done so. They did not believe death was accidental—life might be, but death was deliberate. They did not believe Nature was ever askew—only inconvenient. Plague and drought were as “natural” as springtime. If milk could curdle, God knows robins could fall. The purpose of evil was to survive it and they determined (without ever knowing they had made up their minds to do it) to survive floods, white people, tuberculosis, famine and ignorance. They knew anger well but not despair, and they didn’t stone sinners for the same reason they didn’t commit suicide—it was beneath them.
Sula stepped off the Cincinnati Flyer into the robin shit and began the long climb up into the Bottom. She was dressed in a manner that was as close to a movie star as anyone would ever see. A black crepe dress splashed with pink and yellow zinnias, foxtails, a black felt hat with the veil of net lowered over one eye. In her right hand was a black purse with a beaded clasp and in her left a red leather traveling case, so small, so charming—no one had seen anything like it ever before, including the mayor’s wife and the music teacher, both of whom had been to Rome.
Walking up the hill toward Carpenter’s Road, the heels and sides of her pumps edged with drying bird shit, she attracted the glances of old men sitting on stone benches in front of the courthouse, housewives throwing buckets of water on their sidewalks, and high school students on their way home for lunch. By the time she reached the Bottom, the news of her return had brought the black people out on their porches or to their windows. There were scattered hellos and nods but mostly stares. A little boy ran up to her saying, “Carry yo’ bag, ma’am?” Before Sula could answer his mother had called him, “You, John. Get back in here.”
At Eva’s house there were four dead robins on the walk. Sula stopped and with her toe pushed them into the bordering grass.
Eva looked at Sula pretty much the same way she had looked at BoyBoy that time when he returned after he’d left her without a dime or a prospect of one. She was sitting in her wagon, her back to the window she had jumped out of (now all boarded up) setting fire to the hair she had combed out of her head. When Sula opened the door she raised her eyes and said, “I might have knowed them birds meant something. Where’s your coat?”
Sula threw herself on Eva’s bed. “The rest of my stuff will be on later.”
“I should hope so. Them little old furry tails ain’t going to do you no more good than they did the fox that was wearing them.”
“Don’t you say hello to nobody when you ain’t seen them for ten years?”
“If folks let somebody know where they is and when they coming, then other folks can get ready for them. If they don’t—if they just pop in all sudden like—then they got to take whatever mood they find.”
“How you been doing, Big Mamma?”
“Gettin’ by. Sweet of you to ask. You was quick enough when you wanted something. When you needed a little change or…”
“Don’t talk to me about how much you gave me, Big Mamma, and how much I owe you or none of that.”
“Oh? I ain’t supposed to mention it?”
“OK. Mention it.” Sula shrugged and turned over on her stomach, her buttocks toward Eva.
“You ain’t been in this house ten seconds and already you starting something.”
“Takes two, Big Mamma.”
“Well, don’t let your mouth start nothing that your ass can’t stand. When you gone to get married? You need to have some babies. It’ll settle you.”
“I don’t want to make somebody else. I want to make myself.”
“Selfish. Ain’t no woman got no business floatin’ around without no man.”
“You did.”
“Not by choice.”
“Mamma did.”
“Not by choice, I said. It ain’t right for you to want to stay off by yourself. You need…I’m a tell you what you need.”
Sula sat up. “I need you to shut your mouth.”
“Don’t nobody talk to me like that. Don’t nobody…”
“This body does. Just ’cause you was bad enough to cut off your own leg you think you got a right to kick everybody with the stump.”
“Who said I cut off my leg?”
“Well, you stuck it under a train to collect insurance.”
“Hold on, you lyin’ heifer!”
“I aim to.”
“Bible say honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land thy God giveth thee.”
“Mamma must have skipped that part. Her days wasn’t too long.”
“Pus mouth! God’s going to strike you!”
“Which God? The one watched you burn Plum?”
“Don’t talk to me about no burning. You watched your own mamma. You crazy roach! You the one should have been burnt!”
“But I ain’t. Got that? I ain’t. Any more fires in this house, I’m lighting them!”
“Hellfire don’t need lighting and it’s already burning in you…”
