The Book of Night Women

by Marlon James

  Now Massa Humphrey different from him father who lose himself in war, or him mother who have to make do. Massa Humphrey learn to love Montpelier and that was no easy thing. For it take some time to get season by this weather. And some of the white people too hoity-toity, thinking that they can beat the West Indian sun and still wear wool when they feel like. But sooner or later this place burn the England out of an England man. Some people, like the redcoat soldiers, fight and fight and not even see that they lose from the day they dock in Montego Bay. That is England a man scratching out when him balls itch, that is England he spitting out whenever tobacco juice leave him mouth. Plenty week pass before Massa Humphrey even talk to anybody besides Robert Quinn, who then talk to everybody else. The slave-drivers didn’t like that at all. Sooner take Jesus for a sodomite than take me orders from a potato eater, one of the slave-driver say as he and a few put distance between themself and Montpelier.

  But two and a half months of Homer cooking lead Massa Humphrey to start ask what feast she preparing tomorrow. Massa Humphrey don’t have to cross him leg when he sit out on the terrace. He light him pipe at any hour. The man break wind whenever he ready, scratch whichever part he choose and love how the heat always give him excuse to take off him clothes. Negro girls learn to blush like white woman and turn away, but truth be telling he never did too hard to look at. Him wild and curly hair get wilder and curlier. He taller than him father and him shoulders strapping and jaw strong. This massa eye did hide all sorts of mischief in sea blue and as said before, when he drop he breeches the sight never did too hard to look at.

  The colony can change a man if he willing and there be things he can do here that he can’t do nowhere else. Regard this, coming to a land where a man can seduce, rape or sodomise any niggerwoman or boy or girl he wish and there be nothing that nobody goin’ do, for every other white man be doing the same. Picture the one place in the world where God don’t judge the quick and the dead and they free to do as they please. Some white man jaw drop with outrage but sooner or later a black apple pass by and they can’t resist. Negro get to understand that white man body in bondage in the mother country and when they come to the West Indies, the cocky be the first thing they set free. Negro take heed of the case of William Clarke, who rape and strangle five negro girl but nobody arrest until he kill Worthy Park Estate most expensive slave and get lock up for destroying property, not murder. But that don’t stop the white man. As for the white woman, she can only turn her eye and sip tea.

  —I haven’t borne witness to so much sin since Venice, Massa Humphrey say to Robert Quinn one morning at the dining-room table when only he and Quinn taking breakfast and Homer serving tea.

  —And you were raised in this Gomorrah, Robby?

  —Aye. As ye were, stop with yer lying now.

  —Robert, I left the colony at age eight, you left at what, seventeen? So I beg to differ. And what sort of mischief does a randy lad of seventeen get into?

  Robert Quinn laugh, but see Homer looking at him and quiet down. As she leave the room, both man burst into a loud dirty laugh.

  —I swear, the old hag thinks she runs this estate, Massa Humphrey say.

  —She probably does, I’ll wager.

  —You’d wager your poor mum’s arse if you could. I tell you this, though. Even back when I was a young pup, she was already old.

  Soon June heat was ’pon Montpelier and Massa Humphrey mother ask ’bout the season and if he not going back to England to commence courting for a wife. He say no lady of good breeding would want a rogue like him, who been living far from the motherland nigh on half a year. Him mother make he swear to not even think about marrying a Creole woman. I’d see you with a Jewess first, she say.

  Massa Humphrey soon displeased with how the negrowomens skinny. He don’t want nobody to think that Montpelier can’t afford to feed they slaves so he give instructions to fatten them up. That be the first time plenty negro ever taste meat. Robert Quinn say to him that everybody seem to think that it was nothing for Montpelier to replace a dead slave with a fresh one so nobody bothered much with keeping slaves healthy. Quinn take out two book and show Massa Humphrey how much money waste because Wilkins and the slave-drivers was just plain wicked to nigger. So Massa Humphrey order new kind of food to fatten the niggers up.

  A few months after Homer put her there Lilith forget how she get to the great house and say, I be different from them nigger bitches. Me smarter and prettier and me tired of the damn cellar.

