Tar Baby

by Toni Morrison

  “At her age it takes three days, not three months.”

  “You don’t like her anymore?”

  “I love her. But I’m not going to give up going back with Michael just to help her cool off for another month or two. Besides, look what she has to go back to.”

  “What?”

  “Everything. Europe. The future. The world. Why are you frowning? Does she need money?”

  “No. No. Not that I know of. She signed on with some agency or something in New York, or is about to.”

  “There. She doesn’t need the pretense of working for me.”

  Valerian swallowed the last bit of egg and ham and tapped the toast basket with his fork. “Clever. Very clever.”

  “Jade?”

  “No, Ondine. This is really good. I think she served something like this in the States.”

  “Talk about calories. You’re eating like a horse already and the day has just started.”

  “Pique.”

  “Pique. Why?”

  “The nursery, Stateside, sent a defective order. Completely ruined.”

  “Shame.” Margaret reached toward a croissant, changed her mind and withdrew her hand.

  “Have it,” said her husband. “It wasn’t four twenty-five, that mango. Not even a hundred.”

  “You liar. I should have known. I was going to ask Jade about that.”

  “She wants to open up a little shop of some sort,” he said.

  “You’re mumbling.”

  “Shop. She wants to be a model a little longer, then open up a shop.”

  “Wonderful. She has a head. You’ll help her, won’t you? Won’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, why the long face?”

  “I was thinking of Sydney and Ondine.”

  “As usual. What about them?”

  “They like her here.”

  “We all do.”

  “She’s their family. All they have of a family left.”

  “And you. You’re as much family to them as she is. They’ve known you longer than they have her.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “What is it? What are you thinking?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Something.”

  “Sydney’s very excited about that shop idea,” Valerian said. “Ondine too.”

  “Oh?”

  “Nothing definite. At the dreaming stage still.”

  “Now who’s worked up?”

  “It’s a possibility, that’s all. An attractive one for them, I suppose.”

  “That’s selfish, Valerian.”

  “Perhaps, but I don’t think so. I don’t think so.”

  “You’re worrying about nothing. They won’t leave you and the situation they have here to go into the retail business. At this time of life, never.”

  “Yes?”

  “Of course yes. Look at you.” She laughed. “You’re scared. Scared Kingfish and Beulah won’t take care of you.”

  “I have always taken care of them.”

  “And they will do the same for you. God knows they will. You couldn’t pry them out of here. With or without Jade. They are yours for life.”

  “Don’t snarl. Your frownie is coming loose.”

  “I’m not snarling. They’re loyal people and they should be.”

  “I’ve never understood your jealousy.”

  “That’s just like you to call it jealousy.”

  “When we were first married I used to have to pull you away from Ondine. Guests in the house and you’d prefer gossiping in the kitchen with her.”

  “Well, you sure put a stop to that, didn’t you?”

  “I put a stop to a hostess neglecting guests. I didn’t put a stop to—”

  “I was shy.”

  “But I didn’t want you to turn around and be outright hateful to her. She would have quit even then if I hadn’t—”

  “I know. I know, and then Sydney the Precious would have left too. Don’t dwell on it. They’re here and they always will be. I can guarantee it.”

  “But you won’t be.”

  “I said for a while.”

  “If Michael comes.”

  “He will.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Then it’s all set? I can go?”

  “Don’t push me into my last and final hour, Margaret. Let me saunter toward it.”

  “You are sweet.”

  “Not sweet, helpless.”

  “You? Valerian Street, the Candy King? You’ve never been stronger, or more beautiful.”

  “Stop. You got your way.”

  “You are beautiful. Slim. Trim. Distingue.”

  “Forgive her, Larousse.”

  “Distingue?”

  “Distingué.”

  “Joueaux Noël.”

  “Dear God.”

  “Joyoux Noël, Sydney.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Did you tell the boy about the trunk?”

  “He hasn’t come yet, ma’am. As soon as he does…”

  “And turkey. Ondine will do a turkey. Sydney?”

  “Ah, yes, ma’am, if you like.”

  “I like. I really like.”

  “I’ve ordered geese, Margaret.”

  “Geese?” She stared at Valerian for suddenly she could not imagine it. Like a blank frame in a roll of film, she lost the picture that should have accompanied the word. Turkey she saw, but geese…“We have to have turkey for Christmas. This is a family Christmas, an old-fashioned family Christmas, and Michael has to have turkey.”

  “If Tiny Tim could eat goose, Margaret, Michael can eat goose.”

  “Turkey!” she said. “Roast turkey with the legs sticking up and a shiny brown top.” She was moving her hands to show them how it looked. “Little white socks on the feet.”

  “I’ll mention it to Ondine, ma’am.”

  “You will not mention it! You will tell her!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And apple pies.”

  “Apple, ma’am?”

  “Apple. And pumpkin.”

  “We are in the Caribbean, Margaret.”

  “No! I said no! If we can’t have turkey and apple pie for Christmas then maybe we shouldn’t be here at all!”

  “Hand me some of my medicine, Sydney.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sydney?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Will we have turkey and apple pies for Christmas dinner?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll see to it.”

  “Thank you. Is Jade down yet?”

