Jagua’s heart began thumping hard. ‘No! what happen?’
‘You don’ hear say dem hang him?’ Rosa asked.
‘No,’ Jagua said, and began to cry.
‘I goin’ to tell you de full story sometime,’ Rosa promised.
With her usual energy Rosa peeled the yam and ground the pepper. She made the stew and pounded the yam. She had stripped her print dress and had only a sleeveless singlet and bright green wrapper tied sarong-wise round her hips. Her small breasts danced, her rounded hips rolled as she descended the steps of the courtyard at the back of the house. Jagua admired her complete ‘at-homeness’.
‘Mama, we have one who has come.’ Jagua said when her mother came in. ‘Her name is Rosa. In Lagos I knew her.’
‘Welcome, Rosa. You come well?’ She turned to Jagua. ‘She has eaten? Quick now. Give her food.’
Jagua smiled and pinched Rosa. ‘My mother likes you,’ she whispered.
When they had bathed and eaten, Jagua and Rosa sat on the piazza and five hundred miles from Lagos Rosa told Jagua what happened to Dennis Odoma and Uncle Taiwo. After endless minute questions, Jagua knew the story of Dennis as if she had been at the trial herself. According to Rosa, the magistrate had tried to save him. But his case was hopeless. Rosa told how the magistrate’s face clouded as he added up the pros and cons, how Dennis stood in the dock, trembling. He had grown extremely pale and unkempt, his beard was unshaven and his clothes looked as if he had slept in them. It had been raining for ten days in Lagos, without stopping. Grey bleak rain, slamming down, eating into the tarmac and unearthing the stones, running into rivulets, rushing into streams that clogged the gutters and floated the wood and silt, the carcasses of sheep and dogs. At night when the moon struggled out, the rain stopped and then you could hear again the city sounds – horns bleating in the distance, trains jangling over the rails. She was miserable and so was everyone, particularly the prosecution police who put their heads together, conspiring, while the press boys scribbled away and everyone waited. At this time those who came to court talked, but only in whispers.
This was the time when Rosa hoped that Dennis would be freed or given a light sentence, because everyone was getting tired of the case and the public were all for Dennis. But the police went on to prove that he was a thoroughly bad character. He was an ‘habitual’. He had attacked a police officer before, about four years ago. They proved also that in the last four years, Dennis was in and out of prison five times. Rosa was amazed. She said she could never have guessed it from the way Dennis behaved when he came to visit Jagua. The police prosecutor read out: ‘House-breaking and stealing – 15 months … Counterfeit coins – 9 months. Under the name Matthias Oemji, 9 months for stealing … Again, 4 months for stealing … And again, 4 months for stealing …’ Rosa dramatized how the police officer was shuffling the cards as he spoke and how Dennis in the dock, bowed his head and said nothing. When they began to speak of how this merciless and wicked boy had planned to kill the policeman, had lured him into a side street ‘with intent’, Rosa knew there was no way out then. And when later on, she saw his picture in the paper, saying he was to hang, she was shocked but no longer surprised. She heard that Dennis appealed, but nothing ever came out of it.
Jagua said not a word. All she could murmur to herself was: ‘An’ de boy love me so much. He use to call me Ma. I try to teach ’im to be gentleman, but is a different kind from Freddie Namme. Differen’ kin’.’ She spoke up now. ‘You know, is like say his body on fire all de time. When his body wake, he got enough power to kill man with one blow. But he gentle when he love, though he kin hardly control hisself whenever he see me naked.’
‘I jus’ remember somethin’, Jagua!’ Rosa came running up from the forest. Jagua was sitting on the verandah in front of her father’s house.
‘What thin’, Rosa?’
She came up the steps and said, ‘You know any man dem call Ofubara … Chief Ofubara? From Krinameh?’
‘Chief Ofubara,’ Jagua whispered, holding her breast. ‘Yes, is de time I go Bagana. From dere I reach Krinameh and …’ She checked herself, unable to tell Rosa about the jealous incident when she had pursued Nancy Namme into the waters of Krinameh. But she talked of how she had been really Jagwa, the day Chief Ofubara first set eyes on her.
