‘What you want here? Leave de house, at once!’
‘Nancy, no talk like dat, I beg. We all feel de sorrow for your husban’ death; especially as de police handle de sick man. I beg you, let me stay an’ cry with you; I do a lot for Freddie, you know. And he love me in him own way, though is you he marry after all!’
‘You love him, and you kill him! You an’ your Uncle Taiwo. You kin have de seat in Obanla now. But jus’ leave me with me own sufferin’, and de children too. Leave one time, or I will call police for you, quick-quick!’
Jagua began to mutter in protest, but she felt the imperativeness of the cold silence. She was not wanted.
‘Awright, Nancy; I goin’ to leave! But look all de people who love your Freddie! You know all of dem? Or you goin’ to drive de ones you don’ know? Your Freddie was a famous man who people love. If to say he livin’ he for no drive me from his house.’
Slowly Nancy sat down as Jagua slipped out. But Jagua was unable to leave. She heard the elderly people suggesting that because of the manner of his death, Freddie must be buried quickly. Normally they would have kept his body two or three nights. But he had been badly beaten up and the very next afternoon the hearse was waiting outside the church, bundled with wreaths and flowers. The legal practitioners were all dressed in black and stood nearest it, and then the women of O.P. 1 had all come in one uniform dress: blue headtie, thin nylon blouses, blue wrappers. They formed a very striking block. Freddie’s former students at the National College came too, carrying a flag. They all wore white and looked sweet with their wreaths.
Inside the church, Jagua listened to the parson when he began to speak about Freddie’s illustrious career as a teacher. Then he went on to the years of struggle in England when Freddie ‘unknowingly was sowing the seeds of his own destruction by joining a political party, but he could not help it; he had a deep feeling for his people and thought he could speak their case in that manner’. He talked about the wonderful bereaved widow who had been his wife. Nancy came to Nigeria, became a Nigerian, though her parents were Sa Leonean. Her parents had been in the civil service, helping Nigeria at a time when the country did not have its own trained men. ‘God bless her and the children.’
They were opening hymn books all about her, but as Jagua had none, she peeped over a woman’s shoulder. The pipe organ moaned out a painful tune, and as soon as the tune came to an end another voice, more solemn, began to preach in Yoruba. The congregation said, ‘Amin!’ to almost every phrase he uttered, and Jagua joined them too, saying ‘Amin! … Amin! …’ a split-second after the others. She stole a glance at Nancy. Her eyes were blurred with tears. A man beside Jagua began weeping openly.
‘Let us pray!’ said the parson.
Jagua had a confused impression of deep throaty voices, of rhythmic ‘Amin!’ and of the pipe organ stealthily swelling with soft sweet music. The music became infinitely finer as the coffin began to come out, born on the shoulders of the Law Society. Suddenly, Nancy broke away from the crowd. She ran after the coffin but hands grabbed her, pinned her back.
‘Freddie! … Come back to me and de children! …’
Jagua wept too.
All along the way, crowds came out on the pavement to watch the already famous man, to join in the singing. Nancy was surrounded by a number of men who watched her with keen eyes. They passed over the last bridge before the cemetery. Men in canoes sat still and seeing the funeral train bowed their heads. Some took off their caps.
‘Jesus is God!’ sang the choir.
All about Jagua people were talking in undertones. Some of it she heard, some floated away and mingled with the singing.
‘You’ll see how they’re going to vote now …’
‘I think O.P. 2 made a mistake to beat up Freddie … Now the public is against them, especially the women voters, Jus’ see the number of women at the funeral …’
‘Jesus is God! …’ sang the choir. Jagua looked and saw that it was really true. There were ten women to every man, especially the kind of market women she had spoken to, not long ago.
‘May his soul rest in peace …’
‘Freddie was a fine man …’
‘At least we’re giving him a decent Christian burial, though he died at the hands of the devil.’
Jagua heard it all with a feeling of pride. The hearse turned under the mango trees into the burial ground.
