Midnight Robber Read online

  “No . . .” But the woman was already in the cab beside him. She smelt strongly of sweat. She hummed something that sounded like nannysong, but fast, so fast, a snatch of notes that hemidemisemiquavered into tones he couldn’t distinguish. Then Antonio heard static in his ear. It faded to an almost inaudible crackle. He tapped his earbug. Dead. He chirped a query to his eshu. No answer. He’d been taken offline? How the rass had she done that? So many times he’d wished he could.

  The woman was big, her arms muscled as thighs, her thighs bellied with muscle. Antonio stood to give himself some height over her. “What you do that for?” he demanded.

  “No harm, Antonio; me just want to tell you something, seen? While nanny ear everywhere can’t hear we.”

  “Tell me what?”

  She indicated that he should sit again. She planted her behind in the seat next to him. Antonio edged away from her rankness. “The co-operative had a meeting,” she said.

  “Co-operative?”

  “Membership meeting of the Sou-Sou Co-operative: all the pedicab runners in Cockpit County; Board of Directors, everybody.”

  Why hadn’t he known they were organized? Damned people even lived in headblind houses, no way for the ’Nansi Web to gather complete data on them. “So you have a communication from your co-operative for me?” he asked irritably.

  “A proposal, yes. A discreet, unlinked courier service. Special government rate for you and the whole Palaver House. We offering to bring and carry your private messages.”

  Private messages! Privacy! The most precious commodity of any Marryshevite. The tools, the machines, the buildings; even the earth itself on Toussaint and all the Nation Worlds had been seeded with nanomites—Granny Nanny’s hands and her body. Nanomites had run the nation ships. The Nation Worlds were one enormous data-gathering system that exchanged information constantly through the Grande Nanotech Sentient Interface: Granny Nansi’s Web. They kept the Nation Worlds protected, guided and guarded its people. But a Marryshevite couldn’t even self take a piss without the toilet analyzing the chemical composition of the urine and logging the data in the health records. Except in pedicab runner communities. They were a new sect, about fifty years old. They lived in group households and claimed that it was their religious right to use only headblind tools. People laughed at them, called them a ridiculous pappyshow. Why do hard labour when Marryshow had made that forever unnecessary? But the Grande ’Nansi Web had said let them be. It had been designed to be flexible, to tolerate a variety of human expression, even dissension, so long as it didn’t upset the balance of the whole.

  But what the runners were offering now was precious beyond description: an information exchange system of which the ’Nansi Web would be ignorant. The possibilities multiplied in Antonio’s mind. “The whole Palaver House?” he asked.

  “Seen, brother. Some of we did want to extend the offer to you one, oui? But then we start to think; if we putting we trust in only you, what kind of guarantee that go give we? Not to say that you is anything but a honest man, Compère, but this way we have some, how you call it, checks and balances in the deal, right?”

  “And what guarantees you offering we?” asked Antonio petulantly.

  “Contract between we and you. On handmade paper, not datastock.”

  “Headblind paper too? How?”

  “We make it from wood pulp.”

  Like very thin composition board, Antonio imagined. Koo ya, how these people were crafty. “And what your terms would be?”

  “Some little payment for we services, and reduction of we taxes to the same level as the pleasure workers and them.”

  Crafty, oui. Turn right away round from paying the government to having the government pay you. Palaver House would have to mask the activity as something else, probably a government-dedicated taxi service. Only the Inner Palaver House could be privy to it, but it ain’t have nothing unusual in something like that. Antonio found himself whispering, “We could do it . . .”

  “Me know so. You going to come to terms with we?”

  “Maybe. You have ahm, a private place where me and some next people could meet with your board?”

  “Yes, man.” They set a meeting time. She told him the place. “One of we go come and get you. Look smart, partner. You coming online again.” She warbled again in impossibly intricate nannysong. Antonio’s ear popped. In a voice schooled to convey worry the runner said: “Sorry man, too sorry. It working again?”

  “Yes.” He was still marvelling at the few minutes he’d been dead to the web. Never before since birth. He chirruped in nannysong for his house eshu.

  “Master,” said the eshu, “you want me?” No visuals this time. It was capricious sometimes.

