Ebele and Ruth were sitting at a table in a corner of Ginger, close to the bandstand, watching Mosquito and the crowded dance floor and Professor, who had come up behind them, said: "Hey guys, look what I found."

What she'd found was a stocky fellow, with a shiny clean-shaven head, a spotless face and a soft smile, dressed in a white tee-shirt, khaki shorts and slightly worn white sneakers. The dark handsome face was well-fed, perfect for an advert for full cream milk.

"This lovely dish was sitting in a corner at the back all by himself and I told him I wasn't going to allow that when there are three lively women here looking for decent male company."

The fellow seemed to be looking at Ruth, as if he knew her from somewhere. When he said hello to them, his voice was high-pitched, almost shrill, whereas you expected a deep voice to emanate from such a stocky frame. Professor fetched a chair for him, placed it directly opposite Ruth's seat. "His name is Nengi; he's an investment banker," Professor said, "all the way from London and this is his first time here. He's in Nigeria on business, staying at the Sheraton, and someone at the hotel mentioned Ginger to him."

"I'm so glad I came, and I am lucky Professor found me in my quiet corner. Less than an hour in the best club I've been to in Lagos and I am already sitting amongst some of the most beautiful women I've ever seen in Nigeria."

"Most beautiful women in Nigeria? Didn't know the lighting here was that poor," Professor said, with a chuckle.

"I have good eyes," Nengi riposted.

Was he looking at her when he said that, Ruth thought, or was she just imagining it? Had he lingered when she shook his hand or had that also been her imagination?

Ebele and Professor had many questions for him: what exactly did investment bankers do / did they make a lot of money / what was an investment banker doing in a place like Nigeria, you associated people like that with London, New York, etc. Nengi's answers led to more questions. Ruth felt left out, which was not unusual when she was with her more talkative friends. She had worked in a bank for three years, but the kind of banking Nengi was involved in was a world away from what she'd done most of the time: standing behind a counter at the Premier Bank branch on Ahmadu Bello Way in Victoria Island counting huge wads of filthy money while impatient customers scowled at her.

While watching Mosquito on the bandstand and the dance floor, packed as it always was on a Friday night, she heard snatches of his answers: names of strange places in Brazil, Pakistan, Turkey, etc, of dams, airports, power stations and ports, of huge sums of money, of great banks and powerful international agencies. He may have been Nigerian, but he now belonged to a far off world of great transactions. He sounded very knowledgeable and also very passionate; you would think he was discussing matters of life and death, not power plants and interest rates. Professor and Ebele questioned him tirelessly. They could get quite animated when discussing a subject they found interesting but Ruth thought she detected something a little more; her friends were trying even harder than usual to sound intelligent, to show off. The way Professor's arms flew all over the place as she made her points, the extra precision in the way Ebele pronounced words, the way they poured smiles at Nengi, it was obvious they were captivated. But who wouldn't be, Ruth thought. He was so good-looking, spoke with so much energy, came from such a fascinating world. When Ruth thought she felt his eyes on her again, she told herself to stop imagining things, to stop deluding herself. But from the corner of her left eye she did catch him watching her. She felt naked. Why was he watching her when it was her friends who were asking all the intelligent questions?

"Ruth has no interest in what we are saying," she suddenly heard that high-pitched voice say and her heart pounded, "perhaps we are boring her."

"Ruth doesn't talk much," Professor said.

"You seem to like this song, the way you were moving your head," Nengi said, looking at Ruth directly, with that soft smile which always seemed to be on his face, "I like it too. Will you dance with me?"

It was an old Gregory Isaacs tune, Night Nurse, being delivered in Mosquito's "love-hour" whisper. Ruth hesitated, confused. "Go for it, baby," Ebele said.

"If you don't want to . . ." Nengi began, but Ebele cut in, "Of course she wants to dance, she's just a cool chick, doesn't just jump up like the rest of us."

Ruth's heart was pounding uncontrollably when she got to her feet, so much she felt slightly dizzy. Nengi was on his feet too, but was watching her closely, as if he wasn't sure the dance was such a good idea after all. She reached out and took his left arm and pulled him towards the small packed dance floor. She put her arms around him and placed her head against his right shoulder.

"I'm sorry if I..."

"You are too polite," Ruth cut in, pinching him playfully, "you've been away from Nigeria too long; that's why you apologise so much. You just took me by surprise, that's all."

Her heart was still drumming and she was sure he could feel it. She felt strange, thought she was acting strangely. Why did she just pinch him, someone she barely knew, so familiarly? Why did it feel so utterly nice to be held by him, to put her head on his shoulder and to feel his body against hers? She was extremely worried about what she was doing, extremely worried about where it could lead to, even though she wasn't sure where. She was worried that this man's body was against hers and it wasn't a dream, worried about Ishaya, worried about the beating of her heart, about what her friends would say or think.

"I wanted to talk to you alone," he said. "I kept watching you there and you didn't seem to want to make eye contact. So asking you to dance was a desperate gamble."

Ruth chuckled and said nothing.

"Are you always this quiet?"

"I prefer listening to talking," Ruth said, "keeps me out of trouble."

