Marlon James: The Book of Night Women

Then it come to pass one night that Lilith gathering Robert Quinn stuff that didn’t burn when the moonlight cut a shape in the doorway. A man shape. She run into Robert Quinn bedroom but Massa Humphrey jump her and they crash on the bed. He on top of her and Lilith screaming and crying and Massa Humphrey ripping her dress off, one hand pressing her head down in the bed and the other tearing away the cloth. He growl and yell and Lilith don’t know what he saying but she crying. He punch her back and tell her to shut up, shut up, godforsaken wicked black bitch, but she not still. He hold down her head and pull down him breeches. He hump and hump and hump and breathe heavy until he stop. Lilith try to turn round but he hold her and cuss. He cuss louder and louder but let go. Lilith turn over again but he grab her breasts and hump and hump but then stop and collapse on her. Lilith don’t know if he whimpering or crying. He don’t look at her. With all him humping he didn’t enter her at all. He breathing heavy and him breath foul. Lilith lie still under him, not daring to move but not wanting to move either. They stay there and she feel tears running down the side of her cheek and don’t know if is from him or her. He try to ram her again. She look past him red hair into the ceiling and listen to the bed creaking. She wrap her arms round him back and know he not entering her but act like he be. She close her eye tight and thinking that him hair long and black, that him eyes cheery and light and that he calling her lovey. Then they both lay still and leave it to the cricket to make noise in the night.

EVERY NEGRO WALK IN A CIRCLE. TAKE THAT AND MAKE OF IT what you will. But sometimes when a negro die and another negro take him place, even if that negro not be blood, they still fall in step with the same circle. The same circle of living that no nigger can choose and dying that come at any time. Perhaps nigger take things as they be for what used to be will always be what is. Maybe it better for backra and nigger that things go back to what people think is the best way until the fire next time. White man sleep with one eye open, but black man can never sleep.

Time now to give account of the league of women. The blind niggerwoman in the bush, she tell me everything. This was not the story me did plan to tell. Massa Humphrey realise that he can’t stop cry if he remain at Montpelier, so he sail back to England. Maybe he recapture him manhood back there, Miss Isobel say when she know he can’t hear. He didn’t take Miss Isobel. Massa Humphrey leave all estate matters to an attorney and allow Miss Isobel to live at the house after it rebuild. He never take Lilith to bed after that first time and by the time he gone the two womens in the house both big in belly. Miss Isobel try to go back with him the day he set sail and demand that he be a man and a father. Massa Humphrey say that whether or not he be a man is his own affair, and as for her and her child, perhaps she should petition Kingston, since any man could claim the bastard. But he leave her at the estate, which some take to mean that him admit that the pickney could have been him own. Miss Isobel swear that she goin’ pour all her hatred and ill will into the little boy for his father and Massa Humphrey reply that he’ll burn down the whole county then. Who knows, perhaps it will be a nigger baby, he say also. Miss Isobel slap him, but he slap her back. She swear to him that she will never leave Montpelier, to which he say that was quite fine since he’ll never come back.

Lilith don’t even think of Massa Humphrey. The attorney let her continue living in the overseer house with Jack Wilkins until he pass away. The attorney hire a new overseer but he live in a house build since the rebellion. The attorney let slip once that this was Massa Humphrey specific wish, as he himself didn’t take too much to the society of negroes. The first thing the new overseer set about was to buy new negroes, but seasoned negroes or those born in the colony, no nigger from the Africa and that take quite some doing. Word was that this was folly, since the interest in the West Indies was fading and slavery might soon over. Lilith didn’t get any free paper, but she act like a free negro. She work in the kitchen and cook and clean for Jack Wilkins and do her own thing as be to her mood. She still be the only negro that could go near Miss Isobel. When Lilith by her own company, she rub her big belly and say luv.

Time to give account of the league of women.

