Midnight Robber

by Nalo Hopkinson

  Like plenty people in Cockpit County, Quashee had a way to pass by the house in the evenings to pay his respects to Mayor Antonio and wife, Ione. Antonio had always felt say Quashee was really paying respects to their good red rum, but now he was wondering. Quashee and Ione? For true?

  And that is how the story start.

  • • •

  “Is a argot of she operating language, seen?” Maka’s voice was muffled through the filter he wore over nose and mouth. He inspected the beaker on the stove, frowned at it.

  “Nannysong? How you mean, ‘argot’? All this time me think say it is her operating language.” Antonio longed to take his own filter off, but Maka said the fumes could be harmful. He stayed close to the door, ready to run outside if it looked like the experiment was getting away from Maka. He touched the nearby wall of Maka’s house, still bemused at there being no eshu, at the way that runners chose to live inside dead material.

  Maka smiled. Laugh lines ran deep grooves beside his mouth, making his leonine features even more arresting. With one foot he hooked a stool closer to his worktable. Looked at it approvingly. “Is my cousin make this, you know? Work the wood with she own two hands. First one she make that ain’t give nobody splinters.”

  Labour. Back-break. Antonio grimaced at the memory of the calluses on Beata’s palms. “Me nah understand oonuh, but your way is your choice. Tell me about this creole then, nuh?”

  Maka sat on his cousin’s stool. In their terrarium on the worktable, mice scurried around. “When Nanny get create, she come in like a newborn adult; all the intelligence there, but no knowledge. You follow me?”

  “Hmm.”

  “She had was to learn, she had was to come to consciousness. Them days there, the programmers and them had write she protocols in Eleggua, seen—the code them invent to write programmes to create artificial intelligence?”

  “Yes, me know.” Old-time story. Antonio sipped at the rum he’d brought to share with the Obi-Bé’s son. He savoured its sweet burning at the back of his throat. Maka raised his own glass to him, threw back a swallow.

  The liquid on the burner was bubbling. Maka consulted the notes on the table beside him, written on stained, wrinkled sheets of the headblind paper that Antonio found so wondrous. Code that Nanny couldn’t automatically read!

  Maka turned down the heat, added another substance to the mix. “Well,” he continued, “something start to go wrong. It get to where the programmers would ask Nanny a question, and she would spew back mako blocks of pure gibberish. Them think say the quantum brain get corrupt. Them prepare to wipe it and start over.”

  “Them kill Granny Nanny?” The thought was obscene.

  “Nearly. But she save she own self. Is Marryshow she break through to first. You know he was a calypsonian, yes? Just trying a thing, he run the Nanny messages through a sound filter; tonal instead of text-based, understand? The day them was set to wipe she memory, Nanny start to sing to Marryshow. She brain didn’t spoil, it just get too complex for Eleggua to translate the concepts she was understanding no more; after Nanny was seeing things in all dimensions—how a simple four-dimensional programming code would continue to do she? So she had develop she own language.”

  “Nannysong.”

  “Nah. If you was to transpose nannycode to the tonal, humans couldn’t perceive more than one-tenth of the notes, seen? Them does happen at frequencies we can’t even map. Nanny create a version we could access with we own senses. Nannysong is only a hundred and twenty-seven tones, and she does only sing basic phrases to we; numbers and simple stock sentences and so.”

  “Like the proverbs she used to sing to we in crêche.”

  “Seen. Same way so.” Maka read in his notes again, took the beaker off the burner.

  “So is what I hear allyou runners doing? When you turn off Nanny?”

  “Not turn we turning she off. Not possible. We just know more nannysong than the rest of oonuh, we more fluent, seen? If you sing the right songs, so long as Nanny don’t see no harm to life nor limb, she will lock out all but she overruling protocols for a little space.”

  “Rasscloth,” Antonio breathed in amazement.

  Maka laughed. “Nice thing to know, eh? And we learning little more nannysong every day. We could ask she to do things nobody else could even think of.”

  “And how come allyou runners know all this?”

  “Is who you think we descend from? We was programmer clan.” Maka pulled the filter off his face, used a dropper to suck up some of the paste from the beaker.

