The Book of Night Women (2 page)

—Speak up! Damn girl, Circe say.

Lilith start cry. She couldn’t say her cho-cho be bleeding. Circe would think she done some nastiness for sure. Some nastiness with boy that Circe always saying that she born to do. Circe grab the girl.

—After nothing no do you. Why you trying me patience, pickney? Circe go to push her off but then see new blood running down Lilith leg.—Shithouse. You turn woman now, she say.

From then Lilith couldn’t go nowhere, nor talk to nobody, most of all boy.

—And don’t make me see you near any of them Johnny-jumper or I goin’ kill you for sure, Circe say.

Lilith look in the old silver tray that the great house throw away. Lilith look down the well and the dead part of the river. Lilith watching Lilith and trying to see which part of her turn woman. She watch her lips and bite down so that they look smaller. She look at her eyes and try to see them with nigger colour. She see her legs that too long, and hear her voice that cracky-cracky like old witch. Lilith did think that turning woman was going to make her smile but instead things was pushing out of her skin without permission. Things growing and won’t stop and pussy blood come and go when it feel like. Some woman did get possess by the Bosi, the spirit that take over people shape and have her do things that the Bible don’t like. The Bosi plump up a woman titty and arse and burn down her voice and tear her in two. Lilith grab herself. Lilith seeing how pickney is the only thing that not be a slave and start to wrap osnaburg cloth tight round her titty so they won’t grow. But her body turn enemy ’pon her. By evening the toughest cloth would ease into the shape of her breast like two clay pot. Not long after that one of the house womens say she should be breeding, just like her mama.

Lilith perplex, for she don’t know what breeding have to do with she. Lilith want to run and skip and jump and whinny like horse. She still want to do them things until she pass by the only nigger who was skipping and jumping and whinnying too. Tantalus the mad nigger. Lilith think that maybe the first thing a woman must learn to do is to stop smile.

One more thing happen in Lilith fourteenth year.

Circe tell the chile to stop call her mama. Lilith did flabbergast but then all of a sudden what Circe say make sense and that flabbergast her more. For Lilith remember the whispers from the womens who wash by the river. They talk ’bout how certain nigger lucky that she don’t work and how she never take to mothering but love the rutting, and about how certain woman barren and certain man nature cut. Lilith come to know the silence that happen when them same big people see that she was listening. Is not like Circe was one to hide anything though. Plenty time Lilith arriving when a man of colour leaving and one time she come home to see a mulatto from Kingston climb off Circe as her bow legs flap up in the air and she yell, Get out of the house you little bitch so big people can be private.

—What they mean when they say Tantalus nature cut? Lilith ask the same evening, as if sunset was going give her the answer.

—Who say that?

—Three womens. They was washing by the river.

—Three bitches they be. But that mad nigger business is everybody business.

—What be him business?

—Next time you pass that naked bastard take a good look for youself. You not too fool, so you must know what man supposed to have. Jack Wilkins slice it off himself long years ago. That mad son of a bitch used to play with himself and watch the old mistress when she take bath. Wilkins catch the nigger himself.

—No, Mama—

—Me warn you not to call me—

—No, Circe. Me don’t know them things.

—Eehi.

Circe resume to eating sweet potato and goat milk.

—So you not goin’ ask?

—Ask?

—You not goin’ inquire after her? Who you mama be?

—No.

—Humph. She was a stupid gal just like you.

—She dead?

—Of course she dead, girl like that born fi dead. You take after her, that is for sure. Couldn’t beat it out of you.

—And Tantalus not me papa?

—You better ask Tantalus. Couldn’t beat no decency into you, that for sure.

—Me goin’ be decent just like you, Mama.

—Circe.

—Me goin’ be like you. Me goin’ have plenty man come a-callin’ for tuppence.

