Midnight Robber

by Nalo Hopkinson

  “The Minshall Mancrab,” eshu told Tan-Tan. “Minshall made it to be king of his band ‘The River’ on Earth, Terran calendar 1983.”

  “Peter Minshall?” Tan-Tan asked. She had heard a crêche teacher say the name once when reading from Marryshow’s Revelations.

  “He same one.”

  The sinister Mancrab advanced to the centre of the stage, its sheet billowing. Suddenly the edges of the sheet started to bleed. Tan-Tan heard the audience exclaim. The blood quickly soaked the sheet as the Mancrab opened its menacing pincers wide. People in the audience went wild, clapping and shouting and screaming their approval.

  Tan-Tan was mesmerised. “Is scary,” she said.

  “Is so headblind machines used to stay,” eshu told her. “Before people make Granny Nanny to rule the machines and give guidance. Look some different images here.”

  The eshu showed her more pictures of old-time Earth Carnival: the Jour Ouvert mud masque, the Children’s Masquerades. When Nursie came to fetch her for breakfast, Tan-Tan was tailor-sat on the floor in the dark, still in her Robber Queen costume, staring at the eshu screen and asking it questions from time to time. The eshu answered in a gentle voice. Nursie smiled and had the minder bring Tan-Tan’s breakfast to her on a tray.

  For two days straight Tan-Tan insisted on wearing her Robber Queen costume. She slept in it and all. Neither Ione nor Nursie could persuade her to change out of it. But she never called Antonio to thank him. Let him feel bad about boofing her on Jonkanoo Night.

  She missed the crêche, missed Crab-back Joey and Vashti, and the brightly coloured minders that would sing and play games of “Brown Girl in the Ring” and “Jane and Louisa” with them. No-one else would play with her, so she talked to the eshu. Not just for her lessons in maths and history and art, but for all the questions the grownups wouldn’t answer for her.

  “Why Daddy gone away, eshu?”

  “He mad at your mother and Quashee, young Mistress. Them shouldn’t have been hugging up behind Antonio back.”

  “He mad at me too?”

  The eshu said, “It look so, don’t it? Me can’t calculate no other reason for him to stay away from you. But Nanny say is classic jealousy behaviour, it don’t have to do with you. I tell you true, I don’t always understand people so good. Allyou does do things for different reasons than we. You certain you never do nothing to vex your father, young Mistress?”

  Tan-Tan thought back to the day her daddy had left; the time when she’d been playing Robber Queen in the julie-mango tree and talking back so breezily to Daddy. Like slugs squirming in salt, she felt her lips twisting into a sad bow. “Maybe because I ain’t stay up in the tree when he tell me?”

  “I not sure. Maybe is that, oui. ’Nuff respect, Mistress, but sometimes you hard ears, you know. You don’t always obey when adults talk to you.”

  “No,” Tan-Tan agreed in a small voice.

  “You want me to ask Antonio if is that why he vex?”

  “No! Don’t tell he nothing!” When she felt like this, Nursie told her she was acting too proud. But she couldn’t bear to let Daddy know how bad she was pining for him.

  “Seen,” agreed the eshu. It played a cartoon for her instead. Tan-Tan laughed at Brer Anansi, the cunning little man who could become a spider. Her heart eased for a time.

  Jonkanoo Season ended as Old Year’s Night came round. Tan-Tan heard Nursie and Cookie talking about how Ione had scandalized the crowd at the Cannes Brûlées Ball by showing up dressed off in black like a widow (“Except that widows ain’t supposed to show off they chest in all kinda see-through lace,” said Cookie), and hanging on to the arm of a young swaggerboy, even more dressed up than she. But eh-eh! And she married to the mayor!

  Tan-Tan had finally come to understand why her daddy wasn’t coming back: Ione had been bad, and Tan-Tan had been bad, and he didn’t want to be with them no more. He was disgusted at them. Sometimes Ione would get sad and drink too much red rum. Then she would bawl, and tell Tan-Tan how Antonio was a thoughtless, ungrateful man; look how he bring down all this scandal on he wife head! Sometimes Ione would say through tears, “But I miss he, child. Even with all he slackness and he plenty plenty women, I miss he too bad.”

