Jagua Nana

by Cyprian Ekwensi

  As soon as they entered the house painted grey and red on the outside, Jagua took off her shoes and held her burning feet. Rosa lived in a room of her own where she said she paid two pounds a month rent. Filth was scattered everywhere in the surroundings. They could still hear the buzzing and the humming of the market which they had just passed.

  ‘You kin stay with me till everythin’ die down,’ Rosa said.

  Jagua looked at the degradation. Bare floor which came off in powdery puffs if you rubbed your foot too hard. The bed was in the same room, wooden, with a mattress stuffed with the kind of grass cut by prisoners at the racecourse. Rosa had become – like many women who came to Lagos, like Jagua herself – imprisoned, entangled in the city, unable to extricate herself from its clutches. The lowest and the most degraded standards of living were to her preferable to a quiet and dignified life in her own home where she would not be ‘free’.

  How am I better? Jagua thought. She ought to have remained in Onitsha with Brother Fonso and tried to become a Merchant Princess. Or better still, she ought to have married Chief Ofubara. Even before that, before she came to Lagos, she had a real husband. She thought of him now. She thought of her whole past life, sitting there while Rosa went into the back of the house and came in and asked her if she would like bitter-leaf stew with pounded yam or rice with pork.

  ‘We got plenty pork here,’ Rosa boasted.

  ‘So ah see,’ Jagua said absently.

  ‘Gunle is a fine place.’ Rosa was making lame excuses for her depraved surroundings. ‘No one kin disturb you. My man use to come here an’ spen’ time. He done go back to de College. He’s passin’ out dis year … Dis place is not like Central Lagos where everybody poke nose in your business. I go an’ come as I like.’

  She bustled back to the kitchen. Jagua could see her putting a pot on the wood fire. The pot was propped on three stones and Rosa shot back her big buttocks and drew up the cloth between her knees and fanned the fire. Her shoulders had become bigger and smoother since she left Jagua and Jagua wished she were as carefree as Rosa. Youth was on her side.

  ‘Too much bad luck in me life,’ Jagua mumbled.

  She thought of the time when she was living in Eastern Nigeria, long before she went to Ghana, before she thought of coming to Lagos to live, before she met the late Freddic Namme. She was Jagwa then. In her early thirties.

  She was an only daughter. Her father doted on her. In his Godly way he wanted her to marry a serious man from the village. Poor Dad. He was only a catechist at the time, although he struggled hard and later became a pastor. The husband he approved of said he worked in the Coal City. He had come to Ogabu on leave and he noticed her and wanted to take her back with him as wife.

  Jagua was fond of changing her clothes often, and – in those early days of make-up – of painting her face. Every few hours she went down to the waterside and took off her clothes and swam in the clean cool water. The boys used to hide and peep at her breasts and hips. She knew it and always teased them. All the girls in her age-group had married and had children but she had resisted to the last, hoping ever, for some eminent man to come along to Ogabu to marry her. To the shock of the villagers she wore jeans and rode her bicycle through the narrow alleys of Ogabu and talked loudly and her laughter was throaty so that the men drew to her side and wanted her. She considered herself above the local boys, most of whom she had bedded and despised as poor experience.

  The Coal City man pressed home his claim, and he paid the bride price of one hundred and twenty pounds; so the marriage was concluded and later on they went to the church and her father gave her away with his blessing to the Coal City man. God knows, she wanted to settle down and become the good wife. But she was bored. She was Jagwa, and the man was not Jagwa-ful. His main interest was his petrol-filling station and garage. He was up early and he went there to supervise the selling of his petrol and to make entries in his books. Often when she got there, she found him sleeping on the bare office table. He soon had a chain of filling stations all over the city and was able to buy a small car. But he never took her to parties, and would not dress well, for fear the money would leak away. In no way did his ideas of living attract her. She found that she had obeyed her parents but now they were not there to see her misery and they would never understand her longing, the hot thirst for adventure in her blood. She refused to adapt herself to his humdrum life and she wondered how she had been able to remain with him as she did for over three years. What grieved her most was that no child came. His mother and father and brothers and sisters came and made a fuss about it, and told him to take a younger wife as Jagua was too old. At first he did not listen to them, but after a time he began to weaken. Jagua knew that he took periodical leaves to his hometown to look at some maiden who had been procured for him; she heard also that they brought him brides to the petrol-filling station. She took the blame for sterility, and it was becoming a thing between them.