22
Jagua followed Uncle Taiwo out early on Polling Day. Freddie’s death had not disturbed the polling or altered the fact that the election was a straight fight between Other Party Two and Other Party One. Of the sixty constituencies, she was most interested in one – Obanla – where Uncle Taiwo was representing O.P. 2 and a new candidate, a nonentity, had been chosen overnight in place of Freddie Namme. Jagua’s one fear was that the women might react against the killing of Freddie Namme outside the Tropicana. Nigerian women, she knew, do not listen to election promises. Their minds are often made up in advance and it takes a little thing to swing it the other way. She knew they voted for party symbols, not for people. Thus, the death of Freddie Namme would not alter the sum total of the votes for O.P. 1 by a single vote. When she thought of Nancy’s face at the funeral, and again heard the words: ‘You can have the seat in Obanla now,’ the way Nancy said them, she felt even more terrified. It seemed as if a curse would go with the seat. But suppose they lost? The shame would be quite unbearable.
Early in the morning she and Uncle Taiwo drove around the town, watching the women who had already begun trooping to the little grey sheds marked POLLING STATION. But the electoral officers did not turn up until nearing eight o’clock when the women, grimly, checked their registration numbers against a long roll, some distance from the box. They went in, one by one, dipped their fingers in ink, and vanished into the loneliness of the polling booth.
When they came out, Jagua could not guess where the vote had gone – whether to Freddie Namme’s O.P. 1 or Uncle Taiwo’s O.P. 2; but she thought that most of the women who came to that particular station looked like the market women she had addressed that evening. She stole a glance at Uncle Taiwo’s face. It was tense and aggressive. For him, so much depended on this election. If he won, he would become a Councillor, able to use his influence the way others had done before him. His position would be very much higher in the City. She too, would benefit as a result. She would be the mistress of a Councillor. He would use his influence to establish her as a Merchant Princess. She would have to give up her present style of living, and be loyal to him alone.
She watched them quietly checking the names in Obanla Polling Station. The Electoral Officer for this constituency had been specially chosen because Obanla was the hottest spot of all. He was a white man, a Broadcasting Officer, from an organisation noted for its fair play. He smiled and looked round benignly at the other representatives of political parties. Jagua saw Uncle Taiwo fidgeting nervously around. He could not keep still for more than a few seconds. He was like a sentry who has been warned of housebreakers in the neighbourhood. jumping up at the slightest provocation. Suddenly he shouted: ‘I object!’ and pointed at a voter. There followed a hum of voices, then the voter was allowed to cast his vote. Uncle Taiwo said he had observed this man vote twice, but the man explained that he had returned to vote for a friend who was ill. The law did not disallow that, so the Electoral Officer had to allow him to vote. Jagua watched the man come out of the booth, but that was not the last time. Each time he voted a new finger was dipped in indelible ink. A few moments later, he was back again, till all his fingers had been inked. He had voted for all his nine friends. Jagua heard Uncle Taiwo cursing him under his breath.
She had brought along sandwiches which she passed round and also two flasks of coffee. Uncle Taiwo would neither eat nor drink. By afternoon the voting had slackened, but towards evening the men began to return, and they continued to flow into the booth until sundown when the Electoral Officer went in and – before their eyes – sealed off all th
e boxes.
Jagua, Uncle Taiwo and all the others followed him to the counting hall where dozens of polling boxes had already been assembled. Uncle Taiwo sweated and wiped his face and paced about. Jagua felt sorry for him. He would not let her speak with him; he snapped out angry words if anyone approached him. She had never known how much the election meant to him. Suppose the ghost of Freddie Namme should suddenly appear in that counting hall, the ghost of Freddie, laughing at Uncle Taiwo: a remote ghost, all powerful, multiplying the O.P. 1 votes so that Uncle Taiwo not only lost the election, but also lost his deposit. And suppose all the people who had received money from him came out now into this hall and laughed and said: ‘Uncle Taiwo! … we done chop all you money, but we don’ vote for you. You can’t buy our vote, which is a secret thing. De greates’ power dat democracy give we poor people! After all your talk we kin enter de secret box an’ use our vote to cut your neck …’ Foolish imaginings, Jagua told herself. But it was possible that all these things would be haunting Uncle Taiwo now.