Circe jump at her quick but Lilith dash through the door.—You better find someplace for you skinny backside, you hear me! Circe shout and slam the door. Lilith frighten and her heart beating but she also feel good. Wonderful good. One time Lilith try to clean the old armchair and Circe scream to not touch nothing and Lilith get frighten and run. Another time Lilith pick grape for Circe, and she eat a bunch, then throw ’way the rest and say, They spoil, you little wretch. Circe cook for herself and most time forget to cook for Lilith. She wait till the woman fall asleep to thief the last potato sticking in the pot. Lilith hear that white people get governess to hold they pickney and tell them story, but only Tantalus ever do that and he did mad one time, then get back sense and gone mad again. Lilith stomp her foot and sniff hard for her tears to behave.

—Time you go find man and come out of me house, Circe say.

Montpelier, like other estate on the east coast, have one white man for every thirty-three negro. White man couldn’t abide by they numbers alone, so they pick out a bunch of niggermens to put them in charge of other slaves. Johnny-jumpers they call them, five to ten in number and they work with whip and on some estate, knife and gun. When a field nigger not keeping up the quota of ground to plough or cane to cut they whip him in the back or punch him in the face or kick him in the balls and tell him work harder ’cause he not no prince regent here. The Johnny-jumpers raid the slave settlement at night like they be pirate, taking the supper that just cook, or if they hungering for a something else, grabbing the daughter or the mother even if her titty lanky and her pussy no good. They do as they please at night for Jack Wilkins the overseer didn’t care.

Is on a raid that a Johnny-jumper first set eye on Lilith. They shouting and gallivanting but stay wide of Circe hut as they run pass. People know to keep ’way from Circe ever since she tell a niggerman who thief her potato that the potato goin’ know what to do and the very next day a big chunk stick in him throat and choke him to death. But from far off the Johnny-jumpers see Circe house and her open fire and her little girl who was only getting bigger. This was the week before the field niggers was to start reaping the provision grounds while the sugarcane still grow.

—Soon and very soon you goin’ be taking man, Circe say as she look out the window as they pass, one of them sticking out he tongue at the hut.

—Taking man where? Lilith say, hearing they footsteps getting weaker and weaker.

—You go on playin’ fool to catch wise, Circe say.

But Lilith plenty scared of the Johnny-jumpers. Even as a little pickney she hear of what they do in the field and more than once when she was little they sack the playground and kick the little boys. Some nights, Lilith hear the screaming and crashing and cussing goin’ on in the slave settlement and wonder if one day they was goin’ get bold and come into Circe hut to slap her and squeeze her breast. One day, when she coming from washing by the river, a Johnny-jumper that she see before, who not even taller than her, shout from across the path that Europa pussy too loose after the young’un so he coming for her. Fear seize Lilith and she run back to the hut, where Circe was getting visit from the overseer Jack Wilkins himself.

Lilith stop. The man regard her but she couldn’t see him face since he didn’t take off him hat. He swallow some more lime and sugar-water and give Circe the glass. Him shirt open and him chest hair white and bushy. Him breeches cream and dirty and loose and he swing a little when he walk right past her, that old man swing. Lilith jump out of the way but the tobacco air reach her. That night Circe laughing when she recalling what he say.

—What a thing! Seem you free paper burn. And to think of all people, he be the one that burn it. You to report to the field tomorrow morning. Don’t make cock crow and you still in you bed.

Fear jump up and snatch the words out of Lilith mouth the whole night. Everybody know ’bout the life of a field nigger. Before sunrise she hear them—one, two, three hundred foot hitting the ground and rumbling like slow thunder. They used to wake her and scare her so much that she thought they was a militia marching to hell. The slave coffle. The field niggers. Before sunrise they in the field and by moonrise they still working. And when crop time, no nigger leave. Sun burn they black bodies blacker. Ants, mosquito, rat, snake and scorpion bite them in the bush. Womens screaming, No, massa, no whip me no more, and mens screaming as backra chop they two little toe off. She see the slaves when they come back in the evening, tired, crying, limping and bleeding and some that come back in a sack.

