Nalo Hopkinson - Midnight Robber

At last the Mummers reached the town square. By now, Tan-Tan’s feet were throbbing. Her white aoutchicongs had turned brown with dust from walking all that distance, and her belly was beginning to pain her from too much food. Ione had blown out the candles on the nation ship hat long time, for with all the running round Tan-Tan was doing, the hat kept falling from her head. She had nearly set fire to Tantie Gilda’s velvet curtains.

Tan-Tan was ready to drop down with tiredness, oui, but as they entered the town square, she straightened up her little body and took her mummy’s hand.

“Light the candles again for me, Mummy.” Hand in hand with Ione, Tan-Tan marched right to her place in the front of the choir. She made believe she was the Tan-Tan from the Carnival, or maybe the Robber Queen, entering the town square in high state for all the people to bring her accolades and praise and their widows’ mites of gold and silver for saving them from the evil plantation boss (she wasn’t too sure what an “accolade” was, oui, but she had heard Ben say it when he played the Robber King masque at Carnival time the year before). Choirmaster Gomez smiled when he saw her in her pretty Jonkanoo hat. He pressed the microphone bead onto her collar. Tan-Tan lost all her tiredness one time.

The square was full up of people that night. One set of people standing round, waiting for the midnight anthem. It must be had two hundred souls there! Tan-Tan started to feel a little jittery. Suppose she got the starting note wrong? She took a trembling breath. She felt she was going to dead from nerves. Behind her, she heard Ione hissing, “Do good now, Tan-Tan. Don’t embarrass me tonight!”

Choirmaster Gomez gave the signal. The quattro players started to strum the tune, and the Cockpit County Jubilante Mummers launched into the final song of the night. Tan-Tan was so nervous, she nearly missed her solo. Ione tapped her on her shoulder, and she caught herself just in time. She took a quick breath and started to sing.

The first few notes were a little off, oui, but when she got to the second verse, she opened her eyes. Everybody in the square was swaying from side to side. She started to get some confidence. By the third verse, her voice was climbing high and strong to the sky, joyful in the ’fore-day morning.

As she sang, Tan-Tan glanced round. She saw old people rocking back and forth to the song, their lips forming the ancient words. She saw artisans standing round the Mercy Table, claiming the food and gifts that Cockpit Town people had made for them with their own hands in gratitude for their creations. Every man-jack had their eyes on her. People nodded their heads in time. She swung through the words, voice piping high. The Mummers clapped in time behind her. Then she spied a man standing near the edge of the crowd, cradling a sleeping little girl in his arms. He was the baby’s daddy. Tan-Tan’s soul came crashing back to earth. Tears began creeping down her face. She fought her way to the end of the song. When she put up her hand to wipe the tears away, an old lady near the front said, “Look how the sweet song make the child cry. What a thing!” Tan-Tan pulled the mike bead off and ran to Ione. The nation ship hat fell to the ground. Tan-Tan heard someone exclaim behind her, and the scuffing sound as he stamped out the flame of the candles. She didn’t pay it no mind. She buried her head in her mother’s skirt and cried for Antonio. Ione sighed and patted her head.

Soon after, her daddy did come, striding into the town square to give his speech. But he didn’t even self glance at Tan-Tan or Ione. Ione clutched Tan-Tan’s shoulder and hissed at her to stand still. Tan-Tan looked at her mother’s face; she was staring longingly and angrily at Antonio with bright, brimming eyes. Ione started to hustle Tan-Tan away. Tan-Tan pulled on her hand to slow her down. “No, Mummy, no; ain’t Daddy going to come with we?”

Ione stooped down in front of her daughter. “I know how you feel, doux-doux. Is Jonkanoo and we shoulda be together, all three of we; but Antonio ain’t have no mercy in he heart for we.”

“Why?”

“Tan-Tan, you daddy vex with me; he vex bad. He forget all the nights I spend alone, all the other women I catch he with.”

Tan-Tan ain’t business with that. “I want my daddy.” She started to cry.

Ione sighed. “You have to be strong for me, Tan-Tan. You is the only family I have now. I not going to act shame in front of Cockpit County people and they badtalk. Swallow those tears now and hold your head up high.”

Tan-Tan felt like her heart could crack apart with sorrow. Ione had to carry the burst nation ship. Scuffling her foot-them in the dirt, Tan-Tan dragged herself to the limousine that had been sent to the square to wait for them. They reached home at dayclean, just as the sun was rising. Tan-Tan was a sight when Nursie met her at the door: dirty tennis shoes, plaits coming loose, snail tracks of tears winding down her face.

“Take she, Nursie,” Ione said irritably. “I can’t talk no sense into she at all at all.”

“Oh, darling, is what do you so?” Nursie bent down to pick up the sad little girl.

Tan-Tan leaked tired tears, more salt than water. “Daddy ain’t come to talk to me. He ain’t tell me if he like how I sing. Is Jonkanoo, and he ain’t self even give me a Jonkanoo present!”

“I ain’t know what to do for she when she get like this,” Ione told Nursie. “Tan-Tan, stop your crying! Bawling ain’t go make it better.”

Nursie and Ione took Tan-Tan inside to bed, but is Nursie who washed Tan-Tan’s face and plaited up her hair nice again so it wouldn’t knot up while she slept. Is Nursie who dressed Tan-Tan in her favourite yellow nightie with the lace at the neck. Nursie held to her lips the cup of hot cocoa-tea that Cookie sent from the kitchen, and coaxed her to drink it. Cookie was an artisan too, had pledged his creations to whoever was living in the mayor house. Usually Tan-Tan loved his cocoa, hand-grated from lumps of raw chocolate still greasy with cocoa fat, then steeped in hot water with vanilla beans and Demerara sugar added to it. But this time it was more bitter than she liked, and she got so sleepy after drinking it! One more sip, and she felt she had was to close her eyes, just for a little bit. Nursie put Tan-Tan to bed with the covers pulled right up to her neck, and stroked her head while sleep came. Ione only paced back and forth the whole time, watching at the two of them.

But just as sleep was locking Tan-Tan’s eyes shut, is Ione’s sweet voice she heard, singing a lullaby to her from across the room.

And her earbug echoed it in her head as eshu sang along.

Tan-Tan slept right through the day until the next morning. When she woke up Ione told her irritably, “Your daddy come by to see you while you was sleeping.”

Tan-Tan leapt up in the bed. “Daddy here!”

“No, child. He gone about he business.”

The disappointment and hurt were almost too much for breathing. Unbelieving, Tan-Tan just stared at Mummy. Daddy didn’t wait for her to wake up?

“Cho. Me ain’t able with you and your father. He leave this for you.” Ione laid out a costume on the bed, a little Robber Queen costume, just the right size for Tan-Tan. It had a white silk shirt with a high, pointy collar, a little black jumbie leather vest with a fringe all round the bottom, and a pair of wide red leather pants with more fringe down the sides. It even had a double holster to go round her waist, with two shiny cap guns sticking out. But the hat was the best part. A wide black sombrero, nearly as big as Tan-Tan herself, with pom-poms in different colours all round the brim, to hide her face in the best Robber Queen style. Inside the brim, it had little monkeys marching all round the crown of the hat, chasing tiny birds. The monkeys leapt, snatching at the swooping birds, but they always returned to the brim of the hat.