The Book of Night Women (42 page)

Quinn couldn’t say nothing. The room was blue from a oil lamp in the corner with a blue shade, the wick almost gone. The man scrape the sword right across Quinn’s throat.

—Who are you?

—Robert Quinn. Robert Quinn, sir. A gentleman.

—A gentleman, you say?

—Aye, and what have ye done with her?

—An Irish gentleman? Quite like a virtuous whore, is it not? The man laugh but the blade was still firm at Quinn throat.—Sir, I’m a liar, killer, thief and whoremonger. I have no qualms about slicing your head off.

—So yer also a coward, then, are you? I should—

—You shall do no such thing! Or I—

—So louddddd. Why sooooo loud?

Is then Quinn look at the bed. Is there Miss Isobel be, her yellow hair spread right across the bed like wine spill. Her legs spread too, like scissors one second, then close up. Her hands stretch across the bed and her breasts free. She looking in they direction but don’t notice Quinn. Quinn think she look at him like a blind man would, turning where she hear a sound, but the eyes wet and blank, like she seeing nothing. Her legs scissors open again and stay open. Her pussy bush redder than the wick. She raise one hand to wrap her forehead, then flap back down on the bed like the hand faint from tiredness. Quinn couldn’t say nothing. He think to say a million things but he couldn’t say nothing.

—You have a guest. A friend.

—Fooli-foolishness dat. Only friend me ’ave down the . . . down the . . . bottom of that bottl—Where the bottle? Where the bottle . . . bomboclaat sum’bitch?

—Ye lousy piece of Greenwich pond scum! Defiled her, ye have!

—Defiled, you say? The man move him sword away from Quinn. Quinn go to grab him musket, then remember that when he rush to follow Miss Isobel he didn’t pack it. The man laugh.

—Can I help it if milady hankers for the sweet stuff? Nobody in the room who has no cause to be ’cept you, of course.

Is then Quinn realise that he know the man. He still hard to see in the dark but even in the indoor he still have on the top hat tilt to one side of him head. Him coat on the floor. Quinn thought it was blue but soon see that it purple. The top hat be all he wearing and he stiff.

—Fer Godsakes, man. She’s a grieving woman.

—She’s not grieving tonight. Tonight she’s mad with happiness and tomorrow more so.

—I shall take her. Now!

—Came by her own free will, she did, the man say and lift up his sword.—And by her own free will shall she leave. Now you can either join the play—she hankers for that as well—or get lost.

Miss Isobel start to bellow that she want more. Quinn don’t know what to do. Even though for her him have a monstrous hate, he couldn’t leave her be. Mayhaps she done with crying and take to doing this, but something stop him from going over to her. She be a lady after all. Or no. He don’t know. The man laugh again and climb onto the bed. He wave a mug over her and she grab at it like a greedy pickney. She cuss for him to give it to her. At once. Quinn never hear her speak like a negro before. She and the man who might be white or octoroon.

—Your Irish boy is seeing the ways of the colonies, he say and laugh again.—Is dis you want, raasclaat whore?

Isobel still grabbing for the mug. The man straddle her. He pour some on him fingers and she grab him hand and lap it up so hard he have to yank him hand away. He cup him palm and pour some again and she grab him hand and drink out of it. Then the man look at Quinn. He grab him balls and cock an’ pour the mixture all over it. Quinn stagger backways and dash out of the room. But he didn’t leave the inn. He don’t know why. He don’t know what make him stay. What make him take a chair in the corner by a table where two man was snoring and over by the window a woman was hopping up and down a man lap. He there a long time and almost doze off but one of the snoring mens fall off him stool and crash on the floor. Quinn look around and wish he had at least a knife. He wonder if Miss Isobel still up in the room. He wonder how she know the man with the top hat who he remember now from the Roget funeral. Then she run down the stairs. She try to shove her hair back in her hat and stuff her blouson in her man breeches. She about to stumble and grab on to the banister. She look around and shriek. Then she run and almost drop two time. She push through the tavern doors and out she gone.

