Sula

by Toni Morrison

he let his mind slip into whatever cave mouths of memory it chose.

From somewhere came a sweetish smell which reminded him of something painful.

There in the toilet water he saw a grave black face. A black so definite, so unequivocal, it astonished him. He had been harboring a skittish apprehension that he was not real—that he didn’t exist at all.

It was not death or dying that frightened him, but the unexpectedness of both. In sorting it all out, he hit on the notion that if one day a year were devoted to it, everybody could get it out of the way and the rest of the year would be safe and free. In this manner he instituted National Suicide Day.

he was drunk, loud, obscene, funny and outrageous. But he never touched anybody, never fought, never caressed.

Fewer than nine people in the town remembered when Eva had two legs, and her oldest child, Hannah, was not one of them.

During the time they were together he was very much preoccupied with other women and not home much. He did whatever he could that he liked, and he liked womanizing best, drinking second, and abusing Eva third.

Nobody, but nobody, could say “hey sugar” like Hannah. When he heard it, the man tipped his hat down a little over his eyes, hoisted his trousers and thought about the hollow place at the base of her neck.

She could break up a marriage before it had even become one—she would make love to the new groom and wash his wife’s dishes all in an afternoon.

Daughters of distant mothers and incomprehensible fathers (Sula’s because he was dead; Nel’s because he wasn’t), they found in each other’s eyes the intimacy they were looking for.

When she saw his clothes lying on the table in the basement of the mortuary, her mouth snapped shut, and when she saw his body her mouth flew wide open again and it was seven hours before she was able to close it and make the first sound.

They acknowledged the innocent child hiding in the corner of their hearts, holding a sugar-and-butter sandwich.

Awww, Mamma? You settin’ here with your healthy-ass self and ax me did I love you? Them big old eyes in your head would a been two holes full of maggots if I hadn’t.”

The newly married couple, energized by their morning lovemaking, had gone to look for a day’s work happily certain that they would find none.

Eva said yes, but inside she disagreed and remained convinced that Sula had watched Hannah burn not because she was paralyzed, but because she was interested.

Her parents had succeeded in rubbing down to a dull glow any sparkle or splutter she had.

they themselves had difficulty distinguishing one’s thoughts from the other’s. During all of her girlhood the only respite Nel had had from her stern and undemonstrative parents was Sula.

She didn’t even know she had a neck until Jude remarked on it, or that her smile was anything but the spreading of her lips until he saw it as a small miracle.

capitalizing on the fact that most people were anxious to please her since she had lost her mamma only a few years back and they still remembered the agony in Hannah’s face and the blood on Eva’s.

Not only did men leave and children grow up and die, but even the misery didn’t last. One day she wouldn’t even have that. This very grief that had twisted her into a curve on the floor and flayed her would be gone. She would lose that too.

That was too much. To lose Jude and not have Sula to talk to about it because it was Sula that he had left her for.

They were the ones who said she was guilty of the unforgivable thing—the thing for which there was no understanding, no excuse, no compassion. The route from which there was no way back, the dirt that could not ever be washed away. They said that Sula slept with white men.

Her name was Betty but she was called Teapot’s Mamma because being his mamma was precisely her major failure.

They began to cherish their husbands and wives, protect their children, repair their homes and in general band together against the devil in their midst.

It had surprised her a little and saddened her a good deal when Nel behaved the way the others would have.

She went to bed with men as frequently as she could. It was the only place where she could find what she was looking for: misery and the ability to feel deep sorrow.

Had she any teeth or ever straightened her back, she would have been the most gorgeous thing alive, worthy of her sons’ worship for her beauty alone, if not for the absolute freedom she allowed them (known in some quarters as neglect)

He had heard all the stories about Sula, and they aroused his curiosity. Her elusiveness and indifference to established habits of behavior reminded him of his mother, who was as stubborn in her pursuits

He swallowed her mouth just as her thighs had swallowed his genitals, and the house was very, very quiet.

I didn’t mean anything. I never meant anything. I stood there watching her burn and was thrilled. I wanted her to keep on jerking like that, to keep on dancing.”

While in this state of weary anticipation, she noticed that she was not breathing, that her heart had stopped completely. A crease of fear touched her breast, for any second there was sure to be a violent explosion in her brain, a gasping for breath. Then she realized, or rather she sensed, that there was not going to be any pain. She was not breathing because she didn’t have to. Her body did not need oxygen. She was dead. Sula felt her face smiling. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she thought, “it didn’t even hurt. Wait’ll I tell Nel.”