Jagua Nana

Jagua hung her head. Although she did not know it yet, her own loss was much the greatest.

She heard him muttering, swearing and cursing as he drove like a dervish through the town. What he said made no sense to her and she was quite certain the shock had shattered his mental balance. He dropped her somewhere at the junction of Skylark Avenue and Odoba Street, waved, and still muttering, fired off.

She was walking away when she heard the insistent blaring of horns behind her. It was Uncle Taiwo. He was holding a bag aloft, and calling out to her.

‘Jagua, keep dis bag for me,’ he said when she walked over. ‘In de house, till I come. Don’ give de bag to anybody. Even if de man say he’s de president of O.P. 2. You hear dat?’

The bag appeared to be full of documents and party papers. Jagua asked, ‘Is not dangerous? I don’ want to keep somethin’ dat de police will come an’ search my house!’

‘No, is not dangerous.’

‘What time you will come?’

‘I don’ know. I got to go to Headquarters firs’. Keep de bag till you see me.’

‘Don’ be long; I waitin’ you.’

She never set eyes on Uncle Taiwo again. Looking back on that typical Lagos night, with the lights from the petrol station shining into her eyes and the girls in red feeding the cars from long silvery hoses, she never could tell what devil possessed Uncle Taiwo. As he shot the car forward, he very nearly crushed a woman and child who were trailing across the road, trying to catch a bus which was being delayed for their sakes.

Jagua got back to her room and looked at the furniture. She saw one of the old pictures of Freddie Namme, taken when he was yet a teacher at the National College. She took it down and slipped it under a paper. The eyes were too unbearably accusing. She waited for Uncle Taiwo to come in at midnight as he usually did. He never came; he never sent a message.

Instead, a lot of strange men began from that night to miss their way to Jagua’s door. They came knocking and asking for Uncle Taiwo. One strange man carrying a blue despatch case would not believe Jagua. He stood obstinately at the door.

‘He don’ live here,’ Jagua told him and she gave him the address at which his wives lived.

‘Ah been there and his wives tell me to come here.’ He pulled out a notebook and checked the address and still stood there irresolute.

Jagua – who had only one print cloth draped over her naked breasts and her hair in curlers – slowly shut the door and went back to bed. But in another few moments two other men came. They did not mince matters.

‘He borrow money from us!’

‘He don’ live here. Go to de house.’

‘We been dere, his wives direct us here!’

They stamped out, muttering angrily, and threatening to bring the police to search the house and to nail up the doors and put up Jagua’s things for sale. By evening their threat seemed to be more than a mere joke. Two men came and looked round the house, and asked questions. They did not mention anything about debts. They went away. Jagua was restless. Where was Uncle Taiwo? She was smoking cigarette after cigarette and draining the last few drops of whisky from a bottle which Uncle Taiwo reserved for himself.

Without knocking, Rosa came into the room. Jagua had not seen her for a long time. Rosa had gone away one afternoon with the young man in the blazer, saying she would return that evening. She did not return, not even to collect her things. Jagua concluded that Rosa had found a new love nest.

‘Jagua, I come to warn you! Trouble dey come! De O.P. 1 people … dem done seize Uncle Taiwo house, lock up every place. I come to warn you to run, before is too late because dem comin’ here next! Let me take me own thin’ before is late.’ She was casting round the room, quickly bundling her things into her suitcase.

Jagua tried to lift the radiogram. She gazed fondly at the studio couch on which she was so fond of curling up. She pushed the wardrobe, rolled the unrollable interior spring mattress. She was in a quandary. What could she take away? So all this had been bought with borrowed money and had not yet been paid for

? She lifted the carpet and leaned it against the wall. Then she remembered that she had to put on her clothes. It was the usual time to go to the Tropicana. She heard a conversation going on downstairs.

‘Yes, he use all our money to furnish de bloody harlot house!’ The strange voices were talking about her.

‘Jagua, pick up de dress quick,’ Rosa urged. ‘I hear dem comin’ up to dis room.’

‘Boy, which room she livin?’ roared a voice.

Michael answered: ‘Who? Ah don’ know who you talkin’ about?’ And Jagua thanked God for Mike’s stupidity.

Rosa kept saying: ‘Quick, quick! … We got no time! …’

Jagua crammed what she could into a small suitcase, threw a last look at the room where she had lived for so long: at the wardrobe, hanging with her silks and velvets, her Jagwa fashions. At the door she remembered something, and went back into the room. From under the bed, she pulled out the bag which Uncle Taiwo had trusted to her care. She was just in time.

‘Dis way,’ said Rosa. ‘Come de back way, quick!’