And before he can moan and protest as he usually does, I grab him by his damp, thin arm and off we set, down the street, past rundown houses on a lower level than the road, past dirty boards advertising fortune-tellers and medicines, until we come to a crossing, turn left and then find ourselves at the edge of a warren of narrow alleyways of clapboard housing. The rows of lattice doors on both sides of every alley are all illuminated, one panel in each door made of transparent glass, solitary men walking up and down the passageways, stopping to peer through the panels into the houses.
‘Now we’re here,’ I say, ‘we may as well take a look …’
And we join the flow of silent, serious men, ambling up the first of the alleyways, crisscrossing from one side to the other, stopping to peer in through the peepholes, occasionally glimpsing the full face of the woman inside but mostly seeing only their eyes, trying so hard to shine and to smile, to welcome and invite, and every now and again, I stop and turn back to him, with a wink and a smile of my own. But we do not dally for long, soon coming to the end of the passageway, out onto a wider street lined with kiosks and a Western restaurant, and with taxis here, too. I know my companion is not in the mood, feels he has seen enough. Still, I point to the next alleyway and say, ‘It would be a shame not to complete our tour, no?’
And I lead the way again, down the next alley, then back up another, house after house, peephole after peephole, until each pair of eyes inside becomes but one single pair of sad and desperate eyes, and we find ourselves back where we’ d begun, where we’ d come in –
‘Let’s go home,’ says my companion.
‘Yes, we could just go home,’ I tell him. ‘But seeing as we’ve come so far, and might never have the chance again, how about one last turn?’
He doesn’t say yes, he doesn’t say no; he just follows me up and down the alleyways again, peeping in here and peering in there, quicker the second time around, until we’re back at our original spot.
The humidity has grown ever more oppressive, the stench of drains ever more overpowering, and now big fat drops of rain are falling like leeches from the heavy, low night sky on the tops of our heads –
‘Is that really all there is to this place,’ I say, feigning outrage. ‘Well, I must say, I do say, it’s really rather disappointing!’
‘Not only disappointing,’ he says. ‘Depressing and exhausting.’
‘Indeed,’ I agree, bending down to rub my thighs and my knees. ‘I’m completely shattered. I don’t think I can take another step …’
Now the rain is starting to fall heavily, as he says, ‘Well, if you can just make it back to the main road, we’ ll be able to get a taxi …’
‘I really do want to go home,’ I tell him. ‘Honestly, I do. But I’ d also really like to rest for a while first. Just a little while …’
‘But where,’ he says, looking around.
‘You don’t think one of those places might offer us tea,’ I say. ‘After all, we’re going to have to walk back up the alleyways anyway.’
He shakes his little head. ‘I very much doubt it.’
‘But we can at least try,’ I insist, standing up straight again now, squaring my shoulders. ‘I’m sure we can find a willing place, if we negotiate. But don’t worry, leave the negotiating to me!’
And so for the third time, we go back up the alleyway – me purposefully striding up to one of the first lattice doors, him reluctantly following behind – and as I bend my neck to look in through the peephole, I beckon him over, and looking through the glass, we can see a slightly plump woman in her middle-twenties, with a gentle, pretty face, sitting all on her own inside the house, and I whisper to him, ‘Shall I try?’
‘If you want, if you must …’
‘Excuse me,’ I say, speaking through the door, still looking through the glass. ‘My friend and I are a little tired and would like to rest a little while, and so we wondered if you could kindly offer us a little tea?’
Perhaps our pale faces and intense stares through the glass alarm her, for the woman nervously says, ‘There’s nobody here.’
Undeterred, I immediately cross to a house diagonal to the last, peeping in and asking, ‘Could we possibly have some tea?’
‘Please, do come in,’ calls the voice of a woman from inside the house; we can see her silhouette rising now, moving towards the door, but then, still leaning forward, still staring through the small glass window, I can see her, see her clearly, clearly as she is, and what she really is, and I spring back, I cry out, scream out, ‘Oh! Oh! Oh, no …’
‘What is it,’ he asks me. ‘What?’
‘It’s too frightening,’ I whisper, spinning round and running quickly off, off up the alleyway as fast as I can go –
‘What is it? What happened,’ he calls after me, but I do not stop, cannot stop, just keep on running, until I come to the corner, to the end of the alleyway, hiding round the corner, my hands over my face, my whole body trembling, mumbling over and over, ‘Did you see? Did you see? Did you
