The Book of Night Women (29 page)

—No, please, ma’am! I try to save... I try to save. The doorway fall ’pon me . . . I . . .

Miss Isobel climb off the bed.—What kind of monster kills a baby? What kind of demon lets him die? Answer me that question! Answer...Miss Isobel knees buckle and she sit back down. She look overcome. Lilith backing away to the door.

—Weren’t you friends with Francine? Don’t you all share your damned nigger fantasies? Would you have killed them too? Answer me!

People hearing. Footsteps approach the door.

—You were on the grounds! You were . . . oh, God.

Lilith stand still, lookin’ down on the ground while Miss Isobel cry again.—I’ll bet you’re not even sorry, she say.

Lilith feel like she about to cry herself.—Me plenty sorry, mistress. Me plenty sorry.

—You know what I wish? I’ll bet you don’t. You think right now, right at this very moment I’m wishing God returns my family? You think so? Well you’re wrong. Wronger than the devil.

Miss Isobel get up again, but she wobble when she walk. She still wobble and hobble over to Lilith as Lilith step backways and backways. —Try to guess what I’m wishing for. Me say
guess
, bitch, not run!

Miss Isobel close in on her by the door before Lilith could slip through the doorway. She close enough for Lilith to smell oldness on her, that sour mildew mixed with perfume smell. Her eyes red and her cheek hollow and dark. Her breath foul.

—You know what I wish? I wish I was strong enough to wield an axe. I wish I could take an axe and chop every nigger in my sight. Chop you from the feet up so that you scream all the way. Chop you all up into bits and feed you to Humphrey’s dogs. That’s what I wish.

—Me sorry bad, mistress.

—You’re sorry? What for? Isn’t this what all niggers want? You think me don’t know how you stay? Mind is you even set the fire.

—No, please, mistress, me didn’t have nothing to do with it, mistress.

—All the time now. I hear them all the time. I’m hearing them right now.

—Me wish me could bring them back, mistress.

—That’s not what I wish. I wish I had the bare hands to choke you or a knife to cut your tongue out. I wish I wasn’t a lady or a woman, but a nigger like you. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine me envying a wretched nigger like you?

Massa Humphrey rush into the room.—Isobel, are you all right?

Miss Isobel lose herself in him arms. He shout and catch her and take her to bed. Lilith can’t move. Before she know it, he in front of her.

—What were you doing to her? he say. Lilith about to say something but he slap it out of her mouth.

—Get out.

 

 

Lilith in the cellar
hiding in the dark. Babies crying around her as they skin burn. Lilith try to think about the quilt on her back, the reason for what she do. Lilith trying to think of a deeper, more angrier reason. Lilith thinking that this is just eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. Lilith think that if she say it enough time, maybe ten, maybe twenty, maybe the number after that it would leave a mark in her head like Robert Quinn’s tattoo on him knuckle. Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. Lilith thinking about the anger that boil her blood and why it leave her. Why it put fire in her eyes then stamp itself out, leaving this heaviness. The fire that did say this is what she be and this is what she do. The fire that not red, but black like skin. True darkness and true womanness that make a man scream. But if this be the true womanness, then she don’t want it no more. Mayhaps true womanness was to be free to be as terrible as you wish. Like a white woman. Mayhaps true womanness mean to let the terribleness run loose and wild like river flood. True womanness be the seed of destruction like plenty whorish woman in the Bible. Mayhaps a woman be a beast indeed and everything the white man say ’bout a niggerwoman being left to her own devices be true. Lilith don’t want to be no woman no more. She want to go back and run through the ratoon fields, even to Circe, whose wickedness was never wicked like the Rogets. Nobody deserve to be dead more than Massa Roget, except that now the man really dead. And the two pickneys and Matraca. Blood don’t taste like wine, Lilith learning. Homer in the kitchen.

Lilith walking down the corridor and pass a looking glass on the wall, big as the paintings of the dead Wilsons. It didn’t make right and the mistress keep it away from people. Lilith watch the looking glass looking at her. The looking-glass Lilith have a flat head top, a chin that point all the way to the ground and eye so big Lilith can see another Lilith in it. She looking at the looking-glass eye holding her secret and wonder if maybe anybody can find out if they look hard enough.

