This Side Jordan

by Margaret Laurence

  Three pounds ten plus three pounds ten plus – let us say – twelve pounds. Equals nineteen pounds. Who would not expect a further return, for that? How could they have afforded it? Relatives, most likely. It was thought of as a worthwhile investment.

  They were intelligent as most, weren’t they? All they needed was opportunity.

  The sweat trickled down Nathaniel’s nose and around the rims of his glasses, steaming the lenses until he was looking at the objects on the desk through a blur of mist.

  So many voices. ‘How many nights I weep and pray and still you never come or send Some Small Thing for help –’ ‘Again he refused you more money and yet you stay with him – are you his slave?’ ‘There are good pickings here now – you’re crazy, Wise-boy, always broke.’

  And others. I will be somebody. Not a fish, not a spider on the wall, but a man among men. I will do something – you will see. Rise up, Ghana. Free-Dom.

  He could sell the necklace. That would be Kwaale settled for a while.

  He had only two shirts good enough to wear to work. Both were cheap cotton, and both were mended.

  Nathaniel glanced up at the boys. Their faces were patient, impassive.

  Then, slowly, he reached out one hand and placed it on the necklace and the shirts.

  ‘I thank you,’ Nathaniel said quietly.

  When they had gone, he picked their applications from the pile. The others he tore into small pieces and burned. ‘Hey, Nathaniel!’ Lamptey greeted him. ‘Hey, Wise-boy, what’s all this I hear? You gonna be some competition for the Labour Exchange?’

  ‘Who told you?’ Nathaniel asked sourly.

  Lamptey jigged up and down in the street, loosely clenching his hands as though they held sticks, while he beat out a rapid rhythm on air.

  ‘Talking drums,’ he said. ‘You know those things.’

  ‘No,’ Nathaniel said obligingly, ‘never heard of them.’

  Lamptey shrieked with delight.

  ‘You know – like a telephone, only you can’t hang up. I’m a true African. Yes, man. Get all my news that way, didn’t you know?’

  ‘Who told you?’ Nathaniel repeated.

  ‘You really want to know? Why, the old bastahd himself. Who else?’

  Nathaniel was relieved. It didn’t matter, of course. It didn’t matter at all. It was nothing. But all the same he was glad that Kumi and Awuletey hadn’t been talking to Lamptey.

  ‘Sa-ay, how about getting me a job there, too?’ Lamptey went on. ‘Futura’s not getting any better, that’s sure. What if it folds?’

  ‘I thought you had another line.’

  ‘Now what line could that be?’ Lamptey grinned. ‘I don’t know any other line. If you mean I like going on the town sometimes with the boys, why – sure, sure. But I’m no big boy, man. No capital. Couldn’t start my own business. I’d miss my students if this place folded. It would ruin me. No more happy time then. No soul to show the sights and the lights, man. What I do then?’

  ‘You wouldn’t starve, don’t worry,’ Nathaniel said. ‘You’d find another line. How’s business?’

  Lamptey sighed, throwing his head back and hissing the air out through his teeth.

  ‘I tell you, true as God, business never been worse. Most boys gone home. And the ones who stay – whasamatter with these youngmen? Not interested in geography this time.’

  ‘They’re just keeping the gun loaded for Independence night,’ Nathaniel suggested.

  ‘Lord God,’ Lamptey said gloomily, ‘it won’t be no gun by then; atom bomb more like it.’

  When they had stopped laughing, the Highlife Boy pulled at Nathaniel’s arm.

  ‘You come along one of these Saturday nights, Nathaniel? You live too quiet, man.’

  ‘I got no money, Highlife Boy.’

  ‘Sa-ay, what’s that stuff?’ Lamptey looked offended. ‘For you, Nathaniel, not one penny. Everything arranged. Not one penny for you, my friend. Except the young lady, of course. Say, I know a man who’s got ten girls from the north coming down next week. I tell you true, man. New ones. Hand-picked desert flowers, I been told. How about it?’