  “Not yet, ma’am.”

  “When she is, tell her I’ll be ready at ten.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Margaret Lenore stood up so suddenly her chair careened for a brief moment before righting itself. Quickly she was gone.

  “Everything all right, Mr. Street?”

  “I am going to kill you, Sydney.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  BEYOND the doors through which Sydney had been gliding all morning was the first kitchen. A large sunny room with two refrigerators, two steel sinks, one stove, rows of open cabinets and a solid oak table that seated six. Sydney sat down and immediately the place he took at the perfectly round table was its head. He looked out the windows and then at his wife’s arm. The flesh trembled as she wire-whisked a bowl of eggs.

  “Mango all right?” she asked without turning her head.

  “She ate a mouthful,” said Sydney.

  “Contrary,” murmured his wife. She poured the eggs into a shallow buttered pan, and stirred them slowly with a wooden spoon.

  “It’s all right, Ondine. Lucky you had one.”

  “I’ll say. Even the colored people down here don’t eat mangoes.”

  “Sure they do.” Sydney slipped a napkin from its ring. The pale blue linen complemented his mahogany hands.

  “Yardmen,” said Ondine. “And beggars.” She poured the eggs into a frying pan of chicken livers. She was seventeen years
her husband’s junior, but her hair, braided across the crown of her head, was completely white. Sydney’s hair was not as black as it appeared, but certainly not snow white like Ondine’s. She bent to check on the biscuits in the oven.

  “What’s the Principal Beauty hollering about?”

  “Turkey.”

  Ondine looked at her husband over her shoulder. “Don’t fool with me this morning.”

  “And apple pie.”

  “You better get me a plane ticket out of here.” She straightened.

  “Calm down, girl.”

  “She want it, she can come in here and cook it. After she swim on back up to New York and get the ingredients. Where she think she is?”

  “It’s for the boy.”

  “God help us.”

  “She wants an old-fashioned Christmas.”

  “Then she can bring her old-fashioned butt in here and cook it up.”

  “Pumpkin pie, too.”

  “Is any of this serious?”

  “I told you. The boy is coming.”

  “He’s always coming. Ain’t got here yet.”

  “Then you know as much as I do. Every year the same. She’ll walk on a hot tin roof till he wires saying he can’t. Then look out!”

  “You can’t be serious about apples. Surely.”

  “I can’t be certain, Ondine. Looks like he might make it this time. He’s already shipped his trunk. That old red footlocker, remember? Yardman supposed to pick it up Thursday.”

  “She don’t know that. He call her and say so? Ain’t been no mail come in here from him, has it?”

  “She called him, I believe. This morning. Making sure of the time difference.”

  “That’s what she rang you up for?”

  “I didn’t have time to tell you.”

  “When’s he due?”

  “Soon, I reckon.” Sydney dropped two sugar cubes into his Postum.

  “I thought all he ate was sunflowers and molasses these days.”

  Sydney shrugged. “Last time I saw him he ate a mighty lot of steak.”

  “And fresh coconut cake. The whole cake as I recall.”

  “That’s your fault. You spoiled him stupid.”

  “You can’t spoil a child. Love and good food never spoiled nobody.”

  “Then maybe he’ll fly in here for sure this time just to get some more of it.”

  “No way. Not down here, he won’t. He hates this place, coconuts and all. Always did.”

  “Liked it when he was younger.”

  “Well, he’s grown now and sees with grown-up eyes, like I do.”

  “I still say you ruined him. He can’t fix his mind on nothing.”

  “I ain’t ruined him. I gave him what any child is due.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You really believe that? That I ruined him?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, girl. Just talking. But between you and the Principal Beauty, he never wanted for affection.”

  “Bitch.”

  “You have to stop that, Ondine. Every time she comes down here you act out. I’m getting tired of refereeing everybody.”

  “The Principal Beauty of Maine is the main bitch of the prince.”

  “You worry me. Cut the fire out from under that pan and bring me my breakfast.”

  “I just want you to know I am not fooled by all that turkey and apple pie business. Fact is he don’t want to be nowhere near her. And I can’t say as I blame him, mother though she be.”

  “You making up a life that nobody is living. She sees him all the time in the States and he don’t complain.”

  “Visits. Visits he can’t do nothing about, but he never comes to see her.”

  “He writes her sweet letters.”

  “That’s what he studied in school.”

  “Letters?”

  “Poems.”

  “Don’t think he don’t love her. He does.”

  “I didn’t say he didn’t love her; I said he don’t want to be near her. Sure he love her. That’s only natural. He’s not the one who’s not natural. She is.”

  “You and Mr. Street just alike. Always thinking evil about that girl.”

  “When she get to be a girl?”

  “She was a girl when I first saw her. Seventeen.”

  “So was I.”

  “Aw, the devil. Everybody’s going crazy in this house. Everybody. Mr. Street hollering about Postum and putting cognac in his cup—she’s hollering about mangoes and turkeys and I don’t know what all and now you denying her her own son.”

  “I’m not denying her nothin. She can have him. He turned out to be a different breed of cat anyway after he went to all those schools. He was a sweet boy. Now I suppose he’ll be wanting mangoes too. Well, he can have em if he’ll stop coming in my kitchen to liberate me every minute.”

