‘Answer me. Will you always love me?’
‘Yesterday?’ Sango asked.
To him the past was dead. A man made a promise to a girl yesterday because he was selfish and wanted her yesterday. Today was a new day. He had met her at one of those drum parties they always held on Molomo Street. Almost any night you could walk in among the singers and drummers. A marriage, a christening, a death: no matter what it was, the incandescent lamp always shed its rays on the girls who hovered around the glitter like moths. Sometimes the girls danced and then the young men would pinch one another and point to something appealing in a new girl. Sango had been bored with the party until he had seen Aina standing alone, tall and graceful, waiting, he imagined, for the man who could stimulate her imagination.
He had been that man. It had not been easy, for Aina had come to the city and was attracted by the men, yet very suspicious of them. Not even the festive throbbing of the drums could break the restraint which her mother, and the countryside, had instilled in her. But Sango was the city man – fast with women, slick with his fairy-tales, dexterous with eyes and fingers. It had required all his resources, and when they had parted, a little after midnight, Sango had known the intensity of her passion. To be reminded of last night’s abandon so early the next morning was like being faced with a balance sheet of one’s diminishing prestige.
‘Amusa, do you like me still? Do you love me? If anything happens, will you always love me? We are both young, and the world is before us . . . All I want is your word.’
‘Is it important?’
He saw the struggle in her eyes. What could this mean? Could there be something else? What did she want of him? Her fingers were restless. Her firm bosom heaved against the clinging blouse. Again that mad longing to touch her welled up in him.
Suddenly she met his gaze squarely. ‘Have you no feeling at all?’
Before he could answer she turned swiftly and was out of the room. He heard the crunch of her retreating crêpe soles on the gravel.
This girl must be treated like the others. She must be forgotten. She must not be allowed to be a bother to him. Every Sunday men met girls they had never seen and might never see again. They took them out and amused them. Sometimes it led to a romance and that was unexpected; but more often it led nowhere. Every little affair was a gay adventure, part of the pattern of life in the city. No sensible person who worked six days a week expected anything else but relaxation from these strange encounters. Aina must know that. Sango had his own life to lead, his name to make as a band-leader and journalist. All else must be subordinated to that. Nothing must be allowed to disturb his plans.
Yet he was disturbed. Now that she had gone and the scent lingered in his room, he wanted her. He went to the door and called: ‘Sam!’
Sam came quickly enough, wiping his hands on the seat of his khaki shorts. His red shirt was unbuttoned all the way down the front, revealing the hard muscles of his chest. He could be fifteen or fifty. He had the youthful gaiety of a boy of fifteen and the cunning of a grandfather.
‘Is she gone?’
‘Who, sah?’
‘Come on, Sam! You saw her.’
Sam smiled cunningly. He had that ideal quality of a bachelor’s houseboy: a complete and thorough knowledge of the women with whom his master associated. Their names, their addresses, their real cousins and false cousins, their moods. . . . Not only did he know how to deliver a letter to a prospective mistress without embarrassing her, but he could also read faces and guess the innermost thoughts of the lady’s heart. And these unique qualities covered up his other faults and rescued him from the bane of unemployment.
He scratched his head. ‘I am in the kitchen, washing plates. I don’t see anyone, sah!’
‘I believe you, Sam.’
‘I’m sorry, sah.’
‘Okay!’
Sam hesitated a moment.
‘Coffee or tea, sah?’
‘Coffee, and make it black.’
Sam took the percolator from the table in the corner and went out of the room. Sango could hear him asking the two street women who lived next door whether they had seen anyone leave his master’s room and pass along the corridor.
Sango sighed. ‘Shan’t be bothered about her any more. A funny girl. She’s the one in dire need of something. But rather than ask for it, she’ll bluff and put on a mystery act, expecting you to go down on your knees and beg her. And if you don’t, then you’re hard-hearted. That’s life. That’s women all over. Yes, I’ve begged and coaxed . . . when I’m in need. But this morning? No, I must be good.’
