*Do what for the baby?*
All she tried, Tan-Tan hadn’t really been able to make Abitefa understand. Easy for her. When Tefa came of eggbearing age, if she couldn’t or wouldn’t look after one of her own pickney, her chosen nestmates would, or another nest. “Take it away from me. You go help me?”
*I can’t go. You shouldn’t go neither. You hear what Daddy say.*
Tan-Tan hauled herself up onto a younger, narrower daddy tree branch and lay there puffing. The monster child was taking away her wind and all.
“Abitefa, I tell you true, if I don’t lost this baby, I go kill myself.” Abitefa looked at her, feathers puffed out in alarm. “So,” Tan-Tan asked her again, “you go help me, or what?”
When Abitefa said her reluctant *yes,* is like a weight lifted off Tan-Tan’s chest. She laughed out loud, ignoring the douen pickneys wheeling through the branches around them. “Oh, Tefa, you is a real friend, you hear?”
They didn’t waste any time, oui. Next morning self, barely dayclean, the two of them were down in the bush. *Sorry I can’t fly yet,* Abitefa said. *Else I coulda carry you.*
They took the regular path. Abitefa led the way and Tan-Tan clambered after her, prodding the ground ahead of her with a stick as she went. Like everything in douen territory, the path grew over quickly. Ground puppies sprang out and snapped at Tan-Tan; dead branches reached up and jooked her calves; grit flies pestered her; a manicou shat on her head from a tree above. But Abitefa? Grace covered her like a blanket. Nothing could touch her. She saw branches before they snagged her skin, dodged the ground puppies-them before they could land. The trip was pure cool breeze to Abitefa. Two-three times Tan-Tan nearly said, “Let we turn back,” but the nausea was burning in her belly like acid this morning, driving her to her purpose. They pressed on. Every few minutes, Tan-Tan felt for the gold ring she had knotted into a corner of the dhoti she was wearing. Antonio’s wedding band. The one he had give her for her ninth birthday. All those years of wearing it, and every time her hand had brushed it, it had propelled her back to that birthday night, to Antonio touching her, hurting her, to the smell of liquor on his breath. She had taken it on its leather thong off her neck the second day in the daddy tree. She could use it to buy herself freedom from the monster child. Bad Tan-Tan within accused her of being ungrateful. She kept hiking doggedly along the overgrown path.
The pink sun rose, shooting the occasional beam of light through the sombre bush. With it came the heat. At least that sent the grit flies away. They walked another hour or two, stopping twice for Tan-Tan to lose her breakfast. They stopped beside a tree, a weed compared to the daddy tree.
*Walk through there so,* Abitefa hissed, pointing. *You reach.*
Tan-Tan couldn’t see anything but more bush.
*Little more and you go be there. I go wait in this tree.* Abitefa nicked the bark with her claws in a particular pattern to help Tan-Tan find her again. She climbed up into the tree. *Be careful,* she trilled.
“Yes, man.” Tan-Tan took a minute to untie her dhoti and wrap it into a sarong round her hips. She patted at the knot that concealed the ring. Then she set off the rest of the way. So long now she hadn’t seen people! Once she traded the ring, maybe she would have enough money left over after seeing the doctor to get some real food. Her mouth sprang water at the thought of stewed gully hen with yam and dumplings and sweet, red sorrel drink to wash it down. Her belly rebelled, though. She had to stop once more to spew.
A few minutes later the trees started to thin out. Then it had low bush, then some picky-picky brown grass trying to grow in the hard earth under the hot sun. Beyond that it had a cornfield. The feathery spikes were brown for lack of water. It look like nothing grew easy in this place. Nobody was working the corn for it was day hot. So she got through without anybody seeing her.
Her heart started to pound when she got out of the cornfield. To see people again! A dirt track led off to her right. She followed it to where it stopped a little farther on, making a T junction with a cobble street that ran off perpendicular to it. On the street to her right were two-three broken-down farmhouses in a row. To her left the cobble street meandered into the distance, probably leading into the town. Tan-Tan checked out the farmhouses again. The two goats tied up in the yard of the closest one scarcely raised their heads to look at her.
A woman came out from round the side of the house. Tan-Tan started, looked round for somewhere to hide; then checked herself. This is what she’d come for.