  Tan-Tan heard Ben telling Cookie that “A man have him pride, you know! How you could expect him to live with a woman who horning he steady? And he the mayor too besides! You don’t see the man have to have some respect in he own house?”

  Tan-Tan didn’t understand all of that, it was big people story; all she knew was she wasn’t going to cry or complain, she was going to try to be real, real good so Daddy would come home again.

  Come Carnival time, Antonio called to tell her he would take her to the Children’s Masquerade, as he had every year now since she was four. She opened her mouth to say, yes Daddy, thank you, Daddy. So why was her mouth saying politely, “No thank you, Daddy. Mummy go take me”? Pride. Nursie was always telling she she too prideful. Daddy’s face fell.

  “All right, doux-doux,” he said sadly. “If is so you want it.”

  The words chilled Tan-Tan’s heart to a ball of ice in her chest. But she set her lips together and nodded solemnly at her daddy. When he had signed off, Tan-Tan whispered to the air, “Eshu? Come and play with me.” That day, whispering directions through her earbug, eshu directed Tan-Tan out to the fountain to examine the pale pink rockstones from Shak-Shak Bay. It showed her how to see the fossils trapped in some of the stones. It told her about the animals that used to live on Toussaint before human people came and made it their own.

  “You mean chicken and cow and so?”

  “No, Mistress. Them is from Earth. I mean the indigenous fauna: the mako jumbie-them, the douen. The jumbie bird allyou does farm for meat and leather is a genesculpt. Allyou grow it from the original stock. It didn’t used to be small so.”

  “Small! Eshu, jumbie bird does be big like cow, ain’t?”

  “The mako jumbie could eat a cow for breakfast and be hungry again come noon.” The eshu must have heard the small noise Tan-Tan made in her throat, for it said; “Don’t frighten, young Mistress. It ain’t have no more mako jumbie on Toussaint no more. You safe.”

  “And the douen? You said it had douen.”

  “Searching . . .” the eshu whispered quietly. Usually it could get information instantly from the web data banks. “I don’t know plenty about them, young Mistress,” it said finally. “Indigenous fauna, now extinct.”

  “Extinct?”

  “No longer in this existence.”

  “Why, eshu?”

  “To make Toussaint safe for people from the nation ships.”

  “Oh.”

  Tan-Tan saw Antonio on the broadcasts, opening Carnival season for another year. Watching him on the screen she felt a little sad and vex. At him, at herself. But eshu always knew how to help her feel better. And Ione was trying to be nice to Tan-Tan, in a kind of a way. She was forever buying her new toys, even though she wouldn’t play Robber Queen or any old-time story, for she didn’t like to “bother up sheself with stupidness.”

  Nursie was throwing word steady behind Ione’s back, whispering to Cookie and Ben that the mayor wife had bring all of this on she own head. Nursie took care that Ione never heard her, though. The eshu could hear, but it would only reveal private conversation if it judged the speakers meant harm to anyone. Simple badmouth didn’t warrant its attention.

  One day before the big Carnival parade, the eshu told Nursie that Ione wanted to see Tan-Tan. When they reached Ione’s dressing room, they found Ione with a seamstress lacing her tight into her riding leathers. Tan-Tan could never understand why her mother had riding leathers, when she didn’t even self have a horse. But she looked pretty in them.

  “Nursie,” Ione said, “ain’t the eshu tell you to get Tan-Tan ready?”

  “No, Compère. You know it does make mischief sometimes.”

  “Cho. Well, take she back and dress she up nice. I taking she to the fight yard to watch
the practice.”

  Tan-Tan could scarcely believe it. “For true, Mummy?” She had never seen the practice, just heard about it from Ben.

  Mummy looked down at her, smiling. “You would like that, eh doux-doux?”

  “Yes!”

  Ione held out her arms, gleaming strong and firm through the translucent white linen of her best pirate blouse. The seamstress looked appraisingly at the blouse. “I think is soon time you stop wearing that style, Compère,” she said. “’Nuff people see you inna this shirt plenty times already.”

  “Well, is you have the eye for these things, Annie,” replied Ione. “Tell me what you think.”

  “A new blouse. I go make you something pretty in lace.” She fastened the cuffs of the blouse.

  “I would be honoured to wear your creation, Compère.” Ione looked down at Tan-Tan.

