A Zoo in My Luggage Page 7

  After dinner we armed ourselves with a bottle of whisky and an abundant supply of cigarettes and, taking our pressure lamp, we set off for the Fon’s house. The air was warm and drowsy, full of the scents of wood smoke and sun-baked earth. Crickets tinkled and trilled in the grass verges of the road and in the gloomy fruit-trees around the Fon’s great courtyard we could hear the fruit bats honking and flapping their wings among the branches. In the courtyard a group of the Fon’s children were standing in a circle clapping their hands and chanting in some sort of game, and away through the trees in the distance a small drum throbbed like an irregular heart beat. We made our way through the maze of wives’ huts, each lit by the red glow of a cooking fire, each heavy with the smell of roasting yams, frying plantain, stewing meat or the sharp, pungent reek of dried salt fish. We came presently to the Fon’s villa and he was waiting on the steps to greet us, looming large in the gloom, his robe swishing as he shook our hands.

  ‘Welcome, welcome,’ he said, beaming, ‘come, we go for inside.’

  ‘I done bring some whisky for make our heart happy,’ I said, flourishing the bottle as we entered the house.

  ‘Wah! Good, good,’ said the Fon, chuckling. ‘Dis whisky na foine ting for make man happy.’

  He was wearing a wonderful scarlet and yellow robe that glowed like a tiger skin in the soft lamplight, and one slender wrist carried a thick, beautifully carved ivory bracelet. We sat down and waited in silence while the solemn ritual of the pouring of the first drink was observed. Then, when each of us was clutching half a tumblerful of neat whisky, the Fon turned to us, giving his wide, mischievous grin.

  ‘Chirri-ho!’ he said, raising his glass, ‘tonight we go have happy time.’ And so began what we were to refer to later as The Evening of the Hangover.

  As the level in the whisky bottle fell the Fon told us once again about his trip to Nigeria, how hot it had been and how much he had ‘shweated’. His praise for the Queen knew no bounds, for, as he pointed out, here was he in his own country feeling the heat and yet the Queen could do twice the amount of work and still manage to look cool and charming. I found his lavish and perfectly genuine praise rather extraordinary, for the Fon belonged to a society where women are considered to be nothing more than rather useful beasts of burden.

  ‘You like musica?’ inquired the Fon of Jacquie, when the subject of the Nigerian tour was exhausted.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jacquie, ‘I like it very much.’

  The Fon beamed at her.

  ‘You remember dis my musica?’ he asked me.

  ‘Yes, I remember. You get musica time no dere, my friend.’

  The Fon gave a prolonged crow of amusement.

  ‘You done write about dis my musica inside dis your book, eh?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘And,’ said the Fon, coming to the point, ‘you done write about dis dancing an’ dis happy time we done have, eh?’

  ‘Yes … all dis dance we done do na fine one.’

  ‘You like we go show dis your wife what kind of dance we get here for Bafut?’ he inquired, pointing a long forefinger at me.

  ‘Yes, I like too much.’

  ‘Foine, foine … come, we go for dancing house,’ he said, rising to his feet majestically, and stifling a belch with one slender hand. Two of his wives, who had been sitting quietly in the background, rushed forward and seized the tray of drinks and scuttled ahead of us, as the Fon led us out of his house and across the compound towards his dancing house.

  The dancing house was a great, square building, not unlike the average village hall, but with an earth floor and very few and very small windows. At one end of the building stood a line of wickerwork arm-chairs, which constituted a sort of Royal enclosure, and on the wall above these were framed photographs of various members of the Royal family. As we entered the dancing hall the assembled wives, about forty or fifty of them, uttered the usual greeting, a strange, shrill ululation, caused by yelling loudly and clapping their hands rapidly over their mouths at the same time. The noise was deafening. All the petty councillors there in their brilliant robes clapped their hands as well, and thus added to the general racket. Nearly deafened by this greeting, Jacquie and I were installed in two chairs, one on each side of the Fon, the table of drinks was placed in front of us, and the Fon, leaning back in his chair, surveyed us both with a wide and happy grin.

  ‘Now we go have happy time,’ he said, and leaning forward poured out half a tumblerful of Scotch each from the depths of a virgin bottle that had just been broached.

  ‘Chirri-ho,’ said the Fon.

  ‘Chin-chin,’ I said absent-mindedly.

  ‘Na whatee dat?’ inquired the Fon with interest.

  ‘What?’ I asked, puzzled.

  ‘Dis ting you say.’

  ‘Oh, you mean chin-chin?’

  ‘Yes, yes, dis one.’

  ‘It’s something you say when you drink.’

  ‘Na same same for Chirri-ho?’ asked the Fon, intrigued.

  ‘Yes, na same same.’

  He sat silent for a moment, his lips moving, obviously comparing the respective merits of the two toasts. Then he raised his glass again.

  ‘Shin-shin,’ said the Fon.

  ‘Chirri-ho!’ I responded, and the Fon lay back in his chair and went off into a paroxysm of mirth.

