Beloved Page #13

When the girls have gone, Sethe turns on Paul as she cleans

up.

SETHE:

What's the matter with you?

PAUL:

I don't understand what the hold is. It's

clear why she holds onto you, but I just

can't see why you holding on to her.

SETHE:

What you care who's holding on to who?

Feeding her is no trouble. And she's nice

company for Denver.

PAUL:

We was just starting to feel a little

like a family ourselves.

SETHE:

Is that what's got your teeth on edge?

PAUL:

I can't place it. It's a feeling in me.

SETHE:

You wanna feel somethin!? ... Feel how it

is to have a bed to sleep in and somebody

there not worrying you to death about

what you got to do each day to deserve

it. And if that don't get it, feel how it

feels to be a colored woman roaming the

roads with anything God made liable to

jump on you. Feel that!

PAUL:

I know every bit of that, Sethe. I wasn't

born yesterday and I never mistreated a

woman in my life!

SETHE:

Well, that makes one of you in this

world.

PAUL:

(surprised)

One? Not two.

SETHE:

No. Not two!

PAUL:

What Halle ever do to you? Halle stood by

you. He never left you.

SETHE:

Ha, what'd he leave then if not me, huh?

PAUL:

I don't know but it wasn't you. That's a

fact.

SETHE:

Then he did worse - he left his children.

PAUL:

You don't know that.

SETHE:

HE WASN'T THERE! He wasn't where he said

he would be! I had to pack my babies off

ahead of me, on their own, so I could

stay behind to look for him...Underground

agent said by Sunday we had to leave..

Sunday came and he wasn't there.

PAUL:

He couldn't get out of the loft, I expect.

Forgetting himself, Paul let that slip out.

SETHE:

Loft? What loft?

PAUL:

(hesitates)

The one over your head... The one in the

barn.

Sethe stops dead cold. It's no use...

The MEMORY TAKES OVER:

INT. BARN - THE PAST.

Violent, rapid images of Sethe being raped and beaten held

down by SCHOOLTEACHER'S BOYS. Sethe, pinned down, stares up

at the loft...Camera rises up...

There, in the loft, hides HALLE...The expression on his face

is that of a man broken in two...

END of MEMORY.

INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT.

Sethe wraps her arms tightly around herself and asks;

SETHE:

He saw? He told you he saw?

PAUL:

You told me. The day I came here. You

said they stole your milk. I never knew

what messed Halle up. That was it, I

guess. I seen him the day after you left.

Says where you been Halle? All he says to

me was "the loft". I asked him what he

meant not going with you but he never

answers me. But I knew was something

broke him. Not one of them years of

Saturdays, Sundays and nighttime extra

never touched him. But whatever he saw go

on in the barn that day broke him like a

twig.

SETHE:

He saw them boys do that to me and let

them keep on breathing?

PAUL:

A man ain't a Goddamn ax, Sethe.

Chopping, hacking, busting every Goddamn

minute of the day. Things get to him.

Things he can't chop down cause they

inside him. The last time I saw him, I

knew he was broken for good...

SETHE:

What did he say?

PAUL:

Nothing.

SETHE:

What did you say? Didn't you say anything

to him?

PAUL:

I couldn't.

SETHE:

Couldn't?! Why the hell not?!

C.U. on PAUL who doesn't want to explain - or even remember -

as we cut to:

MEMORY:

EXT. SWEET HOME - DAY.

PAUL HAS A BIT IN HIS MOUTH CHAINED TO A WAGON.

He is being lead away from Sweet Home with other black men,

by Three white Men. The bit jerks his head back, saliva

spills uncontrollably out of his mouth. His hands are chained

behind him. His feet chained together at the

ankles....Another chain is connected to an iron belt and

stretches to a wagon. He is being lead away with forty five

other prisoners...

PAUL (VO)

I tried to kill Brandywine - man

Schoolteacher sold me to. Don't know what

possessed me...Me and about 45 other

prisoners were being walked from Kentucky

to Virginia...then on to Georgia. Two

places I don't ever want to see again.

He is lead past the milk shed, when he sees:

HALLE, alone with a crazed faraway look in his eyes, sitting

by the butter churn. HALLE'S FACE IS COVERED WITH BUTTER AND

CLABBER. He sticks his hands in the churn and continues to

cover his face with the sticky, slippery, white substance

covering his face and head, squeezing it through his hands.

The White Men laugh. Paul is aching to scream out to him but

the iron bit holds down his tongue.

As Paul is lead past Halle, A ROOSTER named MISTER is SITTING

ON A TUB in the sun shrieks with an almost arrogant glee.

WHITE MAN:

Look at Mister there...

(referring to the rooster)

You go tell these n*ggers where to go

there Mister! Crow'em right outta here!

Mister crows and the white men laugh.

Tears of rage and humiliation stream down Paul's face. He

struggles to keep a view of Halle, until he is out of sight.

END OF MEMORY.

EXT. PORCH. - EARLY EVENING.

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