Midnight Robber Read online

  Baps! A man landed on his back on the ground just in front of Tan-Tan and Ione. Berimbau music jangled to a halt. Before they could move out of the way, a woman strode up. She looked at Ione, who stepped back, pulling Tan-Tan along with her.

  “Get up!” the woman said to the man on the ground. “Get up, you lazy so-and-so!” Her voice was two rockstones cracking together. “Tomorrow when you fighting for real, you can’t lay down so every time you get throw. Get up, I say!”

  “Must be the bare hand marshall, she,” Ione said to Tan-Tan in a low voice.

  The marshall’s chest was a bull chest. Her bare arms and legs-them were thick like poui tree trunk. She hauled the man to his feet. “Every Carnival them send me one set of allyou soft-hand people, say you learning how for fight. Well, go back and fight then, nuh!” With a hard slap to the man’s shoulder she sent him stumbling back into the ring. The man who’d thrown him all that way looked determined and cocky. The berimbau player began his tune again. The two men faced off, grappled, began to tumble around the ring of the roda.

  “Lord have mercy,” Ione said. “What make anybody want to labour so?”

  Tan-Tan could barely hear her for all the yelling and shouting, the scraping of the berimbau, the sounds of sticks crashing together. Over to the right they could see the stick fight ring. It had about twelve men and women standing in two short lines, facing one another. They each had one short stick and one long one. The stick fight marshall was shouting out the measures: “Lemme see you do the Scarlet Ibis!” The stick fighters turned and jumped, swinging their sticks high in air and hitting them against their opponents’ sticks. It was more performance than fight, and Tan-Tan could see the pattern of the dance. It looked like birds flying for true.

  “All right! Now the Dip and Fall Back!” One line crouched down low and ran behind the other. The people in the standing line leapt up high, crashing one another’s sticks together at the apex of the jump. The marshall sang out, “Canboulay-Oh!” and the dance turned into a free-for-all. Fighters jabbed at one another with their long sticks and used the short ones to fend off blows. One set of comess and confusion!

  “Mummy, they going to get hurt!”

  “No, child; you ain’t have no sense? Long time ago, the stick fight was real, but is just a pappyshow now.”

  It ain’t look like no pappyshow to Tan-Tan; it looked like serious business.

  Ione pointed to the middle of the fight yard. “Look the machète practice there so. That is what we come to see.” She hustled Tan-Tan over to the barrier. “Peel your eye, girl. Me will look too. Tell me if you see your Uncle Quashee.”

  True to old-time tradition, the machète fighters-them were wearing full antique leather armour and face plate and thing, so it wasn’t easy to see who was who. They were sparring in twos, slicing at each other with wood machètes. The marshall went from one pair to the next, moving an arm or a leg, stopping people sometimes to demonstrate a move.

  Suddenly, one fighter tripped a next one to the ground and kicked the machète out of the fallen one’s hand.

  “Bloodcloth!” the downed one cursed, cradling the kicked hand. His voice was muffled by the face plate.

  “Hold on; hold on!” the marshall yelled. The sparring stopped.

  “Quashee, man, I tired tell you about cheating! Kicking not allowed; tripping not allowed! If you can’t fight fair, get your ass out of my blasted yard, you hear?”

  The cheater swiped off his helmet and face plate and dashed them to the ground. It was Quashee for true. It had dust in his hair. His face was covered in sweat and mud. Ione was only waving her handkerchief, trying to catch his eye, but he wasn’t paying her no mind. He was too busy arguing with the marshall.

  “Don’t vex, Boss,” Quashee say. “Is forget I did forget. I know you tell me before, but this thing ain’t no joke, you hear? We only playing fight today, but if Antonio decide to challenge me, tomorrow I go be catching my nen-nen.”

  “Man, what you frighten for?” The man on the ground had picked himself up and entered into the argument. “You ain’t even self know if Antonio going to challenge you. Today is he last chance to lay challenge. Is five months gone, and you ain’t hear from he. I bet you he don’t show up.”

  A real machète flew through the air and jooked into the leather helmet lying at the mens’ feet, nearly slicing the helmet in half. Quashee cried out and jumped back.

  “Well, Master Don, you lose your bet. I here.” One of the other fighters in the ring was unbuckling his face plate. Tan-Tan knew that voice. It was her daddy. He had been practising beside Quashee all along, disguised by his helmet.