And she hear other things too. Of the time in 1785 when they burn a nigger girl alive right in the middle of the cane field and how every year, right before crop time, she scream. And when the overseer chop off another nigger head and stick it on a pole until it rot off. And when they send five slave to the treadmill where them niggers run themself to death. The word was that Jack Wilkins wield the whip and do as he please. He instruct him slave-drivers to do the same and since then a month don’t pass where they don’t kill a nigger and gone to Spanish Town to buy a fresh one. Montpelier have deep pockets and a new nigger always better than a lazy one, Jack Wilkins was known to say.

The field was where Jack Wilkins was sending her.

Lilith ’fraid of sleep ’cause tomorrow was goin’ come right after. She think that if she try her hardest to stay awake, then night would be force to stay and tomorrow would never come again. Lilith don’t care if that was little girl thinking and she supposed to be woman now. She hold on to the awakeness for a long time before sleep beat her. The next morning she sick.

Circe frown, tapping her foot. The girl lying flat on the mat.

—Me say what sick you?

—Me, me don’t know.

—You no know. Then how you know you sick? You belly hurtin’ you?

—Yes.

—And you head woozy-woozy?

—Yes.

—You feel fat like you goin’ burst?

—Yes.

—Then you either with child or you dead. Mayhaps you breeding. Me know you was taking man, you know, you at the time now.

—No! Is sick me sick. Me can’t feel nothing, and, and, me just weak. Weak bad.

Circe look at her hard.

—Well. Make me ask one fool-fool question. You think overseer care if you sick or you well? Answer me direct. You think he care a raas? Unless you sick until you deading, you still have to get you—

—Then me deading.

Circe not one for backtalk.

—That you goin’ be for sure once the overseer come here.

Circe step outside. The girl wait a while, then listen if she nearby. She move slow to the door. Circe gone. The fire still going, so she lean over it until her neck and chin well hot and some sweat start to rise out her skin. She raise her arm and let some of the heat work her armpit. But then she drop her left hand too low and near burn herself. Fire catch her skin hair and the room smell like burnin’ goat. She cuss and dip her hand in the bucket and rub it hard, trying to get the smell off. She hear people talking and run back to her mat. Then the abeng shell blow.

Circe come back. Right behind her was the thin woman who slap her once, the woman called Homer.

—See it deh she say she sick. Me no want no problem with slave-driver, you know, me no want no problem. You know how backra go on when nigger say she sick and is lazy she lazy. Me no—

—Quiet, Homer say.

Circe hiss and go outside.

Homer stoop down. The girl try to not look too ’fraid. Homer eyes thin and sharp and her cheekbone high. Her lip thin like white woman but dry and chappy. Homer have the longest neck she ever see and smell like mint one moment, lemongrass the next. None of the pickneys ever go near the big great house, not because they forbidden to play near the massa or mistress, but because they all scared of Homer. The girl feeling the same scaredness and shame and she angry that part of her still be little girl who easy to frighten. She want to be tough and hard like Circe or move slow and sure like nothing can bother her. Homer regarding her for long. The girl can’t hold her gazing so she look ’way. Then Homer touch her forehead and feel her neck. The girl hide her left hand but Homer still frown like she smell something foul. Homer touch Lilith neck again and mutter, then get up and go to the doorway.

—She have the marsh fever. Give her plenty cerasee, but don’t put no molasses in it, she say.

Circe make a big pot of cerasee tea and give Lilith to drink. Cerasee is the bitterest tea ever make and the girl cough and hack and cry but she didn’t dare spit. Circe regard her again, then say she going to town. She put on her green calico frock and shoes, one of the only negro anywhere with a pair and gone. As soon as she think Circe far away, Lilith go outside and blink at the high sun. She out there a good while, looking if she can see the negroes working from where she be. She step out further and see pickaxe and hoe swinging up in the sky, then down in the ground. Just then a cart come from round back and she jump out of the way. A niggerwoman was cursing and driving and whipping the horse hard.

Lilith go back inside to find a Johnny-jumper waiting for her.

—Word ’pon de field say you sick.

She couldn’t move. The man whip on the floor beside him cutlass. Every time the flame flicker the cutlass blink.

—Me come over, me meself fi give you de bettering.

—Me, me mother, she soon come back.

—You mama who me jus’ pass goin’ to town?