Tar Baby - Toni Morrison

There were a dozen shirts for Sydney, who loved fine cloth. And a stunning black chiffon dress for Ondine. A little overdone, but Ondine liked that. Zircons on the bodice and the waist, swirls of chiffon skirting. And (the best thing) black suede shoes with zircons studding the heels. Hooker shoes. Ondine wouldn’t be able to walk long in them, but how she could reign from a sitting position. She had wanted to get her a tiara too but maybe that was pushing it. The dress she packed neatly in a box among layers of tissue paper. The zircon-studded shoes went into a red satin shoe bag. Perspiration was forming on her forehead as she finished, and she blotted it away without ever taking off the coat. Both Sydney’s and Ondine’s presents were too large for the wrapping paper she had, so she put them aside and wrapped Valerian’s record album. Finally she had to admit she was stifling and took the coat off. Naked she walked to the window. The emperor butterflies were gone now. Not one had fallen dead on the Karastan. Only the bougainvillea saw her standing in the window, her head thrown back to catch all the breeze she could in the soft place under her chin. I’m all done, she thought, except for a half-hour or so of finishing Margaret’s chain of gold coins. Unless, of course, she was expected to buy something for Michael. Should she? Should the—what?—social secretary buy a present for the son of her employer/patron? She could exchange gifts with the Streets because she had known them so long, and they were like family, almost, and had given her so much. But she wasn’t sure if giving a gift to their son was not a presumption. If she were married to Ryk (coat and all) it would be all right. Her status would be unquestioned. But like this? She had seen him only twice. He was always at prep school or camp or some spa when she visited before. A gift would embarrass him, probably, because he wouldn’t have gotten one for her. Or would he? What had Margaret told him about the household? Even so, would he be offended by a gift from her, however modest? No, of course not. He was a poet, presumably, and a Socialist, so social awkwardness wouldn’t trouble him the way it would have his father. But if she did get him one, it would have to be something earthy and noncapitalistic. She smiled. A loaf of bread maybe?

Footsteps on the gravel interrupted her. That must be Yardman, come to mount the Christmas tree. Jadine stepped away from the window so Yardman shouldn’t see her nakedness, wondering what he would think of the black man in the guest room. She went to the bed where the skins of the ninety baby seals sprawled. She lay on top of them and ran her fingertips through the fur. How black. How shiny. Smooth. She pressed her thighs deep into its dark luxury. Then she lifted herself up a little and let her nipples brush the black hairs, back and forth, back and forth. It had frightened Ondine, the coat. She spoke as though the marriage was all right, but Jadine knew Ondine would be heartsick. More and more Sydney and Ondine looked to her for solutions to their problems. They had been her parents since she was twelve and now she was required to parent them—guide them, do the small chores that put them in touch with the outside world, soothe them, allay their fears. Like with that wild man sleeping down the hall. She had to calm them and make them understand Valerian’s whimsy. Style. All style. That was Valerian. He had once been mugged on a trip to Miami. He stood there, his arms over his head, while the muggers, some black teenagers with rags around their heads, ran their fingers through his pockets. One of them looked at him and must have seen the disdain in Valerian’s eyes. He sneered at Valerian and said, “You don’t like us, do you?” “Gentlemen,” Valerian had replied, “I don’t know you.” It must have been that same antique grace that made him look at a raggedy black man who had been hiding in his wife’s closet (with rape, theft or murder on his mind) and say, “Good evening,” and offer him a drink. Then tell Sydney to prepare another place for “our guest.” Jadine smiled as she pushed her nipples into the baby seals’ skin. You had to give it to him. He was marvelous. All while the man ate limp salad, flat soufflé, peaches and coffee, Valerian behaved as though it was the most ordinary of incidents. Margaret never left off shaking and would not stay at the table in spite of Valerian’s insistence that she do so. (She locked her bedroom door and, according to Sydney, did not come down for breakfast—only Valerian was there with his robust morning appetite.) Jadine and Valerian held up the conversation, and it was Jadine who cautioned Sydney and Ondine with meaningful looks to help them get through the serving with composure. At one point, after the man was seated and when Sydney held the bowl of salad toward him, the man looked up and said, “Hi.” For the first time in his life, Sydney had dropped something. He collected the salad greens and righted the bowl expertly, but his anger and frustration were too strong to hide. He tried his best to be no less dignified than his employer, but he barely made it to civility. Valerian, however, was splendid. As soon as the man sat down Valerian was sober. Jadine thought she may have imagined it, but she believed Valerian was comforted, made more secure, by her presence at the table. That she exercised some restraint on the man; that Valerian believed that in her presence the man might be kept manageable. At any rate he sipped his brandy as though the man’s odor wasn’t there. He didn’t even blink when the man poured his demitasse into the saucer and blew on it gently before sipping it through a lump of sugar. More than grace, she thought, Valerian had courage. He could not have known, could not know even now, what that nigger was up to. He didn’t even know his real name.

