The Color Purple - Alice Walker [31]
Shug talk and talk.
And dance, she say. Nobody dance like Albert when he was young. Sometime us did the moochie for a hour. After that, nothing to do but go somewhere and lay down. And funny. Albert was so funny. He kept me laughing. How come he ain’t funny no more? she ast. How come he never hardly laugh? How come he don’t dance? she say. Good God, Celie, she say, What happen to the man I love?
She quiet a little while. Then she say, I was so surprise when I heard he was going to marry Annie Julia, she say. Too surprise to be hurt. I didn’t believe it. After all, Albert knew as well as me that love would have to go some to be better than ours. Us had the kind of love couldn’t be improve. That’s what I thought.
But, he weak, she say. His daddy told him I’m trash, my mama trash before me. His brother say the same. Albert try to stand up for us, git knock down. One reason they give him for not marrying me is cause I have children.
But they his, I told old Mr. ____.
How us know? He ast.
Poor Annie Julia, Shug say. She never had a chance. I was so mean, and so wild, Lord. I used to go round saying, I don’t care who he married to, I’m gonna fuck him. She stop talking a minute. Then she say, And I did, too. Us fuck so much in the open us give fucking a bad name.
But he fuck Annie Julia too, she say, and she didn’t have nothing, not even a liking for him. Her family forgot about her once she married. And then Harpo and all the children start to come. Finally she start to sleep with that man that shot her down. Albert beat her. The children dragged on her. Sometimes I wonder what she thought about while she died.
I know what I’m thinking bout, I think. Nothing. And as much of it as I can.
I went to school with Annie Julia, Shug say. She was pretty, man. Black as anything, and skin just as smooth. Big black eyes look like moons. And sweet too. Hell, say Shug, I liked her myself. Why I hurt her so? I used to keep Albert away from home for a week at the time. She’d come and beg him for money to buy groceries for the children.
I feel a few drops of water on my hand.
And when I come here, say Shug, I treated you so mean. Like you was a servant. And all because Albert married you. And I didn’t even want him for a husband, she say. I never really wanted Albert for a husband. But just to choose me, you know, cause nature had already done it. Nature said, You two folks, hook up, cause you a good example of how it sposed to go. I didn’t want nothing to be able to go against that. But what was good tween us must have been nothing but bodies, she say. Cause I don’t know the Albert that don’t dance, can’t hardly laugh, never talk bout nothing, beat you and hid your sister Nettie’s letters. Who he?
I don’t know nothing, I think. And glad of it.
DEAR GOD,
Now that I know Albert hiding Nettie’s letters, I know exactly where they is. They in his trunk. Everything that mean something to Albert go in his trunk. He keep it locked up tight, but Shug can git the key.
One night when Mr. _____ and Grady gone, us open the trunk. Us find a lot of Shug’s underclothes, some nasty picture postcards, and way down under his tobacco, Nettie’s letters. Bunches and bunches of them. Some fat, some thin. Some open, some not.
How us gon do this? I ast Shug.
She say, Simple. We take the letters out of the envelopes, leave the envelopes just like they is. I don’t think he look in this corner of the trunk much, she say.
I heated the stove, put on the kettle. Us steam and steam the envelopes until we had all the letters laying on the table. Then us put the envelopes back inside the trunk.
I’m gonna put them in some kind of order for you, say Shug.
Yeah, I say, but don’t let’s do it in here, let’s go in you and Grady room.
So she got up and us went into they little room. Shug sat in a chair by the bed with all Nettie letters spread round her, I got on the bed with the