Jagua Nana Read online

  Cyprian Ekwensi

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  JAGUA NANA

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Follow Penguin

  PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS

  JAGUA NANA

  Cyprian Ekwensi was born in Nigeria in 1921, the son of a famed storyteller and elephant hunter. In early life, he worked as a forestry officer in Nigeria and as a pharmacist in Romford, Essex. On returning home, he wrote his first novel, People of the City (1954), which was one of the first Nigerian novels to be published internationally. Jagua Nana, his most famous book, appeared in 1961 and won the Dag Hammarskjöld prize in literature, though it was banned in schools and attacked by the church. In later life Ekwensi worked in broadcasting, politics and as a pharmacist, while writing over forty books and scripts. He died in 2007, survived by his wife and nine children.

  1

  Jagua had just had a cold bath, and, in the manner of African women, she sat on a low stool with a mirror propped between her bare knees, gazing at her wet hair. Only one cloth – a flowered cotton print – concealed her nakedness, and she had wound it over her breasts and under her armpits. Her arms and shoulders were bare, and she sat with the cloth bunched between her thighs so that the mirror bit into the skin between her knees.

  She raised her arm and ran the comb through the wiry kinks, and her breasts swelled into a sensuous arc and her eyes tensed with the pain as the kinks straightened. From the skin on her long arms and beautiful shoulders the drops of speckled water slid down chasing one another.

  She saw Freddie pass by her door just then, saw him hesitate when he caught a glimpse of the dark naked hair under her armpits. Then he hurried past into his own room on the floor below, calling as he went:

  ‘Jagwa! … Jagwa Nana! …’

  She knew he was teasing. They called her Jagua because of her good looks and stunning fashions. They said she was Ja-gwa, after the famous British prestige car.

  ‘I’m comin’ – jus’ now! … Call me when you ready!’

  She could sense the irritation in his voice. As always when she did not like where they were going she delayed her toilet, and Freddie must know by now that she disliked intellectual groups, especially the British Council groups which she thought false and stiff. On the other hand, Freddie could never do without them. He said they were a link with Britain from which stemmed so much tradition.

  Like Freddie she was an Ibo from Eastern Nigeria, but when she spoke to him she always used pidgin English, because living in Lagos City they did not want too many embarrassing reminders of clan or custom. They and many others were practically strangers in a town where all came to make fast money by faster means, and greedily to seek positions that yielded even more money.

  She heard the clatter of Freddie’s shoes as he hurried down the steps to his own room on the floor below. She waited for him to come up, and when he would not come she went on combing her hair. By an odd tilt of the mirror she saw, suddenly revealed, the crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes and the tired dark rings beneath.

  ‘I done old,’ she sighed. ‘Sometimes I tink say Freddie he run from me because I done old. God ’ave mercy!’ she sighed again.

  The sigh was a prayer to God to stay back the years and a challenge to herself to employ all the coquettish arts to help Him. She did not often remember that if her son had lived he would today be roughly as old as her lover. Freddie was hardly more than a boy, with his whole ambitious life before him. He was a teacher at the Nigerian National College who badly wanted to travel overseas to complete his law studies. He had applied for a Government Scholarship, but did not pin his faith on being selected. She knew Freddie deserved a good girl to marry him, raise his children and ‘shadow’ him in all his ambitions. But Jagua was too much in love with him to make a reasonable exit. And she wanted Freddie as her husband because only a young man would still be strong enough to work and earn when she would be on the decline. Men would not be wanting her in six years’ time, when – even now – girls of eighteen could be had. At forty-five, she had her figure and her tact to guide her.

  She knew that, seen under the dim lights of her favourite nightspot, the Tropicana – and from a distance – her face looked beautiful. In any light she was proud of her body, which could model for any painter or sculptor. When she walked down a street, male eyes followed the wiggle of her hips which came with studied unconsciousness. Sometimes she was ashamed of her too passionate love-making, but Freddie did not seem so embarrassed now as he used to be at first. When she painted her face and lifted her breasts and exposed what must be concealed and concealed what must be exposed, she could outclass any girl who did not know what to do with her God-given female talent.