‘Soon after you lef’, de man come to Lagos. He worryin’ about you till he nearly crase. He say you promise to marry am. He come till he tire, worryin’ ’bout you. So he don’ come here to find you? Sometime dem take de steamer go home …’
Rosa told how Chief Ofubara had come with some others for a conference in Lagos, something to do with chieftaincy.
Jagua sighed. ‘Dat man you see, is a very kin’ man.’ She knew now that she would like to see him again, but not now, when she was carrying another man’s baby. In a way, she regarded herself as his wife. Though he had not gone to speak to her parents in the traditional manner, he had paid the price on her head, but got no bride. But no, she could not marry him now. She might go to the Port Harcourt wharf, or even as far as Bagana, for news of him. Krinameh was not so far away now, on this side of the Niger.
Night after night, they sat and talked. And on the second night, Rosa told the story of Uncle Taiwo: a terrifying one indeed, and one that taught Jagua that politics was dirtiest to them that played it dirty. Rosa told how she was going to market and she heard that a dead man was lying at the roundabout in the centre of the city. She was terrified. It was said to be lying near the marketplace, in front of the Hotel Liverpool. People going to work saw it from their cars in the early morning as they came up the hill. The policeman at the control point had the cape of his raincoat up and his white cap was sodden with the endless rain. The roads were all muddy and pitted; the gutters were full, the farms in the suburbs were overgrown with weeds. Lagos was in a state of chaos that day. It seemed as if the ghost of that corpse had gone abroad among them. The body was lying there twisted and swollen; one knee was drawn up against the chest, the arms were clutching at the breast, rigid like a statue. Rosa tried to imitate the position of the body on the floor, and Jagua, horrified, hastily begged her to get up. She was shaking with fright.
In Africa you see these things, Rosa reminded her. Rosa said she circled round the body three times. She saw some dogs circling too. Perhaps they were waiting for nightfall to feast on the body of the famous man. This was in Lagos, nowhere else. Then she went up into the Hotel Liverpool and stood looking down from five floors at the chain of red, blue, green, scarlet, yellow and cream cars; at the slow jerk and stop of the traffic flowing into the island. But it was the body of Uncle Taiwo, lying in the rain that seemed to rivet all the attention and to spread terror among the drivers … She ordered brandy and sipped it slowly because she was feeling sick. The waiters in the white uniforms chattered but none of them knew Rosa and none of them said anything she did not really know. They said, however, that he had been murdered by his party and abandoned at the roundabout. He had broken faith with them and they blamed him for losing the elections.
It kept on drizzling, rattling on the roof. A bleak day on which Uncle Taiwo died. Rosa said she came down from the hotel and went home in the rain without entering the market.
Jagua was horrified by the story. She had never loved Uncle Taiwo. She had been a mere tool in his hands, an elderly man who knew what he wanted and did not complain when asked to pay for it. She had never realized that he was so deeply enmeshed in political ties and societies he would never mention in public. How different he was from Dennis, with his pulse-beat of life and his daring disregard of convention, his youthful urgency, a young man who had stirred her deep down and made her restless and inadequate.
When Rosa had gone to bed Jagua thought over the story of Uncle Taiwo. There was now no point in keeping the bag any longer. She would go now to the backyard and destroy all the papers. She lit a hurricane lamp and went to the cupboard in her mother’s room where the bag was. She took it down and tried to open it b
ut it was locked. With a knife she cut open the leather flap and the contents poured out at her feet. She stood back aghast. The bag was full of notes, stacked in bundles of £50. She counted twenty such bundles before going over and shaking her mother by the shoulder.
‘Mama, Mama, get up! … Come an’ see what I see!’
Her mother rubbed her eyes and stared. ‘I’ll not touch it,’ she said, when she had heard the story of the bag. ‘It’s blood money.’
‘Is not blood money,’ Jagua explained. ‘Is party money.’ She was sure it was O.P. 2 money given to Uncle Taiwo to spend for the elections. The elections were over, Uncle Taiwo had been killed. This portion he must have kept back for himself, hoping to come back later and use it for his own ends.
While her mother stood aghast, Jagua knelt down and counted one hundred bundles of £50.
‘Do as you like with am, I got no hand in it.’
Jagua threw her hands upwards in an attitude of prayer. ‘God know, if I do wrong to take dis money ’pon all my suffer dat I suffer.’
