Marlon James - The Book of Night Women

Lilith hiss.

Lilith get tired of coming through the back door. She grab the mop and bucket to swab the cellar floor and fling them in a corner. Lilith throw down the petticoat that the mistress always tearing and Homer always giving her to fix. She hate sewing. She hate that Homer keep telling her to clean the cellar and the shelves that never get dust. Lilith ask Homer when she goin’ be a proper house negro and clean upstairs and how come she can’t serve food like the other negrowomens in the house, since none pretty or have clean fingernail like she. Homer say, Pretty gal go a river and see herself in water. Pretty gal drown when she go down to kiss herself. Lilith hiss at what Homer say, but she mark that Homer say it.

October come. This be crop time on the estate, when no field nigger sleep. Even in the cellar, Lilith hear the marching of two hundred feet in the morning and in the evening. The songs they be singing so far off that all she hear is the uh-huh! when they all chop at once. The crackle and crunch of the mill that run day and night and keep every light sleeper awake. Lilith was glad for the first time that she was a house slave.

One day when Homer gone to Kingston with the massa, one of the cooks say that when Homer ready, she used to go out to the goat pen and cover herself with nanny goat piss so that a ram goat would back her into a corner and rut her. Other nigger say that Homer pussy no got no hole and she buy all her pickneys. Other nigger say that Homer cho-cho tougher than wood chip. Homer used to say that the man no born yet that could handle her, so the only answer was to have no man, except when Jack Wilkins set niggermens ’pon her before she pass child breeding age and she beget a boy and a girl. The boy get sell to salt farm in Bermuda and the girl get sell to a estate in the Cockpit Country to the west.

Homer go down the cellar one night and wake Lilith up. Homer by her close and Lilith don’t like it. Homer pull out something from her apron.

— You know what this be, chile?

— Me didn’t born behind cow. Is book, they call it.

— You don’t say. Is when since you lay eye ’pon book?

— Tantalus did… but not to touch.

— Touch it, then.

Homer hand the book to Lilith and she take it in her fingers. Lilith expecting something like a dress or a jewel box that easy to break like any other backra thing. The book hard and soft at once, the cover when she run her fingers over it feel like linen or osnaburg, but the book also hard like wood and thick. The book red like wine or blood. She never feel or smell anything like that ever. A scent like oil, or mayhaps white man armpit, or dust and something else, all of them smelling something awful apart but together make the most wonderfullest thing. Lilith close her eye and breathe in the smell like tobacco.

— Even better when you open it, Homer say.

Lilith open the book. The leaves white in the center but get browner to the edge. She shut it back quick.

— Why you bring this down here? Me not fool, you know. Me know that Robert Quinn would kill we if he see we.

— You have more sense than me did think. Why you think that be so, me chile?

— Because is white people things. Nigger not to care ’bout them things.

Homer laugh.

— Then you is a real nigger for sure. Make me tell you something and you listen good. You see this? This book? As long as you can’t read this white man will have all sort of power over you.

— So when me can read chain goin’ break? You is one perplexing nigger, Homer, anybody ever tell you?

— Me not nobody nigger. Learn this, when you can make out word, nothing the massa can do will surprise you. A nigger, he no got nothing. He got nothing. But when you can make out a word, that is something indeed. You know how long me know that Massa Humphrey was coming? You think ’bout that. When a nigger can read, she can plan, if is even for just a minute. Make me tell you something else ’bout reading. You see this? Every time you open this you get free. Freeness up in here and nobody even have to know you get free but you.

— If the massa find out, you dead.

— If the massa supper spoil, you dead, what be the difference?

— Me suppose to answer that?

— It name question, me chile. White man is beast either way. Nothing you can change ’bout him. But you can change plenty ’bout you. Regard that a while. You not no fool and you not common. You remember that. One of these days you goin’ know what me talking ’bout.

Lilith quiet for a while. The darkness telling her nothing.

— What that book name?

— Joseph Andrews . Henry Fielding write it. British man.

— That don’t sound like nothing.

— You just wait.

So Homer commence teaching Lilith how to read. Lilith don’t know why her, but glad to have the new feeling rise in her when she see a letter shape into something when they in front of her. A cup was something that she could hold and pour tea into, but a cup was also a c-u-p and when she hold her hand steady she could write it plain for Homer to see. Homer nod her head and then show her s-a-u-c-e-r. Lilith begin to see how reading and writing work and how you can write a thing and give it to a nigger and nobody can hear what she say even if she could only write that t-h-e b-l-a-c-k c-a-t s-i-t o-n t-h-e m-a-t. Writing be silent talking and Lilith like to have something that nosy nigger can’t overhear. But more so every time Lilith learn a word the cellar seem not so dark. Or mayhaps it was she who didn’t seem so dark. Lilith don’t know, but she feel like she enter something or she goin’ somewhere that most other nigger couldn’t follow.

And that Joseph Andrews. That rascal. Seems all that white man have to do is bide him time and keep him place and everywhere he trip he goin’ land right between white woman legs. Black woman hard to laugh, for she must keep it secret and quiet-like for all white man suspicious of negro mirth. Homer read the book and Lilith clutch her side and try to laugh quiet and get a pain that would make her cry if she still wasn’t laughing.

‘I am afraid,’ said Lady Booby , ‘he is a wild young Fellow.’ ‘That he is,’ said Slipslop , ‘and a wicked one too. To my knowledge he games, drinks, swears and fights eternally: besides, he is horribly indicted to Wenching.’ ‘Ay!’ said the Lady, ‘I never heard that of him.’ ‘O Madam!’ answered the other, ‘he is so lewd a Rascal, that if your Ladyship keeps him much longer, you will not have one Virgin in your House except myself. And yet I can’t conceive what the Wenches see in him, to be so foolishly fond as they are; in my Eyes, he is as ugly a Scarecrow as I ever upheld .’

— That wild fellow sound like Robert Quinn, Lilith say.

— Eehi? What news you have ’bout Robert Quinn?

— My ears as good at night as yours, Homer.

They both laugh.

— How you come by book learning? You is just common nigger.

— Nothing common ’bout me, chile. Or you neither.

— How you come by book learning?

— Jack Wilkins’ sister, she teach me. Lord God, that be a long time ago. Every time her governess teach her two word, she find me working the house and drag me away to teach me. She even beat me like how governess beat her. But she show me how word read and how word write and me soon start teach meself.

— And the massa never know?

— No massa live here them time. Only the overseer, Jack Wilkins’ papa. Him never care ’bout what him daughter do. You could have call him a good man, even. Good for a white man anyway. That girl was a wicked little bitch. But she teach me how perfume read, then how it write. P-e-r-f-u-m-e. And how one letter put next to another letter change how they sound like.