“Well, finish sweeping and we’ll talk,” she said, walking off.
Mr. Aggrey was old, with a shiny bald patch and two hedgerows of hair on either side. He was kind despite the walking stick he brought crashing down on knuckles, elbows, knees and anything else with a joint bone. He circled them as they practiced, hawk eyes watching for a missed beat or a hesitation. He was bent a little, and when he hobbled in time to the music, he looked like a large, misshapen turtle.
In addition to the children, Mr. Aggrey also taught adults the waltz and the tango. These were mostly mid-level civil servants preparing for their promotions and the anticipated social evenings that came along with them. Elvis had heard rumors that those selected for promotions were often tested for their ability to handle such social events, so Mr. Aggrey insisted they dress formally for the lessons.
Elvis often stayed back to watch them, hidden by the tall congas standing in the shadows at the back of the open yard where all the lessons were held. They reminded him of the scenes from Chinese films where monks learned martial-art moves in the courtyards of mountain temples. He thought the adults looked funny in their illfitting clothes, which ran the gamut of formal dress from tuxedos and evening gowns through to traditional lace lappas and babanrigas.
Mr. Aggrey worked them hard, tapping out the tempo on the floor with his cane and counting the moves. “Left leg shimmy, right leg shimmy, den turn, left shimmy … No, no, no, Mr. Ibe — left leg. Left leg. Left leg! What are you, Mr. Ibe, an orangutan? Is dis how you will disgrace me at some high-society ball? And you, Mrs. Ebele, dis is not Salome’s Dance of de Seven Veils. If you keep grinding your waist like dat, your partner will have an embarrassment on de dance floor. Okay, from de beginning. Left leg shimmy …”
Elvis watched every day, mentally adding the moves to the ones he already knew. He shuffled along in the shadows, unseen, knowing he would get a beating for not returning home on time after the dance lesson, but not caring.
It was Friday, and as usual, Elvis hid to watch the adult dancers instead of practicing with the other children. Mr. Aggrey waited for the adult dancers to stow their bags before speaking. Elvis observed as several of the dancers noticed twenty rickety wooden crosses leaning on the west wall of the yard. They exclaimed in alarm, and soon a murmur filled the room. None of them wanted to be part of any Satanic rites. Some even backed toward the door, whispering prayers under their breath.
Mr. Aggrey calmed them, explaining that the crosses were there to help them dance. The cross beams would provide support and straighten their backs, providing the stiffer upper-body comportment required in formal dance. With a lot of trepidation, the dancers allowed themselves to be tied to the crosses.
As he watched entranced, Elvis knew what he needed to do to reproduce the Presley hip snap, which he loved dearly, but somehow he couldn’t re-create it, as his movements were more fluid than his hero’s. The first chance he got to practice alone behind the outhouse, he decided he would lash double splints down the side of both legs from the knee down, giving the stiffness needed to get the snap going.
While he finished off the children’s lesson out front, Mr. Aggrey put on some music and left the adults alone to get used to their crucifixion. When he returned, they seemed to be quite happy, whirling around merrily. His breath caught in his throat as he realized that it had worked. They were waltzing, and gracefully. Beautiful black dancers, stapled to wooden crosses that pulled them upright and stiff like marionettes; a forest of Pinocchios, waltzing mug trees, marching like Macbeth’s mythical forest.
AERVA LANATA JUSS.
(Igbo: Okbunzu Nonu)
A straggling, hairy herb found mainly in humid regions, it has elliptic leaves covered with slight hairs and white flowers that grow on the common stalk. The leaves, eaten in soup, are great for sore throats. They induce a heat, exacerbated every time one swallows, which is where the Igbo name comes from. It means literally “to smith in one’s mouth.” The heat caused by the swallowing is likened to that produced by the bellows of the smith.
It can also be used effectively to cast a spell on someone to speak the truth, in which case an unbearable burning is produced each time the person lies. Or it is used to seal one from speaking the truth by creating the same effect, only reversed.
NINE
Three lines on the King’s head mark the turning. These people, rarer than the two, bring new things, sing new songs.
The Igbo have a very abstract mathematical system. Recent anthropological data suggests that they knew about and used π before the Creeks; that they had in fact begun to explore ideas that we now call quantum mechanics. Though there are many treatises on this, it is hard to determine what was there and what has been brought to this thesis by modern scholarship.
Lagos, 1983
The club was packed, and Elvis and Redemption had a hard time squeezing their way into the room. The band members were lounging by the bar drinking, having already set up their instruments. Loud highlife blared through the house speakers, and most of the crowd shuffled to the fast-tempoed music.
Onstage, King Pago, the house dwarf, tiny next to the instruments and microphones, danced. He whirled like a dervish, his small feet barely touching the ground. He jumped up and spun some more. Stopped. Then started a calmer, more recognizable dance. The audience cheered at this display.
A female dwarf got up onstage and began to gyrate erotically with him, their groins sending up a heat that caused them both to perspire heavily. The crowd jeered, urging them on, and they ground together, trying to outdo each other. Suddenly the woman’s boyfriend, a huge six-foot-tall motorbus conductor, broke through the crowd and, to angry boos, carried his girlfriend off the stage, tucked safely under one arm, pelvis still gyrating.
Redemption laughed and walked over to the band and was greeted familiarly. He introduced Elvis and said that he was a great dancer and that maybe they could use him. The bandleader nodded and said they would speak during the intermission, as they had to be onstage in a minute or so.
Elvis stared about him. Everything seemed brighter, better, in here. It was his second time in a nightclub. The first time, he got drunk way too soon into the evening and missed much of it. Tonight would be different, he thought. Besides, Redemption was trying to get him a job as a dancer, and he wanted nothing to jeopardize that.
Elvis sank into a mock leather seat, stiffened and cracked by sweat and abuse, and looked out at the crowd. Onstage, King Pago was a small fireball of energy, a pure elemental, like a rabid gnome. He jumped, somersaulted, cartwheeled and danced across the unstable wooden elevation of the stage. Sweat flew off him in a fine spray, anointing the worshipful crowd.
“Redemption!” Elvis shouted over the music.
Redemption turned from the girl he was chatting up. “Yes?”
“Are you sure they will hire me to dance here? I mean, the only dancer onstage is that pygmy,” Elvis said.
“Dat is not a pygmy. King Pago is a dwarf. Don’t worry, you go dance. Now let me talk to dis girl, okay?”
Elvis nodded and went back to people watching. In a corner, a fat woman crammed into a red sequined dress several sizes too small drowned in the waves of music. Her head hung limply from her neck, arms reaching for air, waving weakly. Her body was a quivering mass swaying along to the music, shedding sequins like old skin that collected in a pool of light by her feet. Makeup ran in riotous color down her face, and her mouth was open in a surprised “ooh.” The floor in the corner was not concreted over, and her heels sank into the soft earth, rooting her to the tempo.