"She's gorgeous, isn't she?" Raymond said. "That's why I had to come back."

Hand agreed. "She is nice. But I'm really starting to have a thing for Senegalese women."

"You too?" said Raymond. "I know. They are superb." Raymond raised his finger, about to make a point. "But," he said, closing his eyes slowly and raising his chin, "they are all whores."

"What do you mean?" Hand asked.

"You will see," he said.

Hand and I stared at Raymond and blinked slowly. We were stuck with this man for a while, even though it was becoming obvious that he was not of our stripe. Friendships, even temporary ones like this, were based on proximity and chance, and so rarely made any sense at all. We knew, though, that we'd part with Raymond tonight and never likely see him again, so it made it bearable.

The music piped in was a short, ever-repeating loop of Dire Straits, Pink Floyd, Eagles and White Album Beatles. We had fettuccine and Senegalese beer. We learned that Raymond worked in cellphones. Something involving GPS and cellphones and how, soon enough, everyone would know – for their own safety, he insisted, with a fist softly pounding the table, in a way he'd likely done a hundred times before – where everyone else in the world was, by tracking their cellphone. But again: for good not evil. For the children. For the children. For grandparents and wives.

It was the end of an epoch, and I didn't want to be around to see it happen; we'd traded anonymity for access. I shuddered. Hand, of course, had goosebumps.

After dinner Hand asked the cabbie, who'd been waiting without radio or newspaper, to take us to see live music. "You know," said Hand, "like Youssour N'Dour." We'd read in the hotel lobby guidebook that Youssour N'Dour lived in Dakar and owned a club. The cabbie seemed to understand, began driving, and a few minutes later pulled up in front of an outdoor café.

"Here is the location of the music that is live?" asked Hand.

Raymond looked at Hand. Hand needed reining in.

"Yes, yes," said the driver, waving us out of the car. "You like, you like." We got out.

It looked fine, a French café sort of place, outdoor seating, inside warmly lit. But there was no music at all; just wrought-iron tables and a floor of white tile, a black slate bar with a bowl of Manet oranges. We walked in anyway. We'd get a drink and leave.

All eyes jumped to us. There were groups of men and groups of women. The men were tourists and the women were local. I went to the bathroom. In the cool small space, walls like a cave's wet, and brown, I washed my hands with a small piece of round scallop-shaped soap that smelled of home.

I found Raymond and Hand at a table outside, with two women, lighter than most Senegalese, both with long braided hair. Raymond stood and gave me his chair and grabbed another for himself. The girls surveyed me briefly and looked away. I wanted to tear my face off.

There were drinks for everyone. I was introduced to the two, whose names I pretended to understand and whose limp hands I held momentarily and dropped. They looked about twenty, twenty-two. They were sisters and I felt again, as so many times with Hand and Jack, like deadweight, alone.

"They're from Sierra Leone," said Raymond.

"Refugees," added Hand.

They were just short of glorious, with large dark eyes and crooked, oversized teeth. Raymond and Hand were trying to speak French with them.

"We speak little French," the older one said. "Speak English. In Sierra Leone we speak English."

"So you are liking it here in the Dakar?" Hand asked.

Raymond looked at him like he was nuts.

"What?" said the younger. The younger was taller.

"Dakar. Do you like it," Raymond said, annoyed.

"Yes. It's good."

The older one nodded. Hand ordered more drinks and then leaned toward them. He was about to dig in.

"So what's the situation like in Sierra Leone now? Is Charles Taylor still lurking around? I should know this, I guess, but it's been a while since I read about it. Have you seen any of the violence around the diamond trade?"

They looked dumbfounded, turning to Raymond for reason, as if he might translate. Hand continued:

"What did you do for a living? Are you students? When did you guys leave? I mean, are your parents still there?"

The sisters looked at each other.

"What?" the older said, smiling.

"Your parents? In Sierra Leone?"

"Yes. Live there."

"So how old are you two?" Raymond asked.

– Raymond, you're callous and cheap.

– I've seen more than you.

– That means nothing.

– It means everything.

– It's the laziest excuse of all.

"What?" the girl said.

"How old are you?" Raymond repeated.

The older one, to whom Raymond had directed the question, laughed and looked at her sister. Her sister shook her head. She didn't understand.

"How many years are you?" Hand tried.

The older held up her hands in a "Stop" sort of motion, closed them, then did it again. "Twenty," Hand said. She nodded.

"And her?" Hand motioned to the sister. She did it again, with eight fingers on the second flash. "Eighteen."

She shook her head vigorously, laughing. Then she flashed the fingers again. Eighteen.

"Eighteen."

"No!"

This went on for a while. Raymond laughed.

"Your English is not very good, is it?" Hand said.

"What?" she said.

Raymond said it in French. His French was amazing.

"Speak English!" the girl said. "We are from Sierra Leone!"

Where was this going? No one could know. I wasn't listening anymore, and each girl began concentrating on one man – the younger on Hand, the older on Raymond.

I watched the sidewalk over the café's low hedge. The place was stocked with chubby European or American men, mostly middle-aged and cheerful, patient. Some had garnered the attentions of the available women, others waited with friends, hands cupped around tall glassed beers. By the door was a man with no legs, sitting on a mat.

Now the younger sister was laughing about something Hand said, making a point of grabbing his arm with both hands and burying her head in his shoulder to demonstrate the great mirth he'd generated. Hand rolled his eyes to me like a cat had jumped into his lap. More drinks were ordered.

"So we go to disco now?" the older said to Raymond.

Hand and Raymond looked at each other, then at me. I shrugged. They reminded me of twins I'd known at La Crosse, sisters who knew their skin was more perfect than the rest of ours, and who were very forgiving of the white boys' many fumbling entreaties. These sisters, the Sierra Leonians, had the same bright but complicated smiles.

"No," said Hand, "I think we'll go home. To the hotel." It was clearly a lie. He extended his hand to his younger one. She and her sister stood up and glared at me and went back to the bar.

"Let's go," said Raymond.

When we'd been all together, and when I'd assumed Hand would ask me if it was okay to spend some time alone with one of the girls and that Raymond would follow, I'd hated them all. I'd felt for the girls, but then realized, uncharitably, that they all deserved each other. Now, though, we were leaving, Hand and Raymond were letting them off the hook, or rejecting them, and now I loved the sisters, and wanted to save them from the violence of rejection. I wanted to be with them alone. I wanted to sit with them, laugh at other people with them.

But what did I do? I gave them the tight, smarmy smile I give to homeless people when I have nothing for them, always with a slight, quick shoulder shrug, and we were gone.

I followed Hand and Raymond the two steps to the taxis and we were groped by the man without legs. He wanted money. Then an old woman, middle finger crooked through an actual tin cup, placed herself in front of us, sticking the cup a few inches from my mouth. One of the other women from the bar appeared before us – what she wanted she didn't say. We were surrounded. We backed into the cab. Raymond got in the front seat and closed his door. Hand got in the rear and I sunk in after him, but the no-legged man was now halfway in the car and the door wouldn't close. I could smell his breath, worlds contained within. Why wasn't the cabbie doing anything? He was supposed to tell us not to pay the man. He was supposed to push the man away but he was watching. Everyone in the café was watching.