Antonio’s face crumpled, horrifyingly, into tears. Her daddy wasn’t supposed to cry. He wasn’t supposed to be frightened. What could scare him? Terrified, Tan-Tan clung to him and started to wail too. Antonio rocked and rocked, clinging to her so hard she could feel his fingertips bruising her arm. She didn’t care.
Something was hurting her chest where it was pressed against Daddy’s body. The package the man had given her. She pulled it out of her pocket. Never in her born days had she seen datastock like that. It was dirty, and stayed crumpled. She pulled off the box, uncrumpled it, tried to flatten it against her thigh.
“A-what that, pickney?”
They weren’t supposed to talk about it in words. She put a finger to her lips so Daddy would know to stay quiet. Then she handed the box and the datastock to him. His eyes opened big when he saw the writing on the paper. He read it. His tears dried. He sniffed snot back into his nose, swallowed. “Bumbo cloth! You mean that will work for real? I did swear say was only drunkenness talking when Maka tell me that thing.”
“What, Daddy?”
He didn’t reply, just looked right through her as though his mind were somewhere else. “Freedom . . .” he whispered. Then he grabbed her, hugged her tight. “I have to do it, girl.”
“Do what, Daddy?”
“You ever hear people say the only way out is through?”
“No.” She didn’t understand.
Antonio stood, a dithery energy animating his body. “Freedom is the thing, eh? Is freedom me don’t want to lose.” Something lit his face, like relief, like hope. He stood up, squared his shoulders. He activated the box. Tan-Tan heard a burst of too-fast nannysong; a soft, high-pitched whine in her ears, then a fading static. The cell door swung open. “Koo ya! It work! Fooling a house eshu is one thing, but the shift tower? Bless you, Maka.” He reached for Tan-Tan’s hand. “Come. Time for we to do we business.”
They headed briskly down the corridor. “Daddy, where we going?”
“To freedom, child. We going where nobody could tell we what to do. Maka say he will come after, and what the two of we could do in that world, with all we know! You want to come with me, right?”
“Yes, Daddy.” She didn’t understand, but she wasn’t going to make him leave her again. “Mummy could come with we too?”
“Probably later, doux-doux. Hurry now.”
Antonio took them into Courtroom A. Inside it was row after row of uncomfortable-looking seats. They all faced a big chair with a desk. There were two other chairs on either side of the desk.
“That is where the judge does sit,” Antonio said, hustling them past a big chair. “When he pass sentence, the people to deport does go through here.”
Behind the judge’s seat was a door marked TO SHIFT TOWER. DEPORTEES AND DETENTION OFFICERS ONLY BEYOND THIS DOOR. They went through.
“Daddy, let we go home, nuh?”
“Can’t do, sweetness. Quashee dead. Me try to go home and them will pop me. Maka saving my ass, darling. Can’t get out, but I can get through.”
They were in a long, dark cement corridor. Their footsteps rang on the concrete floor like the dead-gong in Cockpit County.
“Daddy, what ‘deportee’ mean?”
“When people do bad things, we does send them away so they can’t hurt nobody else. Killers, rapists . . . people we don’t know what to do with, and like so.”
“And is which part New Half-Way Tree is?”
Antonio gave a small, tight laugh. “Where? You know what, doux-doux? It right here.” He explained about the dimensional shift, how there were more Toussaints than they could count, existing simultaneously, but each one a little bit different. “We going to a next Toussaint, one we can’t come back from again, nobody know how. It going to be hard to live, no comforts. But I think we can survive. Is a big chance I taking for you, doux-doux.”
All Tan-Tan heard was can’t come back. She imagined deportees walking down this same corridor, hearing their footsteps echoing in this world for the last time, and knowing they would never see home again.
They reached a room marked SHIFT TOWER. They went inside. The room was tall and narrow and the ceiling was so high that it disappeared in the shadows above. In the middle of the room was a tall-tall column with four doors all around it.
“That is how we going,” Antonio said. “That is the half-way tree. You see the four pods?” He pointed to the doors. “We go get inside that one there—just like peas in a pod, right?” He tickled her to make her laugh, but it didn’t work this time. “It will take we in, and point we at New Half-Way Tree, and fling we there like boulderstones from a slingshot.”
