Color Purple Collection

by Alice Walker

  She say, Celie, the old house you remember was torn down so Alphonso could build this one. He got an Atlanta architect to design it, and these tiles come all the way from New York. We was standing in the kitchen at the time. But he put tiles everywhere. Kitchen, toilet, back porch. All around the fireplaces in back and front parlour. But this the house go with the place, right on, she say. Of course I did take the furniture, because Alphonso bought it special for me.

  Fine with me, I say. I can’t get over having a house. Soon as Daisy leave me with the keys I run from one room to another like I’m crazy. Look at this, I say to Shug. Look at that! She look, she grin. She hug me whenever she git the chance and I stand still.

  You doin’ all right, Miss Celie, she say. God know where you live.

  Then she took some cedar sticks out of her bag and lit them and gave one of them to me. Us started at the very top of the house in the attic, and us smoked it all the way down to the basement, chasing out all the evil and making a place for good.

  Oh, Nettie, us have a house! A house big enough for us and our children, for your husband and Shug. Now you can come home cause you have a home to come to!

  Your loving sister, Celie

  DEAR NETTIE,

  My heart broke.

  Shug love somebody else.

  Maybe if I had stayed in Memphis last summer it never would have happen. But I spent the summer fixing up the house. I thought if you come anytime soon, I want it to be ready. And it is real pretty, now, and comfortable. And I found me a nice lady to live in it and look after it. Then I come home to Shug.

  Miss Celie, she say, how would you like some Chinese food to celebrate your coming home?

  I loves Chinese food. So off us go to the restaurant. I’m so excited about being home again I don’t even notice how nervous Shug is. She a big graceful woman most of the time, even when she mad. But I notice she can’t git her chopsticks to work right. She knock over her glass of water. Somehow or nother her eggroll come unravel.

  But I think she just so glad to see me. So I preen and pose for her and stuff myself with wonton soup and fried rice.

  Finally the fortune cookies come. I love fortune cookies. They so cute. And I read my fortune right away. It say, because you are who you are, the future look happy and bright.

  I laugh. Pass it on to Shug. She look at it and smile. I feel at peace with the world.

  Shug pull her slip of paper out real slow, like she scared of what might be on it.

  Well? I say, watching her read it. What it say?

  She look down at it, look up at me. Say, It say I got the hots for a boy of nineteen.

  Let me see, I say, laughing. And I read it out loud. A burnt finger remember the fire, it say.

  I’m trying to tell you, Shug say.

  Trying to tell me what? I’m so dense it still don’t penetrate. For one thing, it been a long time since I thought about boys and I ain’t never thought about men.

  Last year, say Shug, I hired a new man to work in the band. I almost didn’t because he can’t play nothing but flute. And who ever heard of blues flute? I hadn’t. The very notion sound crazy. But it was just my luck that blues flute is the one thing blues music been lacking and the minute I heard Germaine play I knew this for a fact.

  Germaine? I ast.

  Yeah, she say, Germaine. I don’t know who gave him that flittish name, but it suit him.

  Then she start right in to rave about this boy. Like all his good points have to be stuff I’m dying to hear.

  Oh, she say. He little. He cute. Got nice buns. You know, real bantu. She so used to telling me everything she rattle on and on, gitting more excited and in-love looking by the minute. By the time she finish talking about his neat little dancing feet and git back up to his honey brown curly hair, I feel like shit.

  Hold it, I say. Shug, you killing me.

  She halt in mid-praise. Her eyes fill with tears and her face crumple. Oh God, Celie, she say. I’m sorry. I just been dying to tell somebody, and you the somebody I usually tell.

  Well, I say, if words could kill, I’d be in the ambulance.

  She put her face in her hands and start to cry. Celie, she say, through her fingers, I still love you.

  But I just sit there and watch her. Seem like all my wonton soup turn to ice.

  Why you so upset? she ast, when us got back home. You never seem to git upset bout Grady. And he was my husband.

  Grady never bring no sparkle to your eye, I think. But I don’t say nothing, I’m too far away.