  “He means well, Ondine.”

  “What’s this about the Postum?”

  “He says no more diet stuff. Regular coffee, real salt, all such as that.”

  “He’ll rue it.”

  “It’s his life.”

  “Okay by me. It’s bothersome trying to cook with all those concoctions. Fake this. Fake that. Tears up a meal if you ask me. That plus everything temporary like this. Seems like everything I need to cook with is back in Philadelphia. I was just going by what the doctor told him three years ago. He leave that liquor alone he could eat like regular people. Is he still constipated?”

  “Nope. Other people get constipated. He gets occasional irregularity. But he wants some Maalox just in case. Tell Yardman to bring a bottle out next time.”

  “He the one should be eating mangoes. Open him right up. Other than for that, I can’t think of a soul in this world eat mangoes for breakfast.”

  “I do.”

  They hadn’t heard her come in. She stood before the swinging doors, hands on hips, toes pointing in, and smiling. Sydney and Ondine looked around, their faces bright with pleasure.

  “Here she is!” said Sydney, and reached out a hand to hug her waist. She came forward and kissed his forehead. Then Ondine’s.

  “Sleep well, sugar?”

  “Well and late.” She sat down and locked her arms over her head in a deep yawn. “The air. The night air is incredible. It’s like food.”

  “You weren’t serious, were you?” asked Ondine. “About wanting a mango?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.” Jadine dug her fingernails into her hair and scratched.

  “I’ve got some nice liver. Sautéed just right. With eggs.”

  “What kind of liver?”

  “Chicken.”

  “The chicken’s eggs and its liver? Is there anything inside a chicken we don’t eat?”

  “Jadine, we’re still at the table,” said Sydney. “Don’t talk like that.” He patted her knee.

  “Pineapple,” she said. “I’ll have some pineapple.”

  “Well,” said Ondine, “thank God somebody in this house got some sense. That hussy sure don’t.”

  “Let up, woman. She’s got something to deal with.”

  “So has he.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve known him practically all his life and I’ll tell you this: he gets his way. Even when he was a little boy, he got his way.”

  Jadine looked up. “Valerian was a little boy? You sure?”

  “Hush up.” Sydney wiped his mouth with the pale blue napkin. “You be around all day today?”

  “Most of it. But I may have to take the boat back to town.”

  “What for? More Christmas shopping?”

  “Yep.”

  “You sure you won’t have some livers?”

  “No, thanks, Nanadine, but could I have a cup of chocolate?”

  “In this heat?” asked Sydney. He raised his eyebrows, but Ondine smiled. She loved it when her niece called her that—a child’s effort to manage “Aunt Ondine.” “Sure you can,” she said, and went immediately to the nickel-plated door that opened on a hallway. At the end, four steps descended to the
second kitchen where supplies were kept and which was equipped like a restaurant kitchen.

  Back in the first kitchen Sydney grumbled in the sunlight. “Air conditioning in the shed, but none in the house. I swear. All that money.”

  Jadine licked sweet wet juice from her fingertips. “I love it. Makes the nights so much better. As soon as the sun goes down it’s cool anyway.”

  “I work in the daytime, girl.”

  “So do I.”

  “You still calling that work?”

  “It is work.”

  Sydney sucked his teeth. “Exercising. Cutting pictures out of magazines. Going to the store.”

  “I type,” she said. “And going to the store is a twenty-three-mile boat trip, after driving through jungle, swamp…”

  “You better not let him hear you call anything on this island jungle.”

  “Well, what does he call it? The Tuileries?”

  “You know what he calls it,” said Sydney, digging in his vest pocket for a toothpick. “L’Arbe de la Croix.”

  “I hope he’s wrong.” Jadine laughed.

  Ondine entered, limping a little from the few stairs and frowning. “There’s something in this house that loves bittersweet chocolate. I had six eight-ounce boxes, now there’s two.”

  “Rats?” asked Sydney. He looked concerned. Mr. Street and the other families had pooled money to have mongooses shipped to the island to get rid of snakes and rats.

  “If rats fold wrappers, then yes, rats.”

  “Well, who then? Couldn’t be over fifteen people on the whole island. The Watts are gone; so are the Broughtons,” said Sydney.

  “Maybe it’s one of the new staff over at Deauville. All Filipinos again, I heard. Four of them.”

  “Come on, Nanadine. Why would they walk all the way over here to steal a piece of chocolate?” Her niece swirled a napkin ring on her finger.

  Ondine poured a tiny bit of water into a saucepan and plopped a chocolate square into it. “Well, somebody is. And not just chocolate either. The Evian, too. Half a case.”

  “Must be Yardman,” said Sydney, “or one of them Marys.”

  “Couldn’t be. He don’t step foot inside the house unless I’m behind him and I can’t get them Marys further in than the screen door.”

  “You don’t know that, Ondine,” said Sydney. “You not in here every minute.”

  “I do know that and I know my kitchens. Better than I know my face.”

  Jadine loosened the straps of her halter and fanned her neck. “Well, let me tell you your face is prettier than your kitchens.”