 

 

When Robert Quinn
tell Lilith all of this he look like he expecting her to cuss or laugh or wish more evil ’pon the woman. But Lilith didn’t do nothing. Nothing at all. That make Robert Quinn hang down him face and she feel queer-like that it matter to him what she think. They was in the kitchen, Quinn at the table where he usually be, watching her cook. Lilith feel he smiling behind her when he tell her.

—I’d near think ye pity the bitch, he say.

—Yes, yes, massa. It sad, though.

—What cause for melancholy does she give ye? Bitch does what she wants, as women do in the colonies. That Humphrey is engaged to her, that’s what sad. Feckin’ grievous.

—If you say so, massa.

—Do ye have any idea how I’ve grown to despise that word? Reminds me of Humphrey.

—Is not plenty word that slave had to call white people, massa. That be the one word you give we.

—Lilith, lovey, there’s no other man, not a living soul, in this kitchen but yerself and I.

Robert Quinn get up and move over to her. He wrap him arms around her waist and pull her in tight.—My given name is Robert. Some have even been known to call me Robby.

Lilith feel like she can’t breathe. White people and black people have a understanding. A code and neither side must break it or there will soon be hell to pay. A white man don’t break it if he sexing a nigger, but he break it if mouth and mouth or mind and mind come together.

—Robert, he whisper. Robert.

Lilith start to tremble. She close her eyes and feel him hands traveling up and down her belly, like he looking for an entrance to push through and touch her heart. He kiss her neck and ears and Lilith stiffen. Her hand grip the knife hard. She can’t cut no turnip or carrot. She slip ’way from him and go into her room. In the room she hear him coming.

—Luv, I’m distressed that I’m leaving as well. He open him mouth to say something more but he don’t. He look like he about to enter the room but he don’t. Robert turn and go away. Lilith feeling shudders come over her like wave. She think of Robert Quinn trying to get her to call him like a man instead of a massa. Like she and he be combolo. She keep feeling that some spirit somewhere, perhaps the skinny dark woman, goin’ call it wrong and tap her chest seven time. She know the spirit would be right and that white man can come in close to her all he wish, for he is white man. But it not so easy anymore calling him white and she black and that be that. And her mind going tired at saying the same thing over and over. It supposed to mean something that he white and she black, he massa and she slave, and she can’t just think that he be man and she be woman and leave that be. But Quinn be the only living soul to look at her as just that, a woman. Not the niggers, not even Homer, who look ’pon her like she be the angel that kilt all them pickney in Bible chapter Exodus. Her mind weary from thinking about Robert Quinn, so Lilith switch to what Miss Isobel doing in Kingston. Now Lilith remembering the smell of Miss Isobel man clothes whenever she come back from riding at night. Between tobacco and rum there was still another smell that perplex her and now she know what. Something that only the mad or the debauched man who haunted with devil supposed to take.

Lilith think that Miss Isobel trying to get back what Lilith take ’way. But people make they own bed and is they fault when they lie in it. Do she mean she or Miss Isobel? Lilith don’t know. Maybe both, maybe neither. Lilith want to believe what white people say ’bout black people, that black people thinking be so simple and fool that they don’t really think. But her thinking not be simple. Right there, she want white man to be right. She want white man to be right so bad. Lilith hear boots stomp into the house.

—Robby? she hear.

—Robert?

She know the voice. Lilith wipe her face and compose herself. She go to move and stop, wondering if she should just make him call and call until he leave. She go out to the kitchen.

—He not here, massa, she say.

Massa Humphrey nod but don’t say nothing. He dress in new dark blue coat with tails and him cravat tie tight. She never see him in cream breeches before and him boots well shine. He put the hat on and turn to leave. But then he turn round sudden and Lilith jump. She think she shriek but don’t know. A look flash in him eye for a second, the thing, the spirit, the what-she-don’t-know that Lilith see before when he strike her and was ready to do more. He by the door, she by the room, fifteen to eighteen feet between them, but Lilith feel Massa Humphrey hands round her neck. She touch her neck and look away.

—So you’re the one who’s bedeviled my overseer, he say. Lilith don’t say nothing.

—Be sure to inform Mr. Quinn that I seek him, he say and leave. Lilith feel the boots stomping on the floor. She still rubbing her neck when the horse whinny and gallop away.

