This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Epub ISBN: 9781473548619

Version 1.0

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

VINTAGE

20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

London SW1V 2SA

Vintage Classics is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

Toni Morrison has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Song of Solomon first published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus in 1978

The Bluest Eye first published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus in 1979

Beloved first published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus in 1987

‘Recitatif’ first published in Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women in 1983

‘Make America White Again’ originally published in the New Yorker, 2016

This short edition published by Vintage in 2017

penguin.co.uk/vintage

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Race

TONI MORRISON

From the novel Song of Solomon

AT FIFTY-TWO, MACON Dead was as imposing a man as he had been at forty-two, when Milkman thought he was the biggest thing in the world. Bigger even than the house they lived in. But today he had seen a woman who was just as tall and who had made him feel tall too.

‘I know I’m the youngest one in this family, but I ain’t no baby. You treat me like I was a baby. You keep saying you don’t have to explain nothing to me. How do you think that makes me feel? Like a baby, that’s what. Like a twelve-year-old baby!’

‘Don’t you raise your voice to me.’

‘Is that the way your father treated you when you were twelve?’

‘Watch your mouth!’ Macon roared. He took his hands out of his pockets but didn’t know what to do with them. He was momentarily confused. His son’s question had shifted the scenery. He was seeing himself at twelve, standing in Milkman’s shoes and feeling what he himself had felt for his own father. The numbness that had settled on him when he saw the man he loved and admired fall off the fence; something wild ran through him when he watched the body twitching in the dirt. His father had sat for five nights on a split-rail fence cradling a shotgun and in the end died protecting his property. Was that what this boy felt for him? Maybe it was time to tell him things.

‘Well, did he?’

‘I worked right alongside my father. Right alongside him. From the time I was four or five we worked together. Just the two of us. Our mother was dead. Died when Pilate was born. Pilate was just a baby. She stayed over at another farm in the daytime. I carried her over there myself in my arms every morning. Then I’d go back across the fields and meet my father. We’d hitch President Lincoln to the plow and … That’s what we called her: President Lincoln. Papa said Lincoln was a good plow hand before he was President and you shouldn’t take a good plow hand away from his work. He called our farm Lincoln’s Heaven. It was a little bit a place. But it looked big to me then. I know now it must a been a little bit a place, maybe a hundred and fifty acres. We tilled fifty. About eighty of it was woods. Must of been a fortune in oak and pine; maybe that’s what they wanted – the lumber, the oak and the pine. We had a pond that was four acres. And a stream, full of fish. Right down in the heart of a valley. Prettiest mountain you ever saw, Montour Ridge. We lived in Montour County. Just north of the Susquehanna. We had a four-stall hog pen. The big barn was forty feet by a hundred and forty – hip-roofed too. And all around in the mountains was deer and wild turkey. You ain’t tasted nothing till you taste wild turkey the way Papa cooked it. He’d burn it real fast in the fire. Burn it black all over. That sealed it. Sealed the juices in. Then he’d let it roast on a spit for twenty-four hours. When you cut the black burnt part off, the meat underneath was tender, sweet, juicy. And we had fruit trees. Apple, cherry. Pilate tried to make me a cherry pie once.’

Macon paused and let the smile come on. He had not said any of this for years. Had not even reminisced much about it recently. When he was first married he used to talk about Lincoln’s Heaven to Ruth. Sitting on the porch swing in the dark, he would re-create the land that was to have been his. Or when he was just starting out in the business of buying houses, he would lounge around the barbershop and swap stories with the men there. But for years he hadn’t had that kind of time, or interest. But now he was doing it again, with his son, and every detail of that land was clear in his mind: the well, the apple orchard, President Lincoln; her foal, Mary Todd; Ulysses S. Grant, their cow; General Lee, their hog. That was the way he knew what history he remembered. His father couldn’t read, couldn’t write; knew only what he saw and heard tell of. But he had etched in Macon’s mind certain historical figures, and as a boy in school, Macon thought of the personalities of his horse, his hog, when he read about these people. His father may have called their plow horse President Lincoln as a joke, but Macon always thought of Lincoln with fondness since he had loved him first as a strong, steady, gentle, and obedient horse. He even liked General Lee, for one spring they slaughtered him and ate the best pork outside Virginia, ‘from the butt to the smoked ham to the ribs to the sausage to the jowl to the feet to the tail to the head cheese’ – for eight months. And there was cracklin in November.