Tears started to run down Tan-Tan’s face; she had promised Daddy to be good, but she was scared.
“Don’t frighten, sweetheart; it going to be a nice ride.” His voice shook. He picked her up, took her over to one of the pods, stepped inside. “This is it, Tan-Tan. Pray that it going to work.” Daddy activated the box again. Came another burst of song.
The door to the pod slid soundlessly closed. It was bare inside; just one dim light in the ceiling. Antonio had barely set Tan-Tan down when a wave of nausea swept through her. “Daddy!”
Antonio sat down hard beside her. Tan-Tan felt like a big hand was pressing her down onto the floor of the pod, its fingers stirring up her insides. “My ears block up,” she complained.
“Hold your nose and blow hard,” Antonio said. His voice was trembly. Tan-Tan looked at him. His face was grey with fear. He looked like he wanted to vomit. Her daddy wasn’t supposed to ’fraid nothing.
The first shift wave hit them. For Tan-Tan it was as though her belly was turning inside out, like wearing all her insides on the outside. The air smelt wrong. She clutched Antonio’s hand. A curtain of fog was passing through the pod, rearranging sight, sound. Daddy’s hand felt wrong. Too many fingers, too many joints. Antonio coughed nervously. The wave passed through them and went. Daddy’s hand felt all right again. “We climbing into the Tree for true,” he said.
A next veil swept through them, slow like molasses. Tan-Tan felt as though her tailbone could elongate into a tail, long and bald like a manicou rat’s. Her cries of distress came out like hyena giggles. The tail-tip twitched. She could feel how unfamiliar muscles would move the unfamiliar limb. The thing standing beside her looked more like a man-sized mongoose than her father. He smelt like food, but food she wasn’t supposed to eat. Family. Tan-Tan sobbed and tried to wrap her tail tightly around herself.
But the veil was gone. She had only thought she was a big manicou. Antonio was a man again. He made a little noise in his throat, like a whimper. He skinned up his teeth at her in one big false grin. “That wasn’t so bad, eh, doux-doux?” His voice was high. “We going to a good place.” But under his breath he started to sing,
Captain, Captain, put me ashore,
I don’t want to go any more.
Itanami gwine drownded me,
Itanami gwine bust me belly,
Itanami is too much for me.
“That one is a old sailor song,” he mumbled, almost as though he wasn’t talking to Tan-Tan, but just to hear his own voice. “Itanami was a river rapids. People in ships would go through it like we going through dimension veils. Itanami break up plenty vessels, but them long ago people never see power like this half-way tree.”
They were trapped in a confining space, being taken away from home like the long time ago Africans. Tan-Tan’s nightmare had come to life. “Daddy,” she started to bawl, “I don’t like this. I want to stop. Let we get off, nuh?”
“I can’t do that, sweetheart. Now I activate it, I can’t control it from the inside, you understand? This is the half-way tree, this is exile! When you go through the shift, we is new people, not Marryshevites no more. We never going to belong in Toussaint again.”
Click came the eshu into Tan-Tan’s ear. Antonio got the listening look that let her know eshu was talking to him too. “Young Mistress, is what a-go on?” It was her
eshu, the one from their house.
“Is all right, eshu,” Daddy lied before Tan-Tan could say anything. “She eat some pepper mango is all. It making she sick little bit.” He chuckled weakly. “She could never stand pepper, oui?”
Eshu was responding, but his voice was crackly. She couldn’t understand him. Antonio was shaking his head like a dog with fleas in its ear. “We losing the connection to the web,” he muttered. “Oh, God, like this is it, oui.”
Another veil. The light inside the pod turned pink. The air got hot. Very faintly both her eshu and the building eshu said together, “Hold on, young Mistress, shift aborting.”
“No!” shouted Antonio.
Tan-Tan felt a little pop! inside her ears. She felt dizzy. “Abort fail . . .” whispered eshu.
There was an itch at the back of her throat. Her ears popped painfully; once, twice. There was a ringing in them. Antonio moaned in fear. He took Tan-Tan in his arms and held her close. “Whatever happen, you is my little girl, you hear? My doux-doux darling, come in just like Ione when she was a sweet little thing. Don’t care where we go, you is always my little Ione.” Antonio buried his head against Tan-Tan’s shoulder, a heavy weight.