  Nathaniel hesitated. He had kept the necklace with him, looking at it from time to time. He could not bring himself to part with it yet. But soon he would sell it. He could use some of the money. He need not send it all to Kwaale. He owed himself a celebration. What would those desert girls be like? Very young – almost children, probably. Young and stupid, cow-eyes blinking at the lights, the highlife, the city. Bodies ripe and tender, untouched. No. Not for him. He wanted a city girl. A girl wise in the rites. Perfume, nylon, knowing laughter. A lovely drunken girl in high heels.

  ‘No bush-girl for me,’ he said laughingly.

  ‘Wait till you see them,’ Lamptey said. ‘Anyway, something fine I can fix. I swear I’ll do well for you. So? You gonna come along?’

  ‘Well –’ Nathaniel said. ‘Look, I’ll wait and see how the boys get on. If they get the jobs, we’ll celebrate, Lamptey, you and me. How’s that?’

  Lamptey thumped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Never thought you’d do it, Nathaniel!’ he cried. ‘Hey, that’s good, that’s fine!’

  Nathaniel grinned self-consciously. He felt happy. Well, why not? Why shouldn’t he? He had lived frugally here all these years. He had had to. Now, if only for a little while, he would be a proper city man at last. He would put on one of the new silk shirts and go with Lamptey.

  – I am the City, boy. Come and dance.

  – Sasabonsam, you lie. Lucifer, you lie.

  At the head of the parade there was a girl. She must have been about sixteen and she was beautiful. Her hips undulated and her breasts bounced gently to the hymn’s jazz rhythm. In her hand she held a ribbon attached to the church banner – white and purple satin fringed with gilt, carried by two younger girls. The banner billowed out like a sail without a boat, and the lead-girl tugged lightly on the ribbon while she nodded and smiled to the street crowds like a young queen honouring her subjects.

  After the banner came the girl children, thirty or forty of them, bony little hips swaying imitatively. And behind them charged the ranks of women, four abreast, all wearing the same blue mammy-cloth, the fishes and the sea nightmares leaping as the hips like wheels spun round and round and the soft brown shoulders lifted.

  The music, shrill and deafening, came from the fifes and drums of the boys’ band. Reborn, the old hymn tunes had a syncopated beat, a highlife beat, compelling as night drums, the voice of darkness now strangely calling the words of Light.

  The parade flowed unevenly down the street. Mammy-lorries pulled to the side of the road and the passengers watched and laughed and clapped their hands. Cars bearing exasperated tense-faced Europeans honked and honked to get past. From the streets, from the gutters, from shacks and shops, the children tumbled out to join in the excitement, hopping around the parade like ragged moulting sparrows, prancing and contorting their skinny tatter-clad bodies to the music.

  The sun poured its lava down upon earth; the palm trees dropped in the breezeless heat; the fife players sweated and tootled; the city shouted and the women danced before their God.

  Nathaniel tried not to look for Aya. But his eyes refused to stop searching. Then he saw her. She carried the weight of her body easily, almost gracefully. She did not look grotesque. Her new cloth swathed her, and her face showed an exaltation that made Nathaniel ashamed of his embarrassment. He turned to go.

  It was then that he saw Miranda Kestoe. She was pointing to the kerb, instructing her driver to pull up the car. Nathaniel tried to slip away into the crowd. A few paces away was the Paradise Chop Bar. Sanctuary. But she had seen him. She leaned out of the car window.

  ‘Hello!’ she called. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Nathaniel said with a sinking heart.

  ‘I love these parades,’ Miranda continued happily. ‘They’re so colourful, aren’t they?’

  Nathaniel felt an overpowerin
g desire to spit. He managed to swallow the flood of saliva.

  ‘Yes,’ he said without expression, ‘so colourful.’

  He wondered what she would think if she knew one of those jiving women was his wife. She would probably think it was very interesting. Everything was interesting to her. She was crazy about quaint customs – she collected them like postage stamps. If this parade had been a pagan one, now, Mrs. Kestoe would have been in ecstasies.

  ‘I’m glad I happened to see you,’ Miranda said. ‘I’ve been wanting to tell you how glad I am that you saw my husband about those boys. They’re going to see him tomorrow, aren’t they?’

  She knew they were.

  ‘That is what I have arranged.’

  She looked at him gravely.

  ‘I do hope it works out well,’ she said. ‘I’m sure it will.’

  ‘Your husband,’ Nathaniel said on impulse, ‘he is not so sure, I suppose?’

