Marlon James - The Book of Night Women

— Come, Miss Isobel, Lilith say and touch her hand. Miss Isobel jump back.

— Don’t come any closer! Don’t come any closer! Miss Isobel say and jump off the bed. But then her head go light and she almost faint. Lilith catch her and help her to the bath.

Lilith undress Miss Isobel and she lean against the dresser. Her left eye swell up and purple. Lilith pull Miss Isobel dress over her head and see her breasts beat up and bite up. The dress fall to the ground. Between her legs and her pussy so beat up that it purple too. Lilith help her into the tub and pour warm water over her. Miss Isobel jump, screaming that she is a lady, she is a lady, she is a lady. Lilith hold her down and remember a white man she push under the water. Lilith pour water over Miss Isobel head and Miss Isobel weep. Lilith trying to not think ’bout him.

That evening, everything clear on Sister Jack Hill, the highest point on the Montpelier Estate. Massa Humphrey and Robert Quinn used to smoke up there under a tree and argue ’bout book stuff or share whore story. Now Massa Humphrey there burying him greatest mate and him beloved mother. The preacher be the same one who come by in Christmas to tell slave to be grateful for slavery and the massa. Now he saying ashes to ashes and dust to dust and Massa Humphrey just stare at the two boxes like is he they holding in there. Miss Isobel hang back and Lilith hang back farther. The two womens dress in black. Lilith find dress in the mother room. She remember looking out from the shatter window and wondering where Homer body be. Massa Humphrey start cry again until he get so loud he echo on the hill. Miss Isobel touch him on the shoulder but he push her away so hard that she nearly fall. The preacher shout out that he should unhand her and remember that he’s a gentleman and Massa Humphrey grab a stone and fling it after the preacher. The stone clap him right between the crack of him arse and the preacher yelp. He demand money right there and then and Massa Humphrey pick up some more stone. The preacher run down the hill so fast that he trip and fall and roll halfway down. Massa Humphrey leave the two womens on the hill.

By the fourth day the grounds work up a great stink. But it was niggers working up the most stench. Pack tight in the cage for four days, some fall sick, some fall dead or lose they minds and beg skipper not to throw them off the ship. Nigger funk fly with the wind and menace the whole county. Miss Isobel finally shout out to Massa Humphrey that he need to hire help in Spanish Town to deal with the matter. Massa Humphrey hire several white man, but is a different matter they come to deal with. Two day before, he go into town with something he did sketch with ink on parchment paper.

Now, on the way up the great house be trees that line both side of the road all the way up. The branches hang so far over that even at noon the road dim as if in moonshadow. Plenty branches, thirty, forty or fifty. The time did come for counting sturdy branches. Branches that could hold a good weight. On the seventh day, when the smell and the tightness of the cage start to drive the negroes mad, up from Spanish Town come the blacksmith and him cart. The blacksmith tell Massa Humphrey that he lose two cousin in this, the Great Atlas Revolt. They name it the Atlas Revolt because he was the first man name that anybody remember. When Massa Humphrey see the blacksmith he neither smile nor frown, but put on the blank face that hide a black heart.

— Are they quite according to my instructions? Massa Humphrey say.

— Down the last nail, Your Grace, the blacksmith say, smiling with him two brown teeth.

— Do not presume to mock me, sir.

— I don’t presume to anything, Your Grace, only to tell you that your instructions were carried out, the blacksmith say.

Massa Humphrey round up some new white mens from Spanish Town, Ferry and Portsmouth. The judgement that come next come to Achilles first. Four white mens drag him out of the cage and beat him up first so that Achilles could barely stand up. Then they tear off him clothes, kick him down in the ground until him look like ash. The blacksmith pull the cloth off the cart to show something that no white man or negro see for nearly ten years on the estate. Gibbets.

Them was no ordinary gibbet. They forge out of Massa Humphrey own rage. Achilles see the gibbet when they place one on the ground and scream and try to run, but he drop on one knee. Him left foot did break from before. The four men yank the nigger up. The gibbet build like a cage with a iron loop at the top for rope to hang through, two slat of iron that run down the side and one down the front that make the metal cage look like the shape of a man. They then weld bars going right around, four to hold a nigger in tight. The mens throw down Achilles in the open gibbet. On the inside of the gibbet nails stick out and as they close it they stab right into Achilles’ flesh. He go to scream again, but they shove an iron gag in him mouth too and he mutter like monster. Achilles can barely fit in the gibbet. That be how they make it. They close it shut on him and pull him up. Achilles bound tight in the gibbet from head to crotch. The harness hold him in, leaving only him foot free and dangling. They pull him up on a branch on the first tree. Achilles swing and blood run down. Him mouth gag and he scream through him eye until him eye all scream out. They open the second gibbet for a woman.

Two day later, them done. Massa Humphrey watchin’ from him window and he neither happy nor angry nor melancholy. Miss Isobel see a big nigger and run back to her room. Lilith lock in Jack Wilkins’ house, and wrap herself in Robert Quinn blue shirt, trying to smell him back to life. She don’t look outside at hell. Thirty-seven negroes, man and woman, hanging from thirty-seven gibbets one or two to a tree. They screaming in the gag so the whole stretch sound like bawling coming up from hell. And dripping blood to wake up fly and mosquito. All the way up the road niggers be hanging like uncanny fruit. In a week most of the negroes stop living and the wind roll through, carrying the sound of death rattle. Who don’t dead live on in torment as the crows get tired of waiting. Rumour spread in Spanish Town that anybody who set out for the Montpelier Estate better be prepared for a sight that no gentleman can unsee. Educated man call it the Jamaican Appian Way.

Gorgon last longest in the gibbet.

Pallas never get her day in court. The white mens in Spanish Town did hungry for blood so they ransack the gaol and pull she and ninety other negro and tie them up to stalks and burn them by slow fire. The niggers take three days to burn and nobody could pass out or die quick. After that, five hundred negro get ship to Honduras while some get ship back to a place that rumour to be in the Africa. Before Pallas dead, she speak a curse on the Wilson family and then make a song ’bout how Miss Isobel ruin ’cause two nigger rape her. The song reach other negro tongue and they sing it so loud that it fly all the way back to Montpelier. Miss Isobel demand that Massa Humphrey go to Spanish Town to defend her honour and Massa Humphrey say as soon as she develop some honour he would gladly go to town to defend it. Miss Isobel lock herself in her room with her laudanum and didn’t come out.

Day turn to week and week turn to month. Miss Isobel soon realise Massa Humphrey forget everything ’bout marriage and not bothering to remember. She clutch her belly and give herself such a conniption that Lilith have to give her tea to sleep. Massa Humphrey take to riding at evening to Sister Jack Hill, where people say him talk to Robert Quinn. From there, Lilith watch him as he watch the estate. The one field of cane that untouch. The seven field of ash. The half of the great house that still standing. Nobody hear if he goin’ rebuild or no. He just ride up to the hill and kneel between the two grave and be as unmanly in him grieving as he wish.