Seegal. Theirs had been the greatest love story in the world, she boasted. And whether they wanted t’hear it or not, she was going to tell them. These days they watched her more than listened: for the way her own words changed her, and how the white mass of hair, let loose like an unruly halo round her head, threw back the firelight. How the long brown face, the cheekbones and nose – high-ridged like the place from which she came – was alive once more. They watched and marvelled at the miracle of those fingers, thin and knotted like the branches of sea grapes, becoming supple and young again.
She was a north-woman, and when a pusson say north-woman they mean a woman with pride. And Deeka Bender was prouder still, becuz she carry the blood of de First People: Carib blood, thick-hair-long-like-lapite blood, high-steppin, tall-walkin blood. And in them days Deeka walked taller than everybody else, no matter how high they was above her.
‘But what God leave for a pretty young girl to do in a lil ole place sittin on the edge of a precipice over de ocean? Eh? Especially when she don’ want to live and dead like everybody else up dere with no accountin fo’ the life she live. And life for a woman in those days could mean just movin out, knowin a lil bit o’ de world, hearin different voices an’ seein whether everybody cry or laugh the same way. It wasn’ askin much, but it mean a lot.
‘It so happm that one day news reach me that Missa John Defoe’s wife want a servant girl,’ Deeka said. ‘Defoe was a big Béké man who own the coconut plantation an’ most other plantation you find round there. Everybody work for Defoe because it don’t have no work apart from the work that Béké fella have to give. And for poor people girl-chile with a lil bit of ambition it was a good position to start from. So ’twasn’ a nice thing to come home six months after, bawling like hell wid me pride mash down an’ bleedin becuz dat man grab hold of me in de back o’ de kitchen, tell me he will kill me if I make a sound for hi white-’ooman-wife-from-Englan’ to hear ’im. And den, well, he take advantage of my situation. Make it worse, nobody couldn do nothing ’bout it becuz, like I tell y’all, everybody work for Defoe, including my own father.
‘Must ha’ been a week after I decide to go back kind of meek and quiet to that man house. People find it kinda funny. My fadder who never go anywhere widout hi couteau – his special kind o’ knife he use for openin lambie – even he was more surprise than everybody else. An’ that was kinda funny becuz he leave dat knife right on de little table in de room where I used to sleep. Still, you should see de shock on hi face when I tell dem I goin back to John Defoe house.
‘I went back to de kitchen same way, and start doin de cookin and de washin same way, and sure enough I see ’im throwin eyes at me.’
A soft throaty laugh escaped her.
‘It don’t have a woman who don’ know how to stop a man. For good. Most woman don’ know dey know. But I know. I know it from since I was a girl bathin under the same standpipe with my little brothers. You see, lil girls not de same as lil boys. Y’all tink you know dat, right?’
She’d turned her eyes on the men: Patty the Pretty’s man-friend, Leroy, Tan Cee’s husband, Coxy Levid – deep-eyed and always with a cigarette and a small smile on his lips, and Gordon and Sloco, who had come to have a couple of quiet words with Coxy.
‘Well, y’all don’t, becuz you don’ know what I going to tell y’all in a minute. You see, lil girls don’ see what lil boys got. Dey see what lil boys got to lose. Is something I learn from early.’
The visitors shifted on their seats.
‘Y’all think that is that lil dumplin’ y’all got that rule the world. So y’all use it like a gun, like a nail, like a stone, like something y’all got to shame woman with. Y’all hear say that God is a man and God have one, an’ dat give y’all de right to rule woman de way God rule de world. Well, fellas, I got news for y’all. Me – Deeka Bender – I have a cure for God.’
Coxy placed a cigarette between his lips, struck a match and lit it. Held the burning stick up before his eyes while the flame chewed its way down to his fingers. The fire fluttered there a while, like an injured butterfly just above his nails, and then went out.
It was the way Deeka told these stories, the events the same, the messages different every time. It might be about daughters who disappeared in secret and returned home with children whose fathers they refused to name, in which case her eyes would keep returning to Elena. Or her tongue might rest and remain briefly on the sorts of women who married themselves in secret and who, for some sin known only to themselves, hadn’t given any children to the world. This time the bony shoulders would be turned away from Tan Cee, for this daughter’s tongue was quieter than hers, her temper very, very slow to wake. But when it did, it knew no respect or boundary.
The first time Patty brought Leroy to the yard she spoke about girl children who came home with their men, locked themselves up in their bedrooms with them for days, doing what she just could not imagine. She was beautiful then – beautiful and terrible – with the firelight sparkling those dark north-woman eyes, her voice so high and clear it seemed to come from a different person altogether.
‘In fact, I always believe dat what Delilah cut from Samson wasn’ no long hair from hi head. But y’see, de Bible not a rude book. Missa Moses find another way to say it, an’ so dem call it hair. But I tellin y’all dat is not no dam hair dat she take ’way from dat Samson fella. Anyway, I spend eight months in jail for de damage I do Defoe and it would ha’ been longer – p’raps me whole life – if I wasn’ carryin proof o’ de liberty he take with me. I was six months pregnant wid dat man chile when I walk out o’ Edmund Hill Prison. I wasn’ going back home. I know dat from de time the warders open de gate and left me standin outside in the hot sun. I walk down dat road with a lil cloth bag in me hand and a coupla wuds in me head dat a man lef ’ with me almost a year before I got in trouble. You see, de time I was workin fo’ John Defoe, dis fella used to come buy dynamite becuz dat Béké man was de only one allow to sell it on de islan’. I used to watch ’im from de kitchen without ’im noticing. I s’pose ’twas because I never see a man like ’im before. Most times a fella come to Defoe he stay outside the gate. But this fella walk right in. He put hi hand on hi waist and look round him, like a surveyor. Big fella, strong fella – the kinda man God build to last.
‘When he talk to Defoe he watch ’im straight in hi eye.
‘He was there when I come out with de washing. He look at me like if he surprise. He look at me like if he jus’ make up hi mind ’bout something. It cross me mind dat for me to get to the clothes line I had to pass under dem eyes of his. Not only that, but I was wearing one o’ dem cotton dress without no sleeve, and for me to hang up dem clothes I had to stretch to reach de line. I didn like dat. I didn like no man making me feel so confuse without my permission. I was vex like hell. I look at ’im an’ tell ’im, “What de hell you looking at?” He look back at me like he more vex than me and say, “Tell me what you don’t want me to be looking at and mebbe I won’t look.” An’ den he laugh.’
Deeka laughed out loud at the memory.
‘I never hear man laugh so sweet. He start comin more regular for dynamite, till I got to thinkin that he mus’ be plannin to blow up de whole islan’ o’ someting. Missa Defoe get wise to ’im and start refusin to sell ’im any more dynamite. An’ den one day that Béké fella tell ’im straight, “Oi’m never going to sell you no more dynamite.”
‘“I’ll come anyway,” John Seegal tell ’im.
‘“Then Oi’ll have you arrested for trespassing, or shoot you moiy-self,” Defoe say.
‘“Make sure you succeed first time you try,” my husband tell ’im back.
‘Lord ha’ mercy, them words frighten me. Them frighten me to know dat I become a woman dat a man prepare to kill for. He keep comin like he promise. Used to stand up on the lil hill across the road an’ watch me. I never talk to ’im. But if I look up an’ he not ’cross dere, I start to sorta miss ’im. It last a coupla months till he couldn take it no more. One day he stay ’cross the road an’ call me. Was de kinda