Possessing the Secret of Joy Read Online Free Page A
Author: Alice Walker
made one feel contempt for them.
We’ve been friends almost all our lives, she said. Don’t do this to us.
She hiccuped, like a child.
Don’t do it to Adam.
I had in my mind some outlandish, outsized image of myself. I sat astride the donkey in the pose of a chief, a warrior. We who had once owned our village and hectares and hectares of land now owned nothing. We were reduced to the position of beggars—except that there was no one near enough to beg from, in the desert we were in.
They are right, I said to her from my great height astride the donkey, who say you and your family are the white people’s wedge.
She stopped weeping. Wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and nearly laughed.
Tashi, she said, are you crazy?
I was crazy. For why could I not look at her? I stole glances down alongside her face and let my eyes slide over the top of her head. Her thick hair was braided in two plaits that crossed at the nape of her neck, just as she always wore it. Never would she wear the mealie row fan hairstyle that was traditional with Olinka women.
I had taken off my gingham Mother Hubbard. My breasts were bare. What was left of my dress now rode negligently about my loins. I did not have a rifle or a spear, but I had found a long stick, and with this I jabbed at the ground near her feet.
All I care about now is the struggle for our people, I said. You are a foreigner. Any day you like, you and your family can ship yourselves back home.
Jesus, she said, exasperated.
Also a foreigner, I sneered. I finally looked her in the eye. I hated the way her hair was done.
Who are you and your people never to accept us as we are? Never to imitate any of our ways? It is always we who have to change.
I spat on the ground. It was an expression of contempt only very old Olinkans had known how to use to full effect.
Olivia, who knew the gesture, seemed to wilt, there in the heat.
You want to change us, I said, so that we are like you. And who are you like? Do you even know?
I spat in the dust again, though I only made the sound of spitting; my mouth and throat were dry.
You are black, but you are not like us. We look at you and your people with pity, I said. You barely have your own black skin, and it is fading.
I said this because her skin was mahogany while mine was ebony. In happier times I had thought only of how beautiful our arms looked when we, admiring our grass bracelets, held them up together.
But she was suddenly stepping back from the donkey. Her hands at her sides.
I laughed.
You don’t even know what you’ve lost! And the nerve of you, to bring us a God someone else chose for you! He is the same as those two stupid braids you wear, and that long hot dress with its stupid high collar!
Finally, she spoke.
Go, she said, and raised her chin sadly. I did not understand you hated me.
She said it with the quietness of defeat.
I dug my heels into the flanks of the donkey and we trotted out of the encampment. I saw the children, potbellied, and with dying eyes, which made them look very wise. I saw the old people laid out in the shade of the rocks, barely moving on their piles of rags. I saw the women making stew out of bones. We had been stripped of everything but our black skins. Here and there a defiant cheek bore the mark of our withered tribe. These marks gave me courage. I wanted such a mark for myself.
My people had once been whole, pregnant with life.
I turned my back on the sister of my heart, and rushed away from her stricken face. I recognized myself as the leopard in her path.
TASHI
A ND WHAT ABOUT your dreams? the doctor one day asks me.
I tell him I do not dream.
I do not dare tell him about the dream I have every night that terrifies me.
ADAM
Y OUR WIFE REFUSES to talk about her dreams, the doctor says, mysteriously. Above the couch, on which I imagine Evelyn lying, there is a blue, overarching figure of Nut. The body of woman as night sky. I sit uneasily in my chair, as if I am being
We’ve been friends almost all our lives, she said. Don’t do this to us.
She hiccuped, like a child.
Don’t do it to Adam.
I had in my mind some outlandish, outsized image of myself. I sat astride the donkey in the pose of a chief, a warrior. We who had once owned our village and hectares and hectares of land now owned nothing. We were reduced to the position of beggars—except that there was no one near enough to beg from, in the desert we were in.
They are right, I said to her from my great height astride the donkey, who say you and your family are the white people’s wedge.
She stopped weeping. Wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and nearly laughed.
Tashi, she said, are you crazy?
I was crazy. For why could I not look at her? I stole glances down alongside her face and let my eyes slide over the top of her head. Her thick hair was braided in two plaits that crossed at the nape of her neck, just as she always wore it. Never would she wear the mealie row fan hairstyle that was traditional with Olinka women.
I had taken off my gingham Mother Hubbard. My breasts were bare. What was left of my dress now rode negligently about my loins. I did not have a rifle or a spear, but I had found a long stick, and with this I jabbed at the ground near her feet.
All I care about now is the struggle for our people, I said. You are a foreigner. Any day you like, you and your family can ship yourselves back home.
Jesus, she said, exasperated.
Also a foreigner, I sneered. I finally looked her in the eye. I hated the way her hair was done.
Who are you and your people never to accept us as we are? Never to imitate any of our ways? It is always we who have to change.
I spat on the ground. It was an expression of contempt only very old Olinkans had known how to use to full effect.
Olivia, who knew the gesture, seemed to wilt, there in the heat.
You want to change us, I said, so that we are like you. And who are you like? Do you even know?
I spat in the dust again, though I only made the sound of spitting; my mouth and throat were dry.
You are black, but you are not like us. We look at you and your people with pity, I said. You barely have your own black skin, and it is fading.
I said this because her skin was mahogany while mine was ebony. In happier times I had thought only of how beautiful our arms looked when we, admiring our grass bracelets, held them up together.
But she was suddenly stepping back from the donkey. Her hands at her sides.
I laughed.
You don’t even know what you’ve lost! And the nerve of you, to bring us a God someone else chose for you! He is the same as those two stupid braids you wear, and that long hot dress with its stupid high collar!
Finally, she spoke.
Go, she said, and raised her chin sadly. I did not understand you hated me.
She said it with the quietness of defeat.
I dug my heels into the flanks of the donkey and we trotted out of the encampment. I saw the children, potbellied, and with dying eyes, which made them look very wise. I saw the old people laid out in the shade of the rocks, barely moving on their piles of rags. I saw the women making stew out of bones. We had been stripped of everything but our black skins. Here and there a defiant cheek bore the mark of our withered tribe. These marks gave me courage. I wanted such a mark for myself.
My people had once been whole, pregnant with life.
I turned my back on the sister of my heart, and rushed away from her stricken face. I recognized myself as the leopard in her path.
TASHI
A ND WHAT ABOUT your dreams? the doctor one day asks me.
I tell him I do not dream.
I do not dare tell him about the dream I have every night that terrifies me.
ADAM
Y OUR WIFE REFUSES to talk about her dreams, the doctor says, mysteriously. Above the couch, on which I imagine Evelyn lying, there is a blue, overarching figure of Nut. The body of woman as night sky. I sit uneasily in my chair, as if I am being
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