Brown Girl in the Ring - Softcover

Hopkinson, Nalo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446674338 ISBN 13: 9780446674331

Verlag: Grand Central Publishing, 1998

Inhaltsangabe

Rediscover the first books from Nalo Hopkinson, now with a fresh new cover.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Nalo Hopkinson was born in Jamaica and has lived in Guyana, Trinidad, and Canada. The daughter of a poet/playwright and a library technician, she has won numerous awards including the John W. Campbell Award, the World Fantasy Award, and Canada's Sunburst Award for literature of the fantastic. Her award-winning short fiction collection Skin Folk was selected for the 2002 New York Times Summer Reading List and was one of the New York Times Best Books of the Year.

Hopkinson is also the author of The New Moon's Arms, The Salt Roads, Midnight Robber, and Brown Girl in the Ring. She is a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, and splits her time between California, USA, and Toronto, Canada.

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Excerpt

Mami closed her eyes and whispered a prayer. The lamplight danced on her face,filling it with shadows. She looked at the cement head.

"Eshu, is we here tonight; me, Gros-Jeanne, and my granddaughter Ti-Jeanne,and she baby with no name, and she baby father, Tony."

Tony started; looked over at Ti-Jeanne, who ignored the surprised question inhis eyes. It made Ti-Jeanne mad. What Mami have to go and tell her business for?

Mami kept talking: "Eshu, we ask you to open the doors for we, let down thegates. Let the spirits come and talk to we. Look, we bring food for you, rum andsweet candy."

She took one of the candies out of the bowl, crunched it, and swallowed.

"We bring a cigar to light for you, Eshu, to sweeten the air with thesmoke."

She picked up the cigar and put it to her mouth. She lit it, cheeks sucking into draw it to life. She took a deep drag of the cigar and gently blew the smokein Eshu's face.

"Eshu, we ask you to bring down the doors so the spirits could be here withwe tonight. Spirits, please don't do no harm while you here; is we, your sonsand daughters."

Mami balanced the still-burning cigar on the candy bowl. She got creakily to herfeet, hooked the chicken down from the ceiling. She put the chicken on the floorin front of Eshu, and motioned to Tony to hold its wings and body. She stretchedits neck out long, so that the pinny neck feathers stood up, revealing the pinkpimpled flesh beneath. Then she took her kitchen knife out of the basket, andsliced clean through the sensé fowl's neck. Blood spurted in gouts fromthe headless body. Its legs kicked. It was no worse than they way they killedthe fowls for their supper table, but Tony made a sick noise in the back of histhroat and looked away.

"Hold, it, Tony," Mami hissed, "Don't make it run 'way! Here,give it to me."

Tony watched the grisly rite, curling his lips away from his teeth in disgustand fear. He seemed quite happy to relinquish the twitching, gushing body intoMami's hands. Mami directed the blood over the stone head. "We give youlife to drink, Eshu, but is Ogun wield the knife, not we."

She laid the chicken and its head in front of Eshu. The hen's body jerked againfeebly, once, then was still. The air was heavy with the stench of chicken fleshand blood.

Mami took her place on the stool, put the drum between her knees. With herfingertips and the heels of her hands, she began to beat out a rhythm. Ti-Jeannerecognised the pattern of sounds. She'd often heard that rhythm in the louddrumming coming from the chapel at nights. She hated it; it tugged at her blood,filled her head with sound until she thought it would burst from within, herskull cracking apart like an overripe pumpkin to reveal the soft, wet interior.Although Mami was rapping out the rhythm softly, the sound beat at Ti-Jeanne asloud as drums. It made her bones vibrate, her teeth ache. The small chapel wassaturated with the rhythm, dripping with it. And still Mami kept drumming.Ti-Jeanne felt as though the chapel bell was chiming and gonging in time, herheart pounding to the drum, the shadows in the chapel leaping to it. Mami wasrocking from side to side. So was Tony, not even seeming aware that he was doingso. He rolled up his sleeves to his forearms. Yes, it was hot now in the chapel.Ti-Jeanne could see the bufo drug slashes on his arms. Two of them looked hardlyhealed. She sighed, sadly. Tony was still using. Same thing they'd fired himfrom the hospital for.

