The Book of Night Women (7 page)

One day later the most hellish noise wake Lilith up. One of the house slaves, an old niggerwoman who couldn’t do much sake of her lumbago, start screaming and pointing at Lilith, only her voice did old and almost gone so the scream sound like a dying man breath. Lilith jump when she see the old woman and clutch herself, looking all over her person for blood or something worse. Beside her mat was a bunch of twig wrap tight and bind with straw. Lilith go to touch it but the woman scream again and flee. Not long after that, Homer come, with the woman hiding behind her frock tail.

—
Sasabonsam
, she whisper.—
Sasabonsam!

—Shush you mouth, worthless nigger. And carry up the flour me send you down here for.

—
Sasabonsam!

—Shush you mouth before me give you something to talk ’bout!

Homer look at Lilith and at the bundle like it be something accursed that just come out of her. She circle it quiet-like, like a puss, and Lilith get to thinking that the bundle was goin’ run or strike. She frighten. She whisper Homer name so weak that it vanish in the air. Like plenty colony-born nigger, Lilith didn’t know ’bout the Sasabonsam, but Homer know.

Sasabonsam come straight from the Africa, not in chains but by it own free will, and make him home wherever there be the most misery. Sasabonsam live in the cotton tree and give any man him time if he have a guinea. People go to this spirit at night and tie twig together in a bundle or fish a smooth stone out of the river for the Sasabonsam to enter it with all him malcontent. The shuman, they call it. A shuman at your bed mean somebody setting evil on you, mayhaps death. Sasabonsam be the wickedest Obeah, worse than poison. Only one thing can fight it and nothing that the white man brew.

—Sasabonsam take her spirit!

—Quiet you damn mouth, old woman.

—Homer? Lilith whimper.

—Silence! The two of you. And you, woman, don’t make me talk to you again. Homer take off her apron and circle the bundle. Then she throw the apron on the bundle and grab it up like is an animal that going claw it way out.

—Homer? Homer?

—The Sasabonsam ’pon you, me chile. ’Pon you it surely be.

There be a girl name Clytemnestra who the master-at-arms, a slave-driver, fuck as be him regular custom. Homer send her to the man lodging to rob a spoonful of gunpowder. Then Homer send Gorgon up to the hill with no tree and she come back with a cup of dirt from Massa Patrick Wilson grave. Homer mix the two in a glass and fill the glass with rum. All this she do in front of Lilith, her back to the girl. When she turn round, Homer holding a knife. Homer hold out for Lilith hand but the girl flinch. She step back but Homer grab her. Come chile, me don’t have no time to waste, she say. Lilith struggling but Homer grab her left thumb and squeeze.

—No Homer, no.

—Better this than to be dead by Tuesday.

Lilith try to push this out of her head as soon as she hear it. She used to think that she be a young’un from the colonies who born near white people with good breeding and not no stinking Africa woman who only know the bush. But even white people whisper when they say Obeah. The blackest black magic for which there be only one cure. For if Obeah be the black, Myal be the white even though the two still black. Lilith try to pull ’way her hand and Homer slap her.

—Behave! she say.

Her hand stay on Lilith face and Lilith think to ask her right there if she be a Myal woman. Homer prick Lilith thumb and she wince. Homer stick Lilith thumb in the glass until the potion start to turn red. She pull open Lilith dress and her two titty plop out. Lilith quick to cover herself but Homer slap away the hands and mark an X on her chest with the potion. Homer turn her around and Lilith jump when the cold potion drip down her back. Homer hand Lilith the glass.

—Make haste, chile, if you ever want to get it back.

—You want me to drink this? To get back what, Homer? Get back wh . . . , Lilith couldn’t finish, didn’t want to know.

—You soul, girl pickney.

Nothing more could be done until late night. Homer bring Gorgon and Callisto down to the cellar. Gorgon scowl when she see Lilith and hiss when Homer hand her the bundle.

—Bury it by the cotton tree four miles yonder. Turn east once you pass the ratoon fields, Homer say. Gorgon and Callisto turn to go.

That same night a niggerwoman go to sleep and didn’t wake up. Her entire lifeblood bleed out of her pussyhole, arsehole, earhole and nosehole. They didn’t find out who till four day later, when the stink lead Massa Humphrey hounds to her door. Lilith did think the woman would be one of them house slave who don’t mean her no good, but she fall down on her mat and wail when the news reach her. Homer go to shush her.

