The Book of Night Women (39 page)

The kitchen quiet. Homer look at her hands and Lilith look through the window.

—How long it take him to dead?

—Too long.

—And how it did feel, chile?

—How it did feel? You asking me how it feel? Me don’t know.

—Killing people not an easy thing, you know. Bothersome.

—No, you don’t understand. Killing too easy. That is what me telling you. That is what bother me ’bout it. The mistress walk in ’pon we, so me chase after her and she just screaming and screaming and fall over the balcony.

—Jesus Christ.

—Me never was intending that one.

—You didn’t intend to kill her?

—Not that way, me think. But me don’t know, is like when you see what two hand can do, you just want to do more. It just come over you like anointing. After that, me know it was soon before Miss Isobel come back and the only thing me could think of was to get rid of any trail linking them to me. Fire was the only thing me could think ’bout that could hide everything. Just burn down everything like judgement. Or me wasn’t thinking, me don’t know.

—Hell of a thing to kill a white man.

—Like you would know.

—Me know death, that for sure.

—Knowing and causing it be two different thing. Night and day, as you would say. That’s why me not killing no more.

—’Cause you like it too much?

—’Cause me probably won’t stop.

—Good. Good. Wonderful good. Time we teach these bombocloth devil a lesson. Saint-Domingue point the way and we need to stop skylarking.

—You really don’t know nothing ’bout killing, don’t it? You think ’cause you work Obeah—

—Myal. Me don’t work no Obeah.

—You think ’cause you work magic and somebody get sick or drop down dead is the same thing? It not like killing with you hand, Homer, not a raas claat. You want to know how it feel? You really want to know? Nothing in this world like killing a man. Your skin on him skin, you tearing him chest hair off. You kill just one time and you know why God save murder for himself. Wicked, wicked, wicked. And good. Good. Good. Too good. You understand me? It better than full belly or when a man fuck you good. You do it and you know why white man be master over we. Because he can grab a nigger and kill her just so. Just like that. Only white man can live with how terrible that be.

—You living.

—Me is a murderess. You want that kinda living, then take it. Every nigger have reason for the white man to dead. Me more than most. You can talk all you want, but me shed real blood, and me not shedding no more. Me not killing nobody.

—Them people is not somebody. Me don’t know what them is, but them drain of all peopleness, that must be why they skin white. Lilith—

—Me smell them, you know. The pickneys. Me smell them burning all the time. And me sees them. Me sees them.

—Me have a tea that can fix that.

—Me don’t want it to fix! Me want to remember. You don’t understand. Me want to know why me must never do nothing like that again. Besides, how we to do anything? Them have gun and them is master over we.

—Few years back. You still living with Circe.

—You head take you again, woman? What you talking ’bout?

—Seventeen ninety-five. That’s when me find out that me two baby dead. Hear it from Jack Wilkins only because the man that buy me son come for him money back. When me hear him dead, first me think that something in me just go. Then me realise that whatever in me gone long time. Go to market the next Sunday and see two mens and a woman me know from Jackson Lands. One whole year pass before they tell me ’bout they plot. Every time a nigger plot fail, other nigger take heed and learn. By the time them tell me, nigger on seven estate already plottin’ to kill every backra within a hundred mile.

—All this time me did think is you come up with this.

—Me never come up with nothing. All me did want to do was draw blood. Pallas be the first woman me bring into it. Then Iphigenia, then Callisto, who bring Gorgon. Then Hippolyta. Six tell six tell six. Make freedom news spread like brushfire. Look round you, girl chile. There be thirty-two nigger to one white man on this estate alone. Some is thirty-five to one. The real thing you should be pondering is how come they master over we for so long.

—They have musket.

—Can only fire one shot. Fifteen white man, fifteen shot, and even if them shoot straight, that be only fifteen slave get shot, and even if the fifteen get kill, that still leave near two hundred more.

—You thinking this hard.

—Me born thinking. Look ’pon you. One nigger you be, yet you bring one whole estate down. Cho! You think them better than we?

—No, me stop think that long time ago. Is we not better than them.