The woman swayed with the weight of a bucket balanced on her head. She spied Tan-Tan, stopped and watched at her. It was too far to discern her expression, but for a little bit Tan-Tan just stood and stared at the strangeness of her; her round face with neither beak nor snout, her two legs-them that bent to the front not the back. She would use them to walk, not hop. It came in strange to Tan-Tan. She felt her own body beginning to remember that it was human not douen, that her feet-them were made to walk on ground, not climb through trees. She smiled at the woman. “Morning, Compère,” she called out.
The woman just turned away and headed off for the compost heap with her slop bucket. What for do, eh? Some people just ain’t have manners. Tan-Tan shrugged and headed down the cobble street, looking for the town proper.
The street was lined with run-down wattle-and-daub houses, stink from the reek of the goat dung that formed their plaster. The front stairs to one bungalow had rotted away completely. Somebody had put a piece of warped board over the crumbling wood to make a ramp. A little farther on it had one mako midden heap, everything in it from a mashed-up baby cradle to rotting entrails, rank in the sun. Tan-Tan could hear the flies buzzing round it. A goat was standing on top of it, ripping and eating the leaves out of an antique paper book. The sight was shocking. Who had thrown away knowledge like that?
Eyes malice-bright, the goat watched her go by, twitching its ears to keep off the flies. It wrinkled up its nose like if is she who smelt bad.
In the front yard of the house after the midden heap it had a scruffy man digging in a half-dead kitchen garden. Tan-Tan patted the knot that hid her ring. She went to greet him. Like all the rest, his house was small and lopsided. Something had been split or maybe spewed against one of the mud-coloured walls; the dried residue was orange-yellow and looked gritty. Bits of it were flaking off into the pack earth. Half the steps up to the house had fallen away. It had a mangy, meager dog tied up in front with a piece of knotty rope. The dog start to bark when it saw her; a wheezy, resentful yipping.
“Morning!” Tan-Tan called out in a cheerful voice.
The man straightened up, stretched out his back, and looked at her. His eyes got wide. He cracked a big grin. Three of his front teeth were missing. His mouth looked just like his own front steps. His hair was snarled and matty-matty.
The dog was still barking. He went over to it and gave the rope round its neck a vicious yank. “Shut up!” The dog yelped and crouched down low on the ground. It stopped its noise.
The man flashed Tan-Tan a next gap-tooth grin and pulled up his pants that had been riding so low on his hips she’d seen the beginning of pubic hair peeking out above the waistband. “Ah,” he sighed. “What a way morning time bring me a piece of sweetness to grace my yard today.”
He was ugly like jackass behind, but she had to ask someone where to find the doctor. Tan-Tan remembered tallpeople ways. Bad Tan-Tan put on her coyest smile. “Morning, mister,” she cooed. “I lost, you know? Ain’t this is the way to the doctor?”
The man scratched his head, popped something between his fingers. “Like you new to Chigger Bite, doux-doux?”
Naturally the place would name after a parasite, Tan-Tan thought sarcastically. But she just giggled and played with her hair. “Yes, mister. I just visiting from over the way,” she said, pointing vaguely out beyond the opposite side of the village.
“Oh. From Wait-A-Bit?”
Wait-A-Bit. Must be the name of the next settlement. “Ee-hee,” she agreed. �
��And what you name, mister?”
The man stood to attention. He pulled down the shirt hem that had crept up over his paunch to expose a belly soft like a mound of mud; a bloated paunch on a meager man. He accidentally released the hoe handle; grabbed for it; it flew back and rapped him on the ear. Tan-Tan had to bite her lips to keep from laughing.
“Me?” the man said, rubbing the banged ear ruefully. “I name Alyosius. Alyosius Pereira. Al for short. And you, my girl, you must be name Beauty to match your nature, for I can’t tell when last I see anything so pretty as you.”
To Tan-Tan’s surprise, the look in Al’s eyes was warm and genuine. But what a way the man fool-fool! Her smile faded. She asked again:
“Is which part the doctor stay?”
“Make I take you, sweetness. I go give you the tour of Chigger Bite.” He leaned his hoe up against the side of the house, beckoned her to follow. Up close, he smelt of days-old sweat and rotten teeth. Tan-Tan fell in beside him, taking shallow breaths. They started off down the cobble road again.