Another veil washed over them. It was hot, fire hot. The ringing in Tan-Tan’s ears was so loud, it was pain. She cried. The tears running down her face felt too cold, like ice water. They were leaving Marryshow’s paradise, shifting to a new world, her and her daddy.
Little by little, the ringing and itching went away. The pod door clicked open. Antonio picked Tan-Tan up and reached for the hatch, but his hand went right through it. The image of the pod faded away, leaving the two of them standing in the bush.
Tan-Tan looked at Antonio to see if he’d changed plenty now that he was no longer a Marryshevite. He was crouching down beside her. His face was the same, and his body, but in his eyes was a look like the fear in Quashee’s eyes when he had felt Antonio’s machète at he neck. Is so a man face does stay after he look at he own death, and he could never be the same again. Tan-Tan felt say she must have changed too.
Antonio stroked Tan-Tan’s cheek and looked deep into her eyes. “You is all that leave to me now. You dear to me like daughter, like sister, like wife self.”
Tan-Tan didn’t like the way Antonio was talking. She tried to act normal, to make everything be normal again: “Eh-eh! Where the pod gone, Daddy?”
But the crazy look wouldn’t leave her daddy’s eyes. “It was never here, Tan-Tan. It just push we here from Toussaint.”
Antonio ran his hands over his body. “Safe . . .” He looked around. “Ahm, let we take a look at we new home, all right?”
“This? This bush?” All around them it had some big knotted-up trees-them, with twisted-up roots digging into the ground like old men’s fingers. The air was too cold, and it had a funny smell, like old bones. The light coming through the trees was red, not yellow. Even the trees-them looked wrong; the bark was more purple than brown. Some beast was making noise in one of the trees over her head; a grunting noise like Quashee made when Antonio hit him yesterday. This wasn’t her home. This ugly place couldn’t be anybody’s home.
“Where we going to live, Daddy? What we going to eat? Where the people?”
“I ain’t know, doux-doux. We just going to have to fend for weself.” Antonio shrugged his shoulders.
No more Nursie with her ’nansi stories; no more Ione and her pretty dresses-them. No more eshu. Daddy gone stupidee, like he ain’t know the answer to nothing any more. She and Antonio didn’t look no different, but Tan-Tan could feel the change the shift tower had made inside her, feel her heart begin to harden against her daddy who couldn’t tell her where they were, who couldn’t make everything all right again. She felt she didn’t know him any more. He was right. Once you climb the half-way tree, everything change-up.
How Tan-Tan Learn to Thief
Try and stretch out your spine straight. It go ease some of the pressure. Cho. I forget, you don’t really understand what I talking about. Oh, but you doing it anyway. Yes, like so.
Well. The first time Tan-Tan hear anybody tell a ’nansi story about she, she was a big woman living in exile on New Half-Way Tree.
’Nansi story? Another time I go tell you about Brer Anansi, the spider man, the trickster. So much you have to learn! But me go teach you.
So anyway, Tan-Tan had was to stop off for a while in one of the prison colonies to trade smoked tree frog for a good knife. Come evening time, she was sitting on a box carton in a beat-up marketplace, eating two boiled gully hen eggs with some salt, when she hear the local griot spinning a tale for the pickney-them. And this is what she say:
Gather round, gather round, pickney! Come around, come around, pickney! Night come and work done; time for story now!
Come Patrick, my doux-doux, Mamee nice child. You is the littlest one; sit down right here beside Granny. Jocelyn and Sita, come! Oonuh not too old for listen to story, you know! Yes, all of you, sit.
Well, pickney, what story I must tell allyou today? Tan-Tan, you say? You want a story about Tan-Tan, the Robber Queen; the Midnight Thief with the heart of gold; the woman who had was to save two life for every one she take; the exile on New Half-Way Tree, this prison planet? All right; I go tell oonuh a Tan-Tan story: this one name “How Tan-Tan Learn to Thief.”
Long time before, Tan-Tan was queen of the Taino people, and she live on the moon with she father, the king Antonio.