—Don’t be damn fool, chile. Black man could be wicked like the devil and you can still find a white man that worse. Them don’t even know how to grow sugar right. Negro man could ’ave teach him to grow cane two times the length if they did only treat we right, but no. Freedom goin’ get musket now, but me talk too long and wall have ears. November soon gone and more talking to do tomorrow.

—Homer . . .

—Tomorrow, Lilith.

 

 

—Because we are to be
mother and father, damn you, Robert! Press me no further, Massa Humphrey say and slam him hand on the kitchen table.

Robert Quinn pacing from one end of the kitchen to the other. He stop at the table and touch Massa Humphrey on the shoulder. —Humphrey, I entreat you, he say.

—No! Enough of this, damn you. I will speak of it no longer.

—Yes, ye damn well will. I will not stand by and watch ye—

—Then leave, for God’s sake. Nobody’s strong-arming you to stay.

—Aye, nobody is doing that, indeed. Is that how it will be? After all I’ve been to . . . after Venice?

—You’ll hold that above me as long as I live.

—You’re the one holding yourself to bondage, Humphrey. Do not marry this woman. You don’t know.

—I damn well know all there is to—

—No, you don’t. Trust the voice of a friend. You do not—

Robert Quinn see Lilith at the door and stop. Him red skin get redder. —God feckin’ damn, how long have you been there? he say.

Lilith look away.

—I said, how long have you been there?

—Me just come back, sah, me—

Robert Quinn stomp over to Lilith and Lilith make one back step into the wall behind her. Then he slap her.

—I will not have a goddamned slave sneaking up on me, he say. Lilith grab her cheek and her mouth drop. She look in him eye and don’t see Robert Quinn.—Go to your room! he say. Lilith run. In the room a tear run down her face. But she not crying, she not sobbing and she not wondering if this is Robert Quinn too. She feel something that she don’t feel in a long while. She feel black. Her door still open.

—Don’t ye walk out on me, Humphrey Wilson, I’m not done with ye yet.

—I’ll do as I damn well please, Quinn. Don’t forget who’s in whose employ. Now, I’ll thank you to remember your place and speak no ill of the person who’s to be my wife.

—But . . .

—Or find some other means of employment. You are rather skilled for an Irishman. You’ll not be wanting in opportunities, I assure you.

—Humphrey, fer God’s sake.

—I bid you good-bye, Quinn.

Lilith listen to the boot stomp across the floor and out the door and down the four steps. She hear the footsteps on the dirt, the horse whinnying and galloping away. She hear another boot step, slower coming into the room. She hear him getting slower and closer. Robert Quinn touch Lilith shoulder and she flinch. She don’t look up to him face. Robert Quinn hiss and leave the room.

Lilith get up before dawn and go to the great house kitchen. She push the door but it lock. She push the door again, for Homer always up before dawn. Lilith knock and the door open. Homer frowning but she let Lilith in. Inside be Pallas and Callisto. Pallas shove something inside her bosom.

—You forget one, Pallas say and Callisto pick a bullet off the counter.

—Make haste, Homer say. Callisto unwrap a piece of osnaburg and reveal a musket. Pallas wrap it in banana leaf and put it in her basket. Lilith go to ask but say nothing. She slip past the door and leave through the main entrance. She go down the steps and look out at the sun that still trying to come over the hill. In the kitchen she brewing tea and boiling pudding. Robert Quinn come in huffing and puffing. Him left eye dark with bruise and getting darker. He sit down at the kitchen table and quiet. Lilith quiet too but don’t know what to expect.

—Ye won’t be making tea for me much longer, lovey, Robert Quinn say.—Appears I’ve been dismissed.

Oriki

26

DECEMBER. WITH NEAR ALL OF THE MILITIA DOWN BY THE harbour and some inlands, few did by the barracks at Up Park Camp that night when fire break out in the mess and spread from one barrack to two. Infantryman in two barrack burn to death—it seem that both barrack was chained up from the outside. Word be that it was the work of Maroons who itchin’ to start another war, but the Maroons quick to deny it. Seventeen new nigger get purchase from Kingston to replace the seventeen old ones, all of them kill by firing squad that very morning.