  “Yes. Something . . . malfunction in the blasted headblind four-eye in this pedicab, and I was only getting static for a second. I just making sure you still getting through.”

  On the screen, the eshu appeared, spat. “Cho. Dead metal.” It winked out.

  “I name Beata,” the woman said. She stuck out a paw. He shook it. Her palm was rough. From work, Antonio realised. How strange.

  “Seen.” They had an agreement. Silently, she leapt onto the roadway, stepped into the traces and set off again.

  They were at the entrance to Antonio’s house in minutes. “Here you go, Compère. Safe and sound and ready to ferret out your woman business.”

  Quashee and Ione? Antonio felt jealousy turning like a worm in his belly. He didn’t like the weight of the cuckold’s horns settling on his brow. His mind was so worked up, he barely remembered to pay Beata. He got down from the cab and would have walked away, but she hauled it into his road and stood there sweaty and grimy, blocking his path. She poked a bit of betel out from between two teeth with a black-rimed nail. Flicked it away. Smiled redly at him. He threw some cash at her. She caught it, inspected the coin insolently and tucked it into her bubby-band. “Walk good, Compère. Remember what I say.”

  He was sure he could still smell the sweat of her even though she had jogged off. He opened the white picket gates and walked up the long path towards the mayor house.

  This day, Antonio couldn’t take no pleasure in his big, stoosh home, oui? He didn’t even self notice the tasteful mandala of rock that his Garden had built around the flag pole near the entrance when he first took office. The pale pink rockstone quarried from Shak-Shak Bay didn’t give him no joy. The sound of the Cockpit County flag cracking in the light breeze didn’t satisfy him. His eye passed right over the spouting fountain with the lilies floating in it and the statue of Mami Wata in the middle, arching her proud back to hold her split fishtail in her own two hands. The trinkling sound of the fountain didn’t soothe his soul. Is the first time he didn’t notice the perfection of his grounds: every tree healthy, every blade of grass green and fat and juicy. He didn’t remark on the snowcone colours of the high bougainvillaea hedge. He didn’t feel his chest swell with pride to see the marble walls of the mayor house gleaming white in the sun.

  Quashee and Ione? For true?

  On the way, Antonio found Tan-Tan playing all by herself up in the julie-mango tree in the front yard. Her minder was only scurrying round the tree, chicle body vibrating for anxious; its topmost green crystal eyes tracking, tracking, as it tried to make sure Tan-Tan was all right. “Mistress,” it was whining, “you don’t want to come down? You know Nursie say you mustn’t climb trees. You might fall, you know. Fall, yes, and Nursie go be vex with me. Come down, nuh? Come down, and I go tell you the story of Granny Nanny, Queen of the Maroons.”

  Tan-Tan shouted back, “Later, all right? I busy now.”

  Antonio felt liquid with love all over again for his doux-doux darling girl, his one pureness. Just so Ione had been as a young thing, climbing trees her parents had banned her from. Antonio loved his Tan-Tan more than songs could sing. When she was first born, he was forever going to watch at her sleeping in her bassinet. With the back of his hand he used to stroke the little face with the cocoa-
butter skin soft like fowl breast feathers, and plant gentle butterfly kisses on the two closed-up eyes. Even in her sleep, little Tan-Tan would smile to feel her daddy near. And Antonio’s heart would swell with joy for the beautiful thing he had made, this one daughter, this chocolate girl. “My Tan-Tan. Sweet Tan-Tan. Pretty just like your mother.” When she woke she would yawn big, opening her tiny fists to flash little palms at him, pink like the shrimp in Shak-Shak Bay. Then she would see him, and smile at him with her mother’s smile. He could never hold her long enough, never touch her too much.

  Antonio called out to his child in the tree: “Don’t tease the minder, doux-doux. What you doing up there?”

  Tan-Tan screwed up her eyes and shaded them with one hand. Then: “It ain’t have no doux-doux here,” the pickney-girl answered back, flashing a big smile at her daddy. Sweet, facety child. “Me is Robber Queen, yes? This foliage is my subject, and nobody could object to my rule.” Tan-Tan had become fascinated with the Midnight Robber. Her favourite game was to play Carnival Robber King. She had a talent for the patter. “Why you home so early, Daddy?”

