The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar (55 page)

Early the next morning, as the sky was now getting gray, I carry Caliban in mi room and express mi gratitude in improper fashion. And was Marriott turn to get jealous, when he hear. He didn believe it at first, but when he hear enough times that the best woman stickfighter was dealing with the best
mait kaiso
, he ask me. I tell him was so, and he get mad.

I say, ‘But what you vex for? It ent have no ring pon this finger.'

And he couldn say nothing to that, because though it had white men who did marry Negro women, Marriott was a respectable doctor in the island. He might a like to watch all we festivals and even come to we fetes, but in the end he wasn a Creole and he couldn afford to lose he white patients. That wasn't why he stop seeing me: he just couldn handle the idea a me fucking a black man and he at the same time. I was sorry about that, but was he choice to go.

Almost exactly one year later, Mammy die. Was on the day a the Night of Champions. Mammy was in the kitchen supervising she four helpers, when she clutch she breast and groan and fall down on the dirt floor.

You does never expect death. I knew Mammy had to die soon – she was already more than forty years. But she seem hale enough. I thought she would a live for a good while again – no, I lie. I just never thought about when or how she might die. I never fear death. Somehow, without thinking about it, I always knew I couldn die. But immortality doh make death easy, because the hard part a death is seeing the people around you die. I know I woulda grieve. I didn expect the grief to pain so much.

But I didn expect Pappy to take it so hard. He was a man, he was strong. He had other wives. But he cry and cry. Like he couldn stop. So I had was to give him comfort. There was no one to comfort me. Mi Mammy was dead.

The thing I most didn expect, though, was the anger. When mi Mammy die, was like every mother I ever had die too. I remember the mothers I never know, daughter of Yùcahu and daughter of Africa. I remember the other mother I never know, who I kill with mi own bloody hands. I remember the mothers who sacrifice their short lives for me. And I was full a rage.

I cuss God. I didn know which god. I went to Christian church, but I also know the gods from Africa. I hated all a them for taking mi mothers, mi Mammy, away. I hated all a them for making me immortal, so I could be reborn to know all this misery and pain over and over again. Between god and devil was no difference at all.

But cussin God and gods didn help. All gods was silent and invisible. Maybe they wasn even there. And the rage was red in me, like a fire. And I tell the helpers to stop crying and finish cooking. Plenty people was coming for the Night of Champions. I wasn going to turn it into a wake. I tell Pappy so, and he agree, if only because he wasn in any state to argue. The undertaker come and prepare Mammy body in she bedroom. I practise whole day with mi bois, never stopping, never getting tired. And, when I step into the gayelle that evening, mi belly was like full a hot coals.

Six women come against me. Six women fall bleeding. Two a them would a never fight again, never be right again. I didn care. I had done worse, in the past. When the last one fall, only then I talk. ‘No woman could match me! What man here have bois for my bois!'

The crowd murmur. No man step forward. Caliban come to me and tell me that I had won, I should leave the gayelle. I cuss him. Marriott come and tell me I needed to rest, that my departed mother would not approve of my behaviour. I cuss him, too. I challenge the men again. Nobody step forward. I start to cuss all a them for being cowards,
negre jardins
, mamapoule men. Toto, last year's champion, say quiet, ‘Legba, man and woman doh cross bois.' I start to cuss he too, but he just shake he head and leave. Some men come in the gayelle to try and move me, but I swing mi bois wild at them and they retreat. Then a man step into the gayelle. I recognize the brown tunic and the forearm bands at once. He bois look like a matchstick in he arms. The silver spike was in he belt. I found myself wishing he had come to kill me. And I think: If I can do with bois what I could never do with knife or sword or gun, perhaps I shall be like a god. And perhaps if I am like a god I can make my Mammy be reborn, as I am reborn.

And I sing in patois a song that Caliban had made for me.

Legba tun ni bois di tone

Legba tun ni bois di tone

Legba, vue u leve mama meve mo.