He spoke in a whisper and she answered in a whisper, increasing the sense of their being apart from everyone else, but also increasing her panic, the feeling of being pushed away from familiar ground by a force beyond her control.

Nengi laughed. "Is it very hard running this place?"

"It's hard. One problem after another, but when people come in and have so much fun, I feel fulfilled. We dreamt about it for years, Professor and I, and it's so wonderful to live our dream. Did you always want to be an investment banker?"

"No, I really was never sure what I wanted to be. I actually studied electrical engineering in Port Harcourt. PH is where my parents live. Then I got a scholarship to do an MBA in Switzerland and it was after that I got into investment banking. By the way, I haven't been away for so long. I've been away in total just about ten years and I've visited my parents every other year when on vacation."

"That's still too long."

"Not at all. Anyway, my own dream is to use some of the exciting new tools that have been developed internationally to finance projects here in Nigeria. If I can do that, I'll feel almost as fulfilled as you guys."

"That's why you're here?"

"Yes. The bank I work for is very sceptical about Nigeria, but I'm so passionate about it. And now Abacha is gone and the country is no longer a pariah, my boss is willing to give me six months to prove he should pay any attention to Nigeria."

"Six months?" Ruth asked in a voice that rose sharply. "Nothing happens here in six months."

"I know it's short, but if I'm able to show even a little progress, I'm sure they won't pull the plug."

Just six months, Ruth thought bitterly. And her panic was already racing ahead of her. She was already experiencing loss without first possessing, already suffering the pain of parting from Nengi before even experiencing the pleasure of being with him. They were just having a dance, yet she was already gripped by panic and pain at his departure, which seemed inevitable, in six months. In her panic she held him tighter and he felt it and his own arms around her tightened. Soon afterwards, Mosquito broke off from whispering the Gregory Isaacs song and announced: "The next one is dedicated to my sister, Ruth, and the lovely hunk she's dancing with. We don't see Ruth dance a lot so whoever she's dancing with must be very S-P-E-C-I-A-L. I want her to know that she too is a very special lady and we all love her very much. So this next song is for my sister Ruth!"

"Yes, I feel like the luckiest man on earth," Nengi said, giggling, "I knew it even before she said it, I knew there wasn't a luckier man anywhere."

Ruth didn't say anything, she didn't trust her voice. She buried her face deeper into Nengi's shoulder. "Have I told you lately that I love you?" Mosquito sang. Mosquito had walked to the edge of the bandstand, swinging the microphone like a club, and she now leaned forward so that the microphone was only a few feet from Ruth and Nengi. Ruth felt herself disintegrating, felt everything she had known about herself dissolving. Mosquito knew the song was one of Ruth's favourites but what a dangerous time to sing it. Ruth had in less than an hour drifted away from everything recognizable in her life, had no clue what was going to happen to her. It seemed that her fate was now entirely in the hands of the man on whose broad shoulder her head lay, a man from nowhere who had been given six months to make sense out of the gigantic confusion that was Nigeria.

Ruth held him tighter and tighter as her muscles seemed to soften and the world itself seemed to disappear from her. She heard the lyrics of the song somewhere above her, invading her from a short distance away and then she realised he was singing softly into her hair:

Have I told you there's no one above you
Fill my heart with gladness
Take away my sadness
Ease my troubles, that's what you do

She knew she had suffered the ultimate betrayal when, without warning, her eyes filled with tears.

Ruth woke up late every Saturday. Hanging out with her friends in the living room of the flat she shared with Professor, she often didn't get to bed until about five a.m. This Saturday she finally fell asleep about six and woke up at four. After she'd seen Nengi to his taxi at about three a.m. and returned to close Ginger, Professor and Ebele had teased her for a long while; they'd pronounced her a "goner". "After that dance," Ebele declared, "there is no way back o." "You make such a fine couple," Professor said, "except that both of you are so dark; your children will look like midnight."

Ruth hadn't said a word. She was still very worried about what seemed to be her frightening lack of control over herself. She had no doubt that if it hadn't been for the fact that the girls always got together in the flat after every Friday Night Party, she would have followed Nengi back to his hotel room. Saying bye to him had been so wrenching. She'd thought she was a "big girl," everyone said she was so cool, always in control. So what was happening to her? She worried that he would have noticed her lack of control, that he would think her cheap. He'd said he was going to come to the flat Saturday evening, but maybe he wouldn't even turn up. Maybe when he slept over it he would become disgusted at the way she kept squeezing his body while they were dancing, at her silly childish tears. Maybe he would think of her as too emotional and would not want to get entangled with someone who cried just because of a dance, a crazy woman. She also worried about Ishaya (how about if he found out? what was she going to do about him?), about the six months Nengi's boss had given him (what was the point of losing her head over someone who would soon return to big, big transactions in the great cities of the world and forget Nigeria and small fry like herself?). But his soft smile insinuated itself amidst all that worrying, his voice whispering into her ears: have I told you lately that I love you, his strong arms around her, his eyes, desperate and at the same time somehow managing to look understanding, when she told him outside Ginger that she couldn't come with him because the girls always met without fail after every Friday night show.