 

 

—I beseech you, Isobel,
you must eat, Massa Humphrey say. He at the door of him own room that now be Miss Isobel room. Near two week gone since the fire. Massa Humphrey living in one of the guest rooms. The day before, he go to him mother to tell her what happen, but she didn’t seem to hear. The whole time she asking her son where the father go when he go riding, since nobody in town ever see him. Her room smell of dead flowers and piss. The mistress thin and her lips chap up. Massa Humphrey about to leave the room when the mistress say, Poor, poor Ludmilla, before she go back where her mind usually go. Homer wipe sweat from the woman face.

Now Massa Humphrey at another door trying talk to another woman who lock herself in. The massa look ragged, blue shirt not tuck in breeches and no shoes on him foot. Him hair wild. The two womens wearing him down.

—Isobel, really, I will open this door, he say.

—Do as you must, she say. Massa Humphrey open the door. Homer behind him. Lilith behind her carrying a food tray that still steaming and crackling with frying oil.

The room smell different to Lilith. Not just the perfume that woman use in between bath, but also the lighter sweat that come from woman flesh. Massa Humphrey pull back the drawn curtains and light pounce ’pon Miss Isobel, who look like the bed swallow her up.

—Oh, a pox on the lot of you! Miss Isobel say. Her eyes puffy from crying and sleeping but she still dressed ready to go in her one light purple dress with the petticoat showing and her shoes still on.

—Isobel—

—And you, sir, stepping into a woman’s bedroom like I were some parlor whore!

—I have been criminally remiss, Miss Isobel, my apologies. I’m only concerned—

—I do not want your concern, nor do I accept your apology.

—Miss Isobel.

Miss Isobel climb out of the bed dressed head to foot, like she just coming in from the country.—I’m just like them, you know. Did you know I was no better, Humphrey?

—Forgive me, Isobel, I don’t understand.

—No better than negro I am, no breeding nor bearing, no education on how one becomes a proper lady. Have you not heard what Edward Long has said about us? Even we backward Creole women have heard of it. Seems he think we are ignorant blackie lovers who are to be pitied. Do you pity me, Humphrey?

—Isobel. This is a tragedy, a real—

—Please. You think it’s a tragedy for them? Look at them outside this window playing at remorse. You don’t know them like I do, Humphrey, but how could you? How could you know what goes on in the mind of these niggers? Get out.

—Isobel?

—Them! Me don’t want no stinking nig—I don’t want to be around any goddamn nigger laughing behind my back. Get out. Get out!
Get out!

—Really, Isobel! There’s no call for—

—You think I’m a witch, don’t you? You think I’m a hellion. I’ll bet you weren’t thinking such when—

—Isobel!

Miss Isobel sit back down on the bed, with her back to everybody.

—Just get them out, Humphrey, my stomach grows sick from the sight of niggers.

—And I don’t want any goddamned nigger food, Miss Isobel say. Massa Humphrey point to the dresser bench for Lilith to put the tray.

—God is punishing me for my sin, Humphrey, surely he is.

—You’re sick with grief. It’s only fitting that—

—Oh, enough with your patronizing! I know how much of a family’s honour is tied up in the daughter’s purity, Humphrey, even if you don’t. Thank God Papa died before hearing news that I was a degenerate. That would have killed him.

—I don’t think—

—I dare ask, do you ever think at all? Did you think what you were doing to a poor lady when you had your way with—

—Had my way? Had my goddamn way? I don’t remember putting you in shackles and dragging you into my bedroom, the room you’re sleeping in right now, may I remind you. Not for the first time, may I remind you. And if you really want to pass bl—Oh, will you set down that blasted tray and get out!

Lilith put down the tray so swift that the teacups tumble. She and Homer step out of the room quick, only Massa Humphrey face was getting red quicker.

—You have certainly defiled me, sir, was the last thing Lilith and Homer hear before Massa Humphrey slam the door. Lilith back at the crooked mirror looking. Lilith wondering if the mad version of her goin’ jump out again, maybe right there. She wonder if it is all this heavy thinking in her head that drawing her cheeks down so till she start to look meager. Lilith turn to go back downstairs but Homer grab her hand and pull her over to the door. Massa Humphrey and Miss Isobel don’t finish yet.