  A woman in the crowd of spectators sang out joyfully, “Oh, God! Look story now!”

  The marshall scolded: “Antonio, what the ass you doing making masque in my machète ring? Is Potoo supposed to be he in here, not you! And what you mean by throwing bare steel at one of my students like that?”

  Antonio frowned, but the marshall continued his harangue: “You is mayor of Cockpit County, yes, but in this machète yard, even the mayor don’t break my rules.”

  When Antonio replied, he did so in a respectful voice: “Sorry, Marshall; my head get too hot when I see that cheating son of a bitch who disgrace my wife and insult my hospitality!” (Quashee moved behind the marshall’s back.) “I can’t let it pass; I come to announce my intentions to challenge Quashee to a fair fight on Jour Ouvert morning!”

  Outside the barrier, the spectators began to whisper to one another. Tan-Tan heard: “Lord, how Antonio think he could win a machète fight when Quashee been practising for five months now?”

  Obviously the same thing was on the marshall’s mind; he kissed his teeth, shook his head and said, “Allyou know I could cancel a challenge if I think one fighter have a unfair advantage, right? Antonio, you don’t have no practice fighting with machète.”

  Antonio laughed. “No? What make you think so? You remember Warren, Marshall? The man you replace as machète master when he retire from the yard last year? Well, Warren is my good, good friend and he been giving me private lessons since before Jonkanoo Time.”

  Oh, yes: scandal break again in Cockpit County! The crowd was ssu-ssu ing so till the marshall had to shout for silence. It ain’t have nothing for him to do but shrug and ask Quashee and Antonio if they understood the rules of the challenge: “The two of you going to fight with machète, leather armour your only protection; a fair fight, until one of you surrender or can’t fight no more. And Quashee, listen good; the rules say you can’t refuse a Jour Ouvert challenge if you healthy. So: you accept the challenge, or you refuse?”

  Sweat was beading Quashee’s forehead like when you put salt on a slice of z’avocat pear.

  “I accept, Marshall.”

  Antonio just nodded.

  Tan-Tan couldn’t stand to keep silent any more. “Daddy! Daddy! I over here!”

  Antonio turned at the sound of her voice. He strode over to Tan-Tan and Ione. Tan-Tan felt suddenly shy. Was he still vex with her?

  But Antonio bust one big grin and patted Tan-Tan on her head. “Well, doux-doux, long time I ain’t see you. You miss me?”

  “Yes, Daddy,” Tan-Tan whispered. Yes, she had been missing him too bad.

  “Don’t mind, Tan-Tan; as soon as I teach that young boy name Quashee a lesson, I go come back home to live with you. You would like that?” He was speaking to Tan-Tan, but is Ione the tamarind-brown beauty he was looking at.

  Mummy frowned. She didn’t say anything. She would make Daddy vex again! Desperately, Tan-Tan asked, “We go be together again, Daddy?”

  “Yes, doux-doux. Soon.” To Ione he said, “You looking after my child good, woman? I too angry with you already; you wouldn’t want me to vex even more.” His smile had an edge to it now.

  Ione’s look changed from I-don’t-business-with-you to I-best-take-care. She pressed her lips together and made a little step back. “Yes, Antonio, I taking care of she. You don’t see how good she looking?”
Then a pleading look: “You going to come back to we, doux-doux?” she wheedled. “I sorry too bad for what I do.”

  Daddy’s face softened. Mummy smiled like she’d just won a game of jacks. She reached out a hand to Daddy. He took it and squeezed it gently. Then harder, until his heavy leather gloves creaked. Don’t that must hurt? Tan-Tan looked to her mother, but Ione just stood there with her mouth set in a smile. She hissed a little through her teeth. A tear was worming its way down her cheek. See, she really was sorry for hugging up with Quashee!

  Still tightly holding her hand, Antonio smiled tenderly at his wife. “Yes, darling, I go come back, after I deal with that young boy there. He pee ain’t even start to make froth yet, but still he casting he eye ’pon my woman like he is big man.”

  He raised Ione’s hand to his lips and kissed it. He released her. He left them and went to where Quashee and the marshall were standing. Ione rubbed her hand. She looked as though she were going to cry for real, but instead she shook her head and gave a little laugh.

