A skinny man stood in front of her, motionless apart from the lewd movements of his twisting pelvis, which he thrust bonily out at the woman. His eyes were closed too, arms raised in adulation, a bottle of beer firmly clasped in one hand. Intermittently, he let out moans, gentle “shshsh”s and “aaaahhh”s.
The record changed, the music slowing to a gentle calypso — Harry Belafonte belting out “Kingston Town.” King Pago slowed to a slow shuffle, and the crowd followed his lead and began to swanti.
“Elvis!”
He turned. Redemption stood on the dance floor with two women.
“You won’t dance?”
Elvis shook his head.
“Come and help me — come,” Redemption said.
Reluctantly Elvis got up. He did not want to be off dancing on the floor when the bandleader came looking for him, but he did not want to annoy Redemption. He joined the group and began to swanti. He learned the dance quickly and easily.
The swanti — or swan-tease, as he later found out — required the men to shuffle forward in a two-step hop, arms spread out to the side, palms open like ruffled wings, while the women, arms raised up, hands curved to sloping beaks, breasts pointing forward, moved back slowly by wiggling their backsides in time to a subtle two-step. When the men stopped, bobbing in place, the women moved forward, breasts teasingly brushing chests. When the men moved into them, they danced away, elongated arms dipping gracefizlly. To Elvis’s left, a couple argued. The man, not content to do the swanti, was trying to press the woman against the wall in a grind. But the woman was having none of it. The musicians began making their way back to the stage, and soon the sound of retuning instruments filled the club.
As the band began to play, the bandleader motioned to Redemption and whispered something to him. Nodding, Redemption returned to Elvis and led him to the back of the club.
“Okay, you done get your first customer,” Redemption said, pointing to an Indian woman in her late twenties.
“Customer?”
“Yes. De band, and dis club, attracts rich patrons, mostly Indians and Lebanese, and de band has to find good, well-mannered men and women to dance with dem all night. You will be paid well, don’t worry.”
“To just dance?”
“Well, dat is up to you,” Redemption said with a short laugh.
Stopping before the young woman with beautiful long raven hair and black eyes flecked with the slightest hint of honey, he introduced them.
“Elvis, dis is Rohini. Rohini, Elvis.”
Her twin-dimpled smile was pearl white and excited Elvis. To her left stood her silent, towering golem, a eunuch her father employed to chaperone his daughter. He bared teeth in a snarl at Elvis’s approach.
“Relax, Prakash,” Redemption said.
Rohini was Upanishad Tagore’s eldest daughter. Upanishad, a shrewd businessman, had inherited a couple of medium-sized provision shops from his father, Davinder Singh Tagore. Tagore senior had come to Nigeria in 1912 to help build the railways, and stayed on. With an uncanny head for business, Upanishad had turned those two shops into fifteen huge department stores scattered all over the country. They sold everything from dry cell batteries, Swiss Army Knives, groceries and toys to cars and tractors.
“Hello,” Elvis said. “Would you care to dance?”
Prakash laid his big hand on Elvis’s shoulder in warning. Redemption picked it off and turned to him.
“If you lay your hand on my friend again, I go take you outside and give you de beating of your life, you bastard.”
Prakash hesitated. Redemption had a mean reputation, and this club did attract a lot of local gangsters — disgruntled, angry men who would jump at the chance to work over a much-hated Indian. Prakash backed off.
“Hello, Elvis,” Rohini replied, her voice like treacle. “Yes, I would love to dance.”
With a smile, he led her off and, holding her lightly, swung her through a waltz as the band played “This Is a Man’s World,” though the singer sounded nothing like James Brown with his high-pitched falsetto.
“So how are you, Rohini?” Elvis asked.
“I’m fine, although life is pretty boring for me at the moment.”
“Oh? Why?”
“I am fighting with my father.”
“I know all about that,” he said with a short laugh.
She smiled. “Really?”
“Yes. Tell me about your father. I mean, why do you fight?”
“You are getting awfully personal for a person hired to dance,” she said.
“I am sorry. This is my first time. I meant no offense.”
She looked at him in the dim light. He seemed genuine enough, so she told him about herself.
Rohini had been educated at Oxford and graduated at twenty with a first in classical studies. Returning to Lagos, she had spurned every suitor her father had lined up for marriage. Running short of men, he pressed her to return to India to be married off. She refused, defying him in a gentle but firm assertion of her independence. She turned down the offered post as company finance manager, opting instead to take a job teaching comparative philosophy at the University of Ibadan. In deference to her mother’s tearful pleas, she lived at home, even though that meant a two-hour commute each way. She also allowed her father to hire Prakash to protect her from the unbridled and scurrilous advances of the native blacks.
“My father is very disapproving, and cares only for money. As he says, ‘Vot else I can du? A cock crows; me? I make money.”
They both laughed, and Prakash looked on disapprovingly. Remembering the money Redemption had slipped him earlier, Elvis said: “Can I buy you a drink?”
“I think you have got it wrong,” Rohini said, leading him back to her table. “It is I who buy the drinks. What can I get you?”
“Beer, please,” he said.
She nodded and whispered to Prakash, who grabbed a passing waiter.
“Are you all right, Elvis?” she asked. “You look a little uncomfortable.”
“I’m fine.” Beaming, he turned to Prakash, taking in his sour countenance. “Don’t you ever smile?”
“Smiling is for prostitutes and fools,” Prakash said.
“Captain on deck!” Redemption shouted, getting up and snapping to mock attention as Elvis walked into the buka.
“Oh, shut up, you,” Elvis said, suddenly self-conscious.
“According to my watch”—Redemption began consulting it with a flourish—“it is now four a.m. Reliable sources — dat is, me — tell me dat de club closed at two a.m. So, Mr. Presley, where did you take Ms. Rohini, you hound dog? Beach motel? No, dat is too cheap, too visible. Eko Palace Hotel?”
“We went for a walk on Bar Beach.”
“Bar Beach? Walk?” Redemption sounded confused. Then his expression relaxed into a smile. “You dirty dog. De old beach fuck.”
“No, we just walked by the sea.”
Redemption shrugged. “Her choice, you know. But tell me how much you made.”
“One hundred and fifty naira,” Elvis said, counting it and handing Redemption a twenty.
“Ah, no now, Elvis. Not twenty — forty.”
With a sigh, Elvis handed over another twenty.
“Now, buy me breakfast and tell me all about it,” Redemption said, stuffing the notes into his back pocket and sitting down. Tired speakers leaning in the corner belted out Donna Summer’s “Spring Affair.”
“There is nothing to tell. She is a very nice girl, and we talked.”
“About?”