The Book of Night Women (15 page)

Wilkins lead some drivers to one of the womens house. The Johnny-jumpers take one look and run outside and not even the threat of a whipping could get them to go back. The hut dark and clammy and smell like an arse. In every crack or corner or section of the roof the woman have rags hanging. Old rag, new rag, torn rag, some of them be osnaburg but some be other material from dress that white woman wear. She also have hanging bunch of feather, bone and things that nobody could say. One of the drivers kick open a clay pot and a stink rise up so gruesome that one say that is stillborn babies she keeping in there. No wonder I’s never seen a puss in these lands, one of them say when they fish out a rotten one. In another clay pot be all sort of ball that make out of dirt, some rolled up with teeth and bone and feather and rags. In every corner of the hut she have brown and green jars. Wilkins shake one and see dead lizards spin around. A driver find an old jewel box and give it to Wilkins. Under a table by the window there be a small chest and inside be plenty eggs, too small to come from fowl. Wilkins tell the drivers to burn the hut to the ground. With the niggerwoman in it. They bound and gag her so that nobody would hear her screaming. Later on Wilkins stomp through the house to where the massa and Miss Isobel be. He say that you can bet that everybody knew who were Obeahmen and women and this was just the beginning. Jack Wilkins start to lay down what Massa Humphrey ought to do. Miss Isobel quiet. Massa Humphrey look at Jack Wilkins and say, Good sir, you are quite mistaken. I’d sooner vouchsafe my soul to the devil than have you back as my overseer.

Jack Wilkins stomp into the kitchen but stop when he see Homer.

—Homer, I would keep it for myself just to spite the son of a bitch, but it isn’t his for me to take, is it?

—Massa?

—This, he say and show Homer the jewel box.—The mistress’s isn’t it now? I’m sure of it. That damn witch must have stolen it somehow.

—It don’t look like the mistress own, massa. This look cheap, like what whore keep.

—And how would you know? And what’s this inside, these earrings, could she have stolen them from the mistress?

—How would a field nigger get into this house, sah?

—Sod if I know, Homer, maybe she’s in league with one of you. I would press further, and you know my ways, I’d get what I was looking for, but lucky for you, for all of you, that I couldn’t care less if the Wilsons live or die. Pox on the whole fucking lot.

Jack Wilkins leave the box on the counter beside Homer. Homer open it and take out some single pearls, a ring and two earrings. Poor chile was trying to save up for freedom, it look like, she say, but Lilith grab her throat and cough and go straight down to the cellar. The earrings shine and wink and call out Lilith name. The same earring she give Gorgon two days ago.

11

EVERY NEGRO WALK IN A CIRCLE. TAKE THAT AND MAKE OF it what you will. A road set before every negro, from he slip through the slave ship or him mother pussy, that be just as dark. Black and long and wide like a thousand year. And when a negro walk, light get take away from him so he never know when he hit a curve or a bend. Worse, he never see that he walking round and round and always come back to where he leave first. That be why the negro not free. He can’t walk like freeman and no matter where he walk, the road take he right back to the chain, the branding iron, the cat-o’-nine or the noose that be the blessing that no niggerwoman can curse.

Blood spurt on her face and wake her up. Lilith gasp and clutch her cheek. She scream in her hand when she feel the wetness and can’t see nothing. She look around blind and whimper until she remember darkness. The wetness, sweat mayhaps. She run upstairs to wash yesterday off, wash off the blood that she can’t see but know is ’pon her in some way, but gather herself as soon as she in the kitchen. Sun don’t rise yet, nor the house with it. Lilith slip through the kitchen and disappear round the little hill. She come up to the garden house but don’t see Gorgon. She look left, then look behind her and step before looking in front. Lilith walk right into Robert Quinn chest.

—Holy Jesus Christ, she say to herself.

—Good heavens, our resemblance
is
uncanny, Robert Quinn say. Robert Quinn grab her two hands and study her. Not hard, but firm. Lilith try to look at him but him eye open too wide and they too grey, him hair too long, him nose breathing down on her too hard. Lilith look away and him look at her. He hold her for a long time.

