This Side Jordan (20 page)

The ‘Weekend In Wyoming’ was crowded and noisy. Spider Badu’s band was playing ‘Akpanga’ and the dancefloor was a tangled forest of shuffling feet, jerking shoulders, swaying hips.

The moment Nathaniel had walked in, trailing self-consciously behind the Highlife Boy, he caught the excitement. It grew like a germ in the blood, spreading through every vein. Involuntarily, his shoulders began to move with the music.

Tonight would be the last time. Tonight he would take everything that came his way. Tonight he would be happy.

He wore one of the silk shirts, yellow-white as rich cream. It was smooth and cool like a girl’s skin on his.

The only lights in the place came from behind the bandstand, and when the floor was jammed with people even this light was half obscured. The little tables, sprinkled around the dancefloor’s edge and in every corner of the big compound, were so surrounded by dark that you had to step carefully to find your way. Lamptey sauntered among them with ease, though, like some strutting tom-cat whose eyes were best in the gloom. Nathaniel followed obediently.

Lamptey hesitated at a table where a group of club-girls were giggling and repainting their mouths, waiting to be chosen. He bent down swiftly and whispered to one of them. She nodded and Lamptey walked on, darting around people, screaming greetings, waving frantically to acquaintances beyond earshot.

Finally he settled. Their table was a long way from the dancefloor, in a corner.

‘O.K., Wise-Boy? This O.K.? What’s yours?’

All at once Nathaniel felt gauche. He would never be casual, flippant, like the Highlife Boy, never if he lived to be a hundred.

Then the deep insistent rhythm of the music entered into him once more, and he did not care about anything else. He felt the tremendous pressure of excitement in his heart. Tonight, tonight –

There would be only one night like this, all his life. Tomorrow the fear would descend again, and the long process of humiliation would begin. But just this once he would belong in the city and to the city, heart, muscle and soul of him.

They had scarcely finished their first drink when the two girls arrived. One was short and perky, mouth scarlet as a jungle lily, slanted eyes laughing and wise, hair carefully straightened and held with a blue satin bow. She wore a tight
blue skirt and a transparent pink blouse with pink lace around the collar. The brassiere she wore was transparent, too, and her breasts showed pink-brown with dusky rose nipples. She hugged Lamptey.

‘How’s my Money Man? Love me? Stay forevah, boy. Comfort, she say you ask for me and the other one. So here I am and here she is. Gin for me. She – her – that one – she nevah done much drinking, Lamptey. Sure you got the right one, man? Joe-boy said –’

Lamptey pulled her down onto the chair beside him.

‘Never mind what Joe-boy said,’ he replied, his voice shrill with annoyance. ‘My friend here don’t want to listen. Christ, Nathaniel, women talk a lot, don’t they? You got a pretty little mouth, Sue-Sue – why don’t you shut it sometime? That’s all right, my baby, don’t be mad. Nathaniel, this is Sweet Sue. The other one is – now what was it? – oh yeh, Emerald. Emerald – that’s her.’

Nathaniel turned to the other girl. She was tall and slender and she wore traditional dress. Her cloth was bright green with yellow moons and stars on it, and her head was bound with a yellow scarf of shiny satin. She wore lipstick, but clumsily, as though she were not used to it. Her face was quiet and Nathaniel took this to be composure until he noticed that she was watching him, unobtrusively, her eyes flickering away and then back again.

‘This lady,’ Lamptey was saying, ‘is one of our northern beauties, Nathaniel. I don’t know where the hell she comes from – somewhere up past Tamale, some place nobody ever heard of, I guess. I couldn’t get her name, man, at all. Those northern people got some wicked names – sounded like a sneeze, I tell you true. Joe-boy named her Emerald and I went
and told Sue-Sue she should get a green cloth for her. Emerald – green, how you like that, man?’

He neighed with mirth and slammed his hand down on the table until the glasses danced.

Nathaniel held out his hand to the girl, and she took it, gravely.

How had she come here? He wondered if it was her own choice – the land was poor and the people lived poor lives where she came from. Or had her father or uncle made the deal? What kind of contract bound her and who was Joe-boy? Nathaniel would never find out. It was not intended that he should.

What did it matter, anyway? He shouldn’t be thinking this way. He shouldn’t be thinking at all. What did it matter to him, who she was and where she came from? The thought wouldn’t have entered his mind if she’d been a city girl.

Had Lamptey thought he wouldn’t feel at ease with a city girl? Hadn’t he seen that was what Nathaniel wanted above all else? Or had this one merely been an extra, someone who could be spared? He, Nathaniel, didn’t have much money – Lamptey knew that. Why waste a city girl on him?