 

 

Crop-time sun beating down negro
and white man too. Robert Quinn be the man that keep things in order but he not there and order fall ’pon the other white drivers, most of whom don’t know nothing ’bout overseeing and would usually be occupied with sighting out which nigger girl they taking to bed that night. One slave put down her bundle to go tie the next and the white driver ask if she skylarking. She say, No, massa, no, that is where the bundle to go and he say she drop it ’cause she lazy. The driver put down him rum flask and go over to her and whip her with the cowskin till her screaming stop the whole coffle in that part of the cane piece. Three other driver who was off by a tree see the whipping and start laugh, saying if he use too much of that whip on her she’ll be no use tonight when he using him other whip. But then they see that the other negroes stop work and start watch. When nigger gang working they is one, but when them stop they is sixty. Sixty tall mens and womens. Thirty-seven mens who shoulder wide like tree trunk, twenty-three womens who strong leg can kick down cow. Sixty negro eye times two. Sixty hoe, sixty pickaxe, sixty cutlass, sixty ways to shed blood and just four backra. Two of four by the tree run into the deep field and start whipping nigger to get back to work, and shouting for the lazy Johnny-jumpers. A driver shout to the one whipping the girl to quit. They strike four nigger and move quick through the field, from one to the other, whipping careless and missing most of the time. The Johnny-jumpers join in. Some of the slaves stay still. The white mens start to shout out for other white mens to come over to this section. They whip again and some of the niggermen turn back to work, but some still stand straight. The white mens start to back away. The womens go to the mens and whisper and they finally go back to work. Callisto and Iphigenia work in the field.

—I just tell one woman to whisper to one man and send it down the field, Callisto tell Homer when she recalling what happen. Homer outside the kitchen getting water from the well. Lilith by the well too with her bucket. Both watching the afternoon. Homer cuss.

—That’s why me can’t abide by niggerman, you know, that why they have no damn use, the lot o’ them, she say.

—How we fi rebel without the mens? No them have the strength? Lilith say.

—Yes, they strong in arm and strong in leg, but they head weak. They don’t have the bearing for planning and thinking and waiting, ’specially waiting. That be woman work. If you did—

—If me did come from the Africa me would know. Me hear that the last ten time you tell me. Well, this not be the Africa, Homer.

—Don’t me know it. No, this be nigger hell, but we soon turn it into nigger heaven. Just like Saint-Domingue. Me have word from the massa himself. He get letter from Barbados hearing that the Saint-Domingue nigger trying to unite the island. You hear that? They going call it a republic. Me hear that, me almost want cry.

—You? You so dry you can’t even spit.

—Watch you mouth. But you right. Me all cry out, me no have no crying left in me. What a way you have sass when you deh with nigger. Round white man you can barely talk, unless him singing Irish shanty.

Callisto laugh.

—Massa Humphrey estate getting restless ’cause he dismiss Robert Quinn, Homer say.

—Nigger ’fraid they not goin’ be no Christmas this year, Callisto say.

—Nigger have bigger thing to worry ’bout than no damn backra day. The fruit ripe and in three day we pluck it.

Callisto laugh again and say she have to sneak back to the field.

—The way them whitey stupid and careless, me all catch forty wink yesterday, she say and run.

—And the mens? Lilith say.

—Set a dog loose only when you need he to run.

—Massa Humphrey was looking for Robert.

—Looking for him?

—Yes. Me don’t know why.

—Maybe he checking if he pack and ready. Quinn wasn’t there?

—Robert did gone.

—Oh.

Homer pause for a long, long bit.—Don’t make a white man work you again, Lilith. You is not them and them is not you, no matter how soft he touch you these days.

—No man working me.

—Stop the lying, chile. The man work himself right through you bed and now he working right through you head.

—Me say me not—

—You just call the damn man Robert! Two time, fool! Two time! Me just hear you.

—Me . . . me . . .

—From me was ten year, me be slave. Me never ask for it and no man have the right to give it to me. If white man want to fuck you, there nothin’ you can do ’bout that, but don’t make him fool you, that be your business.

—He not like the other mens.