by Marlon James
The next day, Massa Humphrey wave him hand and one of the redcoats open the back door of the cage.
—Lilith? Who answers to the name Lilith?
Lilith don’t answer.
—Come now, you stupid niggers, I’ve very little time for skylarkin’. Who answers to the name Lilith?
Lilith don’t answer, but all the nigger step away from her.
—I reckon that’s you. Well, come on!
Lilith don’t budge. The redcoat grab her by the foot and yank her out of the cage so that she fall on the ground, her back and head hitting the dirt.
—Report to your master at once, the redcoat say. Before he could shut back the cage, a niggerwoman run out screaming down the road. She get as far as fifty or so pace when a redcoat lift up him rifle, aim like he be on a hunt and shoot off the back of her head. The redcoat look at Lilith and point to the great house.
Lilith inside the great house looking at the hallway. On the left, the red carpet still on the floor and the paintings still on the wall, and the looking glass and the vase and pretty things. But when she follow the carpet and the wall, suddenly they break and there be nothing beyond but ash. Nothing but ash and wood and burned cloth and the sunlight coming in ’cause there be no roof. She find Massa Humphrey by the piano in the middle of the sitting room, where every other piece of furniture, chair, table, cabinet and bookshelf turn over. The chandelier pull down from the ceiling and pieces of glass scatter all over the floor. Lilith watch her step.
—Jack Wilkins says that you were protecting him, he say.
Lilith don’t say nothing.
—See to Miss Isobel, Massa Humphrey say. He staring at the piano. He still in the blue shirt and grey breeches he was wearing the day of the rebellion, but both smudge up with blood that dry to look like wine stain. He hair mess up and wild and he right cheek have a long cut.
—Go! he say and Lilith run upstairs.
Part of the banister break away and all sort of rubbish on the steps. Rifles and bullets too. And clothes and shoes and food and painting that get cut up and rip up to pieces. Lilith smelling flesh and piss and old dust that wake up. Miss Isobel door not lock, but Lilith can’t push it open. She push and push and it only budge a little. She push again and make enough space to scrape through. On the other side of the door is a chest push against it with two chairs and the commode. Lilith didn’t look good enough yet before she hear a crash. She turn around only to see a big broomstick coming after her with a screaming pile of hair behind. Lilith jump out of the way and the broom ram into the wall. Miss Isobel get hit hard in the chest and fall back flat on the floor. Lilith help her up and take her to bed. Miss Isobel smell of mildew and negro. Lilith leave her sitting up but hunch over on the bed. Miss Isobel start to tremble. Lilith go downstairs to what left of the kitchen. Most of the walls gone and the cupboards burn down but the stove still there and working. Lilith draw some water from the well and try not to hear the screaming and shouting niggers. When she go back upstairs, Miss Isobel still hunch over on the bed looking at her trembling hands.
—Come, Miss Isobel, Lilith say and touch her hand. Miss Isobel jump back.
—Don’t come any closer! Don’t come any closer! Miss Isobel say and jump off the bed. But then her head go light and she almost faint. Lilith catch her and help her to the bath.
Lilith undress Miss Isobel and she lean against the dresser. Her left eye swell up and purple. Lilith pull Miss Isobel dress over her head and see her breasts beat up and bite up. The dress fall to the ground. Between her legs and her pussy so beat up that it purple too. Lilith help her into the tub and pour warm water over her. Miss Isobel jump, screaming that she is a lady, she is a lady, she is a lady. Lilith hold her down and remember a white man she push under the water. Lilith pour water over Miss Isobel head and Miss Isobel weep. Lilith trying to not think ’bout him.
That evening, everything clear on Sister Jack Hill, the highest point on the Montpelier Estate. Massa Humphrey and Robert Quinn used to smoke up there under a tree and argue ’bout book stuff or share whore story. Now Massa Humphrey there burying him greatest mate and him beloved mother. The preacher be the same one who come by in Christmas to tell slave to be grateful for slavery and the massa. Now he saying ashes to ashes and dust to dust and Massa Humphrey just stare at the two boxes like is he they holding in there. Miss Isobel hang back and Lilith hang back farther. The two womens dress in black. Lilith find dress in the mother room. She remember looking out from the shatter window and wondering where Homer body be. Massa Humphrey start cry again until he get so loud he echo on the hill. Miss Isobel touch him on the shoulder but he push her away so hard that she nearly fall. The preacher shout out that he should unhand her and remember that he’s a gentleman and Massa Humphrey grab a stone and fling it after the preacher. The stone clap him right between the crack of him arse and the preacher yelp. He demand money right there and then and Massa Humphrey pick up some more stone. The preacher run down the hill so fast that he trip and fall and roll halfway down. Massa Humphrey leave the two womens on the hill.
