Color Purple, The - Alice Walker [80]
You'd have a sister, said Olivia.
Then Adam spoke. He asked Tashi to forgive his initial stupid response to the scarification. And to forgive the repugnance he'd felt about the female initiation ceremony. He assured Tashi that it was she he loved and that hi America she would have country, people, parents, sister, husband, brother and lover, and that whatever befell her in America would also be his own choice and his own lot.
Oh, Celie.
So, the next day, our boy came to us with scars identical to Tashi's on his cheeks.
And they are so happy. So happy, Celie. Tashi and Adam Omatangu.
Samuel married them, of course, and all the people left in the compound came to wish them happiness and an abundance of roofleaf forever. Olivia stood up with the bride and a friend of Adam's? a man too old to have joined the mbeles? stood up with him. Immediately after the wedding we left the compound, riding in a lorry that took us to a boat at the coast inlet that flows out to sea.
In a few weeks, we will all be home.
Your loving sister,
Nettie
Mr.??? talk to Snug a lot lately by telephone. He say as soon as he told her my sister and her family was missing, she and Germaiae made a beeline for the State department trying to find out what happen. He say Shug say it just kill her to think I'm down here suffering from not knowing. But nothing happen at the State department. Nothing at the department of defense. It's a big war.
So much going on. One ship lost feel like nothing, I guess. Plus, colored don't count to those people.
Well, they just don't know, and never did. Never will. And so what? I know you on your way home and you may not git here till I'm ninety, but one of these days I do expect to see your face.
Meanwhile, I hired Sofia to clerk in our store. Kept the white man Alphonso got to run it, but put Sofia in there to wait on colored cause they never had nobody in a store to wait on 'em before and nobody in a store to treat 'em nice. Sofia real good at selling stuff too cause she act like she don't care if you buy or not. No skin off her nose. And then if you decide to buy anyhow, well, she might exchange a few pleasant words with you. Plus, she scare that white man. Anybody else colored he try to call 'em auntie or something. First time he try that with Sofia she ast him which colored man his mama sister marry.
I ast Harpo do he mind if Sofia work.
What I'm gon mind for? he say. It seem to mate her happy. And I can take care of anything come up at home. Anyhow, he say, Sofia got me a little help for when Henrietta need anything special to eat or git sick.
Yeah, say Sofia. Miss Eleanor Jane gon look hi on Henrietta and every other day promise to cook her something she'll eat. You know white people have a look of machinery in they kitchen. She whip up stuff with yams you'd never believe. Last week she went and made yam ice cream.
How this happen? I ast. I thought the two of you was through.
Oh, say Sofia. It finally dawn on her to ast her mama why I come to work for them.
I don't expect ft to last, though, say Harpo. You know how they is.
Do her peoples know? I ast.
They know, say Sofia. They carrying on just like you know they would. Whoever heard of a white woman working for niggers, they rave. She tell them, Whoever heard of somebody like Sofia working for trash.
She bring Reynolds Stanley with her? I ast.
Henrietta say she don't mind him.
Well, say Harpo, I'm satisfied if her menfolks against her helping you, she gon quit.
Let her quit, say Sofia. It not my salvation she working for. And if she don't learn she got to face judgment for herself, she won't even have live.
Well, you got me behind you, anyway, say Harpo. And I loves every judgment you ever made. He move up and kiss her where her nose was stitch.
Sofia toss her head. Everybody learn something in life, she say. And they laugh.
Speaking of learning, Mr.??? say one day us was sewing out on the porch, I first start to team all them days ago I use to sit up there on my porch, staring