Jagua Nana

She must have satisfied him for he took a room for her and furnished it, maintaining it till he went on leave. He told her he would be returning with his wife and two children. He would write to her. She never heard from him, nor did she ever see him again.

With the allowance he gave her she travelled by Mammy Wagon to Accra. She had heard that the women of Accra were Jagwa-ful. They were the real black mermaids from the Guinea Gulf and their ideas came from Paris. When she got to Accra she was breathless with wonder. She returned to Lagos loaded with a pile of wax prints and kente cloth which she sold at a profit. She lowered the neckline of her sleeveless blouses and raised the heels of her shoes. She did her hair in the Jagua mop, wore earrings that really rang bells, as she walked with deliberately swinging hips. She was out-Jagwaring the real Jagwas. She found it thrilling to combine the retail of cloth with the dissemination of Accra fashion. In Lagos they called her Jagwa. This must have been her happiest time in the city. Going to Accra was always an adventure and she managed to keep her head high. She made and broke a number of lovers in Lagos and Accra. One whom she remembered well owned the old Lou-Lou Club in Accra and the money he made over to her and the contacts he made for her, helped her to establish a name in the wax-prints trade.

But things became different when she found a front room in a street in Lagos just off Skylark Avenue. In the same house there lived a young teacher named Freddie Namme. He lived on the ground floor and he was a bachelor and good-looking. She saw him just once and decided it was time she settled down – with him. She would spare no effort to win him. Imperceptibly her interest in the cloth trade began to dwindle. She thought mainly of Freddie. She passed often by his door and greeted him loudly and clearly. Then she began cooking for him, home dishes that made him talk about his mother.

She discovered that he was not engaged to anyone, but even so she found it difficult to reach his ears with her talk about love. She was afraid of the differences in their ages, but she made him talk of his ambition to become a lawyer. If he would give her the security she craved, if he would give her a child of her own, she would help him …

Jagua heaved a sigh. She looked up now at the darkness that had crept slowly into the room. Outside she could see figures, mere shapes, moving along the dark streets, their lanterns shining on their faces. She could hardly believe that any part of Lagos was without electric light and pump water, but Gunle was. Rosa was back in the room, rummaging in a shelf.

‘You go bath firs’ before you eat, or eat firs’ before you bath?’

‘No,’ Jagua said absently.

‘You will eat firs’?’

‘I no want anythin’. My mind no good. I jus’ wan’ to think serious about life.’

Rosa came and put an arm round her. ‘What you worry yourself for? You no fit to change nothin’. Whedder you laughin’ or you cryin’, what happen, happen. De man done run away. De people he owe done lock up you house. Thenk God, dem don’ meet you and wound you. Is better you hide here small, till everythin’ col’.’

Jagua rose and began to take off her clothes. She wanted to go home now, back to Ogabu. She wanted to go to Krinameh to see if Chief Ofubara would still take her. She felt a deep hungry longing for her mother. Lagos for her, had become a complete failure. She must try and start life all over again, but not in Lagos. If Brother Fonso could help her, she wanted nothing better than to be a real Merchant Princess at Onitsha.

‘Put water for me, Rosa. I wan’ to bath firs’. But I don’ think say I kin chop. I got no appetite.’

Rosa in her bare feet swung out of the room, and Jagua found the sight of her really comforting.

23

Jagua found the new life degrading. At night she and Rosa would leave their home and travel to the Tropicana. They never got back before three in the morning and sometimes when they returned they would tell the men who brought them back to park outside. The men, horrified, would hesitate. Two strange men – in one room. But Jagua would speak nonchalantly to them, and they would overcome their shyness and come in. Sometimes Rosa and her man would take the bed because it was her room. Sometimes it was Jagua who took the bed with her man while Rosa and her man would lie on the mat. Before dawn the men had started up their cars and disappeared. Rosa and Jagua would then compare their takings: red for pounds, green for tens, and violet for fives.

One evening, just as they watched the men secure their cars, a third car drew up behind them. It was a taxi. Jagua and Rosa ignored the taxi and went inside the room. They had scarcely closed the door when they heard violent knocking outside.

‘Excuse! … Excuse me! …’ A persistent hammering.

Rosa was still fidgeting with the hurricane lamp. Jagua glanced at her, and said: ‘I goin’ to see …’ But Rosa had already dashed angrily past her and was at the door. Jagua listened with half an ear and thought she could hear her name mentioned. Another suitor, she thought. Too late for this night. When Rosa came in, she said: ‘De man say he want you, Jagua. I wonder who he kin be.’ She tried to describe him, but Jagua could make nothing of it. She handed over the lantern to Rosa and went outside.

The door was only half-shut, with a beam of light cracking through it. The light fell on the face of the man who stood on the other side of it. Jagua looked at the face, and stepped back. ‘Brother Fonso!’

‘Sister I’ve looked for you – the whole Lagos!’

‘You can’t come inside, Brother Fonso.’

‘I know,’ he said.

She slipped out into the darkness and at once Brother Fonso began to tell her how he had been told to seek her at the Tropicana. He had actually seen her and the other woman enter two separate cars. He had hired a taxi immediately but they seemed to be going very far and fast. He was lucky to catch up with them. Then he talked about his journey to Lagos, why he had come and why it was urgent that he saw her.

‘Home is bad, that’s why am here.’

Jagua’s heart leapt. ‘Money?’

‘No, more serious than that. What I tell you in Onitsha?’

‘Brother, you say – you say dat de day you’ll come Lagos …’

She felt a sudden panic mixed with irritation. Something she could not imagine had happened. She felt it in his manner.

‘Yes, I’ve come … Is about Papa. He’s dying … Dying. And de only name he calls is your name, all the time. If he don’ see you, he won’t die, so we mus’ go find you anywhere you are …’

Jagua sucked in her breath