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Jagua had just had a cold bath, and, in the manner of African women, she sat on a low stool with aat her wet hair Only one cloth – a flowered cotton print – concealed her nakedness, and she had wound it over her breasts and under her armpits Her arms and shoulders were bare, and she sat with the cloth bunched between her thighs so that the mirror bit into the skin between her knees
She raised her arh the wiry kinks, and her breasts swelled into a sensuous arc and her eyes tensed with the pain as the kinks straightened Fro arms and beautiful shoulders the drops of speckled water slid down chasing one another
She saw Freddie pass by her door just then, saw hilimpse of the dark naked hair under her armpits Then he hurried past into his own roo as he went:
‘Jagwa! … Jagwa Nana! …’
She kneas teasing They called her Jagua because of her good looks and stunning fashions They said she was Ja-gwa, after the fae car
‘I’m comin’ – jus’ now! … Call me when you ready!’
She could sense the irritation in his voice As alhen she did not like where they were going she delayed her toilet, and Freddie roups, especially the British Council groups which she thought false and stiff On the other hand, Freddie could never do without them He said they were a link with Britain from which stemmed so much tradition
Like Freddie she was an Ibo froeria, but when she spoke to hios City they did not want tooreminders of clan or custoers in a tohere all careedily to seek positions that yielded even more money
She heard the clatter of Freddie’s shoes as he hurried down the steps to his own room on the floor below She waited for hi her hair By an odd tilt of the mirror she saw, suddenly revealed, the crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes and the tired dark rings beneath
‘I done old,’ she sighed ‘Sometimes I tink say Freddie he run froain
The sigh was a prayer to God to stay back the years and a challenge to herself to employ all the coquettish arts to help Him She did not often rehly as old as her lover Freddie was hardly more than a boy, with his whole aerian National College who badly wanted to travel overseas to complete his law studies He had applied for a Govern selected She knew Freddie deserved a good girl to marry him, raise his children and ‘shadow’ hiua was too much in love with him to make a reasonable exit And she wanted Freddie as her husband because only a young h to work and earn when she would be on the decline Men would not be wanting her in six years’ tihteen could be had At forty-five, she had her figure and her tact to guide her
She knew that, seen under the dihtspot, the Tropicana – and froht she was proud of her body, which could model for any painter or sculptor When she walked down a street, le of her hips which came with studied unconsciousness So, but Freddie did not seem so embarrassed now as he used to be at first When she painted her face and lifted her breasts and exposed what must be concealed and concealed what irl who did not knohat to do with her God-given female talent
Freddie came into the room when she was dressed He stood at the door and looked at her exposed shoulders and neck (they were ua knew), at the transparent h which her pink brassiere could be seen – provocatively – and much more besides