He glanced over at Lamptey, and his rage became a helpless thing that could be directed only against fate. The Highlife Boy was grinning at him proudly, genuinely. Lamptey thought he was doing a real favour to a friend.

And Nathaniel knew that he could not take her, that if he tried he would shame her and himself by failure.

He finished his drink in one gulp, still staring at Lamptey. Then he threw back his head and laughed, long shuddering gasps of laughter.

‘What the hell?’ Lamptey sounded confused.

‘That’s right, man!’ Nathaniel shouted. ‘What the hell?’

They drank and danced and drank again. Soon the music and the gin numbed Nathaniel. He moved in a dream. The writhing bodies of the dancers blended and merged, became his body. He laughed, sweated, shouted, thrust his every muscle into the music’s fire and was consumed but whole.

Halfway through the evening, Nathaniel staggered off to find the lavatory. He was not as adept as Lamptey at snaking his way through the maze of people and tables. He kept bumping into people, grinning apology, moving on. Finally he lurched against a table. It was a table in the opposite corner of the compound, and it was in virtual darkness. Nathaniel glanced at the sole occupant, an apology on his lips. Then he stopped dead.

The man sitting at the table was Johnnie Kestoe.

‘I can’t seem to get away from you, can I, Mr. Amegbe?’

The sweat-fear broke out on Nathaniel’s skin. He could feel it drenching the cream silk of his shirt. The sweat poured from his armpits down his sides. His body itched with it. His throat felt tight, the muscles of it clenched like a fist.

Tomorrow, tomorrow. Tomorrow was now. The lifted telephone, the voice of the whiteman speaking destruction, one man’s worth crushed casually and tossed into the nearest wastepaper basket.

‘Well,’ Johnnie Kestoe said, ‘what are you waiting for?’

What was he waiting for? Suddenly Nathaniel knew.

He leaned over the table. He thrust his scowling tormented face close to the other’s.

‘Damn you,’ Nathaniel said. ‘Damn you, whiteman.’

Johnnie Kestoe pushed his chair away and stood up.

‘All right. That’s enough –’

Nathaniel scarcely heard. Inside him, he felt the pressure released, like the pressure of love. Only this was the pressure of hate.

‘Go get the police, whiteman. Go get them. Go get anybody. I spit on you. I piss on you. Whiteman.’

‘Get out of here,’ Johnnie Kestoe said. ‘Get the hell out of here.’

‘No,’ Nathaniel said slowly. ‘Get out, you. You go ’way. Who want you here? Go ’way, you.’

‘So that’s how you really talk,’ Johnnie Kestoe said. ‘Pidgin English. That’s your level. You’re no teacher. What’s your real job? Stewardboy?’

In a dream, Nathaniel moved forward, his head thrust out, his arms dangling but ready. He could have strangled him then, in that moment, the moment of hate made flesh. But he did not. Carefully, drunkenly, he called back his muscles from their search. Controlling them now, Nathaniel lifted his arms, palms outspread. He did not hit Johnnie Kestoe.

He reached across the table and pushed against the whiteman’s chest. And Johnnie Kestoe, caught by surprise, lost his balance. The whiteman’s legs skidded forward and he sat down with a crash on the mud floor. Silly and spraddling, Johnnie Kestoe crashed onto his rump.

Nathaniel wanted to laugh, but he held himself quiet.

Johnnie Kestoe struggled to his feet. And Nathaniel saw his own hatred mirrored in the other’s face, that bleak white face with its burning eyes.

‘Goddamn you,’ the whiteman said in a low voice. ‘Goddamn you.’

For a moment Nathaniel thought and hoped that the other man was going to strike. Then it would have gone on to some conclusion, even if the only conclusion was the destruction of them both. But some obscure discipline, some awareness of time and place, held Johnnie Kestoe back, even as it had held Nathaniel.

‘No,’ the whiteman said deliberately. ‘I’ve got a better way. This’ll clinch the case against you. Assault. It’s all I needed. Thanks very much.’

‘You can’t prove anything,’ Nathaniel heard himself saying.

The whiteman’s smile flickered on the thin mouth.

‘I can find witnesses here who’ll give evidence, if I make it worth their while.’

He was right. Even through his dream, Nathaniel knew it. It would not be difficult to find witnesses, and Johnnie Kestoe could easily make it worth their while.

Without a word, Nathaniel turned and walked away.

