‘Forgive me, Sango; I’ll explain. Now what about the girl? Champagne on her table! He must be somebody, then!’
‘Find out who they are. Okay?’
‘Trust me. Got a match?’
Sango walked between the tables back to his band and struck the cymbals. The band boys began to return from various parts of the club. In a few minutes, Bayo came across.
‘Her name is Beatrice; the man is called Kofi something or other: a timber-dealer from the Gold Coast. He also runs an over-land transport to Accra.’
He paused, pulling at his cigarette.
‘You’re fast, Bayo.’
‘Was that all you wanted to know?’
‘What is she in this city?’
‘I don’t know what she does . . . she’s new. I’ve never seen her before. They say her mother is here, but I don’t know. She’s hot stuff, Sango. Keep clear. The Europeans are crazy about her. I hear tales of disputes settled out of court on her behalf. If you’re looking for trouble, well . . . remember Aina!’
‘I’m not falling for Beatrice, make no mistake. But she looks so much like my fiancée back home in the Eastern Greens. She attracts me.’
Bayo tapped him on the shoulder. He went back to the little table under the palm tree and took Dupeh’s hand. Sango was pleased to see them dancing happily together.
But Sango was not being honest with himself. The fleeting picture of Beatrice was giving him no respite. He saw her when he went to sleep. She was with him in his dreams, his waking hours, his band practice. And night after night, Amusa came to the Club. He wanted to meet Beatrice again. He wanted it so badly, he even took to playing for the Hot Cats Rhythm. When he was too early, he passed his time playing darts, or ping-pong, or talking to the barman.
The proprietor had been in the Civil Service when the idea of the All Language Club occurred to him. He wanted to take a practical step towards world unity, he said. To create a place where men and women of all languages and social classes could meet and get to know one another more intimately. It was his earnest desire that the spirit of fellowship created here would take root and expand.
‘But as you can see, one cannot do very much without adequate funds.’ He smiled. ‘Still, we are trying.’
Beatrice came there one night – but not alone. The Englishman who came beside her was a well-known engineer named Grunnings. He lived on Rokiya Hill, a wooded area outside the city. Sango learnt that Beatrice was married to Grunnings – according to African law and custom.
‘She has three children for Grunnings,’ the barman told him. ‘They all go to St Paul’s School.’
Sango said. ‘When he completes his usual eighteen months tour, does he take her to England with him?’
‘No; she goes to her home in the Eastern Greens. Grunnings has just returned from leave in England, as a matter of fact. She has been waiting for him. He’s a bit late this time.’
In well-cut evening dress, with his hair well brilliantined, Grunnings was examining the menu and smiling at Beatrice. Grunnings looked fit and attractively tanned. He was about thirty-eight, of medium build, and his smile was friendly. Beatrice was smiling back with an eagerness that made Sango jealous.
He felt sad. ‘To think I’ve spent all my time dreaming in vain!’
Never once did her eyes leave Grunning’s face. If only she could dote on me like that, Sango thought bitterly. But it brought him no comfort. What could they have to talk about at such length? Was her life really complete and full? Had she, in marrying Grunnings, a man with a wife and children in England, realized her purpose?
Sango went to the bar to console himself. He climbed on to a stool. Various resolutions were forming in his mind: I should never come here again; I must forget her – completely. He must have been there a long time when he noticed her sitting at the other end of the counter. She had a straw between her lips and was sucking an ice-shake.
Her bare arms lay on the counter, while one leg dangled above the chrome-plated rungs. It would be wrong to speak to her, because he did not know her. Even as the thought flashed through his mind her eyes were on his, dancing with a joyful light; and she was smiling. His heart warmed and he was encouraged.
‘My husband knows I like this place,’ she said. ‘He always lets me sit at the bar and suck a cold drink – by myself. You are not playing today?’
‘We play when we’re engaged.’
‘I enjoy your music; I’ve always wanted to see you more closely . . . My husband has just returned from England, and is very busy. I wish he would bring me here more: I like night life.’
Sango said: ‘An engineer who works all day would like to sit with his wife and family; not go hunting bright lights.’
She sighed. ‘Grunnings has changed. Whenever he comes back from leave it is always like that. But this time, I shall do something about it.’
She was talking half to herself, half to him; more like someone thinking aloud. Sango had little time to ask himself: why is she telling me all this? Her manner was so engaging. Add to it the fact that a beauty to whom he had attached so much importance should prove human, with her own worries, and the whole dazzling incident became numbing to his reason.
‘He’s a nice fellow; he loves me very much. But lots of men also love me and I’m going to leave Grunnings . . . Sango, do you know where I can find a room? I want to move from Rokiya Hill.’
‘A room?’
‘The place is a grave; too quiet and lonely. I like noise; it is not so boring as silence. And I like high life and drinks and music.’
‘Let me think . . . My landlord might be able to help you – a man called Lajide. He’s a housing agent and lives at Twenty Molomo.’
She raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘Housing agent! I have no money.’
‘Your beauty will see you through, Beatrice. Lajide is a man who likes beautiful women. He has eight wives, but they’re not enough. And it will save you wasting a lot of time looking around. In any case, you can always move if you are not satisfied with his offer.’
