Marlon James - The Book of Night Women

— Don’t take me for a fool, Wilkins. Crop time is not for another eight months.

The slave-driver grin but then Massa Humphrey scowl and he shut up real quick. Wilkins watch him step in the house and then regard the black-hair man following him.

— This gentleman, by the way, is Robert Quinn, Massa Humphrey say. — He’ll be replacing you.

— Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, gentlemen, Robert Quinn say as he step inside.

Homer watch Jack Wilkins cuss two word and stagger off to him house, to tell the wife. She run back to the kitchen as Robert Quinn and Massa Humphrey inspect the house. He don’t like much, not the paintings, furniture or drapery and the heat reach right into him England coat and make him outright cuss.

— Goddamn if I haven’t been banished to a penal colony, the massa say.

But Massa Humphrey heart break when he see he mother. She frail like ghost and mistake Massa Humphrey for he dead father three time before she see is her son. When she see is Massa Humphrey, the mistress fall in him arms and him eye open wide when he see how light she be, like feather and how she look skinny down to the bone. He step back and near push her ’way since the whole room did smell mouldy and sour and the smell was coming from her. Massa Humphrey face red and he huff and puff and race into the kitchen and slap Homer straight ’cross she face and push her chest in so hard that Homer stagger back on the stove and burn she hand. You bastards trying to starve my good mother to death? he say, him face red and him eye dark and he huffing and puffing. Homer take it on herself to be brave and say she try to feed the mistress every day with the food she always like, but she won’t take no food, only a little biscuit and tea and so Jack Wilkins say to stop feeding her.

Massa Humphrey storm round the back and soon we hear words that the Bible don’t like. Then we hear a crash and the overseer wife Missus Wilkins beg for her poor invalid husband. Massa Humphrey come back in huffing and puffing and go toward Homer, who jump, but then decide to stay still and take whatever he give. He go right up to Homer face and him blue eye lock with her brown eye and he say, Feed her. He walk away ’bout ten pace and stop, turn round to Homer and say, Please.

SOMEWHERE ’CROSS THE SEA BUT STILL IN THE WEST INDIES, in a land called Saint-Domingue, the negroes revolt. They take over the whole territory and kill the governor and burn down the main city. That was 1791. Now in 1800 a niggerman name L’Ouverture set to control the whole island. The British try to take the island for themself but this black republic drive them, the Spanish and the French, back! There be not a single white man in Jamaica who wasn’t fretting, ’cause Jamaica negro numbers here be huge indeed.

Sake of Saint-Domingue, more redcoats come to the country. Every now and then a bunch march past the estate fence, moving stiff like rigor mortis soon set in, burnin’ like meat and acting like they don’t notice. The white people seem to feel safer every time they see one, with they red coats bright like fresh blood. They wearing black hat that point out in the front and wide at the side, and have long hair that mix with flour and fat and tie back tight. Them neck get lost in a stiff collar and them hair blooming out from the side of the temples. They all sweat like pig and smell something horrid. One entire regiment get put twenty mile from Montpelier.

The Montpelier Great House build long before Britain seize Jamaica from them Spanish people in 1655. A Jew tobacco farmer was the first British owner. The Wilsons buy the property in 1721 and king sugar take over. Though many years pass since the Wilson ownership, Massa Humphrey be only the second of him kin to live here. Massa Humphrey talk ’bout how plenty friend think him take leave of him senses, but he be a gentleman after all and must make him own road in life. Massa Humphrey tell this story to the negroes who gather to receive him the next day but he don’t look at nobody, as if he don’t expect nigger to understand. Robert Quinn, who we come to know was an Irishman, take over as overseer, and live in the great house. Sake of Jack Wilkins getting on in years Massa Humphrey make he stay.

Montpelier Great House have a ground floor that make out of cut stone and two more on top that make out of wood and plaster. The first thing Massa Humphrey and Robert Quinn do was pull down all the blue and purple curtains and ask for white or yellow or no curtain at all. Sunlight run through the house along with the sound of big boys singing shanty that scandalous even to common folk. Massa Humphrey room as big as three bedroom put together and only he sleep in there. Sometimes when Homer come to wake him, he sprawl out on the floor and still asleep. Robert Quinn no better. The two sport together like arse and seat, always making joke, playing prank or going off, once Quinn tell the massa of it, to Spanish Town where the women prettier and safer than Kingston women. Sometimes they take the hussy back to Montpelier and the whole household can hear the goings-on. Especially from Robert Quinn room. Between the two it was enough to make a nigger wonder if white man didn’t know they born with cocky until they come to the colony.

Now Massa Humphrey different from him father who lose himself in war, or him mother who have to make do. Massa Humphrey learn to love Montpelier and that was no easy thing. For it take some time to get season by this weather. And some of the white people too hoity-toity, thinking that they can beat the West Indian sun and still wear wool when they feel like. But sooner or later this place burn the England out of an England man. Some people, like the redcoat soldiers, fight and fight and not even see that they lose from the day they dock in Montego Bay. That is England a man scratching out when him balls itch, that is England he spitting out whenever tobacco juice leave him mouth. Plenty week pass before Massa Humphrey even talk to anybody besides Robert Quinn, who then talk to everybody else. The slave-drivers didn’t like that at all. Sooner take Jesus for a sodomite than take me orders from a potato eater, one of the slave-driver say as he and a few put distance between themself and Montpelier.

But two and a half months of Homer cooking lead Massa Humphrey to start ask what feast she preparing tomorrow. Massa Humphrey don’t have to cross him leg when he sit out on the terrace. He light him pipe at any hour. The man break wind whenever he ready, scratch whichever part he choose and love how the heat always give him excuse to take off him clothes. Negro girls learn to blush like white woman and turn away, but truth be telling he never did too hard to look at. Him wild and curly hair get wilder and curlier. He taller than him father and him shoulders strapping and jaw strong. This massa eye did hide all sorts of mischief in sea blue and as said before, when he drop he breeches the sight never did too hard to look at.

The colony can change a man if he willing and there be things he can do here that he can’t do nowhere else. Regard this, coming to a land where a man can seduce, rape or sodomise any niggerwoman or boy or girl he wish and there be nothing that nobody goin’ do, for every other white man be doing the same. Picture the one place in the world where God don’t judge the quick and the dead and they free to do as they please. Some white man jaw drop with outrage but sooner or later a black apple pass by and they can’t resist. Negro get to understand that white man body in bondage in the mother country and when they come to the West Indies, the cocky be the first thing they set free. Negro take heed of the case of William Clarke, who rape and strangle five negro girl but nobody arrest until he kill Worthy Park Estate most expensive slave and get lock up for destroying property, not murder. But that don’t stop the white man. As for the white woman, she can only turn her eye and sip tea.