Hippolyta didn’t have no face left after it get blast off with a shotgun. She dead in Jack Wilkins’ house and a song rise up ’bout the papa who kill him daughter. Nobody did know her much when she was living and they know her even less when she dead, for her spirit still yelp in the dark and hide in the corner wearing a black dress with a high neck to hide where slave-driver cut her throat when she did but a pickney and take ’way her speakin’. Hippolyta song quick and harsh. A song rise up against Hippolyta, a chant to keep her spirit away from the living and grant her peace.

Callisto take four white man herself, was the account that Gorgon give while she was swinging in the gibbet. Gorgon say that Callisto was a woman who laugh all her life but never smile once. From the day Jack Wilkins shoot out her eye for kicking a white overseer in him balls, her mind never set right and in the storm of gunshot was the best way she could dead. Gorgon spend the rest of her short life haunted that she didn’t get to hear the last thing Callisto say. But she take four white man herself, and in the fields and the bush a new song rise up under the quiet, about Callisto, Callisto, who bring backra down to so-so .

Gorgon die by the gibbet but she do things before that. Gorgon loud and rude and act like she bad before the rebellion, but as the rebellion got worse, she hide behind Callisto like a monkey. She slow Callisto down and Callisto get shot for the trouble. Short almost like midget, Gorgon get out of hard work because Jack Wilkins be her daddy and he know she be no use in the field. She love him for taking her out of field hardship, but she hate him for making her owe him. But she the only one that Jack Wilkins ever call him blood. She call him Papa Jack and he never strike her. Something in that drive her mad ’cause she know she could never be the Coromantee that she want to be in her spirit. That make her wilder than wild and badder than bad, but she hide behind Callisto when she frighten. Gorgon was the only nigger who didn’t scream in the gibbet, but she talk. She make song out of the names of the women, but not Lilith. Gorgon sing her song high, she sing her song low, she sing it until she run out of voice. She dead after eight days. The song about Gorgon was short and had no word, since all that need to sing she sing already.

Pallas make for the mountains but lose her way. In all the running Pallas didn’t see that she on the wrong path, on the wrong side of a wrong hill. That be what the song of Pallas say but nobody remember if is true or lie no more. Night was coming down and Pallas hiding under leaf until she hear rumble in the bush. She run deeper into the forest and see the first Maroon before he see her. He naked and have a rifle on him back. She behind bush and see him coming in her direction. She stop and cock her rifle. The second Maroon run right up behind her and don’t make a sound. He swing back him hand to blackjack her but she swing round swift and shoot him in the face. Pallas running on the ground but the first Maroon running through the trees. He hop to one branch and jump to the other and grab a branch and swing, then disappear in deep bush. Pallas running on the ground and didn’t look up to see him flying above her. But when he jump down to land on top of her head, she swing round with the shotgun and shoot him balls off. Then she take the gun and bludgeon him head until she can’t tell the difference between head and dirt. The third Maroon nigger fire on her. Bullet fly through the bush with a zip-zip-zip . They zip-zip-zip so quick and so quiet that much time pass before Pallas notice that her left shoulder was bleeding. She curl herself like a snail and roll down a bare hill until she near land in the river. Pallas hide behind a rock. She reload. She wait for him to come down. She looking up and the river below make noise over the rocks. She didn’t see the Maroon until he jump her from behind. They roll and tumble and end up in the river. He on top and he push her head under the water. The Maroon hand pushing down tight on Pallas neck and Pallas flailing about. But she grab a rock and clap him in the temple with it. The Maroon fall back in the water and Pallas jump on top of him. She grab another rock and hit him in the head. Then she hit him again and again and again and again until a streak of blood wash down the river. She put on him clothes and head back into the bush. A couple Maroon pass by her and she wave, signaling that the runaway might be deeper in the bush. Nanny Town Maroon make they woman bear arms. Accompong Maroon don’t. This was Accompong. Before she could even notice, they swarm her and use a rifle butt to knock her out. The Maroons hand her over to the redcoats and the magistrate charge her and others with insurrection and mass murder and throw her in the gaol. White man fury bigger than white man justice. They break in the gaol and drag her out. They beat her hard, then tie her up to a stake and burn her slow so she wouldn’t pass out but feel herself burnin’ to death. Her song long and mournful but when the song reach the end, it dance and the spirits jump.