Marlon James: The Book of Night Women

— Aye, indeed. Indeed. Maybe he did run away as the jumpers say. I shall send word to the constable today. Let him mount a search party and then we shall see what’s what. And to what use have you put the girl? I will see her now, Jack Wilkins say.

— Yes, Massa Jack.

The door swing open, wider than before and the whole cellar wash in dim daylight. Jack Wilkins march down the steps with Homer right behind him. Lilith think first to hide but then decide to stand still and take what coming to her.

— And what have you been doing here all in the dark?

— She make the place clean and pretty, massa. Clean and pretty can’t done. She—

— For fuck’s sake, Homer shut up. I’m sure God blessed her with a tongue.

Homer shut up and bow. Lilith don’t know who disturbing her more.

— Me working, massa, Lilith say and bow.

— You working. Working on what?

— Whatever need working in the cellar, massa.

— Whatever need working. Doesn’t seem like you’re very busy down here, Lilith.

— Oh, she plenty busy, massa. Is like she have three hand and—

Right then Massa Jack swing round and strike Homer hard in the face. She stagger back and fall against the step. — That’s enough out of you, he say. He turn back to Lilith.

— And tell me, Lilith, by chance have you heard of a boy called Paris? Tall boy, thin, your height almost, maybe a smidgen taller. A new Johnny-jumper.

— Me mama tell me to stay away from boy, massa.

— Clever. Clever. I’m surrounded by clever niggers.

Lilith look at the man. Tall with a slight hunch. Hair near white but eye green and bright. Massa Jack shirt open right to the waist, as be him custom. But he thin and muscular, mayhaps even strong, from all those years acting as the headman of Montpelier. Lilith can’t believe that this same man was driven to distraction sometimes as Homer say. He regard Lilith so long that she start to fidget.

— Can’t have any nigger thinking they’re too special, you know. That’s why you were sent to the field. But this is as good a place as any, I wager. You find the cellar agreeable?

— Is hard work, massa.

— Well, niggers aren’t here to have things easy, are they, he say and laugh. He turn around and go back upstairs, leaving Homer to rub her face. Homer sit on the step while Lilith rub her fingers. Lilith don’t dare look at her. Not long after Pallas run down and stop on the step above Homer.

— He run away? Why the Johnny-jumpers saying Paris run away when they know what happen? Homer? Homer, this don’t seem mighty peculiar to you? Why the Johnny-jumpers didn’t just say she kill him? Why they lie when we and them is not friend?

— You ever see what happen when puss catch bird, Pallas?

— Yes, but…

— When puss catch bird. Think ’bout that for a while, Homer say and go upstairs.

EVERY NEGRO WALK IN A CIRCLE. TAKE THAT AND MAKE OF it what you will. A circle like the sun, a circle like the moon, a circle like bad tidings that seem gone but always, always come back. Woman work round the sun and sleep round the moon and sometimes work round both, especially if it be crop time. Other times woman wait on the moon, especially if it fat with blood and rise low over the Blue Mountain. That be the season of the Sasa, the Asaase Yaa or the Ogun and the other forgotten gods.

Truth be told, slaves in Jamaica have more ranking among themself than massa. In this place two thing matter more than most, how dark a nigger you be and where the white man choose to put you. One have all to do with the other. From highest to lowest, this be how things go. The number one prime nigger who would never get sell is the head of the house slaves. That position so hoity-toity that in some house is a white woman who be that nigger. The head house nigger get charge with so much that she downright run the house, and everybody including the massa do what she say. Homer careful not to cross the line, though. Position can make a negro girl forget herself and there is always the cowhide, the cat-o’-nine and the buckshot to remind her of her place. After she, there be the house slaves who work the rooms and the grounds and the gardens. Sometimes is the prime pretty niggers or the mulatto, quadroon or mustee that work there. Then you have the cooks who the backra trust the most, because the cook know that if the mistress get sick after a meal there goin’ be a whipping or a hanging before the cock even crow. Other house slaves be cleaning and dusting and shining and manservanting and womanservanting and taking care of backra pickneys.

After the house slaves come the artisan niggermens, like the blacksmith, the bricklayer, the tanner, the silversmith, niggers who skilled with they hands, followed by the stable boys, coachmen and carters. Next is the field niggers, headed by the Johnny-jumpers who be the right hand and left hand of the slave-drivers. They do most of the whipping and kicking but when the estate running right they have nothing to do, so they whip and kick harder. After Johnny-jumper come the Great Slave Gang, the most expensive slaves, the one who they buy for the long years of hard work. The mens and the womens strapping and handsome like a prime horse. Most be Ashanti, what the white man call Coromantee, but they not easy to control so they get punish plenty for they spiritedness. But a dead Coromantee man can set an estate back up to three hundred pounds so they careful not to kill too much. After that is the Petit Gang, the makeup of plain common nigger. Some cost less than one hundred pounds and they work the other fields, like the ratoon or the tobacco that some planters grown on the side. Other nigger look down ’pon them mens as worthless and them womens as good for rutting, not breeding. On some estate even the pickneys work, mostly in the trash gang to pick up rubbish on the estate or to carry water for the field slaves to drink, or to get firewood. That be the negroes.

Now while the overseer Jack Wilkins plough through so much nigger bush that some start to wonder what exactly the estate sowing, the old massa Patrick Wilson forgo woman flesh from the day he come back from the war, when less than a fortnight after, house nigger make two breakfast tray for two different room. All people know is that in 1779, a year after he marry and come to Jamaica, old massa was still young and he get all caught up in rule Britannia! Because it seem the whole world was trying to take what England got. The day he hear that even Spain join France to help the rebellious thirteen colonies fight war ’gainst England he get into quite the conniption, as the mistress say, and declare that a gentleman must answer the clarion call to serve king and country. So he leave him wife at the estate that he just inherit and set out for glory all the way in Gibraltar. By the end of 1779, the mistress belly did big with a coming young’un. Massa Patrick Edward St. Michael Wilson go all the way ’cross the sea to fight war when Jamaica itself did needed defending when the French try to take the colony in early 1782 and the negroes try to rebel in St. Mary, not far from Montpelier Estate.

The massa didn’t return until June 1782 and all Jamaica was celebrating but he. Some of him planter friend joke that Massa Wilson go all the way to Gibraltar to fight the enemy when the enemy was tiptoeing to him own doorstep. But as the massa step through him own door and look around like he never see the estate before, people know that not all of him come back. Something happen, something that show in him limping, that trade part of him for a part of the war and that is the part he bring back to Montpelier. In 1782 he still young but him hair gallop down in age quick and was near full white. Massa Patrick was a tall man, but him body slump and turn him into question sign. There be no scar in him face but the few who see, say he have a long scar that go from him shoulder all the way to him navel and another one that run all the way down the back of him left thigh. Him eye circle with dark even in the day for the enemy shoot the daylights out of him. More night than less, Homer need two strong negro to catch the massa when he have night terrors and run naked right through the front door and down by the bird bath and screaming and bayoneting with him finger at the Frenchies and the Iberians and whoever running him down with four feather. Not even Homer tea could fix whatever wrong with the massa. The mistress have to make do with her own quarters after one night when the massa wake up, find him sword and start chop up the whole room to pieces, telling the chair, A cowpox on you, you goddamned Gallic bastard! The mistress get very melancholy and have nobody to tell her story to. From that time on nobody could speak anything ’bout the French or the Spanish in her house. For Montpelier become her house. The mistress take over with the estate running and the head butting with Jack Wilkins ’cause the massa did all but useless. As soon as the young son Massa Humphrey could read Mother Goose, the mistress ship him off to school in England.