  She flushed.

  ‘He’s not doing it as a favour to me,’ she said emphatically. ‘He’s very much hoping that they’ll be all right. He told me so.’

  ‘You did not tell him I was going to see him,’ Nathaniel said abruptly.

  She twisted her hands together, and her eyes betrayed her anxiety to please.

  ‘I – well, no, I didn’t. I thought you might prefer it if I didn’t.’

  Nathaniel wondered if she had expected him not to tell Johnnie Kestoe who it was that had prevailed upon him to go. She wanted it both ways. If her husband was impressed, then she would take the credit. If not, then she hadn’t had a thing to do with it.

  ‘Really, I thought you would tell him,’ he said.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she stammered. ‘I – I never thought – I guess it was stupid of me – I’m so sorry –’

  There was no limit to their self-humiliation, these broad-minded whitepeople. They thought they could gain a man’s trust by grovelling.

  ‘How many boys are you sending?’ Miranda asked timidly.

  ‘I have selected two.’

  ‘Good – I’m sure they’ll be keen and bright –’

  ‘Naturally they are bright,’ Nathaniel replied rudely, ‘or I would not have selected them.’

  For an instant the gold necklace seemed to burn through his shirt pocket onto his skin, a tiny irritating scorch-mark.

  ‘Oh – of course,’ Miranda said apologetically. ‘Well – I do hope it works out all right.’

  How many times had she repeated that? Couldn’t she think of anything else to say? All at once Nathaniel felt compelled to say the exact opposite.

  ‘It may not work out,’ he said. ‘It probably won’t. He will think my students are no good.’

  Purposely he emphasized the word ‘he’, implying a blindness on Johnnie Kestoe’s part.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ she begged. ‘I’m sure he won’t think that.’

  ‘Yes he will,’ Nathaniel was by now more than half convinced by his own words. ‘It is quite likely. Extremely likely. He will probably think I am no good, too –’

  She looked upset. Then she smiled and reached out to touch him on the arm.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Mr. Amegbe,’ she said. ‘Even if he does think that, I won’t. Honestly.’

  Nathaniel looked away, too full of loathing and self-loathing to speak.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs. Kestoe,’ he said finally, slowly, dutifully.

  ‘Oh – that’s all right,’ she said naïvely.

  Nathaniel suddenly threw back his head and burst into laughter. It cleansed and purified him. He waved at her gaily.

  ‘Yes,’ he cried, ‘thank you, Mrs. Kestoe! A thousand thanks!’

  Miranda looked at him in astonishment. As the car drove off, he saw her puzzled frown.

  The parade swayed in its slow dance along the street.

  – Oh my people, who dance in joy, who dance in sorrow.

  TWELVE

  Kumi and Awuletey had promised to get in touch with Nathaniel immediately after the interview. He waited in his office until six that night, but they did not come. Finally he went home.

  ‘What is it?’ Aya asked, as soon as she saw him.

  ‘It is nothing,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Something troubles you. I can tell.’

  ‘It is nothing,’ he insisted. Then, impatiently, ‘You trouble me when you keep asking stupid questions.’

  Offended, she turned away and would not speak to him all evening. Akosua made gloomy reference to the dangers of upsetting pregnant women, until Nathaniel, tired and on edge, went out to Obi’s Friendly Chop Bar and drank too much palmwine.

  The two boys were probably out celebrating. There would be no room left in their thoughts for anything else. When they settled down in their jobs, they would let him know. That must be it.

  He knew he would not be able to contain his aching curiosity. He would get in touch with them. But how?

  When he sent out letters to the boys who failed, he had borrowed the list of addresses from Mensah. And Mensah was in Ashanti now, touring the villages, spouting the Great Promise. Futura Academy did not boast a registrar. There was one clerk, an old man who Nathaniel suspected was a feebleminded relative of Mensah’s. But he did not know where the old man lived. The two boys’ addresses had been on their applications, but Nathaniel had foolishly destroyed these.

  At last it became clear to Nathaniel that his only point of contact with Kumi and Awuletey was, ridiculously, through Johnnie Kestoe.

  The next morning Nathaniel had a headache and complained about his digestion until Akosua snapped that no one had found her cooking at fault before.