  One day when he went to his filling station, leaving the house to her, she dressed up and walked into the streets. She was passing by the Railway Station and on a sudden impulse she went in and asked for the timetable. A young man smilingly told her when the next train would be leaving for L-A-G-O-S. Lagos! The magic name. She had heard of Lagos where the girls were glossy, worked in offices like the men, danced, smoked, wore high-heeled shoes and narrow slacks, and were ‘free’ and ‘fast’ with their favours. She heard that the people in Lagos did not have to go to bed at eight o’clock. Anyone who cared could go roaming the streets or wandering from one night spot to the other right up till morning. The night spots never shut, and they were open all night and every night; not like ‘here’ where at 8 p.m. (latest) everywhere was shut down and the streets deserted, so that it looked odd to be wandering about.

  When she came away from the railway counter, Jagua felt a sudden uneasiness. There was something sinful in her act, and from that moment on, she began to look at her man with a detached air. To her, he was good as dead. Dead and buried in her heart though he did not know it. She gave him her body, and thought instead of the slim young men in the dark bow ties and elegantly cut lounge suits.

  She cooked for him, but longed for quiet restaurants where the lining was velvet and the music was soft and wine glasses clinked and men spoke in whispers to girls who burst suddenly into outraged laughter but were devils in nylon skins. She stopped taking treatment from the doctor who was giving her something to make her pregnant. Her husband found out and when they quarrelled she was glad. She waited for him to leave for the filling station. They had not been on speaking terms for two whole days. She caught the train and it was too slow for her mood, taking three days to drop her into Lagos.

  She knew no one and was glad when a young bandleader picked her up and housed her for a time. His friends called him Hot Lips because of his manner of playing the trumpet and the scars on his lips. He had no money but he had style in all he did. When he introduced her to girls who came to see him, she saw that her ideas were out of date. Her manner stamped her as ‘Provincial’ and this bandleader must be keeping her for some reason, but not for her smartness.

  Standing in Tinubu Square, she would see the elegant Lagos products step smartly by, hanging on the laughing hands of their young men, and she would want to be like them. She remembered the morning when she was walking down the street, going from shop to shop. Being followed was something new for her then. She did not know why they did it in Lagos. As she turned the corner into William Street, they came quickly to her.

  ‘We live for Ikoyi,’ they said, after greeting her. ‘Our master – a white man, jus’ come out from England. He lef’ him wife for dem country. ’Es lookin’ for some fine lady, special.’ They looked at her with approval. She was Jagwa: nothing exaggerated, the earrings, painted cheeks and lips, the cut of the Accra-style printed blouse and sarong-type wrapper, the smooth shoulders elastic and supple in the sun; the toes, waxed and peeping through high-heeled shoes. And when she walked, t
hey whistled. ‘He will treat you fine, is a very kind man,’ said the second one.

  She observed that they were both dressed in white shirts and white trousers, starched and dazzling. She concluded that they must be servants of some highly-placed official. She weighed the situation. If she could break away from Hot Lips and live all by herself in a room of her own, she would be able to buy many of the fine things in the shops and make herself even more Ja-gwa.

  ‘What time he want me?’ she asked.

  ‘Is better for night time. If you tell me where you live—’

  ‘No, no! Ah live wit’ some man. But I kin meet you somewhere, some place …’

  Could it be true? Suppose there was some big practical joke in it somewhere? But Jagua believed in daring. If the worst happened, at least she could still find her way back to Tinubu Square. They later picked her up by the taxi park and sped to Ikoyi. When she stepped out of the taxi she glanced round her with breath suspended. She had never in her life dreamt of being in such dazzling surroundings. The deep soft carpets and well-padded chairs were things she saw in films. As she sat down the boys brought her something to drink and with trembling fingers she took the glass from the tray and sipped at the red liquid. Her head seemed to spin round. She lit a cigarette and the white man leaned over the enormous radiogram and put on a long-play record of some Nigerian music. His name was John Martell and he told her that his wife was in England. He had come out to work with a firm of builders. If she pleased him, he would treat her well.