Robert Quinn thinking of what to take of his belongings. He pace round the home, eye him drapery and saying that coming with him. —No fair chance of that, I’m afraid, he say when Lilith ask if he and the massa can’t let bygones be. He rest him chin in palm and tap him face with him fingers but wince when he tap too close to the black eye.

—I have said the unforgivable and he has done the unforgivable, he say. He ’bout to say more but right then they hear the march of the slave coffle. Quinn go to the window and watch as they pass. Lilith go to her room. Couple minute pass as Lilith hear talking. She hear Quinn voice getting louder and louder.

—This is still my house, so get the feck out, Quinn say.

—I kin do wot I likes, methinks. Gonna be my ’ouse now, yes it will. Gonna be mine, the other man say.

—Not yers yet by any stretch, McClusky.

—Will be in ’alf a mo’, says I. Wot says you? Methinks we’ll be keeping the fair nigger wench as well, that’s wot methinks. I kin make sure of that. How’s ’er arse? Didn’t get very far with ’er poxy cunt, second time around.

—Why, you—

—Careful, guvnuh, don’t want you leaving in a coffin now, does we? Does we have to give you a good taste of my cutlass?

—Leave by yer own choosing or so help me, ye’ll leave in a box, McClusky.

—And who or wot’s gonna make me?

Lilith step in the room to see Robert Quinn standing with him hands on a chair. McClusky, the same man who was on top of her once and try for twice, pointing a cutlass at him. McClusky hear a click. He look at Lilith and jump. Lilith step towards Robert Quinn holding the musket.

—Now, hold on now, dearies, surely ye knows jesting when I plays it.

—Ye know the business with muskets, McClusky, how they always jam and misfire or blow up in one’s face or just plain misses a fair target?

—A-aye, Master Quinn—

—This ain’t one of them. Now fer the last time, get the fuck out.

McClusky look at Robert Quinn still holding on to the chair and Lilith beside him with the gun. He laugh a little but limp away quick. Lilith hand the gun to Robert Quinn but he don’t take it.

—First thing the son of a bitch does, he hires the man I dismissed. Maybe I should’ve let ye shoot the cunt, he say.

Lilith feel the weight in her hand. She know that a bullet in the musket, for she see Robert Quinn load it himself. She could even load the musket herself if she try, she thinking. Robert Quinn out there beating and killing niggers, somebody say. She can’t remember who say he killing and who say he beating. Two saying be one thing and she look at him turning him back to her, a slave with a loaded musket.

—Planning on shooting me as well, lovey?

—N-no, massa.

—Good to know. Lord knows yer the only fair thing left to see in this godforsaken place.

Him back still turn to her.—Make us some lunch, luv. A fine corking one.

Robert Quinn stay home all day. He go outside twice to see if he can see the slaves working from up on him terrace. He watch the smoke rising from the boiling house. Twice or thrice he look over left to the great house and Lilith imagine he get a heaviness in the heart.

—Fine and dandy, Quinn say when he come back in.

After lunch Quinn sit at the table for a long time. He reach for the almanac that Lilith read sometimes when he not there to get better at word knowing. She hear
blam!
and see him hand still swinging from throwing the book. She wash and cure and cut the chicken in two, then season it with pepper, thyme, sea salt and a powder Quinn get from one of him sailor friend that they call curry. That make the chicken look like gold and spicy, the way he like it. She boiling yam and potatoes and dasheen and roasting breadfruit. Lilith cooking up plenty and she know Robert Quinn watching her.

He at the kitchen table and she feel him all over her. He on her as she walk to the water barrel, he on her as she grab the curtains to take outside, he on her as she sweep the little dust down the step. Lilith find herself wishing he wasn’t there and find that peculiar. Other times when he not there she want him to come home, and she used to find that peculiar too. But now with him here through the day, she don’t feel free. Not slavery-free but woman-free. He step past her in the kitchen and reach for the rum. Robert Quinn take a swig and cough hard. He bowl over and cough so hard that Lilith thinking he coughing him tongue out. Him face blaze red quick-quick.—God feckin’ damn, he say and strike him chest. Lilith laugh.

—Ye laughing at me, lovey?

—No, massa. Not at all, massa. Not at—