  In spite of his worries, Antonio smiled to see his daughter looking so pretty. His sweetness, his doux-doux darling could give him any kinda back-talk, oui? “I just come to see your mother. You know is where she is?”

  “She and uncle taking tea in the parlour, Daddy. Them tell me I musn’t come inside till they call me. I could go in now?”

  “Not right now, darling. You stay up there; I go come and get you soon.”

  Antonio dragged his feet towards the parlour, the way a condemned man might walk to a hanging tree. As he reached inside the detection field, the house eshu clicked on quiet-quiet inside his ear. “You reach, Master,” it said. “Straighten your shirt. Your collar get rumple. You want me announce you?”

  “No. Is a surprise. Silence.”

  “Yes, Master Antonio.” The eshu’s voice sounded like it had a mocking smile in it. Like even self Antonio’s house was laughing at him? Where Ione?

  When Antonio stood outside the door, he could hear his wife inside laughing, laughing bright like the yellow poui flower, and the sound of a deep, low voice intertwined with the laugh. Antonio opened the parlour door.

  Years after, Antonio still wouldn’t tell nobody what he saw in the parlour that day. “Rasscloth!” he would swear. “Some things, a man can’t stand to describe!”

  Mayor Antonio, the most powerful man in the whole county, opened up his own parlour door that afternoon to behold his wife lounging off on the settee with her petticoat hitched up round her hips, and both feet wrapped round Quashee’s waist.

  Antonio stood there for a while, his eyes burning. He knew then that whenever he shut them from now on, he would see that pretty white lace petticoat spread out all over the settee; Quashee’s porkpie hat on Ione’s head; the teasing, happy smile on her face; and Quashee’s bare behind pushing and pushing between Ione’s sprawled-opened knees.

  Antonio never noticed that Tan-Tan had followed him to the parlour door. She stood there beside him, eyes staring, mouth hanging open. She must have cried out or something, because all of a sudden, Ione looked over Quashee’s shoulder to see the two of them in the doorway. She screamed: “Oh, God, Antonio; is you?”

  Soft-soft, Antonio closed the parlour door back. He turned and walked out his yard. Tan-Tan ran after him, screaming, “Daddy! Daddy! Come back!” but he never even self said goodbye to his one daughter.

  Little after Antonio had left, Ione came running alone out the house, her hair flying loose and her dress buttoned up wrong. She found Tan-Tan by the gate, crying for her daddy. Ione gave Tan-Tan a slap for making so much noise and attracting the attention of bad-minded neighbours. She bustled Tan-Tan inside the house, and the two of them settled down to wait for Antonio to come back.

  But is like Antonio had taken up permanent residence in his office. Ione took Tan-Tan out of the pickney crêche where she went in the mornings to be schooled: said she wanted some company in the house, the eshu would give Tan-Tan her lessons. So Antonio couldn’t come and visit Tan-Tan during siesta like he used to. He had to call home on the four-eye to talk to her. He would ask her how her lessons with the eshu were going. He would tell her to mind not to give Nursie or the minder any trouble, but he never asked after Ione. And when Tan-Tan asked when he was coming back, he’d get quiet for a second then say, “Me nah know, darling.”

  • • •

  Well, darling, you know Cockpit County tongues start to wag. Kaiso, Mama; tell the tale! This one whisper to that one how he hear from a woman down Lagahoo way who is the offside sister of Nursie living in the mayor house how Ione send Quashee away, how she spend every day and night weeping for Antonio, and she won’t even self get out of bed and change out of she nightgown come morning. Another one tell a next one how he pass by Old Man Warren house one afternoon, and see he and Antonio sitting out on the porch in the hot hot sun, old-talking and making plans over a big pitcher of rum and coconut water. In the middle of the day, oui, when sensible people taking siesta!

  All the way in Liguanea Town, people hear the story. They have it to say how even the calypsonian Mama Choonks hear what happen, and she writing a rapso about it, and boasting that she going to come in Road March Queen again this year, when she bust some style ’pon the crowd with she new tune “Workee in the Parlour.” And Sylvia the engineer tell she daughter husband that somebody else whisper to she how he see Quashee in the fight yard every day, practising cut and jab with he machète. But eh-eh! If Antonio going to call Quashee out to duel come Jour Ouvert morning, ain’t Antonio shoulda been practising too?