He pulled his chair closer to the table and settled down to writing his report:
Popular opinion does not incline favourably towards this verdict of suicide. During the investigations it seemed as if a foregone conclusion had been arrived at. The prosecution tried to prove its theory of suicide. And it appeared as if the learned judge co-operated with them. I ask, what had the judge to fear? Why did he suppress – or gloss over as if in haste – all the evidence which tended to create the faintest suspicion of doubt as to what really happened?
That a gun lay beside the body of the managing director has been firmly established. That it bore his fingerprints is beyond question, and that he was in financial difficulties (as his books show). But do all these necessarily add up to suicide?
The West African Sensation can now reveal a phase of Mr. Trobski’s private life unknown to the police. Mr. Trobski came to West Africa in the war years when Government was looking for just such a man . . .
•
He chewed his pencil. Should he throw this bombshell on the city? Yes, in all fairness he must. Too often had murderers been left to go scot-free.
There comes the dreaded city noise, Amusa. You live with it so you don’t notice it any more. Sounds of buses, hawkers, locomotives, the grinding of brakes, the clanging of church and school bells. . . . The city was awakening.
When Sango first moved into Twenty Molomo, the faintest noise would bring him racing to the street. And he would get there to find the crowd pressing on the central characters. Once he had seen a husband dragging his wife by her hair because – he had never found out why. All the answers he got were in Yoruba and Sango did not speak the language. Now the scenes had lost their novelty, and whatever he missed he could always pick up at the barber’s shop.
The noise grew louder. Something was happening. This noise had a hysterical urgency that frightened Sango. Even the cars were checking and now the yelling was rising above the hum of the engines. He decided to remain where he was and finish his report.
He heard the sound of running feet along the corridor. There was a rude and demanding knock.
‘Mr Sango! Sango, are you in?’
A slippered foot peeped into the room, then a gilt-edged fez cap with golden tassels. Lajide was chewing the end of a cigarette and puckering up his big chocolate-brown face to avoid the fumes getting into his eyes.
‘Come here, please.’ He beckoned.
How that one-inch of ash remained at the end of his cigarette without dropping off fascinated and annoyed Sango. He got up from his report reluctantly.
‘Anything wrong, sir? Haven’t I paid my rent? You are the landlord, but you’ve never spoken to me so early in the morning. There must be something nasty . . . anyway I’ve switched off all lights before going to bed, so it can’t be the electricity bill.’
‘I just want you to see something for yourself; because of next time.’
Sango regarded Lajide as his one great obstacle in this city, and Lajide in turn often called Sango a vandal, sent by the devil to destroy his property at Twenty Molomo Street. Everything was in order between landlord and tenant except good feeling. Sango took care to make no advances to any one of the extremely attractive harem of eight wives with whom Lajide surrounded himself and flooded his premises.
‘Just go up Molomo Street,’ Lajide said. ‘Go and never mind about your work; you’ll come back to fin
ish it.’ He squinted through the haze of cigarette-smoke. ‘Go, you will see something interesting.’ The challenge and the implied insult were intriguing.
Sango was puzzled. ‘I’d like to go, but can’t you just tell me what it is? It’s getting late, and my report —’
Lajide smiled. The cigarette-ash was now one and a half inches long and had not yet fallen off. It had curved slightly. ‘Just go up the road . . .’ The noise suddenly increased. ‘You hear that?’ He was jubilant.
Sango did not like unpleasant surprises in the morning before breakfast. From what he could make of it, the voices appeared to be children’s. But underlying that was something sensational. Sango could feel it.
‘Another husband beating his wife? Are there no police in this city?’
‘Is all right, Sango. If you like, you go. You don’t like to see your gal frien’ naked in de street. When I talk, you say I talk too much —’
‘Which gal frien’? Tell me, which gal frien’?’
Sam appeared and said, ‘Is true, sah. I tink is the gal who jus’ lef’ here. People gather roun’ her and laugh at her. Some even slap her, sah!’
On Molomo Street, the traffic was in a jam. Sango made his way through a seething mob of raving lunatics, jeering with excitement. He was quite unprepared for the surprising sight which met his eyes.
