Nalo Hopkinson - Midnight Robber

The crowd backed away. Tan-Tan could hear the band members abandoning the stage. She dropped her sack. The tank stopped inches away from her in a menacing crouch. Its top opened.

Janisette jumped out, sleek in a tight red one-piece with black boots, her hair slicked back from her forehead and confined in a black bandana. “Oho! Koo the two-faced devil there, the woman that kill my husband.”

“It was self-defense…” Tan-Tan whispered. Her voice had no strength. Her belly was dragging her to the ground.

Janisette stalked over to her. “You come from Junjuh, is Junjuh justice you must face. You coming back with me.” She reached for Tan-Tan’s wrist, snapped one half of a pair of handcuffs shut over it. The ring of metal had the strength of Antonio’s fingers. Yes, is this you good for. You must get punished.

Numbly, she reached out her other wrist for the cuffs. “Yes,” cooed Janisette, fingers stretching for her. “Is the right thing to do. Tin box for you.”

A movement caught Tan-Tan’s eye. She looked up to see her reflection in the tank’s grinning face. A bedraggled woman in a jokey, wilting hat and a silly cape of motley. The image made her short and made her middle bulge. Tan-Tan remembered the baby-to-be hidden under her cape. Not just one life, but two.

She jerked her chained wrist out of Janisette’s hand, flicked the handcuffs. Janisette had to duck. “Fucking bitch!” she spat at Tan-Tan.

“Mind your mouth!” Tan-Tan hollered. She twisted free of Janisette’s grasp, kept dancing backwards away from her clutching hands. She opened her mouth again, and Bad Tan-Tan let the harangue tumble from them: “You not shame, you reddened trollop, to stanch this fête and jubilation with your scurrilous calumniation?”

“When I catch you, you leggobeast!”

Power coursed through Tan-Tan, the Robber Queen’s power—the power of words: “I you will never catch, for I is more than a match; I will duck your base canards; I will flee and fly to flee again.” Nanny, sweet Nanny, yes. Tan-Tan bad inna Robber Queen stylee.

“You going to come with me, woman!” Janisette lunged for her, caught the brim of her hat. Tan-Tan zigzagged out of reach.

“Not wo-man; I name Tan-Tan, a ‘T’ and a ‘AN’; I is the AN-acaona, Taino redeemer; the AN-nie Christmas, keel boat steamer; the Yaa As-AN-tewa; Ashanti warrior queen; the N-AN-ny, Maroon Granny; meaning Nana, mother, caretaker to a nation. You won’t confound these people with your massive fib-ulation!” And Tan-Tan the Midnight Robber stood tall, guns crossed at her chest. Let her opponent match that.

Someone in the crowd blew a whistle in approval. “Kaiso! Tell it make we hear, Tan-Tan!”

Tell it? The Robber Queen opened her mouth to gift the populace with more word science. A man’s voice shouted, “Is pappyshow! Tan-Tan is old-time story, not real!”

No, not real. He right. Just a pregnant bitch in a costume. The glamour faded like a dream. She was only Tan-Tan. “I real as you,” she croaked. Her voice shredded in the air. She was trying, trying to tell the real story, but she was tiring, Janisette was only steps away. Too much baby, too much guilt weighing her down. Janisette leapt. Missed. Tan-Tan flipped away, dropped the guns, launched into a heavy jog round the square that felt as though it would tear her groin tendons loose. The handcuffs clanked at her wrist. No way to get through the press of people. Where would she run to, anyway?

Janisette kissed her teeth, ran and clambered up into the tank. It roared to life, headed straight for Tan-Tan. She going to run me down! Tan-Tan took two desperate steps, stumbled to her knees. Death rushed to crush her.

The tank was upon her. She rolled in the dirt, feeling her weapons in their scabbards scrape against her flesh. Her cape snagged under the tank’s treads. It dragged her for a few agonizing metres before the button at her neck gave way, leaving her gasping, her side scraped raw. Janisette was turning for another pass. The baby in Tan-Tan pounded to get out. When you take one, you must give back two. She had two lives to save; hers and the pickney’s. She struggled to her feet, belly pushing out big for all to see. Someone screamed, “Nanny save us, she making baby!” The tank was bearing down on her again, its headlights full on her. Nothing to do. She stroked her belly, waited. The headlights blinded her.

The tank’s brakes screeched. Janisette stopped centimetres from Tan-Tan’s navel. Tan-Tan concentrated on sucking in air sweet as life could sometimes be. Her side burned. Her lower back pulsed with pain. She waited, calm as a queen.

Janisette opened the hatch to the tank, stuck her upper body outside. “Is who pickney that filling up your belly, murderess?”

Whose? She’d carried the monster all this way. The damned pickney was hers. Tan-Tan took another breath, rubbed her belly again. “Is love that get the Robber Queen born,” someone said softly out of her mouth, “love so sweet it hot.” Janisette frowned. The crowd pulled in closer to hear. Someone in Tan-Tan’s body took a breath, filled Tan-Tan’s lungs with singing air, spoke in her voice:

Her beauteous mother,

Was another,

Not this Janisette with she fury-wet lips and she vengeance.

Tan-Tan Mamee Ione, the lovely; Tan-Tan woulda do anything to please she,

But she wasn’t easy.

Her pappy,

Was never happy with all he had, oui?

He kill a man on Toussaint, leave he family to wail,

Then he grab his little girl and flee through plenty dimension veil

And bring her here, to this bitter backawall nowhere.

People, she was seven.

Them say the Robber Queen climb the everliving tree.

I tell you, that little girl was me.

“What the rass?” cried someone in the crowd. “Is what kind of paipsey robber talk this is any at all? Look, best make we get on with we jump-up, oui?”

Cho, the populace and them trying to get rowdy. How dare the bold-face man not believe her story? Regally she pulled her machète, brandished it at the heckler. She was the Brigand à Miduit; they were going to hear her! She roared:

Is me, I tell you! Tan-Tan the Robber Queen! The one and the same,

She warm the poor with candle flame

And spirit the lame from harm.

“Oho!” the heckler said. “I know you now. You is Charlie crazy girlfriend. Doux-doux darling, you might be name Tan-Tan, but that don’t make you a legend.”

To rass it didn’t.

You nah believe is majesty you talking to?

Me won’t blame that on you;

From your face it plain you

Ignorant. What for do?

Somebody sniggered. “A-true, Dambudzo, you know sun don’t always shine as bright for you as for the rest of we.” People laughed. “Lewwe hear she story little bit.” Dambudzo frowned. Janisette revved the engine of the death car. Her Majesty the Midnight Thief stepped prudently back a step or two.

Wait! Me ain’t done relate

to you the full monstrosity of this man, Tan-Tan pappy.

She ain’t come here by choice,

He never give she any voice

in she fate.

He use he wiles to trick she, a seven-year-old pickney,

Into exile, oui?

Now even her supporter had lost interest. “Cho man, we ain’t business! Everybody life hard here. You coulda come up with a nicer speech than that, girl. Come Selector: start up the music again.”

“No, answer me, bitch,” yelled Janisette, climbing out onto the running board of the vehicle. She leaned and spat the words into the face of this body the Queen was wearing: “A who-for pickney that a big-up your belly?”