  —What a mouth ’pon you, you think it goin’ save you from the Johnny-jumpers? Homer say.

  After that Lilith shut her mouth and she still. She stop puff her chest out and turn her eye away. Lilith quiet herself and don’t give no trouble when Homer tell her to sort out the cellar and not come up unless told to. Homer remind her that thanks to her no negro safe when they leave the house for the Johnny-jumper taking set on anybody. Lilith know the other niggers don’t like her. They know she have something to do with the missing Paris and that the Johnny-jumpers lay waiting any of them. War broke out between Johnny-jumper and house slave unawares to everybody but them. Whenever a house slave have to go further than the flower house, they always travel in two or three and one of the three was either Homer or Pallas. The Johnny-jumper when they see them would raise alarm but they wasn’t goin’ cross Homer or Pallas, since rumour be that Pallas was allow to carry musket and Homer was capable of any mischief. Johnny-jumper wasn’t safe neither. One day a young one not much older than Paris grab Homer by the hair when she walk past. She point two finger at him eye and by nightfall he got the consumption. Robert Quinn find him so useless that he put him in the boiling house. The Johnny-jumpers wasn’t going stop until Homer hand Lilith over and Homer was not one for people telling her what to do. Lilith suspect that this was not because of her but because of who Homer be. But she know the other house slaves hate her. They have to. For she was thinking that if she wasn’t Lilith she would hate Lilith too.

  Lilith was not allow in the other part of the great house so is a long time pass before she even see the mistress. Lilith come upstairs only when Homer need one more hand in the kitchen and had to go back down before supper. Nobody talk to Lilith. She didn’t mind much since nobody used to talk to her when she live at Circe either. But sometimes when it get pitch dark the cellar wall start to close in on her and the kitchen wall and all other wall, but then she would look outside and think of seven man in the dark hunting her like wild pig and then raping her seven time and shooting her seven time and leaving her to rot. She scared till she sick and stay awake all night and only fall asleep at dawn. But with dawn Lilith come up from the cellar, her head held high like she studying Homer.

  —Pussy-eye gal git you arse back down for de flour, a woman say.

  —You foot sick? Go get it youself, Lilith say. The woman hiss. This woman they call Andromeda and she huff and puff and snort like bull. She always smell of the stinkin’ toe fruit and nobody like her.

  —No baba, down deh too dawk. Need you pussy eye to light de way.

  —Not when you block the light with you stinkin’ black arse.

  Even woman who never care much for Lilith throw down they knife to burst out laughing. Pallas lose her spoon in the pot of soup and clutch her sides. Even Homer turn away and cover her mouth. The two mens whoop and holler and rub they backside to see if it big like Andromeda. Andromeda mood get dark. Her arse broad like two woman but she move fast and slap Lilith so hard that she nearly fall back down the cellar steps. Homer shout to Andromeda to step away from the girl. The house niggers still laughing. Andromeda turn to go back to her counter when the girl snarl and leap on to the woman like wild puss. She grab Andromeda hair and pull out clump after clump after clump. Andromeda scream and try to shake her off but the girl hold on, scratching her face and clawing into her nose and biting into her shoulder until her teeth come away with blood. They falling to the ground and the girl push Andromeda hard enough that she land face first and break
a tooth. Andromeda screaming and trying to rock the girl off but the girl clutch on tight and claw Andromeda face. Two mens it take to pull her off and then only by clubbing her in the back of the head with a rolling pin. The girl roll off the woman, look at the two mens with her green eye and pass out.

  5

  WHITE MAN IS WHITE MAN IS WHITE MAN, BUT NOT EVERY nigger be the same nigger. And if she just come from the ship, more so be the difference. If the negro is a Igbo or she born to a Igbo, sooner or later she goin’ kill herself. If she come from or born to an Angolan, then she goin’ be lazy till her dying day. If she come from or born to a Popo or Ibibio, then she goin’ work hard and laugh and merry and thank God for the massa. If she be Akan, her hand working as hard as her mind plotting. But lord help you if you get an Ashanti, what the white people call Coromantee. Not even massa whip can tame she. Coromantee blood that never know slavery mix with white blood that always know freedom and race through Lilith body like brush fire. Her titty turn into young pumpkin, her hip start get broad, her leg thick and tight and she look ready to drop plenty niggerkin. She turn fifteen, unbeknownst to her, but known to Homer and a few others.

