Marlon James - The Book of Night Women

— Pig smell?

— Paregoric. What, you is the only nigger that don’t smell it too?

— Not paregoric, laudanum, Lilith say, but not to Homer.

Homer mixing batter in a bowl for cake.

— Soon come the mistress birthday, Homer say. — Cake coming today, present coming tomorrow.

Lilith wonder if that was Homer talking like Homer.

— We need to have words, Lilith whisper.

— We need to have words, eh? Me don’t think you have nothing me need.

— Eehi? You think so, how about you needing me to keep quiet?

Homer mixing the batter but she look up a Lilith. Her eyes red but pale. Lilith look at Homer brows and her hair getting whiter.

— What evil deh ’pon you now? Homer say.

— Me’d tell you but wall have ears and floor love chat, Lilith say, looking at Pallas.

— Didi.

— Dido they call me. Get the name right one time, the little girl say.

— Dido, dodo, doo-doo, go on mix this till you can’t see no more grain, Homer say as she hand over the batter to a girl that Lilith not sure she see before. Outside they commence to walking but not so far that a driver would ask what business they have outside of the house.

— What happen to the old girl?

Homer laugh. — You in Massa Quinn bed too long, she say.

— And you too. . You know what? I can’t bother.

— The old girl is a no-girl now. Some uncanniness happen where Miss Isobel clothes all cover in mud and stink with liquor and whatever and the mistress say is the girl thief out her clothes to parade around and do nastiness and then try to put it back in her room when the mistress catch her.

— What?

— What is right. Thieving is serious business on this estate. Johnny-jumpers deal with her quick.

— All this happen and me never know?

— That be the way with you of late. Anyway, me have cake to bake so talk you talk.

— Where Athena be?

— Athena be where she can best help the struggle. This is what you call me out for, woman?

— What you do to her?

— Look around you, chile. How you think this goin’ end? Anyway, you don’t seem to have no reason for taking up me time so me gone—

— Callisto and Gorgon plotting something.

— Eehi.

— Callisto, Gorgon and Iphigenia.

— Surely.

— Me see for meself. This morning in the planthouse.

— You see them plotting.

— That is what me say.

Homer pause for a long while. Then she turn and go. Lilith go after her.

— That is it? That is all you have to say? Me say they plotting.

— And me hear you.

— How you know they not plotting they own thing? Against you?

— Well, Homer say and pause. — We all soon know what we know.

Homer go to leave but Lilith grab her hand. — Put a end to it, Homer. This getting out of hand.

— For why? All you care ’bout is Mr. Irish.

— And all you care ’bout is dead pickney. As soon as you hear them dead, you dead too.

— Leggo me bloodcloth hand if you know what good for you.

Lilith let go and Homer continue to walk. Then she stop. — Besides, that ship sail off already. Nothing we can do ’bout it now, she say. You goin’ tell the estates and tell the niggers to forget free? You think any nigger want to spend they days under white man but you? Lilith watch her go back to the kitchen. She remember a Homer who use to walk so fast that she almost fly and had a back so straight that she seem like her own wall. Not this Homer now.

Lilith go back to her house. She go the door and hear somebody rummaging through the cupboard. She smile.

— If massa not hungry for one thing, he hungry for anoth—

Gorgon jump. She drop a knife. Homer say it before but she didn’t notice it, how Gorgon ’fraid of her since she come back.

— What you want?

— Me no want nothing from you. Me gone to Worthy Park Estate since dem don’t know how fi grow flower. Homer say to tell you—

— Me just see Homer.

— Homer say—

— You deaf, midget? Me say me just see her. Anything she need to tell me she can tell me her damn self.

— You goin’ want to know when next we meet.

— Two day hence.

— No. Tonight.

Night promising to come and Lilith dreading. Not even Robert Quinn latest mission, to teach her how to read this John Donne, can take her mind off the dread. Perhaps Quinn sense something or not, but he don’t say. He go to sleep with Lilith resting on him chest. She wait until he start to snore.

In the kitchen, Lilith grab a knife. She swing and dash and jab and cut in the dark. Then she imagine jumping a woman, grabbing her hair and slashing her throat. But Lilith know there is nothing she can do about six womens. And who knows, maybe they after somebody else. Maybe they after Homer. And even if is Lilith, she kill plenty people already so they better watch out. Lilith make the badness push her out the door, but fear was making her slower. She step one foot then the next in the grass. A owl fly past with a big rat in her claws. Lilith put the knife in her apron and set out for the cave.

By Lilith own reckoning, seven people dead because of her. Eight when she count the poor nigger girl who get lynched for what she do. Maybe she sick with murderer madness, she think. Lilith curse her mind that give her the madness to kill, then leave her with nothing to live with being a killer. The number stop her as she walk. She look at her hand and don’t see no monster. Don’t every niggerwoman have blood on they hands? Mayhaps that be the nigger way. This colony always one step away from bloodshed anyway and mayhaps she not different, no better, no worse than any other soul. Then another Lilith raise her voice, a Lilith that silent for the most part, to say that it is evil whitey who dead, a son of a bitch like Massa Roget and a plain bitch like Mistress Roget, and a dead whitey can’t hurt nobody. And them two boys would have just grow up to become monsters raping and killing negroes, as be the desire of every white man in the colony.

But the other Lilith say, You stupid nigger, memory tricking you. Is not seven or eight, is nine. Lilith remember the eye first, then the nose and the mouth and even her pussy and arse spitting blood on her little daughter. Andromeda, who dead over nothing but a dress that Lilith get whip and rape by white man for. Maybe she be not the child of Jack Wilkins but Satan himself. Seven souls, she thinking. Nine souls. What kind of woman can walk right after killing seven souls? Nine souls. And what about Bessy, the old nigger woman from Coulibre? Was she nine or ten? And what about that jumper nigger the first time? The sound of numbers run around her head and Lilith in the darkness and can’t remember if she set the fire because McClusky dingus go up in her pussy or the Massa Roget finger, or if the mistress whip her or Miss Isobel. Homer said this ’bout the girl who they think burn down the house: you can’t kill so many people and don’t kill a part of yourself too. Homer said that once, but not to Lilith.

At the mouth of the cave Lilith feel for the knife in her apron. A weak light flickering inside, light from one candle. Lilith don’t hear no voice. Perhaps an ambush waiting in the cave. She feel for the knife again, thinking that she should take the thing out or at least grab the handle.

— Move, a voice say.

— If you know wha’ good fi you, say another.

Gorgon. Gorgon behind Callisto so her mouth free. Lilith grip the handle of the knife tighter as she step into the cave and move towards the light. She feel other people behind her and wish she could run. She think to draw the knife but the blade might glint even in the weak light and give her away too quick. Lilith wonder if this is justice, if God finally decide to deal with her. If dead niggerwoman and broke-neck white woman and drowning white man and burnin’ pickneys all laughing and waiting for her to come knocking at hell gateway. Lilith stop and somebody push her down.