  By now the band had arrived. It was composed of four youths and two of the Fon’s wives and the instruments consisted of three drums, two flutes and a calabash filled with dried maize that gave off a pleasant rustling noise similar to a marimba. They got themselves organized in the corner of the dancing house, and then gave a few experimental rolls on the drums, watching the Fon expectantly. The Fon, having recovered from the joke, barked out an imperious order and two of his wives placed a small table in the centre of the dance floor and put a pressure lamp on it. The drums gave another expectant roll.

  ‘My friend,’ said the Fon, ‘you remember when you done come for Bafut before you done teach me European dance, eh?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I remember.’

  This referred to one of the Fon’s parties when, having partaken liberally of the Fon’s hospitality, I had proceeded to show him, his councillors and wives how to do the conga. It had been a riotous success, but in the eight years that had passed I had supposed that the Fon would have forgotten about it.

  ‘I go show you,’ said the Fon, his eyes gleaming. He barked out another order and about twenty of his wives shuffled out on to the dance floor and formed a circle round the table, each one holding firmly to the waist of the one in front. Then they assumed a strange, crouching position, rather like runners at the start of a race, and waited.

  ‘What are they going to do?’ whispered Jacquie.

  I watched them with an unholy glee. ‘I do believe,’ I said dreamily, ‘That he’s been making them dance the conga ever since I left, and we’re now going to have a demonstration.’

  The Fon lifted a large hand and the band launched itself with enthusiasm into a Bafut tune that had the unmistakable conga rhythm. The Fon’s wives, still in their strange crouching position, proceeded to circle round the lamp, kicking their black legs out on the sixth beat, their brows furrowed in concentration. The effect was delightful.

  ‘My friend,’ I said, touched by the demonstration, ‘dis na fine ting you do.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ agreed Jacquie enthusiastically, ‘they dance very fine.’

  ‘Dis na de dance you done teach me,’ explained the Fon.

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  He turned to Jacquie, chuckling. ‘Dis man your husband ’e get plenty power … we dance, we dance, we drink … Wah! We done have happy time.’

  The band came to an uneven halt, and the Fon’s wives, smiling shyly at our applause, rose from their crouching position and returned to their former places along the wall. The Fon barked an order and a large calabash of palm wine was brought in and distributed among the dancers, each getting their share poured
into their cupped hands. Stimulated by this sight the Fon filled all our glasses again.

  ‘Yes,’ he went on, reminiscently, ‘dis man your husband get plenty power for dance and drink.’

  ‘I no get power now,’ I said, ‘I be old man now.’

  ‘No, no, my friend,’ said the Fon laughing, ‘I be old, you be young.’

  ‘You look more young now den for the other time I done come to Bafut,’ I said, and really meant it.

  ‘That’s because you’ve got plenty wives,’ said Jacquie.

  ‘Wah! No!’ said the Fon, shocked. ‘Dis ma wives tire me too much.’

  He glared moodily at the array of females standing along the wall, and sipped his drink. ‘Dis ma wife dey humbug me too much,’ he went on.

  ‘My husband says I humbug him,’ said Jacquie.

  ‘Your husband catch lucky. ’E only get one wife, I get plenty,’ said the Fon, ‘an’ dey de humbug me time no dere.’

  ‘But wives are very useful,’ said Jacquie.

  The Fon regarded her sceptically.

  ‘If you don’t have wives you can’t have babies … men can’t have babies,’ said Jacquie practically.

  The Fon was so overcome with mirth at this remark I thought he might have a stroke. He lay back in his chair and laughed until he cried. Presently he sat up, wiping his eyes, still shaking with gusts of laughter. ‘Dis woman your wife get brain,’ he said, still chuckling, and poured Jacquie out an extra large Scotch to celebrate her intelligence. ‘You be good wife for me,’ he said, patting her on the head affectionately. ‘Shin-shin.’

  The band now returned, wiping their mouths from some mysterious errand outside the dancing house and, apparently well fortified, launched themselves into one of my favourite Bafut tunes, the Butterfly dance. This was a pleasant, lilting little tune and the Fon’s wives again took the floor and did the delightful dance that accompanied it. They danced in a row with minute but complicated hand and feet movements, and then the two that formed the head of the line joined hands, while the one at the farther end of the line whirled up and then fell backwards, to be caught and thrown upright again by the two with linked hands. As the dance progressed and the music got faster and faster the one representing the butterfly whirled more and more rapidly, and the ones with linked hands catapulted her upright again with more and more enthusiasm. Then, when the dance reached its feverish climax, the Fon rose majestically to his feet, amid screams of delight from the audience, and joined the end of the row of dancing wives. He started to whirl down the line, his scarlet and yellow robe turning into a blur of colour, loudly singing the words of the song.

  ‘I dance, I dance, and no one can stop me,’ he carolled merrily, ‘but I must take care not to fall to the ground like the butterfly.’

  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 hooti
ng 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.