‘You people, you get strong mind! I don’ fit, at all!’
From the day when the twelve policemen came to search them and Dennis and Sabina showed no fear – even though they had the missing trinkets – Jagua lived in awe and admiration of them, especially of Sabina, the iron-nerved girl in her teens.
When Uncle Taiwo came back in the evening, he told Jagua that if she called herself his woman, she must do her best in every way to help win him votes from the women. She could go round now and begin to give door-to-door talks.
Jagua was in no mood now for such talk. ‘Uncle Taiwo, I beg you. I receive bad news from home. I’m not in de mood.’
‘I goin’ to teach you everythin’ about politics. You think you know nothin’ about politics; and you call yourself Lagos woman!’ He roared with laughter, and roared again and she was embarrassed because his laughter told her that it was a shameful thing not to be interested in the fortunes of the city. He promised to take her to campaign meetings so that she could see for herself, and afterwards they would go to the Tropicana to dance.
They went the following night and afterwards they sat in the Tropicana. It was too early but the chairs and tables were rapidly filling up. Someone who sat with them was talking about Freddie and he was certain Freddie had returned from England, with a white wife. Jagua’s heart leapt uncontrollably. She could not contradict him. Anything could happen to a young man who left Nigeria and went to stay in England for eighteen months.
‘He only been gone eighteen month,’ she said. ‘How he manage return so quick? I don’ think is Freddie you see.’
She downed her beer and turned her attention to the guitar and the big drums which dwarfed the drum-beater of Jimo Ladi and his Leopards. Men and women on the dance floor were wiggling as though they wished to propel their hips away from the rest of their bodies. A girl broke away from her partner in a heated improvisation. She placed a hand on her navel and began gyrating her hips back and forth. She had big hips, rendered out of proportion by the huge bundle of velvet she had tied. The men formed a ring round her and cheered. She threw her head back, far back, forming almost a wrestler’s bridge and how she maintained her balance, Jagua could never tell. Oh, it was good to be young. The men loved her. They were conquered.
‘De lates’ dance,’ remarked Uncle Taiwo. ‘Well, how you like our campaign meetin’?’
‘Is nice. Plenty people come; and you give dem plenty money so dem kin vote for you. But if dem don’ vote, how you kin know? Dey jus’ chop your money for nothin’.’
‘Dem will vote. Sure. And for me too. I goin’ to win de seat in Obanla Constituency, easy. Out of all de sixty seat, das de one we sure of in O.P. 2.’
‘I wish you good luck.’
They did not leave the Tropicana until three in the morning. They were heading for the gate when suddenly the rhythm changed. No more trumpets, no more guitars, no more saxophones. Drums. Drums only. The whisper went round. The Tropicana was going to put on a little show. Jagua – when she heard it was going to be a masquerade dance – begged Uncle Taiwo to let them stay. She dragged him back to their seat. He had been complaining of sleepiness and now he began grumbling aloud. The dance would be primitive, not the thing for the Tropicana, he told her.
Jagua was all ears. Everyone had sat down, gazing at the stage. Brisk, came the drumming. Brisk, rhythmic, fantastic, driven, impelled by some crazy devils. Relentless, brisk: and suddenly, the dancer was there. No! Not a dancer; just a thin bamboo screen, an elliptical screen, painted, stamped with all the existentialist badges and the cubist doctrine. A bamboo screen that hid a secret and stood in the middle of the stage. Two masquerades in chalk-red and blue, surrounded the screen, chanting to it, waving horse-tails. Brisk, came the drumming. Brisk. Incessant, impelling the screen into a sweeping whirlwind of movement, sneezing along, occasionally freezing, dead stop. The masquerades staring with fixed eye and gaping lip, bewildered. What was this? Neither male nor female, a screen, a bamboo screen of reeds in yellow ochre and dabbed with all kinds of weird colours. Only once – and barely for a wink – did Jagua manage to catch a glimpse of the human feet beneath the screen. A man’s feet – or a woman’s? Rhythm. More maddening rhythm. The screen, normally requiring more than one acre of land in which to sweep along and to recreate the wind, the storm, the destruction of crops by the rain.
