Toni Morrison - Song of Solomon

Pretty woman, he thought. Pretty little black-skinned woman. Who wanted to kill for love, die for love. The pride, the conceit of these doormat women amazed him. They were always women who had been spoiled children. Whose whims had been taken seriously by adults and who grew up to be the stingiest, greediest people on earth and out of their stinginess grew their stingy little love that ate everything in sight. They could not believe or accept the fact that they were unloved; they believed that the world itself was off balance when it appeared as though they were not loved. Why did they think they were so lovable? Why did they think their brand of love was better than, or even as good as, anybody else’s? But they did. And they loved their love so much they would kill anybody who got in its way.

He looked at her again. Pretty. Pretty little black girl. Pretty little black-skinned girl. What had Pilate done to her? Hadn’t anybody told her the things she ought to know? He thought of his two sisters, grown women now who could deal, and the litany of their growing up. Where’s your daddy? Your mama know you out here in the street? Put something on your head. You gonna catch your death a cold. Ain’t you hot? Ain’t you cold? Ain’t you scared you gonna get wet? Uncross your legs. Pull up your socks. I thought you was goin to the Junior Choir. Your slip is showin. Your hem is out. Come back in here and iron that collar. Hush your mouth. Comb your head. Get up from there and make that bed. Put on the meat. Take out the trash. Vaseline get rid of that ash.

Neither Pilate nor Reba knew that Hagar was not like them. Not strong enough, like Pilate, nor simple enough, like Reba, to make up her life as they had. She needed what most colored girls needed: a chorus of mamas, grandmamas, aunts, cousins, sisters, neighbors, Sunday school teachers, best girl friends, and what all to give her the strength life demanded of her—and the humor with which to live it.

Still, he thought, to have the object of your love, worthy or not, despise you, or leave you…

“You know what, Hagar? Everything I ever loved in my life left me. My father died when I was four. That was the first leaving I knew and the hardest. Then my mother. There were four of us and she just couldn’t cut it when my father died. She ran away. Just ran away. My aunt took care of us until my grandmother could get there. Then my grandmother took care of us. Then Uncle Billy came. They’re both close to dead now. So it was hard for me to latch on to a woman. Because I thought if I loved anything it would die. But I did latch on. Once. But I guess once is all you can manage.” Guitar thought about it and said, “But I never wanted to kill her. Him, yeah. But not her.” He smiled, but Hagar wasn’t looking, wasn’t even listening, and when he led her out of the car into Reba’s arms her eyes were still empty.

All they knew to do was love her and since she would not speak, they brought things to please her. For the first time in life Reba tried to win things. And, also for the first time, couldn’t. Except for a portable television set, which they couldn’t connect because they had no electricity, Reba won nothing. No raffle ticket, no Bingo, no policy slip, no clearing-house number, no magazine sweepstakes, no, nor any unpierced carnival balloon succumbed to her magic. It wore her down. Puzzled and luckless, she dragged herself home clutching stalks of anything that blossomed along the edges of lots and other people’s gardens. These she presented to her daughter, who sat in a chair by the window or lay in bed fingering, fingering her hair.

They cooked special things for her; searched for gifts that they hoped would break the spell. Nothing helped. Pilate’s lips were still and Reba’s eyes full of panic. They brought her lipstick and chocolate milk, a pink nylon sweater and a fuchsia bed jacket. Reba even investigated the mysteries of making jello, both red and green. Hagar didn’t even look at it.

One day Pilate sat down on Hagar’s bed and held a compact before her granddaughter’s face. It was trimmed in a goldlike metal and had a pink plastic lid.

“Look, baby. See here?” Pilate turned it all around to show it off and pressed in the catch. The lid sprang open and Hagar saw a tiny part of her face reflected in the mirror. She took the compact then and stared into the mirror for a long while.

“No wonder,” she said at last. “Look at that. No wonder. No wonder.”

Pilate was thrilled at the sound of Hagar’s voice. “It’s yours, baby,” she said. “Ain’t it pretty?”

“No wonder,” said Hagar. “No wonder.”

“No wonder what?” asked Pilate.

“Look at how I look. I look awful. No wonder he didn’t want me. I look terrible.” Her voice was calm and reasonable, as though the last few days hadn’t been lived through at all. “I need to get up from here and fix myself up. No wonder! ” Hagar threw back the bedcover and stood up. “Ohhh. I smell too. Mama, heat me some water. I need a bath. A long one. We got any bath salts left? Oh, Lord, my head. Look at that.” She peered into the compact mirror again. “I look like a ground hog. Where’s the comb?”

Pilate called Reba and together they flew through the house to find the comb, but when they found it Hagar couldn’t get the teeth through her roped and matted hair.

“Wash it,” said Reba. “Wash it and we’ll comb it while it’s wet.”

“I need shampoo, then. Real shampoo. I can’t use Mama’s soap.”

“I’ll go get some.” Reba was trembling a little. “What kind?”

“Oh, any kind. And get some hair oil, Reba. Posner’s, and some…Oh, never mind. Just that. Mama? Have you seen my…Oh, my God. No wonder. No wonder.”

Pilate pulled a piece of string from Hagar’s bedspread and put it in her mouth. “I’ll heat up the water,” she said.

When Reba got back she washed Hagar’s hair, brushed it, and combed it gently.

“Just make me two braids, Reba. I’m going to have to go to the beauty shop. Today. Oh, and I need something to wear.” Hagar stood at the door of the little cardboard closet, running her hands over the shoulders of dresses. “Everything’s a mess in here. A mess. All wrinkled…”

“Water’s hot. Where you want the tub?”

“Bring it in here.”

“You think you should be taking a bath so soon?” Reba asked. “You just got up.”

“Hush, Reba,” said Pilate. “Let the child take care of herself.”

“But she’s been in the bed three days.”

“All the more reason.”

“I can’t put these things on. Everything’s a mess.” Hagar was almost in tears.

Reba looked at Pilate. “I hope you right. I don’t approve of getting up too fast and jumping right in some water.”

“Help me with this tub and stop grumbling.”

“All wrinkled. What am I going to wear?”

“That ain’t enough water to cover her feet.”

“It’ll grow when she sits down.”

“Where’s my yellow dress? The one that buttons all the way down?”

“Somewhere in there, I reckon.”

“Find it for me and press it, would you? I know it’s a mess. Everything’s a mess.”

Reba found and pressed the yellow dress. Pilate helped Hagar bathe. Finally a clean and clothed Hagar stood before the two women and said, “I have to buy some clothes. New clothes. Everything I have is a mess.”

They looked at each other. “What you need?” asked Pilate.

“I need everything,” she said, and everything is what she got. She shopped for everything a woman could wear from the skin out, with the money from Reba’s diamond. They had seventy-five cents between them when Hagar declared her needs, and six dollars owed to them from customers. So the two-thousand-dollar two-carat diamond went to a pawnshop, where Reba traded it for thirty dollars at first and then, accompanied by a storming Pilate, she went back and got one hundred and seventy more for it. Hagar stuffed two hundred dollars and seventy-five cents into her purse and headed downtown, still whispering to herself every now and then, “No wonder.”