The campaign continued.
Jagua looked outside her window at the street below. She started back and drew the blinds. Uncle Taiwo watched her with questioning eyes.
‘Why you jumpin’ about like you seen de devil? Sit down Jagua, le’s enjoy our drink!’ Slowly he was pouring out her beer. Water had frosted on his drinking glass and was running down the sides in sweat streams. Although the table-fan was turned full on, and directed towards his face, he still mopped his brow with a handkerchief. Jagua could still feel his weight as they had lain together only a moment before. ‘You don’t fit to talk again, Jagua? I say why you jumpin’ from de window like you see de devil?’
‘Is Freddie, and—’
Uncle Taiwo dropped his glass. The thin glass broke into fragments and the beer formed little frothy lakes on the carpet. ‘My rival! De one who think he kin ruin me. De gentleman of politics!’ He roared with laughter. ‘What he want here?’ His laughter did not impress Jagua who could see that his teeth were clenched.
She picked up the glass pieces and Rosa came in and mopped the floor. Uncle Taiwo rose and went to the window. Both of them looked at the Land Rover, packed full with the wild ones. These youths had the chiselled bodies of fighters. They wore brief shorts and briefer shirts. They were all biceps and calves. They had bull necks. Jagua clutched at Uncle Taiwo’s robe. She did not want to think of what would happen the way these two rivals were taking things.
‘De boy got some sense, awready!’ Uncle Taiwo hissed. ‘He got his own bodyguard!’
Jagua knew Uncle Taiwo well enough to detect the unsteadiness in his voice. She saw his eyes darting round the room uneasily as though he wanted to jump into a cupboard. ‘You fear dem? You tink dem comin’ to beat you up? Uncle, you look like you pissin in your trouser. Well, das how you men do you own politics! You beat your rival with stick. Don’ fear. Freddie only making show. He don’ get de nerve to beat up anyone. He got too much conscience. Is a gentleman.’ Jagua recognized Dennis Odoma among the young toughs. She was glad. It meant the police officer had not yet died. It meant that Dennis was under Freddie’s protection. She could sense the mutual advantage to both men. Freddie would gain ground in Obanla, and Dennis would be given expert legal support. She saw Freddie come out of the Land Rover and cross the road. Then she heard a cracking knock on the door. Freddie confronted her in his open neck shirt and thick trousers. He looked handsome and lovable.
‘Jagua, I come to salute you an’ to keep my promise.’
‘Welcome, Freddie.’ She knew he must be feeling awkward after their encounter the other night. ‘Welcome. You know Uncle Taiwo. He keepin me here. What kin poor woman like me do? I got no work an’ you forsake me—’
Freddie extended his hand. ‘Jagua said you’re my rival for the Obanla seat, aren’t you?’
‘Definitely! And I’m going to win, hahaha – aaa!’ Uncle Taiwo roared out his exaggerated laugh which created the right atmosphere of ease.
They began speaking in what Jagua regarded as ‘grammatical English’ and she felt immediately excluded. These men: she never could understand them. It was really odd to her, the way they acted. They never seemed to harbour any bitterness about themselves as women did. They called for drinks and Rosa came and brought out two bottles of beer and two clean glasses. She put a bottle and a glass by each man’s stool. Deadly rivals, thought Jagua. Look how they drank like two long-lost brothers who had suddenly discovered each other.
When Freddie glanced at her, she thought she could read in his eyes the faintest spark of desire for her. She was wearing her dressing gown, and when she sat down she chose a corner directly in his line of gaze, crossing her legs so that he saw and did not see. Then she went and sat on Uncle Taiwo’s knee, asking him irrelevancies.
As soon as Freddie left, Uncle Taiwo swallowed his beer in a quick gulp. He put his hat on his head and without so much as a goodbye, stamped out of the room.
‘Where you goin’, Uncle T.?’ Jagua asked.
He did not reply, but his face was tense.
Next morning Jagua heard that Freddie had been beaten up and was lying in hospital seriously ill. She hurried to the hospital, but was told that Freddie had merely been treated for minor injuries. It was true he had been attacked. He and his group of rascals had been flying the banners of O.P. 1 round the town and shouting their election slogans, when a small bus bearing an equal number of wild ones shouting slogans of O.P. 2 made straight for them and deliberately rammed into them.