Each day Queen Tan-Tan and King Antonio stand outside the palace doors and call upon all the Tainos to sing praises of Kabo Tano, the Ancient One who give to them light and dark and all good things. For the moon where they living was a wondrous place, a magical place. It shine like silver and gold all over, and the Taino people-them was rich and prosperous, oui? Kabo Tano give them food to eat, and make them strong: star apple, and guavas yellow and round like the moon it own self, and mamee apples, big and sweet and sun-orange inside. Now, Kabo Tano had make his people this way; as long as them eat what he gift them with, him could hear them when them call out to he. In them there days, Taino people ain’t learn yet to kill animals for food. Is only plants and roots and fruits and vegetables them eat.
Tan-Tan and Antonio had everything them want. Them live in a castle with plenty servants and thing. The walls of the castle could talk.
The two of them would travel through streets paved with marble, in a cloud carriage that didn’t even self touch the ground, oui? It float through the air. You don’t believe me? But is the simple truth I telling you, oui?
Tan-Tan had a maid to bring she nice things, name of Ione, though sometimes people would call she Janisette. Tan-Tan had beautiful silk clothes for she body, and somebody to comb she hair. She spend she days playing jacks in the palace. Toss up the ball: Whee! Thief the jacks out from under it: Swips! The ball bounce: Bap! She catch it in she hand: Wap! Then she do it all over again. Tan-Tan could thief eight jacks out from under the ball before it bounce, and never miss a catch. And if the ball ever make fast and roll away, Tan-Tan and she maid would run to chase it, laughing as them search under the mahogany settee and the four-poster bed and thing in Tan-Tan bedroom.
King Antonio was a sorcerer too, seen. He give Tan-Tan a magic glass so that if she want he, she only had was to look in the glass and say, “Antonio, oh! Antonio!” and him face would appear.
“You calling my name, doux-doux? What my sweetness want?”
Tan-Tan would talk back to the glass. “Daddy, please Daddy, if is not too much trouble, I could have a new dolly?” (Tan-Tan was a nice child who did mind she manners, like allyou must do.) Next thing she know, a servant would come through the doors, carrying a new dolly on a silk pillow. And Tan-Tan would say thanks to the servant, for she daddy teach she always to be polite and never to put sheself above other people. She had a favourite dolly; the one wearing a red silk cape, black toreador pants, a white bandit shirt, and carrying two little tiny guns in holsters strap round it tiny waist.
K
ing Antonio love he daughter can’t done. He swear say the brightness of the moon shine from Tan-Tan eyes. If anything make Tan-Tan cry, for him is like bitter rain falling over the whole moon and him couldn’t take no pleasure in him life until he make she happy again.
Now, when the Taino people look up into the sky, them could see other worlds floating all round them in space, pretty-pretty. Some yellow, some red, and some blue. Some gold and some silver, and all of them shining and clean, just like the moon where they living.
One night Tan-Tan was standing with she daddy outside the palace, gazing into the sky and admiring the beautiful worlds that great Kabo Tano make all round them. And Tan-Tan notice something she never see there before, for it was so dark and dingy it get hide in the brightness coming from the other worlds. The something was a ball like the shiny pretty worlds, but dusty and dull.
“Daddy, is what that one there?”
“It name Earth, sweetheart.”
Next night, Earth look even worse. By the third night, Tan-Tan couldn’t bear to look at it no more. It was spoiling the view. “Daddy, how come the Earth so dirty?”
“It make of dirt, my darling. It ain’t have nobody there to clean it.”
So Tan-Tan know what she have for do. “Daddy, please Daddy, is not right we let it get like that. If is not too much trouble, I want to go to the Earth and scrub it clean.”
Well, King Antonio heart too soft to say no to he one daughter, but he ’fraid too bad to let she go to Earth alone.
“All right,” he say, “but a queen can’t go anywhere without she king, so I go come with you to keep you safe.”
Then Tan-Tan laugh and clap she two hands, and give she daddy a big kiss on he cheek.
Tan-Tan and she maid Ione prepare everything for scrubbing the Earth clean. Them fill up a big basket with broom, and duster, and mop and bucket, and plenty, plenty soap.
“What about food, Mistress?” Ione ask.
“We ain’t going for long,” Tan-Tan tell she. “We go come back before we even self get hungry.”
“Mistress, take this cutlass at least. You never know when you might need to defend yourself.” And the maid gave Tan-Tan a cutlass with a blade that would never get dull.
Midnight Robber Page 8