Ruth got out of her bed, feeling sick from all the worrying she'd done before she finally managed to fall asleep, feeling at the same time, because Nengi had said he was coming to see her later in the day, an excitement that sat like a giant on her chest. As she opened her door, on her way to the bathroom to brush her teeth, she nearly collapsed from shock: she heard Nengi's high-pitched voice from the living room, heard him laughing at something Professor had said.

"Sounds like sleeping beauty is finally awake," Professor said, "Hey Ruth, Nengi is here." "Forgive me," he called out, "I know I said I'd be here about seven, but I couldn't wait any longer."

"Give me a few minutes," Ruth replied and was surprised that given the extent of her nervousness she'd been able to say anything at all. Her heart kept pounding as she brushed her teeth; her hand shook. When she was done with brushing her teeth, she knew she wasn't yet ready to face him. Her hand still shaking, she carried a plastic bucket of water into her room to heat it for her bath. While the water was being heated, she stood in front of her mirror staring at herself, trying to decide if she was good enough for Nengi. She thought she looked fat; she always thought she looked fat even though she ate little and her weight rarely changed. She thought her eyes looked sad; she'd always thought her eyes looked sad from the day she started looking at mirrors. She thought she had an ordinary-looking face, nothing exciting about her; Professor had a slim nose and a long and sharp face; she had nothing, she looked unremarkable. Perhaps when he saw her clearly, unprotected by nightclub lighting, he would lose all interest in her. They should have met in the afternoon, she said to herself, so he'd know exactly what he was getting and she would know that he had seen her as she was. Where was the life she had known before all this nervousness? How could she go back to a time when her heart didn't beat wildly except occasionally at night when the sound of a gunshot or of someone slamming their door too loudly broke the silence? Ishaya visiting from Jos once in a while for a couple of days, her distant admirers at Ginger stretching out every conversation for as long as they could, her never-ending chores, the air of remoteness around her: that life had been predictable, safe, convenient, never made her stomach stormy, her heart riotous.

Lost inside her mind, she left the water heater in the bucket for too long and even after she'd stirred it, the water was too hot to have a bath with. To reach the kitchen where they stored water in big black tubs, she would have to go through the living room and there was no way she could face Nengi before she'd had her bath and done the best she could to look "presentable." Calling herself a fool and wincing in pain, she had a painful bath with her too-hot water. She then looked her breasts and stomach over in the long mirror in the bathroom, concluded the breasts were too big and that the stomach bulged like that of a beer drinker. When she returned to her room, her skin still sore from the hot-water bath, she had a hard time deciding whether to wear shorts (and look casual, but expose her thighs which she thought were too large, besides he might think she was flaunting her oversized thighs and find her ridiculous) or her jeans trousers (which would be too dressy for staying at home with, show he had made her nervous in her own home, show she was etc.). She finally settled on a pair of blue jeans, a white tee shirt and navy blue sandals. She combed her hair carefully, worried for the first time in her life that her low cut was too plain, too unexciting. She worried that she had dabbed far too much perfume on her body, that she smelt like a whore. Then she looked at the clock and realised it had been almost an hour and a half since she got out of bed, and became worried that he would think she was scared to face him, that he would realise how completely he had destabilised her, and she made for the living room, blundering forward like a car out of control, still worried about how she smelt, how her stomach bulged, how plain her hair was, etc.

He was even handsomer, his face was even smoother, and his soft smile was absolutely disarming. He was sitting with his legs crossed on their brightly flowered bean bag, in the same clothes he'd worn to Ginger. "You look stupendous," he said as she came into the room, and he rose to his feet and she fell into his arms as much from confusion and nervousness as from a fierce desire to be held by him again. She glanced nervously at Professor, who was seated on their long yellow sofa, still in her sleeping clothes. The hug was a long one and he nuzzled her neck like a cat, which was mightily ticklish and beautiful but made her even more nervous. And he placed her gingerly on the edge of the bean bag on which he'd been sitting, sat beside her and drew her close to him. Ruth looked helplessly at Professor, who smiled encouragingly.

"I'm famished," Professor said, rising from her seat, "I have to go and get some food."

"I'm sorry I came earlier than I said I would," Nengi said after Professor'd left the room. "I just couldn't . . ."

Ruth cut in, turning to face him, "I keep telling you, you are too polite, too, too polite. I've never heard anyone apologise for being early."

Suddenly he kissed her, flung his tongue into her mouth like a spear. She gobbled on it greedily, turned her body towards him and grabbed his neck, gripped by an overpowering need. She would be frightened when later she remembered that need and replayed the scene in her head, the way she had pushed his head backwards until it came to rest against the bean bag, the way she had even when he'd completely conceded the initiative to her continued to plunge at him like a mean-spirited wrestler continuing to kick and box a defeated opponent. His tongue was still deep in her mouth and her body was half covering his when she heard the sound of a door opening and she quickly pulled away and restored his tee-shirt which had ridden over his stomach.

"Hope I didn't interrupt anything heavy," Professor said and chuckled, walking past them to the kitchen to fetch water and Nengi laughed and Ruth joined in, nervously.