“How long have you been with us, Mister—? I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

The man looked up from his plate. His mouth was full and he chewed silently and swallowed before he answered. “Five days. A week maybe.”

“And before that?” asked Valerian.

The man removed the pit of a black olive from his mouth. “Swamp.”

“Oh, yes. Sein de Vieilles. It couldn’t have been very comfortable for you there. The local people avoid it entirely. Spirits live there, I’m told.”

The man didn’t answer.

“Did you see any ghosts while you were there?” Jadine asked him.

He shook his head but did not look at her. “No, but I guess they saw me.”

Valerian laughed heartily. “Are you a believer then?”

“Sometimes,” said the man.

“Sometimes? You pick and choose when to believe and when not?”

“In a swamp, I believe,” said the man.

“An excellent solution. Excellent.” Valerian chuckled. He seemed to be enjoying himself thoroughly. “You’re not local, are you? Your accent is American. Am I correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you just left there?”

“No.” The man sopped the salad dressing on his plate with a round of French bread, and gulped it down. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Jumped ship and tried to swim ashore. Couldn’t make it so I climbed aboard this boat I thought was going to dock there, but it brought me here. I waited a few days for a way to get back. Nothing. So I came to the first house I saw. I was—” he glanced at Jadine—“good and hungry by then.” He was exhausted it seemed, having said so much.

“Reasonable,” said Valerian. “But I’m confused. Is there a pantry in my wife’s bedroom?” He gazed at the man’s profile.

“Huh?”

Valerian smiled, but did not repeat the question.

“He wants to know why you were in the bedroom,” said Jadine. “If you were just feeding yourself, that is.”

“Oh. I got tired sitting in one spot all day. I was just looking around. I heard footsteps and hid.” He looked around at them as though his reply had finally solved everything, and he could now be sociable. “Nice pad you got here,” he said smiling, and that was when Jadine felt the first bolt of fear. As long as he burrowed in his plate like an animal, grunting in monosyllables, but not daring to look up, she was without fear. But when he smiled she saw small dark dogs galloping on silver feet.

More to regain her confidence than to get information she asked him, “Why didn’t you take the boat?”

“What?” He looked at her quickly and just as quickly looked away.

“You said you were waiting to get to Dominique. The Seabird is docked. If you’ve been to sea, you could have managed the boat.”

He stared at his plate and said nothing.

“Boats are highly visible, dear,” Valerian said to Jadine, “and call a great deal of attention to themselves.” He smiled at the man and went on. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name.”

“That makes us even,” said the man with a wide smile. “I don’t know yours either.”

And they still didn’t, but Valerian instructed him to be put up in the guest room anyway. And Sydney’s jawbones were still working back and forth the next morning as he told his wife and niece about putting silk pajamas out for him. Jadine laughed and said he would slide out of bed in them, but Sydney couldn’t see any humor in that, and Ondine was too concerned about her husband to join the pretty careless girl in laughter.

ONDINE picked up an onion and pressed it for soft spots. Things went back to their natural state so quickly in that place. A layer of slippery skin gave way beneath her thumb, but the onion was firm underneath. At that moment, Yardman scratched the screen door and when Ondine turned to look she saw his bloody shirt first and then his foolish smile.

“Leave it.” She turned back to her table and tossed the words over her shoulder. “Put some newspaper down out there.”

He broadened his smile and nodded vigorously, but Ondine did not see that; she assumed it and, as an afterthought lest he think she had no manners at all, she said, “Thanks.” She put down the onion and turned one eye of the gas range up high. In fact, the “thanks” was sincere for she felt guilty about letting him do what was once a marked skill of her own.