“Chigger Bite Village,” Al said in a sunny voice, “is the nastiest, meanest of all the exile settlements on New Half-Way Tree, oui? In Chigger Bite, is every man and woman for themself.”
They passed a next flyblown midden heap. Al smelt sweet in comparison. He nodded in its direction: “Say you have a goat; a smelly, mangy goat, thin so till you swear you could see the sun shining through it flanks, but still, it does give milk when it have a mind to, when you could catch it before it bite you. Now, say a next feller put him eye ’pon your goat for some nice goat curry for him dinner; well then you best watch your back, oui? You could be walking your goat down the dirt trail to river bank good-good to get her some water, minding your own business, when next thing you know, one machète stroke chop the rope you leading your meager goat by, and if you make fast and try and stop the feller from running off with your property, well. Half hour later, them could find your carcass facedown in the river, fouling the water with the blood running from the slash in your throat.”
Tan-Tan stared at him. Al just pointed to a house they were passing, even dirtier than his own. A woman was hanging up raggedy laundry to dry on a line strung from the house to a dried-up lime tree nearby. Two snotty-nose pickney no older than two years were hanging on to her dress hem. One of them picked up a twig and threw it in the direction of Al and Tan-Tan, but the little arm didn’t have plenty power. The twig dropped to the ground right in front of the pickney’s foot. Without even self looking, the mother slapped it across its head. The pickney didn’t seem to notice.
Al continued with his story. “And it ain’t have nobody who would feel sorry for you, oui? Once you dead, your woman go praise God that it have one day in this land she ain’t have to slave for no man. Only one day, for you know that tomorrow some next man who couldn’t find a woman before this go be sniffing round she skirts. Your pickney-them go run wild, for now it ain’t have nobody to lash them and stripe their legs with no greenstick switch. And friend? Nobody in Chigger Bite have any friends. It only have two kind of people: them who would like to kill you on sight, and them who can’t be bothered with you.”
Tan-Tan decided she’d better get to her business and get the rass out of this place. “Al? Is which part the doctor living?”
He stopped and looked her up and down, drinking her in like a thirsty man guzzling water. “Oh, sweetheart, you look too strong and healthy to need medicine. If I was a different man, maybe you and me could be medicine for each other, oui.” He brushed her shoulder with his hand.
Tan-Tan yanked away. She pulled in a breath, hard, then a next one. Antonio tear off she underclothes with one hand. He shove into she with a grunt. She made a noise like the chick seeing the mongoose.
Alyosius looked confused. “Is what do you, doux-doux?”
Tan-Tan snapped back into the world. “Nothing . . . nothing, Al. I just need to find a—”
“Alyosius? Alyosius Pereira! All this time I calling you, you lazy so-and-so, and you ain’t answer me, ain’t even prekkay ’pon me. Is what possess you to leave the gardening and gone traipsing down the road, eh? I give you permission to go chasing skirt? Eh? Ain’t I tell you to tie up all the bodie bean-them?”
The old woman waddling down the path after them could have doubled as a mountain in her spare time. Her dirty calico dress didn’t quite manage to contain the masses of her breasts. They pushed out of her bodice like dough rising. Her belly rolls swayed from side to side as she hustled towards them. Her jowls wobbled. Someone was keeping this woman well fed, oui. Under a raggedy piece of head wrap, sweat was beading down her forehead, bathing her face in salt. She was waving a switch at Al.
“Mamee!” Alyosius said. He shrank closer to Tan-Tan. All of a sudden, he seemed to her like a small boy. “I wasn’t going far, Mamee, just showing the young lady to she destination.”
Al’s mother glared at Tan-Tan. Her face went dark with anger. “You business with any woman? Eh? Any woman go want you? Sweat-stink, big belly, no-tooth excuse for a man? Who go want you, eh? Just a tramp like this!” The woman slapped her switch down on the ground right by Tan-Tan’s foot. Tan-Tan jumped. The woman cut the switch against Al’s calf. He howled, danced out of range. She followed, slicing at his legs, hissing, “Is woman you want, eh? Tramp? Leggobeast? Bitch in heat? Eh? I go show you heat. I go heat up your behind for you with this switch!”
A crowd of grimy, run-down Chigger Bite people had gathered round to watch the show. Somebody shouted out, “But eh-eh, Alyosius; how you could dance so?”
