The Book of Night Women

by Marlon James

  —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—

  Lilith bowl over with laughter again. Robert Quinn look at her queer-like, with one eyebrow raise, and start laugh too.—Is this how it will be? Am I to be your laughingstock? he say but laughing again. He put down the rum bottle and put him arms around Lilith. Lilith see him moving in to kiss her and pull back. He look at her. White man supposed to lie with negro woman, fuck them and even squeeze them. Sometimes they even love them. But no white man supposed to kiss a nigger. That be love things, things for white woman, and proper white woman at that. Robert Quinn hold her firm, close him eye and try to kiss her again. Him eye close but Lilith wide open. Lilith can’t remember what a man lip feel like, so she reason that she never feel a man lip before. Him lip soft, she expect pink lip to be soft, but not so. He sucking her bottom lip, then her top one and Lilith do it too. He pulling her in tighter and they kissing and pecking and licking and sucking. Her eye wide open. Him leaving. Him leaving soon. Can’t she . . . ? Then Quinn work him tongue into her mouth and she feel like she lose another maidenhead. He feel rough and soft at the same time. She tasting rum and rum sweat and rum tingle and be the most wonderfullest thing. Her eye still open, him eye still close. He cup her face with him hands soft, like he catching a feather. Quinn lean him head left and roll him lips and tongue inside her, then he lean right and roll again. He pull away, kiss her lips flat and work him way back into her mouth. She seek him with her tongue too. Him arms round her back and her arm round him. Lilith finally close her eyes.

  Friday, long past midnight. Saturday. Lilith watching Robert Quinn sleep. He beating and killing niggers, a woman say. Maybe she didn’t say it. Maybe Lilith didn’t hear right. Maybe the womens full of evil and want to take ’way a girl happiness. Happiness? Lilith thinking deep. What nigger girl know ’bout happiness? What shape that come in when the skin black like tar and death is a whipping, a chopping, a burning and a hanging away? Lilith more than perplex, Lilith feeling happiness and sadness fighting in her chest and fear coming in like he never did leave. Robert Quinn roll over in the bed like sleeping giant. Man have magic over woman when he don’t even try. Lilith watch him bushy chest rise and fall and hair sticking to him forehead with sweat.

  The womens ready. She come back from the meeting in the cave two hours ago, but the voices running in and out of her head like she still there. Nobody do a thing before the abeng blow. In one week be the day. The hataclaps. White man goin’ think is the great tribulation itself, one of the womens say, but Lilith couldn’t remember who. She did trouble enough by how far and how cold Homer thinking. Nobody move before the abeng blow. Then all hell goin’ broke loose.

  Lilith watch Robert Quinn as he shift again. She love to watch how him face turn first, then him shoulder and then him thick legs and she giggle when he rub him belly in him sleep. Robert Quinn kissing her now. Signs and wonders is for white woman; nigger must take things as they be and don’t look no deeper. But him hair slide away from him face again and she see something not pretty like Humphrey Wilson but more beautiful nonetheless. Lilith cuss herself, like them word make for nigger to say. She feel herself going back to what she was when she try her very best to hate him. But he leaving. He never goin’ see her again. She too happy that he goin’ to live to be sad that he goin’ be gone. Mayhaps now she can . . .

  Word from Worthy Park, McIntyre Pen, Ascot and Jackson Lands. They ready, but what’ bout we?

  Gorgon be one of them special worker niggers, the only slaves with true business to travel from estate to estate spread the news. Her carriage carry flowers and correspondence and whatever people from one estate want to share with people from another. Homer trust her to be her own mouth on other estate and Gorgon spread the word far, meeting with the other people who plotting from estate to estate. Homer and Callisto meet with other negroes at Sunday market when slave free to shop and correspondence. Gorgon carry message through the week. Over by Ascot a Judas nigger get trample by three horse. Hoof to the head or crowbar, nobody can tell the difference, she say.

  The evening before when Robert Quinn kiss her, he hoist her up on the kitchen counter and kiss her some more. She kiss too. Then he pull away and start spin and dip and Lilith laugh when he claim he dancing.—’Tis the very latest, I assure ye, he say to her. He pull her to him and show her dance step, telling her, No, this way, and then spin and then curtsy and No . . . yes, like that, darlin’, like that. He grab her again and lift her up and say that he should take her to the next Montpelier ball just to see the look on everybody fac
e. Lilith can’t take no more of this, so she say the food about to burn. He put her down.—Of course, of course, he say. That evening the supper sweet him so much he start sing, as be the custom with Irishman when he happy. He start sing some song ’bout a woman who wait so long for her sailor man to come back that even when she dead her ghost still out by the seashore waiting. She ask him why him singing sad song if he happy.—One’s never far from the other, him say. McIntrye Pen, twenty-two white, three hundred black, fifty unsure. Cutlass sharpen and the womens ready. Two o’clock be the hour. Right before the lunch bell. Niggerman of no use if they belly full.

