The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar (53 page)

I didn feel I was wild, though. Mammy was just worried because I use to lime plenty but I didn have no man. And I was already seventeen years old. I didn even have no chile, and Mammy wanted to be a grandmother before she dead. ‘I thirty-five years old, you know Legba,' she would often tell me. Was a source a great shame to she, and though she had she own business and land and a nice man, she wanted grandchirren more than anything else.

But I wasn fucking with anybody regular. Once in a while I take a lil thing, but I always send the man on he way after. So I start to get a name as a
jamette
. But a good few men was tracking me, eh. I was dark, but they like mi green eyes. I coulda easy shack up with one a them, even marry. But Mammy sheself tell me from small how man is devil. And no man earn mi respect like Pappy. When I feel horny, I mostly use mi fingers. A man woulda only be a weight on mi breast.

So it wasn that I was wild. But I was trying to find something, I didn know what. I always feel different from everybody else, including the girls I use to lime with. All they did talk about was man and chile and clothes and fete. I did want something more.

I did go everywhere. To Dame Lorraine shows to watch the skits, all the actors with masks, outfitted in costumes with big bumsees and breast, even wooden pricks. I went to the
Pissenlit
afterwards, where a man dress as a woman seeing she menses would make robber talk, calling names about who look like what and who doing what with who. I like them shows for the performance, but I also like seeing how the clerks and grocers sitting side by side with the
jamettes
. Even Mammy use to come to the Dame Lorraine with me sometimes.

Once, I went with she to the Governor's Ball. She was cook and I was maid for the night. Had to wear a black dress with a frilly white apron and a cap on mi head. I never see people dress up so. Fancy satin masks on the end a sticks, costumes full a silk cloth with fancy sleeves and bustles and stitching. The Governor heself in purple velvet doublet and gold tights, cloak round he shoulders and jewelled belt around he fat waist. And everybody dancing so gracious to the band, round and round, dip, hands touching but not holding, bodies so polite.

I couldn believe that white people call that Carnival. I couldn believe they even call it a fete.

Was the yards I like best, though. New Town, Toll Gate, Hell's Yard. Hearing the singers rehearsing dey songs, watching the stickfighters practise. When Mammy hear I was liming in the yards, she boof me. ‘You looking to be a jamette or what?' she say. She didn mind me fucking man now and then. You had to try on the shirt before you buy it. And to beside, she wanted grandchile. But taking man was different from liming with yard people.

But I didn think being a jamette woman was such a bad thing. People respect the jamettes. Good women use to always mauvais langue them, including Mammy who had some good good jamette friends sheself. But I always notice that the good women didn badtalk the jamettes to dey face. That is because they know they would a get cuss upside-down rightside up. So was always a shoo-shoo. And I notice even the men was respectful around them, giving talks as men always do, yes, but not being insulting, because a jamette woman could easy buss a bottle over he head and a man who get lick down by a woman was forever after a mamapoule man. He might even hear a song about it.

So it had that. But the thing I like most about liming with the jamettes was watching them dance. The good people call the movements
indecentes
and
lascives
– and in truth was like they was having sex with a invisible man in front them – but to me was all grace and energy and true
mette limie
.

One time, after I did look at the stickfighters practise for a few nights, I bring mi bois. Pappy had make it for me, though I didn tell him I wanted it for miself. It had a woman name Bowfoot Jean, about my size, stringy, with a flat face. I tell she I want to practise and she just laugh.

‘You too pretty for stickfight, doux-doux.'

But I insist till she give in. Bowfoot Jean didn even put out she cigarette but leave it hanging from she mouth. The contempt irritate me, and I tell miself she in for a surprise. I hold my bois the way I see them hold it: above and in front me, hands at both ends. Bowfoot Jean pull on she cigarette.

‘Ready?' she say.

I nod.

Mi bois fly out mi hand and something rap mi skull. When I wake up, I was lying against the fence, mi bois across mi lap. A white man was dipping a red rag in a bucket and wiping mi forehead. After a while, I realize the rag was white, and was mi blood that red. The man's hands were gentle. His name was Marriott.