Can’t do it anymore, she thought. Have to chase around too much. She didn’t like asking Yardman to do it for her, but her feet were too tender and her ankles too swollen to manage, so when he brought four or five young hens tied in a crate, she told him she needed only one at a time—let the others pick around behind the washhouse and to “wring one of them for me while you’re at it.”

“Yes, madame,” he said as he always said.

“Are they young? Tender?” she had asked him.

“Yes, madame.”

“Don’t look it. Look like brooders.”

“No, madame. Pullet every one.”

“We’ll see,” she answered him. “Mind how you go. I don’t want to be scrubbing up blood all afternoon.” But he was bloody anyway so she said, “Leave it,” to let him know that he had killed it wrong and also to remind him that she did not want him in her kitchen. And there it was on the newspaper and wouldn’t you know he had not plucked one single feather, heavenly Father? That’ll take me forever.

She lifted her head to call him back, come right back here, she was going to say, but suddenly she was too tired. Too tired to fuss, too tired to even have to confront him with his sloppiness. She sighed, picked up the chicken and brought it into the kitchen.

She hoisted a large pot of water onto the burning eye and wondered what he did with the head and feet. When the water was hot enough she dropped the chicken in and held it down with a wooden ladle long enough to loosen the pins. Then she removed it from the hot water and with newspaper spread out, started to pluck. She was still nimble at it but slower than she would have been if she wasn’t being careful about where the feathers went. A big nuisance to have to do it herself; it was going to make Sydney’s lunch late, but she didn’t feel up to seeing Yardman again, or giving him an order angrily, firmly or even sweetly. Yesterday everything was all right. The best it could be and exactly the way she had hoped it would be: a good man whom she trusted; a good and permanent job doing what she was good at for a boss who appreciated it; beautiful surroundings which included her own territory where she alone governed; and now with Jadine back, a “child” whom she could enjoy, indulge, protect and, since this “child” was a niece it was without the stress of a mother-daughter relationship. She was uneasy about the temporary nature of their stay on the island and Margaret’s visits always annoyed her—but it was being there that made Jade want to stay with them for a longish spell. Otherwise their niece would light anywhere except back in Philadelphia. She hoped Mr. Street would stay on in spite of his addled wife. Now here come this man upstairs in the guest room. Maybe Jadine was right, she thought, he would be gone today or, certainly, the next and they were making too much of it. Ondine stopped plucking and lifted her eyes slowly to the place where the window shutters did not quite close. A bit of the sky was unhidden by foliage. She thought she heard a small, smooth sound, like a well-oiled gear shifting. Not a sound really—more of an imagined impression, as though she were a dust mote watching an eye blink. There would be the hurricane wind of eyelashes falling through the air and the weighty crash of lid on lid.

Slowly she returned to the white hen in her hands. She was down to the pinfeathers when Sydney walked in with a small basket of mail.

“Already?” she asked him.

“No. I just thought I’d finish it up in here.”

“It’ll be at least an hour. Maybe two.”

“What are you doing that for?” He pointed at the pile of feathers on the floor.

“That’s the way I got it.”

“Call him. You want me to call him back here?”

“No. I’m just about finished now.”

“He knows better than that. Where is he?” Sydney moved toward the door.

“Sit down, Sydney. Don’t bother yourself.”

“I’m already bothered. I can’t run a house like this with everybody doing whatever comes to mind.”

“Sit down, I say. Hen’s done.”

He sat at the table and began sorting letters, circulars, magazines, and putting them into piles.

“Maybe we should look for somebody else. I’ll speak to Mr. Street.”

“It’s not worth the trouble, Sydney. Unless you can guarantee the next one won’t be worse. On balance, he’s still reliable and he does keep the place up, you got to give him his due.”

“You don’t sound like yourself, Ondine.” He looked at her heavy white braids sitting on her head like a royal diadem.

“Oh, I’m fine, I guess,” but her voice was flat, like a wide river without any undertow at all.

“I never heard you stand up for Yardman when he does something contrary to what you tell him.”

“I’m not standing up for him. I just think he’s a whole lot better than nobody and a little bit better than most.”

“You the one doing the plucking. I’m trying to make it easier for you—not me.”

“He is easier for me. I was just thinking how I used to be able to get my own yard hens. Not no more. If they tear loose from me, they free. I can’t chase em anymore. I don’t even know if I got the strength to wring their necks.”