  Course, she say, Grady so dull, Jesus. And when you finish talking bout women and reefer you finish Grady. But still, she say.

  I don’t say nothing.

  She try to laugh. I was so glad he lit out after Mary Agnes I didn’t know what to do, she say. I don’t know who tried to teach him what to do in the bedroom, but it must have been a furniture salesman.

  I don’t say nothing. Stillness, coolness. Nothingness. Coming fast.

  You notice when they left here together going to Panama I didn’t shed a tear? But now really, she say, what they gon look like in Panama?

  Poor Mary Agnes, I think. How could anybody guess old dull Grady would end up running a reefer plantation in Panama?

  Course they making boocoos of money, say Shug. And Mary Agnes outdress everybody down there, the way she tell it in her letters. And at least Grady let her sing. What little snatches of her songs she can still remember. But really, she say, Panama? Where is it at, anyhow? Is it down there round Cuba? Us ought to go to Cuba, Miss Celie, you know? Lots of gambling there and good times. A lots of colored folks look like Mary Agnes. Some real black, like us. All in the same family though. Try to pass for white, somebody mention your grandma.

  I don’t say nothing. I pray to die, just so I don’t never have to speak.

  All right, say Shug. It started when you was down home. I missed you, Celie. And you know I’m a high natured woman.

  I went and got a piece of paper that I was using for cutting patterns. I wrote her a note. It said, Shut up.

  But Celie, she say. I have to make you understand. Look, she say. I’m gitting old. I’m fat. Nobody think I’m good looking no more, but you. Or so I thought. He’s nineteen. A baby. How long can it last?

  He’s a man. I write on the paper.

  Yeah, she say. He is. And I know how you feel about men. But I don’t feel that way. I would never be fool enough to take any of them seriously, she say, but some mens can be a lots of fun.

  Spare me, I write.

  Celie, she say. All I ast is six months. Just six months to have my last fling. I got to have it Celie. I’m too weak a woman not to. But if you just give me six months, Celie, I will try to make our life together like it was.

  Not hardly. I write.

  Celie, she say, Do you love me? She down on her knees by now, tears falling all over the place. My heart hurt so much I can’t believe it. How can it keep beating, feeling like this? But I’m a woman. I love you, I say. Whatever happen, whatever you do, I love you.

  She whimper a little, lean her head against my chair. Thank you, she say.

  But I can’t stay here, I say.

  But Celie, she say, how can you leave me? You’re my friend. I love this child and I’m scared to death. He’s a third of my age. A third of my size. Even a third of my color. She try to laugh again. You know he gon hurt me worse than I’m hurting you. Don’t leave me, please.

  Just then the door bell ring. Shug wiped her face and went to answer it, saw who it was and kept on out the door. Soon I heard a car drive off. I went on up to bed. But sleep remain a stranger to this night.

  Pray for me,

  Your Sister, Celie

  DEAR NETTIE,

  The only thing keep me alive is watching Henrietta fight for her life. And boy can she fight. Every time she have an attack she scream enough to wake the dead. Us do what you say the peoples do in Africa. Us feed her yams every single day. Just our luck she hate yams and she not too po
lite to let us know. Everybody for miles around try to come up with yam dishes that don’t taste like yams. Us git plates of yam eggs, yam chitlins, yam goat. And soup. My God, folks be making soup out of everything but shoe leather trying to kill off the yam taste. But Henrietta claim she still taste it, and is likely to throw whatever it is out the window. Us tell her in a little while she’ll have three months not to eat yams, but she say that day don’t seem like it ever want to come. Meanwhile, her joints all swole, she hot enough to burn, she say her head feel like its full of little white men with hammers.

  Sometime I meet up with Mr. _____ visiting Henrietta. He dream up his own little sneaky recipes. For instance, one time he hid the yams in peanut butter. Us sit by the fire with Harpo and Sofia and play a hand or two of bid whist, while Suzie Q and Henrietta listen to the radio. Sometime he drive me home in his car. He still live in the same little house. He been there so long, it look just like him. Two straight chairs always on the porch, turned against the wall. Porch railings with flower cans on them. He keep it painted now though. Fresh and white. And guess what he collect just cause he like them? He collect shells. All kinds of shells. Tarrapin, snail and all kinds of shells from the sea.