  She must have satisfied him for he took a room for her and furnished it, maintaining it till he went on leave. He told her he would be returning with his wife and two children. He would write to her. She never heard from him, nor did she ever see him again.

  With the allowance he gave her she travelled by Mammy Wagon to Accra. She had heard that the women of Accra were Jagwa-ful. They were the real black mermaids from the Guinea Gulf and their ideas came from Paris. When she got to Accra she was breathless with wonder. She returned to Lagos loaded with a pile of wax prints and kente cloth which she sold at a profit. She lowered the neckline of her sleeveless blouses and raised the heels of her shoes. She did her hair in the Jagua mop, wore earrings that really rang bells, as she walked with deliberately swinging hips. She was out-Jagwaring the real Jagwas. She found it thrilling to combine the retail of cloth with the dissemination of Accra fashion. In Lagos they called her Jagwa. This must have been her happiest time in the city. Going to Accra was always an adventure and she managed to keep her head high. She made and broke a number of lovers in Lagos and Accra. One whom she remembered well owned the old Lou-Lou Club in Accra and the money he made over to her and the contacts he made for her, helped her to establish a name in the wax-prints trade.

  But things became different when she found a front room in a street in Lagos just off Skylark Avenue. In the same house there lived a young teacher named Freddie Namme. He lived on the ground floor and he was a bachelor and good-looking. She saw him just once and decided it was time she settled down – with him. She would spare no effort to win him. Imperceptibly her interest in the cloth trade began to dwindle. She thought mainly of Freddie. She passed often by his door and greeted him loudly and clearly. Then she began cooking for him, home dishes that made him talk about his mother.

  She discovered that he was not engaged to anyone, but even so she found it difficult to reach his ears with her talk about love. She was afraid of the differences in their ages, but she made him talk of his ambition to become a lawyer. If he would give her the security she craved, if he would give her a child of her own, she would help him …

  Jagua heaved a sigh. She looked up now at the darkness that had crept slowly into the room. Outside she could see figures, mere shapes, moving along the dark streets, their lanterns shining on their faces. She could hardly believe that any part of Lagos was without electric light and pump water, but Gunle was. Rosa was back in the room, rummaging in a shelf.

  ‘You go bath firs’ before you eat, or eat firs’ before you bath?’

  ‘No,’ Jagua said absently.

  ‘You will eat firs’?’

  ‘I no want anythin’. My mind no good. I jus’ wan’ to think serious about life.’

  Rosa came and put an arm round her. ‘What you worry yourself for? You no fit to change nothin’. Whedder you laughin’ or you cryin’, what happen, happen. De man done run away. De people he owe done lock up you house. Thenk God, dem don’ meet you and wound you. Is better you hide here small, till everythin’ col’.’

  Jagua rose and began to take off her clothes. She wanted to go home now, back to Ogabu. She wanted to go to Krinameh to see if Chief Ofubara would still take her. She felt a deep hungry longing for her mother. Lagos for her, had become a complete failure. She must try and start life all over again, but not in Lagos. If Brother Fonso could help her, she wanted nothing better than to be a real Merchant Princess at Onitsha.

  ‘Put water for me, Rosa. I wan’ to bath firs’. But I don’ think say I kin chop. I got no appetite.’

  Rosa in her bare feet swung out of the room, and Jagua found the sight of her really comforting.

  23

  Jagua found the new life degrading. At night she and Rosa would leave their home and travel to the Tropicana. They never got back before three in the morning and sometimes when they returned they would tell the men who brought them back to park outside. The men, horrified, would hesitate. Two strange men – in one room. But Jagua would speak nonchalantly to them, and they would overcome their shyness and come in. Sometimes Rosa and her man would take the bed because it was her room. Sometimes it was Jagua who took the bed with her man while Rosa and her man would lie on the mat. Before dawn the men had started up their cars and disappeared. Rosa and Jagua would then compare their takings: red for pounds, green for tens, and violet for fives.