A fight ensued, and the man who had engineered the whole thing stood apart, roaring encouraging epithets and bursting into resounding laughs. They heard later that it was none other than Uncle Taiwo. But he kept himself hidden in the background, the engineer who would never expose himself to the flying stones and jagged bottle-ends. All this took place at dusk and before the police could intervene, the streets were clear. Jagua was terrified for these two men. The other candidates for the remaining fifty-nine seats pursued one another in much the same manner, but she did not know them and did not much care.
When Uncle Taiwo came in that evening, she told him to desist. He smiled, called Rosa to give him more beer and said: ‘If your man don’ fit to fight, den he mus’ lef de game of politics.’
‘You call ’im my man? Everythin’ finish between we two. If I see road for kill Freddie, I kin do dat.’
Uncle Taiwo roared his roar of disbelief. ‘You wan’ to kill Freddie, an’ when you see am, you begin shake your wais’ all about de room. You tink I don’ see you?’
‘Me? Shake my waist? You don’ know what you talkin’.’ She crossed her legs. ‘De man come here, and if to say he wan’ to kill you cold, he for kill you, like small rat. He got all de wild ones with him. An’ he meet you for woman house, after you done tire!’
His face flushed. ‘Why he don’ kill me den? If is so easy why he don’ kill me?’ A smile played on his lips. ‘Since he don’ wan’ to fight, I must fight him firs’. Das politics. Spare no foe!’
Jagua knew it was useless arguing with him. This was the kind of moment when she looked at him and hated him. She looked round the room and saw how cosy he had made it for her. She thought of the generous allowance he made her every month. She decided not to speak.
‘Remember de meetin’ dis evenin’.’
‘Which meetin’?’
‘Campaign meetin’ of de women. You promise to address dem for me!’
‘But I don’ know nothing about politics.’
Uncle Taiwo laughed. ‘What you wan’ to know? You already been to campaign meetin’ with me, almos’ daily.’
Jagua was terrified. When she made the promise to address the market women on Uncle Taiwo’s behalf, she did not know he would take it seriously.
‘Dis evening by five,’ Uncle Taiwo reminded her.
‘So soon?’
‘Five is de bes’ time; dem will be returning from market den.’
‘Ah don’ know what ah will tell dem.’
He leaned back and slapped his knee. ‘Tell dem to vote for O.P. 2. What? You tellin’ me you don’ know what you will say?’ He began to laugh and to slap his knees, the stool, shaking till the beer glasses bounced off the stool. ‘You don’t know what you will tell dem? Oh, you jus’ too funny. Tell dem to vote for O.P. 2! Tell dem our party is de bes’ one. We will give dem free market stall, plenty trade, and commission so dem kin educate de children. Tell dem all de lie. When Uncle Taiwo win, dem will never remember anythin’ about all dis promise. Tell dem ah’m against women paying tax. Is wrong, is wicked. Tell dem ah’m fighting for equality of women. Women mus’ be equal to all men. You wonderin’ what to tell dem? Oh, Lord! Tell dem all women in dis Lagos mus’ get good work if dem vote for me. No more unemployment. Women mus’ be treated right. Dem mus’ have status. Dem mus’ have class …’
Jagua listened to the male roar of Uncle Taiwo’s voice. She admired the big arms that waved in sweeping arcs, encompassing the stature of the man who had grown doub
ly large in her eyes.
‘Is enough!’ she said, bright-eyed, feeling herself a little girl beside the Party Agent. ‘You not in de market yet!’
Uncle Taiwo roared his roaring laugh. ‘God, ah mus’ win, I mus’ win and become Councillor.’ He pulled her to him in a sudden romantic outburst and slapped her jutting buttocks. ‘When ah become Councillor, den my woman will be a big woman. Den ah will marry you.’
‘What of your odder wives?’ Jagua pouted. ‘Where you goin’ to keep dem when de Council give you big flat?’
‘My other wives?’ He laughed again. ‘You will join dem. I got only three now in de house. You’re de only one I got outside. Ha-ha-ha-aa! … You worryin’ about Freddie Namme. He already marry anodder. He return from U.K. with wife and two pickin’. The man is findin’ way to make quick money, but is a pity he got no idea of politics; so he can’t win me in de election. People never hear of him.’ He slapped her bottom once again and she cried out. ‘You mus’ forget Freddie at once. Because now I keepin’ you for meself. I paying de rent. I furnishing dis room, so you got every comfort to enjoy.’