A girl was seated on a stone, and for all the world she looked like a model posing for a group of drunken artists who yelled and threw missiles at her. Only, these mad people were no artists. They were people who had wanted her and had not got her. They were revelling in her humiliation. She sat there on the stone paralysed, defenceless and scornfully beautiful. A child came near and with a stick dealt her a blow across the shoulders. She winced. Everyone shouted and booed.
‘Thief! Thief! Ole! Ole!’
Could this be the same girl in the blue velvet wrapper and the imitation-gold ear-rings? He had suspected that she had something on her mind, but she had been too proud to say just what. Sango pinched himself to make sure he was not dreaming. Aina was seated there on the stone, fully alive to the stone-throwers and the yelling mob. He must do something. It would be foolish to face the mob.
‘Ole! Ole!’ (Thief! Thief!)
‘A thief? What has she stolen?’
‘She’s sitting on it . . . that green cloth.’
‘That one? But—’
‘Yes!’
‘But it is worthless.’
‘She stole it.’
‘Look at her lover! I know him.’
Someone was pointing and Sango knew he had been identified.
‘Yes, that is her lover – the lover of a thief-woman. These Lagos gals. When they make up you don’ know thief from honest woman.’
‘Ha, ha!’
Now Sango understood why Lajide had been so insistent that he should see things for himself. At the other end of the street a policeman was pacing up and down, quite unconcerned. Sango ran towards him.
‘Constable—’ He tried to catch his breath. The traffic drowned his voice. ‘Constable —’
‘I’m a corporal,’ said the man.
‘Oh, sorry. Corporal. Are you going to stand there while they kill the girl?’ He pointed down the road at the crowd. ‘Please help her quick. Only your uniform can save her.’
‘I’m on point duty here. What girl? Not that street girl?’
‘This is no time for that, Corporal. Protect her first, then judge her. It’s your duty!’
‘What did she do?’
‘Stole a cloth, they say!’
‘You think that if she had husband and family, she would go and steal? Is because she’s a street walker. The devil finds work for the idle.’
‘Please, now! They’re stoning and beating her.’
‘Softly, my friend. Why so hot? Or is she your girl, eh? Is she your girl? Tell me why you’re so hot!’ He waved his arm. The oncoming traffic stopped. He was working and talking at the same time. To Sango it appeared as if they had been talking for hours. The corporal went to a little post near by, opened a metal box, took out a phone.
He turned to Sango. ‘Why didn’t you ring 999?’
‘Because I saw you so near. I just wanted protection for her, that’s all.’
‘Hello . . . Corporal Daifu here . . . Molomo Street . . . Yes, proper street gal . . . They want to kill her with stones. Send patrol van to pick her up quick.’ He winked at Sango. ‘Over to you. Over.’ He hung up, closed the metal box.
‘Go now!’
‘Thank you.’ Even before Amusa Sango could turn round, the 999 van with the letters POLICE was wheeling into Molomo Street, and the young officers were leaping out while the vehicle was still in motion.
Amusa was pleased.
‘I tol’ you,’ smiled the corporal in triumph. ‘But lissen. Man to man, go and warn your gal. Yes, I know she’s your gal. You see, person who’s not careful, the city will eat him!’ He laughed.
The arrival of the van had created a definite sensation. Aina was still there. She was standing now and hugging the gay cloth which she had tied firmly under her armpits, covering her breasts from searching eyes. The young men sighed regretfully. A group of policemen were questioning her, and the crowd, all ears and eyes, pressed against them.
Amusa’s arrival created another stir. Elbows dug into ribs. Lips whispered into ears. ‘That’s the boy friend!’
They parted before him; away from the touch of a man who had loved a thief. Near the policeman, Amusa stopped. Aina looked up from her humiliation and their eyes met. The accusation in her eyes made Sango feel awkward. She seemed to say: ‘Didn’t you promise you would always love me?’ To which question Sango could find no answer in his mind. He heard the policemen questioning her.
‘What’s the matter? Can’t you answer the question?’
