•
Sango was told by a nurse in a white mask and rubber gloves that visitors were not allowed anywhere near the theatre. Everything would be all right, she said, and he need not worry.
He walked in the hospital garden among the mango trees. If only he could go in there and see his mother. No. That would not do. It would make Soye too self-conscious. Soye had said. ‘I’ll do my best for you,’ and that was good enough. Soye was a brilliant surgeon, one of the few select Africans with an F.R.C.S. to his name. Still, he was no god. He could still be handicapped by lack of facilities.
He went back to the waiting-room. There was a girl in a pale blue frock sitting at the other end of the bench. It was no time to notice girls, but Sango’s heart began to race much faster. And when the girl turned her face, he was sure.
‘Beatrice! Beatrice the Second!’
‘Oh, Amusa! How’s your mother?’
He could not believe his eyes. Beatrice the Second had a sad tale to tell. Her fiancé, around whom she had built all her plans, had been flown back home from England. His condition was critical. He had been found in a gas-filled chamber at the hostel soon after the results of his examination had been announced. Of course he had always been of a brooding temperament, taking things far too seriously. Beatrice told how his greatest ambition had always been to be a doctor and how he had worked far too hard with far too little success. Beatrice was too distressed to speak about her problems in full. Nor did Sango question her too closely. It was enough to know that they were partners in sorrow. A nurse called Beatrice into one of the wards.
Hours later, it seemed, Dr Soye came out. One glance at his face and Sango knew the worst. The doctor pressed his hand.
‘Very sorry; she was getting so well before the relapse.’
Relapse . . . relapse . . . the ugly word again. He could not make out exactly what was happening in the tottering world around him. Everybody was having a relapse. The nurse in spotless white was smilingly telling him how sorry she was. Beatrice was holding his hand, leaning close to him.
‘Had you come when you got the message?’ said the nurse.
‘What message? This is just a routine visit. Nobody told me anything.’
‘Your mother wanted to see you,’ said the nurse. ‘Of course, that was shortly after the woman left her bedside.’
‘I know of no woman. Can you describe her?’
The world began to reel round in circles. Sango put the pieces together as she spoke and the pieces made only one picture: Aina’s mother. The blackmailing woman of the tempting daughter. God alone knew what she had told the poor woman to bring about the relapse that killed her.
Hand in hand, he and Beatrice walked down the corridor. ‘Who was the woman, I mean the visitor?’
‘Later on, Beatrice. Later on.’ Before they parted he said, ‘I’m going to be busy with arrangements. Can you come to the funeral? Tomorrow at four.’
He saw the tears in her eyes and did not wait for an answer.
•
Sango had no pretext on which to enter Twenty Molomo Street. Not now, after all that had happened. All he could do in his off moments was to go there and sit in the barber’s shop. It was always restful and anyone who sat there saw the city unroll before his eyes, a cinema show that never ended, that no producer could ever capture – the very soul of man.
It was his old boy Sam who told him that Lajide had drunk himself to death. ‘Yes sah! He die wonderful death. Everybody wonder how he die . . . they don’ know what ah know. The man drink too much! Gin – every time. O.H.M.S. – illicit gin, the one they make in the bus.’
Lajide’s end had come suddenly. Like this – he got up in the morning, put on some clothes. He was to go to court that morning. Then he complained that he felt queer. He stretched himself on the bed, fell into a coma and was taken to hospital. There he passed peacefully away without ever recovering consciousness.
The thought of death terrified him. I must see Aina tonight at that address. The words hammered in his brain. Tonight, at that address. Who knows – perhaps she’s dead! There’s too much death now among the people of the city. It is as if they have all played at the big cinema show and are coming to its conclusion. After seeing Aina, if she’s still alive, I must play at that wretched Club. They’ll now pay only seventeen and six a night. Still, I must recover my funeral expenses.
Sam was telling him about a brother of Lajide’s – a farmer who had a limp and rode a bicycle. A bicycle – when Lajide changed cars once a year. The whole compound was locked and bolted and all the wives had gone home to their mothers. With a sly wink Sam explained how the wives had refused to be taken over by the limping brother.
‘Ha, ha! He take all his brother’s things; but he no fit to take the wives!’
As they spoke a man riding a bicycle dismounted and began to limp towards the entrance.
‘Tha’s him, sah. Tha’s Lajide’s brother.’
Not long after that, a car which looked like Zamil’s drew up. A Lebanese in dark glasses strode towards Number Twenty, brought out a bundle of keys and let himself in, followed by Lajide’s brother.
‘Them say he done sell him brother house,’ Sam whispered. All the people in the street seemed to have gathered, and though it was no business of theirs they were whispering and pointing and watching every move.
Sango would always love Molomo Street. Nothing could ever be secret here, and it made nonsense of taking life too seriously. They were all – each and every one of them – members of one family, and what concerned one concerned all the others.