‘General Lee was all right by me,’ he told Milkman, smiling. ‘Finest general I ever knew. Even his balls was tasty. Circe made up the best pot of maws she ever cooked. Huh! I’d forgotten that woman’s name. That was it, Circe. Worked at a big farm some white people owned in Danville, Pennsylvania. Funny how things get away from you. For years you can’t remember nothing. Then just like that, it all comes back to you. Had a dog run, they did. That was the big sport back then. Dog races. White people did love their dogs. Kill a nigger and comb their hair at the same time. But I’ve seen grown white men cry about their dogs.’

His voice sounded different to Milkman. Less hard, and his speech was different. More southern and comfortable and soft. Milkman spoke softly too. ‘Pilate said somebody shot your father. Five feet into the air.’

‘Took him sixteen years to get that farm to where it was paying. It’s all dairy country up there now. Then it wasn’t. Then it was … nice.’

‘Who shot him, Daddy?’

Macon focused his eyes on his son. ‘Papa couldn’t read, couldn’t even sign his name. Had a mark he used. They tricked him. He signed something, I don’t know what, and they told him they owned his property. He never read nothing. I tried to teach him, but he said he couldn’t remember those little marks from one day to the next. Wrote one word in his life – Pilate’s name; copied it out of the Bible. That’s what she got folded up in that earring. He should have let me teach him. Everything bad that ever happened to him happened because he couldn’t read. Got his name messed up cause he couldn’t read.’

‘His name? How?’

‘When freedom came. All the colored people in the state had to register with the Freedmen’s Bureau.’

‘Your father was a slave?’

‘What kind of foolish question is that? Course he was. Who hadn’t been in 1869? They all had to register. Free and not free. Free and used-to-be-slaves. Papa was in his teens and went to sign up, but the man behind the desk was drunk. He asked Papa where he was born. Papa said Macon. Then he asked him who his father was. Papa said, “He’s dead.” Asked him who owned him, Papa said, “I’m free.” Well, the Yankee wrote it all down, but in the wrong spaces. Had him born in Dunfrie, wherever the hell that is, and in the space for his name the fool wrote, “Dead” comma “Macon.” But Papa couldn’t read so he never found out what he was registered as till Mama told him. They met on a wagon going North. Started talking about one thing and another, told her about being a freedman and showed off his papers to her. When she looked at his paper she read him out what it said.’

‘He didn’t have to keep the name, did he? He could have used his real name, couldn’t he?’

‘Mama liked it. Liked the name. Said it was new and would wipe out the past. Wipe it all out.’

‘What was his real name?’

‘I don’t remember my mother too well. She died when I was four. Light-skinned, pretty. Looked like a white woman to me. Me and Pilate don’t take nothing after her. If you ever have a doubt we from Africa, look at Pilate. She look just like Papa and he looked like all them pictures you ever see of Africans. A Pennsylvania African. Acted like one too. Close his face up like a door.’

‘I saw Pilate’s face like that.’ Milkman felt close and confidential now that his father had talked to him in a relaxed and intimate way.

‘I haven’t changed my mind, Macon. I don’t want you over there.’

‘Why? You still haven’t said why.’

‘Just listen to what I say. That woman’s no good. She’s a snake, and can charm you like a snake, but still a snake.’

‘You talking about your own sister, the one you carried in your arms to the fields every morning.’

‘That was a long time ago. You seen her. What she look like to you? Somebody nice? Somebody normal?’

‘Well, she …’

‘Or somebody cut your throat?’

‘She didn’t look like that, Daddy.’

‘Well she is like that.’

‘What’d she do?’

‘It ain’t what she did; it’s what she is.’

‘What is she?’

‘A snake, I told you. Ever hear the story about the snake? The man who saw a little baby snake on the ground? Well, the man saw this baby snake bleeding and hurt. Lying there in the dirt. And the man felt sorry for it and picked it up and put it in his basket and took it home. And he fed it and took care of it till it was big and strong. Fed it the same thing he ate. Then one day, the snake turned on him and bit him. Stuck his poison tongue right in the man’s heart. And while he was laying there dying, he turned to the snake and asked him, “What’d you do that for?” He said, “Didn’t I take good care of you? Didn’t I save your life?” The snake said, “Yes.” “Then what’d you do it for? What’d you kill me for?” Know what the snake said? Said, “But you knew I was a snake, didn’t you?” Now, I mean for you to stay out of that wine house and as far away from Pilate as you can.’

Milkman lowered his head. His father had explained nothing to him.

‘Boy, you got better things to do with your time. Besides, it’s time you started learning how to work. You start Monday. After school come to my office; work a couple of hours there and learn what’s real. Pilate can’t teach you a thing you can use in this world. Maybe the next, but not this one. Let me tell you right now the one important thing you’ll ever need to know: Own things. And let the things you own own other things. Then you’ll own yourself and other people too. Starting Monday, I’m going to teach you how.’