  At two o’clock. Right before the lunch bell. Hungry man is angry man, for sure, and Homer want them plenty mad. By two o’clock the slave-driver also at them tiredest after being in the sun for long that they slack off or rest off even though they not supposed to.

  —How you expect field nigger to take instruction from house nigger? Lilith ask and watch Gorgon growl.

  —They only hate nigger who forget where they come from, she say. They only hate negro who start to think they white too.

  —So you tell them that you half white, sister? Lilith say to Gorgon.

  —De only white be full white, fool. Whether you mulatto, mustee or octoroon, you still nigger. Some o’ we forget dat, Gorgon say.

  —How, with you to remind we all the time? Who remind you, Papa Jack?

  Gorgon look ’pon Lilith hard, but Lilith lookin’ at Callisto to see if she watching.

  —Is not nothing. Me no talk to him unless him talk to me, Gorgon say to Callisto with her head low. Callisto playing with her knife and waiting for Homer to talk again.

  —At the two o’clock hour, the abeng goin’ blow. Then all soul stop work, but keep the hoe and axe and pick and club ready, she say.

  —Why in the broad daylight? Why not at night when everybody asleep? Lilith say.

  —Night sound smart, yes, but that is what mash up the seventeen sixty revolt. Night help the fighting good, but then day come and the militia have a whole sixteen hour to run down negroes. No, we start in the afternoon and use night to get ’way. By the time the militia reach, this whole county goin’ burn down. Now make we get particular. Some nigger goin’ get shot with the musket them driver carry. But most of the bullet goin’ miss and if one or two get shot, so it go. But we need the field nigger to kill the drivers still in the field. We will deal with the ones who go back to rest. Tell them to run backra down, use the pickaxe or the hoe, no white man must get ’way. Nor Johnny-jumper too. When abeng blow, we all stop work. Nigger from Jackson Lands say best to set fire to they great house first. All wood, burn quick. Poison set for massa, mistress and all nigger who eat from the same pot. Callisto deal with Miss Isobel. Me’ll fix the mistress. After that, they goin’ set fire to Montpelier great house while the field negroes burn the fields and kill the slave-drivers. Atlas and Hyperion goin’ deal with the massa.

  —But them two is man, Lilith say.

  —Doing the only thing them good for. They won’t know till the time anyway.

  —You chère amie lucky. He supposed to leave the estate two day before, Homer say.—Just make sure you not in the carriage with him.

  —What me must do? Look like you have everything plan out, Lilith say.

  —You comin’ with me, Callisto say.—Sometime you need two hand to kill one, ’specially that Miss Isobel.

  —Me sure you can kill her all by you lonesome.

  —Not me, baba, you.

  —Give her one of you knife, Callisto.

  Callisto pull up her dress. Her pussy so bush up that it look like black undergarb. Both thigh have strap and both strap have sheath for knife. Callisto pull a strap and hand everything to Lilith.—Me want it back, she say.

  Robert Quinn mumble again and Lilith watch him chest rise and fall. Maybe if she put the pillow over him head, he wouldn’t know. But he bound to wake up and Robert Quinn is a mighty strong man. He goin’ leave two day before, she think to herself, repeating till she settle her spirit. After Coulibre, Lilith tell herself that she not goin’ shed the blood of no more white man. Homer make things seem that if anybody deserve to have they blood shed, is backra. Plenty evil come from they hands, but Homer never kill one yet.

  As the clock strike two, we kill whoever in the house. Then we go to the gun closet. Wilkins forget that he keep a key stuck under one of the drawers. Feel for the wax.

  Is a hell of thing killing a man, any man, not just a white one. People think that having power over a life make you feel like God and them right. But God have the backbone to deal with how terrible he be, little nigger girl don’t. Perhaps white man have it also, considering how much nigger they kill. Lilith wish the rage would come back so that she would stop with the thinking. She stay up, waiting for the tall dark woman to appear in a corner, the woman who might be a warning or a promise. A warning that Lilith making the same mistake again. Lilith thinking of a white man who goin’ treat her like a white woman and take her out of nigger fate. Robert Quinn turn again. She not no fool, Lilith tell herself. She not a sleeping princess and Robert Quinn is not no king or prince. He just a man with broad shoulders and black hair who call her lovey and she like that more than her own name. She don’t want the man to deliver her, she just want to climb in the bed and feel he wrap himself around her. She whisper something that difficult to say in the daylight. Robert, she say. Robert.

  Judas nigger at Worthy Park get press clean through by the cane juice mill. Nobody did present to chop off him arm when it get stuck in the roller. Athena and Chiron, we have to deal with them.