I went back to the yard three nights in a row, and Bowfoot Jean buss mi head three nights in a row. I woulda go back again, because mi skull was always mostly heal the next morning. But Marriott keep telling mi I go damage mi brain, and he was a doctor from England. And I see how people start to watch mi funny. They, too, couldn believe I was getting so much busshead and still coming back for more. When I overhear somebody saying (like if they see me with dey own two eye) how I does mount mi stick, I say was best I ease off before they start saying I is a obeah woman, too. Not that it was a bad thing to be a obeah woman, but most stickfighters didn approve a people using magic to make dey bois better. Was cheating, and was something only a inferior fighter had to do, and I had already decide that I was going to be the best woman stickfighter in the island.

‘I'm so glad you decided to take a break,' Marriott said, when he saw me sitting on the bleachers watching the fighters practise. I was watching Bowfoot Jean especially hard. When she had seen me sitting on the side, she put she bois by she crotch and move it up and down, then shake her head at me. ‘I know you couldn take good wood!' she bawl, and she jamette friends laugh like a set a chickens when corn fling.

‘Don't mind them,' said Marriott. ‘It takes a lot of training to fight with a staff.'

‘It doh look hard,' I say. ‘But she beat mi like nothing.'

‘Well,' Marriott say, like if he was apologizing. ‘Your grip was wrong, your feet were badly placed, and your stance was weak.'

I look at him and laugh. ‘And what a white man know bout stickfighting, pray tell?'

He smile. ‘If you meet me tomorrow, I'll show you.'

Each of those nights that I went home with mi head dripping blood, I had a dream. The first night I dream I was a pirate – a woman who was captain of a ship and who could use a sword as good as any man. And so I went back to the yard with that memory in mi bones, but though I was able to dodge a few a Bowfoot Jean's blows that time, the bois feel strange in mi hands, and she lash me. The second night I dream I was a white man in a metal helmet and breastplate. I did know how to wrestle and use a spear and a sword. And the next evening I move real good, but Bowfoot Jean still buss mi head. And the third night, I dream I was a man who could a box with he feet, but in that dream I also see miself fucking mi Mammy. That evening, Bowfoot Jean knock mi out with one blow, just like the first time.

I meet Marriott by the yard early the next evening. He had a stick with him. Not a bois. Was about six feet long, about a inch and a half at one end, tapering down to a inch at the next. And wasn made from poui.

‘Quarter-staff,' Marriott say. ‘Sturdy English oak.'

I say, ‘I didn know Englishman does stickfight, too.'

‘Oh yes. The peasants weren't allowed to carry swords, so they had to learn to use other sorts of weapons.'

‘Just like how all-yuh don't allow we to carry gun now, eh?'

He clear he throat. ‘Would you like a demonstration?'

I look around. ‘Not here,' I tell him.

So we went off behind the fence where nobody could a see, and he show me how to use he staff. In he hands, was like the staff come alive. He hold it with one hand about a foot down from the butt, and the other hand in the middle. He twirl it, parry, thrust. He foot move all the while, so was like I could almost see the invisible man he was fighting. He grip keep changing as the quarter-staff whirl around, even blurring in a figure-of-eight at one point, a move that look like it could a block bullets. When he was done, he starch collar was like a rag on he neck. Some slow claps come from people peeping over the fence. Marriott, wiping he face with a white linen handkerchief, grin and bow. Mad Englishman.

Marriott say he go train me. I tell him he stick too big. I tell him you couldn use a bois to fight the way they does stickfight in England. He say ‘All that is true, but the principles are the same'. He say he could teach me footwork and coordination and speed. I ask him what he would want in return for all that training (as if I didn already know). He say ‘Nothing'.

All man, white or black, damn liars.

He office was on Frederick Street, about twenty minutes walk from Belmont. I went three evenings a week. I feel comfortable with Marriott one time. Was like if I know him, know where he come from. Yet he was the first white man I ever talk to.

Marriott live behind he office, and we use to train in he yard. So many little things, so big a difference. Stand on the balls of your feet so you could move fast. One foot in front, the other behind, weight even, so you could backward, forward, sideways. Hold the bois at forehead level, keep moving head and hands so opponent wouldn see you move to attack.