—Homer’s in the kitchen, if you’ve forgotten where to look, he say.

—Yes, massa, Lilith say. He still holding her two hand.

—Unless yer looking fer somebody else, he say.

—No, massa!

—Have a hankering to do as ye please, do ye? Disobey yer masters and treat a day as you see fit? Who waits fer ye? This is the second time I’m running into you.

Lilith in fear and trembling ’cause the Irishman be watching her. Lilith about to say, No! Me didn’t want to kill her! Me only did want her too sick to work! But she couldn’t say nothing. She look out into the sky and see the moon threatening to come and expose her.

—You enjoy being a house slave, do ye? Robert Quinn ask.

—Yes, yes, massa, Lilith say.

—And do ye think you’d enjoy the field?

—No, massa.

Then he grab her. By the chest right in the scoop of her bosom. He grab her hard with some of him fingers in between her breast and make a fist in her dress. Lilith shriek. Robert Quinn start to walk and pulling her behind him. He stride so wide that Lilith have to skip to keep up. Lilith start to cry. She look at him black hair blowing and him shirt hold tight under him vest and see the whip hanging from him belt. He dragging her and she buck her toe against a rock. She cry out but he don’t stop. He take her back to the same flower shed but Gorgon still not there. Lilith want to bawl out No, massa! No, massa! But words failing to leave her lips. He yank her in the middle of the shed and she stumble.

—I’ve told ye how much I dislike the idea of niggers gallivanting as they please. Shall I send you to the field, then? Perhaps a spell in the boiling house?

Quinn pull the whip from him belt. It long and black like a thin dead snake.

—I sense something about ye, an insolence, an insolence, damn it, and I’ll not have it. I’ll not have it at all. Pull down your dress.

Lilith looking down on the ground.

—Pull down that feckin’ frock or I’ll rip it off! And God be damned if ye get another!

She pull down her dress and her two breast pop out. The dress fall to her waist and eventide blow a cold breeze on her back. She hide her breast with her hand and look at the ground. Robert Quinn look at her. Lilith don’t say nothing. Robert Quinn look at her like he expecting something but Lilith look at the ground, her cheeks wet. Tears escaping, but she not sobbing or bawling.

—Yer just a child, Robert Quinn say.

 

 

In the kitchen
everybody quiet and working. Massa Humphrey and Miss Isobel taking a late luncheon today so everybody moving slow. Lilith race down to the cellar before she could run into Homer. But as she reach the final step she smell mint and lemongrass.

—Can never find what I looking for in this cellar, Homer say. Homer back to Lilith as she search the shelf.

—Sugar jar empty upstairs, Homer say.

—A sack in the side room, Lilith say. Ants get in when it put on the shelf.

—Good thing you using you head, one ants in Miss Isobel tea and is a whipping for sure. Homer turn to go in the room.

—What other use you puttin’ you head to? Homer ask.

—Me don’t know—

—You don’t know what you own head be doing? Maybe it gone free while you still slave. Anyway, make me find the brown sugar that Miss Isobel like. Uncanny, eh? You think she’d like white sugar the best. But she be white woman so she get what she want. Not like black woman, eh?

Lilith don’t say nothing. She check if her cheek wet.

—Maybe is ’cause you part white, that why you not understanding black talk. Or maybe ’cause you part white you think you must always get what you want too.

Homer go in the room and say something else, but Lilith couldn’t hear.

—What? Lilith say.

Homer come back out with the sugar.

—Me say, the thing with black woman, though, is that we don’t get what we want and we never get what we need, but every nigger, I mean every nigger, get what she deserve.

Homer leave her downstairs.

—Potato not goin’ peel itself, she say.

