PART ONE
How the city attracts all types and how the the unwary must suffer from ignorance of its ways
1
Most girls in the famous West African city (which shall be nameless) knew the address Twenty Molomo Street, for there lived a most colourful and eligible young bachelor, by name Amusa Sango.
In addition to being crime reporter for the West African Sensation, Sango in his spare time led a dance band that played the calypsos and the konkomas in the only way that delighted the hearts of the city women. Husbands who lived near the All Language Club knew with deep irritation how their wives would, on hearing Sango’s music, drop their knitting or sewing and wiggle their hips, shoulders and breasts, sighing with the nostalgia of musty nights years ago, when lovers’ eyes were warm on their faces. Nights that could now, with a home and family, be no more. While those who as yet had found no man would twist their hips alluringly before admiring eyes, tempting, tantalizing . . . promising much but giving little, basking in the vanity of being desired.
Of women Sango could have had his pick, from the silk-clad ones who wore lipstick in the European manner and smelled of scent in the warm air to the more ample, less sophisticated ones in the big-sleeved velvet blouses that feminized a woman.
Yet Sango’s one desire in this city was peace and the desire to forge ahead. No one would believe this, knowing the kind of life he led: that beneath his gay exterior lay a nature serious and determined to carve for itself a place of renown in this city of opportunities.
His mother had seen to it that he became engaged to ‘a decent girl from a good family, that you might not dissipate your youth, but sow the seed when your blood is young and runs hot in your veins . . . that I might have the joy of holding a grandchild in my arms’.
Many of Sango’s sober moments were spent in planning how he would distinguish himself in the eyes of his mother, an ailing woman in the Eastern Greens whose health had steadily broken down since Sango’s father died two years previously. She was no longer young. Sango did not know how old she was, but he was twenty-six and an only son. Every letter of hers expressed anxiety that Sango had to work so far away from home, and cautioned him about a city to which she had never been.
He had received one of them only yesterday, just before he met another of those girls he had been begged to avoid. And he had fallen. To make up for this lapse and to prove that from now on he really meant to be ‘good’, Sango had been up since 4.20 a.m., working on the report of an inquest. Now it was nearing 6.30 a.m., and he knew that if he did not wake his servant Sam his morning bath would not be served and he might be late for the office.
The door was slightly ajar and Sango was startled to hear a furtive knock. The room had already darkened and the caller stood behind the half-open door waiting to be invited in, yet too polite to intrude.
‘Who’s that? Come in, if you’re coming in!’
‘Are you alone, Amusa?’
A female voice, a female hand, elegant: a girl, ebony black with an eager smile. She smiled not only with her teeth and her eyes, but with the very soul of her youth. She wore one of those big-sleeved blouses which girls of her age were so crazy about. Really, they shouldn’t, for the bubas were considered ‘not good’ by the prudes: loose, revealing trifles, clinging to the body curves so intimately that the nipples of the breasts showed through. Certainly not the most comfortable sight to confront a young bachelor on a morning when he had just made noble resolutions. Amusa tried to appear unmoved. Her large imitation-gold ear-rings twinkled in the dim light. She moved across the room gracefully. Sango felt the vitality of the girl and
it tantalized him.
She came over to the edge of the table where he was working and rested her hands. This simple movement had the effect of throwing up her bust, so that it swelled within the loose blouse. She smiled.
‘Don’t you ever rest? Last night you were playing trumpet at the club.’
‘Don’t remind me about that one; I must get on with my report. By the way, where are you going all dressed up like this?’
‘I’ve come to see you.’ The smile had vanished and Aina seemed suddenly aware of herself.
‘Very kind of you, Aina; but my mother will not be pleased to hear that I spend my time in this city receiving pretty girls in my room at seven in the morning!’
She looked away. She looked down at her slender, shapely hand. She looked into his face. He saw the tears in the dark eyes and thought: now, now . . . not this morning!
‘Come, come, Aina! I didn’t mean to speak harshly. You’re looking so very pretty this morning. I love your buba and the careless ease with which you always dress. Aina, you’re a man-killer. Ah, now you smile. But I see a darkness in your face. Tell me, what is it?’
‘I – I – No! Let’s leave it till another time.’
‘Please tell me. Do you want something? Is there a way I can help?’
‘No, Amusa. Let’s leave it like that. Please fetch me some paper. For wrapping.’
Amusa found her some paper. He was wondering when she would come to the point. She took it from him and went to the corner of the room. He saw her quickly take something from the folds of her cloth and wrap it up. Then the crackling of paper ceased and she came to him once more, smiling.
‘Thank you, Amusa. I want to ask you something. Amusa, will you always love me as you did yesterday, no matter what happens?’
‘Like what? I don’t understand.’
‘Answer me. Will you always love me?’
‘Yesterday?’ Sango asked.
To him the past was dead. A man made a promise to a girl yesterday because he was selfish and wanted her yesterday. Today was a new day. He had met her at one of those drum parties they always held on Molomo Street. Almost any night you could walk in among the singers and drummers. A marriage, a christening, a death: no matter what it was, the incandescent lamp always shed its rays on the girls who hovered around the glitter like moths. Sometimes the girls danced and then the young men would pinch one another and point to something appealing in a new girl. Sango had been bored with the party until he had seen Aina standing alone, tall and graceful, waiting, he imagined, for the man who could stimulate her imagination.
He had been that man. It had not been easy, for Aina had come to the city and was attracted by the men, yet very suspicious of them. Not even the festive throbbing of the drums could break the restraint which her mother, and the countryside, had instilled in her. But Sango was the city man – fast with women, slick with his fairy-tales, dexterous with eyes and fingers. It had required all his resources, and when they had parted, a little after midnight, Sango had known the intensity of her passion. To be reminded of last night’s abandon so early the next morning was like being faced with a balance sheet of one’s diminishing prestige.
‘Amusa, do you like me still? Do you love me? If anything happens, will you always love me? We are both young, and the world is before us . . . All I want is your word.’
‘Is it important?’
He saw the struggle in her eyes. What could this mean? Could there be something else? What did she want of him? Her fingers were restless. Her firm bosom heaved against the clinging blouse. Again that mad longing to touch her welled up in him.
Suddenly she met his gaze squarely. ‘Have you no feeling at all?’
Before he could answer she turned swiftly and was out of the room. He heard the crunch of her retreating crêpe soles on the gravel.
This girl must be treated like the others. She must be forgotten. She must not be allowed to be a bother to him. Every Sunday men met girls they had never seen and might never see again. They took them out and amused them. Sometimes it led to a romance and that was unexpected; but more often it led nowhere. Every little affair was a gay adventure, part of the pattern of life in the city. No sensible person who worked six days a week expected anything else but relaxation from these strange encounters. Aina must know that. Sango had his own life to lead, his name to make as a band-leader and journalist. All else must be subordinated to that. Nothing must be allowed to disturb his plans.
Yet he was disturbed. Now that she had gone and the scent lingered in his room, he wanted her. He went to the door and called: ‘Sam!’