By the fourth day the grounds work up a great stink. But it was niggers working up the most stench. Pack tight in the cage for four days, some fall sick, some fall dead or lose they minds and beg skipper not to throw them off the ship. Nigger funk fly with the wind and menace the whole county. Miss Isobel finally shout out to Massa Humphrey that he need to hire help in Spanish Town to deal with the matter. Massa Humphrey hire several white man, but is a different matter they come to deal with. Two day before, he go into town with something he did sketch with ink on parchment paper.
Now, on the way up the great house be trees that line both side of the road all the way up. The branches hang so far over that even at noon the road dim as if in moonshadow. Plenty branches, thirty, forty or fifty. The time did come for counting sturdy branches. Branches that could hold a good weight. On the seventh day, when the smell and the tightness of the cage start to drive the negroes mad, up from Spanish Town come the blacksmith and him cart. The blacksmith tell Massa Humphrey that he lose two cousin in this, the Great Atlas Revolt. They name it the Atlas Revolt because he was the first man name that anybody remember. When Massa Humphrey see the blacksmith he neither smile nor frown, but put on the blank face that hide a black heart.
—Are they quite according to my instructions? Massa Humphrey say.
—Down the last nail, Your Grace, the blacksmith say, smiling with him two brown teeth.
—Do not presume to mock me, sir.
—I don’t presume to anything, Your Grace, only to tell you that your instructions were carried out, the blacksmith say.
Massa Humphrey round up some new white mens from Spanish Town, Ferry and Portsmouth. The judgement that come next come to Achilles first. Four white mens drag him out of the cage and beat him up first so that Achilles could barely stand up. Then they tear off him clothes, kick him down in the ground until him look like ash. The blacksmith pull the cloth off the cart to show something that no white man or negro see for nearly ten years on the estate. Gibbets.
Them was no ordinary gibbet. They forge out of Massa Humphrey own rage. Achilles see the gibbet when they place one on the ground and scream and try to run, but he drop on one knee. Him left foot did break from before. The four men yank the nigger up. The gibbet build like a cage with a iron loop at the top for rope to hang through, two slat of iron that run down the side and one down the front that make the metal cage look like the shape of a man. They then weld bars going right around, four to hold a nigger in tight. The mens throw down Achilles in the open gibbet. On the inside of the gibbet nails stick out and as they close it they stab right into Achilles’ flesh. He go to scream again, but they shove an iron gag in him mouth too and he mutter like monster. Achilles can barely fit in the gibbet. That be how they make it. They close it shut on him and pull him up. Achilles bound tight in the gibbet from head to crotch. The harness hold him in, leaving only him foot free and dangling. They pull him
up on a branch on the first tree. Achilles swing and blood run down. Him mouth gag and he scream through him eye until him eye all scream out. They open the second gibbet for a woman.
Two day later, them done. Massa Humphrey watchin’ from him window and he neither happy nor angry nor melancholy. Miss Isobel see a big nigger and run back to her room. Lilith lock in Jack Wilkins’ house, and wrap herself in Robert Quinn blue shirt, trying to smell him back to life. She don’t look outside at hell. Thirty-seven negroes, man and woman, hanging from thirty-seven gibbets one or two to a tree. They screaming in the gag so the whole stretch sound like bawling coming up from hell. And dripping blood to wake up fly and mosquito. All the way up the road niggers be hanging like uncanny fruit. In a week most of the negroes stop living and the wind roll through, carrying the sound of death rattle. Who don’t dead live on in torment as the crows get tired of waiting. Rumour spread in Spanish Town that anybody who set out for the Montpelier Estate better be prepared for a sight that no gentleman can unsee. Educated man call it the Jamaican Appian Way.
Gorgon last longest in the gibbet.
Pallas never get her day in court. The white mens in Spanish Town did hungry for blood so they ransack the gaol and pull she and ninety other negro and tie them up to stalks and burn them by slow fire. The niggers take three days to burn and nobody could pass out or die quick. After that, five hundred negro get ship to Honduras while some get ship back to a place that rumour to be in the Africa. Before Pallas dead, she speak a curse on the Wilson family and then make a song ’bout how Miss Isobel ruin ’cause two nigger rape her. The song reach other negro tongue and they sing it so loud that it fly all the way back to Montpelier. Miss Isobel demand that Massa Humphrey go to Spanish Town to defend her honour and Massa Humphrey say as soon as she develop some honour he would gladly go to town to defend it. Miss Isobel lock herself in her room with her laudanum and didn’t come out.
