‘Hello, Sah. You need a jig-a-jig?’ Madam’s cheery voice beckoned from the entrance of the brothel. ‘Come inside. Come see mah sistah.’
Ufuoma watched as the beaded curtains trickled closed and the white man passed through, watercolour eyes scanning the girls standing at the edge of their rooms, resting their hands seductively on their hips against broken walls. Everyone wanted the white man, not the English, however, but the Yankee who washed ashore from far-away America and had pockets that jingled with coins whenever they walked. Ufuoma, like the others, hoped that the man holding his sandy hair, bronzed skin with his small lips lifted in a smile–would pick her and make what would be her first night.
Yet, her heart still fluttered like birds taking flight even though she knew that there wasn’t any need to be afraid. Yewande had convinced her of the many things to look forward to thanks to this ‘Jaman’ war, and the money to be made from the soldiers. Money that could get Ufuoma imported textiles she saw at Tejuosho market, china to furnish her shack and books to line her dresser. Money that could pay trips to Rex Cinema, the Yoruba club or the Apapa Wharf where they would wave at the ships that drifted off with their young men into the vast sea. Money that she would have never gotten from tilling the baked soil of her father’s farm even when her family had begged her to stay.
Ufoma’s shoulders straightened, and she heightened her skirts to show off her freshly- razored legs as the Yankee came forward, took his gaze around once more, then pointed his chin at Ufoma. ‘That one.’ He said in a rusty voice.
She could hear the other girls let out faint gasps and murmurs around her, but that was all drowned out by the thudder in her chest, like a thousand Uduh drums beating all at once. She lifted her gaze to meet his and just like that, all her wishes began to unfold into reality, pressing starkly against the fabric of this strange, unfamiliar city she’d run to in search of something greater and not knowing what to expect from it. She smiled shyly at the white man, then eased into her room, swinging her hips from side to side as he followed behind her.
‘It will only be for a small moment,’ Yewande had told her earlier when she’d spoken of her uncertainty. ‘The Yankee is not too harsh, not like the Englishman. Just squeeze your eyes very, very tight, and it will be over.’
Ufuoma regretted that she had not asked for more advice now that she was here, but her words echoed through the cracks of her mind as the white man ducked his head through the ankara wrapper used as a makeshift curtain and settled on the stiff mattress. Through the feverish gleam of her gas lamp, Ufuoma stared at her reflection through the dressing mirror, patting the curls she’d spent hours laboriously defining, and smudging her finger over the red lipstick Madam had burrowed her. She knew she was beautiful, effortlessly so, with wide-set eyes and pearly skin all the girls in the brothel strived for, using those fake creams that gained them resemblance to roasted nuts. She looked just like the white women in the theatres, if only her skin were paler.
Then she went into one of the drawers and pulled out the gentlemen’s rubbers to be safe. Just last week, Nkechi had come down with syphilis, and her face had turned as white as chalk. Only God knew what the Yankees brought with them from their faraway countries.
‘Be quick,’ said the white man rather impatiently, his belt buckling as he loosened his khakis. ‘I need to be in the barracks by noon.’
‘Yes, sah.’ Ufuoma stopped pampering her face and came towards the bed. ‘I do well for you, Sah.’
She behaved like she was instructed: don’t speak, no mouth-to-mouth except when the white man asks you, follow their orders and never try to be demanding. If you roll your hips very well and give him the sweetie, he will pay your money, or take you back to the barracks if you are good enough. Ufuoma had watched the Madam’s demonstrations with a dried bamboo stick, her eyes alight with wonder, but sheltered it all to the corners of her mind.
She used them all on the Yankee. But he wasn’t saying much, causing a quiet panic to surge in her stomach. There were only a few grunts, a flash of air between his teeth, and then nothing at all. That was until he flipped her over and she felt it.
Ufuoma saw stars.
A sudden blinding scatter across her vision, just like it had that evening when she walked through the quiet streets of Elume, feet kicking the dust and listening to Efe as he told her he was off to enlist in the army and fight in the Hitler war. He’d seen the posters. The colony needed him. The King of England needed him. He could make money as a soldier and send it back home. He hoped she would not be angry with him.
‘What makes you think I won’t be?’ Ufuoma had said to him, gazing at the horizon and trying her best not to look down at him, for she might break. ‘Do you even know where you are going? When you are going to come back?’
Her lover said nothing for a short while. ‘I’ll write to you, I promise.’ Then made many more against the backdrop of the glittering sky; that he would come back to marry her, that he’d open a shop for her in Lagos and they would live in one of those concrete buildings and take the trams or trains to go wherever they wanted. She was pervaded with hope, like buckets of it were being poured into her soul and filling her up, reminding her that there was a beautiful life beyond what was in front of her, that one day she’d come to learn what stood at the end of the sea, and maybe reach it.
She’d made promises to him too as the sadness cascaded down her face, that she would wait and write to him every day even if she had to use her blood for ink.
But he’d stopped responding only a week later, and she knew, she knew, like a crack in the membranes of her heart, that her lover was dead. That the war that was giving to Ufuoma had taken him from her, and the twilight would forget the two desperate souls who had clung to each other underneath its moonlight, begging to find each other once their woes were over. Even if she still looked unto the shores at the wharf, watching the boats lined up, shipping their sons and brothers and lovers and husbands to be baptised by gunfire, even if she still waited to hear her name whenever the postman came with letters for the girls, even if she would gaze back into those lights of gleaming teardrops and hope and hope and hope—
The ache stopped.
It was over.
The white man leaned back and stood to buckle his shorts. For a moment, Ufuoma was not sure she was in her room, but the shadows of the shack pressed back into her sight, and her body stopped shifting under the weight of him. She heard the clutter of coins on her dresser, and he eased out of the room as fast as he came, without letting out a word. Ufuoma did not know how long she stared at the ceiling, watching as the bugs whirled around the dull light, but deep within her she’d wanted to laugh, to run over to Yewande’s room and just burst at how her worries had meant little for how quick everything had gone.
Her friend would pass Ufuoma a knowing glance and chide with an ‘I told you so ’, and they would all count all they had made together and think about the clothes they would buy in the store the next morning. But she did not, as the joy did not swirl across her chest, only a dull ache that ceased her breath. She finally stood after a moment, pressing her teeth together against the ache before striding back to her dresser.
Ufuoma counted the coins: one pound and two shillings! A smile broke across her face as she placed it in the lapels of her brassiere, feeling the cold kiss her skin. He had liked it, so she prayed he would come again. They all did whenever they had a favourite, and from there she would try to make him take her to the barracks where she might become an ammunition wife, and everything would get better. But for now, she had to be content with being the mistress of the night, and hope the world would grant her time.
Ufuoma patted down her hair and reapplied a new coat of lipstick that had been smudged across her face like she’d licked palm oil, then perched up as the Madam’s voice filtered from the entrance again. A new customer had come. There would be a few before the stars eased their dots from the sky, after all.
Read about the Author Otiede Oreva Oluwaseun
