Dave Eggers - You Shall Know Our Velocity

"I am so sorry," the rental man said. "I knew this might happen, but I hoped it would not be so soon."

He had known the car would die. Just not in his neighborhood. Hand finished the negotiations while I stood, unmoving, staring through a third-story window where two young white girls stood, looking out, watching us. They saw me watching them watch us and they ducked, disappearing.

In the hotel room, waiting for a new car, we both fell asleep and woke at five.

"Fuck!"

"What a waste."

"We've done nothing."

No delta, no mangroves, no Gambia.

We were hungry.

We ran into the Chilean-American tennis man in the lobby -

"What's his name again?" I whispered.

"Raymond."

"Thanks."

"Hey Raymond!" I said.

"Hello my friends!"

– and had a taxi take us all the six blocks to the Italian place he liked. The streets were narrow and dark. We opened the windows and the warm air touched us with coarse hands. The buildings looked like buildings I'd seen before – they had straight lines and neat corners and windows in between – but they seemed closer to something imagined and built by architects of another world. We flew beneath their roofs and I grinned to the wind, because we'd at least come this far and that meant we'd won.

The cabbie asked for the equivalent of fifty cents and I gave him ten dollars; he said thank you thank you, and that he'd wait until we were done to take us back, or anywhere else, anytime, while we stayed in his country, you friends!

The restaurant was empty but for four drunk and round Italians at the bar talking to the drunk Italian hostess.

"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.