—Hush up now, me chile. Don’t make backra find reason to make you cry more.

—But she was me mama. She raise me like me mama.

—Mama who send Johnny-jumper over to rape you. No, chile, you and she was never flesh, not even combolo, you know that. All the same. That bitch never take to you from the day she hold you as a baby. One big mistake to make her take you, from that very day me say it, but nobody listen to old Homer.

—Me know, me kn . . . me know she never like me but she was me mama.

—Circe couldn’t mama nothing, chile. Inside that womb deader than doorpost. How she to raise life?

Lilith curl up on the mat. Homer move to go over to her, then stop, then move again. She sit on the floor and Lilith push her head in her lap while she bawl again. Homer move to touch her hair but stop. Lilith face squeeze up with bawling and she grab Homer knee.

—Hush now, me chile, hush now, Homer say.

—She say me was just a stupid nigger girl, who couldn’t do nothing right. She never say a nice thing to me ever. What me do to her?

—Circe be the only nigger me know who ever try to breed. She try real hard. Hard, hard, hard, but she barren like wilderness. Mayhaps ’cause you not her blood, she sow bitterness for you. Anyhow, since you leave her hut Jack Wilkins send her back to the field. Can you imagine? After fourteen year living like free coloured and showing off ’pon nigger she end up right back among they number. She blame you for that too. Who know? But the trap she set catch her back.

—I hope she did bawl. I hope she did bawl blood.

—All right, shush now. You taking things too hard, me chile.

—She try to kill me! How the raas me must take it?

—Just shush, chile.

—Me don’t need shushing! Me . . . Lilith start bawling again. After a good while of sniffling and weeping and bawling, Lilith fall asleep in Homer lap. By the time Homer leave her in the cellar, word already spread through the house and the field that Circe set Obeah on Lilith but Homer attack with Myal and make Circe own lifeblood kill her. Homer go to the door and say this to the kitchen:

—No way that Circe woman could have come all by her lonesome to this great house and go down the cellar, so somebody in this kitchen was in league with her. Same grave Circe dig she fall into and worse goin’ happen if that other nigger don’t set herself right. Me done talk.

Homer go back her table in the kitchen and count off banana for supper.

Nobody think to mess with Lilith after that, but that was correspondence among house nigger and didn’t reach the ear of any soul outside, not even the Johnny-jumpers. A doctor come up from Spanish Town and say that Circe be the worst case of the bloody flux he ever encounter, like the devil possess her body and was trying any hole possible to burst out. Quinn didn’t want her disease to spread and Homer didn’t want white man to know of war between the spirits so they both get what they want, unbeknownst to Quinn. The overseer order the jumpers, who order three field negro to bury Circe under a cotton tree four mile from the estate.

After that Lilith don’t trust nobody. But when night come she feel a heaviness ’pon her and she wonder if the dark was making her blacker. She find herself forgetting the Johnny-jumper face. She wonder how Homer make do with all that lonesomeness, ’cause her lonesomeness make her want to scream. Sometime she think to run outside where Johnny-jumpers may be waiting and let them do what they want, just to feel somebody wanting her for something. She wish she was a field negro for they too busy to feel lonesomeness. She come to realise that Homer be her only protector and sometimes that make her want to call her name, just to make sure she upstairs, but other time she wish she could call and nobody answer. Time come when the name Homer please and sick her. Every time she steal a glance at the skinny woman, she see Homer already looking at her. Even when Homer back turn to her Lilith still feel her looking.

Lilith hiss.

Lilith get tired of coming through the back door. She grab the mop and bucket to swab the cellar floor and fling them in a corner. Lilith throw down the petticoat that the mistress always tearing and Homer always giving her to fix. She hate sewing. She hate that Homer keep telling her to clean the cellar and the shelves that never get dust. Lilith ask Homer when she goin’ be a proper house negro and clean upstairs and how come she can’t serve food like the other negrowomens in the house, since none pretty or have clean fingernail like she. Homer say, Pretty gal go a river and see herself in water. Pretty gal drown when she go down to kiss herself. Lilith hiss at what Homer say, but she mark that Homer say it.