  Athena and Chiron. Athena most time deal with the cleaning and Chiron be one of the footmen. They take to pleasing the massa all the time, doing more than they have to and calling the massa to show him that they do it. Chiron report other footmen who lazy or who gather herb from in the swamp land and smoke it. When time a nigger get a nine lash for burnin’ some of the mistress’ silk, is Athena did tell Miss Isobel. Lilith come to know that even though Miss Isobel ask for her over and over, is Athena who by her side of late. Athena clean out her commode and bathe her and wash her hair and tell ever’body in the kitchen how the mistress so beauteous. Athena usually go downstairs to tell Massa Humphrey that Miss Isobel want to see him and stand guard at the door until Miss Isobel ready to receive gentleman company. Lately Athena been watching Homer when she go anywhere or talk to anybody and one time Homer see a little piece of Athena dress behind the door when she was talking to Callisto. Them two be the niggers who love slavery more than free and if they get a free hand, wouldn’t know what to do with it. Lilith think if they don’t act soon, Athena goin’ tell Miss Isobel that the niggers up to something, if she don’t tell her already. Gorgon, tell it to Atlas. Fix Athena. Me will deal with Chiron.

  Fix Athena. Lilith close her eyes and see Athena on the floor convulsing and trying to scream but only blood coming out of her mouth, so she coughing and choking. Blood running down her nose and bursting from her head. Lilith mind going backways from end to beginning, from moonrise going back down in the sea to blood sucking and gurgling back into Athena mouth and the right leg unbreaking behind her back and her cracked skull coming back together and her whole body lifting off the rock and her scream push back in her mouth and her fall upwards past the cliff rock that crack her back, right back into the hands of Atlas, who gag her and throw her over the cliff again. Lilith look at her own body and imagine blood bursting from her belly. She look down at her black breasts and her belly and feel the night warmth telling her nothing. What happen when the militia finally arrive, what we goin’ do?

  —What they goin’ do with near thousand nigger in revolt? Every able man must head east and make for the Cockpit Country. We goin’ set up we own Maroon town. Watch how the place goin’ be so big and so wide and so full of nigger that they can’t do a thing to stop we. You think infantryman goin’ head into wild bush just to hunt nigger? And even if they do, them not cut out for bush life. We
goin’ be ready, Homer say.

  —We goin’ starve, Lilith say under her breath, but Callisto look at her like she hear.

  —You plan to drive cow, chicken and goat up there with you? Lilith say.

  The room look at her.

  —We make do with plantin’, huntin’ and thiefin’ if we have to, Homer say.—You don’t come from the Africa, you don’t know. But we goin’ back.

  —Now me know you head take you.

  —Not in body, you fool. That thickness must come from you white half. We goin’ set things up like in the Africa. Six village in a circle, one to one to one.

  —And what about the Maroons? Them niggers in league with backra ever since the treaty. They always turning in runaway nigger, Lilith say.—You know that yourself.

  Lilith know that be the one thing that make Homer slip and she do. She pause, not too long for the others to notice but long enough that Lilith do.

  —Maroons can go to hell. Them brutal when is one or two but coward like little girl when is many. You think is just three or four nigger running ’way? This be two hundred from here, three hundred from there and three hundred more from five or six estate. How them fi stop we? And if they try me will kill them meself! Pshaw! Saint-Domingue nigger can do it and they be the same nigger we be, that even you be. All it take is some smart thinking. That be why womens do the thinking and plotting, just like woman do in the Africa, Homer say.—You did know say is the woman pick the king in the Africa? The king be always the oldest sister’s boy pickaninny. A woman who give birth to Ashanti man bigger than the man himself.

  —Me didn’t grow up in no Africa.

  —That be the pity. Mean you still don’t know what freedom be, even if me tell you plain. But you soon know, or God help all o’ we.

  Robert Quinn roll over on him back. She like to wait until he sleeping deep and climb in bed and lay down on him chest, with him hair feeling like a cushion. Quinn sleep heavy but he reach for cuddling whenever she touch him. That be the only time when Lilith let go of her being negro and he being backra. Is the only time when he touch her back and don’t flinch. He caress the memory out of her. Sleeping on him back, he is new territory to discover. She can put her hand above him nose and feel him breath or rub her hand on him chest or run circles round him navel. She can even kiss Quinn on the neck or sometimes the lip but ’fraid to wake him up. But now Lilith can’t go in the bed. Now she only watching. Now every time he turn she thinking ’bout something he do or say. Lilith don’t know if she thankful or love-full. Or maybe she do know but niggerwoman must never say them things. What kinda nigger rather be slave to free? Why her mind getting heavy with them kinda question?