Midnight Robber

The third-person narrative skips to the day before Tan-Tan’s 16th birthday party. She is inviting Aislin and Quamina while Aislin shows her some faulty carpentry by a new arrival, Cudjoe. Tan-Tan recalls her abortion in Aislin’s back room two years prior; her friend Melonhead had been blamed instead of the actual rapist, Antonio.

While picking up Antonio’s arthritis medication, Tan-Tan struggles with hearing a “silent bad voice, like an insane eshu” (147) that provides snide commentary on Antonio’s abuse. The women discuss Quamina’s mental progress due to douen medicine.

Along her walk home, men flirt with Tan-Tan. She avoids the hanging tree and passes the iron shop. Douens make wooden crafts, working “obeah magic” (152) into objects like bowls, but humans Michael and Gladys run the iron shop. Tan-Tan flirts with Michael to try and find out their latest secret project (later revealed to be a car), and he gives her a present from Janisette: a knife with a handle of Jamaica mahogany.

Michael shows her how to throw it, and Gladys gets jealous. After the iron-working couple go inside their house, Tan-Tan walks away and flirts with Cudjoe. They start kissing behind his hut.