  “What a thing eh, Tan-Tan?” she said in a high, shaky voice. “To have two men fighting over me! Ain’t? I think your daddy really love me, sweetheart. I must try to be a good wife to he after this. Is me make him vex, and is me must fix it. Come let we go home, child; I have to dress to puss-foot tomorrow morning, oui!”

  On the way home in the pedicab, all Ione’s talk was about how Quashee is a nice man, young and tireless; but on the other hand, how Antonio is a mature man who know he own mind, and too besides, you see how fit and strong Antonio looking nowadays? She ain’t really know which one to wish would win, after them both have them good points.

  Tan-Tan was frighten too bad, oui.

  “Mummy,” she asked. “Daddy go dead?”

  Ione sighed. “Tan-Tan, you does worry too much about stupidness. The machète marshall ain’t go let Quashee kill we mayor, doux-doux. The rules say you ain’t supposed to kill in a Jour Ouvert challenge. For you to win, your opponent have to be hurt too bad to keep fighting, or he have to beg you to stop. Okay? So what you think I should wear tomorrow? I have to look nice for the fight!”

  • • •

  Ione and Antonio had always had a stormy relationship. “Love so sweet it hot,” people said. They quarrelled often. It added spice to the subsequent making up. It was their favourite game. But over the years the sweetness had soured. To keep it juicy they’d had to raise the stakes on the fights. Now they each had too much to lose. Neither would give ground. People used to think that Ione was the one suffering, oui? Cockpit County knew about Antonio and the way he lied about his womanizing. The old people who had seen everything in their lives happen two and three and four times would just shake their heads and mutter, “He going to run aground, just like a Garvey ship.”

  People thought say was only wicked Antonio horning Ione, for Ione had been too sly to make anybody know her business.

  But the game had gotten stale on her. Once Antonio had become mayor he was soon too busy with the work to pay their games much mind. Some days Ione felt say she could have paraded naked through Antonio’s office with three of her lovers and he wouldn’t notice. Singing with the Jubilante Mummers distracted her busy intellect a little. Being on the committee that organized the annual Mercy Table helped too, but she missed Antonio. She found herself longing for the young people days when the two of them would meet after a day of farming and hold hands and walk and talk in the setting sun and make plans for their life together till the frogs in the wisdom weed bushes were wooing krek-ek! in the dark.

  Ione decided to try a new way to catch Antonio’s attention again. She got pregnant. So that is the piece of comess that Tan-Tan had been born into. Two people who loved each other fiercely but had forgotten how to do it without some quarrel between them. Ione and Antonio thought say is baby they were making oui, but they were really only creating one more thing to quarrel over.

  It had sweet Antonio can’t done to know he was going to be a father. And it was a good thing he liked the idea, for from the first birth pangs hit Ione, it was as though she realised she didn’t have the taste for hard labour, oui. As soon as she pushed the baby out of her, Ione took one look at it and shouted at Antonio to activate the wet-nurse, purchased to help Ione with the breastfeeding. The midwife Babsie took the baby, held it out for Ione to give it one dry kiss on the tiny cheek, and that was that for mother-love.

  Antonio followed Babsie as she went into the next room and parked the baby in the carry pouch of the wet-nurse. The nurse’s calming blue chicle gel body hummed reassuringly. “Is all right,” he said to Babsie. “I go stay with she little bit.”

  With trembling hands, he made sure his new daughter was snug and comfortable in the carry pouch. She stopped crying. He guided her mouth to the teat of the wet-nurse. The tiny lips locked on and began to suck.

  Antonio sat for two hours straight by the baby’s side. He marvelled to watch the new little thing eat, sleep. Watched her wake crying at the feel of the soiled bedding wadded round her. The wet-nurse had come with instructions. He played the ones for changing the swaddling and followed them meticulously, afraid at every turn that he would hurt the child. He fed her again. Then he sat and stared at her for another long hour.

  “I still getting pain,” a voice from the next room said.

  “But no more contractions?”

  Antonio climbed slowly out of his reverie into awareness. Ione was next door in the lying-in room, talking to the doctor. Is how long he had left her alone?

  He jumped to his feet. He picked up the baby and hurried into the next room. His wife’s skin was grey with fatigue, her eyelids-them drooping. Is two hands she was using to hold the glass of water to swallow the pills the doctor was giving her.

  Doctor Kong turned and smile at him. “Congratulations, Daddy.”

  Antonio looked to Ione, but the cut-eye of contempt he got in return was enough to slice skin, oui. She reached out her two arms to claim her property. Antonio put the baby into them. But Ione grasped her too roughly. The pickney woke up and started to cry.

  “No,” Antonio said. “Hold she so.”

  “Back off from me. You make any pickney?”

  And it was Ione who held her child as Doctor Kong syringed the nanomite solution that would form her earbug into the baby’s ear. From then on, what used to be sweet hotness between Ione and Antonio turned to nuclear war, yes.

  Ione would look in on Tan-Tan once a day and pat the tiny shoulder, just a little bit too hard. She would always startle Tan-Tan awake, and the baby would start to cry. Quick-quick, Ione would set the wet nurse on “rock.” “Ssh, baby, ssh. You musn’t cry. Don’t make so much noise, or the Midnight Robber will come and take you away.”

  In years to come, the little girl Tan-Tan would ask the eshu to show her images of the Midnight Robber. Fascinated and frightened at the same time, she would view image after image of the Midnight Robber with his black cape, death-cross X of bandoliers slashed across his chest, his hat with its hatband of skulls. The Midnight Robber, the downpressor, the stealer-away of small children who make too much mischief. The man with the golden wooing tongue. She would show him. She would be scarier than him. She would be Robber Queen.

  All Ione knew was that she was no good at being a baby-mother. She told her husband, “Hear nuh? You have one pickney now, so don’t expect me to be stretching out my figure trying to make no more for you.”

  Antonio pushed out his lip when she said that, and his brow got dark as thunder clouds, but he didn’t say nothing, nothing at all. After that, no sweet words for Ione any more.

  Is all right though. Ione had better fish to fry, oui? Mayor Antonio was always bringing sweetie and dolly for his little girl Tan-Tan, but he never had anything sweet no more for his hot-blooded, lonely wife. Ione pitched her cap for a youth named Evan, a tall, sweet-talking swaggerboy. Who coulda blame her? Such a nice boy, so polite, so attentive. Such long, strong legs. She hoped for Antonio to see the glances between t
hem and counter with a passion of his own. The game was on again.

  Well, doux-doux, Ione was a woman who got bored easily. Couple months down the road, Evan made his eyes rest too long on a pretty young man he met while playing dominoes. And is not like he and Ione coulda had any fidelity pact, but Ione didn’t want to be one of two people vying for Evan’s loyalty. Next day, Ione abandoned Evan for Franklyn and his green, bitter-melon eyes.

  About a half-year later, Ione’s favourite parasol flew away from her in the garden, and Franklyn laughed to see her running after it. Just for that little piece of mako, Franklyn gave way to Jairam. Jairam was a dougla boy, Indian and Euro blood from Shipmate Shiva that had settled two continents away. Jairam’s mammy was descended from the longtime ago East Indians, the ones who had crossed the Kalpani, the Black Water on Earth to go and work their fingers to the bone as indentured labour in the Caribbean. Jairam was a pretty, pretty man with curly black hair and sweet, pouty lips. All the same though, he could never get a joke. Ione soon tired of his long, serious face, so Jairam lost his place to Quashee. By coincidence, it was about the same time that Antonio threw over a certain Shanti for a pretty piece of sweetness name Aïsha.

  Now, Quashee was to hang around a little longer. He was the first one of this string of lovers to really sweet Ione: his skin was smooth, black and hot; just so cocoa-tea will warm your body on a cool morning. He managed to keep Ione entertained for a few years well. By then, Tan-Tan was seven, and she was so used to seeing Quashee round the place, she was calling him “uncle.” Nice arrangement for Ione, oui. Hard-working husband and a harder lover.

  Things couldn’t go on so for good. Cockpit County is a small place, and you know how them back-a-wall, smalltown people stay. Eventually, Antonio came to find out about his wife and Quashee. Jealous Jairam whispered some badmouth something in his ear one day.

  At first, Antonio didn’t believe, but all day long he kept seeing Quashee in his mind’s eye. That good-for-nothing grin. The long, lanky way he would lope after the ball on the soccer field that would have people sighing and fanning themselves for how pretty he was. If Ione was horning him in their own house Granny Nanny would have the images in her data banks, but no-one could override Nanny’s privacy protection. Nanny only chose to reveal information that she judged would infringe on public safety.