  Matter of fact, that’s how he got me up to the house again. He was telling Sofia bout some new shell he had that made a loud sea sound when you put it to your ear. Us went up to see it. It was big and heavy and speckled like a chicken and sure enough, seem like you could hear the waves or something crashing against your ear. None of us ever seen the ocean, but Mr. _____ learn about it from books. He order shells from books too, and they all over the place.

  He don’t say that much about them while you looking, but he hold each one like it just arrive.

  Shug one time had a seashell, he say. Long time ago, when us first met. Big white thing look like a fan. She still love shells? he ast.

  Naw, I say. She love elephants now.

  He wait a little while, put all the shells back in place. Then he ast me, You like any special thing?

  I love birds, I say.

  You know, he say, you use to remind me of a bird. Way back when you first come to live with me. You was so skinny, Lord, he say. And the least little thing happen, you looked about to fly away.

  You saw that, I say.

  I saw it, he said, just too big a fool to let myself care.

  Well, I say, us lived through it.

  We still man and wife, you know, he say.

  Naw, I say, we never was.

  You know, he say, you look real good since you been up in Memphis.

  Yeah, I say, Shug take good care of me.

  How you make your living up there? he say.

  Making pants, I say.

  He say, I notice everybody in the family just about wearing pants you made. But you mean you turned it into a business?

  That’s right, I say. But I really started it right here in your house to keep from killing you.

  He look down at the floor.

  Shug help me make the first pair I ever did, I say. And then, like a fool, I start to cry.

  He say, Celie, tell me the truth. You don’t like me cause I’m a man?

  I blow my nose. Take off they pants, I say, and men look like frogs to me. No matter how you kiss ’em, as far as I’m concern, frogs is what they stay.

  I see, he say.

  By the time I got back home I was feeling so bad I couldn’t do nothing but sleep. I tried to work on some new pants I’m trying to make for pregnant women, but just the thought of anybody gitting pregnant make me want to cry.

  Your Sister, Celie

  DEAR NETTIE,

  The only piece of mail Mr. _____ ever put directly in my hand is a telegram that come from the United States Department of Defense. It say the ship you and the children and your husband left Africa in was sunk by German mines off the coast of someplace call Gibralta. They think you all drowned. Plus, the same day, all the letters I wrote to you over the years come back unopen.

  I sit here in this big house by myself trying to sew, but what good is sewing gon do? What good is anything? Being alive begin to seem like a awful strain.

  Your Sister, Celie

  DEAREST CELIE,

  Tashi and her mother have run away. They have gone to join the mbeles. Samuel and the children and I were discussing it just yesterday, and we realized we do not even know for sure the mbeles exist. All we know is that they are said to live deep in the forest, that they welcome runaways, and that they harass the white man’s plantations and plan his destruction—or at least for his removal from their continent.

  Adam and Olivia are heartbroken because they love Tashi and miss her, and because no one who has gone to join the mbeles ever returned. We try to keep them busy around the compound and because there is so much sickness from malaria this season there is plenty for them to do. In plowing under the Olinka’s yam crop and substituting canned and powdered goods, the planters destroyed what makes them resistant to malaria. Of course they did not know this, they only wanted to take the land for rubber, but the Olinka have been eating yams to prevent malaria and to control chronic blood disease for thousands and thousands of years. Left without a sufficient supply of yams, the people—what’s left of them—are sickening and dying at an alarming rate.

  To tell you the truth, I fear for our own health, and especially for the children. But Samuel feels we will probably be all right, having had bouts with malaria during the first years we were here.

