Lomba turns, realizing for the first time that a lady is seated beside him. Her face floats before him, filmy, smiling. She is smoking.

‘Well, what do you think?’ she asks again, still smiling.

‘Gratuitous,’ he mumbles.

‘What?’

‘Our gloom is not lifting. Our sun is setting. Look out the window, you’ll see,’ he says to her.

‘Are you a poet?’ she asks; she sounds suspicious.

‘I think so.’

‘I am a painter. I am going to illustrate his next collection. He has three already, you know.’

‘Who?’

‘Dunta, the man that just read. Surely you know him?’

He shakes his head.

‘You don’t read poetry. Everybody knows him. He has given readings all over the world, and he has been arrested twice. He just got out of jail.’ She sounds indignant, almost hostile.

‘I am sure he is good.’

That mollifies her. She offers him a cigarette. He takes a drag, and feels the vomit rise to his throat. ‘I am going to throw up,’ he croaks.

Immediately, she looks alarmed. She holds his hand. ‘Not here! Not here!’ She pulls him up and leads him to the balcony and stands him before the railings. He bends forward and throws up. When he looks up, the sun is hanging right there before him, pulsating, dully glowing, like a huge spherical spaceship lost in orbit.

‘Now our sun is falling, our gloom setting,’ he mumbles, closing his eyes.

‘Here,’ she hands him her handkerchief. He wipes his mouth and thanks her. She looks older than forty. She blows smoke up at the sun and asks, ‘Have you ever been arrested?’

He shakes his head. ‘Almost. Today.’

‘You really must try and get arrested – that’s the quickest way to make it as a poet. You’ll have no problem with visas after that, you might even get an international award.’

‘I don’t want to get arrested,’ he mutters. She is standing right beside him now, her thigh pressing into his. In a corner, two figures are locked in an embrace. Someone rushes out and leans over the rail and throws up.

‘Hi,’ he says to Lomba, wiping his mouth with his hand, ‘I am Helon Habila.’ Another one follows almost immediately; he vomits and introduces himself, ‘Hi, I am Toni Kan.’

They keep coming.

‘Hi, Chiedu.’

‘Hi, Otiono.’

‘Hi, Maik.’

‘Hi, Nwakanma.’

‘Hi, Mike Jimoh.’