‘All your might!’
Jagua grunted, and fainted. Outside, the moon shone and the small boy who had been sent to fetch the doctor came running in and he was the first to hear the piercing note of the child: a boy.
Jagua’s mother named the baby Nnochi which means Replacement. One old and dead, the other new and young and full of promise. And when at dusk the drums beat under the banana leaves, Jagua turned and listened to the rhythms that to hear meant happiness.
For two days, the child lived. Jagua, handling Nnochi in all his wetness and elastic gambols drew the maternal satisfaction she had long craved. On the third day, Jagua put Nnochi to the breast. It was early evening and her mother and Rosa had not come in from the farm. Jagua felt a sudden slackening of the lips on her nipple. She looked at the face of her newborn infant. It was turning an ashen colour. She gazed, not understanding. The life was draining out of Nnochi. Dumbfounded Jagua watched Nnochi stiffen, and then all movement ceased.
Jagua opened her mouth to scream, but could not.
Rosa and her mother came in from the forest and found her silent and stiff as an effigy before the oracle. She pressed the dead baby to herself and blubbering, would not part with it.
‘When you are strong again, Jagua, what you goin’ to do?’ Jagua’s mother came and sat beside her on the bench in the courtyard. It was a week after the burial of Nnochi and slowly Jagua was beginning to see the sun, to feel a thirst for water and a hunger for a little food.
She could read the fear in her mother’s eyes, that she would forsake her; that Ogabu was not the place for her.
‘Mama, I don’t know yet. But I wan’ some place – not too far to Ogabu. Dere I kin trade. I kin come here when I like for look you. Ah wan’ try Onitsha whedder I kin become Merchant Princess. I already got experience of de business. I goin’ to beg Brodder Fonso for advise me what I goin’ to do. You see, Mama, now I got some money. Is going to be different. I kin buy me own lorry and me own shop by de river. I goin’ to join de society of de women an’ make frien’ with dem. I sure to succeed.’
As she spoke, she saw the relief mount into her mother’s eyes. ‘Is good,’ she said. ‘I fear before whedder you wantin’ for go back Lagos. Now is good I got me daughter on dis side of de Niger.’
Rosa came in from the forest while they talked. She looked fresh and sweet and completely one with the Ogabu forests. She was carrying a drumful of water which she had fetched. Her smile was bright.
‘What you an’ Mama plannin’, Jagua? You already lookin’ like you fine ol’ self. You never kin grow ol’, my dear!’
‘Is God work, Rosa,’ Jagua smiled. ‘But I don’ wan’ to be me ol’ self who suffer too much.’ She looked from Rosa’s face to her mother’s and the expression of belief and goodwill she saw filled her with new hopes. ‘I jus’ told Mama dat I goin’ to Onitsha. I wan’ to become proper merchant princess. I goin’ to buy me own shop, and lorry, and employ me own driver. I goin’ to face dis business serious. I sure dat God above goin’ to bless me.’
Evening had come once again to Ogabu and with its coming there stirred a gentle breeze that soothed. Jagua sat beside her mother on the log and dreamt. She thought how good it was to be dreaming while Rosa and her mother listened.
THE BEGINNING
Let the conversation begin …