ItseemedthatIhadwalkedintothewrongbar,hadsteppedintoanotherreality onthe edge of the forest. On the floor there were eaten bits of chicken and squashed jollof rice on paper plates. The walls were full of almanacs with severe faces, bearded faces, mildly squinted eyes, pictures which suggested terrible ritual societies and secret cabals. There were odd-looking calendars with goats in transformations into human beings, fishes with heads of birds, birds with the bodies of women. Sometimes the dancing got so frenzied that a couple, crushed against the walls, would bring down some of the calendars, and would themselves sink to the ground.

Everyone danced in a curious heat. A woman grabbed my hands. I noticed a female midget near the counter, staring at me. A man danced on my toes. I looked up and the midget was gone. It was very hot. I poured sweat. The woman made me dance with her. She drew me to her and my face pressed against her groin and an intoxicating smell staggered me like a new kind of dangerous wine. The woman held my face to her and danced slowly to the music while I suffocated in an old fever that sent a radiant fire bounding through my blood. The woman laughed and pushed me away and drew me to her again with a curious passion and I felt myself lifting from the ground,feet stillontheground,headswirling,aspasmseizingme,andstilllifting,till I was almost flying, someone squirted palm-wine on my face, and I collapsed amongst the dancing feet in an excruciating pleasure. The woman made me get up. The world swayed; my eyes became a little drowsy; the woman turned me round, and laughed again, and danced with me, shaking her hips. The palm-wine ran down my face, down my neck, joined with the stickiness of my sweat, and mingled with the pleasurable weakness in my legs. The music and the flies buzzed around my face. Then a thick-set man, who had come between me and the woman, took one look down at me, and very loudly, so that no one could possibly miss it, said:

‘Watch your women-o! There’s a small boy here who wants to fuck!’ The women burst out laughing. Their large hungry eyes sought me out. I fled into the crowd and hid my embarrassment behind the counter.

That was when I located the source of the music. On the counter was an evil-looking instrument with a metal funnel that would have delighted the imagination of wizards. There was a disc which kept turning, a handle cranked round by a spirit, a long piece of metal with a needle on the whirling disc, and music coming out of the funnel without anyone singing into it. It seemed a perfect instrument for the celebration of the dead, for the dances of light spirits and fine witches. I fled for a second time, fled from the inhuman thing, and fell backwards, tripping. A woman in a red gown caught me.

The twang of an unnatural instrument raged through my head. Someone gave me a cup of palm-wine. I gulped it down. They filled my cup and I drank it all again. The woman who had caught me had a face crinkled in rolls of fat. Foams of sweat clung to her hairline. The music was full of hunger, yearnings, and the woman danced as if she were praying to a new god of the good life. Her eyes were dark with shadows, her lips red as blood, and she had white coral beads round her neck. Her face was crowded with laughter. She twirled me in an odd dance. Another man caught me, and twirled me on. I became dizzy. Flies did somersaults in my eyes. I became lost in the curious jungle of the crowd, lost in the midst of giants.

The bar seemed to keep expanding. The density of bodies got worse. I was a little comforted when I saw the woman in the red gown again. She was dancing with a fat man who seemed to have power. He thrust himself towards her, crushingher groin in the sensual yearning heat of the music. Then I saw through her changed appearance. When I stopped being deceived by her hair which was different, as though a god had refashioned it in her sleep – and when I saw through all the make-up, and managed to brush past the distractions of her strong perfume, I was amazed to find that I was staring at Madame Koto. She was amused at my astonishment. She gave me a blue plastic cup of palm-wine. A dead fly floated on its froth. I blew the fly away, and drank. The bar gyrated.

‘Madame Koto!’ I cried.

She burst out laughing. The man she was dancing with swept her away into the music of celebration, into the tight-jammed bodies.

Then the bar took on a sinister light. I saw its other sides, felt its secret moods. The men and women seemed like better versions of the spirits who used to come here, and who had tried to steal me away. They had a greater mastery of the secrets of human disguise. I heard their metallic voices and the laughter of their perfumes, and underneath all the dancing and the energy was the invasion of a rancid smell. The wind blew in and the smell got worse as if it were blowing from a marsh where animals had died.

Then I noticed the women. They had convincing veined hands, their complexions were different on different parts of their bodies, their eyes were hungry, and most of themwerelean.They seemedtobeenjoyingthemselves,buttheirmouths,curledasif in constant repugnance, spoke to me of an infernal unhappiness which I couldn’t understand. And, like some of the men, when they laughed their tongues were freckled, or like parchment. Some of their skins glistened as if with scales. I tried to escape from the bar, but couldn’t find a way out of the crowding. I drank more wine. Bodies, banging against one another, grew more heated. I could see a man’s hand under a table searching between a woman’s legs.

Someone hit me on the head as I was staring at the hand. I turned and saw the midget woman. Shewas short, with thick thighs,aheavy body,bigbreasts,andthebeautiful and sad face of a twelve-year-old whose mother has just died. She held my hand and led me deeper into the bar, behind the counter, where the instrument sang. She made me sit down with her on a mat of chicken feathers. The midget woman had an unbelievably young face, all made up, and her eyes were the shape of lovely almonds. Then, holding my arm, she spoke to me in a wonderful voice. She made a passionate speech to me saying that she would take me with her and that she would love me for ever. Her eyes became sad. She said that she was certain that I no longer remembered her. My eyeballs began to burn. The music stopped. She was silent, and she lowered her face till the music started again. Then she began pulling my arm, pestering me with words I couldn’t understand. I tried to get up, but she held me down. I tried to break into a sudden run, but she grabbed the back of my shorts with muscular arms and pulled me back and dragged me close to her. A heady smell, like charmed perfume and a secret sweating, came from her and dulled my brain. And then, with her face close to mine, her lips full like a woman’s, her face small like a girl’s, she drew even closer to meandwhisperedsomethingwhichIdidn’thear.Sheawaitedmy reply. I stared at her with incomprehension. Then she repeated what she had said.

‘Will you marry me?’

I blinked.

‘No,’ I replied.

She smiled. Her lips widened, as if they were made of elastic material. Then she threw her head back and startled me with the sudden force of her ironic laughter. Her tongue too was freckled. Instead of teeth she had coral beads. I screamed. She began to weep. I bolted, crashing against the counter, producing an ugly sound from the instrument. I scurried around, saw the door, dashed for it, banged into the red form of Madame Koto, and just about made it outside.

Under the open sky, I stopped to catch my breath. My heart beat fast. My legswere quivering. I was still breathing heavily when I caught a glimpse of Madame Koto coming after me. I ran on; she pursued me in her red gown. She was barefoot and she ran so hard that her hair fell off. Underneath I saw her real hair, patchy in places, and dishevelled. It scared me. She made a determined effort and caught me just before I got to the street. She dragged me back to the bar, laughing and berating me affectionately.