  What you say, doux-doux? You thought this was Tan-Tan story?

  You right. My mind get so work up with all that Antonio had to suffer, that I forget about poor Tan-Tan.

  • • •

  In fact it seemed like nobody wanted to pay any mind to Tan-Tan no more. People in her house would stop talking when Tan-Tan went into a room, even old Nursie. Ione was spending all her days locked up in her room in conference with Obi Mami-Bé, the witch woman. It looked like Antonio wasn’t coming back at all at all.

  But truth to tell, Tan-Tan wasn’t so lonely, oui. She was used to staying out of Ione’s way, and playing Robber Queen and jacks with just the fretful minder for company. She liked leaning against the minder’s yielding chicle, humming along with the nursery rhymes it would sing to her. She had nearly outgrown the minder now, yes, but it did its level best to keep up with her. Tan-Tan used to play so hard, it come in like work:

  “Minder, you see where my jacks gone? I could find the ball, but not the jacks. You think I left them under the settee yesterday?”

  “Maybe, Mistress. Make I look.” And the old construct would flatten its body as best it could and squeeze itself into tight places to retrieve the jacks Tan-Tan was always losing.

  Or, “Minder, let we play some old-time story, nuh? I go be Granny Nanny, Queen of the Maroons, and you have to be the planter boss.”

  So the minder would access the Nanny history from the web and try to adapt it to Tan-Tan’s notions of how the story went.

  Tan-Tan had a way to make up tales to pass the time, and like how time was hanging heavy on her hands nowadays, she started to imagine to herself how sweet it would be when her daddy would come to take her away from this boring old place where everybody was sad all the time, their faces hanging down like jackass when he sick. She was going to go and live with Daddy in the mayor office, and them would play Robber King and Queen in the evenings when Daddy finish work, and Daddy would tickle her and rub her tummy and tell how she come in pretty, just like her mother. And come Carnival time, them would ride down to town together in the big black limousine to see the Big Parade with masqueraders-them in their duppy and mako jumbie costumes, dancing in the streets.

  • • •

  Finally, it was Jonkanoo Season; the year-end time when all of Toussaint would celebrate the landing of the Marryshow Corporation
nation ships that had brought their ancestors to this planet two centuries before. Time to give thanks to Granny Nanny for the Leaving Times, for her care, for life in this land, free from downpression and botheration. Time to remember the way their forefathers had toiled and sweated together: Taino Carib and Arawak; African; Asian; Indian; even the Euro, though some wasn’t too happy to acknowledge that-there bloodline. All the bloods flowing into one river, making a new home on a new planet. Come Jonkanoo Week, tout monde would find themselves home with family to drink red sorrel and eat black cake and read from Marryshow’s Mythic Revelations of a New Garveyite: Sing Freedom Come.

  But Antonio still wouldn’t come home.

  This Jonkanoo Season was the first time that Tan-Tan would get to sing parang with the Cockpit County Jubilante Mummers. She and eshu had practised the soprano line for “Sereno, Sereno” so till she had been singing it in her sleep and all. And she had done so well in rehearsals that the Mummers had decided to let her sing the solo in “Sweet Chariot.” Tan-Tan was so excited, she didn’t know what to do with herself. Daddy was going to be so proud!

  Jonkanoo Night, Nursie dressed her up in her lacy frock to go from house to house with the Mummers. Nursie finished locksing Tan-Tan’s hair, and took a step back to admire her. “Nanny bless, doux-doux, you looking nice, you know? You make me think of my Aislin when she was a just a little pickney-girl. Just so she did love fancy frock, and she hair did thick and curly, just like yours.”

  “Aislin?” Tan-Tan dragged her eyes from her own face in the mirror eshu had made of the wall. She had been trying to read her daddy’s features there. “You have a daughter, Nursie?”

  Nursie frowned sadly. She looked down at her feet and shook her head. “Never mind, doux-doux; is more than twelve years now she climb the half-way tree and gone for good. Let we not speak of the departed.” She sucked her teeth, her face collapsing into an expression of old sorrow and frustration. “Aislin shoulda had more sense than to get mix up in Antonio business. I just grateful your daddy see fit to make this lonely old woman part of he household afterwards.”