When Uncle Taiwo talked like this, one part of Jagua always longed for Freddie Namme. Uncle Taiwo, for all his kindness was coarse, believing only in the power of money. In the campaign meetings she had helped him buy loyalty but he forgot that life was far bigger than campaign meetings.
Jagua went down to Obanla to speak with Dennis and to find out what had really happened. It was a bright afternoon, intensely hot. She got down from the bus and walked under the trees. The barber in the corner of the street waved at her but she paid no attention to him.
The house in which Dennis and the gang lived was the third on the right, facing a large piece of farmland where faeces and refuse were dumped. She walked to the door and knocked. The hollow sounds gave her a fright. She pushed the door and walked from one room to the other in a dream. There was not a soul. A dog rushed in from the courtyard and began whining. She caressed the lonely animal, walked along the verandah and shut the door. Dennis and his group had disappeared.
As she walked up the path, she saw a blue Pontiac flash past and remembered Uncle Taiwo. She remembered too that in a matter of hours she would be addressing a campaign meeting of market women.
Jagua stood on a box and looked down on the heads of three thousand market women. Near her was a microphone and above the little square the O.P. 2 flag waved its orange and white stripes. She had been studiously following Uncle Taiwo to all his meetings, but today it was Uncle Taiwo’s turn to follow her. She found herself nervously caressing the microphone, but as the first few words shattered the hubbub and the chattering, Jagua experienced a new sense of power. Her voice was new, attractive. The women turned their heads to see who was speaking. They listened. Far away across the bridge, right down to the lagoon-side where the long cars were parked, the people seemed to start and look up at the unusual interruption.
Yes, the women had come to the campaign meeting of Uncle Taiwo. They had come to listen to the man. They had been listening to him now for weeks. Jagua knew these women; astute, sure of themselves and completely independent and powerful. Their votes could easily sway the balance because they voted en bloc. Some of them had children studying in England and most of them had boys in the Secondary Schools. To them education was a real issue. They went to the mosque on Fridays and to market on Sundays, if the market day fell on a Sunday. From dawn to dusk they sat in the squalid market with the drain running through it: a drain that could never drain because the water in it was an arm of the lagoon which was part of the Bight of Benin which was part of the Atlantic and Pacific and Indian Oceans, and these could never be drained. In the middle of the market stood the refuse dump from which the sanitary lorries came to shift the rubbish once a day. Many men in the ‘Senior Service’ came to this ‘cut-price’ market to squeeze away a few odd pennies from the grasping hands of the big Department Stores. They bought tea and towels, sugar and coca cola, coffee, milk and peanuts from these women who could undersell anyone else because they bought wholesale from shady sources and were content with little or no profit. In many ways these women reminded Jagua of the Merchant Princesses of Onitsha, but these Lagos women did not seem to have quite the staggering sums of money used by the Princesses. Jagua knew that some of them came because they imagined that an election campaign meeting was a carnival, a meeting place for high fashion and love. So they came in their velvet specials: blues and greens, mauve and gold velvets to delight their men who liked them rounded in the hips. Their blouses were made of the sheerest transparent nylons, so that Jagua was gazing at three thousand brassieres (of those who bothered to wear brassieres). In most cases anyone who had the keen sight could look through and see the dark areolae and the long child-sucked nipples.
‘How many of you can remember your own birthdays?’ Jagua asked them. She did not need to be subtle for the language she used was not English. A silence fell at once on the multitude. ‘Very few of you. But most of you remember the birthdays of your children. Now is it not a wonderful thing to us Lagos people, that in O.P. 1 an official of that party should be given a wedding anniversary present by his wife? Mark you, I do not say it is a bad thing. I say it is a wonderful thing indeed. But you must all bear with me. The woman who gave her husband this present is a woman like yourself. On the wedding anniversary, she called her husband to the seaside. Then this woman of O.P. 1 said to her husband. ‘My Lord, may we both live happily for ever. Here are the keys of our new building. I built it to mark our wedding anniversary.’ And she gave him a bunch of keys and pointed to a new house standing on the beach, all six floors of it, and magnificent. A woman. Where did she find the money? A trader, like ourselves!’
