft and barter could change it. That welfare mothers could do crafts, pottery, clothing in their homes, like the lace-makers of Belgium and voilà! dignity and no more welfare.” Jadine smiled.

“That’s exactly what the world is waiting for: two billion African pots,” said Valerian.

“His intentions were good.”

“They were not good. He wanted a race of exotics skipping around being picturesque for him. What were those welfare mothers supposed to put in those pots? Did he have any suggestions about that?”

“They’d trade them for other goods.”

“Really? Two thousand calabashes for a week of electricity? It’s been tried. It was called the Dark Ages.”

“Well, the pottery wasn’t to be utilitarian.” Jadine was laughing. “It’d be art.”

“Oh, I see. Not the Dark Ages, the Renaissance.”

“It was a long time ago, Valerian. Eight years? Nine? He was just a kid then. So was I.”

“You’ve grown. He hasn’t. His vocabulary, perhaps, but not his mind. It’s still in the grip of that quisling Little Prince. Do you know it?”

“Know what?”

“That book. The Little Prince.”

“No. I never read it.”

“Saint-Exupéry. Read it some time. And pay attention not to what it says, but what it means.”

Jadine nodded. It seemed like a perfect exit line to her, since she didn’t know what he was talking about and didn’t want to pursue his thoughts if they were anything like his eyes at this moment. Without melanin, they were all reflection, like mirrors, chamber after chamber, corridor after corridor of mirrors, each one taking its shape from the other and giving it back as its own until the final effect was color where no color existed at all. Once more she stirred to rise from the table and once more he stopped her, not irritably this time but with compassion.

“Did they trouble you—the things he said that summer?”

“For a while.”

“You knew better?”

“I knew the life I was leaving. It wasn’t like what he thought: all grits and natural grace. But he did make me want to apologize for what I was doing, what I felt. For liking ‘Ave Maria’ better than gospel music, I suppose.”