Jagua Nana

Jagua cut in: ‘Uncle Taiwo, he not leavin’ me behin’. You and de odders will take care of me. Not so? You approve, Freddie?’

‘How do you ’xpect him to approve?’ Uncle Taiwo roared with highly infectious laughter. ‘If is me, you tink I’ll approve. Anyway, Mr Freddie, you got nothin’ to fear from me. My three wives will look after me – and your Jagwa!’ He held his sides again.

Jagua said, ‘Freddie ’ll soon return. Him brain open. Is a clever young man who know de books.’

‘Ah wish you luck, young man.’

‘If de gals allow him,’ Jagua added. She remembered Nancy. ‘Freddie, where Nancy? Or she already come and gone?’

A ghost voice interrupted before Freddie could answer. ‘Passengers for flight 23416B Nigerian Airways … Please collect your hand-luggage and proceed to the aircraft …’

She glanced at Freddie’s face. It still wore the stern look which told her he had not yet forgiven her.

‘Freddie, no time to fight now. Forgive me, I beg. Forgive everythin’. You goin’ on long journey; is better you go with clean min’. Den God will look after you. I wish you well; you will come back safe and meet we all in dis Lagos.’

His sigh hurt her deep. She saw the wrinkles on the side of his face and the fine gleam of his teeth, like a man who has been struck a wicked blow. She loved Freddie’s good looks. When she looked at his face, something turned in her womb and she was hot inside, because she wanted to give him babies. They had tried for eighteen months and failed. He blamed it on her lapses with other men with whom she went but she must go with those men. That was the law of her survival. After all, Freddie was only a teacher in the National College. His salary was not sufficient to buy her one good cocktail dress. He had no money and he knew it. He was living in one room with his houseboy Sam before he packed away. How could she reserve her body for him alone? In Lagos it was not possible. She had tried to be discreet, but instead of letting her alone, Freddie had allowed the busybodies to lure him to her ‘beat’. And he had not been able to stand the shock.

She took his topcoat and held it close to her. His brows were knitted firmly together again as if he did not want to be near her.

‘When you reach Englan’, Freddie … try hard!’

‘I goin’ to try, Jagua. I not goin’ dere to joke. Is a land of tradition and culture and I goin’ to see if I kin bring back de Golden Fleece.’

‘Pass all de exam quick quick, and come back as lawyer, so we kin enjoy our life. I gettin’ old, Freddie.’

He sucked in his breath. ‘Lord, you come wit’ dat kin’ talk. I already tell you, you still Jagwa!’

When Freddie said that, it was something. She longed for him to embrace her. But she knew he was much too reserved for that kind of display. He took his coat away from her and moved off. The lights had been put on now all over the airport and when he broke away he waved at her from beyond the hibiscus fence and walked among the petrol boys with their yellow caps, and the passengers holding their coats, mostly Englishmen.

She saw him climb the stairs into the plane, pausing to look blindly back. Then they removed the stairway and there was a moment of quite unbearable suspense. A man stood before the big plane and pointed one by one at the engines till they all started, to his satisfaction. It was a ceremony Jagua had seen often but every Sunday she came again to see it afresh. The big plane crawled away, swaying as it went.

She watched that plane. She fixed her eyes on the nose as if it would kill her not to look. And all the while the tears were running down her cheeks and into her lips so she tasted them. The plane lumbered to a standstill about one mile away among the palm trees by the yellow mansion. The belt of blue smoke had reached there now and she could not see the plane very clearly. The air seemed to explode when the engines began to summon forth all the power they required to hurl the monster 4000 miles in ten hours. Jagua was terrified for Freddie.

She remembered the disaster at Kano Airport when so many Nigerians and Europeans had died in an exploded aircraft, meeting their end within walking distance of the airport. She never imagined that a man so dear to her would have to travel in a jet. She’d been at the airport once when the plane brought Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, looking majestic in the sun, and again when a jazzman Wilbur de Paris stepped down in a panama hat, holding a bright trombone. It was true no disaster befell those VIPs but there was no predicting Fate.

Freddie was in one of those windows, perhaps staring and waving at her. But which one? He had become like a prisoner, shut away from all who knew and loved him. He could not wave, and thought it looked stupid, she was waving at him – and crying. Then the plane began to move, heaving itself clumsily at first like some Nightmare C

reature from the depths of the jungle, like some mermaid from the River Niger; on – along the tar strip – gathering power, groaning faster and faster till – in one wink – she saw the wheels tucking themselves into the belly of the plane. She sighed. The boys were chattering all about her.

‘Goodbye-O! … Goodbye! …’

‘Tomorrow morning, they’ll be in London!’

‘White man power; nex’ to God power.’

‘Tomorrow morn’, before you wash de sleep from you eye, dem done reach London, shaking from de col’ …’

Her eyes had not left the sky. The stars were out but the plane seemed to be carrying its own stars. They winked – in colour too – from wingtip and nose and tail, as the plane pointed its nose at Kano, 800 miles away and even hotter but much less humid than Lagos.

‘Goodbye, Freddie!’ She could only murmur the words. ‘Now, I goin’ to Bagana to see you people.’ She had lost him to the ether. The emptiness was coming to her now, and her spirit was hollow and thin.

Freddie had talked a good deal about his father and mother, about Bagana his hometown. She wanted to go there and know his people and his place. Her own hometown of Ogabu was not too far away, once she crossed the River Niger. She could also touch Ogabu and see her father and mother whom she left ten years ago.

How would Freddie’s father take it, when he learnt that she, Jagua Nana, a woman of forty-five, had fallen in love with his darling boy Freddie Namme? That she had spent her own pocket money freely so that Freddie would obtain a passport, and having obtained it, might then be able to go to England and study. The fact still remained that she had paid for Freddie’s dinners and his accommodation long before his father ever thought of contributing the passage money.

She heard the jingle of keys beside her. It was Uncle Taiwo. ‘Where you wan’ make I drop you, Jagua?’

She did not care where he dropped her. The jobless ones had gathered round the Pontiac, admiring the layout of the instruments. This time she remembered how very low the seats were and took care not to expose her slip beneath the too-tight skirt. Though the jobless ones fixed their eyes tightly between her knees, they saw nothing.