Aina was silent. Everyone was silent. The policeman barked out: ‘Can’t you talk? I said what’s the matter?’
An elderly corporal said: ‘You girls of nowadays, you’re too proud. You won’t learn something useful, you won’t marry; and you’re proud. I’ll teach you sense!’ He turned abruptly. ‘To the station!’
‘To the station! Yeh! They are taking her to the station!’ yelled the crowd.
Aina scowled as if to intimate that she was prepared to face the worst. They bundled her into the car. The crowd booed and sighed. ‘Ole! Ole!’
A woman said: ‘I’m sorry. Such a beautiful girl!’
‘Listen, the thief is saying something. She’s talking. Listen to her!’
‘Amusa, come and save me! Come and save me, I beg you. If you love me, come and save me! Don’t mind what they’re saying . . . Come and save me!’
‘No,’ Amusa said to himself. ‘I can’t go. I really can’t. I was impulsive. I liked you. We had an affair. Let’s forget it, Aina . . .’
He looked round and saw the woman standing near him. Tears were coursing down her face. Amusa looked away. To the left of him he heard sneers, whispers, giggles. It would be silly to listen to them or to take offence. They would only laugh all the more and make a fool of him. These were the men who would give anything to have her. Were they not satisfied with her misery as it was?
At the entrance to Twenty Molomo, a man in a gilt-edged cap with golden tassels was waiting. He seemed to be admiring his floral slippers. When Sango approached he looked up.
‘You see now?’
‘See what?’ Sango mumbled in his irritation.
Lajide’s cigarette bobbed up and down as he spoke, but the ash did not drop off.
‘The girl . . . didn’t I warn you about city women? They’re no good. They dress fine, fine, you don’t know a thief from an honest one. Just be careful, Mr. Sango. Don’t bring more thieves here. I don’t want them on my premises. Hear that?’
Sango forced a smile. ‘Thank you, Lajide. Aina will not come here any more. That is, if she gets out of this mess.’
Sango went back to his report. He read over what he had writ
ten, chewed his pencil, and continued:
The public must be satisfied that he could have died by no other means than suicide. Otherwise that feeling of unsafety will always lurk in the citizen’s mind. After all, it is the citizen who pays the tax that pays the police. Therefore he must be protected from gangsters, hooligans, robbers, rich men who flaunt authority . . .
He looked over the last sentence. There was something there. The public liked a paper which spoke up. The Trobski murder had something unsavoury about it, and the West African Sensation would not let those concerned make a mess of things. People would speak of the Sensation as the fearless paper.
2
Sango did not hear the knock but looked up when the doorway darkened. The tall woman who came in could have been fifty or sixty or eighty. Her jowls were shrunken, and a pathetic expression lingered in the depths of her wine-red eyes. She was a total stranger to Sango.
‘Take a seat,’ he said with reverence. He was afraid.
She sat down very slowly, assessing him. Something in her manner chilled the beating of his heart.
‘She sent word to you . . .’
‘Who?’
‘My daughter, Aina.’
Sango flopped into an arm-chair. He could not see the resemblance between Aina and the old woman. But he felt the slow, confident grip of her power over him. The word ‘witch’ occurred somewhere in his subconscious, but he quickly dismissed it as out of date. She was behaving with the air of a mother-in-law in the tenth year of her daughter’s marriage.
‘She said you should come and bail her . . . they want to put her in jail.’
Amusa Sango bit his lip.
‘You have been very kind to her so far . . .’
Amusa jerked himself up from his seat. ‘Me?’
‘She hides nothing from me. She is my daughter, and I trained her, since she was like this . . .’ She made a motion to show Aina’s height at the age of taking the first steps.
How much did this woman really know? What was at the back of her mind? Amusa thought of her age, of the generation in which she had grown up, and he became afraid. I wish my mother were here to match her magic against your magic, if that’s what you’re trying to use against me. You know I am young. I may be able to read and write, I may work in a big office, but I am as a child where your worldly wisdom is concerned. I wish my mother were here.
People of the City Page 2