He had been shocked into momentary sobriety. His head was splitting, and nausea churned his stomach. He found the lavatory and used it. Then he walked back to Lamptey’s table. Sue-Sue was kissing the Highlife Boy, her tense little breasts jiggling with delight. Lamptey broke away when he saw Nathaniel.

‘Man, I thought you got lost.’ His face was worried. ‘What happen?’

All at once it did not matter to Nathaniel to conceal it. He told Lamptey everything.

‘And now,’ he finished almost in a whisper, ‘now I’ve really done it, sure as death.’

He jerked his head up and looked at Lamptey desperately.

‘What’ll I do?’ he cried. ‘What’ll I do, man?’

Gently, Lamptey unwound Sweet Sue’s arms from his neck. His sharp-featured face was anxious. Absentmindedly, he stroked Sue-Sue’s arm. He looked at Nathaniel, vulnerable and shivering beside him. Then, thoughtfully, he gazed at Emerald.

In Nathaniel’s absence, they had begun to instruct the
young northern girl. Silently she was sipping at a gin and tonic, and her long fingers were twiddling with a lighted cigarette. She seemed to accept her role without question. She did not look resentful. Only bewildered. She was anxious to please, but she did not know how.

Lamptey turned back to Nathaniel.

‘I’ll fix him,’ he said. ‘Don’t you worry, boy. I’ll fix him proper. You’ll see.’

Nathaniel watched the Highlife Boy walk away, jiving to the music as he went.

Sue-Sue was watching, too.

‘That Lamptey – ’ she said finally, ‘that boy. He no good, but you know – I like him.’

And Nathaniel, strangely, was comforted.

It was a full half-hour before Lamptey returned. He sat down beside Nathaniel and slapped him on the shoulder.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘It’s all right now. He’s fixed – proper.’

Nathaniel looked up with dull unbelieving eyes.

‘What did you say? What did you do?’

Lamptey grinned.

‘Easy,’ he said. ‘I tell him, my friend he got himself in trouble, small. And I say to him – look here, you forget the whole thing. Forget the police, forget tonight, forget everything. If you do, I say, you won’t be sorry. I can make some nice arrangement for you. He knows what I mean. So he says – what if I do? So I say – if you do, man, you better stick to it or true’s God your wife gonna know every single thing.’

Nathaniel stared at him.

‘So?’

Lamptey patted him on the shoulder again.

‘He thinks for a while, then all of a sudden he laughs like he’s crazy. Then he says – fair enough. That’s all.’

– That’s all. So simple. A fair exchange. Nathaniel Amegbe is set free, and Johnnie Kestoe gets what he’s wanted for a long time. Oh, very simple.

Lamptey was looking at him shrewdly.

‘About the money,’ he said awkwardly, ‘for the lady. Don’t worry, Nathaniel. Pay me sometime.’

Nathaniel sat silently, his head lowered.

Then, dimly, he heard Lamptey whispering to Sue-Sue, and a moment later, the two women whispering together.

He looked up to see Emerald walking away.

She was walking towards Johnnie Kestoe’s table.

‘I’m sorry, man,’ Lamptey was saying apologetically, ‘I’m sorry to spoil your fun. But she’s the only –’

Hysterically, Nathaniel began to laugh.

When he looked up again, Victor Edusei was standing there.

‘I never thought to see you here, Nathaniel. What’re you doing here?’

‘What?’ Nathaniel struggled to think.

Victor frowned. Then he looked at Lamptey, who was busy avoiding his glance.

‘And what’re you doing with – him?’

Scorn poured out in Victor’s voice. He detested Lamptey. The Highlife Boy, hearing it, edged away. Lamptey was afraid of Victor. No wonder. Victor was about twice his size and would have welcomed the chance to beat him.

Nathaniel raised one hand like a priest giving a benediction, and the chaos began to recede from his mind.

‘No –’ he said. ‘Don’t, Victor. Don’t be mad at Lamptey. He’s just kept me out of jail, maybe. He’s just done for me what – what no other man could have done.’

It was true. He could see Lamptey smirking at Victor’s
puzzled face. And yet – it was true. Of all the people he had ever known, of all the people who had ever cared what happened to him, only the Highlife Boy could have saved him then. And in that way. In that way. With that one girl, out of all the girls who ever walked the streets. It seemed to Nathaniel that she was a human sacrifice. And he had allowed it. He had been relieved that there was someone who could be sacrificed.

– Here, Kyerema, here is one more skull to decorate your drum, for I have embraced what in my ancestors I despised.