Marlon James - The Book of Night Women

— What you want?

— Follow me directly, Homer say.

Lilith not listening to her, and answer with a loud hiss.

— Come chile, make haste. We don’t have much time, Homer say.

— Time for what? the girl bawl out, knowing where Homer is in the dark and looking elsewhere.

Homer say time to make the difference between smart and fool, strong or weak, living or dead. Lilith not understanding.

— Which one you want to be, girl chile? Dead or living? Homer ask.

Lilith say she not ready to dead yet ’cause she don’t know where dead people go. Same place they was goin’ when them living, Homer say. Homer climb up the stairs. Lilith wait like she pondering and decide to follow.

The sky wearing black.

— Stop the dilly-dallying, negro girl, Homer say and Lilith have to run to catch up to Homer as she disappear in the cane field. Homer didn’t have no lamp but move through the cane field like is daylight. Lilith ’fraid that she will step on a rat or yellow snake.

Homer gone ahead of her. Lilith running soft like a goat thief, she barely seeing Homer ahead and could swear that Homer legs not stepping, but she gliding over the ground like a duppy. This would be just what she was expecting from a Myal woman and Homer did scowl when Lilith ask if she be one. She wondering if the black witch cooking up a new trick. Lilith walking and walking faster and faster until she realise that she running to keep up. Homer and the night is friend, Lilith know. She near out of breath now, but Homer still moving quick through the cane field. Lilith wondering how the hell a old woman can run so fast. The cane stalks lookin’ like they bend out of the way before she pass. Lilith ’fraid. She run harder.

Then Homer disappear. Lilith think to scream, but know that if a white man hear a negro this time of night is a full day’s whipping coming for sure, if they don’t shoot her first. And even that not as awful as the Johnny-jumpers. Lilith shudder and cuss and shudder and cuss and cuss some more. Johnny-jumpers. Homer leave her loose in the field for a Johnny to jump her. She cuss herself that she didn’t see this coming. If she was Homer she would turn her over too. This wild girl who take to attacking house nigger, this bad nigger who kill Johnny-jumper who did just want what all man want and will get one way or the other. Because of her there be war between Johnny-jumper and house nigger. Now it look like Homer turn her over and maybe that is best for everybody. But not she. Damn that bitch. Damn that lemongrass-smelling cunt all the way to hell. She wish she could remember what that Johnny-jumper boy look like.

Lilith crouch down in the cane piece, thinking that if she can bide her time till the morning hour at least she will know where to run. Then she look around. Just about every nigger know that sometimes the most wretched thing about being a field slave is the field itself. In the field a rat would bite you toe and in a fortnight the whole leg have to go. In the night a leaf is a blade, a stalk will whip you in the face and who knows what kind of man hide in the bush. And that was only the half. There was other things nigger fear in the field that have nothing to do with flesh. Rolling calf that come up from hellfire to take people back and Imilozi bush spirits that run ten pace behind a nigger, waiting for he to err and look back. Duppy, especially of that girl they burn in 1785. Lilith hear a creak and think of snakes crawling all over her body and strangling her like a rat. She would have to bear till morning. Lilith run back where she think she come from. She run back to the left and the bush swallow her up. Lilith see nothing but dark, not a darkness like sky or like the cellar, but a dark with prickly thing to scratch her. She run further, not knowing where she going but running until that be the only thing she could think of. Then she see a light. A little twinkle far off lead her to the cave.

The cave was just a hole in a hill that she barely climb through, but once inside it wide like a white woman closet. Lilith think maybe she under the same hill where they bury the old massa, but couldn’t tell for sure. Plus there was no way she did run so far, that would be near seven mile. There be nothing to see, so she go by hearing and touching. The cold rock inside, the soft bush underfoot, the branch sticking out, then the sticky mud, then the sharp stones. She follow a smell that unlike the others, not musty or old or sour. Mint and lemongrass.

— Lookee here now. Girly sniff out the house for sheself. What more proof you need, the lot o’ you? somebody say. Lilith hear the voice coming from further and it frighten her a little, but that was where the light be. Lilith foot start scratch her and she brush away the ants and cuss.

— You think you on excursion, chile? Get you backside in here, say a voice coming from the light. Homer.

— Why yuh bring ’er yah me want to know, say another voice, hoarse and scratchy like is an old tree whispering. The voice belong to a woman that Lilith hear before. Up in the kitchen warning Homer about Jack Wilkins, but before that in Circe hut. She almost a midget but without the big head. In the night her skin blacker but her eyes almost glow in the dark. Green like her own. Gorgon, the woman with the cart who ride off with the dead Johnny-jumper who face Lilith couldn’t remember. Lilith step in to where the womens be.

— Nobody bring her here. Girly find the way herself, don’t it? Pallas say.

Lilith see Pallas smile but look away quick when she see one of the women back away into the shadow of the cave, a tall, skinny one who swing like willow tree. She plait her long stiff hair in five and they stick out like branch from her head.

— Ah, de devil bring her ’ere, dat me know, Pallas.

— Devil is white man business, Gorgon. The girl would never find this place if she didn’t have special eye to look. Don’t it, Homer?

Homer come of a dark corner.

— Almost. Nothing special in the eye, but in the woman herself. Nothing but good common sense. Something lost to most nigger, Homer say.

As soon as she see Homer she see all the womens. The cave they treat like a room, with a table in the middle and a candle on top. Three chairs be round the table, all different, including the red armchair she remember from Circe hut. The other womens sit on a rock or stand. Lilith couldn’t make out the light, that brighten what it want to brighten and darken what it want to darken and she wonder if that too be Homer doing. When Lilith look up she see six womens all looking at her. Bantam-size Gorgon, who scratch her hair and frown; Hippolyta with the tree-branch hair, the tallest and skinniest, who remain standing in a dark corner; Iphigenia, who Lilith remember cursing Circe for taking her man once. Lilith smile but Iphigenia didn’t smile back. Iphigenia face wide like crocodile and lips thick like molasses and she wearing a neck scarf and red dress long in the sleeve, like she expectin’ cold air. Pallas in the cave without her headwrap and her hair straight and red like white woman. Beside her be Callisto, whose hair pull back and tie in one and who have a patch over her right eye like a pirate. Moving in and out of the dark but not sitting down was Homer.

— The chile find the way with her own inside map. That settle the matter, Homer say and press her two thin lip together like that is the final thing to say.

— Unu bloodcloth! Dat don’t settle nothing! Gorgon say. — Me surer ’bout de devil dan me sure ’bout she.

Homer stop moving and look straight at Gorgon. Gorgon look straight back but then turn away. Homer look at Lilith. She seem to smile but Lilith couldn’t tell for sure.

— Not even massa dog can find this place, but she find it, Homer say.