—
From the outside, the nightclub looks uninviting. The building is composed of a ground floor constructed along utilitarian lines that can accommodate any use: workshop, fitness center, or a place of worship. Inside, however, a lick of paint and a raised ceiling have transformed it. At one end of the floor, there is a bandstand where a group of women is playing. At the other is a long bar with stools and tables and chairs, for which there is an extra charge. Tonight all the tables are taken, and the dance floor is full.
As soon as Padmini spots Ulrika sitting in her own special corner, a little away from the other tables and farthest from the music, she recognizes her as the big-boned but well-honed woman she remembers. She also remembers her suddenly as the woman who made a pass at her the other night and had the gall to call her the “brown beauty.” But she lets Valerie lead her by the hand through the melee of drinkers and dancers and busy waitresses. When they get to Ulrika’s table, she welcomes them with a hug and kiss, and then introduces them to two African women who are sitting with her. What a promiscuous woman you are, Ulrika, thinks Padmini.
Ulrika explains that the owner of the club is a Kenyan, a former lover of hers, and Ulrika was one of the first investors in the venture, which has been a roaring success. The special table is her perch. She turns to Valerie. “Dammit, I forgot to bring the two books I promised you.”
Valerie looks as if she can’t for the life of her remember anything about any books, but she says, “No worries. Maybe next time.” But Padmini says, “What books?”
“Jeanette Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? and Jackie Kay’s most recent novel, which is set in part in Nigeria, where her birth father hails from.” Ulrika flags down a waitress and asks what they want to drink. “You are my guests,” she says, with the same Teutonic certitude Padmini heard on the phone. “The first round is on me.”
“What is a giant German woman doing in Kenya?” Valerie asks. “I am curious.”
Ulrika tells them that she makes her living as a masseuse. Well over six feet tall, with a laugh to match, she also has a larger-than-life generosity of spirit that leaves her open to new ideas and new ways of having fun. Her business is booming too. It’s adjacent to her home, in several thatched huts, each with its own Jacuzzi. There’s also a swimming pool of Olympic proportions, a bar, and a small gym. At the extreme end of these structures is the well-appointed apartment where she lives, often alone.
“How do you mean, often alone?” Valerie asks.
“Sometimes I have guests, family, friends. And at other times, I entertain my lovers.”
She is close to her parents, she says; they helped her to establish her business.
“How often do they visit?”
“Twice a year,” Ulrika answers. “They spend the whole European winter here.”
“And who helps you run it?”
Ulrika tells them she employs two young men, one from Cape Town and the other from Sydney, along with several African women, for the running of the business, plus a couple more that she has trained as masseuses. She adds, “I grew up in South Africa, where my father was West Germany’s consul.” She explains that her father always insisted on sending her to the same schools as the locals and not, say, to the German school in Cape Town, so Ulrika has always felt more comfortable in the company of Africans.
“And whom do you cater to?” asks Valerie.
Padmini can see that the idea of Ulrika’s working on her body turns Valerie on, and, sure enough, Valerie says, “Can I book a session?”
The band launches into a cover of a popular song by a Congolese group, and the two Africans sitting next to Ulrika invite Padmini to dance with them. By the time they return to the table, Ulrika and Valerie are deep in conversation.
“I’ve always dreaded what would become of my body,” Ulrika is saying, and Padmini guesses they are talking about pregnancy. Ulrika tells one story after another, and Padmini has just about fallen asleep when she hears Valerie ask, “An indiscreet question, if I may?”
“Go ahead and ask,” Ulrika tells her.
“Do African women do it too — woman to woman?”
“Of course,” Ulrika answers.
“Who did you have your first experience with?”
“An African girl who was several years older than I–I was nine, she fifteen, and from that day on, I’ve never looked at a boy. In Africa, because no one suspects women to be interested sexually in other women, people leave you alone. The idea of two women doing it is basically alien to African men. But they abhor the idea of men doing it with other men. You can see their disgust in their expressions. And yet I know many African gay men.”
“Maybe it is like the Muslims and drinking.”
“How do you mean?”
Valerie says, “When they come to functions at European embassies where the drinks are flowing, they ask to have their wine and other haram drinks put in coffee mugs so no one can see what they are drinking.”
“But since Allah sees all, why bother?”
“It is for show.”
“You mean saying that we have no gays is for show?”
“That’s what I think.”
“Maybe you are right.”
“Maybe I am.”
Now it is time for Ulrika and Valerie to go to the dance floor. At first Ulrika pulls Valerie close, her hands wandering all over Valerie’s body. But Valerie disengages, and they dance a meter apart. For once, she is doing her best not to upset Padmini.
16
Something goes wrong with the alarm, which insofar as anyone can tell has gone off for no reason, since no one set it when they turned in for the night. Bella is the first to emerge from her room. Then Salif comes out into the hallway too. “What the hell?” he says. They stand there, Salif in his pajamas, Bella in her robe thrown over a gown she suddenly realizes is missing the top button, listening to the alarm without talking and without the slightest sign of panic. Then, just as mysteriously as it started, it goes off.
Bella says, “What was all that about?”
Salif waits a beat, as if to be sure the alarm is really off, and then he gives a “Search me” shrug of his shoulders.
“Well, what do we do now?” says Bella.
“You want me to go downstairs and check?” Salif looks furtively around and cranes his neck over the top of the banister. “See if there is someone else in the house apart from us?”
Bella says, “Of course there is someone else besides us in this house. There is Dahaba.”
“Nothing wakes her,” says Salif. He picks up the phone and calls out to the cubicle to the right of the gate outside, where the watchmen jabber away in the daytime and sleep at night even though they are supposed to be awake and on guard. When no one answers, Salif says, “I always wonder if there is any point in hiring night guards. They never answer the phone because they are too busy snoring.”
However, as if to prove him wrong, down the stairway they see the moving shadow of a man in uniform outside the front door, and before either of them speaks, they see him waving up to them and then hear his loud banging on the door. Salif goes halfway down the staircase to ascertain that it is one of the night guards, even though he has no intention of opening the door and letting him in. He knows the man by face and name, and they wave to each other. Relieved, Salif rejoins Bella, who tells him, “Go now, check your sister’s room, please, and see if she is asleep, despite so much seismic racket.”
He pushes open the door and vanishes for a few seconds, then reemerges to say, “Why don’t you believe me, Auntie? She is asleep, her head under her pillow.”