“Hi,” someone said.
He stood on the bank. His trouser legs were rolled up to his ankles and he wore bookish black rim glasses.
“Hello,” I said.
“Why aren’t you dancing?” he asked.
He was too short for me, and his voice wavered, as if he were on the verge of crying.
“I don’t want to.”
“So why come to a party if you don’t want to dance?”
I resisted the urge to frown. That was the standard retort girls expected from boys and he hadn’t given me the chance to turn him down.
He smiled. “Your friend Sheri seems to be enjoying herself. She’s hanging around some wild characters over there.”
That wasn’t his business, I wanted to say.
He pushed his glasses back. “At least tell me your name.”
“Enitan.”
“I have a cousin called Enitan.”
He would have to leave soon. He hadn’t told me his own name.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked.
“No, thanks.”
“Please,” he said, placing his hands together.
I swished my feet around the water. I could and then go home.
“All right,” I said.
I remembered that I sat on my sandals. Reaching underneath to pull them out, I noticed a red stain on my dungarees.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to dance.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t.”
“But you said... ”
“Not anymore.”
He stood there. “That’s the problem with you. All of you. You’re not happy until someone treats you badly, then you complain.”
He walked away with a lopsided gait and I knew he’d had polio. I considered calling after him. Then I wondered why I had needed to be asked to dance in the first place. I checked the stain on my dungarees instead.
It was blood. I was dead. From then on I watched people arrive and leave. More were dancing and their movements had become lively. Some stopped by the bank to look at me. I tried to reason that they would eventually leave. The day could not last forever. For a while a strange combination of rain and sunset occurred, and it seemed as if I was viewing the world through a yellow-stained glass. I imagined celestial beings descending and frightened myself into thinking that was about to happen today. My feet became wrinkled and swollen. I checked my watch; it was almost six o’clock. The music was still playing, and the picnic table had been cleared. Only Sheri, Damola, and his two friends remained. They stood by a Peugeot, saying goodbye to a group who were about to leave. I was planning exactly what to say to Sheri, constructing the exact words and facial expression to use, when she approached me.
“Why are you sitting here on your own?” she asked.
“Go back to your friends,” I said.
She mimicked my expression and I noticed her eyes were red. She was barefooted and about to scramble up a tree, or fall face down on the bank; I wasn’t sure which.
“Are you drunk?” I asked.
“What if I am?”
The air smelled sweet. I looked beyond her. The Peugeot had gone. Damola and his friends were huddled in a semi- circle by the Kombi van. Damola was in the middle, smoking what looked like an enormous cigarette. I’d never seen one before, never smelled the fumes, but I knew: it reddened your eyes, made you crazy. People who smoked it, their lives would amount to nothing.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
Sheri lifted her arms and her top plummeted.
“We have to go,” I said.
She danced away and waved over her shoulder. When she reached the boys, she snatched the hemp from Damola. She coughed as she inhaled. The boys laughed. I stamped my feet in the water. I would give them ten minutes. If they hadn’t gone, I would risk the disgrace and walk away. I heard Sheri cry out, but didn’t bother to look.
I got up when I no longer heard voices, walked toward the van. From the angle I approached it, I could see nothing behind the windscreen. As I came closer, I spotted the head of the boy with a cap bent over by the window. I edged toward the side door. Sheri was lying on the seat. Her knees were spread apart. The boy in the cap was pinning her arms down. The portly boy was on top of her. His hands were clamped over her mouth. Damola was leaning against the door, in a daze. It was a silent moment; a peaceful moment. A funny moment, too. I didn’t know why, except my mouth stretched into the semblance of a laugh before my hands came up, then tears filled my eyes.
The boy in the cap saw me first. He let go of Sheri’s arms and she pushed the portly boy. He fell backward out of the van. Sheri screamed. I covered my ears. She ran toward me, clutching her top to her chest. There was lipstick across her mouth, black patches around her eyes. The portly boy fumbled with his trousers.
Sheri slammed into me. I shook her shoulders.
“Sheri!”
She buried her face in my dungarees. Spit dribbled out of her mouth. She beat the sand with her fists. Her arms were covered in sand and so were mine. I tried to hold her still, but she pushed me away and threw her head back as the van started.
“N-nm,” she moaned.
I dressed her, saw the red bruises and scratches on her skin, her wrists, around her mouth, on her hips. She stunk of cigarettes, alcohol, sweat. There was blood on her pubic hairs, thick spit running down her legs. Semen. I used sand grains to clean her, pulled her panties up. We began to walk home. The palm trees shrunk to bamboo shoots, the headlights of oncoming cars were like fire-flies. Everything seemed that small. I wondered if the ground was firm enough to support us, or if our journey would last and never end.
She looked tiny. Tiny. There were red dots at the top of her back, pale lines along her lower back where fingers had tugged her skin. She hugged herself as I ran warm water into a bucket. I helped her into my bathtub. I began to wash her back, then I poured a bowl of water over her. She winced.
“Too hot?” I asked.
“Cold,” she said.
The water felt warm. I added hot water. The hot water trickled out reluctantly.
“My hair,” she said.
I washed it with bathing soap. Her hair was tangled, but it turned curly and settled on her cheeks. I washed her arms, then her legs.
The water dribbling down the drain, I wanted it to be clear. Once it was clear, we would have survived. Instead it remained pink and grainy, with hair strands and soap suds. The sand grains settled and the scum stayed.
“You have to wash the rest,” I said.
She shook her head. “No.”
“You have to,” I said.
She turned her face away. I could tell her chin was crumbling.
“Please,” I said. “Just try.”