The counting officers were breaking the seals now. Jagua saw them tying the votes in bundles of fifty. Long before the last bundle had been tied, she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Uncle Taiwo.
‘Le’s go.’
‘You no go wait till dem finish? Or you wan’ lissen from de radio? I wan’ to see how dem will count de vote …’
‘Le’s go, Jagua.’ There was something brutal in his gruffness. She felt a deeper fear then.
She followed him into the streets, crowded with traffic police in grey shirts and white shorts, waving their arms to divert the traffic from the counting hall. Some of them were holding truncheons and shields and wearing steel helmets. Jagua heard them call silently, ‘Uncle Taiwo’, as they passed. ‘The man for the job.’ He waved at them, and walked more briskly. While he fidgeted with his keys, Jagua asked him something which had been worrying her.
‘Uncle T., I been wantin’ to ask you somethin’. Who kill Freddie Namme?’
The keys dropped from his hands, but he picked them up and for one nervous moment could not find the right one for the car. ‘Why you ask me? Is dose wild boys. Dem always beat de opponent.’
‘Why dem beat de opponent?’
He laughed. ‘Is de instruction. When de wild ones of O.P. 1 see any O.P. 2 man dem will beat him, and vice versa. De V.I.P. in any party pay de wild ones £ 1 a day to start fight. Is what dem get paid for. And if dem beat any important candidate, dem get bonus.’ He laughed. ‘You still thinkin’ about dat Freddie? I tol’ him politics not game for gentlemen …’ He found the right key at last and held the door open for her.
She slipped into the car. ‘So as you goin’ now, your life is in danger? De O.P. 1 ruffians dem lookin’ for you?’
‘Jus’ so; but I don’ fool so much, you know. See dis!’ From under the seat of the car, he drew out a cutlass. The blade was so sharp that it could have cut off a person’s ear with the painlessness of an anaesthetic.
‘I beg,’ said Jagua, as he started the car. ‘Hide am! Don’ let de police see am!’
He pulled away, and she looked at his face. She knew the truth now. He did not want to remain there in the counting hall because he had lost. And because he had lost he was grey with terror. All that money, all those promises, all the energy lavished on campaigning and paying hired thugs one pound per day, and driving along every road with a blaring loudspeaker, and haranguing the people, all that had been wasted. But most terrifying of all, she knew that Uncle Taiwo was terrified of the retribution. His party did not stand for failures. And as Secretary of O.P. 2 he must carry full blame. That fatal beating-up of Freddie may have done something. She suspected that the ruffians had not been sent to kill Freddie, but the result of the beating-up had been death, and now the case was in court and O.P. 2 would answer for it. Freddie had been a lawyer and the Law Association was standing behind him with all their brains massed against the party.
Jagua hung her head. Although she did not know it yet, her own loss was much the greatest.
She heard him muttering, swearing and cursing as he drove like a dervish through the town. What he said made no sense to her and she was quite certain the shock had shattered his mental balance. He dropped her somewhere at the junction of Skylark Avenue and Odoba Street, waved, and still muttering, fired off.
She was walking away when she heard the insistent blaring of horns behind her. It was Uncle Taiwo. He was holding a bag aloft, and calling out to her.
‘Jagua, keep dis bag for me,’ he said when she walked over. ‘In de house, till I come. Don’ give de bag to anybody. Even if de man say he’s de president of O.P. 2. You hear dat?’
The bag appeared to be full of documents and party papers. Jagua asked, ‘Is not dangerous? I don’ want to keep somethin’ dat de police will come an’ search my house!’
‘No, is not dangerous.’
‘What time you will come?’
‘I don’ know. I got to go to Headquarters firs’. Keep de bag till you see me.’
‘Don’ be long; I waitin’ you.’
She never set eyes on Uncle Taiwo again. Looking back on that typical Lagos night, with the lights from the petrol station shining into her eyes and the girls in red feeding the cars from long silvery hoses, she never could tell what devil possessed Uncle Taiwo. As he shot the car forward, he very nearly crushed a woman and child who were trailing across the road, trying to catch a bus which was being delayed for their sakes.