Antonio unbuckled his heavy leather belt and pulled it out from his pants. He doubled it up in his hand and cracked it against Tan-Tan’s shins. The pain nearly made her faint.
Something in Tan-Tan broke loose, howling. Her skin felt hot. She pushed Alyosius to one side, grabbed the switch from his surprised mother and fetched her one slice swips on her leg.
“You like how that feel? (Swips) Eh? You think he like it any better? (Swips) Eh?”
The woman was only twitching heavily away from the blows, crying, “Have mercy, lady, what you doing! Allyou stop she nuh!” Somebody in the crowd sniggered. Tan-Tan didn’t let it distract her. Is like a spirit take her. A vengeance had come upon her, it was shining out from her eyes strong as justice. Not one of them would dare try and prevent her. She whipped the woman’s legs, she whipped them. She made the bitch prance. She knew how it felt to dance like that. She knew how it felt to cry out so, to beg mercy and get none. So the woman wailed, so Tan-Tan licked her. So she begged, so Tan-Tan cut her. Alyosius was hovering about them, asking her to stop, to have mercy. Nobody had had mercy on her. She yanked the switch out of his reach when he grabbed for it.
The woman bawled out, “Lord Mistress, don’t do me so! Please, don’t hit me no more!”
Please Daddy, don’t hit me no more.
Just so, the anger left Tan-Tan. She lowered the switch and stood there, breathing hard. Alyosius snatched it out of her grasp and threw it out of her reach. He ran to his mother, wrapped his two arms round her. “Is all right, Mamee, is all right. I sorry, Mamee. Come, I go take you home. I go put healing oil on it for you, eh? And it go stop hurting. Don’t cry, Mamee. Come.” The woman leaned on him, whining about the welts that were rising on her legs.
Al cut his eyes at Tan-Tan. “Best find your meddling behind somewhere else, oui? Before my blood rise.”
He left with his mother, cooing soothing noises at her.
How could he stand to touch that woman? How could he love her when she hurt him like that?
“How you could . . .” She was, somebody was speaking out loud. Words welled up in the somebody’s mouth like water. Somebody spoke her words the way the Carnival Robber Kings wove their tales, talking as much nonsense as sense, fancy words spinning out from their mouths like thread from a spider’s behind: silken shit as strong as story. Somebody’s words uttered forth from Tan-Tan’s tongue:
“Stop and stand forth, O Jack Spra
t and his fat, fat, fat mother,” said the Robber Queen.
Alyosius and his mother stopped, turned to hear the Carnival Monarch. People in the crowd started to grin again.
“Woman, what a way your son lean; lean ’pon you, lean because of you, inclined to be a mama-man for love, for lovie-dove. What a way your son love you, like two cooing doves in a cote. I go coat my throat with words of wisdom; come, and pay me heed.”
“But she mad!” Al’s mother whispered loudly. She took Al’s hand and started to pull him away. The Robber Queen leapt in front of them, held up an imperious hand:
“Nay, stay, knaves and pay me mind. I shamed to be of your kind, oui? You treat he worse than dog, yet he love you like hog love mud. My father was a king, and my mother was he queen. Them carry me in chariots that float on air to take me anywhere, from my silken boudoir to my jasmine-circled pagoda. Them give me invisible servants to do my every bidding, and even with all that, I never feel a love like this man just show for this woman he mother. Compère, don’t wear it out.”
A wondering smile was wavering on Al’s face.
“Yes, Compère,” the woman said, backing away like you does do from mad dog. “Sometimes my temper does run away with me, you know? That is all.”
The woman-of-words, the Robber Queen, stared at the woman long. “Me tell you, don’t hurt your son no more. Me will know. Me, Tan-Tan, the Robber Queen.”
Mother and son made haste down the road.
She was back in her body. The somebody had gone. Tan-Tan felt weary. In a small voice she said to the crowd, “Please, it have a doctor in this place?”
They backed away. “No,” somebody muttered.
“Mad like France,” said another.
“No? So is where Al was taking me?”
“For a ride, oui? Me nah know. It ain’t have no doctor. If we sicken, we does dead, that is all.”
No doctor. No-one to take the parasite out of her. Tan-Tan spat on the ground. She turned on her heel and strode away. She could feel their eyes on her.
Midnight Robber Page 24