  Freddie came into the room when she was dressed. He stood at the door and looked at her exposed shoulders and neck (they were magnificent, Jagua knew), at the transparent material of the blouse through which her pink brassiere could be seen – provocatively – and much more besides.

  ‘You no like my dress?’ she teased, knowing his prejudices against ‘going out naked’ as he called it. ‘You vex wit’ me?’ She had already noticed the redness in his eyes.

  ‘Jagwa, how many times I will tell you not to shame me? You never will satisfy till you go naked in de street!’

  She smiled. ‘I know das wat you goin’ to say. But speak true, dis be naked?’ she pouted, holding the flimsy edge of her skirt and twirling round and round. ‘Dis be naked?’ She reached for a powder puff and began to powder her face. ‘You don’ know de fashion, Freddie.’

  ‘You know de fashion, das why dem call you Jag-wa!’ He was talking sarcastically. ‘But we goin’ to a lecture, not dance. We goin’ to a lecture in de British Council.’ Freddie shut his eyes tight the way he always did when irritated.

  ‘Ah know wha’s wrong wit’ you, Freddie, man. You too jealous! You never like de men to look at you woman body. Don’ worry! All dose men in de British Council, dem got no bodies, dem only got brain and soul. Dem will not want to sleep your woman!’ The tears had welled up now and she sat down and began wiping them and sobbing aloud. She sat like a log, obstinate, this live bright thing that had been aglow only one moment ago.

  Freddie came and held her hands and wiped away her tears and she felt soothed.

  ‘Make you trust me, Freddie. I not goin’ to run away with any man. Look roun’ and see. All de girls dress like dis nowadays. Is de fashion. We live in Africa where de sun dey shine every time; even sun use to shine when de rain fall. So we mus’ show our skin and let de sun-shine kiss our body. Is nothin’ bad in de sun kissin’ you woman body, Freddie. When you go to col’ country, like England …’

  She saw that Freddie was not listening. He was looking through a window at the setting sun beyond the big banana leaves and palm fronds. The yellowness lit in silhouette the tall trees and corrugated roofs. ‘When ah go to Englan’, eh?’ he sneered. ‘You jus’ wan’ to laugh me. Poor teacher like me? Where I will fin’ de money? Unless Government give me scholarship—’

  ‘Nothin’ is impossible, Freddie! You mus’ have hope. I know how you wan’ to go study in England. By de help of God, you mus’ go.
You better pass many who done go and come. You be clever boy, and your brain open. You young, too. You know what you doin’. You serious with you work. Yes! Government kin give you scholarship. If dem don’ give you, den we mus’ try pull togedder to sen’ you.’

  ‘I jus’ tryin’ by myself, das all. If God help me—’

  ‘God mus’ surely help you.’ She gave him a knowing look. ‘As long as I love you, Freddie,’ she whispered.

  She wanted Freddie because of his youth. He was good-looking and she knew the girls loved him but that did not prevent him being ambitious. Suppose he went to England, returned a lawyer, drove a big car, and then shunned her? No! He was too genuine a man to do that. He was not like the others, the ‘Lagos’ boys, the ‘fast’ ones.

  ‘When you go, Freddie, promise me one ting. You no go stay dere too long; or you forget we here! Person like me won’t be small gal every day. I growin’ old, I want me own-man …’

  ‘Don’ worry, Jagua. Let me go firs’. Den when I return you kin see for yousself. Ah never gone yet. Why you begin worry how I goin’ to return?’

  ‘Is true,’ Jagua sighed. ‘But sometimes I use to fear. You men! Woman will put all her trust in you. Den you go and disappoint her.’ She began powdering away the tear-stains. ‘But ah jus’ tellin’ you in case …’ She looked appealingly at him, a twinkle in her eyes. When she looked away, she was talking half to herself. ‘When you come back now with you title, den you will begin to chase de small gals with standin’ breast. You won’ see me den, only now when you strugglin’. Dat time, Jagua go be too ol’ for you.’