Day turn to week and week turn to month. Miss Isobel soon realise Massa Humphrey forget everything ’bout marriage and not bothering to remember. She clutch her belly and give herself such a conniption that Lilith have to give her tea to sleep. Massa Humphrey take to riding at evening to Sister Jack Hill, where people say him talk to Robert Quinn. From there, Lilith watch him as he watch the estate. The one field of cane that untouch. The seven field of ash. The half of the great house that still standing. Nobody hear if he goin’ rebuild or no. He just ride up to the hill and kneel between the two grave and be as unmanly in him grieving as he wish.
Then it come to pass one night that Lilith gathering Robert Quinn stuff that didn’t burn when the moonlight cut a shape in the doorway. A man shape. She run into Robert Quinn bedroom but Massa Humphrey jump her and they crash on the bed. He on top of her and Lilith screaming and crying and Massa Humphrey ripping her dress off, one hand pressing her head down in the bed and the other tearing away the cloth. He growl and yell and Lilith don’t know what he saying but she crying. He punch her back and tell her to shut up, shut up, godforsaken wicked black bitch, but she not still. He hold down her head and pull down him breeches. He hump and hump and hump and breathe heavy until he stop. Lilith try to turn round but he hold her and cuss. He cuss louder and louder but let go. Lilith turn over again but he grab her breasts and hump and hump but then stop and collapse on her. Lilith don’t know if he whimpering or crying. He don’t look at her. With all him humping he didn’t enter her at all. He breathing heavy and him breath foul. Lilith lie still under him, not daring to move but not wanting to move either. They stay there and she feel tears running down the side of her cheek and don’t know if is from him or her. He try to ram her again. She look past him red hair into the ceiling and listen to the bed creaking. She wrap her arms round him back and know he not entering her but act like he be. She close her eye tight and thinking that him hair long and black, that him eyes cheery and light and that he calling her lovey. Then they both lay still and leave it to the cricket to make noise in the night.
31
EVERY NEGRO WALK IN A CIRCLE. TAKE THAT AND MAKE OF IT what you will. But sometimes when a negro die and another negro take him place, even if that negro not be blood, they still fall in step with the same circle. The same circle of living that no nigger can choose and dying that come at any time. Perhaps nigger take things as they be for what used to be will always be what is. Maybe it better for backra and nigger that things go back to what people think is the best way until the fire next time. White man sleep with one eye open, but black man can never sleep.
Time now to give account of the league of women. The blind niggerwoman in the bush, she tell me everything. This was not the story me did plan to tell. Massa Humphrey realise that he can’t stop cry if he remain at Montpelier, so he sail back to England. Maybe he recapture him manhood back there, Miss Isobel say when she know he can’t hear. He didn’t take Miss Isobel. Massa Humphrey leave all estate matters to an attorney and allow Miss Isobel to live at the house after it rebuild. He never take Lilith to bed after that first time and by the time he gone the two womens in the house both big in belly. Miss Isobel try to go back with him the day he set sail and demand that he be a man and a father. Massa Humphrey say that whether or not he be a man is his own affair, and as for her and her child, perhaps she should petition Kingston, since any man could claim the bastard. But he leave her at the estate, which some take to mean that him admit that the pickney could have been him own. Miss Isobel swear that she goin’ pour all her hatred and ill will into the little boy for his father and Massa Humphrey reply that he’ll burn down the whole county then. Who knows, perhaps it will be a nigger baby, he say also. Miss Isobel slap him, but he slap her back. She swear to him that she will never leave Montpelier, to which he say that was quite fine since he’ll never come back.
Lilith don’t even think of Massa Humphrey. The attorney let her continue living in the overseer house with Jack Wilkins until he pass away. The attorney hire a new overseer but he live in a house build since the rebellion. The attorney let slip once that this was Massa Humphrey specific wish, as he himself didn’t take too much to the society of negroes. The first thing the new overseer set about was to buy new negroes, but seasoned negroes or those born in the colony, no nigger from the Africa and that take quite some doing. Word was that this was folly, since the interest in the West Indies was fading and slavery might soon over. Lilith didn’t get any free paper, but she act like a free negro. She work in the kitchen and cook and clean for Jack Wilkins and do her own thing as be to her mood. She still be the only negro that could go near Miss Isobel. When Lilith by her own company, she rub her big belly and say luv.