A hubbub arose. Jagua waited for the din to die down. ‘Of course, her husband was very surprised. He took the keys, and sure enough, he was not dreaming. They were the keys of the new building and the building cost – I think, I am not sure, exactly – fifty thousand pounds. I have said the figure in English, so that you can all interpret it to your friends. £50,000. Yes, about that. Every amenity was there. A£50,000 house, built on the beach, by a woman like yourself. So what are you all doing? Go and build one like that for your husbands, or is it that you can’t find £50,000?’
‘She stole it! …’ came the throaty accusation.
Some of the women took down their head ties and threw them on the floor and stamped about, slapping their hips in anger. Jagua spoke into the microphone. ‘I am still coming to the end of my story.’ They listened, and she went on: ‘You see the sort of people you will be voting for, if you vote O.P. 1. You will be voting for people who will build their private houses with your own money. But if you vote for O.P. 2, the party that does the job, you will see that you women will never pay tax. Don’t forget that. O.P. 2 will educate your children properly. But those rogues in O.P. 1? They will send their children to Oxford and Cambridge, while your children will only go to school in Obanla. No: Obanla is still too good for your children, because – oh! – how can your children find the space to be educated in Lagos schools, if O.P. 1 ever comes into power? No, your children will be sent to the slummy suburbs. These people will open a hundred businesses using the names of their wives. But you? You will continue to sleep on the floor with grass mats while their wives sleep on spring mattresses. You will carry your things to market on your head, and while in the market, you will be bitten by mosquitoes, and your children will be bitten by mosquitoes and develop malaria. And you will console yourselves that you are struggling. Tell me, what are you struggling for? Or are you going to struggle all the time? Now is the time to enjoy! On Saturdays you will kill a small chicken and call your friends. You will shake hips to the apala music and deceive yourself that you are happy. But look! The roof of your house leaks when it rains. The pan roofs are cracking with rust. There is no space in the compound where your children can play. The latrine is the open bucket, carried by nightsoil men who are always on strike, so the
smell is always there. The bathroom is narrow and slimy and it smells of urine. You call that life!’ Jagua was tempted to roar with laughter in the best Uncle Taiwo manner. ‘You call that life? Yes, that is the life they have given you and will continue to give you if you return an O.P. 1 government to power. See now, see what they’ve done? They’ve gone and brought an Englander, to contest against Uncle Taiwo.’ She turned and looked at him. He was shaking his head sadly, and presently he rose and the crowd cheered him. ‘His name is Freddie Namme, this Englander. And do you know where he went to marry his wife? From Sa Leone. It is one thousand miles from Lagos. The people do not speak Yoruba there, neither do they speak Ibo or Hausa. It is a different part of Africa. Now tell me: if you vote for a man marrying such a foreign woman, do you think he will understand what you want, you Nigerian women?’
‘No!’ came the angry reply.
Jagua paused and drew in some breath, looking aggressively round at the three thousand head-ties. They were all still, but in the distance she saw a small boy in white, throwing a football at his mother who wore a red scarf.
‘Uncle Taiwo is your man, my sisters! He is a businessman, so he understands business – like yourselves. He knows your problems, even before you bring them to him. He will press your case in the Council, give you a decent market, block off that stinking drain, a shameful smelly thing. Go to Onitsha and see what a market should be like. I’ve been there myself, and I can tell you this: Uncle Taiwo will plan for you a bigger and cleaner market where you can sleep, if you like. Vote for him! Vote for Long Life and Happiness. And Freedom. F r e e d o m ! …’
The drums began to beat and the specially hired orchestra sang with rhythm. Jagua slipped back and left the microphone to Uncle Taiwo. She was exhausted and thirsty. The orchestra had crowded round the microphone, twelve men in a uniform robe. One man at the microphone rapidly improvised a new song based on the goodness of Uncle Taiwo and the honesty of O.P. 2. The others handled a variety of percussion instruments and chanted the rhythmic apala music that transformed the women into wiggling maniacs. They jutted out their buttocks and leaned low, wiggling from side to side and hissing for man-contact. The men held on to those hips and shook in rhythm with them. The campaign had become a carnival, but Jagua felt they had listened.
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