When this dance was performed in the street, in its natural environment, the hens and the chicks, and the dogs and the children, fled to the nearest shelter, hurrying away from the whirlwind juju. Brrr-Ga-gaan! came the drumming. Brrr-Ga-gaan! It never varied, except to speed up; and suddenly it had swept out of the stage amidst thunderous applause.
Jagua breathed. She came back to Lagos once more. She had been in Ogabu, Bagana, Krinameh, Onitsha, all homes of traditional dancing. Something of each of those towns had been recaptured by the Tropicana dancer. On Uncle Taiwo’s face she saw a look of boredom.
‘Is all nonsense! We don’ come here to see dat. We come to hear High-life and jazz, das all! Give us music! Where’s Jimo Ladi?’
A man began arguing with him, telling him that jazz had its origins in that kind of fetish dancing, that this was a throwback to the birth-days of jazz. Uncle Taiwo yawned. ‘Music! Give us real music!’
‘You jus’ heard real music,’ Jagua told him. ‘Jus’ like in me own country. We get nearly de same kin’ of dance.’
‘Is bushman dancing!’ said Uncle Taiwo.
He roared with laughter, but the tenor saxophone of Jimo Ladi drowned his mirth. Jagua took him by the hand and said, ‘I feelin’ sleep now. Le’s go …’
19
Almost six months later Jagua was walking home from the Tropicana. She heard a car stop behind her.
‘Hello, is that you, Jagua?’
The face was in darkness, but the voice was familiar. It was Freddie. She could never mistake the voice. She went nearer and peered in, remembering one day, almost two years ago when she had been the victim of a dirty trick.
‘I see you, an’ I not quite sure whedder it be you.’ He was holding the door open for her. ‘Remember de day when me an’ my frien’ pick you up here? Dis same street!’ He laughed. ‘De things we do when we young—’
‘So you done become ol’ man, in two year?’
‘Englan’ make me ol’ man with experience …’
‘Which day you return?’
‘Today make six days only.’
‘Eheh! So I think! We hear rumour ’bout six months ago say you done come back with white woman. Somebody tell we for Club.’ She looked closely at him. He was – if anything – younger-looking. The underfed look was gone. ‘You very fine now, Freddie.’
‘Is because I got woman who look after me.’
‘Yes, I hear about de white woman you marry.’
‘If you call Nancy, white woman; den is true. She come an’ meet me for England, and she studyin’ like me, so we plan our life together. She born me two pickin’. De young one is only three month.’
Somehow it did not hurt her. Too much had happened since Freddie had gone away. What she felt now was a mixture of spite and hate, but it was very slow in coming. Depending upon how Freddie conducted himself, it might change.
‘Nancy Oll suit you. She young, and her bobby stand straight; not like we ol’ women.’ She must find a way of humiliating Freddie, but it must come slowly and naturally. Something like poison in a glass of wine. ‘But remember, Nancy is Sa Leone gal, from Freetown. She no be your country woman.’ Jagua was speaking hardly above a whisper.
‘All Africa be same, whedder is Sa Leone or Ghana or Nigeria; even Egypt where de people white.’
‘How you talk so? Because you just from England come. You talk like politician.’
‘Is true. All black man be same. Nancy be our sister. All dat Sa Leone people, dem come from Calabar, and Onitsha and Lagos. Das de port from which dem put dem into big steamer and take dem to go work for America. Is a long time, in de nineteen centur
y. Long, long time ago. De white traders go and sell dem, and dey live dere and born pickin’, till one day when dem get dem freedom, de other white men from England bring dem back. De Government people find a place for dem and dem call de place Freetown – because dem free. And das where dem born Nancy Oll.’
Jagua was not listening to him. She was remembering the day at the British Council when she had walked out and Freddie had run after her in anger. That day – in some way – must have marked the beginning of their separation. Freddie with his pursuit of books and lectures, she with her pursuit of the bright lights, and good time. The gulf had never narrowed since that evening.
‘Soon as you lef’ for U.K. I touch Bagana.’
‘You like de place?’ He turned off the engine which had been running rather noisily. ‘Uncle Namme and Chief Ofubara write me letter. Dem say you settle de quarrel in de family. I hear also dat Chief Ofubara wan’ to marry you.’