  ‘Too ol’? Nonsense!’ Freddie said easily. ‘Jagwa no go be too ol’.’

  She was glad. She finished in silence, her painting and powdering, and when she was finally ready they stepped out into the sun, their heads raised proudly.

  As soon as they entered the public lecture room a mild sensation swept through the audience. The speaker had already begun his lecture, but it seemed to Jagua that all eyes turned in their direction, and this was what she always liked. She knew Freddie did not care for this tribute to her beauty and fashion sense. One day he would know how much she was ‘raising’ him by being so dashing. With satisfaction she saw the whispering lips, shielded, the heads lowered behind the programmes.

  A guide darted forward to take them to their seats. Even before they found places, Freddie pinched her and whispered: ‘Dis man – he kin lecture wonderful.’

  ‘So you say about everythin’ in de British Council,’ she whispered back. ‘Wonderful!’

  She looked at the lecture platform, noting the tarnished hairs piled up above each ear and around the high bald skull.

  The lecturer’s suit was rumpled, saggy at elbows and knees, yet had a kind of careless elegance. Perhaps this one would be different from the others, but to Jagua all lecturers were the same: boring.

  She took her seat and peered hard at the programme Freddie was offering her.

  2

  Once when she caught the lecturer’s eyes Jagua was surprised to find that they watered and gleamed against the light. She could not understand why. The old man kept wiping his face with a handkerchief though the evening was quite cool. His black face, a trifle oily at the cheeks, was unlined and quite young looking. The voice was authoritative but hoarse, probably from drinking too much whisky-soda Jagua thought, in the too humid heat of the Lagos Lagoon.

  The breeze blowing offshore from the lecture hall made her feel drowsy and the hum of the ceiling fans deadened her sensitiveness. Freddie sat near the window looking out towards the jumble of cargo vessels and fast mailboats from Europe and America that cluttered up the lagoon. Local yachts, motorboats and canoes occasionally sped by, chugging up the water.

  The lecture was entitled Some Personal Recollections on the Passing of White Imperialism in Nigeria. It seemed to be progressing satisfactorily. It was obvious to Jagua on glancing round that these were the intellectuals of Lagos City. The same group always met at cocktail parties: the American and Swiss Consuls, the oil prospectors and the public relations men, the managing directors in the merchant houses. They always wore the same suits, and the Nigerian intellectuals wore fez caps or turbans and cotton or damask robes in technicolour.

  Jagua closed her eyes, striving hard not to offend so élite a gathering by simply shouting at them to stop all the fuss. In the distance the voice came:

  ‘Times have indeed changed … Yesterday, the Legislative Council was composed entirely of white men. They made all the laws and the Governor looked on …

  Talking of Governors reminds me of that first Governor Sir Dalton Thomas. He was a man who loved ceremonials. He would issue circulars: “His Excellency the Governor will attend Divine Service at Holy Cross Cathedral on Sunday the 15th of March … His Excellency will officiate at the opening ceremony of the new Railway Terminal …

  Now, Sir Dalton Thomas (bless his memory) fostered in our Colonial minds the idea that a Governor must ALWAYS be seen in uniform. So when he retired, we expected the new Governor to behave in the same way. But no! What happened?

  The new Governor, Sir David Arlington, HATED uniforms. Absolutely. He was a Cambridge man, an easy-going sort of chap and he was scheduled to visit the great Moslem town of Kano for some opening ceremony or other, you see …

  The town had a holiday, the streets were hung with flags; a durbar was arranged, and everyone turned up at the railway station.

  The train came in late. There was a guard of honour mounted at the station in full colours. Everyone looked round for the new Governor. Out of the special railway car came a young white man, wearing a battered old felt hat, flannel trousers, and – oh dear me! – a college blazer!