  One evening, just as they watched the men secure their cars, a third car drew up behind them. It was a taxi. Jagua and Rosa ignored the taxi and went inside the room. They had scarcely closed the door when they heard violent knocking outside.

  ‘Excuse! … Excuse me! …’ A persistent hammering.

  Rosa was still fidgeting with the hurricane lamp. Jagua glanced at her, and said: ‘I goin’ to see …’ But Rosa had already dashed angrily past her and was at the door. Jagua listened with half an ear and thought she could hear her name mentioned. Another suitor, she thought. Too late for this night. When Rosa came in, she said: ‘De man say he want you, Jagua. I wonder who he kin be.’ She tried to describe him, but Jagua could make nothing of it. She handed over the lantern to Rosa and went outside.

  The door was only half-shut, with a beam of light cracking through it. The light fell on the face of the man who stood on the other side of it. Jagua looked at the face, and stepped back. ‘Brother Fonso!’

  ‘Sister I’ve looked for you – the whole Lagos!’

  ‘You can’t come inside, Brother Fonso.’

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  She slipped out into the darkness and at once Brother Fonso began to tell her how he had been told to seek her at the Tropicana. He had actually seen her and the other woman enter two separate cars. He had hired a taxi immediately but they seemed to be going very far and fast. He was lucky to catch up with them. Then he talked about his journey to Lagos, why he had come and why it was urgent that he saw her.

  ‘Home is bad, that’s why am here.’

  Jagua’s heart leapt. ‘Money?’

  ‘No, more serious than that. What I tell you in Onitsha?’

  ‘Brother, you say – you say dat de day you’ll come Lagos …’

  She felt a sudden panic mixed with irritation. Something she could not imagine had happened. She felt it in his manner.

  ‘Yes, I’ve come … Is about Papa. He’s dying … Dying. And de only name he calls is your name, all the time. If he don’ see you, he won’t die, so we mus’ go find you anywhere you are …’

  Jagua sucked in her breath
. She looked at Brother Fonso, and Fonso was not there, only the darkness. She listened but heard nothing; she looked and the accusation of her own conscience reared itself obscuring her vision. All the sins of her past and future life were crowded in that one moment when Fonso stood before her, the archangel of misfortune and death and condemnation. She was the only daughter whom her father loved and doted upon. Her father had never denied her anything. He had seen her married off and she had been wayward and had come to Lagos to pursue the Tropicana lights and the glittering laughter of seductive men, the sequin sheen of the fickle fashions. She had forgotten that she had a father and mother who needed her love. Husbandless, parentless, she had roamed the Nigerian world, a woman among the sophisticates with hollowness for a background. And out of that hollowness this had come.

  ‘So will you get ready and come now,’ Fonso said with finality.

  ‘Now? Leave Lagos … now?’

  ‘Yes, now. There is no time, sister.’ She could feel the intense fire in his glance. ‘If you like, you stay. Papa will die. Is an ol’ man, awright; but he jus’ wan’ to see you before. Doesn’t matter to you. Awright! … I’ve done my own part. Left my business to come to Lagos and look for you the whole town. Lagos which I’ve never been to before. Just to please Papa before he goes.’

  Jagua began to cry. ‘But I have nothin’. Them seize all my thin’. How can I come now? Funeral is not a small thin’. How I can come without money! Is a shame! And I never been home for over ten year! No, is too much shame!’

  ‘No money – all these years?’ His voice was biting. ‘Not you tell me when you come Onitsha that you got cloth business?’ He laughed. ‘And I tol’ you, stop in Onitsha and trade with the Princess! By now, you should have known where you reach.’

  Jagua began to sob quietly. She knew Brother Fonso was being cruel to her. She moaned and hung her head, and then she half heard him still talking.