The Color Purple - Alice Walker [62]
Mr. _____ stand waiting for me to say something, looking off up to his house. Finally he say, Good evening, and walk away.
Sofia say after I left, Mr. _____ live like a pig. Shut up in the house so much it stunk. Wouldn’t let nobody in until finally Harpo force his way in. Clean the house, got food. Give his daddy a bath. Mr. ____ too weak to fight back. Plus, too far gone to care.
He couldn’t sleep, she say. At night he thought he heard bats outside the door. Other things rattling in the chimney. But the worse part was having to listen to his own heart. It did pretty well as long as there was daylight, but soon as night come, it went crazy. Beating so loud it shook the room. Sound like drums.
Harpo went up there plenty nights to sleep with him, say Sofia. Mr. _____ would be all cram up in a corner of the bed. Eyes clamp on different pieces of furniture, see if they move in his direction. You know how little he is, say Sofia. And how big and stout Harpo is. Well, one night I walked up to tell Harpo something—and the two of them was just laying there on the bed fast asleep. Harpo holding his daddy in his arms.
After that, I start to feel again for Harpo, Sofia say. And pretty soon us start work on our new house. She laugh. But did I say it been easy? If I did, God would make me cut my own switch.
What make him pull through? I ast.
Oh, she say, Harpo made him send you the rest of your sister’s letters. Right after that he start to improve. You know meanness kill, she say.
Amen
DEAREST CELIE,
By now I expected to be home. Looking into your face and saying Celie, is it really you? I try to picture what the years have brought you in the way of weight and wrinkles— or how you fix your hair. From a skinny, hard little something I’ve become quite plump. And some of my hair is gray!
But Samuel tells me he loves me plump and graying.
Does this surprise you?
We were married last Fall in England where we tried to get relief for the Olinka from the churches and the Missionary Society.
As long as they could, the Olinka ignored the road and the white builders who came. But eventually they had to notice them because one of the first things the builders did was tell the people they must be moved elsewhere. The builders wanted the village site as headquarters for the rubber plantation. It is the only spot for miles that has a steady supply of fresh water.
Protesting and driven, the Olinka, along with their missionaries, were placed on a barren stretch of land that has no water at all for six months of the year. During that time, they must buy water from the planters. During the rainy season there is a river and they are trying to dig holes in the nearby rocks to make cisterns. So far they collect water in discarded oil drums, which the builders brought.
But the most horrible thing to happen had to do with the roofleaf, which, as I must have written you, the people worship as a God and which they use to cover their huts. Well, on this barren strip of ground the planters erected workers’ barracks. One for men and one for women and children. But, because the Olinka swore they would never live in a dwelling not covered by their God, Roofleaf, the builders left these barracks uncovered. Then they proceeded to plow under the Olinka village and everything else for miles around. Including every last stalk of roofleaf.
After nearly unbearable weeks in the hot sun, we were awakened one morning by the sound of a large truck pulling into the compound. It was loaded with sheets of corrugated tin.
Celie, we had to pay for the tin. Which exhausted what meager savings the Olinka had, and nearly wiped out the money Samuel and I had managed to put by for the education of the children once we return home. Which we have planned to do each year since Corrine died, only to find ourselves more and more involved in the Olinka’s problems. Nothing could be uglier than corrugated tin, Celie. And as they struggled to put up roofs of this cold, hard, glittery, ugly metal