  “What, it ready?” asked Antonio. His heart started a pan jam beat. He stepped closer to the worktable. Took his own filter off.

  “Me think so. If me understand the old knowledge right. If me follow the instructions right. Making casareep juice for pepperpot stew is one thing, but me ain’t know about this woorari. Me tell you straight, Compère, this herb science I teaching myself is a ancient skill for true.” He stuck a hand into the terrarium, pulled out a kicking mouse. He dropped it into the deep pan of a nearby scale, weighed it. Consulted his notes. Picked the mouse up again. Forced its muzzle open. Squeezed a measured drop of the woorari onto its tongue. The mouse struggled and worked its mouth, foam forming on its snout. Maka put it down on the table. It ran a short distance, then flopped to the ground and lay still. Maka inspected it. “Good. Still breathing.” He looked at Antonio and smiled.

  • • •

  Come Jour Ouvert morning, Tan-Tan was afraid to even self get out of bed. She had asked her mother the rules of the fight over and over till Ione got fed up and refused to repeat them any more. Tan-Tan knew the rules in her own head by now. As she opened her eyes she started to recite them like a mantra. Daddy would be all right.

  “Young Mistress,” said eshu softly. “Ione say is time to get up now. She say to clean your teeth and take a shower, then put on your best frock, the white one with the sailor collar.”

  Tan-Tan got out of bed. She went outside through the bedroom doors that led to the back verandah. The morning was looking dreary, oui. Papa Sun was hiding his face behind one big mako cloud. Rainflies flitted everywhere, dancing on their wings in anticipation of a wetting. Tan-Tan went to her bathroom, washed herself and brushed her teeth. She reached into her closet for the white dress with the blue-piped collar, but her hand touched her Robber Queen outfit instead. She put it on. It covered up some of her scared feelings.

  Nursie bustled into the room, carrying combs, ribbons and fragrant coconut oil for Tan-Tan’s hair. “No, child. Put on the white dress, you ain’t hear what your mother say?”

  “I wearing this.”

  “Tan-Tan . . .”

  “Mistress say is okay,” chimed the eshu out loud. It confused Tan-Tan. She hadn’t had any message from her mother.

  Nursie sighed with exasperation. “Let me just get some red ribbons then. These blue ones not going to match.”

  Nursie oiled and parted Tan-Tan’s hair, wove it into plaits, then rubbed some of the coconut oil into her elbows and knees so they wouldn’t be ashy. “My pretty little girl.” She kissed the top of Tan-Tan’s head and took her to have breakfast with Ione.

  Tan-Tan’s mother was sitting at the table, staring off into the distance. “Oh, you prefer to wear that instead, doux-doux?” she said absent-mindedly. “All right.”

  Nursie narrowed her eyes. “Compère, eshu tell me that you give permission for Tan-Tan to wear this.”

  It was a second before Ione replied. “Eh? No, but is all right.” With a sigh she got to her feet and pulled out a chair for Tan-Tan. “Just ask Ben if he will please do a synapse wash on the eshu, nuh? It must be past time.” She stood and patted Tan-Tan’s shoulder, a little too hard. She smiled nervously, muttered at the air, “Eshu, we ready to eat.”

  Mummy was wearing a beautiful white dress that left her shoulders bare. It had puffy sleeves and a deep flounce from knee to ankle. Tan-Tan thought Ione was the most beautiful woman in the whole world.

  A chicl
e fetch slid into the room, loaded with covered trays. Ione took them and put them on the table. Bammy bread and saltfish with cabbage and thyme. “Oh, what a creation! Eshu, thank Cookie for we, please.”

  But Ione only nibbled at breakfast. She kept asking Tan-Tan if she looked okay, kept checking her hand mirror all the time.

  Outside, the threatened passing shower broke. Drops pounded like fists at the windows and thunder shouted at lightning.

  As soon as the meal was over, Ione had the eshu make a full-sized mirror on the nearest wall. She put a colourdot from her purse onto one lip, then pressed both lips together. Her lips flushed with her favourite oxblood burgundy.

  The eshu said out loud, “The limousine waiting, Mistress.”