‘Is true, Freddie, but I don’ ’gree. He even give me money. He say de money is bride price. But not so is de fashion. Person who want to marry from my place, he mus’ go dere for hisself. He mus’ meet de fadder of de gal and talk. After dat, if de gal ’gree and the other people ’gree, den he kin talk about bride price. You see?’
‘Das why you don’ marry him?’
‘Not so.’ Jagua toyed with the door of the car. ‘I don’ marry him because I already promise you.’ The tears were running to the tips of her eyes and her nose began to leak. She took out a handkerchief and dabbed it over her eyelashes. She saw now that all her friendships in Freddie’s absence were inadequate. Dennis Odoma, though young, was no substitute for Freddie Namme. Freddie had more than youth. He had gentility, royal blood, ambition. She noticed how tastefully he was dressed. He still had on the dark coat and dark bow tie he must have been wearing in a cold climate. London had taught him something, to care a little more for his personal appearance. His profession exalted that trait too. This was the dream she had always wanted. But now here he was and she had become an outsider. ‘My England man!’ she cried, and began to sob.
Freddie took her into the car.
‘Le’s reach my place, Freddie. I take God beg you. Le’s reach my place! …’
‘Why you cryin’, Jagua?’
‘Because I love too much, Freddie. And although ah got sense wit’ odder men; with you I just become like fool.’ She said no more. He started the car.
‘De same place? … I drop you dere. I mus’ go back to Nancy and de children; dey waitin’ in de house for me. Ah love my wife, Jagua.’
She turned her head away from the family picture. ‘How you manage when you reach England?’
He told her in a few words how he had ‘managed’. The money she had loaned him had helped; but that was only the start. He found that, to get along he had to take a job in London. He got something with London Transport and when he was not working he was trying to read. He was able to live in a two-pounds-a-week room in Paddington, doing his own cooking. The shopping took a lot of time, until Nancy came and they began living together. What really took much of his time was secretarial work for the London branch of the political party O.P. 1.
‘Which time you buy car, Freddie?’ Jagua ran her fingers over the facia. ‘You only jus’ return; where you get de money?’
‘Is on loan,’ Freddie told her. He turned a corner, away from the Main Road. ‘Is party car for our people O.P. 1. You know am de candidate for Obanla constituency. Das one reason why I returning at dis time. To contest and to organize.’
‘Welcome, Freddie! I glad too much to see you, I nearly die with glad … Freddie, I wan’ to go sleep wit’ you, now, an’ see whedder you be same —’
‘No more of that nonsense!’ A passing car lit up his frowning face. She felt a sudden painful wrench at her heart.
‘Freddie, you get de letter I write you?’
‘Yes,’ he grunted.
‘Why you don’ reply?’
‘Jagua, I reply; sometime you don’ get de reply.’ They had entered her street. Jagua recognized the familiar trees. ‘Look, Jagua. I will come an’ see you nex’ time.’
‘So what you wan’ to do now, as you return? You wan’ to forget me, eh? Even as ah help you?’ She saw him hesitate, feeling the threat in her voice. Then he stopped the car and held the door open for her to climb out. She got out and the angry words came spitting out her fury. ‘You not even goin’ to step into harlot woman house? Das what I become in your eye, Freddie! Is good-O! God live above everythin’ …’ She changed the subject. ‘Is true you goin’ to contest in de election?’
‘I goin’ to contest in Obanla, sure.’
‘Obanla?’ Jagua seemed to hear the name for the first time. ‘Das where Uncle Taiwo contestin’. And das where Dennis Odoma live.’
‘Uncle Taiwo? De same man who bring you to de airport de day I leavin’ for U.K.?’
‘Yes; is Uncle Taiwo keepin’ me and payin’ de rent for me. Is a very strong party man and he get plenty money for spend. I don’ see how you fit to win from him. I goin’ to help him defeat you, Freddie, because me and you not one person any more. Kin you spen’ money like him?’