  “I know you been asking your daddy to take you to the fight yard from since, and he never pay you no mind. Well he not here now. I going take you. Go and get dressed, doux-doux.”

  The fight yard! The place where challengers trained to fight in the Jour Ouvert morning duels on the first day of the Carnival parade. On Jour Ouvert morning, besides the street dancing, anybody who had a quarrel with someone could call their enemy out to fight. “Young Mistress,” said the eshu in her ear, “you understand the word ‘archaic’?”

  “No, what it mean?”

  “Old. Very old. When people does fight in a Jour Ouvert duel, them does fight in the old ways, with machète and bull pissle and stick and thing. All to remind them of their history, of times back on Earth. Them does even fight with hand and foot.”

  Nursie bustled Tan-Tan back to her room, chatting the whole time about the training at the fight yard:

  “Tan-Tan, if you see it! When me was young me did train to be a fighter, you know? Well, a dancer. Stick fight dance. The yard big so like a sugar cane field, but pack down flat all over; just dirt, no pavement. The chicle fetches does sweep the yard flat every morning. And the practice! Lord, it sweet for so! It have three kinds: stick fight, bare hand and machète. Your own labour, you understand? Body and mind working together to defeat an enemy, like old-time days. Woi, Nanny. A laying on of hands. Don’t mind people who tell you labour nasty. Some kinds is a blessing for true, a sacrament.” Nursie’s eyes got big-big, and she was waving her hands round in the air, trying to describe how the fighters-them looked.

  “Stick fight pretty to watch, you see? When the fighters and them does practice, and the stick fight marshall call out the steps, it come in just like a dance. Man and woman, everybody know they place, and even though you might think say them will lash each other by mistake, them does scarcely do it, you know?”

  “Bare hand is the type I really like; is that I used to play when I was young. Capoeira.”

  Click in Tan-Tan’s ear. “When you come back, young Mistress, I go tell you about capoeira.”

  Nursie said, “You know is fight you fighting when you could feel your opponent muscles sweaty beneath you hand. Mama, that is fight! It take skill! The bare hand marshall we got now does only train with two-three people at once, and she don’t make fun to make example of them. One time, I see she haul one big, hard-back man over she shoulder, and drop him boops! on the ground like a sack of cornmeal, just because she catch he giving a kidney blow. She don’t make joke, oui?”

  “Machète fight different, though; it ain’t a clean type of fighting. When them practice, the marshall make everybody wear the leather armour and use the wood blades. Even so, I see people get bruise-up bad in machète practice. I don’t like to watch the machète duels so much. One crazy motherass so-and-so only have to fetch you one chop for you to end up dead. Oh—excuse my language, doux-doux.”

  Tan-Tan couldn’t wait to see the fight yard with her own two eyes. She made haste to get dressed; she even laced up her aoutchicongs by herself, instead of begging Nursie to do it for her. By the time she reached the front yard, Ione was already waiting for her in a pedicab.

  “Hurry up, nuh, Tan-Tan?” Ione pulled her into the cab. She made sure Tan-Tan was settled, then tapped her foot on the floor of the cab for the runner to move off.

  Ione’s eyes were bright. She sat straight and tall in the cab, waved at passers-by on the long avenue, cut her eyes at the ones who scowled at the mayor’s cheating wife. Ione just smiled: Granny Nanny’s ears and eyes everywhere kept people’s actions to one another respectful. Ione was running her mouth off steady like water from a tap: “I so love to watch the practice. The fellers does look too nice, oui, with the sweat shining on their muscles, and them tiny dhoti them does wear like loincloth.”

  “Compère Ione,” came the runner’s deep voice. He glanced back at them over his shoulder. “Me bring one message for you. You will hear it?”

  “You? A message for me? From who?”

  “The Obi-Bé.” The witch woman. “She say must tell you to go where it have plenty people today, not to stay in your house and grieve for your man.”

  Ione smiled, a pleased look on her face. “And ain’t is that I doing?”

  “She say the shells tell she a former love making plans to change your life.”

