knew, having watched the men as a child, though he'd been far too young to wield one himself-and how to top the armload of cane-stalks the cutter would shove at him, cutting off the unripe portion with quick, flicking strokes and then slashing off the leaves.
“Cane piled on the stubble, trash piled between the rows,” instructed Gosport. “Watch out for snakes. When you feel the knife start to labor on the cuts you brace it on your shoe like this, give it a couple swipes with the stone. But you be careful with that knife, understand? You got to cross a ditch, or cross the pile row, you throw your knife over first. That cane's slippery, and if you're not careful you'll see your blood.”
“Gonna teach him how to tie his shoes, too?” jeered Quashie.
“He cuts his hand off, you want to carry him back?” retorted Gosport, which got a laugh, because of January's size.
They started moving along the rows: the work that would buy acceptance, the acceptance that would buy the right to ask questions.
January hated Simon Fourchet, and the hatred redoubled with every stab of the muscles of his shoulders, with every slice of the sharp cane and razor-tough leaves through the flesh of his hands, with every aching hour.
The men sang as they worked, pacing the rhythm of their strokes:
"Madame Caba, your tignon fell down,
Madame Caba, your tignon fell down,
Michie Zizi, he's a handsome man,
O, Michie Zizi, he's a handsome man . . ."
Or they would sing the African songs, the songs in a tongue no one remembered, the words meaningless now but the music still drawing the heart.
"Day zab, day zab, day koo-noo wi wi,
Day zab, day zab, day koo-noo wi wi . . ."
Buzzards circled overhead, scores of them, tiny as motes of pepper against the blue of the sky as the mists burned away. Rabbits in the cane fled the men, or sometimes fat clumsy raccoons; small green lizards darted to safety, or sat on the thin stalks of grass that the men called maiden cane and watched with wisely tilting turquoise-rimmed eyes. The cane in this field was second-growth cane and a lot of it lay badly, sprawling in all directions and growing along the ground rather than all of it standing straight. The sprawled cane wound among the standing and had to be dragged and wrestled out, stalks sometimes sixteen feet long, a mess of leaves and insects and dust. Dust and cane-juice plastered January's face and he wished Fourchet had died already and all these people, innocent as well as guilty, had been hanged for the crime before he even knew about it, so it wouldn't be his responsibility to try to save them. His shoulders hurt. His hands hurt.
Sometimes if no one else was singing, a man would break into a holler: wailing solo notes that climbed and descended a scale Bach had never heard of. Nonsense sounds, just “Yay” or “Whoa, ”but soaring like hawks with the sense and meaning of the heart. The other men would join in, as vendors in town would sometimes add their wailing to the drawn-out singsong of the berry lady or the charcoal man, catching the notes and twirling them like dancers: elemental music, like rain or wind or the heartbeat of the earth.
Mid-morning the women came out with the carts, gathering the harvested rows. They set their babies at the ends of the rows among the water bottles of the men, with one of the hogmeat gang to keep cane-rats and buzzards off them. At noon the rice cart came, put together by Kiki the cook or more probably Minta: rice and beans, greens and pone, a little pork in the greens.
When it got too dark to work safely, torches were lit and the men set to helping the women load the rest of the cane, and haul it to the mill. Carrying the piled cane up the short flight of steps to the grinders, January was able to see the setup of the mill. The grinders were set on a raised floor above a roundhouse, where the mules hauled on the sweeps that turned the machinery, the three huge toothed iron cylinders chewed the cane, the
“Cane piled on the stubble, trash piled between the rows,” instructed Gosport. “Watch out for snakes. When you feel the knife start to labor on the cuts you brace it on your shoe like this, give it a couple swipes with the stone. But you be careful with that knife, understand? You got to cross a ditch, or cross the pile row, you throw your knife over first. That cane's slippery, and if you're not careful you'll see your blood.”
“Gonna teach him how to tie his shoes, too?” jeered Quashie.
“He cuts his hand off, you want to carry him back?” retorted Gosport, which got a laugh, because of January's size.
They started moving along the rows: the work that would buy acceptance, the acceptance that would buy the right to ask questions.
January hated Simon Fourchet, and the hatred redoubled with every stab of the muscles of his shoulders, with every slice of the sharp cane and razor-tough leaves through the flesh of his hands, with every aching hour.
The men sang as they worked, pacing the rhythm of their strokes:
"Madame Caba, your tignon fell down,
Madame Caba, your tignon fell down,
Michie Zizi, he's a handsome man,
O, Michie Zizi, he's a handsome man . . ."
Or they would sing the African songs, the songs in a tongue no one remembered, the words meaningless now but the music still drawing the heart.
"Day zab, day zab, day koo-noo wi wi,
Day zab, day zab, day koo-noo wi wi . . ."
Buzzards circled overhead, scores of them, tiny as motes of pepper against the blue of the sky as the mists burned away. Rabbits in the cane fled the men, or sometimes fat clumsy raccoons; small green lizards darted to safety, or sat on the thin stalks of grass that the men called maiden cane and watched with wisely tilting turquoise-rimmed eyes. The cane in this field was second-growth cane and a lot of it lay badly, sprawling in all directions and growing along the ground rather than all of it standing straight. The sprawled cane wound among the standing and had to be dragged and wrestled out, stalks sometimes sixteen feet long, a mess of leaves and insects and dust. Dust and cane-juice plastered January's face and he wished Fourchet had died already and all these people, innocent as well as guilty, had been hanged for the crime before he even knew about it, so it wouldn't be his responsibility to try to save them. His shoulders hurt. His hands hurt.
Sometimes if no one else was singing, a man would break into a holler: wailing solo notes that climbed and descended a scale Bach had never heard of. Nonsense sounds, just “Yay” or “Whoa, ”but soaring like hawks with the sense and meaning of the heart. The other men would join in, as vendors in town would sometimes add their wailing to the drawn-out singsong of the berry lady or the charcoal man, catching the notes and twirling them like dancers: elemental music, like rain or wind or the heartbeat of the earth.
Mid-morning the women came out with the carts, gathering the harvested rows. They set their babies at the ends of the rows among the water bottles of the men, with one of the hogmeat gang to keep cane-rats and buzzards off them. At noon the rice cart came, put together by Kiki the cook or more probably Minta: rice and beans, greens and pone, a little pork in the greens.
When it got too dark to work safely, torches were lit and the men set to helping the women load the rest of the cane, and haul it to the mill. Carrying the piled cane up the short flight of steps to the grinders, January was able to see the setup of the mill. The grinders were set on a raised floor above a roundhouse, where the mules hauled on the sweeps that turned the machinery, the three huge toothed iron cylinders chewed the cane, the
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