Elections in Lagos, Jagua told him, were not won by wearing smart clothes and appearing distant from the people. You had to show them what you could do for them, before you won. You must associate with everyone, particularly the lowest ones, and regard them as your friends. You must give them the freedom of your time and thought, your car and your room. In such a manner only would you learn how they thought and acted. Uncle Taiwo was working very hard indeed, she told him. Uncle Taiwo was distributing money presents to the people. She told him what happened only last week. She went with him to the court in Obanla and when anyone was fined, Uncle Taiwo promptly paid up the fine. Those men would surely vote for Uncle Taiwo when the time came; and she was sure they would get their friends to vote for this ‘good’ man. The whole of Obanla was plastered with pictures of Uncle Taiwo and all the women had received matchboxes and cooking stoves with his portrait on them and the schoolchildren exercise books with his portrait. Uncle Taiwo was the man to vote for because he had had a big start already on Freddie whom no one had ever heard about.
Freddie smiled. ‘We still got another three month.’
‘And anodder thin’, Freddie. I goin’ to fight you till I die. Me an’ Uncle Taiwo. I give you fair warnin’. If you wan’ to win, you mus’ start now.’
He turned sharply and Jagua saw the expectant spark in his eyes. ‘You wan’ me to win?’
She turned away. ‘No, Freddie. I no wan’ you to win.’ She saw him sit eagerly forward and frown. She went on. ‘Politics not for you, Freddie. You got education. You got culture. You’re a gentleman an’ proud. Politics be game for dog. And in dis Lagos, is a rough game. De roughest game in de whole worl’. Is smelly an’ dirty an’ you too clean an’ sweet. I speakin’ frank to you, Freddie. I don’ want you inside at all. I hear rumour dat O.P. 2 wan’ to kill one man from your party …’ She spoke honestly, and hoped Freddie would listen and learn. At some points, Freddie spread his hands and his shoulders tensed as though he meant to interrupt her. But he did not talk. England seemed to have changed him.
Suddenly he said, ‘I wan’ money quick-quick; an’ politics is de only hope.’ She saw the flicker in his eye. ‘Talkin’ about money, Jagua; I awready write de cheque of all de amount I owe you. Is in de post, registered. You goin’ to receive it in a day or two. I thank you for all de help.’
She heard him turn the engine on. The car started to move slowly away. ‘So you not comin’ into de house?’
‘I’ll come – nex’ time, Jagua.’
And now she saw that England had widened the gulf between them.
20
Jagua sat beside Uncle Taiwo in the Pontiac. On the bonnet the party flag fluttered. On both sides of the street the people interrupted their work to wave at them. O.P. 2! … O.P. 2! … Uncle Taiwo on the job! … Jagua felt pleased. They entered
the rally ground, fenced high with wire netting. On the rally ground, thousands of people were already massed and above them a man in robes was yelling with the aid of a megaphone. She waited while Uncle Taiwo locked the Pontiac and carried his papers. The O.P. 2 speaker was telling them the issues.
Their rival party O.P. 1 for the Obanla constituency had fielded an Englander, Freddie Namme. He had been studying in England, but did he know the problems of the people of Lagos, after being in residence for a few weeks? In three months’ time voters would be called upon to choose a man who would present their views to the Council. It was only in O.P. 2 that such a man was to be found, and his name was Uncle Taiwo! … He turned the megaphone towards Jagua and Uncle Taiwo and wild cheering broke out.
When it died down, the speaker promised that if O.P. 2 won there would be bigger markets, education would be free and medical treatment prompt and efficient. There would be wider roads built to all the nooks and corners of the island city so that it would be a real example to the whole world.
Jagua was beginning to like election campaigns. This was one aspect of Lagos life which gave her a chance to exercise her vanity in the sunlight without appearing cheap. When Uncle Taiwo had acknowledged the cheers, he mounted the rostrum. Then he opened his black bag and coming down moved among the people, scattering handfuls of ten shilling notes, like rice grains on a bride. The election ground had become a rugger ground with the printed notes as the ball. Later Jagua asked him where the money came from and he said: ‘Is Party money. I give dem de money like dat, so them kin taste what we goin’ to do for them, if they vote us into power.’ Loyally Jagua followed him, and as they moved on the wild ones closed in behind them, scrambling and fighting.
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