 

 

October come.
This be crop time on the estate, when no field nigger sleep. Even in the cellar, Lilith hear the marching of two hundred feet in the morning and in the evening. The songs they be singing so far off that all she hear is the
uh-huh!
when they all chop at once. The crackle and crunch of the mill that run day and night and keep every light sleeper awake. Lilith was glad for the first time that she was a house slave.

One day when Homer gone to Kingston with the massa, one of the cooks say that when Homer ready, she used to go out to the goat pen and cover herself with nanny goat piss so that a ram goat would back her into a corner and rut her. Other nigger say that Homer pussy no got no hole and she buy all her pickneys. Other nigger say that Homer cho-cho tougher than wood chip. Homer used to say that the man no born yet that could handle her, so the only answer was to have no man, except when Jack Wilkins set niggermens ’pon her before she pass child breeding age and she beget a boy and a girl. The boy get sell to salt farm in Bermuda and the girl get sell to a estate in the Cockpit Country to the west.

Homer go down the cellar one night and wake Lilith up. Homer by her close and Lilith don’t like it. Homer pull out something from her apron.

—You know what this be, chile?

—Me didn’t born behind cow. Is book, they call it.

—You don’t say. Is when since you lay eye ’pon book?

—Tantalus did... but not to touch.

—Touch it, then.

Homer hand the book to Lilith and she take it in her fingers. Lilith expecting something like a dress or a jewel box that easy to break like any other backra thing. The book hard and soft at once, the cover when she run her fingers over it feel like linen or osnaburg, but the book also hard like wood and thick. The book red like wine or blood. She never feel or smell anything like that ever. A scent like oil, or mayhaps white man armpit, or dust and something else, all of them smelling something awful apart but together make the most wonderfullest thing. Lilith close her eye and breathe in the smell like tobacco.

—Even better when you open it, Homer say.

Lilith open the book. The leaves white in the center but get browner to the edge. She shut it back quick.

—Why you bring this down here? Me not fool, you know. Me know that Robert Quinn would kill we if he see we.

—You have more sense than me did think. Why you think that be so, me chile?

—Because is white people things. Nigger not to care ’bout them things.

Homer laugh.

—Then you is a real nigger for sure. Make me tell you something and you listen good. You see this? This book? As long as you can’t read this white man will have all sort of power over you.

—So when me can read chain goin’ break? You is one perplexing nigger, Homer, anybody ever tell you?

—Me not nobody nigger. Learn this, when you can make out word, nothing the massa can do will surprise you. A nigger, he no got nothing. He got nothing. But when you can make out a word, that is something indeed. You know how long me know that Massa Humphrey was coming? You think ’bout that. When a nigger can read, she can plan, if is even for just a minute. Make me tell you something else ’bout reading. You see this? Every time you open this you get free. Freeness up in here and nobody even have to know you get free but you.

—If the massa find out, you dead.

—If the massa supper spoil, you dead, what be the difference?

—Me suppose to answer that?

—It name question, me chile. White man is beast either way. Nothing you can change ’bout him. But you can change plenty ’bout you. Regard that a while. You not no fool and you not common. You remember that. One of these days you goin’ know what me talking ’bout.

Lilith quiet for a while. The darkness telling her nothing.

—What that book name?

—
Joseph Andrews
. Henry Fielding write it. British man.

—That don’t sound like nothing.

—You just wait.

So Homer commence teaching Lilith how to read. Lilith don’t know why her, but glad to have the new feeling rise in her when she see a letter shape into something when they in front of her. A cup was something that she could hold and pour tea into, but a cup was also a c-u-p and when she hold her hand steady she could write it plain for Homer to see. Homer nod her head and then show her s-a-u-c-e-r. Lilith begin to see how reading and writing work and how you can write a thing and give it to a nigger and nobody can hear what she say even if she could only write that t-h-e b-l-a-c-k c-a-t s-i-t o-n t-h-e m-a-t. Writing be silent talking and Lilith like to have something that nosy nigger can’t overhear. But more so every time Lilith learn a word the cellar seem not so dark. Or mayhaps it was she who didn’t seem so dark. Lilith don’t know, but she feel like she enter something or she goin’ somewhere that most other nigger couldn’t follow.