  ‘It’s not your cooking!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve got worries, troubles –’

  ‘Worries, troubles,’ Akosua mimicked. ‘What has your wife got? She’ll have a bellyful of pain any day now, and you talk about your troubles. Do something, then.’

  Aya sat silent and miserable while they bickered, her eyes large as a child’s that has just finished crying. She wanted only for them to be quiet, he knew, whatever they felt.

  ‘Akosua, Akosua, my sister – please –’ he hated his conciliatory tone and for a moment he hated this spare competent woman who had taken over his house.

  Akosua was pacified.

  ‘I will make some more tea.’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ Nathaniel said hopelessly. ‘Some tea. That will solve everything.’

  The two women looked at him uneasily, as though they thought he had some strange affliction of the mind.

  It was then that Nathaniel decided to go and see Johnnie Kestoe.

  The office was busy but not impressively so. Nathaniel walked through the outer office where the clerks sat, and his eyes searched among them. But neither Kumi nor Awuletey was there. He had to wait on a bench in the outer room for some time before he could see Johnnie Kestoe.

  Nathaniel wondered if he were being kept waiting purposely. People did that. What a comfortable sense of power it must give, to be able to keep people waiting outside your office, until the moment you chose to say ‘now’.

  ‘Mr. Kestoe will see you now,’ someone said.

  Nathaniel blundered in. Why had he brought his briefcase? Obviously, Johnnie Kestoe would think it unnecessary. Probably he would be amused. Nathaniel could hear him recounting it – ‘this fellow came into my office, lugging a dirty great briefcase – nothing in it, of course –’. A book of Gold Coast history was in it, several old essays, that day’s newspaper and a wadded-up handkerchief. Nathaniel longed to throw it away, to drop it. He considered going out again and leaving it on the bench. But the clerks would laugh.

  ‘Good morning, Mr. Kestoe.’ He spoke more loudly than he had intended. ‘I happened to be passing by, and –’

  Johnnie Kestoe’s eyes were cold.

  ‘Indeed? I didn’t think you’d venture to show your face around here – now.’

  Nathaniel felt the sweat forming under the bridge of his glasses. Soon it would run conspicuously down his n
ose.

  ‘I wondered –’ he began again uncertainly. ‘I thought I’d enquire – did you see those boys yesterday, Mr. Kestoe?’

  ‘Yes,’ Johnnie Kestoe said. ‘I saw them. Didn’t you gather that?’

  ‘Oh. You interviewed them?’

  ‘Yes. I interviewed them, Mr. Amegbe. Are they the best you could do?’

  ‘Well –’

  Johnnie leaned forward across the desk. He was breathing rapidly and his nostrils flared. Nathaniel could see now that the whiteman was very angry.

  ‘Do you want to know what happened? I’ll tell you. The little chap –’

  ‘Kumi.’

  ‘Yes. He did a lot of talking. I should think that’s about all he can do. Said he’d had a lot of experience as a clerk. Said he could type –’

  ‘He studied typing. They all did.’

  ‘Who taught it?’ Johnnie asked rudely. ‘An imbecile? I gave him a test. What a farce.’

  ‘He would be nervous –’

  Nathaniel could see him, typing to dictation from this man, at an unfamiliar machine, the clerks giggling in the background.

  ‘Perhaps so,’ Johnnie said dryly. ‘That’s hardly my business, is it? I assure you, there wasn’t one correct word in the whole thing. I didn’t even test his speed. I could tell it was hopeless.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘He begged and implored for a job,’ Johnnie went on. ‘He didn’t speak English too badly. So do you know what I did? I told him he could come in on two weeks’ trial as a filing clerk, and I’d see if he was capable of picking up anything.’

  ‘He is an intelligent boy,’ Nathaniel said. ‘He should not have told you he had experience. But he is an intelligent boy. I know that, Mr. Kestoe.’

  ‘What you call intelligent, Mr. Amegbe, and what I call intelligent must be two different things. Do you know what young what’s-his-name said then? He said he would accept the job, but he wanted to know first how soon he’d be promoted, because he thought an administrative post would suit him. He thought it would suit him! Of course he never bothered to ask himself how he’d suit it. So I told him to get out. Naturally.’