Drinking behind the veil
on Fantastic Voyage (Nigeria), 04/Jul/2011 15:51, 34 days ago
I’m sitting in a bar in Kafanchan called Lady G’s.It’s named after the owner: a young, dynamic, determined and beautiful Igbo woman called Gloria.(As far as I know, she’s not ennobled.)In front of me on the plastic table are three bottles of Gulder, one still half full.Beside my glass, three lumps of animal flesh, largely skin and fat, squat in a china bowl, oozing silently into the dregs of my pepper soup.Later, I will surreptitiously toss them to the half starved dog whose heavy dugs are larger than her head.This is so I can avoid the public display of the meat I can’t eat: my fellow drinkers tend to be delighted rather than disgusted by this, but I can live without being more of a spectacle than I already am.Lady G herself is talking to my colleague, the magnificent Bimbo, about how to run a bar and business in Kafanchan since the‘disturbances’.In the corner, an upright and elderly man sits, sipping Guiness, smoking, with a pair of tweezers as a cigarette holder.At a table beside him, three young men talk work, politics, and women as they knock down endless Heinekens.Every so often, Bimbo’s ears prick up because they mention the new President – Goodluck Jonathan – and their belief that he is a sincere man, committed to change.Each time this happens, they are berated: Bimbo briefly worked for PDP as the Chairman’s secretary and Jonathan offered him one million Naira in cash as a bribe to get a meeting with his boss.Nothing will change in Nigeria.Between us and the road, three huge old women envelop plastic stools.Presumably old enough to be able to flout conventions about women not usually being seen to drink, they mostly sip in silence, but intermittently spot something worthy of raucous laughter and pointing.I call the oldest and largest‘mommy’, and she largely refrains from mocking me.At a table across from us, a soldier cradles his gun.I don’t really know anything about guns, but the phrase ‘automatic rifle’ feels apt.His eyes are a little reddened, from drinking or drugs or staying up late with fear or comradeship, and his hat proclaims him to be a‘KILLER’ (correctly spelt) in large tippex letters.He is, as he reminds us occasionally, drinking with us.This means we buy his drinks and he gets to interrupt our conversation fairly frequently by muttering something about white men to which I have to respond with laughter and agreement.He won’t sit at our table, he communicated on arrival, gesturing vaguely at the veil – a lacy net curtain which makes me think of Suffolk, obscuring the little section he’s chosen from the road.Like Victorian pubs with their misted windows to protect innocent ladies outside, some roadside bars here have such protective barriers.I suspect they’re largely, though, for the benefit of drinkers rather than pedestrians.The first night we came here, I exchanged a few words with a robust and worldly Muslim before he knocked back the last of his second Harp and wandered into the night.Presumably, as with the soldiers, everyone knows he drinks– but would rather not be forced to consider it as a public issue.We’ve nearly finished our third drink and I’m drunk. It’s also half past six, and curfew begins at seven.Already, the streets are quiet and largely populated only by soldiers and policemen.Soon, we’ll weave along the street, and go to bed.