—No, Isobel, you are not yourself, Massa Humphrey say.—I will not. I will not! Isobel!

—Then get out! Miss Isobel scream. The door swing open and another
Get out
fly through before Massa Humphrey. The massa so frighten he don’t even notice Lilith and Homer tumble down on the floor as he step past. Lilith peek inside and see Miss Isobel readjusting her dress.

 

 

Massa Humphrey finally convince
Miss Isobel to go through with the funeral, almost a month after the fire. Homer hear the massa talking to Robert Quinn ’bout the father body that burn so stiff in the tub that they have to break it up just so he can fit in a casket. Robert Quinn say they found what they believe to be the mother and they should just take whatever they find, put it in two casket and call that the children. Lilith hear Homer tell Pallas and Callisto. Lilith run through the kitchen around the back of the house and vomit.

At the funeral everybody expecting Miss Isobel to break from the pew like wild goat and run to the coffins. Lilith expecting her to bawl and wail and keen so loud that the church roof rattle. She expect bawling that drown out the bell. Loud enough that them God would come down and point Lilith out as the evildoer and drag her straight off to the lake of fire where wicked negroes burn. But instead Miss Isobel was a stick. People expect Miss Isobel to be in black but she wearing the same purple dress, even though Massa Humphrey said he would buy her a whole new wardrobe or have Homer make her something.—I’d rather burn in hell than be draped in something a nigger made, she say. Almost every woman have a veil covering them hair but her.

Since the fire, Lilith feel wrong whenever she eat, and don’t have no desire for it. She will eat the boil potatoes and milk and throw it up every time she think of two baby flesh burnin’ into one with a negro who trying to save them on top. Lilith wonder if she kill them first, gentle-like, before they feel any burn. She wonder again what kind of spirit give her madness, then take it away for her so that she see what madness did. Lilith bedding soak with tears and when she think ’bout how she not to cry and how every white devil get what he or she deserve, she soak the bedding some more. What only Lilith know is that Miss Isobel all cried out. Soon, burned baby start to follow Lilith. A stump of ash that try to cry from what fire melt together. The stump follow her. Behind it another stump with ash crackling and bits falling off. Behind it another stump of ash, bigger than the two, with the belly fat and a head with a wig. All screaming and coming after her. Lilith wake up.

Homer wake up early to see Lilith already working on breakfast. —With all this energy, you might as well be a field nigger, Homer say. Lilith say nothing. Lilith stay in her corner and peel yam and potatoes, cut up fruits, boil vegetables, scrub the floor on her knees and clean out Massa Humphrey mother’s chamber pot. Lilith working hard in the mother room and when she run out of things to do she do them over. When she come back down to the kitchen Lilith so tired that she barely notice that one and two womens quick to step out of her way. She turn to grab the washbucket and see womens look away from her quick. One of the mens come in with a bunch of banana and leave it far off in the corner for Lilith to pick up herself. Lilith look to see if Homer looking. She go up to the mistress room and stay long because the mistress blank face is the only one in Montpelier that don’t have no judgement in it. Lilith working like mule until she so tired she can’t even move. Lilith on the kitchen floor sleeping until Homer drag her to her mat.

In deep night, Lilith wake up. But then she see her and rage fly up in her head. She grab the nearest thing to fling at the dark woman in the corner, a silver plate that wear down and rusty now. As she go to fling it, the woman not there anymore. Lilith cry till she cough. Then she stop all of a sudden to check if anybody hearing her through the dark.

She hear a whimpering and know is not her. Then a scream. Then the smell of burnin’ flesh, sour like dirty hair and stink like roasting goat. Lilith feeling sweat run down her face or mayhaps it was tears running without her say-so. Francine dead in her place and in the most wickedest way. Three man too but all she can see is the girl. But which nigger would make choice to take that punishment? Lilith is not Homer, a woman who look like she would have dignity if death come for her. She hate herself for being frighten like any nigger girl. She want to forget her name. Francine ash come all the way up from Kingston and settle down on her, Lilith can feel it. She try to think of true womanness and true darkness but neither come from thinking. A girl killed in the most cruelest way. And two baby. Two baby who was goin’ grow up wicked anyway. Two baby.