‘Leave me, Freddie. You never gone England yet, and you done begin run after anodder woman! You tink am a fool?’
‘I don’ run after her, Jagua. What I goin’ to do when her modder sen’ her to me – an’ you run away with other man?’
‘What you goin’ to do? You done what you mus’! You slept with Nancy. Yes! What kin’ young man you be if you don’ sleep with such fine gal? You tink Ma Nancy don’ know what she doin’ to sen’ her alone to your room?’
Freddie sneered. ‘When you and de three men ride away in de big car, where you go? What you wan’ me to do? Sit down and cry? I must to console myself! Das how poor man who no get long car kin console hisself.’
‘What concern you wit’ Mama Nancy, dat she sendin’ her only daughter to your bed?’ Jagua snapped at him. ‘So she sendin’ Nancy to you now, so you kin marry her? By de way, Freddie, who help you get passport? Who suffer and bribe de men till dem ’gree to give you passport? Or you don’ know about de Government control, how is hard for obtain passport? Why Mama Nancy don’ try for you? And who pay for your study and your room in de U.K.? Not me? Where Nancy and her modder hide when I doin’ all dis?’ She stood arms akimbo, half her blouse torn open, glaring at Freddie and Nancy so young and sweet.
Freddie saw her make straight for one of his suitcases. ‘What you want dere, Jagua?’ He lunged forward to retrieve the case which contained his passport. ‘Jagua, be careful!’
But the maddened woman only turned on him and he felt himself torn asunder as by a lioness. Jagua kicked open the suitcase, rummaged among the clothes till she found the precious document. She took it in her strong hands and tore it to shreds. The document that had cost more than six months of forgery and bribery. Freddie felt the tears tingling under his eyelids. He tried to intervene but she sprang at him, all claws and teeth. A Jagwa woman could be fire. He felt the scarification from the flames. She lifted the suitcase and threw it outside. It fell and split open and his things scattered. A penny rolled away and lodged under the stairs. Freddie started at that penny. ‘Go Englan’ now, let me see!’ She pointed at Nancy. ‘Go with her, and lef’ me in Lagos. I jus’ an old woman, and you got no use for me. So take your sweetheart Nancy and go!’ She took an axe and ran outside. She could wield it with dexterity. Nancy clung to Freddie while Jagua split the boxes open.
All the tenants came down from their rooms but Jagua dared them to come within the range of the axe. She had now belted a cloth across her middle and stood like a fighter when the ‘seconds out’ bell has just been rung.
‘Ah will chop you head if you touch me!’ Her magnificent bosom heaved as she stood with eyes burning anger.
‘Jealous mad woman!’ Freddie hissed. ‘You done gone craze with jealousy.’
Everyone watched her in utter silence. She stamped upstairs, locked her front door and caught a taxi, driving furiously away in the direction of Central Lagos. Just then a policeman showed up within the compound but finding no one to answer his questions and confronted by hastily retreating backs and rapidly closing doors, he swore under his breath and went back to his beat.
Freddie turned to Nancy. ‘I beg you, ’bout all dis. Is me own fault. Das de kind of Jagua woman who love your Freddie. Love done turn to sickness! She gone crazy and she kin kill anybody now. God ’ave mercy!’
‘No worry, Freddie! I goin’ back home. I leave de passel wit’ you?’
‘Yes. If everythin’ spoil and I don’ go, I kin return de parcel. She already tear de passport now, so I wonder.’
Nancy slipped away. Freddie sat on his bed. People came to the door, but seeing his thinking attitude, slipped back. He heard them mumbling and talking about him and his heart was heavy. Some of the things they said, Nancy had already said more pleasantly.
The thought of not going to England any more was most unwelcome: after all those noisy send-offs! Though he had applied for a Government Scholarship what chance had he of winning one of the three hundred being offered? Thousands of people must have applied and it would be foolish to deceive himself.
He went to the Passport Office with the fragments of his passport. As always the office was crowded and after considerable jostling with housewives wanting to join their husbands in England, a Lebanese who had naturalized as a Nigerian, Freddie found himself seated opposite the Immigration Officer.
The polished brass buttons on the khaki uniform did not put him off, but when he saw the disarming smile, the greasy weapon of men in key positions, his heart sank.
The officer rubbed his hands. ‘Bring me Freddie Namme’s file!’ A police constable clicked his heels and disappeared.
When he came back he was carrying a file marked POLICE DEPARTMENT. The officer thumbed through it, shouted some more and a pile of forms arrived.
‘Fill these!’ he said.
Freddie took them. ‘Is that all?’
‘Yes.’
He took the forms home and filled them. He continued to go to the Immigration Office and when he had gone one hundred times he could have drawn an accurate map of the officer’s moustache set against the bare walls of the office. Nothing had developed. They were ‘looking into’ his case. If Freddie had only heard this once, it would have meant something; but now he was beginning to hear it in his dreams, and Jagua was in the centre of those dreams.
On his way out one evening, Freddie again saw one of the three ‘.been-tos’ with whom Jagua had gone away for one night. He had parked the car outside and was asking Mike where ‘she’ had gone. Freddie hung around. Mike said he did not know when ‘she’ would return; she had left no word. He pointed at a notebook hanging against the door and invited ‘been-to’ to use it but he would not consent to scribble his name in Jagua’s Visitors’ Book. He left, muttering something about coming back later. Freddie guessed that Jagua must have gone to live with some man – probably one of the other two ‘been-tos’. She must be very comfortable where she was and might not even be thinking of coming back.
He was torn by wild imaginings. Jagua had grown into some essential element in his make-up. He saw now that he enjoyed being molested by her. He missed her violent fits of temper and impulsive actions. Just as the Tropicana had become a drug in her blood, so also she had become his daily dose of anguish, lust, degradation and weakness of will. Under all manner of pretexts he went to her room and stared at the heavy Union lock on the door. He avoided the peop
le who lived in the same compound because he knew they would ask him questions he would not like to answer.
At night he dreamt. His eye had become enormous and it could see through the keyhole and into the room. She lay among the disorderly lingerie, pouring perfume on her breast. Her face was no longer old, but had become a mask – like the idealized female dancing masquerades of the Ibo country. It was not a smiling face or a serious face: just a face – small nose, pointed like a Greek’s, thin lips, cheeks so fair as to be non-African. As this huge eye focused Jagua, she turned and gazed back at the keyhole. Apparently she did not see the eye for she rose and walked towards the wardrobe. She stood in half-shadow and her eyes became luminous black, focusing with suspicion on the keyhole. On her lips a smile lingered but the eyes never wavered. He saw her lips move.
‘Freddie … I seen you … Freddie …’ She scarcely opened her lips but the voice was rising and swelling into an echo that filled the room and hit back at her. ‘Freddie, so you cheatin’ me? You choosin’ anodder woman, because Jagua done old? … Jagua done old? … Awright, Freddie … I goin’ to borrow anodder face …’
The eye, inexorable, riveted her nakedness in that half shadow, studying every detail. Her body had been caught in a greenish spotlight and she did not care to move away from it. She took out a luminescent brassiere and fixed it over her breasts. But her hand could not reach the clip at the back. She flung it away, threw back her head and laughed. Then she took out a knicker and got into it, raising her legs to the top of the wardrobe and gyrating her hips to force in the knicker. The eye photographed her. Then Freddie felt his whole body melting and flowing upwards into nothing else but the eye, greedy, peering, inquisitive, jealous.