‘My bois is like thunder! It could raise mi mama from the dead!' I attack the Shadowman. Blow follow blow like lightning. Cosabal, carre, chopper, battoniers! Sticks clacking like a song. The Shadowman parried, never seeming to hurry, eyes always hooded, expression never changing. My attack like a hurricane, but he like a stone mountain. Till finally, his bois come down in a murderous chopper, which I block, but he broke my bois, and my skull. I fell, senseless, join with Mammy.

For years after that I don't fight. Nobody go fight me. And what I didn want to happen happen. People start saying I was a obeah woman. Marriott say was because I was like dead that night. He couldn find pulse or heartbeat. They put me in the bedroom with Mammy, but the next morning I get up, stretch and yawn. The servant girl scream and run away when she come in and see me washing mi face by the face-basin. And talk start about me worshipping the Devil and that the man who buss mi head and then disappear was Satan self.

Time pass like a dream. I stay in the house. It have enough money to buy rum. I don't eat much, I don't buy anything except rum. Pappy with he other chirrun, he hardly even come on Sundays. I go nowhere, see no one, but I not alone. I have myselves. Some I remember clear, others not so well. I know all my names. I remember the grief of my first life, not only my mother dead but all my people, and it help diminish my own. I remember the savagery of my second life, but that is dim, though my final torture is sharp as a cutlass. I remember sailing to Africa, land of my father. But I can never tell him how I know his land. I remember selling my body to men and so gaining power over them. I have that power now, and have sold myself to no one. My next life as Mary-Anne is vague, as is my life as the slave Tituba-named-Eshu. Even my last life as Adam Chardonbois I could barely remember. I don't understand why I could remember events of four hundred years ago so clear, but the past half-century like a dark cloud.

So I didn take on all the ole talk. I didn want to stickfight again, anyway. It just had this big space where Mammy use to be. We house was small, but now it seem bigger than a planter house. I wish I could a give her grandchirrun before she die. I would a give up mi immortality in a flash for that gift. But mi memories was getting stronger now and, though many details were missing, I knew that in nearly four hundred years, as both man and woman, I had never had children.

So mi Mammy had left nothing of herself behind, save other people's memories of her. And, people being mortal, memory would vanish. She had left me behind, but I knew now that I was a child of the universe. But I was also Mammy's daughter, for that was the life I lived now, and had she not had me she might have had more children who could have continued her line. I wandered around the empty house and, one day, saw the shop with its doors closed like shut eyes. I knew then what I had to do, to fill up the space inside myself and for Mammy's memory.

I buy stocks. I make drinks and sweets the way Mammy use to make. I start selling. Flour, sugar, salt, juice, mauby, toolum, tambran ball, chilibibi, sugar-cake and so on. Business was slow at first – most a the people who come wanted mi to work obeah. I could a do it, too, because I recall some a mi skills from when I was Eshu Falunbi. But I tell them no. Even so, it take long for people to start coming back, not only because a the ole talk, but it had a Chinaman, same one who use to come to the stickfight, with a shop just a few miles down the road. But people remember the tasty sweets and the cheap prices. I had all Mammy recipes in mi head and, child a the universe or no, I had get Mammy sweethand. And Pappy, who use to only come on Sundays and sit in the porch staring at the trees, start passing by week days to help out.

When trade become regular, I went to Marriott and ask him to lend me some money. With that, I break down the shop and build up a bamboo-and-carat palace. Dry goods added to everything else, and Pappy had a workshop to fix furniture and so on. And so most weekends Mammy's Tent, as the sign Pappy carve say out front, was full a people laughing and eating and drinking and dancing. It have string bands, and Caliban and other kaisonians sing there on Saturdays. Mammy woulda love it.

One August I hear the drums beating for Canboulay. The tent doing well and I have helpers to do most of the work. Pappy run the place, I take care of the books. Is the most popular place in Belmont. Marriott was long paid off with interest. The drums beat down in the Savannah and, almost against my will, I feel the bloodlust rise in me. The conquistador and the pirate and the slave and the jamette in me want to fight. I try to resist. But the drums are life and life cannot be denied. I know that better than anyone alive, unless it have others like me. And I know, too, that I couldn't hide. The Shadowman will always find me. I have to be ready. I carry the rage of centuries with me into the gayelle. No woman would fight me. They all remember what happen last time I fight. But, before my taunts, some men finally raise their bois.