Other things you could learn only by doing. The rhythm and reflex of blocking – above, left, right. We spend hours just clacking sticks. Moving to stay out a range, but not so far you can't move back in quick to counter. Marriott chasing me round he yard with a stick swinging, me moving backwards as fast as I could. Mi calves like knots afterwards. Ducking as he swing the bois at mi head, straighten, duck again, pace getting faster and faster. Learning to control the reflex to look away when you see a blow coming. Standing like a statue, hands by mi side, and letting Marriott swing he staff so close to mi head a could feel the breeze. Knowing he wouldn really hit mi, but mi stomach jumping like a frog every time. He shouting, ‘Don't blink, don't blink!'

I start to understand how Bowfoot Jean beat me so easy.

As part a mi training – so he say – Marriott carry me to a bouquet ball. Everybody like they get paralyze when we walk in – a black woman like me with mi green-and-red Madras handkerchief tie on the back a mi head, mi jupe dress flowing from under mi arm down to mi bare foot, pair up with this white man in he black coat, ruffle shirt, and riding boots. Even the music stop, and Marriott grinning like a fool and bawling ‘Helloo, helloo' to everybody like if they was he first cousin, nennen, and sundry other family. But he had pay he ten bits, and the king and queen a the night with dey nosegays in hand, after the first fluster, led we with big smile to the table like any normal guest.

We eat and drink and listen to the drums. It had a string band, too. People who wasn eating stand up against the bamboo, smoking and talking or dancing. The Chinese lanterns throw deep shadows, and when I look to the back I thought I see the bald-head man from Carnival when I was a chile. Marriott was enjoying himself, beating the table in time to the music, bobbing he head, even singing along to some a the songs. Once or twice he even get up and dance. Like all white people, he didn have no rhythm.

‘Why you like all this so much?' I ask him.

He look surprised. ‘I love Trinidad!' he bawl over the drums.

‘But why? You's English.'

‘England's boring. Here, you have everything. It's...' he spin he hands, searching for words. ‘It's the combination. Spanish law, French culture, English government, African people. Even a touch of the Orient now, with the Chinese and the East Indians.' He look at me anxious anxious, like if he had a hot pee. ‘Do you understand?'

I nod, as if I did.

When the main dancer come out, Marriott lean across to tell me to watch she close. Was this he had brought me to see, he say (though I didn believe him, but I went because he was paying). I watch the dancer, who name was Basheba. I did never really watch how dancers move before. But now I pay attention, partly because Marriott was chanting over mi shoulder. ‘And shuffle and glide, step, swing hem up front, watch the feet see the three-beat, right foot wide, and circle! Left foot follows, and right in place. Now left foot wide, and circle! Right foot follows, and left in place.' Like some demented white Midnight Robber.

On the way home, he tell me, ‘If you learn to dance like that, Bowfoot Jean will never touch you with her bois.'

He didn try to kiss me when the carriage stop, so I kiss him.

As I train, I start to remember. I didn know I was remembering. Only later I realize what was happening. The more I spar with Marriott, the more control I learn. But it seem like if I already know what I was learning. My moves get smoother, more coordinated. Marriott was amazed how fast I learn. But the real change was in mi mind. It had a coolness there, a way I use to separate miself from what I was doing, so that as I fight I could judge what I was doing. And very often I had this strange idea that the me looking on was a white man, like Marriott. Except that I knew I could kill Marriott in seconds and he would never know how he had died.

I didn understand why I had thoughts like that. I liked Marriott with he mad ways, and I was grateful for him teaching me. I knew, even though he gave no sign, that he wanted to fuck me. But he never even tried to feel me, even when he was showing me how to hold my bois or how to place my feet. We just use to kiss, which was nice, and which I feel I did owe him. Yet sometimes I did feel hate for him, just because he was white, and sometimes I did feel envy, just because he was white.

And my dreams, where remembrance always started, became strange. I dream that the man I had spoken to at Carnival was chasing me. I run through forest, over hill, fled over the sea, and still I couldn escape him. He was my shadow of doom. I dream I was a man fucking women, and I dreamed I was other women fucking men. I dreamed that I die and was reborn, in the same body, in different bodies. I dreamed that I could not die. I dreamed that the Shadowman killed me.