He went whirling down the line of wives like a top, his voice booming out above theirs.
‘I hope to God they don’t drop him,’ I said to Jacquie, eyeing the two short, fat wives who, with linked hands, were waiting rather nervously at the head of the line to receive their lord and master.
The Fon performed one last mighty gyration and hurled himself backwards at his wives, who caught him neatly enough but reeled under the shock. As the Fon landed he spread his arms wide so that for a moment his wives were invisible under the flowing sleeves of his robes and he lay there looking very like a gigantic, multicoloured butterfly. He beamed at us, lolling across his wives’ arms, his skull-cap slightly askew, and then his wives with an effort bounced him back to his feet again. Grinning and panting he made his way back to us and hurled himself into his chair.
‘My friend, na fine dance dis,’ I said in admiration. ‘You get power time no dere.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Jacquie, who had also been impressed by this display, ‘you get plenty power.’
‘Na good dance dis, na foine one,’ said the Fon, chuckling, and automatically pouring us all out another drink.
‘You get another dance here for Bafut I like too much,’ I said. ‘Dis one where you dance with dat beer-beer for horse.’
‘Ah, yes, yes, I savvay um,’ said the Fon. ‘Dat one where we go dance with dis tail for horshe.’
‘That’s right. Sometime, my friend, you go show dis dance for my wife?’
‘Yes, yes, my friend,’ he said. He leant forward and gave an order and a wife scuttled out of the dancing hall. The Fon turned and smiled at Jacquie.
‘Small time dey go bring dis tail for horshe an’ den we go dance,’ he said.
Presently the wife returned carrying a large bundle of white, silky horses’ tails, each about two feet long, fitted into handles beautifully woven out of leather thongs. The Fon’s tail was a particularly long and luxuriant one, and the thongs that had been used to make the handle were dyed blue, red and gold. The Fon swished it experimentally through the air with languid, graceful movements of his wrist, and the hair rippled and floated like a cloud of smoke before him. Twenty of the Fon’s wives, each armed with a switch, took the floor and formed a circle. The Fon walked over and stood in the centre of the circle; he gave a wave of his horse’s tail, the band struck up and the dance was on.
Of all the Bafut dances this horsetail dance was undoubtedly the most sensuous and beautiful. The rhythm was peculiar, the small drums keeping up a sharp, staccato beat, while beneath them the big drums rumbled and muttered and the bamboo flutes squeaked and twittered with a tune that seemed to have nothing to do with the drums and yet merged with it perfectly. To this tune the Fon’s wives gyrated slowly round in a clockwise direction, their feet performing minute but formalized steps, while they waved the horses’ tails gently to and fro across their faces. The Fon, meanwhile, danced round the inside of the circle in an anti-clockwise direction, bobbing, stamping and twisting in a curiously stiff, unjointed sort of way, while his hand with incredibly supple wrist movements kept his horse’s tail waving through the air in a series of lovely and complicated movements. The effect was odd and almost indescribable: one minute the dancers resembled a bed of white seaweed, moved and rippled by sea movement, and the next minute the Fon would stamp and twist, stiff-legged, like some strange bird with white plumes, absorbed in a ritual dance of courtship among his circle of hens. Watching this slow pavane and the graceful movements of the tails had a curious hypnotic effect, so that even when the dance ended with a roll of drums one could still see the white tails weaving and merging before your eyes.
The Fon moved gracefully across the floor towards us, twirling his horse’s tail negligently, and sank into his seat. He beamed breathlessly at Jacquie.
‘You like dis ma dance?’ he asked.
‘It was beautiful,’ she said. ‘I liked it very much.’
‘Good, good,’ said the Fon, well pleased. He leaned forward and inspected the whisky bottle hopefully, but it was obviously empty. Tactfully I refrained from mentioning that I had some more over at the Rest House. The Fon surveyed the bottle gloomily.
‘Whisky done finish,’ he pointed out.
‘Yes,’ I said unhelpfully.
‘Well,’ said the Fon, undaunted, ‘we go drink gin.’
My heart sank, for I had hoped that we could now move on to something innocuous like beer to quell the effects of so much neat alcohol. The Fon roared at one of his wives and she ran off and soon reappeared with a bottle of gin and one of bitters. The Fon’s idea of gin-drinking was to pour out half a tumblerful and then colour it a deep brown with bitters. The result was guaranteed to slay an elephant at twenty paces. Jacquie, on seeing this cocktail the Fon concocted for me, hastily begged to be excused, saying that she couldn’t drink gin on doctor’s orders. The Fon, though obviously having the lowest possible opinion of a medical man who could even suggest such a thing, accepted with good grace.
The band started up again and everyone poured on to the floor and started to dance, singly and in couples. As the rhythm of the tune allowed it, Jacquie and I got up and did a swift foxtrot round the floor, the Fon roaring encouragement and his wives hooting with pleasure.
‘Foine, foine,’ shouted the Fon as we swept past.
‘Thank you, my friend,’ I shouted back, steering Jacquie carefully through what looked like a flower-bed of councillors in their multicoloured robes.
‘I do wish you wouldn’t tread on my feet,’ said Jacquie plaintively.
‘Sorry. My compass bearings are never at their best at this hour of night.’
‘So I notice,’ said Jacquie acidly.
‘Why don’t you dance with the Fon?’ I inquired.
‘I did think of it, but I wasn’t sure whether it was the right thing for a mere woman to ask him.’
‘I think he’d be tickled pink. Ask him for the next dance,’ I suggested.
‘What can we dance?’ asked Jacquie.
‘Teach him something he can add to his Latin American repertoire,’ I said, ‘How about a rumba?’
‘I think a samba would be easier to learn at this hour of night,’ said Jacquie. So, when the dance ended we made our way back to where the Fon was sitting, topping up my glass.
‘My friend,’ I said, ‘you remember dis European dance I done teach you when I done come for Bafut before?’
‘Yes, yes, na foine one,’ he replied, beaming.
‘Well, my wife like to dance with you and teach you other European dance. You agree?’
‘Wah!’ bellowed the Fon in delight, ‘foine, foine. Dis your wife go teach me. Foine, foine, I agree.’
Eventually we discovered a tune that the band could play that had a vague samba rhythm and Jacquie and the Fon rose to their feet, watched breathlessly by everyone in the room.
The contrast between the Fon’s six-foot-three and Jacquie’s five-foot-one made me choke over my drink as they took the floor. Very rapidly Jacquie showed him the simple, basic steps of the samba, and to my surprise the Fon mastered them without trouble. Then he seized Jacquie in his arms and they were off. The delightful thing from my point of view was that as he clasped Jacquie tightly to his bosom she was almost completely hidden by his flowing robes; indeed, at some points in the dance you could not see her at all and it looked as though the Fon, having mysteriously grown another pair of feet, was dancing round by himself. There was something else about the dance that struck me as curious, but I could not pin it down for some time. Then I suddenly realized that Jacquie was leading the Fon. They danced past, both grinning at me, obviously hugely enjoying themselves.