‘You are very kind, Mr. Sango. When I live on my own, I’ll be happy. I came here to live and enjoy life. For a short while I enjoyed my life, went to big functions, night clubs . . . I always wanted to be free. Then I met Grunnings and he married me. You will not believe it when I say that he was surprised to find me a complete girl who had known no man before him.’
Sango started. He looked more closely at her. Her eyes were a little too bright, but her voice was low and steady. It was just possible that the champagne, the bright lights, the heady wine and lilting music had affected her a little.
‘But now, I have given him three children and I know he can never be a real husband to me, so I’m quitting. I have thought over it a long time!’
She slipped to her feet, smoothly, delicately. No one would ever give this young woman up lightly. She left him and the astounded barman and walked back to her table. Sango could never tire of watching her walk. In his mouth was that sharp taste peculiar to an awakened but unsatisfied craving. At last he had met Beatrice and spoken to her. But what impression had he made on her? He watched her stop at a table. All eyes were on her glittering pearls. Her right arm flashed as she lifted her fingers and placed them gracefully on her forehead. It did not occur to Sango then that something unusual was about to happen.
In the next few minutes the All Language Club was disrupted by one of those dramas which take place so often and are so easily forgotten. Beatrice tried to move on. She couldn’t. She began to sink to her knees. As she fell, Sango bounded towards her.
But Grunnings was there before anyone else and had taken her hand tenderly.
‘You’re not getting your attack again, Beatrice?’ He peered critically into her face. ‘I’ll take you home.’
‘I – I just felt giddy . . . I’m all right.’
She seemed to have shrunken of a sudden. Her hair looked sodden. The lipstick had caked on her lips and her smile was wooden. Never had Sango see
n such a rapid transformation. She put her arm round Grunnings’s shoulder. Grunnings led her to their seat, collected her handbag and helped her out of the Club.
A waiter ran after them with a bill. Sango stood rooted, perplexed. Could there be so much unhappiness wrapped up in a single person? The waiter joined him, still waving the unsettled bill.
‘That woman, one day she will die – like this!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘She get some bad sick inside her. When them tell her, go home, she no go. One day she go die for this city.’
How true that prophecy proved to be! And how saddened Sango was to dwell on the enigma that was Beatrice. There seemed to be little more to do at the club that night, or perhaps morning. For already it was 2 a.m. Walking home through the streets of the city, Sango met his First Trumpet who had gone to play at an exclusive club on the island.
They fell into step, as both of them lived on the same side of the city. On Molomo Street Sango suggested a late cup of coffee and First Trumpet thought it a good idea. The whole of Twenty Molomo was unaccountably gloomy. It almost reminded Sango of the dingy courtyard in which Aina’s mother lived.
‘Careful, First Trumpet. We’re early sleepers here.’
He led the way. In the corridor, Sam crawled out of his bed, got the keys from his master and helped him open the door. He had that rare quality of continuing to behave like a wide-awake person even though he was fast asleep on his feet.
‘There’s no light, sah.’
Sango tried the switch himself, in vain. He went out and surveyed the adjacent houses on Molomo Street. Lights were burning gaily in them. It couldn’t be a breakdown, then.
‘Lajide has started his meanness.’
‘It is annoying,’ said First Trumpet. ‘And we’ve been out all night. To get home now, hungry and in the dark: what kind of economy is that?’
Sango found a brush and with the pole end began to bang on the ceiling above him.
‘Light please!’ The idea of Lajide, comfortable and happy with eight women around him rankled in his brain. ‘Put on the light, I’ve paid my rent!’
‘He must be out,’ said First Trumpet, after a moment’s silence.
‘Somebody must be in. Lajide, please put on the light; I beg you, put on the light!’ The sound of his own voice, ignored, angered him the more.
Sango peered into the darkness and saw a man standing there. ‘You have no light too?’
‘Yes, I’ve just come back from the Club. I’ve been out all evening so no one can accuse me of having wasted current!’
‘I have no light, too. I’m the engine-driver living at the other end. I’ve never seen you, I’m always away on line, but I knew when you moved in.’
Sango could now see the dim outline of the man’s heavy overalls and the cap which showed a peak when he turned his face sideways,
‘How do you do?’ Sango said, shaking his hand. ‘An odd meeting, eh?’
First Trumpet said: ‘The electricity undertakings have increased their fees by thirty-three per cent. Perhaps that’s why you have no light.’
‘And the landlords have increased their rent by three hundred per cent, so it balances – with plenty to spare.’
Just then it started to rain. At first one could neglect the drizzle, and then it intensified, pouring with all the vengeance of a tropical tornado.
The woman Rose, who lived next door, produced a hurricane lantern. There was nothing for it but to accept her kind offer and light himself into his room. It was the first time Sango had ever spoken to the prostitute. Now everyone in Molomo Street was awake. At the far end of the passage, the engine-driver was cursing in a venomous stream. Rose came into Sango’s room, giggling. She was enjoying the situation immensely. Sango thanked her for her lantern and as soon as she left he and First Trumpet were again plunged into darkness.