  One day later the most hellish noise wake Lilith up. One of the house slaves, an old niggerwoman who couldn’t do much sake of her lumbago, start screaming and pointing at Lilith, only her voice did old and almost gone so the scream sound like a dying man breath. Lilith jump when she see the old woman and clutch herself, looking all over her person for blood or something worse. Beside her mat was a bunch of twig wrap tight and bind with straw. Lilith go to touch it but the woman scream again and flee. Not long after that, Homer come, with the woman hiding behind her frock tail.

  —Sasabonsam, she whisper.—Sasabonsam!

  —Shush you mouth, worthless nigger. And carry up the flour me send you down here for.

  —Sasabonsam!

  —Shush you mouth before me give you something to talk ’bout!

  Homer look at Lilith and at the bundle like it be something accursed that just come out of her. She circle it quiet-like, like a puss, and Lilith get to thinking that the bundle was goin’ run or strike. She frighten. She whisper Homer name so weak that it vanish in the air. Like plenty colony-born nigger, Lilith didn’t know ’bout the Sasabonsam, but Homer know.

  Sasabonsam come straight from the Africa, not in chains but by it own free will, and make him home wherever there be the most misery. Sasabonsam live in the cotton tree and give any man him time if he have a guinea. People go to this spirit at night and tie twig together in a bundle or fish a smooth stone out of the river for the Sasabonsam to enter it with all him malcontent. The shuman, they call it. A shuman at your bed mean somebody setting evil on you, mayhaps death. Sasabonsam be the wickedest Obeah, worse than poison. Only one thing can fight it and nothing that the white man brew.

  —Sasabonsam take her spirit!

  —Quiet you damn mouth, old woman.

  —Homer? Lilith whimper.

  —Silence! The two of you. And you, woman, don’t make me talk to you again. Homer take off her apron and circle the bundle. Then she throw the apron on the bundle and grab it up like is an animal that going claw it way out.

  —Homer? Homer?

  —The Sasabonsam ’pon you, me chile. ’Pon you it surely be.

  There be a girl name Clytemnestra who the master-at-arms, a slave-driver, fuck as be him regular custom. Homer send her to the man lodging to rob a spoonful of gunpowder. Then Homer send Gorgon up to the hill with no tree and she come back with a cup of dirt from Massa Patrick Wilson grave. Homer mix the two in a glass and fill the glass with rum. All this she do in front of Lilith, her back to the girl. When she turn round, Homer holding a knife. Homer hold out for Lilith hand but the girl flinch. She step back but Homer grab her. Come chile, me don’t have no time to waste, she say. Lilith struggling but Homer grab her left thumb and squeeze.

  —No Homer, no.

  —Better this than to be dead by Tuesday.

  Lilith try to push this out of her head as soon as she hear it. She used to think that she be a young’un from the colonies who born near white people with good breeding and not no stinking Africa woman who only know the bush. But even white people whisper when they say Obeah. The blackest black magic for which there be only one cure. For if Obeah be the black, Myal be the white even though the two still black. Lilith try to pull ’way her hand and Homer slap her.

  —Behave! she say.

  Her hand stay on Lilith face and Lilith think to ask her right there if she be a Myal woman. Homer prick Lilith thumb and she wince. Homer stick Lilith thumb in the glass until the potion start to turn red. She pull open Lilith dress and her two titty plop out. Lilith quick to cover herself but Homer slap away the hands and mark an X on her chest with the potion. Homer turn her around and Lilith jump when the cold potion drip down her back. Homer hand Lilith the glass.

  —Make haste, chile, if you ever want to get it back.

  —You want me to drink this? To get back what, Homer? Get back wh . . . , Lilith couldn’t finish, didn’t want to know.

  —You soul, girl pickney.

  Nothing more could be done until late night. Homer bring Gorgon and Callisto down to the cellar. Gorgon scowl when she see Lilith and hiss when Homer hand her the bundle.