Time to give account of the league of women.
Hippolyta didn’t have no face left after it get blast off with a shotgun. She dead in Jack Wilkins’ house and a song rise up ’bout the papa who kill him daughter. Nobody did know her much when she was living and they know her even less when she dead, for her spirit still yelp in the dark and hide in the corner wearing a black dress with a high neck to hide where slave-driver cut her throat when she did but a pickney and take ’way her speakin’. Hippolyta song quick and harsh. A song rise up against Hippolyta, a chant to keep her spirit away from the living and grant her peace.
Callisto take four white man herself, was the account that Gorgon give while she was swinging in the gibbet. Gorgon say that Callisto was a woman who laugh all her life but never smile once. From the day Jack Wilkins shoot out her eye for kicking a white overseer in him balls, her mind never set right and in the storm of gunshot was the best way she could dead. Gorgon spend the rest of her short life haunted that she didn’t get to hear the last thing Callisto say. But she take four white man herself, and in the fields and the bush a new song rise up under the quiet, about Callisto, Callisto, who bring backra down to so-so.
Gorgon die by the gibbet but she do things before that. Gorgon loud and rude and act like she bad before the rebellion, but as the rebellion got worse, she hide behind Callisto like a monkey. S
he slow Callisto down and Callisto get shot for the trouble. Short almost like midget, Gorgon get out of hard work because Jack Wilkins be her daddy and he know she be no use in the field. She love him for taking her out of field hardship, but she hate him for making her owe him. But she the only one that Jack Wilkins ever call him blood. She call him Papa Jack and he never strike her. Something in that drive her mad ’cause she know she could never be the Coromantee that she want to be in her spirit. That make her wilder than wild and badder than bad, but she hide behind Callisto when she frighten. Gorgon was the only nigger who didn’t scream in the gibbet, but she talk. She make song out of the names of the women, but not Lilith. Gorgon sing her song high, she sing her song low, she sing it until she run out of voice. She dead after eight days. The song about Gorgon was short and had no word, since all that need to sing she sing already.
Pallas make for the mountains but lose her way. In all the running Pallas didn’t see that she on the wrong path, on the wrong side of a wrong hill. That be what the song of Pallas say but nobody remember if is true or lie no more. Night was coming down and Pallas hiding under leaf until she hear rumble in the bush. She run deeper into the forest and see the first Maroon before he see her. He naked and have a rifle on him back. She behind bush and see him coming in her direction. She stop and cock her rifle. The second Maroon run right up behind her and don’t make a sound. He swing back him hand to blackjack her but she swing round swift and shoot him in the face. Pallas running on the ground but the first Maroon running through the trees. He hop to one branch and jump to the other and grab a branch and swing, then disappear in deep bush. Pallas running on the ground and didn’t look up to see him flying above her. But when he jump down to land on top of her head, she swing round with the shotgun and shoot him balls off. Then she take the gun and bludgeon him head until she can’t tell the difference between head and dirt. The third Maroon nigger fire on her. Bullet fly through the bush with a zip-zip-zip. They zip-zip-zip so quick and so quiet that much time pass before Pallas notice that her left shoulder was bleeding. She curl herself like a snail and roll down a bare hill until she near land in the river. Pallas hide behind a rock. She reload. She wait for him to come down. She looking up and the river below make noise over the rocks. She didn’t see the Maroon until he jump her from behind. They roll and tumble and end up in the river. He on top and he push her head under the water. The Maroon hand pushing down tight on Pallas neck and Pallas flailing about. But she grab a rock and clap him in the temple with it. The Maroon fall back in the water and Pallas jump on top of him. She grab another rock and hit him in the head. Then she hit him again and again and again and again until a streak of blood wash down the river. She put on him clothes and head back into the bush. A couple Maroon pass by her and she wave, signaling that the runaway might be deeper in the bush. Nanny Town Maroon make they woman bear arms. Accompong Maroon don’t. This was Accompong. Before she could even notice, they swarm her and use a rifle butt to knock her out. The Maroons hand her over to the redcoats and the magistrate charge her and others with insurrection and mass murder and throw her in the gaol. White man fury bigger than white man justice. They break in the gaol and drag her out. They beat her hard, then tie her up to a stake and burn her slow so she wouldn’t pass out but feel herself burnin’ to death. Her song long and mournful but when the song reach the end, it dance and the spirits jump.