HeartFire Page 0,43

out of them, then pick them up in my mouth and drop them on people's doorsteps. That is the business of literature."

"You take a lot of airs for a writer who ain't had a book printed up yet."

"There is no book big enough to contain the stories that fill me up. But I will soon be ready to write. I will go back to France, I will write my books, I will be arrested from time to time, I will be in debt, I will make huge amounts of money but never enough, and in the end my books will last far longer than Napoleon's empire."

"Or maybe it'll just seem that way to the folks who read them."

"You will never know. You are illiterate in French."

"I'm illiterate in most every language," said Calvin. "So are you."

"Yes, but in the illiteracy competition, I will concede to you the laurels."

"Here's the house," said Calvin.

Honor‚ sized it up. "Your sister-in-law is not rich, but she spends the money to stay in a place that is respectable."

"Who says she ain't rich? I mean, think of it. She knows what folks are thinking. She knows everything they've ever done and everything they're going to do. She can see the future! You can bet she's invested a few dollars here and there. I bet she's got plenty of money by now."

"What a foolish use of such a power," said Honor‚. "The mere making of money. If I could see into another person's heart, I would be able to write the truest of novels."

"I thought you already could."

"I can, but it is only the imagined soul of the other person. I cannot be sure that I am right. I have not been wrong yet about anyone, but I am never sure."

"People ain't that hard to figure out," said Calvin. "You treat it like some mystery and you're the high priest who has the word straight from God, but people are just people. They want the same things."

"Tell me this list as we go inside out of the sun."

Calvin pulled the string to ring the doorbell. "Water. Food. Leaking and dumping. Getting a woman or a man, depending. Getting rich. Having people respect you and like you. Making other people do what you want."

The door opened. A Black woman stood before them, her eyes downcast.

"Miz Larner or Miz Smith or whatever name she's using, Margaret anyway, she's expecting to meet us downstairs," said Calvin.

Wordlessly the Black woman backed away to let them come in. Honor‚ stopped in the doorway, took the woman by the chin, and lifted her head till their eyes met. "What do you want? In the whole world, what do you want most?"

For a moment the woman looked at him in terror. Her eyes darted left, right. Honor‚ knew she wanted to look down again, to get back to the safe and orderly world, but she did not dare to turn her face away from him as long as he held her chin, for fear he would denounce her as insolent. And then she stopped trying to look away, but rather locked her gaze on his eyes, as if she could see into him and recognized that he meant her no harm, but only wanted to understand her.

"What do you want?" he asked again.

Her lips moved.

"You can tell me," he said.

"A name," she whispered.

Then she tore herself away and fled the room.

Honor‚ looked after her, bemused. "What do you suppose she meant by that?" he asked. "Surely she has a name - how else would her master call her when he wanted her?"

"You'll have to ask Margaret," said Calvin. "She's the one who sees what's going on inside everybody's head."

They sat on the porch, watching bees and hummingbirds raid the flowers in the garden. Soon Calvin began to amuse himself by making the bees' wings stop flapping. He'd point to a bee and then it would drop like a stone. A moment later, dazed and annoyed, it would start to buzz again and rise into the air. By then Calvin would be pointing to another bee and making it fall. Honor‚ laughed because it was funny to see them fall, to imagine their confusion. "Please don't do it to the hummingbirds," Honor‚ said.

He regretted at once that he had said such a foolish thing. For of course that was exactly what Calvin had to do. He pointed. The hummingbird's wings stopped. It plummeted to the ground. But it did not buzz and rise back