  —Bury it by the cotton tree four miles yonder. Turn east once you pass the ratoon fields, Homer say. Gorgon and Callisto turn to go.

  That same night a niggerwoman go to sleep and didn’t wake up. Her entire lifeblood bleed out of her pussyhole, arsehole, earhole and nosehole. They didn’t find out who till four day later, when the stink lead Massa Humphrey hounds to her door. Lilith did think the woman would be one of them house slave who don’t mean her no good, but she fall down on her mat and wail when the news reach her. Homer go to shush her.

  —Hush up now, me chile. Don’t make backra find reason to make you cry more.

  —But she was me mama. She raise me like me mama.

  —Mama who send Johnny-jumper over to rape you. No, chile, you and she was never flesh, not even combolo, you know that. All the same. That bitch never take to you from the day she hold you as a baby. One big mistake to make her take you, from that very day me say it, but nobody listen to old Homer.

  —Me know, me kn . . . me know she never like me but she was me mama.

  —Circe couldn’t mama nothing, chile. Inside that womb deader than doorpost. How she to raise life?

  Lilith curl up on the mat. Homer move to go over to her, then stop, then move again. She sit on the floor and Lilith push her head in her lap while she bawl again. Homer move to touch her hair but stop. Lilith face squeeze up with bawling and she grab Homer knee.

  —Hush now, me chile, hush now, Homer say.

  —She say me was just a stupid nigger girl, who couldn’t do nothing right. She never say a nice thing to me ever. What me do to her?

  —Circe be the only nigger me know who ever try to breed. She try real hard. Hard, hard, hard, but she barren like wilderness. Mayhaps ’cause you not her blood, she sow bitterness for you. Anyhow, since you leave her hut Jack Wilkins send her back to the field. Can you imagine? After fourteen year living like free coloured and showing off ’pon nigger she end up right back among they number. She blame you for that too. Who know? But the trap she set catch her back.

  —I hope she did bawl. I hope she did bawl blood.

  —All right, shush now. You taking things too hard, me chile.

  —She try to kill me! How the raas me must take it?

  —Just shush, chile.

  —Me don’t need shushing! Me . . . Lilith start bawling again. After a good while of sniffling and weeping and bawling, Lilith fall asleep in Homer lap. By the time Homer leave her in the cellar, word already spread through the house and the field that Circe set Obeah on Lilith but Homer attack with Myal and make Circe own lifeblood kill her. Homer go to the door and say this to the kitchen:

  —No way that Circe woman could have come all by her
lonesome to this great house and go down the cellar, so somebody in this kitchen was in league with her. Same grave Circe dig she fall into and worse goin’ happen if that other nigger don’t set herself right. Me done talk.

  Homer go back her table in the kitchen and count off banana for supper.

  Nobody think to mess with Lilith after that, but that was correspondence among house nigger and didn’t reach the ear of any soul outside, not even the Johnny-jumpers. A doctor come up from Spanish Town and say that Circe be the worst case of the bloody flux he ever encounter, like the devil possess her body and was trying any hole possible to burst out. Quinn didn’t want her disease to spread and Homer didn’t want white man to know of war between the spirits so they both get what they want, unbeknownst to Quinn. The overseer order the jumpers, who order three field negro to bury Circe under a cotton tree four mile from the estate.

  After that Lilith don’t trust nobody. But when night come she feel a heaviness ’pon her and she wonder if the dark was making her blacker. She find herself forgetting the Johnny-jumper face. She wonder how Homer make do with all that lonesomeness, ’cause her lonesomeness make her want to scream. Sometime she think to run outside where Johnny-jumpers may be waiting and let them do what they want, just to feel somebody wanting her for something. She wish she was a field negro for they too busy to feel lonesomeness. She come to realise that Homer be her only protector and sometimes that make her want to call her name, just to make sure she upstairs, but other time she wish she could call and nobody answer. Time come when the name Homer please and sick her. Every time she steal a glance at the skinny woman, she see Homer already looking at her. Even when Homer back turn to her Lilith still feel her looking.