In the morning, she was a different person. She talked with a new air of authority. ‘Mama, when de time come, I know what I goin’ to do widde money. I will give some to de Mission in Ogabu for take finish de church buildin’. De res’ I goin’ to put in business. Las’ time when I was in Onitsha I see some shop in Odoziaku Street, very near de Company. I goin’ to buy dat business and God will help me for become real Merchant Princess. But de first thing I wan’ to go Port Harcourt firs’.’ She raised her hands, and threw her face at the skies. ‘Dis one be God work! …’
Rosa accompanied her to Port Harcourt to buy dress materials. As they walked along the street, their eyes darted from window to window. It was raining here too and they had to take refuge now and again in the shops. In one of the shops Jagua saw a lawyer whom she had observed at Freddie’s funeral. From him she inquired about Nancy.
‘Nancy? …’ He pondered it over, his eyes on the rain outside. ‘You mean Nancy Namme … Oh yes! …’
That had been a real fight, the man told her. Yes. The Bar Association had taken up the case seriously on behalf of the doctor who ran the private hospital from which Freddie had been forcibly removed in his critical illness. Removing a man in that manner amounted to a felony. They had asked for a compensation of £20,000 to be paid by the police to Nancy, the widow of Freddie. After all, if they had not moved him the chances were that he might have recovered. But all they got was £2000. ‘We should have asked for £200,000,’ the lawyer grinned. ‘Always ask for ten times what you want.’ But it was not the money they were fighting for so much as the protection of the dignity of professional men like the doctor from political nonsense; and also to bring the misguided police officials to book.
They talked at length about Freddie and how rash he had been to get himself involved in the rough and tumble of politics. Jagua was glad Nancy would not suffer. But she did not tell the lawyer how she had loved Freddie, pinning all her hopes for the future on him, and how she had lost.
While still in Port Harcourt they took a taxi and went down to the waterfront to see if they would meet anyone Jagua knew coming from Bagana, so that they might ask about Chief Ofubara. Jagua sat on a cement banking for a long time, watching the canoes land and the women board them, carrying their oranges, yams, vegetables. It did not appear that anyone she knew would be coming to Port Harcourt from either Bagana or Krinameh that day. Rosa walked up to her, a sling bag over her shoulder.
‘What we goin’ to do now?’ she asked. ‘You wan’ make we go Bagana an’ Krinameh? Is only two hour from ’ere, so de canoemen say.’
Jagua glanced at the mourning dress she was wearing. ‘I wan’ go, because I promise Chief Ofubara I mus’ come back to Krinameh. But dis dress!’ It was a far cry from the Jagwa-ful outfit in which she had first appeared before the chief.
‘What you goin’ to do?’ Rosa said. ‘Is only to salute de man, das all! If he ask why you wear black, you kin tell ’im you loss your fadder.’ She pointed at the beach. ‘Look! De canoe dere almos’ ready. Make we go join am.’
They raced towards the canoe and were the last two passengers in. The engine of Ever Jolly Time was already running. It began to rain, gently. A mistiness shrouded the mangrove trees. Out of the mistiness, Jagua saw the Church steeple of Bagana, pale and ghostly against the black sky. Her eyes filled nostalgically with tears when she sighted it.
At Bagana beach, no one came to meet them. They walked up to the Palace in the rain. The maid recognized Jagua. She smiled and offered them seats in the lounge. Jagua looked up at the walls, showing Rosa the photographs of Uncle Namme, David Namme and Chief Ofubara. The maid beamed a welcome and told them that the three men left for Lagos two days previously. They had gone to see the Governor-General over some matter. Jagua and Rosa consulted and agreed they would not stop in Bagana, but would go on to Krinameh, just to see it. They walked down to the beach-side and Jagua saw the bathing place where she had pursued Nancy Namme into Krinameh waters. They found a canoeman who agreed to take them over the rocky waters to Krinameh.
As soon as they rowed past the rocks, Jagua saw – not the Krinameh she knew, desolate and impoverished, but a new Krinameh with good wide roads and so many new buildings that for a moment she thought of Port Harcourt waterfront. They arrived there at closing time for the schools. The streets were filled with children chattering, kicking rubber balls, and laughing. Their presence seemed to fill Krinameh. She remembered Chief Ofubara’s eternal cry for education. She remembered too that with her altered circumstances she could answer some at least of his cry.