A few I beat. But, to my shock, most beat me. Even them men who not champions faster and stronger than me. Caliban singing in he own tent now and wasn there to help me battle their minds.

I hide in mi house after, weeping tears of anger at my weak female body.

Some months after this, the Chinaman came by the shop. The ship had not come in and he had run out of flour. He wanted to buy a bag from me. I had extra, and I sold him at cost price. He look surprise at that.

‘I see you fight,' he say.

I shrug. ‘You see me get beat.'

He say, ‘You try move too fast. That why get beat.'

Was the first time I had seen the Chinaman up close. His slanted eyes were very black, very awake. He had very muscular forearms.

I say, ‘I never see you in the gayelle.'

He move he hand in a short, chopping motion. ‘You move slower. You win.'

And, for some reason, I ask him to show me what he meant.

Li was a priest in China. There he had to worship in secret. His religion had been outlawed by the government. It was called Shao Lin. The temples had first been destroyed about two hundred years ago, around the time I slaving for Widow Simmons. But the monks continue practising their religion, and the Chinese boxing that was part of it, in secret. But the members of the society Li belonged to had been arrested for plotting against the Chinese government. Li had escaped by selling himself as an indentured servant to the British government, which was looking for labour for the West Indies after Emancipation.

All this I found out much later. At first, all Li and I did was train. For the first time in my lives, I learned how to really fight. The various martial skills I had acquired as Guiakan, Adam Colon, Antam Gonçalves, Mary-Ann Rackham, and Elegba Cudjoe were child-like compared to Li's
gung fu
. On that first day, I faced him with my bois while he stood empty-handed. He motioned for me to attack him. I feinted to his shaven head, then upswung for his stomach. But somehow he was inside my range, and simply shoved me with his shoulder so I fell flat on my back on the grass. To prove this was not just luck, Li let me try again. This time I swung viciously for his head, but he dropped and I felt him kick the back of my knees and I was flat on my back again.

I tried to control my anger at how easily, even without a bois, he had beaten me. I said, ‘That don't help me, Li. All you show me is that you faster than me, too.' I tried, and failed, to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

Li raised his hands, and I saw how his knuckles were strangely swollen. ‘Not faster here.' He pointed to his eyes. ‘Faster here.'

I asked him what he meant, but he shook his head. ‘Cannot tell. Must show.'

‘Well, show me,' I said, impatiently.

‘Cannot show. Have shop to run.'

And he left with his bag of flour, saying he would come back Sunday morning.

So every Sunday, at the break of dawn, Li came to my house and trained me. I could not believe it that first morning when I heard someone banging on my door when the sky had barely turned gray. He didn't even give me time to make coffee.

Early on, I asked him the same question I had asked Marriott years before. ‘What you want for all this training?' But Li's answer was different. ‘Two shilling every lesson.' To which I agreed.

At first, though, I thought I was wasting my money. On that morning, Li had me stand in the rising sun and breathe. He counted with his fingers. ‘Very slow, in.' And raised ten fingers one after the other. ‘Hold breath.' And raised five fingers. ‘Now out, very slow.' And ten fingers again. Then he had me stretch, touching fingers to toes, twisting from side to side, standing with legs apart and touching head to knee.

I nearly didn't pay him. But I had seen what he could do and decided to give him a few more chances.

The second Sunday was spent with me saying ‘Ugh!' Li stood in front me and every time he moved his hand I had to shout ‘Ugh!' as fast as possible. Then he had me stretch. After that we played a childish game. Li had me hold out my hands, palms together, arms bent at the elbows. He slapped the back of my hands, while I tried to make him miss. When he did, he held out his hands and I tried to slap them. I always missed at the first try.

Before he left that day, he said, ‘Get dog.'

I said, irritated, ‘I not cooking for you, Li.'

He said, ‘Good. I better cook than you. Get dog. Get cloth. Have dog jump for cloth. Say ugh!'

To this day, I don't know what it was made me continue paying Li. And I sure as hell don't know why I got the damn dog.