THEY WERE SITTING in Mary’s Place on a Sunday afternoon a few days after Hagar’s latest attempt on his life.

‘You’re not smoking?’ asked Milkman.

‘No. I quit. Feel a hell of a lot better too.’ There was another pause before Guitar continued. ‘You ought to stop yourself.’

Milkman nodded. ‘Yeah. If I stay around you I will. I’ll stop smoking, fucking, drinking – everything. I’ll take up a secret life and hanging out with Empire State.’

Guitar frowned. ‘Now who’s meddling?’

Milkman sighed and looked straight at his friend. ‘I am. I want to know why you were running around with Empire State last Christmas.’

‘He was in trouble. I helped him.’

‘That’s all?’

‘What else?’

‘I don’t know what else. But I know there is something else. Now, if it’s something I can’t know, okay, say so. But something’s going on with you. And I’d like to know what it is.’

Guitar didn’t answer.

‘We’ve been friends a long time, Guitar. There’s nothing you don’t know about me. I can tell you anything – whatever our differences, I know I can trust you. But for some time now it’s been a one-way street. You know what I mean? I talk to you, but you don’t talk to me. You don’t think I can be trusted?’

‘I don’t know if you can or not.’

‘Try me.’

‘I can’t. Other people are involved.’

‘Then don’t tell me about other people; tell me about you.’

Guitar looked at him for a long time. Maybe, he thought. Maybe I can trust you. Maybe not, but I’ll risk it anyway because one day …

‘Okay,’ he said aloud, ‘but you have to know that what I tell you can’t go any further. And if it does, you’ll be dropping a rope around my neck. Now do you still want to know it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

Guitar poured some more hot water over his tea. He looked into his cup for a minute while the leaves settled slowly to the bottom. ‘I suppose you know that white people kill black people from time to time, and most folks shake their heads and say, “Eh, eh, eh, ain’t that a shame?”’

Milkman raised his eyebrows. He thought Guitar was going to let him in on some deal he had going. But he was slipping into his race bag. He was speaking slowly, as though each word had to count, and as though he were listening carefully to his own words. ‘I can’t suck my teeth or say “Eh, eh, eh.” I had to do something. And the only thing left to do is balance it; keep things on an even keel. Any man, any woman, or any child is good for five to seven generations of heirs before they’re bred out. So every death is the death of five to seven generations. You can’t stop them from killing us, from trying to get rid of us. And each time they succeed, they get rid of five to seven generations. I help keep the numbers the same.

‘There is a society. It’s made up of a few men who are willing to take some risks. They don’t initiate anything; they don’t even choose. They are as indifferent as rain. But when a Negro child, Negro woman, or Negro man is killed by whites and nothing is done about it by their law and their courts, this society selects a similar victim at random, and they execute him or her in a similar manner if they can. If the Negro was hanged, they hang; if a Negro was burnt, they burn; raped and murdered, they rape and murder. If they can. If they can’t do it precisely in the same manner, they do it any way they can, but they do it. They call themselves the Seven Days. They are made up of seven men. Always seven and only seven. If one of them dies or leaves or is no longer effective, another is chosen. Not right away, because that kind of choosing takes time. But they don’t seem to be in a hurry. Their secret is time. To take the time, to last. Not to grow; that’s dangerous because you might become known. They don’t write their names in toilet stalls or brag to women. Time and silence. Those are their weapons, and they go on forever.

‘It got started in 1920, when that private from Georgia was killed after his balls were cut off and after that veteran was blinded when he came home from France in World War I. And it’s been operating ever since. I am one of them now.’

Milkman had held himself very still all the time Guitar spoke. Now he felt tight, shriveled, and cold.

‘You? You’re going to kill people?’

‘Not people. White people.’

‘But why?’

‘I just told you. It’s necessary; it’s got to be done. To keep the ratio the same.’

‘And if it isn’t done? If it just goes on the way it has?’

‘Then the world is a zoo, and I can’t live in it.’

‘Why don’t you just hunt down the ones who did the killing? Why kill innocent people? Why not just those who did it?’

‘It doesn’t matter who did it. Each and every one of them could do it. So you just get any one of them. There are no innocent white people, because every one of them is a potential nigger-killer, if not an actual one. You think Hitler surprised them? You think just because they went to war they thought he was a freak? Hitler’s the most natural white man in the world. He killed Jews and Gypsies because he didn’t have us. Can you see those Klansmen shocked by him? No, you can’t.’

‘But people who lynch and slice off people’s balls – they’re crazy, Guitar, crazy.’