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PART ONE

How the city attracts all types and how the the unwary norance of its ways

1

Most girls in the famous West African city (which shall be nameless) knew the address Twenty Molo bachelor, by nao

In addition to being crio in his spare time led a dance band that played the calypsos and the konkohted the hearts of the city woe Club kneith deep irritation how their wives would, on hearing Sango’s le their hips, shoulders and breasts, sighing with the nostalgia of o, when lovers’ eyes arhts that could noith a home and family, be no more While those who as yet had found noeyes, te little, basking in the vanity of being desired

Of woo could have had his pick, from the silk-clad ones ore lipstick in the European manner and smelled of scent in the war-sleeved velvet blouses that feminized a woman

Yet Sango’s one desire in this city was peace and the desire to forge ahead No one would believe this, knowing the kind of life he led: that beneath his gay exterior lay a nature serious and determined to carve for itself a place of renown in this city of opportunities

His irl froht not dissipate your youth, but sow the seed when your blood is young and runs hot in your veinsthat I randchild in my arms’

Many of Sango’s sober uish hi woman in the Eastern Greens whose health had steadily broken down since Sango’s father died two years previously She was no longer young Sango did not kno old she was, but he enty-six and an only son Every letter of hers expressed anxiety that Sango had to work so far away from home, and cautioned him about a city to which she had never been

He had received one of theirls he had been begged to avoid And he had fallen To make up for this lapse and to prove that froo had been up since 420 a 630 am, and he knew that if he did not wake his servant Saht be late for the office

The door was slightly ajar and Sango was startled to hear a furtive knock The room had already darkened and the caller stood behind the half-open door waiting to be invited in, yet too polite to intrude

‘Who’s that? Co in!’

‘Are you alone, Amusa?’

A feirl, ebony black with an eager smile She smiled not only with her teeth and her eyes, but with the very soul of her youth She wore one of those big-sleeved blouses which girls of her age were so crazy about Really, they shouldn’t, for the bubas were considered ‘not good’ by the prudes: loose, revealing trifles, clinging to the body curves so intih Certainly not thebachelor on awhen he had just made noble resolutions Aold ear-rings twinkled in the dio felt the vitality of the girl and

it tantalized him

She ca and rested her hands This si up her bust, so that it swelled within the loose blouse She smiled

‘Don’t you ever rest? Last night you were playing trumpet at the club’

‘Don’t reet on withall dressed up like this?’

‘I’ve come to see you’ The smile had vanished and Aina seemed suddenly aware of herself

‘Very kind of you, Aina; but my mother will not be pleased to hear that I spend irls in !’