Easy Motion Tourist (13 page)

Someone knocked. I knew it was Amaka but I checked all the same. She had been gone for about an hour and I was beginning to think that she had left me at the hotel. She walked in before I could make way for her, her shoulder brushing against my arm.

‘I’ll take a quick shower,’ she said. ‘Promise not to fall asleep before I’m done.’

‘Promise.’

She returned dressed and smelling of soap.

‘How much do I owe you for the room?’ I said.

‘It’s on the house,’ she said, sitting on the chair.

‘No, really, I’ve got to pay you for it.’

‘Pay me by writing the story. What are you doing in Nigeria, anyway?’

And with that we started talking. Conversation flowed easily, meandering without pause into unrelated things. Soon I was telling her about the sports injury that ended my rugby playing and she was telling me where to get good coffee beans in Lagos.

‘Are you married?’ she asked.

I can’t remember what led to that, or if anything did: by now we were talking like old friends. I showed her the bare fingers of my left hand.

‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ she said. ‘I don’t know one
married man in Lagos who wears his wedding ring.’

‘I’m not married.’

‘Girlfriend?’

‘No. What about you, are you married?’

She showed me her left hand.

‘Touché. No boyfriend?’

‘Several.’

‘Several?’

‘Yes, I can’t seem to decide what I want, so I keep many just in case one of them is the one.’

‘Me too. I’ve got loads of girlfriends back home.’

‘OK, I was joking. But you, let’s examine that.’

I wanted to tell her about Mel and about my connection to Nigeria. If I’d had a picture of her on my phone, maybe I’d have shown her, but like Jen she might have concluded that I wasn’t over her. ‘How old are you?’ she asked.

‘Thirty-six. Why?’ I knew better than to ask her age. I guessed she was also in her thirties.

‘Thirty-six, handsome, single. Why are you single? What’s wrong with you?’

‘Work,’ I lied. Mel wanted out. She returned my CDs a week after our ‘break.’ She also went on a date with someone. She mentioned it casually when I called to ask if I could drop by. She didn’t have to tell me she was going on a date, and I didn’t ask her who with.

‘There was someone, but we broke up recently.’

‘Who broke it up?’

‘She did. She said she wanted a break.’

‘Is she a lawyer too?’

‘No. She studied history but she’s a financial analyst. Why?’

‘We lawyers tend to end up with lawyers. You should know that. Do you want her back?’

‘No, it’s over.’

‘Shame.’

‘What?’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Mel. Melissa.’

‘It’s a lovely name. OK, time to sleep. We have a lot to do in the morning.

Can I borrow a pair of boxers?’

‘Oh. Yeah.’

I went to get a pair from my bag. When we started dating, Mel used to sleep over in my t-shirt and boxer shorts.

‘Clean ones,’ Amaka said.

I looked at her and we both smiled at the joke. I fetched a pair of boxers from my bag and turned to hand them to her. She was unbuttoning her blouse. I looked away, but not before I saw her lacy red bra.

‘I hope you don’t mind that I’m staying?’ she said.

‘No, it’s cool.’

She stepped into the boxers and drew them up under her skirt, which she then pulled down, and she climbed under the duvet. I considered the floor: it was going to be uncomfortable even if I got them to bring up extra covers.

‘And I hope you don’t mind that I’m sharing your bed?’

‘It’s cool.’

I got in on the other side.

‘Sweet dreams,’ she said.

I switched off the lights and stared into darkness. What did she mean when she said ‘Shame’?

The din of a ringing phone woke me up. I shifted and realised that I was still fully clothed. I checked the time: the luminous dials on my wristwatch showed just past noon. A second later I remembered where I was and everything that had happened: Ronnie’s, the police station, and that Amaka was in bed next to me. I checked to make sure. She was fast asleep and facing me, her lips slightly parted.

That I slept at all surprised me. I had gone over everything we’d said, enjoying the conversation all over again. And I’d spent God knows how long wondering if she was turned on too, under the same duvet as me, barely an arm’s length separating us.

She stirred and I closed my eyes till I heard her going for her phone. It had stopped ringing. I looked and in the glow of the screen I saw that she was puzzled.

I was dying for a smoke so I faked a yawn that became real, stretched, and got out of the bed.

Her eyes darted towards me. I didn’t know how long she’d been aware that I was awake watching her.

‘Where are you going?’ she said.

‘Hey. Good morning. I’m going to have a smoke outside.’

I hoped she would tell me it was OK to smoke in the room, but she nodded and answered the phone that had started to ring in her hand. I stepped into the corridor, shut the door and realised that I hadn’t taken the key card. She would have to open the door for me when I returned. I would see her in her bra again.

I planned to go to the poolside and get coffee to go with my cigarettes but I remembered a newspaper stand down by the car park, at a stretch of huts where foreigners haggled over souvenirs and got thoroughly screwed. If CNN had reported the events
of the night before, the local media would have caught on to the story as well.

The sun felt good on the back of my neck. The air-conditioned room had felt like winter. At the huts, a man in a long white robe behind a table of stacked newspapers handed one to me. I was standing shoulder to shoulder with Nigerian men who were also flipping through papers they had not yet paid for or were just renting. I was standing with them as if I were one of them and I had done this morning ritual with them many times before.

In time I was done with the paper. It was the Vanguard and there was nothing about Ronnie’s Bar in it. I went through it again just to be sure. I scanned the papers on display, then paid for a copy of This Day, which I only bought because it felt wrong not to buy something.