In Ti-Jeanne's arms Baby was wide awake, his eyes alert. He looked as if he waslistening, hard, with his whole self. Ti- Jeanne realised that she was swayingto the drumming too. She tried to stop herself, but her attention would waverand she'd find her body moving again.

Ti-Jeanne's focus shrunk until all she could perceive was the sound of thedrumming, the sight of Mami's water-chapped fingers beating and beating theirrhythm. The cadence caught her mind in a loop, spun it in on itself, smaller andsmaller until she was no longer aware of her body, of her arms cradling herchild. She barely knew when she stood up.

#

Trying not to retch from the thick stench of raw chicken and fresh blood, Tonysat hunched between Ti-Jeanne and her crazy grandmother. He was terrified. Hecould still feel the warmth of the chicken's body on his hands. He wanted to runout of there and never come back. But if he did, he'd probably run straight intothe arms of the posse. His time was up. And Rudy was even crazier than MamiGros-Jeanne. If Tony didn't get out of Toronto, Rudy's vengeance would probablymake Tony wish for a death as quick as that of the throat-slit hen. Mami was hisonly chance. So he stayed, wrapping his arms around himself. He began rocking,rocking, praying this would be over soon.

Beside him, Ti-Jeanne giggled, a manic, breathy sound that made Tony's scalpprickle. She rose smoothly to her feet and began to dance with an eerie,stalking motion that made her legs seem longer than they were, thin and bony.Shadows clung to the hollows of her eyes and cheekbones, turning her face into acruel mask. She laughed again. Her voice was deep, too deep for her woman'sbody. Her lips skinned back from her teeth in a death's head grin.

"Prince of Cemetery!" Mami hissed, her eyes wide. She kept her rhythmgoing, but even softer.

"You know so, old lady," Ti-Jeanne rumbled. She pranced on long legsover to Mami, bent down, down, down; ran a bony forefinger over the old woman'scheek. "Good and old, yes? Like you nearly ready to come to me soon,daughter!"

To Tony's surprise, Mami Gros-Jeanne spoke sternly, drumming all the while, tothe spirit that was riding her granddaughter. "I ain't no daughter ofyours. Stop the foolishness and tell me what you doing with Ti-Jeanne. You knowshe head ain't ready to hold no spirits yet."

Ti-Jeanne/Prince of Cemetery chuckled, a hollow sound like bones falling into apit. He danced over to Eshu's stone head and used a long, long finger to scoopup some of the chicken blood thickening there. Slowly he licked and sucked itoff his finger, smiling like a child scraping out the batter bowl. Tony'sstomach roiled. "But doux-doux," Prince of Cemetery said, "Yourgranddaughter head full of spirits already; she ain't tell you? All kind ofduppy and thing. When she close she eyes, she does see death. She belong to me.She is my daughter. You should 'fraid of she."

The old woman sucked her teeth in disgust. "Man, don't try to mamaguy me,oui? You only telling half the story. Prince of Cemetery does watch over death,yes, but he control life too, when he come as Eshu. So why I should befrighten?"

The spirit grinned wide, did a pirouette. "Well, if you know that, oldlady, tell Ti-Jeanne. Tell my horse to open she eyes good and see the wholething; death..." he stopped, seemed for the first time to notice Babystrapped to his chest. Baby stared up at him, no fear in his face. Prince ofCemetery chortled. He pulled open the velcro, took Baby out of the Snugli andheld him up in the air, grinning and cooing at him. Baby cooed back.

"...and life," Prince of Cemetery continued. The words were now comingfrom Baby's lips. The booming deep man-voice lisped with the effort of formingwords through the baby's underdeveloped vocal apparatus. "Tell she when shego out tonight, she must carry something she man give she. She must conceal itsomewhere on she body. I go hide she halfway in Guinea land, where flesh peoplecan't see she. So long as she carrying Tony gift on she, nobody go see heeither. But only till sunup. Tell she that," the baby cooed, then laughed,a sound too deep and knowing for its young body.

Copyright © 2000 Nalo Hopkinson. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-446-67433-8

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Grand Central Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1998
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0446674338
• ISBN 13: 9780446674331
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar