39

Two men wearing chef’s uniforms were tending to a goat roasting atop a spit, their sweaty, oily faces glistening in the leaping orange flames they tried to tame. Beside them another cook was turning skewers of suya on a charcoal grill. Smoke, laden with the aroma of spice and roasted meat, blew across the pool. Malik, his face hidden behind a white mask with holes for the eyes and nostrils, his white agbada plastered against his body by the night breeze, stood with a group of men in similar masks. The five Chinese men, an American, and two Nigerians had all paid their first five million naira annual membership fee and Malik was taking them through their induction, telling them about specific girls, boasting of orgies in the pool, reminding them of the special rooms for special experiences.

Across the pool in a white bikini, sprawled on a sun lounger, Naomi watched Malik. He gesticulated, shook with laughter, slapped someone’s back, looked around and nodded at her. On either side of her, also in bikinis and laying on sun loungers, were the half-Nigerian, half-Lebanese twins from Kano. They also watched Malik and the new clients.

The back door of the mansion opened. Sisi stepped out in a black, flowing, see-through slip. From across the pool, Naomi could see she wore nothing underneath. Ashewo, she thought. Prostitute. Sisi had a champagne flute in one hand and a smouldering cigar in the other. She sashayed in her high heels, and behind her the Ukrainian girls followed, all in bikinis, their creamy white skins untouched by the sun.

Naomi waved a buzzing mosquito from her right ear. Sisi led the girls to the men and Malik stepped aside to reveal his new staff. The American raised his glass of beer to the girls, for some reason the Chinese men clapped. The girls stood in an awkward row, each of them maintaining a pose as if they were in front of pageant judges.

Naomi shook her head. They didn’t even speak English. How would they communicate with the men? Malik encouraged the girls to talk with the clients. ‘Pretend you’re on a date,’ he would say. How were these girls going to date their clients when they didn’t even speak English? And Sisi, the bitch, the whore of whores who sucked Malik’s dick even when he was not there, had given her room to the Ukrainian girls. All the girls had their own rooms, rooms that they used when it was their rotation at The Harem. Often, Naomi would arrive at the mansion and find that a pillow was missing, or a chair had been moved, or a wine glass had been left on the bathroom sink, and she would wonder whose room her room had been when she was away.

‘Look at them, they look like ghosts,’ one of the twins said. ‘Ghosts that have HIV.’ The other twin agreed: ‘These ones look like they have full blown.’

Naomi thought the girls looked like models. Perhaps they were models back home. Had been models back home.

The wind picked up. The smell of suya and roasted goat came in wafts of smoke that stung the eyes. One by one, the masked men left with the girls. Sisi took the tall white man’s hand and led him out of the group and round the pool. They passed the spit and the barbecue and continued walking.

The twins sat up in their sun loungers and both adjusted their breasts and hair in the same movement. Naomi remained on her back.

Sisi stood over the three; the tall American loomed by her side.

‘Ladies,’ Sisi said. She looked at the twins in turn and the pair stood, smiling and pushing their chests out and into the hands of the waiting client. They entwined their arms in his, each on either side of him, and led him away. Sisi, sipping from her champagne flute watched them go, then looked down at Naomi, and without a word she walked away, her cigar smoke trailing behind her.

Naomi watched Malik snap fingers with one of the remaining black men. The girls that were still there stood in place till Sisi walked past them, waved, and they followed her into the mansion.

The wind picked up. Smoke blew thick from the spit and the barbecue. Malik led the men towards the building, turning to look at Naomi before he stepped inside. She nodded back but he had already turned away and entered the house.

Alone by the poolside, Naomi watched the cooks struggle with the smoke and look up to the sky, expecting rain. The air already smelt of wet soil.

Sisi did not come out for her. Nobody did. She did not know when she dozed off, but when she woke up it was because a drop of rain had fallen onto her eyelid. The cooks were gone, the spit and the barbecue emptied, and the night had grown darker. Another drop fell onto her belly. Moments later more tiny cold drops fell onto her. Beyond the tall fence, the forest rustled and branches waved in the wind. Naomi stood up from the pool chair.

Inside the building, the foyer was empty. Naomi went to the window and looked out onto the car park. The rain was roaring now. Six cars were parked outside. Malik’s Range Rover was in its usual spot, close to the gate and next to Sisi’s red Audi TT. He was always around before the clients arrived, and left before them - unless one was spending the night, which didn’t happen often. Dimeji had left after dropping her and the two girls. Naomi suspected Malik didn’t like him being there. Good riddance.

Malik came down the stairs and opened the front door. The wind howled, wrapping his agbada against his body. He hunched his shoulders and dashed out. The wind slammed the door shut behind him. She listened for his car, her heart already racing.

Naomi walked along the corridor. She stopped in front of her room and held the cold, polished chrome handle but she didn’t turn it. She placed her ear against the door, the handle still in her grip, then she lifted her head away. She began to turn the handle.

‘What are you doing there?’

Naomi turned round. Sisi was at the other end of the corridor. She had just come down from her apartment on the second floor. She walked towards Naomi. ‘I told you you’re staying with the twins, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, you did,’ Naomi said.

‘What are you doing here, then?’ Sisi was without her cigar and her champagne flute. She placed her hands on her hips and waited for an answer.

‘I forgot,’ Naomi said. She began to walk past Sisi but Sisi caught her by the hand and stopped her.

‘You forgot?’ Sisi said. ‘And that is why you were listening? I saw you.’

‘I lost an earring. I wanted to check inside.’

Sisi looked at her ears. Naomi wasn’t wearing earrings. ‘Malik just called me to say he’s coming back,’ she said.

‘Why?’ Naomi asked, then she thought she asked too quickly. But why was he returning, and why was Sisi telling her?

‘He’s expecting someone very important. I want you to go and freshen up and wait for me to come and get you.’

‘OK.’

As Naomi walked away, her heart beating fast, something occurred to her. Sisi had a phone. Even if she couldn’t get to hers, if the water had somehow gotten into the condom and destroyed the device, if she could just get her hands on Sisi’s phone she could still send the location of The Harem to Amaka.