Toni Morrison - Paradise

The odor of the five-gallon can had been fierce in Soane's car. But in the boy's truck, propped between Mavis' feet, it was indistinguishable from the others. The gluey, oily, metally combination might have made her retch if he had not done voluntarily what Mavis had been unable to ask of Soane Morgan: turn on the radio. The disc jockey announced the tunes as though they were made by his family or best friends: King Solomon, Brother Otis, Dinah baby, Ike and Tina girl, Sister Dakota, the Temps.

As they bounced along, Mavis, cheerful now, enjoyed the music and the shaved part in the boy's hair. Although he was pleasanter than Soane, he didn't have much more to say. They were several miles away from Ruby pop.360 and listening to the seventh of Jet magazine's top twenty when Mavis realized that, other than the gas station guy, she had not seen a single white.

"Any white people in your town?"

"Not to live, they ain't. Come on business sometime." When they glimpsed the mansion in the distance on the way to the Cadillac, he asked, "What's it like in there?"

"I only been in the kitchen," Mavis answered.

"Two old women in that big of a place. Don't seem right." The Cadillac was unmolested but so hot the boy licked his fingers before and after he unscrewed the gas cap. And he was nice enough to start the engine for her and tell her to leave the doors open for a while before she got in. Mavis did not have to struggle to get him to accept money-Soane had been horrified-and he drove off accompanying "Hey Jude" on his radio.

Behind the wheel, cooling in the air-conditioned air, Mavis regretted not having noticed the radio station's number on the dashboard of the boy's truck. She fiddled the dial uselessly as she drove the Cadillac back to Connie's house. She parked, and the Cadillac, dark as bruised blood, stayed there for two years.

It was already sunset when the boy started the engine. Also she had forgotten to ask him for directions. Also she couldn't remember where the gas station with her two-dollar deposit was and didn't want to search for it in the dark. Also Connie had stuffed and roasted a chicken. But her decision to spend the night was mostly because of Mother.

The whiteness at the center was blinding. It took a moment for Mavis to see the shape articulated among the pillows and the bonewhite sheets, and she might have remained sightless longer had not an authoritative voice said, "Don't stare, child."

Connie bent over the foot of the bed and reached under the sheet. With her right hand she raised Mother's heels and with her left fluffed the pillows underneath them. Muttering "Toenails like razors," she resettled the feet gently.

When her eyes grew accustomed to dark and light, Mavis saw a bed shape far too small for a sick woman-almost a child's bed-and a variety of tables and chairs in the rim of black that surrounded it. Connie selected something from one of the tables and leaned into the light that ringed the patient. Mavis, following her movements, watched her apply Vaseline to lips in a face paler than the white cloth wrapped around the sick woman's head.

"There must be something that tastes better than this," said Mother, trailing the tip of her tongue over her oiled lips. "Food," said Connie. "How about some of that?"

"No."

"Bit of chicken?"

"No. Who is this you brought in here? Why did you bring somebody in here?"

"I told you. Woman with a car need help."

"That was yesterday."

"No it wasn't. This morning I told you."

"Well, hours ago, then, but who invited her into my privacy? Who did that?"

"Guess. You, that's who. Want your scalp massaged?"

"Not now. What is your name, child?"

Mavis whispered it from the dark she stood in.

"Step closer. I can't see anything unless it's right up on me. Like living in an eggshell."

"Disregard her," Connie told Mavis. "She sees everything in the universe." Drawing a chair bedside, she sat down, took the woman's hand and one by one stroked back the cuticles on each crooked finger. Mavis moved closer, into the circle of light, resting her hand on the metal foot of the bed.

"Are you all right now? Is your automobile working?"

"Yes, m'am. It's fine. Thank you."

"Where are your children?"

Mavis could not speak.

"There used to be a lot of children here. This was a school once. A beautiful school. For girls. Indian girls."

Mavis looked at Connie, but when she returned her glance, Mavis quickly lowered her eyes.

The woman in the bed laughed lightly. "It's hard, isn't it," she said, "looking in those eyes. When I brought her here they were green as grass."

"And yours was blue," said Connie.

"Still are."

"So you say."

"What color, then?"

"Same as me-old-lady wash-out color."

"Hand me a mirror, child."

"Give her nothing."

"I'm still in charge here."

"Sure. Sure."

All three watched the brown fingers gentling the white ones. The woman in the bed sighed. "Look at me. Can't sit up by myself and arrogant to the end. God must be laughing His head off."

"God don't laugh and He don't play."

"Yes, well, you know all about Him, I'm sure. Next time you see Him, tell Him to let the girls in. They bunch around the door, but they don't come in. I don't mind in the daytime, but they worry my sleep at night. You're feeding them properly? They're always so hungry. There's plenty, isn't there? Not those frycake things they like but good hot food the winters are so bad we need coal a sin to burn trees on the prairie yesterday the snow sifted in under the door quaesumus, da propitius pacem in diebus nostris Sister Roberta is peeling the onions et a peccato simus semper liberi can't you ab omni perturbatione securi…"

Connie folded Mother's hands on the sheet and stood, signaling Mavis to follow her. She closed the door and they stepped into the hall.

"I thought she was your mother. I mean the way you talked, I thought she was your own mother." They were descending the wide central stairs.

"She is my mother. Your mother too. Whose mother you?" Mavis did not answer, partly because she couldn't speak of it but also because she was trying to remember where, in a house with no electricity, the light in Mother's room came from. After the roast chicken supper, Connie showed Mavis to a large bedroom. From the four cots in it, she chose the one closest to the window, where she knelt looking out. Two milky moons, instead of the one hanging there, would have been just like Connie's eyes. Beneath them a swept world. Unjudgmental. Tidy. Ample. Forever. California, which way?

Maryland, which way?

Merle? Pearl?

The lion cub that ate her up that night had blue eyes instead of brown, and he did not have to hold her down this time. When he circled her shoulders with his left paw, she willingly let her head fall back, clearing the way to her throat. Nor did she fight herself out of the dream. The bite was juicy, but she slept through that as well as other things until the singing woke her.

Mavis Albright left the Convent off and on, but she always returned, so she was there in 1976.

On that July morning she had been aware for months of the sourness between the Convent and the town and she might have anticipated the truckload of men prowling the mist. But she was thinking of other things: tattooed sailors and children bathing in emerald water. And exhausted by the pleasures of the night before, she let herself drift in and out of sleep. An hour later, shooing pullets out of the schoolroom, she smelled cigar smoke and the merest trace of Aqua Velva.

Either the pavement was burning or she had sapphires hidden in her shoes. K.D., who had never seen a woman mince or switch like that, believed it was the walk that caused all the trouble. Neither he nor his friends lounging at the Oven saw her step off the bus, but when it pulled away there she was-across the street from them in pants so tight, heels so high, earrings so large they forgot to laugh at her hair. She crossed Central Avenue toward them, taking tiny steps on towering block heels not seen since 1949.