Free A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe Page A

party? Make you take am je-je-o.' 'Relax,' I said, imitating Jean. 'What is wrong in telling you I met your namesake at a party?' Actually I was pleased to see Elsie jealous. I meant to go on to say, and had in fact half opened my mouth to begin saying, that she needn't worry, that the other Elsie was no patch on her. But I quickly changed my mind for tactical reasons. Instead I said that if I wanted a second girl-friend I would pick one with a different name if only to avoid confusion. 'Na lie,' she said, smiling her seductive, two-dimpled smile. 'The way I look you eye I fit say that even ten Elsies no fit belleful you.' 'Nonsense,' I said. 'Abi dem take Elsie make juju for me?' I asked, laughing. 'I know?' she shrugged. 'You suppose to know,' I said. The chauffeur dropped a very broad---and rude---hint at this point by shutting my door again. I chose to ignore him. 'Wetin be the name of your friend's car?' 'Cadillac.' 'Ah! This na the famous Cadillac? I no think say I done see am before.' She was full of girlish excitement. 'Na tough car! Eje-je-je! You think say these people go go another heaven after this?' 'My sister I no know-o. Any way make we follow them chop small for dis world.' I opened the door myself and went in, and she helped close it. 'I'll be here on Thursday then---at four. Run along now and sleep, darling.' I sat back with a proprietary air unusual for me. She stood waving until we disappeared round the bend. That Thursday evening at six the Minister was due to open the first ever book exhibition of works by local authors. I was specially interested in it because I had ambitions to write a novel about the coming of the first white men to my district. He came back for lunch at around two-thirty clutching the speech they had prepared for him. Apparently he had been so busy at the office that he hadn't had time to look at it at all. So I thought he was going to sit down now and quickly run through it; but no, he put the file away on top of a book-shelf and began to ask about our trip to the hospital. I hadn't realized till then---and perhaps Chief Nanga himself hadn't---that he was going with me. 'I hope they will be ready when we get there....' 'Yes. I told Elsie you had to be at this other place at six.' 'Tell me something, Odili. How serious are you about this girl Elsie?' 'You mean about marriage.... Good lord, no! She is just a good-time girl.' 'Kabu---Kabu?' he asked with a twinkle in his eye. 'Yes, sort of,' I said. Although what I said about marriage was true enough yet it was grossly unfair at that stage in my relationship with Elsie to call her simply a good-time girl. I suppose what happened was that Chief Nanga and I having already swopped many tales of conquest I felt somehow compelled to speak in derogatory terms about women in general. In fact I had already told the story of my first meeting with Elsie without however identifying her. Naturally Chief Nanga had five stories to every one of mine. The best I thought was about the young married woman who never took her brassière off. It was not until after many encounters that Chief Nanga managed to extract from her that her husband (apparently a very jealous man) had put some juju on her breasts to scare her into faithfulness; his idea being presumably that she would not dare to expose that part of her to another man much less other parts. 'What a fool!' I said. 'And he was trying to be so clever.' 'E fool pass garri,' said Chief Nanga. 'Which person tell am na bobby them de take do the thing? Nonsense.' 'But that woman na waa,' I said. 'Who put that kind sense for im head?' 'Woman?' rhapsodized Chief Nanga. 'Any person wey tell you say woman no get sense just de talk pure jargon. When woman no want do something e go lef am, but make you no fool yourself say e left the thing because e no get sense for do am.' How true, I thought. It had been a bit of a surprise to me when Chief Nanga had announced he was coming with me to the hospital. I couldn't