‘It is not many hours to breakfast,’ Sango said. ‘You’ll have to sleep here, First Trumpet. I want to talk about Beatrice, to pass the time. If you go home now, you will have to wake your landlord who may have locked the gate against thieves —’
‘I’ll stay here,’ said First Trumpet. ‘But I must be away first thing in the morning. I’ve got to go to work.’
‘Take the bed, then. I’ll make myself comfortable on the sofa. And please don’t argue with me. I’m dead tired and disappointed with life as a whole.’
‘Good night, Sango.’
‘Good night, Trumpet.’
•
Sango awoke. The door was open and the sunlight was streaming in. First Trumpet was gone. On the floor at Sango’s feet was a note addressed to him in a feminine hand. Sango picked it up.
He read the copy-book script, no doubt written by a girl – Lajide’s lady clerk:
With respect to your attitude last night, it is, and always ever will be, an outstanding rule, that lights should be switched off by 6 every morning, and on the dullest days 6.30 a.m. I am still having 22 points of light and when all the lights are operating I have more dues to pay.
Had I not the utmost patience, you are sure you provoked me to the last yesterday. I have been waiting to receive from you a notice to quit.
But now I must give you one month’s notice from this date.
Over his breakfast, Sango tried once again to make sense out of the involved memo. One thing was clear. He had been given notice to quit. This could be more than serious. A man thrown out of his lodgings in the city could be rich meat for the ruthless exploiters: the housing agents and financiers, the pimps and liars who accepted money under false pretences. This matter needed very careful thinking out. If only his nerves had not been in that awful state last night.
Before he had lowered his third cup of coffee, the engine-driver stood at the door. He was in his blue overalls and a blue cap.
‘Going to work?’ Sango asked.
‘Yes . . . Look at this.’
‘Oh,’ said Sango. ‘You got one, too!’
Sango took the note and read:
I, A. O. Lajide, your landlord, do hereby give you notice to quit and deliver up possession of the room with the premises and appurtenances situated and being to No. 20 Molomo Street, which you hold of me as tenant hereof, one month from the service of this notice. . . .
Written in the same feminine hand, it was signed with the same bold scrawl.
‘Lajide has not been hanging round the courts for nothing.’ He handed over the note, rubbed his head reflectively. ‘This is really serious, you know. Where have I the time to search for new lodgings?’
‘It’s not easy,’ said the engine-driver. ‘I’m going on line now; I return next tomorrow.’
Sango said, ‘Now we shall see how overcrowded the city really is, with the trains bringing in more and more people every day.’
‘I’m not going to sleep in the gutter,’ the engine-driver said with confidence. ‘New houses are being built every day.’
‘For you?’ Sango sneered. ‘The owners want money, my friend! How much can you pay? A European is able to offer five thousand pounds cash to a landlord, and he gets a tenancy for five years. He takes a whole courtyard that can house one hundred Africans . . . and we are driven to slums like Twenty Molomo.’
The engine-driver said: ‘But the Africans are the brothers of the landlords. They can’t do that, surely!’
‘Brotherhood ends where money begins.’
‘I’m going to find a room, all the same.’
‘Best of luck! And if you have one to spare, think of me.’
He marched down the corridor in his heavy boots and Sam came in to clear the table. His back was expressive as usual, and he was most sympathetic. He would tell his brother and all the others, but would Master consider going to beg Lajide? He might yet change his mind and that would save a lot of trouble.
Sango smiled. ‘Not me, Sam!’
•
Almost everybody on Molomo Street had heard of the engine-driver’s behaviour of the previous night. They came to see Sango and to sympathiz
e with him. Once it was generally known that he did not send them back, yet more of them came. There was the woman who sold rice to the loco workers. Sango had often seen her sitting under the almond tree. He was surprised to find that she could be quite smart when she got out of her oily working clothes. Then there were the two sisters who lived down Molomo Street. The baby-faced one was appealing in a maternal way with folds of fat everywhere and a face that was sweet and peaceful. Sango, as more and more of them knocked and told him they were sorry he was leaving, said to himself: ‘I never knew I was the darling of Molomo Street! How the people love me – especially the women.’
He lay on his back in the night, unable to sleep. This was his usual time for work, when the city traffic had thinned down to a mere trickle and comparative silence descended on Molomo Street; but on this particular evening he did not feel like work. He rolled over and over, gazing at the ceiling. When he heard the knock, it was so faint he could not be sure. But it came again, a mere brushing of the hands against the woodwork. The lines of a poem he had composed flitted through his mind:
You who knock so secretly
Sidling up the door, your eyes in veils
Your feet on pads of silence
Your manner furtive
Your breath held in suspense
Who might you be?
A thief – that fears to waken
A household fast asleep?
And when ‘tis asked who knocks
Why slide you mutely out of sight
Waiting in concealment
Hearkening for the voice of whom you seek?
Perhaps you know he knows your knock
And would not raise a voice
For fear your call would scandalize the moral world
So patiently you wait
And hearing steps that only you can hear
Your eyes light up with love
As he with stealth transcending yours
Slides back the bolt and in his arms
Takes your sweetly scented arm
And savours more the fruit that, forbidden,
Delights the more . . .
People of the City Page 5