Toni Morrison: Tar Baby

“Oh, baby baby baby baby,” he said, and went to her to take off the wig, to lift it, tear it, throw it far from her midnight skin and antelope eyes. But she jumped back, howled and resecured it on her head with clenched fingers. It was all mixed up. He did not know what to think or feel. The dizziness increased and played a middle ear drone in his head.

Gideon tapped him on the shoulder and he sat down.

“Leave her be,” he said. “She want to look the fool, let her. Ask her about the American girl. Alma, tell him.”

Alma told him, but from a distance so he could not get his hands on her head again, so he could not deprive her of the red wig which she had to buy herself because he had not sent her one as he promised to do, and had not brought her one either when he came back, but had come, in fact, looking for the American girl whom he loved and remembered, but not her. He had forgotten all about her and forgotten to bring her the one thing she had asked for. Oh, she was good enough to run to the store for him, and good enough to clean the toilet for American black girls to pee in, and to be tipped by them but not have her name remembered by them and not good enough to be remembered at all by the chocolate eater who did go to the trouble of knowing her name. She told him then that she worked in the airport cleaning, and that she had seen the American girl getting on a plane bound for Paris with a huge bag on her shoulder and a black fur coat and that she had been met by a young man with yellow hair and blue eyes and white skin and they had laughed and kissed and laughed in the corridor outside the ladies’ room and had held hands and walked to the plane and she had her head on his shoulder the whole time they walked to the plane. She had seen it, and Son saw it too: the mink-dark eyes staring greedily into blue ones, another hand on the inside of her raw silk knee the color of honey. Not being able to go further with those pictures, he diverted his mind to the irrelevant. Who was it? Was it Michael who met her, Valerian’s son, the one that didn’t show up for Christmas, but who came later? Was that the Ryk who sent her the coat? Or was it someone in New York who had come to the island with her? Or was it someone she met in the airport? It was all mixed up, like when he ran out of laughter ammunition and kicked an M.P. in the groin, but the thing that was clear was the thing he knew when he stood wrapped in a towel gazing out of the window at this same man’s back: he had not wanted to love her because he could not survive losing her. But it was done. Already done and he was in it; stuck in it and revolted by the possibility of being freed.

Gideon interrupted his questions. “What will you do?”

“Find her. Go to Paris and find her.” He pressed his temples with his fingers to stop the drone.

“But if she’s with another?”

“I’ll take her away from him.”

“A woman, man. Just a woman,” said Gideon patiently.

“I have to find her.”

“How? Paris is a big place.”

“I’ll get her address.”

“Where?”

“From over there.”

“They won’t give it to you.”

“They will. I’ll make them. Make them tell me who the man is. Where she went.” He was standing now. Nervous. Eager to get going.

“You not going for the address, you going to cause mayhem.”

“Let him,” said Thérèse. “Kill them, chocolate eater.”

“Don’t be crazy. It’s just a woman, man.”

It was true. He wanted to find her but he wanted to smash something too. Smash the man who took the woman he had loved while she slept, and smash where they had first made love, where she took his hand and was afraid and needed him and they walked up the stairs holding hands, just like she walked to the plane holding somebody else’s hand. She should not have done that if she was going to get on an airplane and put her head on another man’s shoulder.

“Get me there,” he said to Gideon. “Now, while there is still light.”

Gideon ran his tongue over his stone-white teeth. “No. I’m not doing that. Take you to smash up the place?”

“I only want her address. That’s all.”

“You won’t be welcome there and neither me.”

“I will only talk to them.”

“And if they won’t talk to you?”

“They will. They’ll tell me.”

“No, man. That’s final.”

“All right. I’ll take the launch.”

“Good,” said Gideon. “Take the launch. In two days maybe you’ll be cooler.”

“Two days?”

“Two, yes. Launch don’t go again till Monday. Today is market day. Saturday.”

“I can’t wait that long.”

“Telephone them.”

“They won’t tell me anything on the telephone. Take me.”

“This is crazy-mad shit, man. You can’t go there.”

“I don’t have a choice. There’s nothing else for me to do. You think I’d choose this if I had a choice?”

Thérèse turned around and looked at him. Then she looked at the airplane food on the record player. “I can take you,” she said.

“You not taking him nowhere. You blind as a bat.”

“I can take you,” she repeated.

“The sun’s going down. You’ll drown!” said Gideon. “We’ll fish you off the beach in the morning.”

“I can see better in the dark and I know that crossing too well.”

“Don’t trust her, man. Don’t. I’m telling you.”

Son looked at Thérèse and nodded. “Get me there, Thérèse.”

“Two big fools,” said Gideon. “One blind, the other gone mad!”

“Eat,” said Thérèse to Son. “I’ll take you when it’s time.”

Son stood up. “I can’t eat,” he said. “And I’ve been awake for days. Sleep won’t come and I can’t get hungry.”

“Come with me then,” said Gideon. “Let’s go out. Go to Grande Cinq, have a drink and relax a little.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t want a woman.”

“Christ!” Gideon was disgusted. He never got over being amazed at that kind of passion, though he had seen it enough. “Well, rum’s good anywhere. I resign from the sober world tonight.” He went into the bedroom and returned with a pint of rum, the bottle half-full. He poured and passed a cup to Son who took it in tiny sips with much time in between. All three sat at the table, Son alone not eating the fish and rice. Gideon told stories about women he had known: their “wiles” and their “ways” till he settled on the nurse he’d married in the States. His grievances about the lady were trotted out one by one for show: her children by a former marriage; her ailments; her habits of dress; her laugh; her relatives; her food; her looks. He allowed as how she was faithful, but that’s all she was. Had she been otherwise he swore he would never have left her out of gratitude. As it was, she was insatiable: mean, arrogant and insatiable. He went to bed fully clothed on that note: the abnormal sexual hunger of black American nurses.

Son lay down on the cot Alma Estée sometimes used while Thérèse got ready and he did not know he slept until she woke him. He sat up relieved that the jaw’s harp in his head had stopped. She brought a flashlight, but they did not need it to walk down the hill or to find the Prix de France. They checked the gas and agreed there was enough for a round trip. They rowed away from the dock until they were far enough out to start a motor without attracting the attention of any gendarmes who might be on contraband patrol. It was raining a little, getting foggier, but the sea was not high. Thérèse insisted on steering for she knew the way, she said, and could not talk the directions to him. The feel of the current was what she went by. She only prayed no larger boats were out there, as hampered in vision as she was in the fog.