Beloved Page #30

STAMP PAID:

You know she married Baby Suggs' boy.

ELLA:

I ain't sure I know that. Baby never laid

eyes on her till she showed up here. And

how'd she make it and her husband didn't?

And where is he? And how she have that

baby in the woods by herself? Said a

whitewoman help her. Shoot. You believe

that? Well, I know what kind of white

that was.

STAMP PAID:

Aw, no, Ella.

ELLA:

Anything white floating around in the

woods - if it don't got a shotgun, it's

something the Lord tells me I don't want

no part of.

STAMP PAID:

You was friends.

ELLA:

Till she showed herself.

STAMP PAID:

Ella.

ELLA:

I ain't got no friends take a handsaw to

their own children.

STAMP PAID:

What's any of that got to do with Paul

D.?

ELLA:

What run him off? Tell me that!

STAMP PAID:

I run him off.

ELLA:

(surprised)

You?

STAMP PAID:

I told him...Showed him the newspaper.

About Sethe. Read it to him. He left that

very day.

ELLA:

You didn't tell me that. I thought he

already knew.

STAMP PAID:

He didn't know nothing. And nobody.

Except her, from when they was at that

place Baby Suggs was at.

ELLA:

He knew Baby Suggs?

STAMP PAID:

Sure he knew her. Her boy Halle, too.

ELLA:

And he left when he found out what Sethe

did?

(Stamp sits)

What you say casts a different light on

it, I guess...I thought-

Stamp knows what she thought.

ELLA:

But you didn't come here talking 'bout

Paul. You came asking about a new girl.

STAMP PAID:

That's so.

ELLA:

Well, Paul D. must know who she is. Or

what she is.

STAMP PAID:

You mind loaded with spirits. Everywhere

you look you see one.

ELLA:

You know as well as I do, Stamp, that

people who die bad don't stay in the

ground.

Stamp can not deny this.

EXT. BLUESTONE ROAD - EARLY EVENING.

Sethe is walking home to her daughters. There is a serene,

introverted expression on her face...as if she were detached

from the world around her, safe inside. We hear her thoughts:

SETHE (VO)

Beloved, she my daughter...She mine. She

come back to me of her own free will and

I don't have to explain a thing.. She had

to be safe and I put her where I knew she

would be. But my love was tough and she

back now. She come back to me in the

flesh...I won't never let her go. I'll

explain to her, even though I don't have

to. Why I did it. How if I hadn't killed

her she would have died and that is

something I couldn't let happen to her.

When I explain she'll understand, cause

she understands everything already..And

she ain't even mad...When I put that

headstone up I wanted to lay in there

with you, put your head on my shoulder

and keep you warm and I would have if

Bulgar and Howard and Denver didn't need

me, because my mind was homeless then. I

couldn't lay down with you then. No

matter how much I wanted to. I couldn't

lay down nowhere in peace, back then. Now

I can. I can sleep like the drowned, have

mercy. She come back to me, my daughter,

DENVER'S VOICE OVER FADES IN OVER SETHE'S....

SETHE (VO) DENVER

my Beloved and she Beloved is my

is mine.... sister...

DENVER (VO)

..and she is mine...

FADE TO;

INT. 124 BLUESTONE ROAD - EARLY EVENING.

Denver is cleaning the kitchen, waiting for her mother. We

hear her thoughts:

DENVER (VO)

..I swallowed her blood right along with

my mother's milk. She played with me and

always came to be with me whenever I

needed her. Me and her waited for our

daddy. I love her. I do. She never hurt

me. I love my mother but I know she

killed one of her own, and tender as she

is with me, I'm scared of her because of

it. All the time, I'm afraid the thing

that happened that made it all right to

kill her own, could happen again.

Whatever it is, it comes from outside

this house, outside the yard. So I never

leave this house and I watch over the

yard so it can't happen again ... I have

to keep it away from my sister...I'll

protect Beloved...'Cause She's mine...

BELOVED'S VO FADES IN OVER DENVER'S...

DENVER (VO) BELOVED (VO)

Beloved..She's mine I am Beloved

BELOVED (VO)

and she is mine...

EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - EARLY EVENING.

Beloved, waiting for Sethe to come home, sees her

approaching. We hear her thoughts:

BELOVED (VO)

I am not separate from her. There is no

place where I stop. Her face is my own

and I want to be there in the place where

her face is and to be looking at it

too...a hot thing..In the beginning I

could see her. I could not help her

because the clouds were in the way. But I

could see her. The shining in her ears. I

look hard at her so she will know that

the clouds are in the way..I cannot lose

her again. I see her face which is mine.

It is the face that was going to smile at

me in the place where we crouched before

I come up out of the blue water. Sethe's

is the face that left me. Sethe's sees me

in her and I see the smile. She is my

face smiling at me. It is the face I

lost. Now we can join..a hot thing.

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