  And how are you, dearest sister? Nearly thirty years have passed without a word between us. For all I know you may be dead. As the time nears for us to come home, Adam and Olivia ask endless questions about you, few of which I can answer. Sometimes I tell them Tashi reminds me of you. And, because there is no one finer to them than Tashi, they glow with delight. But will you still have Tashi’s honest and open spirit, I wonder, when we see you again? Or will years of childbearing and abuse from Mr. _____ have destroyed it? These are thoughts I don’t pursue with the children, only with my beloved companion, Samuel, who advises me not to worry, to trust in God, and to have faith in the sturdiness of my sister’s soul.

  God is different to us now, after all these years in Africa. More spirit than ever before, and more internal. Most people think he has to look like something or someone—a roofleaf or Christ—but we don’t. And not being tied to what God looks like, frees us.

  When we return to America we must have long talks about this, Celie. And perhaps Samuel and I will found a new church in our community that has no idols in it whatsoever, in which each person’s spirit is encouraged to seek God directly, his belief that this is possible strengthened by us as people who also believe. There is little to do here for entertainment, as you can imagine. We read the papers and magazines from home, play any number of African games with the children. Rehearse the African children in parts of Shakespeare’s plays—Adam was always very good as Hamlet giving his To be or Not to Be soliloquy. Corrine had firm notions of what the children should be taught and saw to it that every good work advertised in the papers became part of their library. They know many things, and I think will not find American society such a shock, except for the hatred of black people, which is also very clear in all the news. But I worry about their very African independence of opinion and outspokenness, also extreme self-centeredness. And we will be poor, Celie, and it will be years no doubt before we even own a home. How will they manage the hostility towards them, having grown up here? When I think of them in America I see them as much younger than they appear here. Much more naive. The worst we have had to endure here is indifference and a certain understandable shallowness in our personal relationships—excluding our relationship with Catherine and Tashi. After all, the Olinka know we can leave, they must stay. And, of course, none of this has to do with color. And—

  Dearest Celie,

  Last night I stopped writing because Olivia came in to tell me Adam is missing. He can only have gone after Tashi.

  Pray fo
r his safety,

  Your sister, Nettie

  DEAREST NETTIE,

  Sometimes I think Shug never love me. I stand looking at my naked self in the looking glass. What would she love? I ast myself. My hair is short and kinky because I don’t straighten it anymore. Once Shug say she love it no need to. My skin dark. My nose just a nose. My lips just lips. My body just any woman’s body going through the changes of age. Nothing special here for nobody to love. No honey colored curly hair, no cuteness. Nothing young and fresh. My heart must be young and fresh though, it feel like it blooming blood.

  I talk to myself a lot, standing in front the mirror. Celie, I say, happiness was just a trick in your case. Just cause you never had any before Shug, you thought it was time to have some, and that it was gon last. Even thought you had the trees with you. The whole earth. The stars. But look at you. When Shug left, happiness desert.

  Every once in a while I git a postcard from Shug. Her and Germaine in New York, in California. Gone to see Mary Agnes and Grady in Panama.

  Mr. _____ seem to be the only one understand my feeling.

  I know you hate me for keeping you from Nettie, he say. And now she dead.

  But I don’t hate him, Nettie. And I don’t believe you dead. How can you be dead if I still feel you? Maybe, like God, you changed into something different that I’ll have to speak to in a different way, but you not dead to me Nettie. And never will be. Sometime when I git tired of talking to myself I talk to you. I even try to reach our children.

  Mr. _____ still can’t believe I have children. Where you git children from? he ast.

  My stepdaddy, I say.

  You mean he knowed he was the one damage you all along? he ast.

  I say, Yeah.

  Mr. _____ shake his head.

  After all the evil he done I know you wonder why I don’t hate him. I don’t hate him for two reasons. One, he love Shug. And two, Shug use to love him. Plus, look like he trying to make something out of himself. I don’t mean just that he work and he clean up after himself and he appreciate some of the things God was playful enough to make. I mean when you talk to him now he really listen, and one time, out of nowhere in the conversation us was having, he said Celie, I’m satisfied this the first time I ever lived on Earth as a natural man. It feel like a new experience.