Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker Read Free Book Online Page A

and cut short. His mustache was a neat brush across his lips. His skin was tan and of a smoothness common to old people and babies. He had unusually large and, Suwelo thought, fine eyes. By fine, he meant there was in them a quality of patience, of having learned when and when not to speak. Like many old people’s eyes, they had a bluish cast, and the dark pupils were open wide.
    “I’ve been going through my uncle’s things,” said Suwelo.
    “A lot of stuff to go through,” said Mr. Hal. “He never could let go of nothing. The least little thing he ever got hold of he kept.”
    This was said matter-of-factly and in a tone of “I don’t envy you.”
    “Oh, I’m enjoying it,” said Suwelo. “I feel I’m getting to know him for the first time. I wish there were names on the pictures around here though. The faces are so expressive. They all look like they’re trying to speak, but without their names I can’t seem to hear them.”
    “Most of the women are Lissie,” said Mr. Hal. “The men are different ones. Your daddy. Cousins. Uncles. Granddaddy. Maybe a aunt or somebody else female, but I don’t recall anybody else.”
    “But there’re a lot of women,” said Suwelo.
    “Lissie is a lot of women.”
    “Actually, I’m glad you brought her up,” said Suwelo. “I’ve seen her name around here a lot.”
    Mr. Hal studied Suwelo. His large eyes seemed to click over him from head to foot. Suwelo felt washed by the look, rigorously assessed.
    “You’ve met her, haven’t you?”
    “No, I don’t think so,” Suwelo said.
    “She one of the ones sometime bring your food.”
    “Oh,” he said, disappointed. He thought of the old women leaning on each other, or turning to wave as they got into their automobile. He loved having them cook for him, and was really quite astonished that they did, but he thought they were too old to be driving a car.
    “She wasn’t always old,” said Mr. Hal. “None of us was.”
    Suwelo realized with a start that in his real life, the life in California away from his uncle’s cozy Baltimore row house, he was never around old people. He didn’t know that one of the skills they acquired with age was the ability to read minds. For as he sat there, embarrassed, he knew Mr. Hal was reading him. Easily, casually, as he himself might read a book.
    “You married?” asked Mr. Hal.
    “I was,” said Suwelo.
    Mr. Hal waited.
    “I blew it. Right now I don’t know what’s happening with us. I’m drifting.”
    “I bet she real pretty,” said Mr. Hal.
    This sounded false to Suwelo. And unworthy. Mr. Hal was too old to care about mere prettiness. Even he was. Anyhow, was Fanny pretty? “Prettiness ain’t what it used to be,” said Suwelo. “Probably never was.”
    “Don’t take it so hard,” said Mr. Hal, laughing.
    Suwelo laughed too.
    “Women,” said Mr. Hal, with good humor.
    “You can’t live with ’em and you can’t ... you know the rest, I just know. ” They looked at each other and laughed again.
    Suwelo walked Mr. Hal to a dilapidated truck. Mr. Hal leaned on the steering wheel as if resting his chest while praying for the truck to start. When it did, after much moaning and coughing, he turned to Suwelo.
    “When Lissie come next time, you ask her about herself.”
    All these old, old people in moving vehicles, Suwelo was thinking, and wondering about their accident rate. Even now Mr. Hal was gunning the motor like a teenager hard of hearing.
    “Was she a girlfriend?” Suwelo asked over the noise.
    “Better than that,” said Mr. Hal, rolling away. “Lissie was our wife.”
    Suwelo went back inside and stopped in front of the first picture he came to. A very young, barefoot, willful-looking woman wearing a long dark dress stared haughtily out at him. She was standing in front of five new, beautiful old-fashioned wooden chairs. The ground was sandy where she stood, and he noticed her dress was patched near the hem. In one of the chairs there was an