  “Koo ya! Look at that now. I know say Quashee been practising in the fight yard since before Jonkanoo Time. I bet you he getting ready to call that blasted Antonio out to duel. It woulda serve Antonio right if Quahsee kill he dead! I spend too many nights crying over that man and he worthless ways!” Ione’s eyes were bright and shiny. Excitement or fear, Tan-Tan couldn’t tell.

  They were passing through the heart of Cockpit Town now. Tan-Tan took in the Carnival sights. The runner took them up Main Street, past the town square, where the big calypso tent was erecting itself with the aid of tiny, agile chicle fetches. Calypsonians had been touring all the cities and towns on Toussaint. They went from one calypso tent to the next, singing their best new kaisos, competing for the title of Road March Monarch. There was a billboard in front of the tent. Its message: “Woi, Mama; Is a Calypso Fight; Piquant for So Tomorrow Nite!” Behind the words flashed vids of the reigning Road March Monarchs, Mama Choonks and Ras’ Cudjoe-I. Piquant was a competition of skill and wit. The singers had to make up insults for one another in song, right there on the stage.

  “Mummy, Mama Choonks going to sing ‘Workee in the Parlour’ tomorrow night?”

  “Stop it, Tan-Tan; where you hear such rudeness? You musn’t mind wicked people with nothing better to do than fast themself in other people business.”

  Tan-Tan didn’t understand. More big people story. But she’d heard people in the house softly singing the chorus to “Workee”:

  This woman greedy for so, you see?

  One lover ain’t enough for she!

  She little bit, but she tallawah, oui!

  Tan-Tan didn’t understand all the words, but she liked the tune. Nursie had told her that “tallawah” meant somebody tough, somebody who could take hard knocks. Then she’d laughed a nasty laugh.

  Little bit down the road they passed the masquerade camp. From inside came one set of hammering and drilling and cussword flying like breeze.

  “You hear that?” Ione said. “Them building everything by hand, oui? The old-time way.” She shook her head in admiration.

  “Who, Mummy?”

  “Fimbar and Philomise. They making the costumes for Carnival Day. Send-off parade here in Cockpit County Jour Ouvert afternoon, then them have a mag-lev train to carry everybody to Liguanea Town for the big jump-up; all the bands from every parish in the county competing.

  “One big mako secret what theme them two men come up with for the float this year, oui? Even though everybody who jumping-up in the parade done pay for their costumes already.” Ione smiled. “Is so them does always do it. People fenneh for know what they going to be wearing; no way to tell.”

  “Their eshus wouldn’t tell them?”

  “Nah. Fimbar and Philomise have special dispensation to lock out data from the spider web till t
hey done.”

  The runner shouted: “You see them five hard-face men and women guarding all the entrances? Just for show, oui; the camp eshu give better security.”

  The only clue to the parade theme was a big banner across the front of the building with the words “Wail for Marley.”

  “Man,” the runner chuckled, “Fimbar and Philomise been life partners and business partners since God was a boy, oui? Two people, one mind.”

  Tan-Tan stared at the camp until they had passed it. The banner flapped in the breeze, slapping the side of the building.

  Finally the pedicab was at the fight yard all the way at the opposite edge of the town. While Ione was paying the cabbie, Tan-Tan jumped down and ran to the big wrought iron gates.

  It had an old man guarding the entrance, standing in between the two stone pillars on either side of the gates. His face was nothing but wrinkles. He had a red kerchief tied and knotted on his old bald head. He was wearing a dirty white singlet. A dhoti flapped loose round his skinny matches stick legs-them. He was holding a long wood staff, but his wrinkly brown arms were meager so till you couldn’t be sure what was staff and what was arms. He looked to Tan-Tan like a stick insect. She didn’t get to see too many people too old for telo rejuve.

  “Good afternoon, young lady,” he said to Tan-Tan in his shaky old-man voice. “Don’t you is the mayor little girl?”

  “Yes, mister.”

  “And is what I could do for you this fine day?” The old man smiled down at her. His teeth looked white and perfect and new.

  “Me and Mummy come to watch the practice, mister.”

  “Good afternoon, Bogle,” Ione said. “You keeping well?”

  “Yes, ma’am; thank you, ma’am. The hot sun does make the old bones feel young, oui? Like I could dance the stick fight again.” Bogle opened the gates so mother and daughter could pass inside. “Mind allyou stay on the yellow walkways, all right?”