Jagua got back to her room and looked at the furniture. She saw one of the old pictures of Freddie Namme, taken when he was yet a teacher at the National College. She took it down and slipped it under a paper. The eyes were too unbearably accusing. She waited for Uncle Taiwo to come in at midnight as he usually did. He never came; he never sent a message.
Instead, a lot of strange men began from that night to miss their way to Jagua’s door. They came knocking and asking for Uncle Taiwo. One strange man carrying a blue despatch case would not believe Jagua. He stood obstinately at the door.
‘He don’ live here,’ Jagua told him and she gave him the address at which his wives lived.
‘Ah been there and his wives tell me to come here.’ He pulled out a notebook and checked the address and still stood there irresolute.
Jagua – who had only one print cloth draped over her naked breasts and her hair in curlers – slowly shut the door and went back to bed. But in another few moments two other men came. They did not mince matters.
‘He borrow money from us!’
‘He don’ live here. Go to de house.’
‘We been dere, his wives direct us here!’
They stamped out, muttering angrily, and threatening to bring the police to search the house and to nail up the doors and put up Jagua’s things for sale. By evening their threat seemed to be more than a mere joke. Two men came and looked round the house, and asked questions. They did not mention anything about debts. They went away. Jagua was restless. Where was Uncle Taiwo? She was smoking cigarette after cigarette and draining the last few drops of whisky from a bottle which Uncle Taiwo reserved for himself.
Without knocking, Rosa came into the room. Jagua had not seen her for a long time. Rosa had gone away one afternoon with the young man in the blazer, saying she would return that evening. She did not return, not even to collect her things. Jagua concluded that Rosa had found a new love nest.
‘Jagua, I come to warn you! Trouble dey come! De O.P. 1 people … dem done seize Uncle Taiwo house, lock up every place. I come to warn you to run, before is too late because dem comin’ here next! Let me take me own thin’ before is late.’ She was casting round the room, quickly bundling her things into her suitcase.
Jagua tried to lift the radiogram. She gazed fondly at the studio couch on which she was so fond of curling up. She pushed the wardrobe, rolled the unrollable interior spring mattress. She was in a quandary. What could she take away? So all this had been bought with borrowed money and had not yet been paid for
? She lifted the carpet and leaned it against the wall. Then she remembered that she had to put on her clothes. It was the usual time to go to the Tropicana. She heard a conversation going on downstairs.
‘Yes, he use all our money to furnish de bloody harlot house!’ The strange voices were talking about her.
‘Jagua, pick up de dress quick,’ Rosa urged. ‘I hear dem comin’ up to dis room.’
‘Boy, which room she livin?’ roared a voice.
Michael answered: ‘Who? Ah don’ know who you talkin’ about?’ And Jagua thanked God for Mike’s stupidity.
Rosa kept saying: ‘Quick, quick! … We got no time! …’
Jagua crammed what she could into a small suitcase, threw a last look at the room where she had lived for so long: at the wardrobe, hanging with her silks and velvets, her Jagwa fashions. At the door she remembered something, and went back into the room. From under the bed, she pulled out the bag which Uncle Taiwo had trusted to her care. She was just in time.
‘Dis way,’ said Rosa. ‘Come de back way, quick!’
Even as they were descending the steps, Jagua heard the loud crash. She knew her door was being bashed in. She stopped and clenched her fists. She started back for her room.
‘I goin’ back!’ she cried, suddenly bursting into tears. ‘I goin’ to fight dem. Dey got no right!’
Rosa seized her. ‘You done gone crase? Dem will jus’ kill you for nothin’.’
Jagua rolled on the floor, crying aloud: ‘I done die! … I done die, finish! …’ And it was Rosa who hailed the taxi that took them to safety. ‘Don’ cry,’ Rosa said, placing an arm round her.
Jagua followed Rosa to the outskirts of Lagos, to the slum of slums, a part of the city which she had often heard of, but had never visited. They changed direction at least three times and passed by an open expanse of ground where cattle were being bought and sold by men in white gowns and white caps. Then the taxi took them over a wooden bridge and after it had put them down they walked along a sandy road for ten minutes, carrying their suitcases on their heads.
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