  “Oh God,” Ione whispered. “Time to go.” She hugged Tan-Tan to her, a little too hard. “Don’t fret eh, doux-doux? One way or another, it go work out all right.” Silently Tan-Tan repeated the rules of the duel to herself. They bustled out into the front yard.

  The shower was over. Tiny so like babies’ fingernails, transparent rainfly wings were everywhere, held pasted in place by drops of water. Outside twinkled. Flightless as ants now, the rainflies were crawling off to wherever they went after a downpour. The sun had come out, was burning down full. Registering the way Tan-Tan’s pupils contracted against the glare, the nanomites swimming in the vitreous humour of her eyes polarised, dimming the light for her.

  Plang-palang! Plang-palang! Cockpit County was in the full throes of Jour Ouvert morning revelry. People beat out their own dancing rhythms with bottle and spoon, tin-pan and stick. What a racket! Bodies danced everywhere: bodies smeared with mud; men’s bodies in women’s underwear; women wearing men’s shirt-jacs and boxers; naked bodies. They pressed against the car, pressed against one another, ground and wound their hips in the ecstatic license of Carnival. Someone grinned into the limo at Tan-Tan and Mummy. The woman had temporarily cell-sculpted her skin to be Afro on one side, Euro on the other. The Euro side was already sunburnt. She licked the length of the window with her tongue, which had been pierced with a star-shaped platinum nugget. The metal scraped against the window glass.

  The limo crept along, slow as a chinny worm. A mako jumbie strode through the crowd, picking his way on his tall stilts. His tattered motley had been made into pants that clothed the stilts all the way to the ground. His chest was bare and he’d tied a long, pointy beak onto his face.

  A Robber King stepped into the road in front of them, brandishing pistols almost as long as he was tall. He blew a shrieking whistle that brought to a halt the comess and carrying-on all around him. A circle of space cleared for him. People called out to him cheerfully and drew closer to see what he would do. The limousine braked, tried to go round the man. He stepped into their path again. Ione sighed. “Let he give he speech,” she told the car.

  Tan-Tan could have lain comfortably under the expanse of the Robber’s hat. It had small white skulls bobbing all round its brim. The skulls’ lower jaws yammered, but it was too loud in the street to hear if they were saying anything. The Robber’s black and red outfit was the essence of Robber King style: bandoliers, holsters, chaps, alligator skin boots with enormous spurs. For a second, Tan-Tan felt the old fear: had he come to take her away for being bad?

  The Robber gestured with his guns, spat his whistle from his mouth and broke into the nonsensible rant he had written especially for this day. “Arrest thou compunctively, embroilèd despoilers. Dip and fall back, and hear my sultry cry.” He turned his head towards the car as he spoke, and it was as though he were sitting right beside them. He must have been wearing a pointmike. Tan-Tan leaned forward to get every word of his speech. Maybe she could pick up some new ones for hers.

  “My seraphic dam was a very queen of Egypt; mine pater its monarchical magnate, and I, a son of the sun, a coddled cocotte in my child’s robes of ermine and cloth-of-gold. Who would curdle my kingly boy’s joy, who mash me down and steal me away like jacks from a ball?”

  And so it went: the classic tale, much embroidered over the centuries, mirrored the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, an African noble’s son stolen into slavery on seventeenth-century Earth. The Robber Kings’ stream-of-consciousness speeches always told of escaping the horrors of slavery and making their way into brigandry as a way of surviving in the new and terrible white devils’ land in which they’d found themselves.

  “. . . and then,” the Robber went on, “I wrestle the warptenned flying ship from the ensorcelled dungmaster, the master plan blaster in his silver-fendered stratocaster with wings of phoenix flame, and I . . .”

  Ione opened the window, stuck her hand out. “Here,” she called to the Robber. “Take this, and make we move on.” She held out money in her hand.

  He was supposed to stop when offered payment, but he wouldn’t reach for it. “Avaunt!” he shouted. “Get thee behind me, horny horning whore of Babylon!” Someone in the crowd giggled. “Thine gelt shall not tempt me, too wise am I to be clasped by your thighs.”

  “Take it,” Ione growled. “Is fight yard we going, you hear me?”

  Fight yard. Fight yard . . . was whispered through the crowd. “Robber man,” someone yelled, “take she blasted money and let she get through. She going to see she husband duel.”

