Softly and then so loud itwoke Denver, then Paul D himself. "Red heart. Red heart. Red heart."
TO GO BACK to the original hunger was impossible. Luckily for Denver, looking was foodenough to last. But to be looked at in turn was beyond appetite; it was breaking through her own skin to a place where hunger hadn't been discovered. It didn't have to happen often, becauseBeloved seldom looked right at her, or when she did, Denver could tell that her own face was justthe place those eyes stopped while the mind behind it walked on. But sometimes — at momentsDenver could neither anticipate nor create — Beloved rested cheek on knuckles and looked atDenver with attention.
It was lovely. Not to be stared at, not seen, but being pulled into view by the interested, uncriticaleyes of the other. Having her hair examined as a part of her self, not as material or a style. Havingher lips, nose, chin caressed as they might be if she were a moss rose a gardener paused to admire. Denver's skin dissolved under that gaze and became soft and bright like the lisle dress that had itsarm around her mother's waist. She floated near but outside her own body, feeling vague andintense at the same time. Needing nothing. Being what there was.
At such times it seemed to be Beloved who needed somethingm wanted something. Deep down inher wide black eyes, back behind the expressionlessness, was a palm held out for a penny whichDenver would gladly give her, if only she knew how or knew enough about her, a knowledge notto be had by the answers to the questions Sethe occasionally put to her: '"You disremembereverything? I never knew my mother neither, but I saw her a couple of times. Did you never seeyours? What kind of whites was they? You don't remember none?"Beloved, scratching the back of her hand, would say she remembered a woman who was hers, andshe remembered being snatched away from her. Other than that, the clearest memory she had, theone she repeated, was the bridge — standing on the bridge looking down. And she knew onewhiteman.
Sethe found that remarkable and more evidence to support her conclusions, which she confided toDenver.
"Where'd you get the dress, them shoes?"Beloved said she took them.
"Who from?"Silence and a faster scratching of her hand. She didn't know; she saw them and just took them.