She took Rosa by the arm. ‘Make we go back for Ogabu. I seen all I wan’ to see.’
Rosa gave her a glance of surprise, but Rosa did not yet know about Jagua’s condition. In two months’ time, everyone who looked at her would see the swollen belly. It was good like this, that Chief Ofubara should remain in her mind as her happiest romantic memory.
The child was turning over in her belly. Jagua leaned her back against the wall and watched the playful undulations of her own belly, swollen visibly now. She put a hand to catch the feet of the unborn child. Pain gnawed at her and she gritted her teeth. Sometimes she thought of a name for it. Uzo would be a fitting one, meaning Road. She had searched at home in vain for a child, but now the child had come to her from the road, from the shed of the seamstresses, a product of a casual affair with a vanished father. She would see to it that the child grew up straight and strong – and true. That night, out of sheer gratitude, she cried herself to sleep. Even if she went back to the Coast to live, to Lagos or to Port Harcourt, things would be on a new footing. She would never again be so reckless with the ingredients of the fast life and faster oblivion.
Jagua’s mother was due to get out of mourning in a matter of weeks. Rosa stayed with them, waiting for the great day. One of the first things that Jagua did when she was able to, was to go across the river to the Postal Agency and to send to Chief Ofubara twelve bundles of £50 notes as a little help towards his education programme. Rosa saw the money and whistled.
‘Jagua your hand too free! You goin’ to dash all de money away finish!’
‘Never min’,’ said Jagua. ‘De Chief is a very kin’ man. Very kin’. Is de only way I kin repay de love he have for me.’ She looked at her belly. ‘You see now, I done go get pickin from anodder man, so I no fit to marry am again.’
She took the receipts from the postal clerk, but as they walked home, Rosa kept telling her that she was too free-handed. Jagua merely laughed her fears away.
Sometimes Jagua took Rosa visiting. They went to the nearby village where the parents of Rosa’s fiancé lived. He had since gone back to the college. By now Rosa and Jagua’s mother joked freely about Jagua’s condition and Jagua was pleased. She could see that her mother moved about the house with a new expectant freedom.
The time drew nearer for Jagua’s mother to change her mourning clothes, and on the night before, Jagua had felt
a violent searing pain inside her. She kept pacing the room like someone on the brink of insanity. Rosa hailed Jagua’s mother who ran up, rubbing her eyes. Together they took Jagua into the inner room and sat her down, trying to calm her. Jagua heard her mother send someone to fetch the doctor.
Then the splitting pain came again, and they put her back against the wall and spread her legs apart. Rosa held her by one hand and her mother by the other, looking down on her bloated naked body.
‘Give a grunt!’ the mother cried.
Jagua grunted, to no effect.
‘All your might!’
Jagua grunted, and fainted. Outside, the moon shone and the small boy who had been sent to fetch the doctor came running in and he was the first to hear the piercing note of the child: a boy.
Jagua’s mother named the baby Nnochi which means Replacement. One old and dead, the other new and young and full of promise. And when at dusk the drums beat under the banana leaves, Jagua turned and listened to the rhythms that to hear meant happiness.
For two days, the child lived. Jagua, handling Nnochi in all his wetness and elastic gambols drew the maternal satisfaction she had long craved. On the third day, Jagua put Nnochi to the breast. It was early evening and her mother and Rosa had not come in from the farm. Jagua felt a sudden slackening of the lips on her nipple. She looked at the face of her newborn infant. It was turning an ashen colour. She gazed, not understanding. The life was draining out of Nnochi. Dumbfounded Jagua watched Nnochi stiffen, and then all movement ceased.
Jagua opened her mouth to scream, but could not.
Rosa and her mother came in from the forest and found her silent and stiff as an effigy before the oracle. She pressed the dead baby to herself and blubbering, would not part with it.
‘When you are strong again, Jagua, what you goin’ to do?’ Jagua’s mother came and sat beside her on the bench in the courtyard. It was a week after the burial of Nnochi and slowly Jagua was beginning to see the sun, to feel a thirst for water and a hunger for a little food.
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