  Ione threw the coin. The Robber leapt, swept off his hat, bent on one knee to catch the coin between his teeth and came up smiling. Tan-Tan clapped her hands and whistled to salute him. “Shut up, pickney,” Ione snapped. Tan-Tan pouted and slouched back against the seat.

  The Robber stepped back to let them through, bowed and flourished his hat as they passed. The ring-bang ruction and the dancing started up round them again.

  They reached the fight yard to find Quashee standing in the machète circle already, looking stiff and serious in his leather armour gleaming with jumbie oil, and holding his helmet under his arm. Ione made to wave to him, but pulled her hand back before the gesture was finished. She sucked in her bottom lip and hurried with Tan-Tan to a seat. Some people glared at her, some smiled. An old, white-haired woman with a cane made the kiss-teeth sound of disgust and leaned over to whisper with her companions, another old woman and an old man.

  The fight yard had been rearranged to accommodate the only activity it would feature today: the duelling circle. The circle dominated the whole yard. It had rows of benches erected all round. Spectators sat on one side, everybody dressed to puss-foot, everybody excited. The duelling parties sat in two separate boxes on the other. A team of medics sat beside the fighters in one box, a stretcher propped up nearby. Higglers moved through the crowd of watchers, shouting, “Roast peanut? Topi-tambo? Chataigne? Who going buy my fresh roast peanut?”

  Tan-Tan craned her neck, trying to see the fighters better. “Mummy, is where Daddy there?” Tan-Tan asked.

  “I don’t know, darling. I don’t see he. Mama Nanny, tell me that after all this fret I fret, the blasted man not going to just forfeit.”

  The fighters were all dressed differently, according to their fighting style: some armoured like Quashee; some in leotards; some in dhotis with bare chests or bubby-bands. They all looked jittery.

  Daddy finally came striding out from the change rooms. Ben the gardener was running in front as squire, carrying Antonio’s helmet and machète.

  Quashee ain’t have a squire.

  The crowd went silent. Daddy walked into that ring tall and proud. You could tell he wasn’t ’fraid nobody. Tan-Tan’s heart was thumping like drums.

  She had never seen Daddy look so fine as this day. His leather armour was all in black with silver joints for the elbow and knee. His matching black leather helmet had a silver mouth guard. His machète was sharp so till it caught the little bit of sunshine that had graced the day and flung the light into Tan-Tan’s eyes, sharp like a razor cut.

  Tan-Tan could see the fear-sweat already on Quashee’s brow.

  Quashee and Antonio stood opposite each other. The machète marshall examined both their armo
ur, ran a black box over their bodies. “Mummy, what he doing?”

  A woman beside them answered. “He checking to make sure them ain’t using electronic fields to protect themself.”

  “Granny Nanny,” the marshall chanted in nannysong to the air, “let the record show: the combattants dress fair to fight fair.” His enhanced voice echoed. He put a hand on either man’s forearm and switched to patwa. “Gentlemen, I want you to inform the crowd who issue this machète challenge this Jour Ouvert morning.”

  “Is me, Marshall. Antonio, mayor of Cockpit County, against Quashee, the man who take away me wife honour from me.”

  Somebody muttered, “Eh-eh. Like her honour is yours to have or lose.”

  Mummy shot a quick glare at the man, her lips set hard together. He returned her gaze sheepishly, shrugged. Mummy looked back at the ring.

  The marshall boomed, “Quashee, you accept the challenge?”

  “Yes, Marshall.” His voice trembled a little.

  The marshall nodded and looked up at the stands. “People, listen good, for though Granny Nanny hearing we, you is the human eyes of the law this morning. This fight must go according to these rules:”

  Tan-Tan whispered the rules along with the marshall.

  “Them could only use bare machète, no other weapon or device.

  “Them could wear leather armour for protection.

  “If the fight going fair, nobody must interfere.

  “The thing must continue until one of them beg mercy or can’t fight no more.

  “The winner shouldn’t kill, but should show mercy.

  “Them is the rules. Allyou go be witness?”

  “Yes, Marshall,” the crowd yelled back. As the marshall turned and walked to safety at the edge of the ring, Tan-Tan could hear the excited voices of people all around her: