11
Jagua had to admit that at first Freddie’s letters came. She did not know then that the loneliness of cold England was at work. But it made her happy and she concluded that Freddie had forgiven her and renewed his love. After the first three months the letters began to trickle in, till she heard no more from him. She had always known Freddie to be studious, so she was not surprised. But during those first few months, Jagua was almost certain that he was thinking of her much of the time. He wrote to her again and again and at last she went to a letter-writer and paid him two and sixpence to write a reply.
This happened on the Marina just beside the bank, near the public lavatories. She sat on a bench and behind her the canoe boys peddled their ebony carvings to the men in the ocean-going liners anchored in the deeper reaches of the lagoon. In her elegant Accra-style blouse and lappa, Jagua sat on a packing case, crossed her dainty shoes and held a sparkling yellow-green sun umbrella above her head. She had been speaking to the rusty-haired old man for a while when he looked up and beamed through his glasses. He handled her words like a priest at the confessional, each one with a sense of the power to save or perish the soul, to shower with happiness or flood with sorrow. The letter-writer had developed the benign air of forgiveness for youthful intrepidity – a quality which attracted Jagua and made her confide intimate stories to him. At the end of the session, Jagua realised that she had told him nearly everything there was to know about Freddie. At the same time, a sharper definition of her relationship with Freddie emerged.
‘Gently, gently, I soon write dat one down.’ The old Letter-Writer dipped his pen in the ink-bottle, waved it about in the air, in diminishing circles till the point of the nib made contact with the paper. ‘Eheh? … Eheh? … And den … Go on!’
Jagua was short of ideas. ‘Read what you got down.’
She could not fully understand the whole of what he read, but she knew when a letter sounded right, and this one did. The beautiful words, she felt, fully conveyed her feelings and she loved the Letter-Writer for his cleverness. Before he read it out to her, he took off his glasses, polished them, and replaced them. He put the sheet of paper a good distance away and read:
‘My Darling Freddie,
I remembered the very day you left me for England, I was charmed by your beautiful face which took me to a land of dream at the very night; you know where hearts agree there joy will be, your love attracted me; my heart and soul were aflame, the love in you cannot be abolished by any human creature except God the Almighty. I last night dreamt of your beautiful and your smiling face which seems to me like vision.
Look, dear one, I am specially moved by feelings from heart to heart to love you always dearly and I hope you will have some love for me through your long stay in that cold firmament the United Kingdom.
I will be always loving you and adoring you with all my heart till you return. There’s nothing lives longer than love, which sends perfect happiness to the soul, therefore will you summon your beautiful strength and body to me as I am dreaming on my side. God’s ways are mysterious, nobody knows Him or His contemplation on the end. Therefore let us live lonely and happily as you know, you are a nobleman and charming among your fellows, don’t you see God creates you apart of them? And I am proud of you in all respect, for God knows the way we must treat, and could not hope for a finer example.
With all my heart-soul love and hoping to hear from you again as early as possible.
With true love and affection wishing you happiness till once more I look into your heavenly eyes and hearing your sonorous voice …’
Hand on chin, Jagua listened, sighing, nodding.
‘Das all I got down.’ The old Letter-Writer looked up.
‘I got nothing more to say, sah. Tell him Cheerio. May God Bless am wherever he may go. Den I kin sign.’
She posted the letter herself and drifted into a trance about the streets for the writing had taken something out of her. A part of herself had gone into that envelope and was now on its way out to Freddie 4000 miles away. She felt exhausted and exposed to some remorse, some discontent she did not understand. It dogged her footsteps which now led her into the big Department Store. As she entered, noise reared itself and slapped her ears. She saw the girl in the photographic section leaning against an instrument – an enlarger, perhaps – smiling at her. Shop-girls must smile at total strangers, Jagua thought, passing on. She wandered past the Chemists, and was struck by the odd sight of a sunburnt white man, over fifty at least (he must have seen the tin-rush of World War I, a real veteran) parading a gorgeous Nigerian girl proudly along the shopping lanes. The Nigerian girl was so young and buxom with her turgid breasts bursting through the tight-black cotton-lace blouse, and her lips red, her black skin oily and alluring in the fluorescent lighting, that everyone turned to gaze at the strange pair though the hubbub still went on and the cash registers jangled their bells.
‘Jagua!’
She was passing by the outfitting department for ladies. They knew her here, for this was where she spent her money. But it was not the shop assistant who had hailed her, but Ma Nancy. She was dressed, Jagua noted, in an expensive off-the-peg dress with pleats. Nancy wore a Swiss blouse that revealed her dazzling smooth shoulders. The lappa which she folded around her waist was green with strange fascinating patterns and it came down to her manicured toes. She had thrown a sling bag carelessly over her left shoulder. This girl Nancy was charming and young and Jagua envied her, the way the Department Store lights loved her skin. Jagua wore a fixed smile.
‘Mama Nancy! … And Nancy too. What you buyin’?’
‘I tryin’ to buy Nancy some col’ clothing!’
Here in the Department Store, Mama Nancy could afford to sink her grievances, because on this occasion she happened to be doing the buying. It was all bluff, but
Jagua, out of curiosity, also pretended to have forgotten everything: the Tropicana fight, the smelly prison, the magistrate’s court.
‘Nancy goin’ anywhere?’
‘U.K.’ Ma Nancy spat out the words and looked aggressively round the section. Everyone knew it was something to be going to U.K. ‘But not yet, you see Jagua. De whole thin’ cost damn too much. We tryin’ to save de money …’
As she spoke a slow anger began to burn inside Jagua. It glowed and in the redness of the light she saw clearly where her own discontent lay. She was discontented with the Lagos atmosphere. She would welcome a change now. She too must travel.
‘Oh yes, Nancy travellin’ abroad. You hearin’ from Freddie Namme?’ Mama Nancy’s voice faded to her consciousness.
‘Jus’ now, I post a letter to Freddie.’
‘Das awright,’ Ma Nancy said. ‘By de way … dis two cardigan, which one better pass?’
Jagua could no longer escape. She helped them choose between the pink and the yellow cardigan and later on down the corridor some warm underwear and then told herself it was time to be getting out of that store and away from Nancy, Mama Nancy, the Tropicana and Lagos as a whole. This would be the right time to visit Bagana. The more she thought about going there, the more anxious she became. Suddenly a picture of her father flashed across her mind. It was the last Sunday she had spent at Ogabu before she ran away from home. Her father had just come out of church in his ill-fitting black suit, and the red edge of his bible glistened in the sun. Beside him stood her mother in a flowery gown, wide panama hat and thick-heeled shoes she reserved for Sunday wear. They were waiting for her to catch up with them and her brother Fonso in a white-cotton English suit was shouting at her: ‘Nana! … What you doin’, playin’ after church; don’t you know Papa’s waitin’ for you?’
Her father’s love was a great prize and after ten years of having betrayed it, she knew she would go back to him and still be welcome.