Color Purple, The - Alice Walker [36]
Before we left we visited one of the large cacoa plantations they have. Nothing but cacoa trees as far as the eye can see. And whole villages built right in the middle of the fields. We watched the weary families come home from work, still carrying their cacoa seed buckets in their hands (these double as lunch buckets next day), and sometimes? if they are women? their children on their backs. As tired as they are, they sing! Celie. Just like we do at home. Why do tired people sing? I asked Corrine. loo tired to do anything else, she said. Besides, they don't own the cacoa fields, Celie, even president Tubman doesn't own them. People in a place called Holland do. The people who make Dutch chocolate. And there are overseers who make sure the people work hard, who live in stone houses in the corners of the fields.
Again I must go. Everyone is hi bed and I am writing by lamplight. But the light is attracting so many bugs I am being eaten alive.
I have bites everywhere, including my scalp and the bottoms of my feet.
But?
Did I mention my first sight of the African coast? Something struck hi me, in my soul, Celie, like a large bell, and I just vibrated.
Corrine and Samuel felt the same. And we kneeled down right on deck and gave thanks to God for letting us see the land for which our mothers and fathers cried? and lived and died? to see again.
Oh, Celie! Will I ever be able to tell you all?
I dare not ask, I know. But leave it all to God.
Your everloving sister, Nettie
What with being shock, crying and blowing my nose, and trying to puzzle out words us don't know, it took a long time to read just the first two or three letters. By the time us got up to where she good and settled in Africa, Mr.??? and Grady come home.
Can you handle it? ast Shug.
How I'm gon keep from killing him, I say.
Don't kill, she say. Nettie be coming home before long. Don't make her have to look at you like us look at Sofia.
But it so hard, I say, while Shug empty her suitcase and put the letters inside.
Hard to be Christ too, say Shug. But he manage. Remember that. Thou Shalt Not Kill, He said. And probably wanted to add on to that, Starting with me. He knowed the fools he was dealing with.
But Mr. ___ not Christ. I'm not Christ, I say.
You somebody to Nettie, she say. And she be pissed if you change on her while she on her way home.
Us hear Grady and Mr.??? in the kitchen. Dishes rattling, safe door open and shut.
Naw, I think I feel better if I kill him, I say. I feels sickish. Numb, now.
Naw you won't. Nobody feel better for killing nothing. They feel somethingis all.
That better than nothing.
Celie, she say, Nettie not the only one you got to worry bout.
Say what, I ast.
Me, Celie, think about me a little bit. Miss Celie, if you kill Albert, Grady be all I got left. I can't even stand the thought of that.
I laugh, thinking bout Grady's big toofs.
Make Albert let me sleep with you from now on, while you here, I say.
And somehow or other, she do.
Iksleep like sisters, me and Sbug. Much as I still want to be with her, much as I love to look, my titties stay soft, my little button never rise. Now I know I'm dead. But she say, Naw, just being mad, grief, wanting to kill somebody will make you feel this way. Nothing to worry about. Titties gonna perk up, button gonna rise again.
I loves to hug up, period, she say. Snuggle. Don't need nothing else right now.
Yeah, I say. Hugging is good. Snuggle. All of it's good.
She say, Times like this, lulls, us ought to do something different.
Like what? I ast.
Well, she say, looking me up and down, let's make you some pants.
What I need pants for? I say. I ain't no man.
Don't git uppity, she say. But you don't have a dress do nothing for you. You not made like no dress pattern, neither.
I don't