I flipped through the pages until a headline screamed at me: ‘Mutilated Body Dumped in Victoria Island, Foreigner Arrested.’ I read the article quickly, searching for my name. Surely, I was the foreigner. I knew the story but there were a few additions, some background, some embellishments, and a few inaccuracies. ‘The police commissioner was unavailable for comment. Early reports indicate that the police were quick to arrive on the scene where they arrested several suspects including a journalist with the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, who witnessed the crime.’ At that, the entire world seemed to suddenly run towards me from all directions. I was a suspect? I had witnessed the crime?

I almost dropped the paper. I saw Inspector Ibrahim’s face morphing into a dangerous frown as he read the same paper. I saw Sergeant Hot-Temper cocking his AK-47 and laughing as he emptied the gun’s magazine into my belly. It was no longer such a good idea to be out in the open, outside the room, away
from Amaka. I started walking back to the hotel, quickly, taking my death warrant to show her. She would understand why I had to get on a flight back home to London as soon as possible.

I had walked a few steps into the lobby before I recognised the blue and black uniform, but I was already committed to the next step – what felt like the loudest footfall in the world. Inspector Ibrahim was at the front desk with his back to me, his elbow resting on the marble top, talking with my friend Magnanimous the concierge. I froze.

Magnanimous looked at me. I stood fused to the ground. His eyes shifted and he said something to the inspector. They both focused on an open book on the front desk. I willed myself to move but my feet weren’t listening.

I took two steps backwards before turning. It took all the willpower in me not to break into a full run. With each step, I expected to hear my name called or to feel the no-nonsense hands of a police officer grabbing me by the collar. My heart felt like it would explode through my sweat-soaked shirt. I went back to the huts. I wanted to keep walking but my white face stood out. I needed to hide. I sat on the ground, on a patch of grass, and watched the hotel from behind a hedge of hibiscus flowers. Inspector Ibrahim stepped out of the lobby area and pulled a pair of sunglasses on to his face. He looked my way. I bent lower. He spoke into his radio.

‘Oga, any problem?’

I looked up and saw a dozen men looking down at me. It was the vendor who had spoken. He was standing in front of the group of bewildered people, bemused by the mad foreigner on the ground.

‘I’m OK,’ I said, but he didn’t look convinced. I opened up the paper and pretended to read.

‘Oga, you need help to enter the hotel?’ Maybe he thought I was drunk.

‘No, no.’

I peeked over the top of the newspaper. A blue, battered looking police car pulled up to the entrance. An officer got out and the inspector handed him the radio.

‘Oga…’

‘I’m fine. I just need to rest my legs for a while.’

He shrugged and said something in his language that made the other men laugh. Crazy white man, I guessed.

The inspector got into the back of the car. The officer waiting on him closed the door then got back into his own seat. No sooner had the aide shut the door than the car began to move with some speed. I ducked. The car revved past my hiding place. I waited till it merged with the Lagos traffic that had built up outside the hotel, then I ran.

Amaka looked at the caller display suspiciously. The number was withheld. The only people who had that number were the girls who relied on her for the information she gave them and they knew better than to withhold their number when calling her. She answered anyway.

‘Hello?’ she said, ready to chastise the person on the other end.

‘Hello ma.’

‘Who is this?’ She usually received calls on the number between nine p.m. and one a.m. when men went out looking for girls to pick up.

‘It is Rosemary, ma.’

‘Why is your number blocked?’

‘I’m sorry, ma.’

‘What can I do for you?’ Her tone was bland. She did a mental search. She wasn’t sure which Rosemary it was, but if the caller had the number she must need her.

‘Please ma, I have a man’s number that I want you to check for me.’ The girl sounded nervous.

Amaka tried to place the voice. ‘The man wants to pick you at this time?’

‘No ma. I’m looking for my friend, ma. Yesterday night she followed a man. I took the car number like you told us to do. She had not returned by the time I went home. When I woke this morning and she still hadn’t returned I decided to call you.’

She got up from the bed. All night she had struggled to suppress involuntary thoughts of who the murdered girl could be. She had sent text messages to all the girls whose numbers were on her phone, asking them to text her back with their locations. Some of the girls had still not replied. The girl who called to alert her had since switched off her phone – she’d probably gone into hiding.

‘Have you tried calling her phone?’ Amaka said.

‘Yes ma. It is saying the caller is not available.’

‘What is her name?’

‘Janet, ma.’

‘Her real name.’

The girl paused. ‘Ekaite, ma. Ekaite Okoro.’

‘Why didn’t she contact me before following the man?’

‘She is a new girl, ma. She just came from the village.’

‘So, why didn’t you tell her what to do?’

Hers was a frustrating job; it demanded superhuman patience. How was she to look after these girls if they didn’t look after themselves? Each day, with each call she took, each girl she
tried to keep safe, she felt a bit of herself slipping into their world and into the dark cracks in which they lived, where sex and perversion mixed freely with violence and death. Each day, a bit of her was erased to make space for the fear and concern she carried for each and every one of them.

‘What is the licence plate number?’

She was already booting up the notebook computer that she carried in her handbag all the time. There was no way to know for sure that the information she provided was keeping the girls safe, but the fact that she had not lost one girl must mean something. Her constant fear was the day a girl would turn up dead because she didn’t warn her not to go with someone. For the past few hours, she had been constantly tortured with the possibility that this day had finally come. Some days she wished she could just make all of them stop working altogether, but it was a fleeting fantasy that she never allowed herself to dwell upon. What would they do? Starve? Become house girls and be raped by their bosses? Beg on the streets and be raped by the Area boys? She knew these girls, these women. She understood their world. For them, prostitution was not a choice; it was a lack of choice.