  As he walked down the ranks, the Emir of Kano shouted: Governor Banza! which means, Governor of no value. Tell the King of England to send him back! He has no uniform. Nigeria demands a real Governor, not an APPRENTICE, one unfit to wear uniform …’

  Laughter burst from every throat. Jagua did not catch the joke. She glanced at Freddie, noting his taut brow, the intent admiration in his eyes. The lecturer went on, now humorous, now serious, now satirical … Jagua studied his fine head, felt the mobility of brow and eyes, followed the gestures … the old man appeared to her to be reliving his younger days when there were few roads or railways and the white man lived on quinine or died in fevered swamps.

  Freddie appeared restive. He raised his hand, interrupting the old lecturer who immediately nodded at him. Freddie jumped to his feet and asked a question. For a moment there was silence. It seemed to Jagua that Freddie had asked either a clever question or a dangerous one. She saw the lecturer raise his handkerchief to his face and mop the sudden outbreak of sweat. His brow furrowed and he shot back a reply, raising his right arm the way Jagua had often seen preachers do. Laughter broke from the audience. While they were laughing, Jagua decided that she no longer belonged to the group. She felt ostracized by the chorus of inhibited enjoyment and that herd instinct she always sensed among intellectuals. She rose and began walking away, while Freddie was still on his feet.

  She clicked her high-heeled shoes, but the listeners were still convulsed with laughter and few male eyes followed her wiggle. She cared little for the mixture of anger and embarrassment which she knew must be gnawing at Freddie’s guts.

  3

  Jagua stood outside the Lecture Hall, searching the street for a taxi. She saw Freddie emerge and come straight to her, shouting at her all the while. She ignored the scowl on his face and the ceaseless flow of harsh words he was hurling at her. She had learnt that men had best be left uncontradicted when they lost their tempers. She saw the taxi and stopped it.

  ‘Tropicana Club.’

  ‘We use meter, or we don’ use meter?’ grinned the taxi driver.

  Jagua distrusted the new meters on the taxis. They always seemed to cheat her. ‘No use meter.’

  In the taxi Freddie sat at one end of the seat and Jagua sat at the other extreme end. No talking
to each other. The taxi driver, with an eye to the entertainment of his passengers, talked about the political leaders and their latest disagreements, about the last football match between Nigeria and Libya. His conversation fell flat.

  Jagua was not listening. Looking up for a moment she saw in the rear-view mirror the angry eyes of Freddie. She knew he must be angrier than ever because he had failed again to drag her up into the society of the snobs. Instead she had won. She was pulling him down to the Tropicana, trying to teach him to relax. You die, you’re dead, Jagua thought. It’s over. You’ve left nothing, not a mark. Freddie always resisted her own philosophy but she would go on trying.

  When the taxi passed over the bridge she barely glimpsed the half-naked fishermen in the canoes on the flat lagoon. They had their sails out, so she guessed they must be fishing. Now, these fishermen did not worry about lectures, Jagua thought; and they were happy. She loved this hour when the lights were coming up in the causeway: white and blue and orange lights and the hotels and coloured adverts ablaze but not yet effective in the pale twilight.

  The taxi rattled over a level crossing and pulled into the side of a road. She heard the trumpet shrieks from the Tropicana and felt genuinely elated. Jagua got out on the side of the road near the woman selling cooked yams. She stopped for a moment to straighten her dress, and the woman stopped blowing the fire and started looking at Jagua’s sheath dress, painted lips and glossy hair.

  ‘Heh! …’ the yam seller burst out. ‘One day ah will ride motor car and wear fine fine cloth …’

  She said it aloud to Jagua’s hearing and Jagua felt her ego pumping up. She pulled Freddie across the road to the little hatch of a door and they went inside. The Tropicana to her was a daily drug, a potent, habit-forming brew. Like all the other women who came here, alone or with some man, Jagua was looking for the ray of hope. Something will happen tonight, this night, she always told herself.