Lilith look down at her feet and see blood pooling. She have to blink it out of her vision. She hear Andromeda daughter screaming and turn around, lookin’ to see where she be. Nothing but darkness. Lilith go over to her mat on the floor and stoop down, her head heavy and not together. Slave death is nothing new and a strong nigger learn to walk past it but Lilith look down on her own hands and keep seeing blood. Lilith wishing and begging that she can call up the white part of her, the part that can bear with killing a nigger like is nothing. She still hoping that her white half, her green eyes, can save her from her own looking glass that don’t hang on no wall. To kill a nigger is like to kill a horse, she think. She invoking the white skin to come up and bury the black. She toil in the kitchen the whole day not seeing how all the niggers excited. It be Christmas Eve.

So much fussing go into
New Year’s ball that everybody near done forget Christmas. Nobody goin’ take ’way Christmas from the field negroes, though. While the massa and the mistress and her friend in the house eating at table, the field negroes be putting on them good trousers and good dresses that only wear couple time a year. And they cook banana and yam and pork that is present from the massa. And they boil the cornmeal in banana leaf till it thick like pudding, and cook down the chopped coconut with plenty sugar and molasses until it dark, thick and sweet. All them things they lay out on a big table not far from the great house ’cause is the one time o’ year when field negro can step anywhere near where backra live. Negroes eating and talking and playing and gallivanting ’cause this one day negro can forget that he be negro.

The banjo playing and the women commence to singing.

Then the mens and the womens commence to dance like white people at the ball. The mens in one line and the womens in one line. The mens rock then the womens rock. The mens spin then the womens spin. The mens tap one foot then the womens tap they foot. The womens stick out they hand and the mens take it. Then they spin. Woman and man at the back of the line join hand and skip to the front of the line.

Then the next woman and man move to the front and so on. Massa Humphrey love the excitement, he run down the verandah and join with a niggerwoman and dance. Then he see Miss Isobel fanning herself and go back to the verandah. New Year’s be white people time but Christmas belong to the negro.

Then the drum thunder. John Canoe be coming. The pickneys jumping in excitement. The drums beat louder and a man and three woman start sing,
I want to go-oh, I want to go-oh-oh
. Then the negroes be dancing, but this not be no white people dance. Womens make
ulelele
and
click-clack
sounds with they mouth. Man grab a woman from the back and waltz her. Then John Canoe appear. He be wearing a red and white jacket with tails all the way down the ground. He be wearing white breeches, pink stockings and he face paint white like white girl dolly. On him head is a great house so big that he have to hold it with one hand. But him legs free. John Canoe dance and spin and then he sing,
I want to go-oh, I want to go-oh-oh!
and the negroes sing it too and the drummer beat the drum and player pluck the banjo.

Behind John Canoe come all sort of people in costume. Two horse head with petticoat body that look like rainbow. Two mens dress up like pregnant womens, in pink dress with no petticoat and wearing white mask. Man that cover from head to toe with strips of cloth put together so tight that they look like man who wake up one morning and all him hair grow to the ground. Then come the king, the little boy with a big crown who carrying him sword to kill all in the dance. Miss Isobel and Massa Humphrey and Robert Quinn and the chaperone clapping. Homer singing to herself. Lilith behind them doing nothing. Every now and then she look at Massa Humphrey. Every now and then she would look up and see Robert Quinn lookin’ at her. Lilith turn to go back to the kitchen and see Gorgon going round the back of the house. Gorgon see her and run.

—Gorgon!

Gorgon try to run, but she short and couldn’t get far.

—Leggo me hair, dutty bitch! Gorgon scream.

—You is a wicked, wicked dog. Me never tell you say me want the woman dead, me say me want her gone, Lilith say.

Gorgon laugh.—Me no tell Obeah woman how fi work. What yuh think? Me was goin’ do it meself ? Yuh drinkin’ mad puss piss?

—You tell that, that damn woman say me want Andromeda dead.

—Me no tell her a damn thing. Woman never even know who yuh be, or Andromeda. All she do is call the Omolu. Is fi you heart it listen to, not fi me or fi she.

—What you saying, bitch? Lilith say.

—Dis bitch saying dat if yuh never want Andromeda dead, she’d be living right now. Omolu give you what you want in you heart, not what you say to me face, Gorgon say.