‘Never heard of her. What’s she to you?’
‘I want to marry her; we’ve fixed everything for next month.’
‘Does she love you?’
‘You don’t appear surprised, Sango. That’s why I like you. You do not blame me when I make a mistake. Have I made a mistake? Tell me, Sango. Everyone is blaming me. They say the marriage is impossible between me, an African, and this Suad, a Lebanese. Do you know, Sango, what frightens me is that the girl cannot sit down or think or even eat or sell her brother’s cloth in the shop, she’s thinking of Bayo – oh my love! She is always at the window. I pass there one hundred times in one day and it is still not enough for her. She is not afraid of African food. She says she is prepared to eat even sand with me and if necessary live in our slum. Anywhere, so long I’m there. Do you think she is mad?’
‘D’you love her?’
‘Why d’you think I’ve been racking my brain in the last few weeks? Why d’you think I’ve been trying to make money on my own? Only you were not in town to advise me, that’s what saddened me.’
Sango laced his shoes. This was one of those blinding love affairs into which Bayo was always falling, only to forget them entirely in a matter of days. He listened without attaching any importance to the words, and this attitude only made Bayo strive to impress him with his seriousness.
‘She’s the most beautiful girl in the whole world, and oh, so gentle! About nineteen, I should say, with very thick hair. You’ll like to run your fingers through her hair, Sango. She does not speak any English, so we speak
Yoruba. Yes, she’s a native. She was born here . . .’
Bayo relapsed into a moody silence. Sango, who had finished dressing, said, ‘Aina! Where can I find her?’
‘Beecroft Bridge. As soon as you cross the bridge, look among the cigarette sellers. You’ll see her.’
•
Beecroft Bridge was at least half a mile long. No one would sell cigarettes on the bridge, so Sango looked in the stalls outside the taxi park. It was already getting late and the shops were closing. Sango bade good-bye to Bayo on the bus and got down near the bridge. He began to search for Aina among the handful of girls selling cigarettes, but in this rush-hour din he could identify none of them. He had become a target for the final appeals of the late hawkers.
‘Penny bread! . . . Sugar bread! . . .’ they cried from all sides of him. He was irritated but trapped. ‘Banjo’ (auction) ‘akowe’ (envelopes) ‘Banjo, akowe! . . .’
The cars and lorries and buses were trying to press forward in the slow traffic-stream by tooting horns. ‘Pip-pip! Paw-paw!’
Sango wanted to escape. He glanced desperately about him. Slippered feet rushed among the traffic, yet none belonged to the girl he sought. And the drone of the heavy diesel engines threatened to drown his voice.
Suddenly, everything seemed to stop, as if by an order. At that moment Sango caught just one glimpse: a girl straining upwards, trying to sell cigarettes to passengers through a bus window. He crossed the street, breaking through the tormenting chains that bound him prisoner.
‘Aina!’
Her face was flushed with excitement, and she turned and looked into his eye. The change she was offering to the passenger on the bus slipped and rolled between the wheels. The cloth tied round her hips broke loose. Sango in one leap stood beside her.
She was panting with wonder. ‘What do you want? Twenty years is not for ever. Did you think I would die in jail?’
‘Let us go to the Hollywood, Aina. I’ll call a taxi and we’ll go and eat. Where’s your stall? Have you anyone to look after it for you?’
It was a way of life she liked. The glamorous surroundings, the taxis, the quick drinks. This was one reason why she had come to the city from her home sixty miles away: to ride in taxis, eat in fashionable hotels, to wear the aso-ebi, that dress that was so often and so ruinously prescribed like a uniform for mournings, wakings, bazaars, to have men who wore white collars to their jobs as lovers, men who could spend.
‘I can’t. I —’
‘You must, Aina! After all, this meeting calls for some celebration. We may become enemies after that, but just let me give you this welcome. After all, I’ve been away and returned only this afternoon. How was I to know that you had come out of —’
A taxi drew alongside. He said: ‘The Hollywood!’
They were in and he was sitting beside her. Suddenly all the restraint he had imposed on himself broke loose and he held her in his arms and hugged her. She pushed against him like a naughty child, but he saw the tears in her eyes and he was sad. Yet the next moment she was laughing, teasing him derisively till all the pent-up desire he had for her broke over him and he knew he was still putty in her hands, this street walker with the dark, smooth face and white smile. Could it be for her sake that Elina had ceased to appeal to him? What was the magic of this unbreakable spell?
Outside the hotel he paid his fare and took her upstairs to the restaurant. He chose a seat near two large mirrors where Aina could have ample scope to admire her reflection. He tried to find out what the prison had taught her. She was bitter against him, that he could see. But she was also bitter against everybody, against the very city that had condemned her. She had become hardened. Where previously Aina might have stalled or hesitated, or used a tactful word, she now spoke bluntly. Amusa was shocked by her cynicism.
‘It’s money I want now,’ she said.
He nodded understandingly.
‘I’m coming to visit you, Amusa, so get some money ready.’